Immaculate Constellation

Briefing

On the thirteenth of November 2024, a joint hearing of two House Oversight subcommittees received a twelve-page document naming an alleged Unacknowledged Special Access Program said to collect and quarantine imagery of unidentified anomalous phenomena [2][3]. The journalist Michael Shellenberger brought the document to the hearing; the subcommittee chair, Rep. Nancy Mace, entered it into the Congressional Record [1][2]. The Department of Defense states it holds no record of such a programme [1][4]. Nearly two years on, the dispute survives only in the freedom-of-information record: one Pentagon office has refused to search, the National Security Agency has neither confirmed nor denied, and no imagery has been produced [4][5][6].

This file documents the paper trail. It does not assert that the programme exists.

Sequence of events

Around the ninth of October 2024 — the story breaks

• Per an internal document later released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “Starting around 9 October, 2024, open press broke a story about a supposed unacknowledged Special Access Program (uSAP) regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Referred to as ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION,’ this uSAP was allegedly created in 2017 and houses highly classified UAP evidence (i.e., videos, images, documentation) but is supposedly being managed without appropriate Congressional awareness or oversight.” [4]
• The document, DF-2025-00021, was approved for release on the sixth of November 2024 — a week before the hearing — establishing that the intelligence community was tracking the story in advance [4].

The thirteenth of November 2024 — the hearing

• A joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation and the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” convenes [2].
• Four witnesses testify under oath: Shellenberger, Luis Elizondo, Rear Adm. (ret.) Tim Gallaudet, and Michael Gold [2].
• Rep. Tim Burchett distributes the document on the dais [2].
• Chair Mace: “I would now… enter into the Congressional Record this 12-page document that Michael Shellenberger brought today that describes the Immaculate Constellation government program… without objection, entered into the record.” [2]
• Rep. Anna Paulina Luna warns Mace that saying the programme name might place her on a watchlist. Mace repeats it on the record regardless: “Maybe a FISA warrant. So, come at me bro, I guess.” [2]
• Asked whether he had been read into the programme, Elizondo declines to answer: “I would not be authorized to confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing or past program, especially as it relates to a special access program, either by name or trigraph.” [2]

The sixth of May 2025 — an author is named

• NewsNation reports that Matthew Brown, “a former national security professional,” has identified himself publicly as the report’s author, having appeared that week on Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp’s “Weaponized” podcast [7]. Brown states that the objects in the videos are not necessarily extraterrestrial but are “exotic and unexplainable” [7].

July 2025 to May 2026 — the freedom-of-information record

• The twenty-fifth of July 2025. John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault files a request for emails to or from Maj. Gen. Derek J. O’Malley containing the phrase “Immaculate Constellation” [5].
• The twenty-sixth of January 2026. The Office of the Secretary of War/Joint Staff replies that, per coordination with the Department of War Special Access Program Central Office, “a search was not conducted as they confirmed the subject matter itself does not exist, and an extensive email search on the custodian would not yield responsive records.” [5]
• The National Security Agency, asked separately, issues a Glomar response — neither confirming nor denying the existence of responsive records [6].
• The twenty-sixth of May 2026. The Black Vault reports that its appeal against the refusal to search has succeeded, and that a search is now to proceed [6]. Whether that search produces records is not yet on the record [6].

Documentary record

The primary artefact is the twelve-page report itself, hearing document HHRG-118-GO06-20241113-SD003 [3]. It describes IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION as “an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) established following the public disclosure of the AATIP/AAWSAP programs by Luis Elizondo in 2017,” whose “primary mission is collecting imagery intelligence on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and ARV/RV (Reproduction Vehicles)” [3]. It organises its material into seven categories of evidence — a USAP; IMINT; HUMINT; SIGINT; United States Government bureaucratic records; United States Government historical records; and “other sensitive sources” — and sets out incident descriptions by combatant command (CENTCOM, INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM) alongside a HUMINT shape taxonomy drawn from “over 400 defense HUMINT reports… spanning from 1991 to 2022” [3]. The report states that it was “provided to Congress through the UAP whistleblower mechanisms established by the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, and the FY23 National Intelligence Authorization Act,” and that “This public version of the author’s report was reviewed and approved for public release by the Department of State, Bureau of Global Public Affairs.” [3]

Against it stands the denial. Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough is quoted in the ODNI document, and again in Shellenberger’s written statement, as saying: “The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION’.” [1][4] The ODNI document carries a (b)(5) redaction and is marked UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO and DELIBERATIVE PROCESS PRIVILEGED [4].

