The “New” Modern Era, UAP and NHI, Part One: The History of AAWSAP
This early draft chapter documenting the history of AAWSAP from our forthcoming book Heaven and Earth still carries its share of rough edges, but we hope it offers a glimpse into our ongoing exploration of conscious intelligence. Upcoming next will be a follow-up chapter on the history of AATIP. This draft pre-copywritten Library of Congress. 2025.
By Michael and James Hall
AI generated artistic reconstruction of USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” encounter.
The modern era of UFOs—at least in terms of widespread media attention, began with Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting on June 24, 1947. Reports of unexplained aerial phenomena long predate that day, but Arnold’s account of nine disk‑shaped objects speeding over Washington State near Mount Rainier seized the public imagination and cemented the phrase “flying saucer” in the lexicon. In time, flying saucers became UFOs.
Yet, a new phase or “new modern era” began quietly, and at first unwittingly, on November 14, 2004. That day, an extraordinary encounter set in motion a chain of events which, over the next two decades, would see UFOs reclassified as UAP and, more recently, reframed within discussions of NHI (non‑human intelligence). The 2004 incident propelled the subject into the mainstream as never before.
We are now living in that “new” modern era—one defined by greater transparency, direct government engagement, and an expanding scientific effort to probe the phenomenon.
2004, November 14
Although the public would not learn of it until 2017, the USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” case—corroborated by radar, advanced sensor systems, and seasoned aviators—became a touchstone for modern UAP studies, a case sturdy enough to anchor scrutiny across agencies and eras. The incident occurred off the coast of Southern California, where naval aviators observed and recorded a smooth, white, tic tac-shaped object executing seemingly impossible maneuvers. The sighting, backed by radar data, sophisticated military sensor technology, digital filming, and pilot testimony based on visual confirmation, set in motion a series of government investigations and public inquiries that continue to shape disclosure efforts today.
2007-2011
While the Nimitz data sat largely within military channels, another thread was gathering force in Utah. Skinwalker Ranch, purchased by aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow in 1996, was already notorious for reports of metallic craft, cryptid‑like creatures, electromagnetic disturbances, and glowing aerial “portals.” In 2007, Defense Intelligence Agency officer and ballistic missile engineer Dr. James T. Lacatski visited the property at the urging of Jay Statton from that same office. Robert Bigelow personally escorted Lacatski to the ranch.
The lore surrounding the ranch is tangled with conflicting accounts. While it is steeped in sensational stories of paranormal incidents and sightings of strange animals, it also has a long‑documented history of unexplained aerial phenomena—some so disorienting they seem to blur the very boundaries of perception and reality.
For decades, many UFO researchers focused exclusively on so‑called “nuts and bolts” cases—solid craft, measurable traces, and tangible evidence. Yet the picture emerging from the ranch suggested something far more intricate: a phenomenon potentially interwoven with the nature of consciousness itself. This, we believe as authors, is the future to understanding the subject as a whole.
What Lacatski witnessed at Skinwalker Ranch—and what he had absorbed through years of prior research—convinced him that the United States required a formal, well-funded inquiry into advanced aerospace threats, with UAPs squarely within that scope. He briefed a longtime friend of Robert Bigelow, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who, along with Senators Ted Stevens of Alaska and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, was acutely aware of the potential national security stakes. (Stevens had even reported encountering a “foo fighter” during World War II.) These political figures with Reid’s leadership helped marshal resources for a pilot program.
As authors, drawing on personal interactions with Reid and his congressional aide, we can attest to his longstanding concern about the defense implications of UAPs. We never heard talk of “aliens,” but we did hear pointed analyses of incidents like the Nimitz case. It was said: “This is precisely the kind of operational reconnaissance the Chinese or Russians would conduct—if they had the capability.” While it was doubted they did, the national security threat could not be dismissed.
The question was raised: how many times in eighty years must UAP fly over nuclear or military assets to satisfy their curiosity?
As one observer put it, “These things are not just doing routine reconnaissance. They are flying training sorties! Yet—who and what are they?”
In other words, these aren’t curious fly-bys; they’re deliberate drills—stress-testing our defenses, refining their piloting envelope, and mapping our reaction loops.
Returning to our timeline, the collaboration between Dr. James Lacatski and Senate liaisons marked a watershed moment in the government's engagement with the UAP issue. Senator Harry Reid—alongside other congressional figures dating back as far as John Glenn and Barry Goldwater—recognized the gravity of the phenomenon and believed that the government, military, and intelligence services held vital information. Yet even as a Senate Majority Leader, Reid was unable to access the answers he sought. His openness to the subject may have been quietly informed by his Latter-day Saint faith, though he rarely spoke publicly about his religious beliefs. Notably, LDS theology embraces the idea that God created multiple worlds and that intelligent life may exist beyond Earth—a concept rooted in early revelations by Joseph Smith. many details remain unknown, these concerns culminated in the September 22, 2008 launch of the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), a Defense Intelligence Agency initiative “effectively” sole-sourced to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) under a two-year, $22 million contract (HHM402-08-C-0072). Ten million dollars were allocated in the first year, and twelve million in the second.
Dr. Lacatski served as the DIA’s program director, while biochemist Dr. Colm A. Kelleher oversaw daily operations at BAASS, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada—Harry Reid’s home turf. In a recent interview, Lacatski and Kelleher summarized AAWSAP’s mission succinctly: it pursued two parallel objectives—studying UAP propulsion characteristics and examining their effects on human beings.
Described as a “closed program operating as an SAP, or special access program,” AAWSAP remains one of the most intriguing defense studies of the 21st century.
(James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023. Loc 472.)
