Catherine Austin Fitts and the missing money
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Person | Catherine Austin Fitts (born 24 December 1950) |
|---|---|
| Former posts | Managing director, Dillon, Read & Co.; Assistant Secretary of HUD for Housing (1989–90) |
| Claim | Huge sums are diverted from federal accounts into secret programs, perhaps including a secret space program |
| Key figures | $3.3 trillion (early-2000s claim); $21 trillion in "unsupported adjustments", 1998–2015 (2017 report) |
| Co-researcher | Mark Skidmore, Michigan State University |
| Fact checks | $21 trillion counts transactions, not missing dollars (PolitiFact, 2018) |
| Date | June 2004 |
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Congress & law (topic) |
| People | Catherine Austin Fitts, Mark Skidmore |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 156 |
| Year | 2004 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2004 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
Catherine Austin Fitts, a former investment banker and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has argued since the late 1990s that huge sums are diverted from federal accounts into secret, unaccountable programs.[1][4] She has suggested that some of the money may fund a secret space program.[1] In 2017 she and the economist Mark Skidmore publicized about $21 trillion in "unsupported adjustments" in Defense Department and HUD accounts, which helped spread the idea of trillions in missing money.[2][3] Budget experts say that figure counts accounting entries, often the same dollar many times, not money actually spent or lost, and there is no evidence linking it to UFO or space programs.[6]
Career
Fitts was born in Philadelphia and earned an MBA from the Wharton School in 1978.[1] At Dillon, Read & Co. she organized a 1982 bond sale backed by subway fares to revitalize the New York subway. In 1986 she became the first woman promoted to managing director in the bank's 156-year history.[1] After working on George H. W. Bush's 1988 campaign, she served as HUD's Assistant Secretary for Housing in 1989–1990, charged with repairing the department after the savings and loan crisis.[1] She resigned in 1990 amid reports of a rift with Secretary Jack Kemp, which Kemp denied. The columnist Neal Peirce called her "widely regarded as the best manager" Kemp had brought in.[1]
She then founded Hamilton Securities, which in 1993 won a HUD contract to manage a large portfolio. In 1997 HUD cancelled the contract over alleged accounting errors, and investigations by the HUD Inspector General, the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission followed.[1] Fitts called the investigation retribution, claiming her company's data had revealed possibly fraudulent federally guaranteed mortgage securities. The investigation closed in 2002 without finding wrongdoing by her or the firm.[1] She later founded the advisory and publishing business Solari. She was a member of the Global Business Network's "Worldview" in 1996–97, and sat on the advisory board of the Arlington Institute from June 1998 to June 2000.[1]
Her claims
In an early-2000s column republished by Scoop, "Mapping the Real Deal: The Solari Solution", Fitts made several claims:[4]
- The federal deficit was being financed by an "American Tapeworm" model of war, borrowing and asset sales.
- About $3.3 trillion in "undocumentable adjustments" at the Defense Department, and $59 billion at HUD, represented money "stolen from federal accounts".
- That came to about $11,700 per American, which citizens should recover through local "offsets".
- Such sums could be stolen with little cash by recycling federally guaranteed securities such as Treasury debt and Ginnie Mae bonds.
In a 2004 study in World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, she said she had found evidence that a very large share of the nation's wealth was being illegally diverted into "secret, unaccountable channels and programmes". In her account these included covert operations abroad and clandestine military research at home.[1][5] She has argued that HUD serves as a fundraising mechanism for military and intelligence agencies, overpaying for public housing and channeling the difference into unaudited black budgets.[1] She has suggested that some of this money could fund a hidden space program.[1]
The $21 trillion
Skidmore became involved in spring 2017. He heard Fitts cite a report showing $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments in the Army's fiscal 2015 accounts, 54 times its $122 billion budget, and assumed she meant billions.[2] On checking, he found the figure was indeed trillions. Over the summer two of his graduate students searched inspector-general reports back to 1998 and found a total of about $21 trillion in undocumented adjustments at the Defense Department and HUD for 1998–2015.[2] They said the inspector general at one point disabled links to the key documents, which they had already downloaded.[2] Days after Skidmore discussed the findings on the website USAWatchdog in December 2017, the Pentagon announced its first department-wide independent audit. Skidmore suggested their work "may have made a difference".[2]
In 2018 Skidmore and the economist Laurence Kotlikoff wrote that "unsupported journal voucher adjustments" was "polite accounting language for lost, hidden or stolen money".[3] They rejected the Pentagon comptroller David Norquist's explanation that the adjustments came from reconciling an unconnected property-tracking system with the general ledger. They calculated that the Army's $11.5 trillion in adjustments would equal 163 years of its non-personnel spending.[3] They noted that the fiscal 2017 report had its figures redacted, which they attributed to their publicity, while allowing that the adjustments "might have some innocent explanation".[3]
Criticism
Fact-checkers and budget analysts reject the reading of the $21 trillion as missing money.[6] PolitiFact pointed out that actual Pentagon spending from 1998 to 2015 was about $8.5 trillion, and that all U.S. national-security spending since 1940 comes to about $17.8 trillion.[6] Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the figure "double- and triple-counts funding that was transferred internally". He added that a transaction that cannot be fully traced is not necessarily fraudulent or wasted; it only shows the Pentagon cannot pass an audit.[6] Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense put it simply: "One dollar involved in 10 transactions is not 10 dollars."[6] Even the journalist Dave Lindorff, whose Nation article spread the figure, said most of it was "fictitious numbers" meant to obscure the accounts, not real money that could have funded anything else.[6]
The Pentagon has failed every financial audit since its first full audit in 2018, which keeps the issue alive. But there is no evidence linking its accounting problems to UFO or space programs.[1][3] According to The Washington Post, Fitts later worked with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to promote unfounded claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and appeared in the 2020 film Planet Lockdown. She has also alleged massive fraud in the 2020 election.[1]
People and topics
- Catherine Austin Fitts — Former HUD official who argues trillions flow to secret programs.
- Mark Skidmore — Economist who co-wrote the $21 trillion analysis with Catherine Austin Fitts.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- Contractor speculation dinner (2004) (28 March 2004) — Vallée's circle speculates about which contractors handle real UAP projects.
- John Maynard testimony (August 2004) — An alleged Army/DIA official names contractors said to be involved in the UAP matter.
See every 2004 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Skunk Works — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Catherine Austin Fitts — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "MSU scholars find $21 trillion in unauthorized government spending", MSU Today (Dec 2017) · msutoday.msu.edu · archived copy
- "Is our government intentionally hiding $21 trillion in spending?", Goodman Institute (Aug 2018) · goodmaninstitute.org · archived copy
- Mapping the Real Deal: The Solari Solution — Scoop · scoop.co.nz · archived copy
- jstor.org · jstor.org · archived copy
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrong on scale of Pentagon accounting errors (PolitiFact, Dec 2018) · politifact.com
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Catherine Austin Fitts”, 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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