Two further claims sit at a lower confidence tier. Shellenberger told the hearing that he had “the name of the program confirmed by more than one additional source” and had been told the archive holds “hundreds… maybe thousands” of high-resolution visuals [2]. He also relayed an unnamed former intelligence-community official’s characterisation — “That program is run out of SEC DEF… They don’t want to acknowledge it’s real” — and a source’s claim that the White House directs the Secretary of Defense to run it as a Title 10 “loophole” [1]. Both are second-hand and uncorroborated by any located document.

The report’s own single-source claims are recorded here as claims, not findings. It asserts that IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION acts as a “parent” USAP with “child” SAPs beneath it, enforcing secrecy “by detecting, quarantining, and transferring UAP and RV imagery collection incidents before they are circulated within the Military Intelligence Enterprise” [3]. It describes an F-22 on an Eastern Air Defense Sector mission “intercepted and boxed in by approximately 3-6 UAPs,” one holding a rigid position within roughly twelve metres of the cockpit through evasive rolls [3]. It describes carrier flight-deck personnel observing an orange-red sphere one hundred to two hundred yards above the deck whose light “did not illuminate the ocean or the flight deck,” with personnel reporting altered time perception [3]. Reports of luminous spheres and orbs recur across the archive; no corroborating document has been located for this particular account.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has not addressed the allegation by name. Its director, Dr. Jon Kosloski, recorded in a November 2024 Senate statement that “to date, AARO has discovered no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology” — a general finding, not a determination about this programme [8].

Open questions

1. No primary document establishes that a programme by this name exists. Every official record located either denies it, declines to search for it, or neither confirms nor denies [4][5][6].
2. The non-public version of the report has not been located. Shellenberger told Rep. Clay Higgins that he did not know where it is held [2].
3. The report’s imagery is described but no image has been released. No incident in it is dated, located precisely, or given a unit designation — which places its accounts beyond independent verification, unlike documented military cases such as the Tic Tac encounters [3].
4. The ODNI document refers to “a second source referred to in a U.K. publication” that confirmed the uSAP’s authenticity. The publication is not named in the released text [4].
5. Whether the 2026 search, ordered on appeal, produces records is not yet on the record [6].
6. Widely circulated claims of a specific funding figure, a named administering contractor, or a codeword trigraph for the programme are not supported by any document this archive has been able to locate. They are excluded.

Status

This file is CONFIDENTIAL — admitted on the strength of the documentary record surrounding the allegation, not on the strength of the allegation itself. What is documented is a congressional hearing, a report entered into the Congressional Record, an intelligence-community description of the story, a departmental denial, and a contested freedom-of-information trail [1][2][3][4][5]. What is not documented is the programme. The report is a single source; its author is named only in press reporting; its imagery has never been produced.

Readers should hold the two facts together: a twelve-page document making extraordinary claims sits in the Congressional Record, and the Department of Defense says the thing it describes does not exist. Neither statement has been independently tested. This file will be updated when the ordered search concludes.

References

1. Testimony of Michael Shellenberger: The United States Department Of Defense And The Intelligence Community Are Withholding Information About Anomalous Phenomena From Congress — U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, 13th November 2024. Public domain.
2. Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth — hearing transcript, 13 November 2024 — U.S. Congress / congress.gov, event LC73681 (retrieved via Internet Archive snapshot, 21st August 2025). Public domain.
3. Report, “Immaculate Constellation” — hearing document HHRG-118-GO06-20241113-SD003, submitted by Rep. Mace — U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, mirrored by The Black Vault. Licence unverified.
4. Description of Alleged “IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION” Program — FOIA case DF-2025-00021, approved for release 6 November 2024 — Office of the Director of National Intelligence (retrieved via Internet Archive snapshot, 22nd May 2026). Public domain.
5. FOIA final response, case 25-F-3827, 26 January 2026 — Department of War, Office of the Secretary of War/Joint Staff FOIA. Public domain.
6. Pentagon Refuses to Search for “Immaculate Constellation” Emails — The Black Vault (John Greenewald Jr.).
7. UFO videos collected by DOD’s Immaculate Constellation: Whistleblower — NewsNation (Nexstar), updated 6th May 2025 (retrieved via Internet Archive snapshot, 2nd December 2025).
8. Statement for the Record, Dr. Jon Kosloski, Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — SASC open hearing, November 2024 — All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, U.S. Department of Defense (retrieved via Internet Archive snapshot, 8th May 2026). Public domain.