Puthoff's report of a new secret study (1972)
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Contents 8
Puthoff's report of a new secret study (1972)
| Date | 7 October 1972 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | Harold Puthoff, Jacques Vallée |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 75 |
| Year | 1972 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1972 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 10 |
On 7 October 1972, according to Jacques Vallée's journals, Hal Puthoff mentioned that a former colleague of his at the National Security Agency had told him a "fresh study" of UFOs was secretly under way.[7] The entry, recorded in the volume Forbidden Science 2: California Hermetica (1970–1979), begins a run of journal entries in which Puthoff acted as Vallée's guide to supposed government UFO interest after Project Blue Book closed.[7][1][8] Michael Shellenberger's 2024 UAP timeline lists the entry. The NSA colleague is not named, and no such study has been documented.[7]
The entry
- The "fresh study". According to the timeline, Puthoff said a former NSA colleague had told him a "fresh study" of UAP was secretly under way.[7]
- What followed. The timeline continues the story:[7]
- Puthoff "subsequently put Vallee in touch with Howell McConnell".
- On 21 February 1973 he said he had met officials in Washington who were in a position to discover "the true state of affairs".
- By late 1973 he said he had identified the leader of a CIA group that monitored the UFO field.
- McConnell's story. On 28 October 1972 Vallée recorded that McConnell, an NSA official, asked whether he had heard of a group at Wright-Patterson "which is supposed to do secret analyses on behalf of the Air Force".[8][7]
The 1973 entries
Keith Basterfield's compilation of Vallée's journals quotes the later entries.[8]
- October 1973. On 16 and 27 October, after Vallée said he did not want to step on the toes of any government project, Puthoff "finally admitted" that there was such a project. "In fact they call me from time to time to find out what my psychics have to say on the subject and do remote viewing of certain places where they think there may be UFO bases… They have an official charter."[8]
- 17 November 1973. Puthoff told Vallée he had found the leader of "the CIA group that monitors the UFO field".[8]
- The team had been under David "M", who had become "overly excited" during the recent UFO wave and been pushed aside. A biologist had been put in charge, who "doesn't want to see me yet".[8]
- Basterfield suggests the new man was Christopher "Kit" Green, whom Puthoff introduced to Vallée on 11 February 1974.[8]
- March 1974. When Vallée finally met David M. and a colleague at the CIA, on 21 March 1974, he wrote that "the people in the room knew less than I did".[8]
Puthoff's background
- Navy and NSA. Commissioned in the U.S. Navy in 1960, Puthoff was assigned to the National Security Agency, where he worked on using optical technology to speed up computers.[9]
- In 2020 he recalled that the CIA trusted him because "you'd been a naval intelligence officer, stationed at NSA".[10]
- Stanford and SRI. He earned his Stanford PhD in 1967 and joined the Stanford Research Institute in 1972, the year of this entry. There he co-founded the remote-viewing program with Russell Targ.[3][9]
- Later UFO work. Puthoff joined Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, the contractor for the Pentagon-funded AAWSAP/AATIP program, in 2008. He co-founded To the Stars with Tom DeLonge in 2017.[3]
- Correction note: the earlier version of this article dated Puthoff's AAWSAP involvement to "the 2007–2012 AAWSAP program". The sources read here date his joining the program's contractor to 2008.[3]
Assessment
- Two readings. Supporters of a hidden program point to entries like this as evidence that official study continued in secret after 1969. Others see them as rumours circulating among intelligence-linked scientists.[8]
- Vallée's own doubts. Vallée's own conclusions swung back and forth.[8]
- By 21 May 1980 he told Puthoff he no longer believed the government had an ongoing UFO project, and Puthoff had "reached similar conclusions".[8]
- Unread source. A forum thread cited by the timeline could not be reached.[6] Later volumes of the journals are reviewed and summarised elsewhere.[2][4][5]
People and topics
- Harold Puthoff — Physicist who co-founded the SRI remote-viewing research and later worked on AAWSAP and To The Stars Academy.
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- National Security Agency — The U.S. signals intelligence agency, which holds UFO-related intercepts.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Forbidden Science — Jacques Vallée's published journals.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- SRI International — The research institute where the government's remote-viewing studies began.
- Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.
- AAWSAP — The Defense Intelligence Agency's UAP research program of 2008–2010, carried out by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies.
On the Timeline
- Ingo Swann's magnetometer test (1972) (June 1972) — Ingo Swann's remote-viewing test with SRI leads to a CIA contract months later.
- Howell McConnell and post-Blue Book analysis (28 October 1972) — An NSA official tells Vallée a Wright-Patterson office kept secretly analyzing UAP after Blue Book.
See every 1972 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- UFO documents — NSA · nsa.gov · archived copy
References
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- Harold E. Puthoff — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- abovetopsecret.com · abovetopsecret.com · archived copy
- Michael Shellenberger, written testimony to the House Oversight Committee (13 November 2024), p. 75 · oversight.house.gov
- Keith Basterfield, "Was there secret US government research?", UFOs – scientific research (October 2016) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com
- "Harold Puthoff", Psi Encyclopedia (Society for Psychical Research) · psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk
- Joe Murgia, "Hal Puthoff lecture (Q&A) transcript", UFO Joe (February 2020) · ufojoe.net
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Harold E. Puthoff”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Categories: 1972 | Forbidden science | Harold puthoff | Jacques vallée | National security agency | Secrecy cover-up | Timeline event | Unidentified anomalous phenomena
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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