Pentagon’s UFO office had only THREE staffers until recent weeks – Daily Mail

The Pentagon office in charge of investigating unidentified objects – like those shot down over Alaska, Michigan and the Yukon this month – only had three staffers until recent weeks, sources told DailyMail.com.

The office has allegedly been slow to grow and is desperate for funding, despite the global spotlight on unknown objects flying in America’s airspace that led to four sidewinder missile takedowns by US jets this month.

Both Democrat and Republican senators say they have complained ‘for years’ about the US military ignoring UFO reports and the security risks they entail. 

And now a group of 16 senators, led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, wrote to the Pentagon Thursday asking for more money for AARO, warning that ‘it is facing a funding shortfall that will impede its ability to fulfill its mission.’ 

‘While we recognize there was an Administration request for funds in Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) to fund basic operating expenses for AARO, it is facing a funding shortfall that will impede its ability to fulfill its mission,’ the letter said.

‘The amount outlined in the classified attachment is crucial to AARO’s scientific plan, and the lack of funding for these capabilities presents a serious impediment to AARO’s mission.’

The letter adds that 2024 budgets which are ‘all but finalized’ do not include adequate funds either.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was set up by the Pentagon in July last year to probe unidentified objects in US airspace, underwater and in space.

It took over from a previous office with the same job, which in November 2021 had just one staff member. 

‘Until recently, they had three full-time staff,’ one source close to AARO told DailyMail.com.

‘They have a couple of extra helping hands but it’s a small office in Crystal City, Virginia. However, I suspect they are in the process of bringing more on board.’

‘When I visited the place the office was pretty much a cave of the winds,’ another source close to the Office said. ‘Mostly empty desks, but there were perhaps 4-6 people around as I recall, including Sean [AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick] and his Deputy.

‘It is certainly true that AARO did not receive adequate funds to support its work to include money for R&D [research and development] and analysis.’

The source added that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is meant to assign a deputy to liaise with AARO, but has yet to do so.

Bob Salas, an Air Force veteran who was interviewed by the office last week about his historic experience with a UFO at Malmstrom Air Force Base, said his interviewers told him they now have ‘two dozen’ officials working with AARO, but are trying to bring on a further 12.

The Department of Defense (DoD) issued a statement to DailyMail.com saying AARO has more than three staff, but indicated that it wouldn’t reach ‘full operating capacity’ until next year.

‘I can tell you that AARO has more than three full-time staff, but I’m not going to comment on the details,’ spokeswoman Susan Gough told DailyMail.com.

‘AARO is growing quickly to meet its mission and is on track to reach full operating capacity in FY2024. We will continue to work across DoD, ODNI, OMB [White House Office of Management and Budget], and with Congress, to determine appropriate funding and personnel levels.’

Department of Defense disclosures say that as late as November 2021, a previous incarnation of the office only ‘consisted of one person’.

Since then it has gone through two name changes, moved departments, and still only has a handful of staff members, the sources close to the office told DailyMail.com.

One source said that military branches and intelligence agencies are now required to have staff who work with AARO, but that the process of building up the team is slow.

‘That takes some time as personnel actions always do, but that should be happening and considerably remedy the personnel shortage. Sean is also waiting for the ODNI to appoint a Deputy for example,’ the source said.

‘AARO needs RDTE [research, development, test and evaluation] money to integrate and assess technical data as well as dedicated sensors for surveillance in areas of special interest or activity.

‘They likely could use some contractor support as well to help with some of the tasks assigned by Congress to include developing the science plan and collection plan.’

The UFO office already faces a giant workload with few employees.

Last year’s annual military spending bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 27, 2021, required AARO to ‘standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents’, establish ‘procedures to require the timely and consistent reporting of such incidents’ and ‘links between unidentified aerial phenomena and adversarial foreign governments’.

The law says top officials must ‘ensure that each line organization … has adequate personnel with the requisite expertise, equipment, transportation, and other resources necessary to respond rapidly to incidents or patterns of observations involving unidentified aerial phenomena of which the Office becomes aware.’

The wording of the legislation suggests AARO may be assembling a team that investigates UFO incidents on the ground as they happen – conjuring images of the X-Files’ Mulder and Scully or Men In Black’s Agent K and Agent J.

It says AARO must ‘rapidly respond to, and conduct field investigations of, incidents involving unidentified aerial phenomena under the direction of the head of the Office.’

AARO is also required to conduct a review of all UFO records dating back to 1945 and come up with a ‘science plan’ to collect experts’ theories on how some of the more extraordinary objects might operate – including infamous ‘tic tacs’ caught on camera by Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015, allegedly flying at thousands of miles per hour with no visible means of propulsion.

The UFO office has been through several fraught reincarnations in the past 15 years, with an increasingly inscrutable alphabet soup of names.

In 2008 late Nevada Senator Harry Reid wrangled $22 million for a program called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP).

After funding ended and the program folded around 2012, a new program run out of the Office of the Undersecretary for Defense for Intelligence by Lue Elizondo was started, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

Elizondo quit in 2017, citing in his resignation letter the failure by the DoD to take seriously incursions on US airspace by unidentified objects, some exhibiting incredible capabilities of speed and agility.

The Pentagon then set up the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, which was renamed on November 23, 2021 as the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).

Danny Sheehan, a lawyer who runs a nonprofit advocating for the government to be more transparent about UFOs, said an official close to that program was ‘complaining’ to him as recently as May 2022 that they ‘don’t have any staff or employee funding’.

‘Up to that point, they only had one staff person,’ Sheehan told DailyMail.com.

‘They had not even designated Sean to be the director until days before the hearing,’ he added, referring to the historic House Intelligence Committee hearing on UFOs held on May 17, 2022 – the first public congressional hearing on the topic in over 50 years.

Finally, under the orders of the 2022 military spending bill, AOIMSG was replaced by AARO in June last year.

Prolific UFO researcher John Greenewald Jr. used the Freedom of Information Act to request all records on AOIMSG the day it was set up.

In a response letter dated October 3, 2022, the DoD told him his ‘previous request was submitted when the office consisted of one person’, but that it was now ‘currently a fully staffed office’ with ‘hundreds of files, photos, and videos being analyzed’.

To complicate matters even more, this month the White House announced it was setting up its own office to tackle UFO incidents.

Former top military intelligence official Christopher Mellon, who was involved with previous UFO investigation programs, told DailyMail.com the White House group could help bring more attention to the worrying incidents.

‘It’s a tremendous boost for efforts to at long last get serious about identifying UAP and securing US airspace,’ he said.

‘I’m sure AARO will continue to play a useful and distinct role pursuant to its mandate from Congress. Some of its roles will be subsumed by this new and a more powerful White House group but it still has unique responsibilities to include reviewing historical documentation and claims regarding alleged programs that may not have been authorized by Congress.

‘I think both outfits will have plenty to do for the foreseeable future. This is a major overdue breakthrough and some vital insights are likely in store.’