The former chief Pentagon investigator has unveiled a sensitive new government program to retrieve “suspected alien technology” in the event of a “shooting.”
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick — a longtime CIA scientist who headed the U.S. military’s UFO-hunting All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — admitted the program existed when pressed during a new interview.
The retrieval program’s protocols were for “any UAP recovery” involving “everything from balloons to drones to alleged alien technology,” as Dr. Kirkpatrick told podcast host John Michael Godier.
In recent years, Pentagon brass, NASA experts and academics have all reframed what were once called “flying saucers” as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP).
The revelation marks the first time the US government has officially recognized a UAP or UFO retrieval program, despite decades of speculation and whistleblower testimony that America has had possession of alien craft for decades.
It also comes amid multiple federal investigations into “mothership” UFOs over key U.S. military sites, releasing difficult-to-identify, let alone capture, “drone swarm” UFOs.
This week, the Pentagon’s North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) admitted that US military installations have been plagued by at least 600 so-called “drone” incursions since 2022, many of which remain unexplained.
This model of a sunken and deteriorated Soviet K-129 submarine was created by the CIA during the AZORIAN mission of 1971-74 – one of the most extensive terrestrial ‘crash retrieval’ missions secretly undertaken by the US intelligence community and now released
The now retired director of the Pentagon’s UFO office, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick (above), spent 2023 in heated public discussions with UFO whistleblowers over alleged alien spacecraft recoveries dating back to the Cold War era.
Classified documents suggest the new UFO crash recovery program began in early 2023, with a focus on “response and recovery and material transfer.”
Dr. Kirkpatrick organized high-level meetings in January and February 2023 that formalized AARO’s version of a UFO crash retrieval program — according to redacted documents released last September through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
As a planning email explained: “The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the distribution of funding within the context of the safety and security implications of UAP.”
Establishing a “receiving point” for all recovered UFO material was one of the key issues to be addressed, the meeting memo said.
“The problem is that these types of activities already fall under the collection and analysis of foreign materials,” as Dr. Kirkpatrick told Godier and the listeners of his speech. Event horizon podcast Thursday.
“There are already processes and procedures in place for many of these cases,” he continued. ‘So this conversation really had to start [asking]: How do we document that for UAP? And what procedures should we introduce?’
Since at least the beginning of the Cold War, America has had crash retrieval programs, led by the CIA but involving all branches of the US military.
These programs were designed primarily to acquire Russian and Chinese technology, including the CIA’s top-secret recovery of a nuclear-armed sunken Soviet submarine in 1974.
“Equally important was the recovery of American fragments that had ended up abroad to prevent the Soviets from finding and exploiting them,” curator said James E. David from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Dr.’s final revelation Kirkpatrick adds context to an intriguing 78-page edition of redacted plans between AARO and US Space Command (above), where the physicist had previously served as deputy director of intelligence from 2019 to 2021.
Space Command was only one of the departments that AARO consulted.
The leadership of the White House Joint Chiefs of Staff also influenced UFO recovery efforts, including the Directorates of Intelligence (J2), Operations (J3), and Strategy and Policy (J5).
“AARO is mandated by Congress to come up with not only standard reporting procedures, but also mitigation and response procedures in the event of a shooting or collection of any type of UAP,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said.
“To achieve that mitigation and response, as well as standardized reporting,” he added, “this will occur through all combatant commands.”
“Because they already have people who would collect [crashes].’
“For example, if we shoot down another Chinese balloon at high altitude, that’s the team that’s going to pick it up, right? It’s those procedures and processes about how it’s going to be informed and how we’re going to make it.”
Space Command records obtained via FOIA show that Dr. Kirkpatrick had meetings on April 10 to set up AARO’s version of a UFO-specific crash recovery program with General Glen D. VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command.
General VanHerck, who led the mission to shoot down the infamous Chinese spy balloon in February 2023, has also taken a tough stance on domestic UFO cases.
“If there are unknown objects in North America,” he said of the recent spate of baffling drone swarms over U.S. bases, “go out and identify them.”
Air Force and Intelligence veteran David Grusch (center) testified under oath before Congress in July 2023 about widespread illegalities stemming from a long-secret UFO crash retrieval program. Grusch and Dr. Kirkpatrick publicly discussed these claims that summer
Whistleblowers with knowledge of a secret UFO “reverse engineering” program have chosen to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in part because of their reported distrust of Dr. Kirkpatrick and his UFO office in the Pentagon. Above is a page from Project 1794, released in 2012
General VanHerck, who also has a leadership role over NORAD, has begged US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to authorize more electronic listening devices to solve the serious national security mysteries surrounding the drone UFOs.
But the general has also acknowledged that strict rules apply to the use of this level of spy technology on US soil.
Although Dr. Kirkpatrick told Event Horizon listeners that he found no evidence that the U.S. government has previously recovered an alien spacecraft through its previous crash retrieval programs, several of his predecessors have contradicted his claims.
Dr. James Lacatski, a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst and missile expert who headed a UFO-centric program between 2008 and 2012, has claimed that not only has the US recovered alien spacecraft, but that officials have also crawled inside them .
‘The United States’, as in Dr. Lacatski wrote about that program in a book in 2023‘was in possession of a vessel of unknown origin and had successfully gained access to its interior.’
This plane had, as he told then-U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2011, “no intakes, exhaust, wings or control surfaces.” […] no engine, fuel tanks or fuel.”
Dr. Lacatski’s book, ‘Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations’, was co-authored by Las Vegas-based investigative journalist George Knapp and biochemist Dr. Colm Kelleher.
Dr. Kelleher had worked with Dr. Lacatski worked on the private contractor side of the DIA’s once top-secret UFO program, the Advanced Weapons System. Application Program (AAWSAP).
When UFO documentary maker Jeremy Corbell asked him if he himself had entered this recovered UFO, Dr. Lacatski replied: ‘I can’t answer that.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to Dr. Lacatski for comment and will update this article if he responds.