Immaculate Constellation

Immaculate Constellation is the name given to an alleged unacknowledged U.S. Department of Defense special access program (SAP) said to collect and analyze imagery and other intelligence about unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The name became public in October 2024, when journalist Michael Shellenberger reported in his newsletter Public that an anonymous whistleblower had described the program ^[1].

A 12-page document about the program was entered into the record of a November 13, 2024 House Oversight hearing ^[4]. A Defense Department spokesperson has said the department has no record of any program by that name ^[1]. No contract, budget line, original slide deck, or other official record of Immaculate Constellation has been made public, and the program’s existence remains unverified.

Origins and first reporting

On or about October 9, 2024, Public published Shellenberger’s account of a government whistleblower who said the Department of Defense had run a secret program, Immaculate Constellation, to gather information on UAP without the knowledge of Congress. According to Straight Arrow News, the source’s identity was withheld for safety, said they found the program by accident, and described it as created in 2017 after The New York Times revealed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program ^[1].

The reported incidents included an F-22 on patrol being surrounded by orbs and a Navy crew watching an orange-red sphere descend from high altitude ^[1]. A summary of the allegations circulated on UFO news sites also said the program was hidden from Congress in violation of the National Security Act of 1947 ^[6]. These details are drawn from secondary coverage; the wiki has not reproduced the full Public article.

On October 10, 2024, Tim McMillan of The Debrief published an opinion piece responding to the report. He wrote that he could not confirm the claims, that the core allegations were anonymous and hard to verify, and that his argument was only that secrecy of this kind is not “entirely outlandish” given the president’s control of classification ^[5].

The 12-page report and the 2024 hearing

At the November 13, 2024 hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace said Shellenberger had delivered to Congress that day an original 12-page Pentagon document about Immaculate Constellation. She described it as covering an unacknowledged special access program in one section and U.S. government imagery intelligence in a second, and it was entered into the record without objection ^[4].

In his testimony Shellenberger described the program as a strategic intelligence effort that consolidates UAP observations, including imagery and signature intelligence. He cited reported cases from intelligence databases: orbs forcing an F-22 out of its patrol area, a sphere descending over an aircraft carrier’s flight deck, and a long high-definition video of a white orb said to have been found on a classified network ^[4]. NPR described the F-22 incident as the aircraft being boxed in by roughly three to six UAP at an unnamed place and time, and noted that its report did not independently verify the claims ^[2]. According to The Debrief, Luis Elizondo told the panel that UAP programs operate without congressional oversight, and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet said he had concluded that UAP information was likely held in a compartmented special access program ^[3].

Entry into the congressional record shows that Congress received the document; it does not authenticate its contents ^[7].

Official responses

Department of Defense. Spokesperson Sue Gough told NewsNation that the department has no record, present or historical, of a special access program called Immaculate Constellation ^[1]. Former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick was reported to have said he reviewed all unacknowledged programs and found no record of it ^[6].

AARO. The office’s Historical Record Report, released in March 2024 before the claim surfaced, found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial technology or of information being illegally withheld from Congress; Brown’s later account is presented as a challenge to that conclusion ^[8].

NSA. FOIA researcher John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault asked the National Security Agency for records on December 3, 2024. The agency replied on December 6 with a Glomar response, neither confirming nor denying that records exist, and its appeal authority upheld that reply; The Black Vault reported the appeal denial on September 17, 2026. The site stresses that a Glomar response is not evidence that the program exists ^[7].

Space Force. A Space Force spokesperson was reportedly quoted in May 2025 as saying the term was not a scenario title, codeword, or element of the 2018 Schriever Wargame; a secondary summary notes that no official release or full description of the search has been located ^[8].

