Georgia witness visited by agents (2009)

Georgia witness visited by agents (2009)

Date	Sighting on the night of Friday 8 May 2009
Place	North Georgia
Witness	Called "Derek Jones" in the book
Reported	A large silent triangle whose beam burned him; helicopters overhead; two men in black suits questioning him; the same car seen again a week later
Investigated by	BAASS, the contractor for the DIA's AAWSAP program
Source	Skinwalkers at the Pentagon (2021) by James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher and George Knapp
Book's finding	The visitors' licence plate traced to a Department of Homeland Security carpool
Topics	Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic)
People	James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, George Knapp
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 170
Year	2009 in UFO history
Timeline	2009 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	10

In May 2009 a man in North Georgia reported seeing a huge, silent triangle that struck him with a hot beam of light. Afterwards, he said, two men in dark suits came to his house to interrogate him about his "sighting report", and he later saw the same car behind him at a gas station.^[8][9] The case is told in the 2021 book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, which calls the witness Derek Jones. It was investigated by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), the contractor running the Pentagon's AAWSAP program.^[1][9] The book says BAASS traced the men's licence plate to a Department of Homeland Security carpool. That claim rests on the book alone.^[9]

The sighting

The book's account, as excerpted by the researcher Joe Murgia, runs as follows:^[9]

• The craft. On the night of Friday 8 May 2009, Jones saw "a very large triangular aircraft" moving silently almost directly above him. It had a yellowish light at each point and a large bluish-white light in the middle.
• Dead batteries. He tried to videotape it and then to photograph it, but both cameras' batteries died, although both had worked earlier.
• The beam. When he pointed his million-candlepower spotlight at the triangle, an intense bluish-white light two to three feet across shot from its front centre and struck him for about three seconds. It caused "a burning sensation" on his neck and shoulders, and he ran inside.

The aftermath

The book describes these effects:^[8][9]

• Symptoms. Jones had an intense headache, weakness and severe nausea, and lay on his couch all day with a metallic, "coppery" taste in his mouth.
• Burns. The next morning his mouth, neck and shoulders felt sore and burnt, and he tried and failed to vomit.
• Longer term. According to Liberation Times's summary of the book, doctors later found a low red blood cell count and a growing number of painful, non-malignant lumps throughout his body. Liberation Times likened this to the radiation-like injuries of another BAASS witness.

The helicopters and the visit

The book then describes the visit:^[9]

• Helicopters. At about 2:00 a.m. Jones was woken by several low-flying helicopters, one very close to his home. Others in the distance swept white searchlights in a law-enforcement search pattern. His wife confirmed the helicopters.
• The knock. At 7:30 a.m. loud knocking woke him. His wife had gone to work and his son was asleep. Two men said they wanted to talk about his "sighting report". They drove a late-model four-door Ford sedan with white plates.
• The men. The older man, in his forties, called himself "Mr. Michael". He wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie and very polished shoes, and had a pale complexion and dark grey hair. The younger, in his late thirties, was dressed the same way. Both were over six feet tall and more than 200 pounds. Neither spoke like a Georgian.
• The interrogation. Jones thought he saw a handgun under Mr. Michael's coat. Neither man showed identification. They asked detailed questions about the Friday-night sighting, took copious notes and seemed to draw diagrams. The younger man stared at him with hostility.
• The warning. After 30 to 40 minutes they stood up abruptly. The younger man told Jones not to mention the sighting to anyone.