In their new book published in 2023 (only on Kindle) Lacatski and Kelleher stated that “AASWAP was conceived as a program to evaluate the threat potential of UAP. BAASS was an organization specifically created to execute the AAWSAP contract in order to evaluate the threat potential of UAP.” (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023) Loc 437.)
As far as Drs. Lacatski and Kelleher were concerned, that “meant that if paranormal phenomenon were known to collate with, and overlap temporarily with, UAP, then paranormal phenomenon would also be studied.” Thus, the AAWSAP/BAASS period has remained controversial to this day. (Ibid.)
The deliverables, did prove strikingly ambitious: “Identify and map potentially disruptive technologies; analyze aerial incursions and performance characteristics; evaluate air-safety risks; document physiological and psychological effects on witnesses; and, where feasible, conduct testing on anomalous materials.” This fusion of technical intelligence, human-effects research, and “edge-of-science” inquiry drew early skepticism—but it reflected the complex, often contradictory realities emerging from field investigations and case files. (Ibid.)
The projects within the AAWSAP-BAASS contract focused on:
1. Lift
2. Propulsion
3. Control
4. Power Generation
5. Spatial/Temporal Translation
6. Materials
7. Configuration/Structure
8. Signature Reduction (Optical/IR/RF/Acoustic)
9. Human Interference
10. Human Effects
11. Armament (RF and DEW)
12. Other Areas in support of 1-11
These categories reflect a comprehensive attempt to analyze UAPs not just as aerial anomalies, but as integrated technological systems with potential physiological and environmental impacts. The inclusion of “human effects” and “human interface” is especially notable—it suggests AAWSAP was not merely speculating about if someone has reverse-engineered theoretical craft, as often noted in the media, but also probing experiential and cognitive dimensions. The spatial/temporal translation and armament (RF and DEW) domains, in particular, signal a more speculative and defense-oriented posture than earlier public summaries suggested. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023) Loc 573.)
From the moment the contract was signed, Skinwalker Ranch became more than a backdrop—it was the catalyst and first proving ground for AAWSAP’s methods. The site offered a concentrated mix of phenomena: airborne objects performing beyond known aeronautical limits, electromagnetic surges interfering with equipment, and incidents that left physiological or psychological traces on witnesses. Yet Dr. Kelleher emphasized that the Skinwalker Ranch investigation represented only a small component of the broader research program. Even so, it yielded distinctive human‑interest observations that enriched the overall understanding of the phenomena under study.
In the first months, it became clear that the peculiar blend of “hard” technical signatures and “soft” human‑effect data observed at the ranch was surfacing elsewhere. This realization cemented a central AAWSAP premise: to understand UAP, one had to track both their physical performance and their impact on human perception, cognition, and health. The ranch had shown that these threads were intertwined; the program tried to follow them wherever they appeared.
AAWSAP’s scope was never intended to remain confined to a single UAP hotspot such as Skinwalker Ranch. Building on the investigative model developed there, BAASS teams began deploying across the United States and, when possible, overseas. Field units were equipped to gather a wide range of evidence — from radar tracks and ground traces to medical baselines and post‑encounter physiological assessments. Case files from rural airstrips, military training ranges, and civilian air corridors were funneled back to the Las Vegas hub, where analysts collaborated with aerospace engineers and medical specialists to identify patterns.
Dr. Lacatski and Dr. Kelleher stated in an interview that they paid considerable attention to military and civilian cases from the 1940s and 1950s. They viewed this period as a kind of control sample, given that it preceded the advent of advanced avionics. They also noted that they consulted with respected researcher Brad Sparks, underscoring their engagement with civilian experts in the field
Among its earliest and most significant inquiries, AAWSAP investigators were the first to formally examine the 2004 USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” incident. With the involvement of Jay Stratton and Navy Commander David Fravor, the program approached the case as a matter of national defense—analyzing flight performance, multi-sensor data, and potential technological implications. According to Dr. Kelleher, BAASS specifically hired Kevin Day, a retired USN Senior Chief Operations Specialist, as one of its early contractors. Day had been a key radar operator aboard the USS Princeton during the 2004 Nimitz incident and multiple UAP trackings off the coast of Southern California. At the time BAASS brought him on, Day’s connection to the Nimitz case wasn’t widely known—even within the intelligence community. His firsthand experience later became pivotal in shaping the broader understanding of the event, especially as the Nimitz case gained traction through public disclosures by 2017. Kelleher’s account underscores how serendipitous and layered the early BAASS investigations were—often uncovering connections that only later revealed their full significance. (Colm A. Kelleher, James T. Lacatski, and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (Independently published, 2021), p. 45.)
According to Dr. Colm Kelleher, AAWSAP’s report on the Nimitz case was delivered to the Defense Intelligence Agency in July 2009. This, as we will explore shortly, coincided with the emergence of Luis Elizondo. AAWSAP also studied the noted Colares Brazil case.
Dr. Lacatski and Dr. Kelleher stated in an interview that over fifty personnel were involved with the BAASS contract, including some of the most experienced figures in the field. In their recent 2023 book, they stated that eventually 75 contract personnel “performing exotic aerospace research” were utilized along with several hundred part time personnel conducting fieldwork. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023. Loc 479.)
Among them was Dr. Jacques Vallée, a veteran researcher and early protégé of Project Blue Book’s scientific consultant J. Allen Hynek. Vallée was also the partial inspiration for the character Claude Lacombe in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He advised on materials analysis and database development for AAWSAP. (It’s worth noting that while Project Blue Book was never a highly classified initiative, AAWSAP—and later AATIP—operated under significantly more restricted conditions.)
