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James T. Lacatski

AAWSAP

DIA program manager whose Skinwalker visit helped launch AAWSAP and shape later insider accounts of UAP investigations

Disclosure Rating — 6/10

James T. Lacatski is the Defense Intelligence Agency figure whose name appears on released advanced-aerospace papers as the AAWSA program manager, and whose later books with Colm Kelleher and George Knapp became the main insider account of the DIA program now associated with AAWSAP, AATIP, BAASS, Robert Bigelow, and Skinwalker Ranch.12

  Why the Date Is 2008

The relevance date in this dossier is September 22, 2008, the award date shown on the DIA contract form for HHM402-08-C-0072, rather than an unsourced personal birth date.3 That contract lists Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies in Las Vegas as the contractor and shows a 10millionbase−yearaward,whileaseparateOfficeoftheUnderSecretaryofDefensememorandumstatesthatSenatorsHarryReidandDanielInouyesponsoreda10 million base-year award, while a separate Office of the Under Secretary of Defense memorandum states that Senators Harry Reid and Daniel Inouye sponsored a 10 million FY 2008 add and that a $12 million FY 2010 add had been allocated for the same DIA effort.34

  Defense Warning Office Paper Trail

Released Defense Intelligence Reference Documents identify Lacatski as James T. Lacatski, D.Eng., AAWSA program manager, Defense Intelligence Agency, CLAR/DWO-3, in the Defense Warning Office's advanced-aerospace report series.1 The public paper trail does not establish every biographical detail repeated in UFO media, but it does anchor his official role inside the DIA Defense Warning Office, the same office that sponsored reports on invisibility cloaking, vacuum propulsion, metamaterials, human effects, power generation, temporal translation, and other far-term aerospace subjects.15

  The Skinwalker Trigger

Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp frame the program's origin around Lacatski's 2007 interest in Skinwalker Ranch and his reported anomalous experience there.2 Kelleher later wrote in EdgeScience that Lacatski's 2007 ranch experience was a significant instigation for the AAWSAP/BAASS program, while Gideon Lewis-Kraus reported that a Bigelow affiliate described the encounter as a topological figure appearing in mid-air and changing from a pretzel-like form to a Mobius-strip-like form.67 Those descriptions are witness and insider accounts, not instrumented public evidence, so the dossier treats them as the claimed catalyst rather than as independently verified physical proof.67

  Reid, Stevens, Inouye, and Bigelow

The 2021 book's foreword by Harry Reid says Reid, Ted Stevens, and Daniel Inouye decided to allocate $22 million to start AAWSAP, after which a government request for proposals was issued and Bigelow's company secured the bid.2 The official Deputy Secretary of Defense packet corroborates the broad mechanics: Reid's office referred to the effort as the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program, the official DIA contract was AAWSAP, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies was the sole bidder, and the research was directed toward revolutionary future aerospace technologies.4

  The Contract Lacatski Carried

The public solicitation described the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program as a far-term foreign-threat study through 2050, with work areas including lift, propulsion, control, power generation, spatial and temporal translation, materials, signature reduction, human interface, human effects, armament, and supporting peripheral areas.8 A contract security attachment names Lacatski as the Contracting Officer or Contracting Officer Representative contact for HHM402-08-R-0211, tying his name directly to the contract administration record rather than only to later memoir or interview accounts.9

  What AAWSAP Produced

DIA briefing material says BAASS delivered 26 detailed research reports by June 30, 2009, twice the minimum requirement, and that option-year funding was expected to support continuation of the contract.10 Another DIA memo says the first 26 reports were followed by 12 additional reports in FY 2010, creating the public basis for the common count of 38 AAWSAP technical reports or DIRDs.5 Those records support the technical-paper side of the program more strongly than they support every later claim about case files, exotic materials, or paranormal effects.510

  AAWSAP, AATIP, and the Name Problem

AARO's 2024 historical report says AAWSAP and AATIP were used interchangeably in some official documentation, but that AATIP was never an official DoD program in the same way AAWSAP was.11 AARO also says the contract statement of work did not specifically outline UFO or UAP investigation, while the selected private organization conducted UFO research with the support of the DIA program manager, including review of Project BLUE BOOK and private cases, interviews of UAP observers, and work on alleged paranormal activity at the contractor's Utah property.11 That official account narrows the claim: AAWSAP was real and DIA-managed, but the public AATIP label later blended official contract work with an informal UAP community of interest inside DoD.11

