Please note the following column appeared in the April 28th edition of the Roswell Daily Record and is republished with permission.
By Kevin Wright
Beginning with Roswell, the idea of the US government retrieving crashed flying saucers has captured the imagination of many. Dedicated Ufologists and those who took the time to research such cases, like Leonard Stringfield, compiled compelling stories with alleged eyewitness accounts. Still, direct, tangible evidence of the government having a crash retrieval program of technologies of non-human intelligence remained sparse, at best.
Times change, though, and an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) government crash retrieval program is not only coming into focus, but the puzzle pieces are coming together, even if only loosely.
Recent disclosure efforts began in December 2017 when The New York Times published a blockbuster article by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean detailing a secret $22 million Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) to study UAP. The funding was secured in 2007 by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) with the help of then-Sens. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Daniel Inouye (D-HI).
AAWSAP marshaled government resources, personnel, and taxpayer money and contracted with Robert Bigelow, a Nevada-based billionaire with a long-standing interest in unexplained things and a friend of Sen. Reid’s. Bigelow established Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) to attain the government contract – a public bid – and operate the program below the radar.
In July 2020, The New York Times published another explosive article by Blumenthal and Kean revealing that government efforts to investigate UAP were ongoing, despite public statements to the contrary, and that Dr. Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who worked on a once-secret program studying UAP, had briefed a “Defense Department agency as recently as March [2020] about retrievals from ‘off-world vehicles not made on this earth.’” In other words, crash retrievals of UAP.
In October 2021, Dr. James Lacatski and Dr. Colm Kelleher, both program managers for AAWSAP, along with journalist George Knapp, published “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government UFO Program.” The book, which I highly recommend, details how, after the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) shuttered the AAWSAP program, Drs. Lacatski and Kelleher, as well as other members of AAWSAP, worked to find a secure place to continue their investigations of UAP, this time under the auspices of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
According to the book, Lacatski led the initial briefing at DHS headquarters with top DHS officials, including then-Under Secretary Tara O’Toole, and was met with astonishment as Lacatski detailed the program’s history and accomplishments. The initial engagement with DHS appeared promising, with O’Toole expressing keen interest in further discussions about integrating an AAWSAP-like program into DHS.
Despite initial interest from DHS officials, additional attempts to incorporate a similar program faced resistance from other agencies. Subsequent attempts by DHS officials to secure support from other agencies were met with hostility and resistance. This resistance perhaps indicated the deeply entrenched secrecy surrounding advanced technologies and UAP phenomena within the government. Indeed, the brushback left high-level DHS officials “convinced that advanced technology was sequestered under government supervision at aerospace contractors’ facilities.” Ultimately, the decision was made not to proceed with the program.
Just before Christmas 2022, the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the funding mechanism for our nation’s military and intelligence community, was signed into law. The massive $817 billion NDAA established a new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
The AARO’s mandate from Congress, among other things, was to look for “any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.” In other words, the US Congress, no less, was interested in the government’s beyond top-secret UAP crash retrieval program, too.
Additionally, the NDAA established a process by which people with knowledge of core secret government programs related to UAP, like crash retrievals, could provide information to Congress without fear of retribution or prosecution for violating their oaths or signing non-disclosure agreements.
Seven months after the FY 2023 NDAA established the AARO, mandated an investigation of UAP crash retrievals, and created whistleblower protections, retired US Air Force Intelligence Officer David Grusch provided sworn testimony to Congress that the government and aerospace defense contractors have recovered and are in possession of craft of a non-human intelligence ostensibly associated with technologies of unknown origin.
One day after Grusch’s historic testimony, the US Senate passed the FY 2024 NDAA that included a bipartisan amendment, the UAP Disclosure Act (UAPDA), that, among other things, would have exercised the government’s authority of eminent domain to extract every physical piece of UAP evidence from aerospace defense contractors.
Less than three months after David Grusch’s testimony before Congress, AAWSAP Program Managers Drs. Lacatski and Kelleher published a follow-up book, “Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations.” The book details a meeting at the US Capitol with a US Senator and an “agency Under Secretary,” wherein Dr. Lacatski told those present the US “was in possession of a craft of unknown origin and had successfully gained access to its interior.”
When documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell asked about the claim from the book, Lacatski confirmed the event took place, and the statement was legitimate and approved by the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review.
Two weeks ago, the DHS, through AARO, released a previously classified document known as KONA BLUE, which corroborates the accounts of Drs. Lacatski and Kelleher and their efforts to establish an AAWSAP-like program under the auspices of DHS. The KONA BLUE document also makes clear the proposed program was extraordinarily close to coming to fruition as a Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP). More interesting is that the document indicates that the craft of a non-human intelligence, or technologies of unknown origin, were already in the possession of government contractors and would be brought under the purview of the new KONA BLUE PSAP.
Tangible, physical evidence of a government UAP crash retrieval program remains elusive. But there is more than circumstantial evidence indicating this deeply buried secret exists. More puzzle pieces have been added to the board and are starting to come together.
Sometime soon, I will dive deeper into KONA BLUE, a puzzle piece all its own. There is much more here than meets the eye.