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Navy Admiral describes Reverse Engineering program involving extraterrestrial spacecraft

[Cont. from Part 1] In the transcript/summary of a 2002 conversation between Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson and Dr. Eric Davis it was revealed that a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle was being reverse engineered by a major aerospace company. Wilson first learned about the classified UFO program through a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) document shared with him at a confidential April 10, 1997 meeting with Dr. Steven Greer, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, and Navy Commander Willard Miller.

The recently released transcript describes what Admiral Wilson [TW] told Dr. Davis [EWD] about Wilson’s efforts up to June 1997 to learn the truth about the classified UFO program, and the associated reverse engineering effort revealed to him in the April meeting.

EWD: Okay then, what happened in April-June ’97?

TW: After parting with Miller (week later, he thinks) – I made calls, knocked on a few doors, talked to people – went on for 45 days (thereabouts) on and off

    • Suggestion came from Ward (Gen. M. Ward) to go through the records groups files (like an index system) in OUSDAT (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology)
    • Ran into Bill Perry in May ’97 – talked about this quietly – he suggested the same thing
    • They told me of a special projects record group not belonging to usual SAP – a special subset of the unacknowledged/carve-outs/waived programs – not belonging to usual SAP divisions as organized in ’94 by Perry himself – set apart from rest but buried/covered by conventional SAPs. (Transcript/Summary, pp. 6-7)

Wilson was here referring to different categories of Special Access Programs (SAPs), where the most important – unacknowledged/carve-outs/waived – were hidden behind conventional SAPs.

The method of hiding the most highly classified programs behind less classified ones was verified in one of the NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden called Sentry Eagle. It graphically depicted how Exceptionally Compartmented Information (ECI – an Intelligence Community classification similar to an Unacknowledged SAP used by the Pentagon) would be hidden behind a Non-ECI Program (similar classification status to a conventional SAP)

NSA leaked slide showing SENTRY EAGLE program where different DHS, DOD, and NSA clasified programs are hidden within less classified national programs. (NSA)

Wilson went on to describe the aerospace company that ran the classified reverse engineering effort, without naming it:

EWD: Who was the project contractor or USG agency that runs the program?

TW: An aerospace technology contractor – one of the top ones in US

EWD: Who?

TW: Core secret – can’t tell

EWD: Defense contractor?

TW: Yes, the best one of them.

The reference to the “best one of them” firmly points to Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks division which has a long track record of successfully working on cutting edge aerospace programs. For example, Skunkworks former Director, Ben Rich, was fond of ending lectures by declaring: “We now have the technology to take ET home”.  

Slide Ben Rich used to end lectures with comment about taking ET home

Wilson then explained what happened when he discovered which company was running the classified UFO program and contacted it to gain access:

EWD: What happened with you found contractor?

TW: I made several calls (end of May ’97), first to Paul, Mike & Perry to confirm I had right contractor and program manager to talk to.

EWD: They confirm?

TW: Yes.

EWD: Then?

TW: (End of May ’97) Made three calls to the program manager – one of them conference call with security director and corporate attorney.

Confusion on their part at to why I was looking for them and what I wanted from them or wanted to know about.

Very testy tone from all of them. [Transcript/Summary, pp. 8-9]

Wilson next explains how he was denied access to the classified UFO program by the three corporate officials (program manager, security director, and attorney):

TW: I told threesome I wanted formal briefing, tour, etc. – was exploiting my regulatory authority as Deputy Director DIA/Assistant Joint Chief of Staff J-2 – Told them my not being briefed was oversight they needed to correct – I demanded!

TW: They needed to discuss this (his demand) so hung up. Got called 2 days later and they said they don’t want to talk on phone and arranged for face-to-face meeting at their facility.

EWD: Did you go?

TW: Yes, ten days later (mid-June or so). Flew out there

    • Met in their conference room in their secure vault
    • Three of them show up

EWD: 3 guys with whom you had telecon?

TW: Yes, same 3

    • Security director (NSA-retired, a CI expert)
    • Program director
    • Corporate attorney
    • Called themselves “the watch committee” or gate keepers [Transcript/Summary, p. 10]

Wilson describes how the “watch committee” told him about a prior incident years ago where the present security system was set up after an agreement was reached with the Pentagon’s Special Access Programs Oversight Committee (SAPOC), which was overhauled in 1994, very likely due to the incident Wilson was told about. The agreement gave the corporate contractor running certain categories of SAPs the authority to restrict access to UFO related programs from Pentagon officials regardless of their rank and position:

– [TW] Said after that episode a formal agreement was struck with Pentagon people (SAPOC) to prevent this in future – didn’t want a repeat

–      Special criteria were established in agreement

    • A special circumstance that must meet rigorous access criteria set by contractor committee
      • No USG personnel are to gain access unless they met the criteria – to be administered by contractor committee (program director, attorney, security director) irregardless of the tickets and position USG personnel possess
      • Literally their way or the highway. [Transcript/Summary p. 11]

The “watch committee” told Admiral Wilson that despite him being Deputy Director of the DIA and Vice Director of Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that he was not on the “bigot list” – those with a “need to know” access – who could be briefed about the UFO program:

TW: They said my tickets were all confirmed and valid, but I was not on the bigot list

    • My tickets alone were not enough
    • I didn’t meet the special criteria so need to know authorization was not being granted….

