Former Pentagon UFO hunter says he has seen non-human beings and craft
On October 13, a memoir by Jay Stratton, the first director of the Pentagon's UAP task force, was published. In the book and in related interviews, he makes serious claims about secret crash retrieval programs, an observation carried out with a submarine, and Roswell. He has not yet presented any evidence, and the Pentagon has previously denied a cover-up.
Jay Stratton spent roughly 32 years in military and intelligence service. He was chief of air and space warfare at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and he worked on investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) for 16 years. In 2020, he was appointed the first director of the Pentagon's UAP task force, and he retired in 2022. This makes him the highest-ranking former government official so far to speak publicly about the subject.
The 293-page book, published by HarperCollins, is titled Out of the Shadows: Revealing the Truth About Non-Human Intelligent Life. According to a representative of the publisher, the manuscript was reviewed by 21 government agencies and departments before it was cleared for publication. Stratton said he shared as much as he legally could.
What does Stratton claim?
In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News' Special Report, Stratton said that the government and defense contractors both possess craft of non-human origin. According to him, there is an ongoing program aimed at acquiring and reverse-engineering such technology, which he called a secret Cold War-style race. He also claimed that he has seen non-human beings and craft with his own eyes. He did not name any contractors or locations.
One of the most widely quoted stories involves a submarine. According to Stratton, a nuclear submarine and a sensor-equipped P-3 Navy reconnaissance aircraft were deployed off the U.S. East Coast. A UAP appeared on the very first deployment, and the aircraft recorded data on it. The officers who witnessed it were then called to the Pentagon so the incident could be officially documented. In the interview, he did not say that anything was captured or recovered during the operation. IBTimes notes that the materials it reviewed also do not make clear whether Stratton himself directed the submarine deployment.
The book also covers Roswell, but this is a secondhand claim. Stratton cites an unnamed source, according to whom the 1947 crash really happened, and the craft was retrieved together with the bodies found aboard. According to the source, one being survived the impact, stayed alive for a while, and then died because it would not accept food. (For more on this and the official background of the Roswell case: Living beings at Roswell? What Stratton's source claims, and what the official records show)
Stratton says his interest began in 2005. That year, a colleague showed him classified footage of a triangular object recorded near a nuclear missile silo. He also claims that as he dug deeper, the phenomena began watching him and his family as well, and that this stopped only after his retirement.
In an interview with People magazine, Stratton said that there is ongoing UFO activity over sensitive military and nuclear sites even today, and that the public has the right to know about it. In the book, he also claims that military contractors hold at least a dozen crashed craft, and that because of contact with non-human intelligence, some people resigned, suffered mental breakdowns, and some took their own lives. He did not provide specific cases or evidence for these either. AARO, the Pentagon's office dealing with anomalous phenomena, wrote in a report released in March 2024 that there is no verifiable evidence that any U.S. agency or company possesses extraterrestrial technology.
What do we know, and what don't we?
What is certain is that Stratton did hold senior positions in U.S. UAP investigations, his book has been published, and it went through the mandatory government review. That review, however, examines whether the text reveals classified information. It says nothing about whether the claims are true.
The book's most serious claims (non-human craft, a reverse-engineering program, Roswell) are not supported by any publicly presented document, photograph, sensor data or independent witness. Moreover, the Roswell story is not Stratton's own experience but the account of an anonymous source. No official body has confirmed the details of the submarine operation either.
The sober take
Stratton is the highest-ranking former government official so far to speak publicly about non-human craft and beings, so his claims are getting a lot of attention. However, the government review of the book only means that it does not reveal classified information, not that its content is true. The most serious claims rest on anonymous sources and unverifiable personal accounts, and in 2024 the Pentagon's UFO office found no evidence of anyone possessing extraterrestrial technology.
Sources
- Stratton Roswell claims
- Former Pentagon UFO Chief Claims Roswell Included 'Non-Human Bodies' That Were 'Refusing Food or Contact'
- AARO Releases Findings on Suspected Extraterrestrial Alloy