Dr. Hal Puthoff, a physicist renowned for his work on quantum vacuum energy and advanced propulsion concepts, served as a consultant on AAWSAP’s theoretical frameworks. Puthoff ran his own company called EarthTech International, Inc. Hal Puthoff is the Founder, President, and CEO of EarthTech, which is based in Austin, Texas. He also serves as Director of the affiliated Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, which focuses on frontier physics, energy generation, and space propulsion.
EarthTech has long been associated with research into exotic technologies, including zero-point energy, advanced propulsion, and anomalous phenomena. Puthoff’s leadership there reflects his broader career arc—from laser physics and remote viewing at SRI to his later involvement with AATIP which followed AAWSAP. EarthTech is a key node in the constellation of private-sector entities that have supported government UAP investigations. (EarthTech helped write some reports for AAWSAP. (EarthTech International, “Hal Puthoff,” accessed September 5, 2025, https://earthtech.org/pubs/puthoff.)
He later clarified that the AAWSAP projects he supported had no direct access to (now often alleged) recovered materials, “limiting” his role, as he stated, to modeling and hypothesis development. Physicist and aerospace engineer Dr. Eric W. Davis, was another key figure affiliated with BAASS, who contributed to propulsion studies and high-level briefings. While the exact contractual pathway—whether directly under the DIA or via BAASS sub tasking—remains unclear, his influence within the program was substantial.
John Schuessler was another noted figure. He served a senior analyst role at BAASS during the early phase of the AAWSAP contract in 2008. Schuessler is better known as a longtime aerospace engineer and prominent UFO researcher, with over 36 years at McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, contributing to NASA’s Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs. He also served as a founding member and later International Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network), which became a key partner in AAWSAP’s data collection efforts.
Juliet Whitt is briefly mentioned in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon as a Department of the Interior (DOI) asset who assisted the AAWSAP program during its investigations. According to Dr. Lacatski, Dr. Kelleher, and George Knapp—Whitt played a role in facilitating access to federal lands and protected areas, particularly in the context of anomalous activity reported near or within those zones. Her involvement is described as part of a broader network of government personnel who supported AAWSAP’s efforts, often behind the scenes. While the book doesn’t provide extensive biographical detail, Whitt is portrayed as a trusted liaison who helped navigate bureaucratic and jurisdictional hurdles, especially when BAASS investigators needed to conduct fieldwork in sensitive or restricted environments. There’s no indication that she was a public-facing figure or that she’s spoken publicly about her role. Her inclusion in the book underscores how AAWSAP’s reach extended beyond traditional defense and intelligence circles—into environmental and land management agencies—reflecting the program’s unusually wide scope.
This chapter has referenced Jay Stratton multiple times but has yet to formally introduce him. As the timeline unfolds, Stratton emerges as one of the most consequential figures in the government’s UAP investigations, with a tenure spanning several decades. Serving as a Naval Intelligence official in a civilian capacity, he maintained a direct interface with AAWSAP and later assumed leadership of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force which followed AAWSAP by many years. Stratton has since emphasized that AAWSAP’s broader mission focused on identifying “disruptive aerospace capabilities,” a phrase that encapsulates the program’s strategic intent and technological scope.
By 2009, another key government official and close associate of Jay Stratton emerged—Luis Elizondo. Operating from a separate office within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), possibly under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD[I&S]), Elizondo was not formally part of the DIA-run AAWSAP or its BAASS contract. Nevertheless, his involvement in the broader UAP effort began around this time. According to his own accounts—in both interviews and his published work—Elizondo was interviewed by Dr. James Lacatski in a Washington, D.C. office outside the Pentagon. Due to his background in security operations related to military avionics, he was selected to complement AAWSAP’s investigations from a military perspective.
Around this same period, Elizondo attended a private dinner in Washington, D.C., as detailed in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. Present were Elizondo, Juliet Whitt, Hal Puthoff, Jay Stratton, and presumably Dr. Lacatski. The dinner is portrayed as a seminal moment—a convergence of minds from disparate agencies and disciplines that laid the groundwork for what would evolve into a multi-agency, multi-domain investigation into UAPs and associated phenomena. While the book does not provide a transcript or exhaustive detail, it emphasizes the strategic significance of this gathering, particularly in terms of interagency coordination and the blending of scientific, intelligence, and operational perspectives. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (Independently published, 2021), 52.)
Following this, Elizondo continued his regular security related work in the Pentagon but now in addition to his standard duties, would analyze UAP related reports and film footage from military sightings—a role he would formally assume under the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) by 2011. The term “AATIP” was initially used informally to obscure the specialized nature of AAWSAP, which operated under the DIA’s Defense Warning Office (DWO). This semantic shift was strategic: congressional funding was more likely to be approved for weapons research than for programs explicitly labeled as UAP-related. While AATIP may have existed in an informal capacity by 2009, it did not become a formal program under that name until 2011—by which time Elizondo had taken the helm and AAWSAP, along with its contractual infrastructure, had been shuttered.
In short, Elizondo’s introduction to UAP-related work at the Pentagon dates to 2009, though his contributions were not technically part of AAWSAP’s formal paper trail nor 22-million-dollar budget. Nonetheless, his proximity to AAWSAP personnel and strategic discussions suggests a degree of liaison and operational overlap. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023. Loc 459.)
One more AAWSAP figure deserving mention is Christopher “Kit” Green, a former CIA senior analyst and neuroscientist whose career intersected with classified UAP investigations for decades. During his tenure at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Green oversaw anomalous-phenomena studies and later emerged as a principal scientific consultant to AAWSAP. By the time the program launched in 2007, he was operating as an independent contractor, bringing specialized expertise in neurophysiological effects of UAP encounters—such as pilot stress and cognitive anomalies—as well as remote-viewing and human-factors research rooted in his earlier work with the Stargate program and Dr. Puthoff.
