Pentagon audit discovery story (2000)
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Contents 7
Pentagon audit discovery story (2000)
| Journal date | 9 May 2000 |
|---|---|
| Source | Jacques Vallée's journals, Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights (2000–2009) |
| Told by | Hal Puthoff; repeated by John Petersen on 9 June 2001 |
| Claim | An unnamed general, then an assistant secretary of defense, auditing black projects found a discrepancy of a few million dollars that led to crashed-UFO material held by a contractor |
| Names / dates / documents | None given |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 143 |
| Date | 9 May 2000 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Beings & bodies (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Harold Puthoff, Jacques Vallée |
| Year | 2000 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2000 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 10 |
The Pentagon audit discovery story appears in an entry dated 9 May 2000 in the journals of Jacques Vallée. The physicist Hal Puthoff told Vallée a "story" he had heard about an audit of the defence secretary's black projects. An unnamed general, then an assistant secretary of defense, found a discrepancy of "only" a few million dollars. He was briefed that it paid for low-level maintenance at a private contractor entrusted with keeping "some material" from prying eyes, and was told the material came from a crashed UFO but was not being tested at the moment.[6][5] The futurist John Petersen told Vallée the same story on 9 June 2001.[6] No names, dates or documents support it.
The story
- The account comes from the anonymous UAP timeline in Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony, which summarises Vallée's Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights (journals for 2000–2009).[6][5] Puthoff gave no time frame for the audit.[6]
- According to that summary, the discrepancy was small, "only" a few million dollars. The briefing described the work as low-level maintenance at a private contractor, keeping "some material" away from prying eyes. The official was told the material came from a crashed UFO and was not currently being tested.[6]
- Correction. The earlier version of this article said the official "was told to drop the matter". The timeline's summary does not say that. It says he received a briefing that explained what the money was for.[6] It also described him only as a Pentagon official; the summary calls him a general who was an assistant secretary of defense at the time.[6]
- Vallée's journals, published by Anomalist Books, are prized by researchers for their record of private conversations among people involved in UFO research and government circles.[1][2][4] The journal itself was not read for this article.
Similar stories
- Stories of officials stumbling on hidden programmes while checking budgets recur in UFO lore. In another Vallée entry, from August 2003, Puthoff and Petersen told him there was only one "black UFO operation", probably to do with hardware. See One black UFO operation claim (2003).[7]
- The disputed Wilson/Davis notes, which surfaced online in 2019, describe a 2002 meeting at which Admiral Thomas Wilson, a former DIA director, complained of being refused access to a contractor-run programme said to involve recovered technology.[8] The earlier version of this article said similar claims were made in the 2020s; that broader statement is not covered in the sources read here.
Pentagon audits
- The Defense Department's first comprehensive audit, completed at the end of fiscal year 2018, covered .7 trillion in assets. The department did not pass: only five of 21 units received clean opinions. Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan said: "We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it."[9] The earlier version of this article said the Pentagon had failed every annual audit since. Later audits are not covered in the sources read here. See also Pentagon accounting plugs.
- Some UFO commentators cite these audit failures as making hidden programmes possible. That does not confirm Puthoff's story.
- In 2024 the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reported finding "no empirical evidence" that the U.S. government or private companies had been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.[10]
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.
- Black budget — Classified government spending on secret programs.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- Kit Green's three landings briefing claim (8 May 2000) — They also discuss Kit Green's claim of a briefing on three alien landings.
- Paul Czysz and the zero-point energy claim (November 2000) — A former McDonnell Douglas employee says a friend found a way to tap zero-point energy.
See every 2000 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Harold E. Puthoff — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · 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
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- amazon.com · amazon.com · archived copy
- Michael Shellenberger, written testimony to the House Oversight Committee (13 November 2024), p. 143 · oversight.house.gov
- Shellenberger testimony, p. 154 (23 August 2003) · oversight.house.gov
- "The Admiral Wilson Leak: An Analysis", The Black Vault · theblackvault.com
- Defense Finance and Accounting Service — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- AARO, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I (2024), executive summary · documents2.theblackvault.com
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Defense Finance and Accounting Service”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Categories: 2000 | Beings bodies | Black budget | Crashes retrievals | Government programs | Harold puthoff | Jacques vallée | Timeline event | Unidentified flying object
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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