Arlington Institute contact scenario exercises
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Type | Event (planning exercises) |
|---|---|
| Date | Journal entry dated September 2003 |
| Organiser | The Arlington Institute (founder John L. Petersen) |
| Participant named | Physicist Hal Puthoff |
| Subject | How governments and society might respond to confirmed contact or official UFO disclosure |
| Source | Jacques Vallée, Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights (journals 2000–2009) |
| People | Harold Puthoff, Jacques Vallée, John Petersen, Robert Bigelow |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 154 |
| Year | 2003 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2003 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 11 |
According to Jacques Vallée's journals, the physicist Hal Puthoff took part in scenario exercises run by the Arlington Institute, the futurist John Petersen's think tank. In them, participants considered how governments and society might respond to confirmed contact with non-human intelligence, or to official UFO disclosure. The testimony dates the entry to September 2003. No record of the exercises themselves has been published.[1][5]
The Arlington Institute
Petersen founded the Arlington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, in 1989 with the stated aim of broadening the concept of national security to include issues such as population growth, environmental change and technological and social shifts. According to the institute, it grew out of a bipartisan National Security Group project that Petersen co-led in 1986–87. That group's final report, "The Diffusion of Power: An Era of Realignment", which Petersen wrote, "became a strategy document used at the highest levels of the Department of Defense". In the early 1990s Petersen carried out futures-research projects for the Defense Department, including one for the Office of the Secretary of Defense that took him around the world to assess forecasting methods. He also served in support roles to the Under Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. The former CIA Director James Woolsey sat on the institute's board. In the mid-1990s, the institute says, Petersen became convinced that humanity faced "a major global shift" within two decades, and the institute committed itself to helping a "global transition". Its board had discussed publishing a study on life beyond Earth in December 1999, as part of its work on "wild cards", unexpected high-impact events.[2]
The exercises
Vallée recorded the exercises in the fifth volume of his journals, Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights, which covers 2000 to 2009. Vallée, a computer scientist and long-time UFO researcher, had worked with Project Blue Book's J. Allen Hynek. According to the journal entry, the exercises explored how institutions and the public might react if contact with non-human intelligence were confirmed or UFOs officially disclosed. The journals do not say who else took part, who commissioned the exercises or what conclusions were reached.[1][5][6]
Puthoff and Petersen
Puthoff, born in 1936, earned a PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1967 and began in laser physics. In the 1970s and 1980s he directed the Stanford Research Institute's government-funded remote-viewing research, which was widely criticised. He later published theories about gravity and zero-point energy. Since the 1990s he has been involved in ufology, finding common cause with those who believe UFOs are alien spacecraft.[7]
His association with Petersen continued for years. On 8 February 2020 he gave a talk at Petersen's "Transition Talk" forum in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, on the back story of the Pentagon's UAP programme. In it, according to the testimony, he also said the former AFOSI agent Richard Doty had worked for him.[3]
Context
"Day after" planning for a possible disclosure was a recurring interest in Puthoff's circle. Vallée's later journals, Forbidden Science 6: Scattered Castles (2010–2019), continue to follow the same group of researchers. The idea anticipated later congressional action. The proposed 2023 UAP Disclosure Act would have set up a formal process for reviewing and releasing UAP records. UAP records provisions became law in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024, signed on 22 December 2023, which created a collection of government UAP records at the National Archives with procedures for review and public release.[1][4][8][9][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.
- Arlington Institute — The futurist think tank founded by John Petersen in 1989.
- John Petersen — Futurist who founded the Arlington Institute.
- Disclosure — The official release of government information about UFOs.
- Robert Bigelow — Businessman who founded NIDS and Bigelow Aerospace and ran the AAWSAP contract.
- NIDS — Robert Bigelow's research institute (1995–2004) that studied UFOs and other anomalies.
- UAP Disclosure Act — A 2023 Senate proposal by Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds to release UAP records.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
On the Timeline
- Puthoff's "front door" attempt (10 September 2003) — Lockheed's Bernard Haisch says Puthoff tried official channels to reach a secret UFO program.
- Puthoff protects a key source (2003) (2 October 2003) — Puthoff tells Vallée he is holding back details to protect a key insider source.
See every 2003 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Jacques Vallée, *Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights* (journals 2000–2009), Amazon · amazon.com · archived copy
- "The Arlington Institute", Powerbase · powerbase.info · archived copy
- "Dr Hal Puthoff's 8 February 2020 talk", UFOs Scientific Research (Feb 2020) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Justin Snead, "Timeline of U.S. congressional action on UFOs (2007 to present)" · justinsnead.substack.com · archived copy
- 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
- National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 – Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Harold E. Puthoff”, “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 – Wikipedia”, “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 – Wikipedia”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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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