James Lacatski and Colm Kelleher enlisted Green to help analyze anomalous-encounter reports, synthesizing disparate sensor data (radar, FLIR, physiological monitors) into cohesive case studies. Though his contributions rarely appeared in public-facing documents, they were embedded in AAWSAP’s technical appendices and later informed AATIP’s internal assessments.
By 2009, Green was among the select experts invited to private AAWSAP gatherings—alongside Luis Elizondo, Jay Stratton, Hal Puthoff, and Juliet Whitt—where he offered insight into the human-systems integration challenges posed by “disruptive aerospace capabilities.” After AAWSAP’s formal closure in 2011, Green continued to collaborate under AATIP’s informal structure, contributing to the final threat-assessment documents that circulated within congressional and defense circles. His enduring legacy lies in bridging neuroscience with defense intelligence, offering a rare lens into the physiological realities of UAP encounters and the cognitive toll they may exert on military personnel. (“Christopher ‘Kit’ Green,” Unidentified Phenomena, accessed September 5, 2025, https://unidentifiedphenomena.com/people/christopher-kit-green.)
Side Note: Green did work with Dr. Hal Puthoff during the early phases of the Stargate program, particularly in the 1970s when the CIA was funding remote viewing research at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Green served as a CIA contract monitor for the program, overseeing and evaluating the scientific validity of experiments conducted by Puthoff and his colleague Russell Targ. These experiments involved individuals like Ingo Swann and Pat Price, who claimed to have remote viewing abilities. A well-known photo from 1974 even shows Green, Puthoff, Targ, and Price together at an airport following a remote viewing test. While Green wasn’t a principal investigator like Puthoff, he played a critical role in assessing the program’s intelligence value and scientific rigor. His background in neurophysiology and intelligence analysis made him a key liaison between the CIA and the SRI researchers.
Most of AAWSAP’s work is believed to have taken place at the BAASS offices in Nevada, with a strong emphasis on data collection and case aggregation. Dr. Jacques Vallée has described a filtered database exceeding 240,000 cases, compiled from multiple sources accessible to BAASS and designed with future AI-assisted analysis in mind. In interviews, Vallée also noted that certain materials—purportedly linked to crash/retrieval incidents—were examined within tightly compartmentalized channels. This is disputed by other accounts. (Jacques Vallée, Forbidden Science: Volume Six, Scattered Castles, The Journals of Jacques Vallée 2010–2019 (San Antonio, TX: Documatica Research, LLC, 2023), 412.)
Despite persistent rumors, the AAWSAP projects advised by Dr. Hal Puthoff were not granted direct access to any alleged legacy materials, underscoring the program’s segmented and compartmentalized structure. According to Dr. Kelleher, the BAASS team did examine anomalous physical samples and biological effects when available, attempting to correlate human physiological responses and material properties with observed UAP performance characteristics. Some program architects held out hope that any existing legacy “hardware”—if held elsewhere—might eventually be integrated into a broader analytic framework. Yet there is no public evidence that such transfers ever occurred, and those aspirations appear to have remained unfulfilled.
The history of AAWSAP takes a dramatic turn with references to legacy programs and elusive UFO control groups that appear to have operated well outside the bounds of earlier, official Air Force investigations such as Project Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book. One might assume if such legacy programs existed that they would also operate independently of the FBI, CIA, and Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), which routinely coordinated with all three USAF projects.
In 2011, during a closed-door meeting inside the US Capitol with an unnamed senator and agency under secretary, Dr. James Lacatski stated that the United States was in possession of a craft of unknown origin—an object so advanced it lacked any visible propulsion systems, control surfaces, fuel tanks, or fuel.
This assertion, delivered in the form of a direct question to the officials present, was not part of a Pentagon briefing but was later recounted in Lacatski’s 2023 co-authored book, Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Many ask why Lacatski would present such information in the form of a question. But if you watch interviews with Dr. Lacatski, he often poses information this way. It is simply his manner—albeit rather distracting.
Thus, the “revelation” was Lacatski’s own claim. In a 2023 interview, he described the wording in the book as “an exact statement of the event” and declined to elaborate further, citing Department of Defense clearance protocols through the DoD’s DOPSR office. In other words, he was saying that what he put in the book was all he could disclose. The exact passage reads:
At the conclusion of a 2011 meeting in the Capitol building with a US Senator and an agency Under Secretary, Lacatski, . . . posed a question. He stated that the United States was in a possession of a craft and had successfully gained access to its interior. This craft has a streamlined configuration suitable for aerodynamic flight but no intakes, exhaust, wings, or control surfaces. In fact, It appeared not to have an engine, fuel tanks, or fuel. Lacatski asked: What was the purpose of this craft? Was it a life-support craft useful only for atmospheric reentry or what? If it was a spacecraft, then how did it operate?
(James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023. Loc 1,863, Chapter 9.)
Because the meeting occurred after AAWSAP had officially closed, it raises an intriguing question: was Lacatski drawing on knowledge gained through AAWSAP, or referencing information from outside the program’s formal scope? Given his dual role as AAWSAP director and senior DIA insider, it’s plausible he had access to legacy program data that AAWSAP was not explicitly tasked to investigate—but which nonetheless informed his understanding. His statement in the Capitol meeting may have been a strategic disclosure, intended to prompt policy-level attention to deeper, compartmentalized knowledge
Dr. Lacatski has since alluded to legacy programs and restricted discussions held within congressional facilities, though he remains deliberately opaque about specifics, citing Department of Defense constraints. The implications are of course staggering when you consider it was Lacatski’s meeting with Reid that started AAWSAP.
