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Disclosure Weekly: A Pentagon Insider’s Memoir, Reportedly Recovered Files and a Dispute Over NASA’s Records

Jay Stratton’s memoir, reportedly recovered AAWSAP case files and a dispute over NASA’s UAP records: the week in UAP disclosure, 9–15 October 2026. (151 characters)
4 Min Read
byLars K. Rasmussen
October 16, 2026
AI-generated illustration of a dim archive room with grey filing boxes and one open box lit by a desk lamp.
AI-generated illustration of an archive room with an open records box. It is symbolic and does not depict a real event or place.

The week of 9–15 October 2026: a former head of the Pentagon’s UAP task force makes sweeping claims without documents, the Defense Intelligence Agency is said to have found case files it long said it could not locate, and the question of NASA’s records stays open.

The most prominent development this week was a book, not a document. On 13 October, Jay Stratton, the first director of the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official, published the memoir Out of the Shadows. UAP, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, is the official term for what was once called UFOs. Stratton used the launch to make some of the strongest claims yet from a former insider. He offered no supporting records.

Stratton’s memoir: serious claims, no documents

In interviews around the launch, including with CNN and Fox News as summarised by Cybernews, Stratton said the US government possesses non-human craft and that he personally saw craft and beings. He described an 80-year secrecy system and said presidents are shielded from the truth. UNILAD, drawing on his interview with People, reports that a spokesperson said the book was vetted by 21 government agencies and departments. Stratton says he shared “as much as he legally could.”

One account stands out for being checkable in principle. Stratton says a UAP appeared during a US nuclear submarine operation off the East Coast, while a Navy P-3 patrol aircraft collected sensor data. The International Business Times reports that the date, location and mission are not established, that no agency has commented, and that the episode “has not been independently verified.” Sensor logs, flight records or crew testimony could confirm it, and none have been published.

The book’s clearance process makes it newsworthy, but clearance for publication is not endorsement of a book’s claims. The claims about recovered craft and occupants are one man’s account, and some are secondhand briefings he does not name. They are leads for oversight bodies and journalists, not findings.

Lost DIA case files reportedly located

A potentially more consequential story concerns records. According to UFO News, published on 12 October, the DIA has located case reports from the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), a DIA-funded study of UAP reports that ran from 2008 to 2010. The reports are said to contain witness interviews, medical follow-ups and analysis. They are separate from the 37 technical studies the DIA released in 2022.

The account traces to journalist George Knapp’s Mystery Wire segment of 11 October and to Dr. Colm Kelleher, a former AAWSAP investigator manager. Kelleher reportedly read out a DIA letter to Robert Bigelow’s company, which ran the program. I could not open the original segment, and the letter has not been published, so the claim rests on Knapp’s and Kelleher’s accounts.

If accurate, it matters because the DIA had long told records requesters it could not find these files. The report says the agency plans to redact them, citing witness anonymity and medical privacy, and that only one or two may appear by year-end. Knapp believes the files were hidden deliberately. Ross Coulthart, the NewsNation journalist, disagrees, noting that the Pentagon could have requested Bigelow’s own copy at any time. No evidence yet separates concealment from poor record-keeping.

NASA says it has released everything. Critics disagree.

In an interview with NewsNation, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency has “disclosed all of our materials” under the government’s PURSUE release programme, according to NewsNation’s account, republished by the International Business Times on 12 October. The interview’s date is not given. He suggested that blue lights in some Apollo 17 images could be caused by radiation affecting the camera.

Coulthart replied on his Reality Check programme that NASA may have released everything it has identified, but that this does not mean all relevant records have been found. He points to partial Apollo 12 transcripts, missing Apollo 17 photographs mentioned by astronaut Ron Evans, and incomplete Gemini 7 and Skylab material. These are his characterisations. The original Apollo 17 film remains under Pentagon and NASA review, and no final explanation has been published.

Where the official release programme stands

No new batch of the Pentagon’s PURSUE files appeared in the window. A release tracker lists six releases, from 8 May to 18 September, and no October release. Officials describe future releases as coming “on a rolling basis.” A speculative USA Herald piece guesses at 13 November, but nothing official supports that date.

Assessment

This was a week of assertions more than evidence. Stratton’s claims would carry weight if matched by records, and the reported DIA find, if confirmed and released with sensible redactions, would be the most substantive item. For now both depend on statements from people with a stake in the story. The practical tests are whether the DIA confirms the letter publicly, whether the case reports are released, and whether NASA and the Pentagon explain what review the Apollo 17 film has undergone.

Sources

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