TW: Argued more – they wouldn’t accept my arguments that they fell under my statutory oversight and regulatory authority as Deputy Director DIA – under purview for my right to have need to know (oversight, audit, justification issues, etc., etc.)

    • Regulatory and statutory authority as Deputy Director DIA not relevant or pertinent to nature of their program!
    • Then they pulled out their bigot list to convince me otherwise – several pages long – dated 1990, updated 1993. [Transcript/Summary, pp. 11-12]

The transcription goes on to cover Wilson and Davis’ conversation about names on the bigot list, and who in the Pentagon and White House was allowed access:

EWD: Who was on it? Recognize names?

TW: That is core secret.

Willing to say that most were program employees – names and titles (job titles) – civilians – didn’t recognize any military personnel – could be there.

EWD: Any politicians?

TW: No

    • No White House names, no President!
    • No Congressional people
    • No Congressional staffers

EDW: Any in Clinton or Bush Sr. Administrations?

TW: No! But handful of names were Pentagon individuals I recognized – few from OUSDAT, one from another department, another at the NSC who is Pentagon SES employee. [Transcript/Summary, p. 12]

Stunningly, Wilson learned that no members of the Legislative (Congress) or Executive (White House) branches of government were briefed about the corporate UFO program. Only a few Pentagon officials were given access. This corroborates what Greer and others have been claiming for decades over the unconstitutional nature of the secrecy system developed for the UFO issue.

Next, the transcript elaborates on how Wilson tried to gain access by identifying the type of program that was underway attempting to link it to his official field of responsibility as Deputy Director DIA:

– [TW] Program Manager said they were

    • Not any weapons program
    • Not any intelligence program
    • Not any special ops or logistics program
    • Doesn’t fit these categories [Transcript/Summary, p. 12]

Finally, Wilson was told that the UFO program was a reverse engineering program of a recovered extraterrestrial vehicle, exactly what Greer, Mitchell, and Miller, had told him at the April 10, 1997 meeting. Importantly, Wilson expressed his surprise thinking that the UFO term was merely a cover for acquired foreign aerospace technology built by the USSR or China:

    • I asked what they were then
    • Loud groan from Program Manager
    • Security Director and attorney say it’s okay to say it.

EWD: Say what?

TW: There were a reverse engineering program –

    • Something recovered years ago in the past
    • Technological hardware was recovered
    • So I thought they meant recovered Soviet/Chinese, etc. hardware and reverse engineer it – like a missile or intel platform or aircraft – actually came to meeting expecting to find a sensitive foreign collection and reverse engineering operation – thought “UFOs” used as a cover for that –
    • So I said that and they said they weren’t that either
    • They had (program manager talking) a craft – an intact craft they believed could fly …
    • Program manager said they didn’t know where it was from [they had some ideas on this] – it was technology that was not of this Earth – not made by man – not by human hands [Transcript/Summary, pp. 12-13]

Wilson next described that he was told the corporation had encountered great difficulty in its reverse engineering efforts:

    • [TW] Said they were trying to understand and exploit technology: their program was going on for years and years with very slow progress
    • Agonizingly slow with little or no success – painful lack of collaboration to get help from outside community of experts and facilities to assist effort – must remain isolated and use own facilities and cleared personnel – tough environment to work – about 400-800 (bigot list count) workers varying in number funding or personnel changes. [Transcript/Summary, pp. 12-13]

When Wilson threatened to go to the Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC) he was told to go ahead by the corporate “watch committee” and was eventually denied access by the Senior Review Group running SAPOC Pentagon committee set up to oversee Special Access Programs:

TW: Before last week of June (’97)

    • They told me (TW) that they were sustaining the contractor, that I was to immediately drop the matter and let it go – forget about it as I did not have purview over their project, it didn’t fall within my oversight, etc.
    • I became very angry – started yelling when should have kept my mouth shut…
    • … Senior Review Group chairman said if I didn’t follower their suggestion that I would not see Director DIA promotion, get early retirement, lose 1 or 2 stars along the way
    • Really incredibly angry – upset over this – livid!!!
    • Why such a big deal over this considering the position of trust I have in the Pentagon – I do have relevant regulatory/statutory authority over their program – that’s my position!!! [Transcript/Summary, p. 14

The refusal to grant access was the critical moment that Wilson realized that the corporation was being supported by a powerful group linked to the Pentagon to hide the corporation’s reverse engineering of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, as an Unacknowledged/waived SAP, hidden within the labyrinth of conventional SAPs conducted by the Pentagon and its corporate contractors.

The refusal was ultimately why Wilson believed that a UFO cabal/ MJ-12 was in charge of UFO related projects, and even senior officials at the DIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were out of the loop. This is what he told Commander Miller back in June 1997, who in turn relayed Wilson’s conclusions to Steven Greer and Edgar Mitchell who respectively revealed more details over the next two decades.

[Continued in Part 3. Click here for Part 1]

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

[Note: The 15 page leaked Document is available here]

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Admiral Tom Wilson, Edgar Mitchell, extraterrestrial technology, Reverse Engineering, UFO