  BAASS, Kelleher, Knapp, and the Data Claims

Kelleher wrote that within five months of the 2008 AAWSAP start, BAASS had recruited about 50 PhD and masters-level scientists, technicians, engineers, analysts, military-intelligence professionals, program managers, and security officers, and that BAASS delivered more than 100 reports on UFO performance and medical, psychological, and physiological effects.6 Knapp's September 9, 2025 written testimony to the House Oversight Committee similarly states that Kelleher was BAASS's principal manager in Las Vegas, that BAASS hired about 50 full-time investigators, and that AAWSAP/BAASS generated more than three dozen DIRDs, more than 100 papers, and a data warehouse of more than 240,000 case files.12 Knapp also testified that Bigelow and a trusted AAWSAP colleague negotiated with senior Lockheed Martin executives for BAASS to receive unusual material, a claim this dossier treats as testimony because the opened official records do not confirm a completed transfer or current recovered-material custody.1213 Those are high-signal insider claims from a program co-author and a congressional witness, but they are not the same evidentiary layer as the released DIA contract and report-list records.512

  KONA BLUE and Later Craft Claims

Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp's 2023 follow-up, Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations, is cataloged as an RTMA book by the three authors and its public description attributes to Lacatski a 2011 Capitol meeting statement that the United States possessed a craft of unknown origin and had gained access to its interior.14 AARO's KONA BLUE summary confirms a narrower official fact pattern: KONA BLUE was a proposed DHS Prospective Special Access Program traced to AAWSAP/AATIP, was never approved or formally established, received no materials or funding, and left AAWSAP/AATIP information in DIA archived holdings.13 The craft statement therefore belongs to Lacatski and his co-authors' public claim set, while the official record currently verifies the proposed KONA BLUE successor effort but not transferred material or recovered craft custody.1413

  Evidentiary Bottom Line

The strongest public record establishes Lacatski as the DIA AAWSA program manager named on released DIRDs, connects him to AAWSAP contract administration, documents BAASS's 10millionbase−yearcontractand10 million base-year contract and 12 million continuation allocation, and confirms a 26-plus-12 report sequence.135 The next layer comes from Lacatski, Kelleher, Knapp, and Reid: the Skinwalker catalyst, the $22 million political origin story, the scale of BAASS field investigations, the data warehouse, and the later craft-origin claim.261214 AARO's historical material adds an important constraint, describing official concerns about the program, distinguishing AAWSAP from the later informal AATIP label, and stating that KONA BLUE never received material or funding.1113

  References

  References

  1. Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Warning Office, Ulf Leonhardt, Invisibility Cloaking: Theory and Experiments, DIA-08-1003-001, March 2, 2010 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Government's Secret UFO Program, RTMA, 2021 excerpt ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. Defense Intelligence Agency, Solicitation/Contract/Order for Commercial Items, contract HHM402-08-C-0072, September 22, 2008 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Senator Harry Reid's Request to Put the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program Under Special Access Protection, 2009 packet ↩ ↩2

  5. Defense Intelligence Agency, Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program information memo, U-10-2552A ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. Colm A. Kelleher, The Pentagon's Secret UFO Program, the Hitchhiker Effect, and Models of Contagion, EdgeScience no. 50, June 2022 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Gideon Lewis-Kraus, How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously, The New Yorker, April 30, 2021 ↩ ↩2

  8. Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement of Objectives for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, July 18, 2008 ↩

  9. Defense Intelligence Agency, Solicitation/Contract/Order for Commercial Items, HHM402-08-R-0211v3 security attachment ↩

  10. Defense Intelligence Agency, Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Contract Status, May 8, 2009 ↩ ↩2

  11. All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Historical Record Report Volume 1, 2024 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  12. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  13. All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, History and Origin of KONA BLUE ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  14. James T. Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp, Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations, RTMA, 2023 (Google Books listing) ↩ ↩2 ↩3

Born on September 22, 2008

7 min read