Inside the Pentagon's SECRET $22M UFO Program: Skinwalkers, Tic Tacs & AAWSAP Explained

Transcript

Okay, picture this. You're out somewhere really dark, no city lights, and you look up. Maybe you see the Milky Way, that kind of river of stars, right? Yeah. It's incredible. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? You know what else is really out there? Einstein said something about never losing a holy curiosity.

Mhm. And that's exactly what we're tapping into today, that curiosity. We're doing a deep dive into Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. Right. The book by Latsky, Keller, and Knap.

Exactly. It's an insider's view of a secret government UFO program. Well, UAP program really. Specifically, the uh Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, AOWSAP. Bit of a mouthful.

AWW. Got it. Yeah. There's often confusion around these government programs. Totally.

So, our mission here is to cut through that fog, give you a really clear sense of what AWSA was, what it aimed to do, and frankly, some of the pretty startling things it found. Okay, let's do it. Let's unpack AWP. It sounds bureaucratic maybe, but it seems like a really serious if kind of hidden attempt by the US government to get a handle on UAPs. It absolutely was.

So stick with us and you'll get the lowdown on its origins, its goals, and some genuinely unexpected findings. We're aiming for clarity here. Okay, so the beginning. ASAP's origins are well pretty fascinating. It largely started with Senator Harry Reid.

He'd been interested in UAPs for a long time. This wasn't just a passing thing for him. Not at all. He'd apparently talked to John Glenn, you know, the astronaut. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And Glenn felt strongly this stuff needed a serious look. Plus, George Knap, the investigative reporter, his work on Area 51 definitely played into Reed's interest, too. Apparently, his staff were a bit wary, but Reed pushed forward. Okay, so Reed's interested.

Then what happens? Well, 2007, Robert Bigalow gets in touch with Reed. He's got this letter from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA. Bigalow, the aerospace guy, and Skinwalker ranch owner. That's the one. The letter was from a Dr.

Jim Lacsky, a physicist at the DIA. He worked in their defense warning office. Okay. And Lacazky wanted permission to visit Bigalow's Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. Why the ranch specifically? Latsky wasn't just curious, he was genuinely worried that uh some kind of unknown technology might be flying around in US airspace totally undetected.

and his worry was actually triggered by reading the book Hunt for the Skinwalker. Huh. So, the book about all the strange stuff at the ranch directly sparked a DIA physicist's national security concerns. Seems like it with this convergence, right? You've got Reed's interest, Bigalow's unique property, and Laskk's focus on potential threats and that got the ball rolling. Yeah, it led to actual bipartisan support in the Senate.

Yeah. Senator Stevens and Enuier were key figures in getting uh $22 million allocated. $22 million. Wow. Yep.

In the name ASAP. That was apparently chosen very deliberately to make sure the money went straight to the DIA's defense warning office. Streamlined the whole process. Okay. So, they've got the funding.

The key players are lined up. What was the first official step for AOSAP? Right. So, the DIA put out a public solicitation, basically a request for proposals. They were looking for studies on advanced aerospace weapons systems. Weapons systems.

Yeah. But listen to the scope. They weren't asking for like better engines. They wanted research into breakthrough technologies, stuff potentially feasible way out to 2050. Okay.

Like what kind of breakthroughs? The solicitation listed 12 specific areas. Things like lift, propulsion, sure, but also power generation, materials, signature reduction, and then more exotic stuff. Exotic how? Like spatial temporal translation, which sounds like manipulating space and time pretty much. And also human interface, human effects, how these things might affect people. even armament.

It was incredibly broad, very forward-looking. Okay, that is ambitious. Who answered the call? Who bid on this project? Interestingly, only one bidder came forward. Bigalow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. Bass.

Ah, Bigalow again makes sense given his involvement. Exactly. So, in September 2008, BAS got the contract. Their initial plan was pretty comprehensive. What did it involve? collecting UAP data from all over the world, setting up a program to connect with scientists or engineers, maybe working on related novel tech, potentially using Bigalow's own space platforms for research, like inflatable space habitats.

Yeah. Leveraging those resources, plus accessing DIA data, and crucially building a team of experts. The first year's funding for all that was $10 million. 10 million just for the first year. So, what kinds of things did bay ass under AWSF actually start digging into? Was it just nuts and bolts craft or did it get weirder? Oh, it definitely went beyond just nuts and bolts.

This is where AWSP gets really interesting because they looked into areas often ignored in UAP studies. Let's circle back to Skinwalker Ranch since it was so central, right? Dr. Latsky himself, remember the DIA physicist, background in missile tech, not prone to this stuff, reported something pretty unusual on his first visit. What happened? He described having a clear vision, almost like a download of a complex technological device in the room next door. He hadn't seen anything like it before.

