JASON

JASON

Type	Organization
Also known as	JASON group
On the Timeline	5 events, 2003–2019

JASON is an independent group of scientists, mostly theoretical physicists, that advises the US government on sensitive scientific and technical questions. It was set up in 1960 in the aftermath of the Soviet Sputnik launch and has between 30 and 60 members, chosen by the existing members. Its work has ranged from the Vietnam War to early studies of global warming.^[1] In UFO history it is known chiefly for a 2008 report that dismissed claims about high-frequency gravitational waves, a topic later studied in the Pentagon's AAWSAP programme.^[5][6] It also produced reviews of the "Havana syndrome" health incidents.^[4][7] Its administrator is the MITRE Corporation, and its members have included the Nobel physicist Luis Alvarez, who sat on the CIA's 1953 Robertson Panel on UFOs.^[1][8]

Founding

In 1958 the physicists John Wheeler, Eugene Wigner and Oskar Morgenstern launched a military physics summer study called Project 137. From it came the idea of a permanent defence research institute.^[1] In December 1959 Marvin Stern, Charles Townes, Keith Brueckner, Kenneth Watson and Marvin "Murph" Goldberger met at Los Alamos, where several of them had been working on nuclear rockets. There they launched JASON as an ongoing summer study, with support from the Institute for Defense Analyses.^[1] The Wikipedia account names Wheeler and Townes as founders.^[1]

The name is not an acronym. It was suggested by Goldberger's wife, Mildred, who disliked the Pentagon's name for the group, Project Sunrise, and proposed the mythological hero Jason. Explanations such as "July August September October November" are wrong.^[1] JASON had about 20 members in the early 1960s and more than 40 by the end of the decade, with close ties to the President's Science Advisory Committee. In the early 1970s its administrative home moved from the Institute for Defense Analyses to SRI.^[1]

Membership

Members, known informally as "Jasons", include physicists, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, mathematicians and computer scientists. They hold a wide range of security clearances.^[1] The group has included eleven Nobel laureates, among them Donald Glaser, Val Fitch, Murray Gell-Mann, Luis Alvarez, Henry Kendall and Steven Weinberg, and several dozen members of the National Academy of Sciences. Claire Max became its first woman member in 1983.^[1] Other early members included Hans Bethe, Freeman Dyson, Walter Munk and Marshall Rosenbluth.^[1]

Its chairs have included Goldberger (1960–1966), Harold Lewis (1966–1973), Richard Garwin, William Nierenberg, William Happer (1987–1990), Curtis Callan (1990–1995), Steven Koonin, Russell Hemley (2014–2019) and Ellen Williams (from 2019).^[1]

Sponsors and work

JASON does most of its work in an annual summer study. Its sponsors include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the intelligence community, and most of its reports are classified.^[1] Its activities are administered through MITRE, a not-for-profit company in McLean, Virginia, that runs federally funded research centres.^[1] The Federation of American Scientists keeps a public collection of its unclassified reports.^[2]

• Vietnam. JASON became known for the "McNamara Line", an electronic barrier of linked sensors. Freeman Dyson said this work was in fact done by a group called JASON East. A March 1967 report by Dyson, Robert Gomer, Steven Weinberg and S. Courtenay Wright warned of the catastrophic consequences of using tactical nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia. The war deeply divided the group.^[1]
• Climate and energy. A 1979 report described global warming driven by carbon dioxide, and the group also studied acid rain. Several past chairs, including Nierenberg, Happer and Koonin, later questioned climate science and policy.^[1]
• Other work. Its studies have covered communication with submarines by extremely long radio waves, adaptive optics in astronomy, missile defence, nuclear test monitoring, the nuclear arsenal, cyber security and health information.^[1]

Contract disputes

In 2002 DARPA cut its ties with JASON after the group refused to let DARPA choose three new members. Funding was later secured from a higher defence office.^[1] In April 2019 the Defense Department ended its contract with MITRE for JASON. On 25 April 2019 the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy offered the group an eight-month contract. After action by others in government, including Congress, the Defense Department contract was reinstated.^[1][3] See NNSA rescues the JASON group.

High-frequency gravitational waves (2008)

In October 2008 JASON completed a report for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on high-frequency gravitational waves (HFGW). These are proposed waves of much higher frequency than those from astronomical sources, which some researchers, notably Robert M. L. Baker Jr. of GravWave LLC, claimed could be used for communication, imaging or propulsion.^[5] The report concluded that "no foreign threat in HFGW is credible", including communication, object detection or imaging, vehicle propulsion, "or any other practical use".^[5] It warned that relativity and gravitation theory had attracted "a great deal of pseudo-science" and that officials should seek expert opinion on ambitious claims.^[5]

The UAP timeline published with Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony makes several further points:^[6]

• AAWSAP. Two years later HFGW was the subject of one of the reports written for the Defense Intelligence Agency's AAWSAP programme.
• Pandolfi. The responsible official on the MITRE contract was Ronald Pandolfi of the CIA. The timeline suggests JASON may have been asked to debunk the subject, but offers no evidence beyond that.
• Baker's reply. Baker accused JASON of serious errors.

See JASON report on high-frequency gravitational waves, high-frequency gravitational waves and Ron Pandolfi.

Havana syndrome

In 2018 JASON analysed audio recordings from the first "Havana syndrome" incidents among US diplomats in Cuba. It concluded that the sounds most likely came from insects, identifying the Indies short-tailed cricket "with high confidence". It judged microwaves or ultrasound "highly unlikely" causes, since no single energy source could produce both the recordings and the medical effects.^[7] The Shellenberger timeline dates this secret estimate to 29 November 2018. It speculates, without evidence, that some cases might involve UAP.^[9]

A second JASON study for the State Department, dated February 2022, reviewed nearly 200 reported incidents.^[4] Its findings:^[4]

• Everyday explanations. It found natural and credible explanations for all but 20 to 30 cases.
• No common pattern. It found no uniquely identifiable common set of characteristics among the incidents.
• Brain injury. It found no compelling evidence of traumatic brain injury in the National Institutes of Health data then available.
• Weapons. It examined acoustic and electromagnetic attack hypotheses. The Wikipedia account summarises its conclusion as finding no compelling evidence of a deliberate attack with radio-frequency or other directed-energy weapons.^[1]

See JASON Havana syndrome study and Havana syndrome.

UFO claims

• Luis Alvarez. According to the Shellenberger timeline, no official documents link JASON to UFOs. It does note claims that Alvarez, a JASON member and Robertson Panel member, was the source of a 1949 story of a crash recovery in Mexico. These claims are not confirmed in the sources read here.^[8] See Luis Alvarez and Robertson Panel.
• Eric Walker. The timeline also cites a second-hand claim, from Jacques Vallée's journals, that Eric Walker, whom it describes as a former head of the JASONs, spoke of retrieved live aliens. Walker does not appear in the Wikipedia account's list of JASON chairs.^[1][10]

On the UAP Timeline

• MITRE high-frequency gravitational wave workshop (6 May 2003) — MITRE hosts a conference on high-frequency gravitational wave research.
• Fort Worth HFGW jamming claim (2008) — An anonymous website claims UAP communications jamming was tested near Fort Worth.
• JASON report on high-frequency gravitational waves (October 2008) — The JASON science advisers evaluate high-frequency gravitational waves for national security.
• JASON Havana Syndrome study (29 November 2018) — The JASON advisers find no single energy source that explains 'Havana syndrome' symptoms.
• NNSA rescues the JASON group (25 April 2019) — The nuclear security agency takes over the JASON advisory group contract.

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “JASON (advisory group)”, “Havana syndrome”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.