The second encounter

About a week later, according to the book, the same black sedan pulled in behind Jones at a gas station in town. He recognised the younger man at the wheel.^[9] He called BAASS to report that he thought he was being followed, and this time noted the plate number. "After a lot of legwork" by BAASS investigators and a contract researcher, the book says, the plate was "unambiguously tracked to a specific Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carpool".^[9] The book does not, in the excerpt, say how the plate was traced or whether DHS was asked about it.^[9]

Some accounts describe the case as two visits by agents. The excerpt describes one visit to his home and one sighting of the same car about a week later.^[9]

DHS and AAWSAP

The book records a link between AAWSAP and DHS. After a meeting with an under secretary, the team hoped for an AAWSAP-like program within the department. A senior DHS official the book calls Sacha Mover told Kelleher of a story his family in rural Kentucky had told him in 2008, about events roughly a year earlier.^[9] In that story, three black SUVs arrived the day after a UFO sighting and men in black suits warned residents not to speak of it. The community was unexpectedly connected to the electricity grid within three months.^[9] The Pentagon's review sent the book's manuscript to DHS, among other agencies, and all of them cleared it.^[1]

The book

Skinwalkers at the Pentagon was written by James Lacatski, the DIA official behind AAWSAP, with BAASS deputy Colm Kelleher and the journalist George Knapp.^[1] AAWSAP was funded for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 with $22 million, through a contract won by BAASS as the only bidder. It studied UAP witnesses and paranormal effects reported with them, including what the authors called the aftereffects of encounters.^[2] Details of the publication:^[1][8]

• Review. The Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review took more than a year. It cleared the book "as amended" on 11 May 2021.
• Changes. These were mainly to protect personal and health information and the names of government employees. Kelleher said the names of serving personnel in the book are pseudonyms.
• Disclaimer. The department said clearance did "not imply Department of Defense endorsement or factual accuracy of the material".

The sceptic Robert Sheaffer called the book an account of "ghosts and werewolves" and criticised its reliance on paranormal testimony.^[2] A copy of the book offered on another website, and its Amazon page, could not be read.^[6][7] Murgia's thread, as rendered by Thread Reader, contained only page furniture. The excerpt was read from the original posts.^[5][9]

Men in black

Jones's visitors match the classic "men in black" of UFO lore: tall, pale, expressionless men in dark suits who question and intimidate witnesses.^[10] The tradition is old:^[10]

• 1947. Harold Dahl said a man in a dark suit warned him not to discuss his Maury Island sighting.
• The 1950s. Albert K. Bender said men in dark suits threatened him into abandoning UFO research.
• Later. John Keel wrote of such encounters. The young John C. Sherwood helped Gray Barker invent a hoax about "blackmen".

The folklorist James R. Lewis compared the stories with tales of meeting the Devil. Jerome Clark wrote that they "don't seem to have occurred in the world of consensus reality".^[10] The Air Force is also reported to have warned its commands in the 1960s about impostors posing as officers to question UFO witnesses. A copy of that warning could not be checked.

Assessment

The case is known only through the book. The witness is identified by a name that may be a pseudonym, and no medical records, photographs or licence-plate records have been published.^[1][9] The Defense Department declined to vouch for the book's accuracy.^[8] In March 2024 the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reported finding no evidence that any government investigation had confirmed extraterrestrial technology. It attributed many claims of hidden programs to "circular reporting".^[3][4]

People and topics

• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• Skinwalkers at the Pentagon — A 2021 book about AAWSAP by Lacatski, Kelleher and Knapp.
• BAASS — The Bigelow Aerospace division that carried out the AAWSAP contract.
• AAWSAP — The Defense Intelligence Agency's UAP research program of 2008–2010, carried out by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies.
• Defense Intelligence Agency — The Pentagon's military intelligence agency, which ran AAWSAP.
• James Lacatski — DIA official who started AAWSAP and co-wrote Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.
• Colm Kelleher — Biochemist who helped run NIDS and BAASS and co-wrote Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.
• George Knapp — Las Vegas journalist who broke the Bob Lazar story and co-wrote Skinwalkers at the Pentagon.
• Men in Black — Mysterious visitors said to intimidate UFO witnesses.
• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.

On the Timeline

• AAWSAP denied access to legacy programs (26 April 2009) — Colm Kelleher says the DIA sponsor still hasn't delivered access to legacy UAP programs.
• Sunnyvale and the Roswell materials theory (12 September 2009) — Eric Davis suggests Roswell materials may have been held at Lockheed in Sunnyvale.

See every 2009 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Men in black”, “Men in black”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.