Pentagon audit discovery story (2000)

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Contents 4
Pentagon audit discovery story (2000)
Hal Puthoff
Hal Puthoff Photo: CIA · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
Date9 May 2000
TopicsCrashes & retrievals (topic), Beings & bodies (topic), Government programs (topic)
PeopleHarold Puthoff, Jacques Vallée
TestimonyShellenberger testimony, p. 143
Year2000 in UFO history
Timeline2000 on the UAP Timeline
Sources5

Pentagon audit discovery story (2000) — Puthoff tells Vallée a story about a secret program uncovered in a Pentagon audit.

According to Jacques Vallée's journals, in May 2000 Hal Puthoff told him a second-hand story about a Pentagon official who allegedly discovered a discrepancy while auditing black-budget programs, found something that looked like a hidden UFO-related project, and was told to drop the matter.

No names, dates or documents support the story. Stories of auditors stumbling on hidden programs are a recurring theme in UFO lore, and similar claims were made later in the 2020s.

The Pentagon has struggled to pass financial audits, failing every annual audit since its first full audit in 2018, which some UFO commentators cite as making hidden programs possible. That doesn't confirm Puthoff's story.

People and topics

Jacques Vallée 2024
Jacques Vallée 2024 Photo: Cmichel67 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
  • 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.
  • Black budget — Classified government spending on secret programs.
  • Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.

On the Timeline

Illustration of a humanoid figure under a hovering craft
Illustration: a humanoid figure under a hovering craft. An artist's impression drawn for this site, not a photograph of the event.

See every 2000 event on the UAP Timeline →

References

Further reading

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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