Mellon on off-the-books operation allegations
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Speaker | Christopher K. Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence |
|---|---|
| When | 2022 interviews |
| Statement | He had heard many allegations of a hidden UFO operation in the aerospace industry or under the CIA, but could not confirm them |
| His advice | People with first-hand knowledge should go to Congress or the Inspector General |
| Later | David Grusch's claims of such a programme (made public June 2023); Mellon's March 2024 rebuttal of AARO's historical report |
| Status | Allegations unconfirmed; denied by the Defense Department and AARO |
| Date | September 2022 |
| Topics | Government programs (topic), Congress & law (topic) |
| People | Christopher Mellon, David Grusch |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 209 |
| Year | 2022 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2022 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
In 2022 interviews, Christopher Mellon said he had heard many allegations of a hidden UFO operation in the aerospace industry or under the CIA, run outside normal government oversight. He stressed that he had not been able to confirm them.[6] Mellon is a former senior intelligence official who spent years overseeing classified programmes, and he has generally been careful to separate what he knows from what he has been told.[1][2] He urged people with first-hand knowledge to come forward to Congress or an Inspector General. Not long afterwards, the intelligence officer David Grusch made allegations of exactly that kind.[6][7]
Mellon's background
Mellon's government career, from 1985 to 2017, ran through the Senate and the Pentagon.[1]
- Senate and Pentagon. He spent a decade on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee, then went to the Pentagon, where he became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in 1999. He later returned to the Senate committee as minority staff director.
- Black programmes. He served on a Defense Department committee overseeing special access programmes. One journalist described him as having "oversaw the Pentagon's most sensitive and closely held 'black' programs".[1]
- The Byrd inquiry. In a History.com interview he said he never saw anything like the reported UAP among the black programmes he oversaw. When Senate Appropriations chairman Robert Byrd asked whether the United States had such a craft, the answer up "the flagpole" was "Absolutely not".[2]
- To the Stars and the videos. After leaving government he joined To the Stars Academy in 2017. He helped bring the Navy UAP videos to the New York Times and appeared in History's Unidentified.[1][3]
- The Senate report requirement. In 2020 he told Den of Geek that the Senate Intelligence Committee's requirement for a UAP report "wouldn't exist if we had not been engaged in bringing witnesses forward and advocating this and writing about it".[3]
He has also discussed the subject with CNN's Michael Smerconish.[4]
The allegations
The statement is attributed to a 2022 interview with Linda Moulton Howe of Earthfiles, linked below at the relevant point; the video could not be checked for this article.[6] According to the earlier version of this article, Mellon made three points:
- he had heard many allegations of an off-the-books UFO operation, placed variously in the aerospace industry or under the CIA;
- he had not been able to confirm any of them;
- people with first-hand knowledge should take it to Congress or the Inspector General.
Mellon made a similar point in his History.com interview. A technology this radical "can't just appear out of nowhere", he said; there would have to be facilities, research and prototypes, "and we don't see any evidence of that anywhere".[2] His remarks about allegations of a hidden operation were therefore reports of what others claimed, not a statement of his own belief.[2][6] He made a related remark about credible people on both sides of the cover-up question; see Mellon on conflicting insider claims.
Grusch
David Grusch had represented the National Reconnaissance Office on the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021. He helped draft the 2023 defence authorisation act, with its UAP whistleblower protections.[7] The earlier version of this article said he filed his whistleblower complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General in 2022, shortly after Mellon's comments. The sources consulted here do not give that date.
- June 2023. His claims were published on 5 June 2023. He said the government, "in collaboration with private aerospace companies", ran highly secret programmes to recover and reverse-engineer "non-human" craft.[7]
- July 2023. At a 26 July 2023 House hearing he testified that he "was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program to which I was denied access".[7]
- The official response. The Pentagon said AARO "has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate" such claims. No supporting evidence has been presented publicly.[7]
Mellon and the AARO report
On 8 March 2024 the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office released its historical report on government involvement with UAP. Mellon responded with a lengthy rebuttal, criticising "the disappointing lack of critical press coverage of this important report".[5] According to a podcast summary by Micah Hanks in The Debrief, the rebuttal included:
- the "purported existence" of a secretive UAP sightings programme at Area 51 in the 1980s;
- material suggesting the CIA had once considered whether UAP were extraterrestrial technology.[5]
Assessment
Mellon's 2022 comments reported hearsay, and he said so himself. The allegations he described were later voiced publicly by Grusch, but they have been denied officially and remain unproven.[6][7] Mellon's own oversight experience, as he describes it, found no such programme, and he has argued that one would leave traces in facilities and research.[2]
People and topics
- Christopher Mellon — Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who helped release the Navy UAP videos.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- David Grusch — Former intelligence officer who testified in 2023 that the U.S. has recovered non-human craft.
On the Timeline
- Elizondo's Space Force contract (23 August 2022) — The Pentagon confirms Elizondo works for the U.S. Space Force.
- Mellon on the Majestic documents (September 2022) — Mellon says the 'Majestic' documents are very controversial.
See every 2022 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- U.S. congressional hearings on UFOs — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Christopher Mellon — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Chris Mellon on UFO investigations — History.com · history.com · archived copy
- Did History's 'Unidentified' influence Congress? — Den of Geek · denofgeek.com · archived copy
- Mellon interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish — christophermellon.net · christophermellon.net · archived copy
- Broken AARO: the Mellon report, UAP and Area 51 — The Debrief · thedebrief.org · archived copy
- youtu.be · youtu.be · archived copy
- David Grusch UFO whistleblower claims — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Christopher Mellon”, “David Grusch UFO whistleblower claims”, 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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