Skinwalkers at the Pentagon

Skinwalkers at the Pentagon

Type	Book, film or media
On the Timeline	9 events, 2007–2022

Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider's Account of the Secret Government UFO Program is a 2021 book by James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher and George Knapp. It tells the story of the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), the Defense Intelligence Agency program funded from 2008 to study UFOs, which Lacatski conceived and managed. Its main contractor was Robert Bigelow's company BAASS, where Kelleher worked. The book says the program grew out of Lacatski's interest in Skinwalker Ranch and studied not only UFOs but paranormal phenomena around them, from poltergeists to "dogmen." It thereby contradicted the then-common story that the Pentagon's UFO effort was a nuts-and-bolts program run by Luis Elizondo. It cleared Pentagon prepublication review in May 2021 after about 14 months.^[1][2][3][4]

The authors

• James Lacatski. In 2007 he was an intelligence officer in the DIA's Defense Warning Office, leading the team that wrote the Missile Defense Agency's SECRET-level threat assessments. He conceived AAWSAP and became its program manager.^[4]
• Colm Kelleher. A biochemist hired by Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science in 1996 to study Skinwalker Ranch, and co-author with Knapp of Hunt for the Skinwalker (2005). In November 2008 he became BAASS's first full-time employee, as deputy administrator.^[4]
• George Knapp. A Las Vegas investigative journalist and Kelleher's co-author on Hunt for the Skinwalker.^[4]

The program's origins

As quoted on Metabunk, the book says Lacatski read Hunt for the Skinwalker "cover to cover" in March 2007. On 19 June 2007 he wrote to Bigelow on DIA letterhead, asking to visit the ranch to assess "the potential threat aspects of the phenomena encountered in your research efforts." On that visit, the book says, he saw a semi-opaque, yellowish, tubular object appear silently in the caretakers' kitchen and vanish within 30 seconds.^[4] The Shellenberger timeline records Bigelow telling Jacques Vallée on 21 October 2007 about the DIA letter. See DIA interest in Skinwalker Ranch.^[5]

With support from Senate leaders Harry Reid, Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye, about $22 million was directed to Lacatski's office. A solicitation issued on 18 August 2008 drew one bidder, BAASS, which won a two-year contract on 22 September 2008, with about $10 million for the first year.^[1][4] The book stresses that the name AAWSAP was chosen so that the money would reach the Defense Warning Office, and that "no other names for the program were either contemplated or discussed." This undercuts the better-known name AATIP.^[4] The contract asked for studies of lift, propulsion, power, materials, signature reduction, human effects and "spatial temporal translation."^[4] Lacatski is quoted as saying: "This was a UFO program period," one also concerned with "how UFOs might fit into the realm of what we might consider the paranormal."^[4]

Content

The book describes what BAASS did under the contract:^[1][2][4]

• Collecting cases. BAASS built a database of UFO reports and produced a 494-page "Ten Month Report." The book's first appendix summarises more than 100 reports delivered to the DIA. The program also funded 38 technical studies.
• The Tic Tac. Its second hire, Lt. Col. Douglas Kurth, had commanded a Marine F/A-18 squadron in the 2004 Nimitz encounter. His account led an investigator, called "Jonathan Axelrod" in the book, to interview more than a dozen pilots, radar operators and other witnesses.
• Paranormal effects. The program examined reports of poltergeist activity, shadowy figures, footsteps, voices, orbs and psychic experiences among UFO witnesses. It examined dangerous "blue orbs" and claims that visitors to Skinwalker Ranch "brought home" strange events. Robert Sheaffer listed examples such as "dogmen," a wolf-like creature at a window and a "hybrid of small dinosaur and large beaver."
• Remote viewing. AAWSAP sought but did not get funding for a remote-viewing program. In a limited test, a remote viewer described the ranch.

