My Journey to Become a UFO Whistleblower (02 of 03)
Part Two: Bureaucracy, Subversion, Whistleblowing
Bureaucracy, 2021-2022
In June 2021 Washington cracked a door it had kept shut for fifty years — and admitted it did not know what lay beyond. The Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) delivered a preliminary assessment of UAP to Congress — the first official, public report on UFOs since the infamously dismissive Condon Report of 1969. Its recommendations were cautious: improve military reporting, centralize data analysis, and expand resources for UAP collection — reasonable steps in the face of an officially “unknown” threat.
As expected, the UAPTF report offered no answers about UAP origin, nature, or intent — and carefully avoided any acknowledgment of the historical UFO program. Still, after decades of official silence, even caution felt like progress. I followed these events with great interest, excited to witness from the inside what felt like the next institutional baby-step towards disclosure.
Within months of releasing its groundbreaking report, the UAPTF was unceremoniously dissolved. In its place came an organization with a name only a bureaucrat could love: the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The AOIMSG proved short-lived and was superseded by AARO within the year, leaving behind a messy legacy.
At first I dismissed the chaotic shift from UAPTF to AOIMSG as part of the turbulence to be expected during a transition year. Yet, as time passed, I witnessed an internal narrowing of acceptable discourse around UAPs. Cleared groups were infiltrated, spurious security violations were filed, discussions were steered away from sensitive areas, and disinformation was circulated. For those of us watching, these were early signs that the center of gravity within the Executive Branch had turned against disclosure.
Congress responded by mandating the creation of a centralized UAP office in the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (FY22 NDAA). This became operationalized as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The Act also established a formal channel for military and intelligence whistleblowers to provide testimony directly to congressional committees. More disconcertingly, it included a carve-out permitting lawful disclosures to Congress notwithstanding NDAs, and it required federal agencies to investigate reprisals against UAP whistleblowers.
The implications of this legislation were startling: coercive non-disclosure agreements had silenced American citizens, and UAP whistleblowers were facing retaliation. In the former case, the amnesty provision implied that NDAs prevented U.S. citizens from testifying to the ‘Gang of Eight,’ even though such agreements are illegal. In the latter case, the need for explicit language prohibiting reprisals strongly suggested that Congress was powerless to stop ongoing retaliation.
Taken together, these events raised disturbing questions: had the so-called “Legacy Program” and its descendants gone rogue operating outside the checks and balances of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government? Was Congress signaling awareness of something even darker — the operational tip of a foreign faction embedded within the U.S. military-industrial-intelligence complex?
Subversion, 2022-2023
From the heart of the MIC, I watched this octopus-like enemy work to subvert and mislead Congressional oversight. What the general public did not know was that both AOIMSG and AARO operated under the control of a secret “executive council” made up of senior leaders from the defense and intelligence establishment. I first learned of this council through internal channels, then found confirmation in the reporting of journalist Matthew Ford.
In my view, the secret council functioned as the Legacy Program’s internal gatekeeper and watchdog. By controlling access requests, it effectively steered AARO investigators away from sensitive operations and high-value UAP data. Worse, the council received the full contents of AARO’s whistleblower interviews, ensuring Legacy-Program stakeholders on both sides of the Title 10 and Title 50 divide were made aware of potential leaks. In effect, the personal information of whistleblowers — and their protected disclosures — were back-channeled to the very people they were trying to expose.
More subtly, the secret council ran AARO’s congressional affairs. This ensured that one of their own sat in — and meticulously documented — every Hill meeting with AARO. The aim was clear: carefully manage the perceptions of Congress and the public. This “transparency” flowed one way, benefiting only the gatekeepers. To me AARO looked, like, at best, a good idea gone wrong or, more likely, a trap.
In that context, I began meeting others who had already gone to Congress as whistleblowers or were preparing to take that risk. Contrary to popular belief, there was no safe path to become a whistleblower. A maze of mirrors confronted those attempting to go forward. Any who did had to cut their own trail through the national security bureaucracy, almost always without the shield of legal representation.
One slow June afternoon, as I contemplated this maze and its invisible Minotaurs, a contact sent me an article in The Debrief. It was my formal introduction to David Grusch and Karl Nell. I excitedly read and reread that article, growing deeply troubled by their accounts of a Legacy Program and retaliation against UAP whistleblowers. These were highly capable men working on America’s most sensitive national security programs, yet even they were threatened to remain silent.
The public rarely sees how effective the government’s dirty tricks playbook can be when it wants to make an example. I am not a HUMINT operator, but I knew enough to recognize that Grusch and others were facing serious threats. Dave’s case was especially egregious: a senior intelligence official, a combat veteran, and a good man harassed by the security services of the nation he served. It was infuriating to know that the black helicopters had come for one of our own.
