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UFOs & UAP

'A Nonhuman Being Staring at My Son': The Former UAP Task Force Chief's Memoir Lands, and AARO's First Director Fires Back

Jay Stratton, who led the Pentagon's UAP Task Force, told CNN he has seen non-human beings and craft 'with my own eyes.' His new book says AARO's founding director was 'compromised.' Sean Kirkpatrick answered that Congress has information on 'violations of national security law' by Stratton and his circle.

WASHINGTON By Dead of Night Dispatch

Location Washington, D.C.

Illustration: a dim government office at night, a brass desk lamp lighting stacks of manila folders with blank red seals and a closed hardcover book, a city skyline through a tall window and one faint light high in the night sky

WASHINGTON (Oct. 13-15, 2026): For years, Jay Stratton was the man the Pentagon put in charge of the strange stuff. He was the first director of the Navy-led UAP Task Force, the office that came before today’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. This week, he told the country what he says he saw.

Where it started

The original social media posts

  1. u/redditor01020

    This is an interview Jay Stratton did on CNN with Jake Tapper earlier today. He discusses his new book including an alien encounter in his home, which I'm sure people in the UFO community will find interesting.

    The poster's submission statement for the CNN clip, the most-shared version of the interview on Reddit.

    997 points · 319 comments as of Oct 17, 2026

    View original on Reddit

    From the conversation

    See the full thread on Reddit →

  2. u/benschreckinger

    Former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick tells PARADIGM that he caught Jay Stratton, former head of the UAP Task Force, violating an unspecified "national security law."

    Posted by the PARADIGM reporter himself, who identified himself in the thread.

    291 points · 294 comments as of Oct 17, 2026

    View original on Reddit

    From the conversation

    See the full thread on Reddit →

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“I have seen non-human beings and non-human craft with my own eyes,” Stratton told CNN’s Jake Tapper, according to Cybernews.

Then he went further, describing a night at his own home. “What is unmistakably a nonhuman being staring at my son,” he told CNN. “It’s gray and has a large head with small black eyes, no noticeable nose and a small mouth.”

Within 48 hours, the man who ran AARO after him had answered in writing. And the answer was an accusation.

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

  • The book. Stratton’s memoir, Out of the Shadows: Revealing the Truth About Non-Human Intelligent Life, came out from William Morrow on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. Cybernews describes Stratton as a veteran of nearly 33 years in the military and intelligence community, more than 16 of them spent on UAP, who rose to the Senior Executive Service.
  • The interviews. He made the rounds on CNN and Fox News on Oct. 13 and 14. A clip of the CNN interview posted to r/UFOs on the evening of Oct. 14 drew nearly 1,000 points and more than 300 comments.
  • The accusation in the book. According to PARADIGM, Stratton writes that Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO’s founding director, “was compromised and controlled by the Legacy Program,” the alleged decades-long effort to retrieve and reverse-engineer non-human craft, and that lawmakers had classified intelligence proving it.
  • The response. Kirkpatrick, who led AARO from its founding in 2022 until late 2023, wrote to PARADIGM reporter Ben Schreckinger, in an exchange published Oct. 15:

“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard today. I’m sure Jay offers no evidence of this allegation, although he clearly has a lot to gain by making it because it makes people buy his book. The only classified information Congress has on this fictitious program is the information I and others presented them on what violations of national security law Jay and his band of pseudo-scientists have committed. However, since they also managed to ghost write the whistleblower protection legislation for themselves, no one can prosecute them. There is no legacy program…”

Source: Sean Kirkpatrick, to PARADIGM, Oct. 15, 2026 (link)

Kirkpatrick didn’t say which law, and he didn’t answer follow-up questions, PARADIGM reported. The publisher’s publicity contact didn’t respond either.

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

According to PARADIGM, Stratton says he learned about the Legacy Program from at least three people:

  • The late Sen. Harry Reid, who allegedly told Stratton he had once received a briefing on the program by mistake.
  • An unnamed “very senior member of the special operations community,” who allegedly said he was on a team scrambled to recover radioactive non-human technology.
  • Jim Ryder, the former head of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center, who allegedly said the company and the CIA held a dozen downed craft and offered to deliver one to the Defense Department. Ryder died in 2018.

In the interviews, as reported by Cybernews, Stratton also said:

  • He helped organize a data-collection effort with a U.S. nuclear submarine off the East Coast and a sensor-equipped Navy P-3 aircraft. “On the very first mission, a UAP appeared,” he said.
  • Two admirals and a commander watched a UAP “phase in,” hover over a training site and vanish, and a senior Pentagon figure warned them their reputations would suffer if they filed a report.
  • The president is “even being shielded from the truth.” “The president that’s going to the microphone to tell the world we’re not alone, that’s a monumental moment,” he told Fox News.

The pushback on the record

PARADIGM asked people who would know:

  • Susan McCue, Reid’s chief of staff from 1999 to 2006: “I’ve heard that a few times but am not able to confirm as [Reid] didn’t relay it to me and I don’t recall him discussing.”
  • Kirk McConnell, a retired Senate staffer who investigated UAP: “I do not recall Jay ever sharing this information with staff from the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees.” He added, “The environment and his situation are different now. I welcome his statements.”
  • A Senate UFO investigator who dealt with both men said he wasn’t aware of evidence for either man’s claim about the other. “They all hate each other,” he said. “There was deep distrust of Kirkpatrick all around and suspicion he was there to cover for the program. I have not seen any evidence.”

What readers said

On r/UFOs, the CNN clip split the room. “Ugh. Jake Tapper didn’t express a shred of curiosity. What a bummer,” wrote u/EddieAdams007. u/MagicPigGames saw it differently: “a few years ago folks were saying ‘Where’s the mainstream media coverage?’ And…here we are.”

Schreckinger posted the Kirkpatrick story to the same forum himself. The top reply, from u/everlastingmuse, with more than 400 points, asked: “why would it be a violation of national security if nothing is real and they’re making it all up?”

Sources

  1. EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Pentagon UFO lead accuses rival of breaking "national security law" · PARADIGM Ben Schreckinger, Oct. 15, 2026. Source of the Kirkpatrick, McCue, McConnell and Senate investigator quotes.
  2. Ex-UAP chief Jay Stratton claims he saw aliens with his own eyes · Cybernews Marcus Walsh, Oct. 14, 2026, updated Oct. 16. Source of the CNN and Fox quotes.
  3. Jay Stratton on CNN w/ Jake Tapper, discussing alien encounter in his home · r/UFOs (Reddit) Clip of the CNN interview, posted Oct. 14, 2026. Read-only.