James Lacatski
PersonJames Lacatski
PersonJames T. Lacatski – American rocket scientist and former DIA intelligence officer; founding manager of AAWSAP.
James T. Lacatski – American rocket scientist and former DIA intelligence officer; founding manager of AAWSAP.
James T. Lacatski is an engineer, former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer, and one of the founders of AAWSAP—Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, a U.S. government–funded initiative into unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). He holds a B.S., M.S., and Doctor of Engineering degree in Nuclear Engineering, with expertise in directed‐energy systems, fusion plasmas, and missile threats. Before AAWSAP, Lacatski worked at the DIA’s Defense Warning Office, where he specialized in strategic foreign missile systems and annual missile threat assessments.
Lacatski proposed and marshaled the creation of AAWSAP around 2007, in partnership with colleagues and with support from Senator Harry Reid and others. The program was contracted to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) in 2008, with Lacatski serving as Program Manager and Contracting Officer Representative. AAWSAP operated for about two to three years, employed roughly 50 full‐time investigators—many former military or law enforcement—produced tens of millions of dollars in research funding, and oversaw what supporters describe as the largest catalog of UAP‐related case reports compiled to that date.
Public accounts attribute to Lacatski a pivotal early experience: on visit to Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, he reportedly witnessed what he described as a “semi‐opaque, yellowish, tubular structure”—an observation that he considered technically anomalous and influential in shaping his belief that UFO phenomena might intersect with national security or advanced technology threat concerns. According to his words, some AAWSAP work went beyond observing sightings, extending into material studies, human effects, propulsion, power generation, and broader aerospace weapons research.
Where Lacatski’s role enters the ongoing disclosure debate is through these claims: that the U.S. government obtained and explored “craft of unknown origin,” sometimes without recognizable physical propulsion features; that AAWSAP wasan unusually large, technically detailed, but largely undocumented program; and that its records (including email archives) and relationships with later programs like AATIP and Kona Blue are contested or partially opaque. He has co-authored at least one insider book, “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon,” with Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, partially revealing what he says is previously untold detail about AAWSAP’s investigations and their significance.
Dr. Lacatski remains a figure of interest among researchers and policymakers exploring UAP because his claims challenge standard narratives: about the scale of government involvement, the technical scope of investigations, and the possibility that anomalies might represent something beyond conventional aerospace phenomena. His assertions are controversial and debated; what is confirmed by official records is limited, and many of his more extraordinary claims remain unverified.
Bigelow said he was selective on what he briefed Trump on, UFO-wise. He didn't want to go into the high strangeness, AAWSAP stuff bc Trump would probably not find it credible. Smart move. Lacatski had no such concerns when he briefed the @DHSgov folks, and this is one reason why I love Lacatski. "[The briefing Lacatski] had given the two DHS specialists was probably the most intense, harrowing explication of paranormal weirdness ever encountered by that level of government official." More......
IMO, this new Time article is NOT progress. No mention of Grusch, Stratton, Lacatski, Davis (George Bush Sr. phone convos about Holloman, & ED says he's seen photos of non-human craft & bodies), & the only mention of crash retrievals includes "silliness." 1997 Time cover. ⬇️ https://t.co/5P9ShJdFNn https://t.co/D2K64HvZGw [Quoted] This excellent @TIME cover story is another example of the remarkable progress being made in bringing serious discussion of UAP into the mainstream. One of our obje...
ICYMI While this includes some good coverage of the UFO topic, it also shows that, for some journalists, we really haven't made much progress in showing that the phenomenon is real and anomalous. Not one mention of Grusch, Stratton, Lacatski, Clapper or crash retrievals? GTFOH. https://t.co/cObC85ZAbq [Quoted] UAP, "may be real, they may be illusion, they may simply be artifacts of human desire - something we see because we want to see them." (Do people really think this is a great article by...
So many people just don't understand what Dylan is saying here. Side note: I worked the Alanis residency last year and loved it. She closed every night with, "Thank you." In no particular order, and with an incomplete list... Thank you, @TheDylanBorland Thank you, Eric Davis Thank you, David Grusch Thank you, @SunOfAbramelin Thank you, @LueElizondo Thank you, Hal Thank you, Lacatski Thank you, @jaystratton Thank you, Kit Green Thank you, Colm Thank you, thank you, UFO Twitter. ❤️ [Quoted] Wan...
It still amazes me that so many people are resistant to the paranormal angle. And, in the future, IMO, most people will realize that the paranormal isn't a side effect of UFOs, but that it's the other way around: UFOs fall under the paranormal umbrella. Lacatski has said as much. https://t.co/7FBRG2Ljy3 [Quoted] 💰 Lacatski: "At the front gate (of Skinwalker Ranch) is where money was materializing out of thin air." 💰 (Money (and other objects) appearing out of thin air (apports) is CLASSIC p...
❓ Back to the Future: What If George Knapp Had Never Been Born ❓ The ROUGH (and incomplete) timeline... The Beginning In late 2005, "Hunt for the Skinwalker (HFTS)" is written by @g_knapp and Dr. Colm Kelleher, and published. Soon after, Dr. Jim Lacatski and @jaystratton read HFTS and start throwing around ideas to study the phenomenon. In 2007, Lacatski writes a letter to Robert Bigelow, visits Senator Harry Reid at his Las Vegas home and winds up taking a trip to Skinwalker Ranch with Bigel...
I watched just now. Never saw it before. Thanks for posting, Matt. A few years ago, I was told that Lue was brought in to do some counter-intel work in the early days of AAWSAP (which was created by Lacatski and Stratton) but Lue wasn't officially a part of AAWSAP. Didn't realize Lue had spoken about that or I would have shared that earlier. I've never heard anything that suggested Lacatski brought Lue into the Legacy program or that Lacatski was actually in the Legacy program. But hey, he do...
On November 24th, 2025, I put a specific chain to Lue Elizondo and asked him to respond to it on camera: that he had worked with CIA Ground Branch inside the Special Activities Center, that James Lacatski (who was in the UAP deep legacy program) pulled him out of his counterintelligence and technical protection function in the UAP Legacy Program and into AAWSAP, and that he then formed AATIP as a cover program with James Clapper in the Obama White House. He did not confirm it. He also did not...
RT @GoodTroubleShow: On November 24, 2025, we confronted Lue Elizondo about his past work with CIA Ground Branch in SAC, James Lacatski in…
On November 24, 2025, we confronted Lue Elizondo about his past work with CIA Ground Branch in SAC, James Lacatski in the Legacy Program pulling Lue out of his CI/Tech Protection function in the program into AAWSAP, and Lue forming the AATIP cover program with James Clapper in the Obama White House. Nobody noticed. https://t.co/lLxmGW0mAM @StephenM @realDonaldTrump @realannapaulina @RepEricBurlison @JDVance @SecRubio @SecWar @DoW_AARO @rosscoulthart @UAPGERB @LueElizondo