The Shellenberger timeline draws on the book for several later episodes:

• Nuclear-base overflights. In January 2010 BAASS's director of investigations, Larry Grossman, said he met a former Air Force Office of Special Investigations colonel. The colonel said many 1975 overflights of nuclear bases had never been identified and that he believed many of the records had been destroyed. In December 2010 Lacatski, Kelleher and Grossman were told by an AFOSI official that they would need to be read into special access programs to see data on those cases. See BAASS investigations.^[8]
• Homeland Security. In February 2011 Lacatski briefed officials at Homeland Security headquarters in a secure room, seeking funding for later years. Those officials then sounded out other intelligence agencies about housing BAASS within DHS Science & Technology, met hostility, and by late 2011 the department decided against it. See Homeland Security and BAASS (2011).^[9][10]
• A Georgia witness. A witness given the pseudonym "Derek Jones" reported a large triangular object over his backyard in May 2009, followed by two visits from unidentified men. BAASS traced the car's licence plate to a Homeland Security carpool. See Georgia witness visited by agents (2009).^[7]

Drawing on Vallée's diaries rather than the book, the same timeline records the program's early frustrations. In October 2008 Bigelow told Vallée that the DIA had not delivered the access it had promised. In November 2009 Kelleher told him that clearances had come through but that the Air Force would not talk to BAASS until a special access program was set up. See AAWSAP begins (2008) and AAWSAP special access program request.^[6][7]

Prepublication review

Because Lacatski was a former DIA official, the manuscript went to the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review in March 2020. Records obtained by The Black Vault show it was sent to the DIA, the Air Force and Homeland Security. All three cleared it, with the DIA requiring amendments, mainly to protect personal and health information and the names of government employees. The final ruling, "CLEARED AS AMENDED," came on 11 May 2021. Lacatski complained by email at "the fourteen month point" that one person might be holding it up. The reviewer blamed slow responses and pandemic restrictions.^[3] Kelleher later said on Coast to Coast AM that serving personnel were given pseudonyms, including one of the four Tic Tac pilots. Some specific office references were removed, he said, but the 100-report appendix was left intact.^[3]

Reception

The book changed the public account of the Pentagon program. Skeptic Robert Sheaffer, reviewing it in 2022 under the title "a Book Review about Ghosts and Werewolves," wrote that the familiar story, in which AATIP was a military study of UAP headed by Elizondo, was wrong. The book showed instead that the program came from Lacatski's interest in Skinwalker Ranch and studied paranormal phenomena. Sheaffer cited the New York Post's Steven Greenstreet, who quoted Leslie Kean saying she had left out the paranormal side of the program in her 2017 New York Times reporting to give the subject credibility.^[2]

Others have questioned whether the money was well spent. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said the contract "sounds like it was a good deal for the contractor. But it would be hard to argue that either the military or the public got their money’s worth." An anonymous former congressional staffer told Politico that the program "produced reams of paperwork" but "there was really nothing there."^[1] Eric Davis said in 2018 that after the program's funding ran out, its scientists, BAASS and an aerospace company had collaborated to try to find answers. Knapp said in 2022 that he knew of at least four "legacy programs" dealing with UAP. See Eric Davis on an existing crash retrieval program and George Knapp's four legacy programs.^[11][12]

Notes on the earlier version of this article

• Publication and reception. The earlier version said the book was independently published, well received, reviewed in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and called by Sheaffer "the most important work yet written" on the Pentagon UFO story. None of these points is covered in the sources read here. Sheaffer's review read here is critical of the program and uses the book to correct the AATIP narrative.^[2]

On the UAP Timeline

• DIA interest in Skinwalker Ranch (21 October 2007) — Bigelow says the DIA expressed interest in strange events at Skinwalker Ranch.
• AAWSAP begins (2008) (2 October 2008) — Bigelow tells Vallée the DIA's AAWSAP project has started but promised access hasn't arrived.
• Georgia witness visited by agents (2009) (8 May 2009) — A Georgia UAP witness says government agents visited him twice.
• AAWSAP special access program request (29 November 2009) — BAASS gets clearances, but the Air Force won't talk without a special access program.
• BAASS investigations (2010) — A BAASS investigator for the DIA program looks into UAP cases.
• Kona Blue (February 2011) — A BAASS director reports to the DIA program about UAP studies.
• Homeland Security and BAASS (2011) (June-July 2011) — Homeland Security officials explore setting up BAASS as a UAP program in the government.
• Eric Davis on an existing crash-retrieval program (24 June 2018) — Eric Davis says a crash retrieval program still exists.
• George Knapp's four legacy programs (19 December 2022) — George Knapp says he knows of at least four 'legacy' UAP programs.

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.