Thus, was AAWSAP born from a convergence of personal experience and political will, which may have been preceded by covert efforts that continue to shape the boundaries of what is publicly acknowledged?
(James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2023; and Christopher Sharp, Former Head of U.S. Government UFO Program Confirms Government Possesses Advanced Craft of Unknown Origin, Liberation Times, October 17, 2023, https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/former-head-of-us-government-ufo-program-confirms-government-possesses-advanced-craft-of-unknown-origin.)
So how do we evaluate the Lacatski material? The passages rest largely on Dr. Lacatski’s first-person account. As an insider—AAWSAP director and DIA official—he is uniquely positioned to report on classified conversations. His outright refusal to expand beyond the book’s text underscores the material’s authenticity as “cleared” for public release, but also highlights its self-contained nature: without corroborating documents or multiple independent witnesses, the narrative remains anecdotal.
Such direct testimony from a senior program manager lends weight to the claim of government possession and entry into an anomalous craft. Consistency between the book and Lacatski’s public interviews suggests he is not embellishing for sensational effect.
The limitations are clear: no declassified logs, technical assessments, or photographs have surfaced to independently verify the craft’s existence or characteristics. Lacatski’s account is a single source; no other named participants from that meeting have publicly confirmed the dialogue. The material actually prompts more questions about propulsion, materials science, and program oversight than it answers—leaving key technical and policy details in the shadows.
Here are some reviews of publications reporting on Lacatski’s statements.
Liberation Times Interview (Oct 2023)
A deep-dive article and WEAPONIZED podcast interview reaffirm Lacatski’s core assertion: the US holds a non-conventional craft and has accessed its interior. He declined to clarify whether he entered that craft himself, citing DoD clearance rules. He also remarked on David Grusch’s allegations of rogue UAP programs as “reasonable” but noted he never witnessed overtly illegal activity during AAWSAP operations.
Journal of Scientific Exploration Review (Dec 2024)
A peer-reviewed commentary by Micah Hanks frames the book as a significant insider perspective but cautions that without external documentation or broader official acknowledgment, the account must be treated as compelling yet unverified intelligence reporting.
So what do we actually know about Dr. James Lacatski?
In his recent book, Lacatski describes his role during AAWSAP as that of a civilian intelligence officer serving within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), specifically in the Defense Warning Office (DWO). He states that he held dual responsibilities—as a security coordinator and in a counterintelligence capacity.
His path into the DIA-DWO appears rooted in a technical career that began immediately after college, with a focus on missile systems and directed energy weapons, including laser technologies. Early on, his work placed him squarely within the defense research ecosystem, where his engineering expertise and methodical approach earned him a reputation as a “rocket scientist”—a descriptor used by colleagues to evoke both his demeanor and intellectual rigor. Over time, Lacatski transitioned into more strategic roles within the DIA-DWO. These positions granted him oversight of sensitive projects and ultimately positioned him to manage the $22 million contract awarded to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP).
By the time AAWSAP launched in 2008, Lacatski had cultivated a reputation for pursuing unconventional yet technically grounded inquiries. His interest in unidentified aerial phenomena was not merely academic—it was operational, driven by a belief that certain aerospace anomalies warranted serious investigation. As AAWSAP director, he oversaw data collection across twelve technical domains, ranging from propulsion and materials science to human physiological effects. His dual identity as both a DIA-DWO insider and program architect afforded him access to a broader spectrum of intelligence than AAWSAP was formally tasked to explore. This suggests that his later disclosures—such as his 2011 Capitol Hill statement regarding a craft of unknown origin—may have drawn on legacy data streams and compartmentalized briefings beyond the program’s official scope.
Central to AAWSAP’s execution was Lacatski’s collaboration with Dr. Colm Kelleher, a microbiologist with prior experience at the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). (NIDS will be detailed in the next paragraph.) After Lacatski’s pivotal visit to Skinwalker Ranch in 2007—where he reportedly had a profound anomalous experience—he worked with Kelleher to secure Senator Harry Reid’s support for what became AAWSAP. As stated, while Lacatski directed the program from within the DIA, Kelleher managed field operations, evidence collection, and case analysis. Their partnership, later chronicled in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, blended intelligence oversight with scientific inquiry, pushing the boundaries of conventional defense research and redefining the scope of national security threats. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George P. Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (Coral Gables, FL: RTMA, 2021).
Part of what makes this period so complex is the precedent that preceded it. NIDS, founded by Robert Bigelow in 1995, was a privately funded initiative that explored UFOs, paranormal phenomena, and consciousness studies—conducting extensive investigations at Skinwalker Ranch well before AAWSAP came into being. Several key figures bridged both efforts: Bigelow himself; Dr. Colm Kelleher, who led fieldwork at the ranch; Dr. Eric Davis; Dr. Jacques Vallée; and Dr. John B. Alexander, a retired U.S. Army colonel and non-lethal weapons expert who consulted on paranormal research. NIDS formally wound down in October 2004, citing a lull in UFO activity. Years later, the center of gravity shifted to BAASS under contract to the DIA’s AAWSAP program.
Although Lacatski did not work directly for NIDS, his involvement with Skinwalker Ranch and Robert Bigelow placed him in close proximity to its legacy. He and his Pentagon colleagues like Jay Stratton had read Hunt for the Skinwalker, an early book by Kelleher and George Knapp documenting NIDS investigations at the ranch that long predated AAWSAP. That research, along with Lacatski’s own anomalous experience during his 2007 visit to the ranch while escorted by Robert Bigelow, reportedly influenced his decision to initiate AAWSAP. In fact, the observation trailer where Lacatski had his so-called remarkable encounter at Skinwalker Ranch was the same one used by NIDS researchers years earlier. While he wasn’t part of NIDS operationally, he was clearly building on its foundation—repurposing its data, infrastructure, and investigative framework to launch AAWSAP under DIA authority.
