Former CIA Official Involvement in Movement of Alleged Material Recovered from a UAP Crash Denied on the Record
AARO interviewed and obtained a signed statement from the former CIA official who was specifically named by AARO interviewees. The former official stated he had no knowledge of any aspect of this allegation.[99] The allegation included the claimed crash of the objects, the possession of the resultant material by the USG and the private sector, and the attempt to transfer material that was purported to be of off-world origin. This reverse-engineering program allegedly occurred at the named facility in the 2009–2010 time frame. Interviewees allege that a separate interviewee[100] from the facility attempted to set up a meeting to return material to the USG in 2010, but that the former CIA official stopped the transfer from industry to the USG. The interviewee alleged to have stopped the transfer denied these allegations.[101] The former CIA official stated that he had no knowledge of any extraterrestrial material in the possession of the USG or any other organization.[102] The official signed a Memorandum for the Record (MFR) attesting to the truthfulness of his statements.
The 1961 Special National Intelligence Estimate on "UFOs" Assessed to be Not Authentic
An interviewee[103] brought to AARO's attention the existence of an alleged Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE), dated November 5, 1961, titled: "Critical Aspects of Unidentified Flying Objects and the Nuclear Threat to the Defense of the United States and its Allies." Through open-source research, AARO obtained a copy of the document. After discussions with the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI), the NSA Scientific Studies Board (one of the alleged authors), and research comparing this document to a number of known SNIEs and National Intelligence Estimates, AARO concluded the document is not authentic. NSA archives were searched because "the NSA Scientific Advisory Board" purportedly was one of the document's authors. CIA/CSI and NSA did not possess nor have knowledge of the document. AARO found the document lacked IC tradecraft standards and possessed significant inconsistencies with SNIE's and National Intelligence Estimates of the general time period. These inconsistencies included: the document's short length, incorrect formatting, inconsistent branding, lack of a dissemination block and coordination language, loose narrative style, convoluted logic, imprecise and casual language, and its superficial treatment of globally significant issues.
Aliens Observing Material Test a Likely Misunderstanding of an Authentic, Non-UAP Program Activity
AARO determined this account most likely amounted to a misunderstanding. The conversation likely referenced a test and evaluation unit that had a nickname with "alien" connotations at the specific installation mentioned. The nature of the test described by the interviewee[104] closely matched the description of a specific materials test conveyed to AARO investigators.
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