Clearly, the people who had assured me there was little risk involved were wrong — the danger was real. It was immediate. And it was coming from inside the house. I asked for an in-person meeting with a contact, laid certain cards on the table, received some new information, and agreed to meet with the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) at the Hart Senate Office Building. The public UAP hearing on July 26th, 2023 with Grusch further convinced me. A call to action had been made by an American hero risking everything: we would answer.
On the morning of August 17th, 2023, I took leave from my new job at State. Dressed in the uniform of a DC office drone, I rode an electric scooter through the swampy summer heat toward the Hill - a far cry from any heroic image. My contact was already waiting, and together we gratefully escaped into the cool marble halls of the Senate offices. As we walked, a choice weighed on me. Should I play it safe and sign in under a pseudonym, thus weakening my credibility to Congress? Or would I risk exposure and sign my true name? Ultimately, I had not come this far to stumble at the threshold — I signed my true name.
The meeting proceeded as well as could reasonably be expected. Though cautious about what I could safely disclose, I found the discussion productive and my information was treated seriously.To my deep dismay, I learned that none of the special access programs (SAPs) I described had been officially disclosed to Congress. At the end of the day I was told to expect follow-up meetings with the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and later with the House Intelligence Committee (HASC) and Armed Services Committees (HPSCI).
I was assured that no one intended me harm, and told that future meetings would cover what I’d held back at the first; the process felt on track. Stepping into the hot August sun, I was almost embarrassed by how much I’d worried. Yes, the programs I’d reported to Congress had been confirmed as illegal, but I was told an orderly resolution was underway. I went back to work, turning my thoughts to how I might help the disclosure movement in Washington through more conventional channels.
By mid-September 2023 this naive illusion of progress was gone. I received unsettling details of specific retaliatory incidents. Devices in my possession began behaving strangely — batteries suddenly drained, specific calls had chronic interference, text inputs lagged, and strangers rang from strange zip codes at odd hours. Unexplained new faces moved through the cleared community and related facilities with uncanny ease — all while making probing inquiries. Things were starting to feel crowded.
These and other unpleasant experiences convinced me that the “antibodies” were very real and very active around Washington. Worse, news came that the UAP Disclosure Act was going to be blocked in the House. Apparently there was not enough political capital to overcome backroom opposition in Washington. But a glimmer of hope came in the form of a blunt message from Congress: “We need people to start fires, or else the UAPDA will fail.”
Whistleblowing, 2024-2025
My options to start fires were limited — I remained bound by my oaths of secrecy — but I considered releasing a redacted version of the report provided to SSCI. At the time, the only option I knew of was the route taken by David Grusch and Lue Elizondo: the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR). From their experiences, I learned that the DOPSR process could take many months to over a year. Fortunately, I soon discovered that the Department of State (DOS) maintained its own clearance process through the Bureau of Global Public Affairs. Being an active State Department employee settled the matter — I would pursue clearance for public release through DOS and hope for a fast timeline.
During the writing process of the Immaculate Constellation Report, I made a parallel effort to find allies within the Executive Branch. As part of that effort I provided a classified version of my report to DOS leadership, briefed them on my whistleblower status with Congress, shared my plan to submit a redacted report for clearance, and formally requested guidance on how to proceed. By the summer of 2024, the Department of State had approved my report for public release, with no redactions.
From that point events moved quickly. I met with Michael Shellenberger in California, where he agreed to break the story on the “IMCON” Report, and granted my request for anonymity. Michael’s groundbreaking article went live in October of 2024 and made an impact outside of traditional UFO circles. Consequently, he was invited to testify at the upcoming second Congressional hearing on UAPs. This would prove to be a fortuitous circumstance.
Shortly before the hearing, I met with Michael and Jeremy Corbell to finalize preparations. Together we reviewed the final 12-page Immaculate Constellation report. Jeremy Corbell would take the final copy — verified and marked by myself — and give it to Congress for submission onto the record. Michael would testify to both its contents and his own extensive UAP investigations. The hearing would also featured testimony from pro-disclosure allies such as Lue Elizondo, Timothy Gallaudet, and Mike Gold. This felt like the best possible way to safely and anonymously deliver my report to the public.
The November 13th hearing felt like a genuine, albeit moderate, success for disclosure. Four exceptional witnesses testified under oath to the reality of UAPs, and 11-pages of my 12-page report made it onto the record. Behind the scenes, a balance was struck between public interest and national security, though tilted too far toward the status quo in my opinion. The public and pro-disclosure movement obviously wished for more concrete legislative outcomes, but with a controversial administration returning to power, the lame duck effect took hold.
Dramatic events quickly overtook the November 13th UAP hearing. The public’s attention shifted to the New Jersey Drone Flap, the suspicious death of Matthew Livelsberger, the proxy war between Israel and Iran, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the endless churn of domestic crises du jour. Lost in the noise and de-prioritized, the UAPDA quietly failed to pass for a second time.
Concludes in Part Three…
"There is a God", please explain.
Matt, UFOs are really a story about time travel, aren't they? Shoutout to Psicoactivo.