This raises a critical question: is it logical to assume that Lacatski came from, or had access to, a UAP legacy or control group prior to AAWSAP? It seems redundant that AAWSAP—and later AATIP—would not have been given the files or institutional knowledge of any previous legacy effort. Yet that is precisely what Luis Elizondo and other former insiders have complained about. It’s quite plausible that Lacatski did not inherit a formal legacy archive when he took on AAWSAP. NIDS had been disbanded in 2004, and its records remained privately held. When Lacatski arrived in 2007, he and his team reportedly used Hunt for the Skinwalker as a primer on the phenomena rather than accessing any built-in government database.
AAWSAP was purposely framed as a “breakthrough technologies” initiative, with all UFO/UAP terminology scrubbed from its solicitations. That design choice fostered a compartmentalized approach: Lacatski had to build a new data warehouse and project structure from the ground up, rather than inherit a cohesive research lineage. Any continuity with earlier efforts was informal at best—dependent on published books, contractor-held notes, and personal relationships. Elizondo’s later complaints about AATIP’s lack of inherited reports mirror this pattern. Successive Pentagon UAP efforts have operated in silos, often under restrictive security controls that block straightforward file transfers or institutional handovers. The result is a recurring restart rather than a true cumulative research lineage.
Continuing the AAWSAP narrative, the program’s paper trail is every bit as compelling as its field investigations. Over its two‑year DIA contract, BAASS and its network of consultants produced research spanning the openly published to the still‑classified. Some outputs remain locked away; others have surfaced through investigative journalism, FOIA disclosures, or insider testimony.
Of particular and long‑standing interest is a reported chart of UAP shapes compiled under the program. The original has never been formally released by the US government. What has emerged instead are fragmentary glimpses and reconstructed versions. A handful of journalists and researchers who have viewed the chart under controlled conditions describe it as a visual taxonomy of reported craft types—discs, spheres, triangles, cylinders, and more exotic outlines—drawn from AAWSAP case files. In some instances, stylized recreations from memory have been circulated in presentations or online forums, but these remain derivative interpretations rather than declassified originals.
Other surviving documents detail BAASS’s collaboration with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), revealing how civilian case reports were systematically ingested, filtered, and analyzed alongside government-sourced data. In 2018, KLAS-TV journalists George Knapp and Matt Adams published a list of 38 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs) commissioned under AAWSAP. These were deep technical studies exploring advanced aerospace concepts, contracted to subject matter experts—often without disclosing that their work was being collected under a UAP-related program.
By 2025, Dr. Hal Puthoff confirmed that he had overseen the commissioning of these studies, approaching leading figures in propulsion, materials science, and exotic physics to forecast where their disciplines might be headed decades into the future. (The effort was nicknamed Project Physics.) This method of soliciting forward-looking technological assessments allowed AAWSAP to sidestep direct references to UAPs, thereby preserving discretion and avoiding stigma. Luis Elizondo later publicly affirmed the authenticity of the DIRD list, further validating its role in AAWSAP’s broader analytic framework.
Below is a complete 1–38 readout of the AATIP Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs), with each entry’s true DIRD index, title, author and affiliation:
1. Inertial Electrostatics Confinement Fusion, Dr George Miley, Univ. of
Illinois.
2. Advanced Nuclear Propulsion for Manned Deep Space Missions, Dr F
Winterberg, Univ of Nevada-Reno.
3. Pulsed High-Power Microwave Technology, Dr James Wells, Northrop
Grumman.
4. Space Access, Dr P Czysz, HyperTech.
5. Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metrics)
Engineering, Dr Hal Puthoff, EarthTech International.
6. Biosensors and BioMEMS, Dr Bruce Towe, Unic of Arizona.
7. Invisibility Cloaking, Dr Ulf Leonhardt, Univ of St Andrews.
8. Wormholes in Space Time, Dr Eric Davis, EarthTech International.
9. Gravity Wave Communication, Dr Robert Baker, GravWave.
10. Superconductors in Gravity Research, Dr George Hathaway, Hathaway
Consulting.
11. Antigravity Studies, Dr Eric Davis, EarthTech International.
12. Field Effects on Biological Tissues, Dr Kit Green, Wayne State Univ.
13. Positron Aerospace Propulsion, Dr Gerald Smith, Positronics Research.
14. Vacuum Energy Applications, Dr Eric Davis, EarthTech International.
15. Improved Statistical Approach to Drake Equation, Dr Claudio Maccone,
International Academy of Astronautics.
16. Maverick vs Corporate Research Cultures, Dr George Hathaway,
Hathaway Consulting.
17. Biomaterials, Dr Bruce Towe, Univ of Arizona.
18. Metamaterials, Dr G Shvets, Univ of Texas-Austin.
19. Warp Drives, Dark Energy, and Dimensions, Dr Richard Obousy and Dr. Eric Davis.
20. Brain-Machine Interfaces, Dr R Genik, Wayne State Univ.
21. Material for Advanced Aerospace Platforms, Dr J Williams, Ohio State
Univ.
22. Metallic Glasses, Dr T Hufnagel, John Hopkins Univ.
23. Programmable Matter, Dr W McCarthy, Programmable Matter
Corporation.
24. Metallic Spintronics, Dr M Tsoi, Univ of Texas-Austin.
25. Laser Weapons, J Albertine, M.S., Directed Technologies.
26. Quantum Entanglement Communication, Dr J Cramer, Univ of
Washington.