A vision from a DIA physicist that's unexpected for a government program start. Definitely sets a tone, doesn't it? And then there's this thing the book calls the contagion phenomenon linked to the rant. Contagion. What does that mean? Well, this was one of the more frankly disturbing parts. Several intelligence professionals, people like Jonathan Axelrod and Juliet Wit mentioned in the book, visited the ranch for the program.

Okay. And afterwards, they reported really strange things happening back in their own homes. Poltergeist type activity, seeing shadowy figures, and sometimes really serious medical issues cropped up. Like what kind of medical issues? Things like autoimmune diseases either in themselves or their family members appearing after their visits or involvement. It was alarming.

Wow. So, the phenomena potentially followed them home. How did the program even approach studying that? They looked at it from a couple of angles. One was uh almost like an infectious disease model. Could something spread? But also the social contagion model, meaning the idea that beliefs or maybe even the experiences themselves could spread through a social group.

Kind of like how trends are Yeah. viruses spread. It's complex. That is a huge leap from just tracking unidentified aircraft. Were they doing any, you know, hard science at the ranch, too, or just collecting these stories? Oh, yeah.

They definitely did more conventional scientific work there, too. Yeah. BS set up a whole monitoring system like what? Detailed grid surveys measuring electromagnetic fields, soil analysis, radiation monitoring. They even used, get this, genetically engineered plants as bio sensors. Plants as sensors for what? To detect changes in radiation or magnetic fields.

And they did seed germination studies, too. Seed studies? Yeah. They compared seeds stored at the ranch versus seeds stored in Las Vegas. They found different germination rates depending on where the dormant seeds were kept. Really? How different? Significantly.

And seeds that were taken to the ranch and then germinated under controlled lab conditions grew much slower than the control seeds kept in Vegas. Something about the ranch environment seemed to affect them even when dormant. That is bizarre. Okay. What about actual encounters people had on the ranch during the investigation? Any specific incidents stand out? Yeah, several.

There was one with Jonathan Axelrod and two colleagues Costigan and Wilson. They were using night vision and they saw this black oval shape. But more than seeing it, they felt this intense wave of anxiety escalating into real fear as they got closer. Costigan described it as like a hole where light wasn't radiating menace. Just a feeling or something measurable.

Primarily a feeling, but so intense they felt compelled to back away quickly. And as they retreated, the fear just dissipated. Creepy. Any other examples? There's another story involving Axel Rod's family. His teenage sons reported seeing a huge like 7 foot tall wolflike creature standing on its hind legs in their backyard.

A creature like the skinwalker legends. Exactly. And the chilling part, his wife had apparently had a premonition or vision of that exact same creature just days before. Okay. The skinwalker ranch stuff is definitely pushing the boundaries.

But you said AWS have also looked at more, let's say, traditional UAP cases like the Tic Tac. Absolutely. That was a key investigation. Jonathan Axelrod with his naval intelligence background led the AWSA investigation into the 2004 Nimttz encounter, the Tic Tac incident, right? The one the Navy pilots talked about. Yeah.

He did deep dives, interviewed over a dozen pilots, radar operators, everyone involved. And here's the important bit. AWAC concluded way back then. When was this? late 2000s around 2009 2010 they concluded that the tic-tac object showed capabilities far beyond anything known from the US or China or Russia. So they determined it was truly anomalous technology years before the Pentagon's UAP task force report came out in 2021.

That's right. AWAC was way ahead on that specific case, concluding it wasn't ours or any known adversaries tech. That's significant. Were there other locations besides Skinwalker Ranch they investigated? Yeah, there was a case involving a property in Legol, California. The family there, the Scarsdales, reported a whole series of weird events, like what? Blue lights in the sky that looked like port holes on something, odd clicking noises, an object that vanished in a flash of light, red orbs flying around.

Wow. And on one occasion, they even captured video of what looked like a humanoid figure near their truck. A figure on video apparently. though and interestingly bay deployed equipment there and they had repeated problems with batteries draining instantly and equipment failing. Ah the equipment malfunction thing again seems like a pattern.

It does pop up frequently in these accounts. Another notable case was reported by a guy named Derek Jones in Georgia. What did he see? He described seeing a huge silent triangular craft with lights and it was accompanied by four smaller objects darting around erratically changing colors. the classic triangle shape. Did he experience anything else? Yes, significant physical effects afterwards.

Intense headache, nausea, a metallic taste in his mouth, and later he developed these unexplained lumps under his skin. Physical effects. That's another recurring theme. It is. And adding another later to his story, he reported being visited shortly after filing a muf report by two intimidating men in a black sedan who questioned him intensely about what he saw.

The men in black trope almost. It certainly sounds like it. AIWS also looked into historical reports of UAP incursions over nuclear weapon sites, referencing Robert Hastings work in UFOs and nukes, right? The nukes connection is a big topic. And one more quick example, the RAF Lake and Heath incident in the UK 2007. US Air Force F-15 scrambled to intercept a small black non-reflective object that radar was tracking, but they couldn't get a visual lock on it.

