Description

Let's break down those classification markings from the documents obtained by u/blackvault to see the actual source of the intelligence. The intel was used to brief the SECDEF and also the Director of Intelligence (J2) US STRATCOM, which is THE single command responsible for all strategic nuclear forces. Whose signals did they intercept to acquire this intelligence, and why was the Pentagon so quick to dismiss it as a "simple error" and claim the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force on UAPs not exist?

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/stratcom-reports-reveal…

TS//SI/TK//NOFORN/

1. TOP SECRET (TS, color code: orange)- ‘Top Secret’ means that the unauthorized disclosure is reasonably expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security.
2. COMINT / Special Intelligence (SI)

This control system is for communications intercepts or Signals Intelligence. Since 2005, COMINT information which is not marked NOFORN is automatically releasable to the Five Eyes partners. Initially, the abbreviation for COMINT was SI, which was replaced somewhere between 2008 and 2013.

SI contains various sub-control systems and compartments, which are identified by an abbreviation or a codeword. In a classification line, they follow COMINT or SI, connected by a hyphen.

3. TALENT KEYHOLE (TK)- the SI sub-control system

This control system is for products of overhead collection systems, such as satellites and reconnaissance aircraft, and contains compartments, which are identified by a classified codeword. The original TALENT compartment was created in the mid-1950s for the U-2 (i.e." manned" platforms). In 1960, it was broadened to cover all national aerial reconnaissance and the KEYHOLE compartment was created for satellite intelligence.

4. NO FOREIGN NATIONALS (NOFORN) (NF) - only U.S. citizens with appropriate clearances are allowed access to this information.

https://www.electrospaces.net/search?q=SI

So these documents contained intelligence that could cause grave damage to the U.S. (the Top Secret component), which was obtained via Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) methods, most likely COMSAT (the TK component) interception from a collection source with endpoints OUTSIDE of the United States. I initially thought a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant was involved in this intelligence collection, however, that section was not responsive to John's FOIA request so it was redacted. Even though that section contained only a few lines and had nothing to do with UAPs, because it was the highest classification section in that document, the ENTIRE document was originally classified at this level by the originator. In this instance, the ORCON appears to be the Intelligence section at Offutt AFB, Omaha Nebraska, where the HQ for USSTRATCOM is located ( single command responsible for all strategic nuclear forces ).

We know it is not imagery intelligence from NRO's KEYHOLE fleet, as it would be classed as IMINT, not SI. For the same reason, it is also unlikely to be Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT), Foreign Instrument Signals intelligence (FASINT), or ELectronic Intelligence (ELINT). It is therefore almost certainly an NSA intelligence raw product, collected at one of the following blue coloured sites (because it is NOFORN):

NSA Primary collection sites (https://preview.redd.it/3blatb82iv5a1.png?width=921&format=png&auto=w…)

It may have been distributed to STRATCOM's intelligence cell for follow-on processing.

Whose communications might they be intercepting to access this information then? The UAPs themselves? Some foreign adversary with better knowledge of what is going on? And why STRATCOM?

Edit: Related information:

https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/expanded-communi…