27. Aneutronic Fusion Propulsion, Dr V Teofilo, Lockheed Martin.
28. Cockpits in the Era of breakthrough Flight, Dr G Millis, Tau Zero.
29. Cognitive Limits on Simultaneous Control of Multiple Unmanned
Spacecraft, Dr R Genik, Wayne State Univ.
30. Detection and High Resolution Tracking of Vehicles at Hypersonic
Velocities, Dr W Culbreth, Univ of Nevada-Las Vegas.
31. Aneutronic Fusion, Dr W Culbreth, Univ of Nevada-Las Vegas.
32. Laser Lightcraft Nanosatellites, Dr E Davis, Earthtech.
33. MHD Air Breathing Propulsion and Power for Aerospace Applications,
Dr S Macheret, Lockheed Martin.
34. Quantum Computing and Utilizing Organic Molecules in Automation
Technology, Dr R Genik, Wayne State Univ.
35. Quantum Tomography of Negative Energy States in the Vacuum, Dr Eric
Davis, Earthtech.
36. Ultracapacitors as Energy and Power Storage Devices, Dr J Golightly,
Lockheed Martin.
37. Negative Mass Propulsion, Dr F Winterberg, Univ of Nevada, Reno.
38. Redacted.
(https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2019/01/back-to-those-38-defense-intelligence.html.)
The DIRDs covered an extraordinary range: inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, advanced nuclear propulsion, pulsed high‑power microwave systems, spacetime metric engineering, invisibility cloaking, traversable wormholes, gravity‑wave communication, superconductors in gravity research, antigravity studies, field effects on biological tissues, positron propulsion, vacuum energy applications, refinements to the Drake Equation, metamaterials, warp drives, brain–machine interfaces, metallic glasses, programmable matter, spintronics, quantum entanglement communication, aneutronic fusion, hypersonic tracking, magnetohydrodynamic air‑breathing propulsion, quantum computing with organic molecules, quantum tomography of negative‑energy states, ultracapacitors, and negative‑mass propulsion. One entry—number 38—remains redacted.
In a 2025 interview, Dr. Hal Puthoff confirmed that the technical papers commissioned under AAWSAP were initially uploaded to a secure government server for interdepartmental review, with several later released through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. He described authoring one of these studies himself, in which he sought to correlate reported UAP performance characteristics with Einstein’s field equations, and further explored whether Maxwell’s equations could yield viable analogues for applied science. His conclusion was both measured and provocative: while the underlying physics may align with observed phenomena, the energy requirements remain orders of magnitude beyond what current engineering can achieve.
In that same 2025 conversation, Puthoff spoke more broadly about Special Access Programs (SAPs) that may have touched on such topics. He referred to “legacy” SAPs tied to the retrieval of non‑human intelligence (NHI) material, claiming that at least ten such recoveries had occurred in the United States, with perhaps a similar number in Russia and China. Some, he suggested, were not crashes at all but instances where craft were abandoned—or even “gifted.” He stressed that he had never personally taken part in a retrieval, though he was familiar with some of the subsequent analyses. He also remains close to Dr. Eric Davis, whose own accounts push the boundaries of the extraordinary.
Building on decades of clandestine inquiry, Dr. Eric Davis’s 2002 Wilson–Davis Memorandum recounts a classified briefing by Admiral Thomas Wilson in which intact non-human vehicles and associated biological materials were confirmed recovered—at least 57 craft worldwide, many of which were transported to a secure Department of Defense facility for detailed forensic and propulsion-system analysis. Davis explains that these recoveries prompted the creation of a Defense Intelligence Agency Special Access Program, informally dubbed “Project Seg,” tasked with reverse-engineering exotic drive principles hypothesized to involve inertial dampening and zero-point energy coupling. He also references covert remote-viewing trials designed to “map” recovered vehicles without direct physical access. While no practical engineering blueprint has yet emerged, Davis concludes that the underlying physics, though unconventional, does not violate established laws—it simply outstrips our current manufacturing capabilities.
A lesser-known episode in the AAWSAP timeline occurred in June 2009, when Senator Harry Reid formally requested that the program be designated as a restricted Special Access Program (SAP) to enhance its security. In his letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, Reid referred to the initiative by its “unclassified nickname,” AATIP—a term that, at the time, denoted a sub-office within the Pentagon.
The request was ultimately denied. Leadership at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), along with Lynn’s staff, determined that the program’s deliverables did not meet the threshold for SAP protection.
This moment coincided with Dr. James Lacatski’s interview of Luis Elizondo, a pivotal encounter that Elizondo later cited as the genesis of his involvement in the UAP issue—both in his book and public interviews. In the years that followed, AATIP would succeed AAWSAP in a more tightly classified form, continuing the Department of Defense’s UAP portfolio under Elizondo’s stewardship.
Sidebar
(While this history has its side branches, one “rabbit hole” is worth briefly following—though we’ll keep the main thread intact. Tom DeLonge, best known as the guitarist for Blink‑182, became deeply involved in UFO‑related research and advocacy during the mid‑2010s. Although he played no role in AAWSAP during its 2008–2010 tenure, he later co‑founded To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) in 2017 alongside former CIA senior intelligence officer Jim Semivan and physicist Dr. Hal Puthoff, whose name recurs throughout this narrative. Steve Justice, recently retired from Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works division, joined TTSA as Director of Aerospace. Shortly after leaving government service in late 2017, Luis Elizondo, former director of AATIP, also became publicly affiliated with TTSA, as did Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and close associate of Elizondo. Their presence further linked the organization to the broader UAP investigative ecosystem and lent it a degree of credibility unusual for a public‑facing UFO initiative.