It remained unidentified. So across all these cases, Skinwalker, Tic Tac, Legal, Jones, Nukes, Lake and Heath, you see this mix of credible witnesses, strange phenomena, physical effects, and sometimes technological interference. Exactly. It paints a picture of something complex, not just one single thing. Okay.

This scope is incredibly broad from potential psychic stuff and creatures at the ranch to advanced tech like the tic tac. This probably brings us to a really important clarification point. A AWS SESA versus ATIP. People get these mixed up all the time, right? Constantly. And it's a crucial distinction to understand.

They were not the same thing. So, break it down for us. A AWSA. ADAP is the program we've been mostly talking about funded by that $22 million from Reed Stevens and Anuya. It was a formal DIA program managed by Dr.

Latsky and the contract was executed by Bass. Its scope was very broad, scientific looking at everything we've discussed. Okay. and ATIP. ATIP, the advanced aerospace threat identification program was different.

It was a much smaller, more informal effort that grew up later inside the Pentagon. Its focus was narrower, primarily analyzing UAP encounters reported by US military personnel, especially pilots. So, ATIP was more military focused, less broad than ASF. Yes. The big confusion came from that 2017 New York Times article.

It broke the story about Lou Alzando and ATIP, but it mistakenly linked the $22 million funding figure to AATIP. Uh, so the money was actually for AATIP, not ATIP. Correct. That $22 million was all for Atosap run by the DIA and BAS. ATIP was a separate largely unfunded initiative for a while operating within the office of the under secretary of defense for intelligence.

Got it. ADARP will the big 22minut diabetes science program. ATIP equals smaller internal Pentagon military UAP analysis group that really helps clear things up. Yeah, it's key to keeping the history straight. So given everything ADAP was looking into this vast scope, what happened to it? You mentioned the funding, right? Well, despite being planned, apparently for 5 years, AWS only ran officially for about 2 years from late 2008 to late 2010.

It was terminated prematurely. Why only two years does the book say? The reasons aren't fully detailed, but funding cycles and perhaps the controversial nature of some findings might have played a role. But even in just two years, they produced a lot. A huge amount. As mentioned in the book, BAS delivered over a 100 separate reports to the DIA plus 11 databases.

Over a 100 reports in two years. Wow. What kind of topics did they cover? Appendex A. The book actually lists the titles of 109 reports. It gives you a real sense of the sheer breadth.

Everything from propulsion concepts and energy production to human effects. And yes, reports related to skinwalker ranch phenomena. That's an incredible output. Was there any system to manage all this data? Yes. A key part of the effort was creating something called the data warehouse.

It was meant to be this big electronic repository to collect, store and analyze UAP data from all sorts of sources, military, civilian, even international data. Jacqu Valet was involved in advising on its structure. Vali is involved too. Interesting. So looking back at AWSab's brief but intense run, what were its main contributions, its legacy? I think one of the most groundbreaking things AWSab did was really focus on the human element.

The biological effects you mentioned earlier. Exactly. The physiological and medical impacts on witnesses. They were really pioneering this idea of the human body acting as a kind of readout system that encounters could leave measurable biological traces. Looking for biomarkers.

Yeah. analyzing things like immune cell counts, autoimmune markers, liver enzymes, and people who reported close encounters. It was a really novel approach trying to bring hard medical science to bear on these often anecdotal reports. That seems incredibly important. And perhaps most significantly in the long run, the work done by AIWSP, the data collected, the reports written, it directly fed into the process that eventually led to the public release of the UAP task force report in 2021.

So there's a direct line from this secretive AIWP program to the government acknowledging UAPs much more openly years later. Absolutely. AWSP laid a lot of the groundwork, even if it wasn't publicly known at the time. It started the modern conversation within certain government circles. Okay.

So wrapping this up then, if you had to boil down the key things our listeners should take away about AIWP, what would they be? I'd say number one, AIWC's core mission was serious scientific inquiry into UAPs as a potential threat, broadly defined. Number two, its scope was incredibly wide, much wider than just nuts and bolts craft. It included paranormal seeming events, biological effects, the whole gamut. Right. The skinwalker ranch side of things.

Exactly. And number three, remember that critical distinction between AIWSI and ATIP. It helps make sense of the timeline and the funding. Great summary. Okay, so for our final thought, something for you, the listener, to chew on.

Given everything AWSP uncovered, the credible sightings, the weirdness at the ranch, the documented physical and medical effects on people, the sheer amount of unknowns still, where should we go from here? What do you think are the most important questions for future UAP research? How should we, governments and the public, actually approach this incredibly complex, often deeply strange phenomenon? Maybe thinking about it through something like the six layer model mentioned in the book, looking not just at the physical object but also the whole range of effects on the environment and on human beings. Maybe that offers a more complete path forward. Something to consider.