Aug 23, 2023
Written By [Christopher Sharp](https://www.liberationtimes.com/?author=610434e320e3e945538177b1)
Written by [Christopher Sharp](https://twitter.com/ChrisUKSharp) \- 23 August 2023
It was an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) office designed for failure.
And it was located within another office, one accused of persecuting UAP whistleblowers.
At one time, it was led by a now-tarnished Executive Secretary known for his vendetta against the Director of a former UAP program.
And now under a new name, the UAP office is missing in action, albeit for the private outbursts on LinkedIn by its current Director.
If the Pentagon intended this to be their approach to a UAP investigation, then it appears designed to obscure the truth, create obstacles for Congress and the public, and downplay or dismiss the concerns of whistleblowers.
And that’s exactly how it has played out so far. Although we can only hope for better once its expected and delayed unclassified report is released in the upcoming weeks.
But it could have been different.
Step back into August 2020. The UAP Task Force (UAPTF) was formally established by then Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist.
Its mission?
To detect, analyze and catalogue UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.
Upon the enactment of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in January 2021, the UAPTF was entrusted with the challenging assignment of delivering a report to Congress within a mere six-month timeframe.
Faced with a colossal endeavour and limited resources at its disposal, the Task Force encountered a further setback when its Director, Jay Stratton, was reassigned to different responsibilities – a move that could be interpreted as a potential act of deliberate hindrance.
Consequently, the responsibility of crafting the report fell upon two additional members of the UAPTF, notwithstanding their existing full-time obligations and lack of budget.
It was largely owing to their unwavering dedication to transparency and duty that a timely report was successfully delivered to Congress. This achievement created the spark, which propelled us to the present moment, where we stand on the cusp of direct Presidential engagement with this potentially paradigm-altering topic.
Through the dedicated efforts of David Grusch, a former senior intelligence officer who courageously stepped forward as a whistleblower, the UAPTF emerged as the catalyst for an extraordinary revelation.
Leveraging Grusch’s extensive clearances and adeptness in navigating the intricacies of the intelligence community and Special Access Programs, an uncomfortable discovery came to light. This discovery exposed alleged covert activities related to the acquisition and reverse engineering of non-human craft, marking a moment of profound significance.
However, despite unearthing substantial gaps in domain awareness and the seismic implications stemming from Grusch’s findings, the UAPTF faced dissolution. It was thrown to the dumps – its excellent personnel were dispersed and its efforts squandered.
Rather than persisting in its vital efforts to unearth the full scope of the severe security threats posed by UAPs, along with the purported cover-ups and resulting persecutions, the Pentagon opted to relegate the UAP topic to obscurity. This was achieved by instituting the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).
America’s UAP investigation was removed from the hands of those who sought to seek the truth and was instead placed with the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSDI&S).
When the OUSDI&S was proposed as the home of AOIMSG, former Director of the [Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Aerospace_Threat_Identification_Program) (AATIP), Lue Elizondo pleaded:
“Please, please, please contact your representatives and let them know this is unacceptable and not in the best interest of the American people. The \[O\]USDI \[&S) is the one single office that has continuously lied about this topic and persecuted whistleblowers.”\
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It was a move comparable to allowing President Nixon to lead the Watergate investigation.\
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At the time of AOIMSG’s creation, the concerns [were all laid out by Liberation Times](https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/is-a-pentagon-spokesperson-attempting-to-avoid-congressional-ufo-legislation).\
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Disregarding the concerns voiced by Elizondo and a multitude of others, Congress, by permitting the Pentagon to situate AOIMSG within the OUSDI&S, wasted a precious opportunity to unveil possible serious misconduct and vulnerabilities in national security.\
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At the time, Congress had been creating its own legislation, covering its own successor to the UAPTF. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand had put forward an amendment (known as the Gillibrand-Rubio Amendment) within the National Defense Authorization Act, which would have established an alternative replacement for the UAPTF, named the ‘Anomaly Surveillance, Tracking and Resolution Office’ (ASTRO).\
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Other than being situated within the OUSDI&S, of great concern was the fact that AOIMSG exhibited significant deficiencies in its scope when compared to the ASTRO, including:\
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– No reference to UAP being transmedium – the Group would concentrate on airborne phenomena, ignoring any ocean and space activity that had been observed\
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– No requirement for the development and implementation of a plan for collection and analysis\
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– No application to incidents that occurred outside of Special Use Airspace\
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– No reference to unclassified public briefings\
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– No study into the physiological impact of UAP, which could indeed be impacting military personnel\
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– No provision for the recruitment of contractors or civilian experts\
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– No requirement to consult foreign nations\
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– No requirement to examine technical issues, such as observed non-combustion propulsion\
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– No accountability or explanation was required for agencies that withheld UAP data\
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– There was no mention of the threat posed to nuclear assets, which may represent an urgent national security risk\
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– No requirement was included to provide unclassified findings to Congress and the public.\
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The flawed remit of the AOIMSG was proof that, at best, the Pentagon and intelligence community were ignorant; at worst, they were hostile regarding the investigation of UAP.\
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Unfortunately, Congress was unable to push back against the Pentagon’s AOIMSG enough – despite provisions of ASTRO being included within AOIMSG, the OUSDI&S retained control over the office.\
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AOIMSG represented a giant leap backwards. And regrettably, [it was a creation directed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks in close collaboration with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2853121/dod-announces-the-establishment-of-the-airborne-object-identification-and-manag/).\
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Compounding the issue, both Haines and Hicks made matters worse upon its establishment.\
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In an attempt to exercise oversight over AOIMSG, the Deputy Secretary directed OUSDI&S to establish the Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Council (AOIMEXEC), a body consisting of members from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community.\
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This Council aimed to facilitate interagency representation within the U.S. government.\
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Why was it regrettable?\
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Remarkably, the role of Executive Secretary was assigned to none other than the former disgraced Director of Defense Intelligence, Garry Reid. This appointment came on th
*[Read full article at Liberation Times]*