From the outset, some observers speculated that DeLonge’s fame, wealth, and outspoken UFO interest made him an attractive figure for certain government or defense‑connected insiders to engage—whether to advance genuine transparency, to shape public narratives, or both. His own accounts describe being introduced to a roster of high‑level intelligence and aerospace veterans in what he framed as a coordinated outreach. While there is no strong evidence that Puthoff or Elizondo were “used” in the same way, it is plausible that DeLonge benefited from their credibility and technical gravitas, just as they gained a wider platform through his media reach. TTSA’s early work, including helping bring Navy UAP videos into the public domain and prompting updated reporting guidelines for pilots, had tangible impact. Yet after key departures around 2020, the organization increasingly pivoted toward entertainment—producing the History Channel series Unidentified and expanding into books, graphic novels, apparel, coffee, and hot sauce. By 2022 it had dropped “Academy of Arts & Sciences” from its name, rebranding as To The Stars Inc. and emphasizing its role as a private media and branded‑content company—its once‑lauded investigative mission now largely overshadowed by product “drops” and entertainment ventures.
Another notable sidebar predates TTSA’s launch: In January 2015, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell emailed John Podesta—then counselor to President Obama—requesting an urgent meeting “to discuss Disclosure and zero-point energy.” In that email, sent via colleague Terri Mansfield, Mitchell referenced Vatican‑hosted seminars on extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and conveyed his belief that non‑violent “beings from a contiguous universe” wished to help humanity develop zero‑point energy, freeing us from fossil fuels. An August 2015 follow‑up repeated these themes and asserted that such beings would not tolerate military violence on Earth or in space.
Both emails surfaced publicly in 2016 via WikiLeaks’ publication of Podesta’s inbox. Mainstream outlets—from Rolling Stone to NBC and VICE—highlighted the unusual intersection of a moonwalker, a senior political figure, and UFO‑energy claims.
The leaked cache also included correspondence from DeLonge to Podesta. In October 2015, DeLonge proposed a Washington meeting, bringing “two very important people” with leadership experience in classified science and Department of Defense projects. In January 2016, he followed up with an email titled “General McCasland,” referencing Maj. Gen. William McCasland’s past leadership of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright‑Patterson AFB. DeLonge claimed—his words, not an established fact—that McCasland had been “in charge” of a lab which, decades earlier, allegedly received material from the 1947 Roswell incident. He further wrote that McCasland was “very, very aware” of ongoing UAP technology investigations and had helped assemble DeLonge’s advisory team.
In the closing months of the 2016 campaign, these odd juxtapositions of pop‑culture figures, military insiders (current or former), and political operatives briefly pulled UFO/UAP themes into mainstream political coverage. While the media moment was short‑lived, it marked a visible crossover: UAP discussions once relegated to fringe forums were, if only for a news cycle, part of presidential‑election conversation—laying cultural groundwork for the more formal congressional inquiries that followed in the next decade.)
Conclusion
Concluding the AAWSAP story, by September 2010, the lifeblood of AAWSAP—its DIA funding—began to ebb. The decision was obviously made in Washington rather than Las Vegas. A no‑cost, 90‑day extension kept the lights on through December, but the end was inevitable. In December Dr. Kelleher and Robert Bigelow presented their final report to the DIA. Program director Dr. Lacatski fought to keep the mission alive, yet the budget was gone, and with it an initial five‑year vision was cut short at just two. Even so, AAWSAP had delivered: roughly a hundred technical and analytical reports on UAP propulsion and global encounters, and a secure, centralized case database—remembered as “CAEBEL” or “CAEBAT”—that fused military and civilian reports, sensor logs, medical effects, and historical files into a searchable intelligence tool. It was, by many accounts, one of the most complete UAP repositories ever assembled, and it remains sealed from public view. A few projects lingered under other contracts, some buoyed briefly by Department of Homeland Security funds. But the core mission—assessing the threat—did not vanish. Instead, it slipped into the shadows, re‑emerging in a leaner, more discreet Pentagon office with a new name: the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (ATTIP).
Although AATIP succeeded AAWSAP, it never matched its predecessor in funding, staffing, or scope—and was reportedly even more classified, with much of its history still obscured. Dr. Lacatski and Dr. Kelleher both emphasize that the transition to AATIP was never formally communicated to them, and they remain unaware of its internal origins beyond what has entered the public record. Efforts to secure renewed AAWSAP funding continued through fiscal year 2012—by which time Dr. Lacatski had retired—and no additional appropriations were awarded. (James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (Independently published, 2021), pp. 82–83.)
Part Two will take up with ATTIP.
This early draft chapter from our forthcoming book Heaven and Earth still carries its share of rough edges, but we hope it offers a glimpse into our overall exploration of conscious intelligence. By Michael and James Hall, this draft pre-copywritten Library of Congress, 2025.
Note: The term UAP has evolved over time, reflecting shifts in both scope and intent. Originally, in the 1980s, the UK Ministry of Defence began using Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in internal reports—most notably in the 2000 “Condign Report”—as a neutral, technical alternative to “UFO,” which had become culturally loaded. In recent years, US agencies have expanded the definition to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, a broader category that includes not only aerial sightings but also objects or events observed in space, underwater, or moving between domains. This expanded meaning was codified in US law through the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act. During the transition, some officials, including Jay Stratton—former director of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force—used the hybrid phrasing Unidentified Aerial/Anomalous Phenomena to bridge the historical term with its modern, more inclusive scope. Stratton, a career intelligence officer, was instrumental in shifting official US terminology from “UFO” to “UAP,” framing the subject in a more scientific and defense-relevant light while distancing it from decades of pop‑culture baggage. (https://unidentifiedphenomena.com/topics/from-flying-saucers-to-uaps-the-evolution-of-ufo-terminology/; and https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/p38p9y/when_was_the_first_known_usage_of_the_term_uap/.)