Matthew Brown and the Schriever Wargame file

On April 29, 2025, journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp introduced Matthew Brown as the author of the Immaculate Constellation report ^[14]. Brown says that in 2018 he was a contractor and policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and came across a presentation of about 12 to 15 slides on a shared classified server while sorting misfiled documents. He says the folder was labeled “2018 Schriever Wargame,” that the deck described Immaculate Constellation as a SAP created after AATIP was exposed, and that it included a slide about a large black triangle near Russian intelligence vessels off Kamchatka ^[8].

Brown says a supervisor told him to delete the file and that it later disappeared. No copy, metadata, or access log has been released ^[8]. The Schriever Wargame was a real exercise: Air Force Space Command’s 2018 edition ran in October 2018 with about 350 military and civilian participants and a notional 2028 Indo-Pacific scenario ^[10]. On May 2, 2025, Jason Colavito argued that Brown had mistaken fictional wargame materials for secret UFO documents ^[9]. See the dedicated page on the Schriever Wargame file claim.

On August 17, 2026, Brown publicly asked President Donald Trump to release him from secrecy and nondisclosure obligations so that he could say more, according to Cybernews, which reported that the Department of War denied the program exists ^[13].

Skepticism and analysis

Participants in a Metabunk discussion that began on October 9, 2024 noted that the public record contained no evidence beyond Shellenberger’s report of what sources told him, quoted the Pentagon denial, and questioned why a recovery-and-analysis program would have been created only in 2017. Others observed that David Grusch, who said he investigated such programs, had not named it, and that the free portion of the Public article did not establish that the sources had firsthand knowledge ^[11]. Some posters also questioned the reliability of other Public reports on the subject ^[11].

A second Metabunk thread on Brown, started April 29, 2025, found no public verification of his employment, job title, or clearance and observed that no one other than Brown had described the program. Posters also noted that his account rests on his memory of a file he said he saw about seven years earlier ^[12]. That thread is a forum discussion, not an investigation, and its participants’ remarks are opinion.

Supporters point to the legal structure of classified programs. McMillan argued that executive control of classification makes unreported secrecy possible in principle, while stating that no conclusive evidence has emerged ^[5]. Elizondo told the House panel that UAP programs run without congressional oversight ^[3].

Assessment

What is documented: a report under the name Immaculate Constellation reached Congress and was entered into the record on November 13, 2024; the Defense Department denied having any such program; NSA declined to confirm or deny records; and the 2018 Schriever Wargame, the exercise named by Brown, took place ^{[4][1][7][10]}.

What is claimed but unverified: that a secret SAP of this name exists, that it was created in 2017, that it holds UAP imagery, and that the original slide deck existed and was deleted. The original document has not been published, the primary source’s account depends on recollection, and a plausible mundane explanation (a misfiled wargame product) has been proposed but not proven ^[8]. Read with skepticism; the current evidentiary status is unverified and disputed.

See also

• Michael Shellenberger – reported the claim
• Matthew Brown – self-identified report author
• November 2024 House Oversight UAP hearing
• Schriever Wargame file claim
• AARO
• AARO Historical Record Report (Volume I)
• AATIP
• UAP Task Force
• David Grusch Testimony
• House Oversight Committee
• NSA
• John Greenewald Jr.
• Nancy Mace

References

1. ^ Straight Arrow News, “Secret Pentagon UFO program allegedly operating without Congress’ knowledge,” October 9, 2024. san.com
2. ^ NPR, “Experts testify before lawmakers that the U.S. is running secret UAP programs,” November 13, 2024. npr.org
3. ^ Micah Hanks, “Former Officials Warn Lawmakers of Alleged Secret UAP Programs Operating Beyond Congressional Oversight,” The Debrief, November 13, 2024. thedebrief.org
4. ^ “House Hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Transcript,” Rev.com (hearing opening statements by Rep. Mace and Michael Shellenberger). rev.com
5. ^ Tim McMillan, “Opinion: IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION? Could the Government Really Hide a Secret UFO Program?” The Debrief, October 10, 2024. thedebrief.org
6. ^ “Pentagon Denies Whistleblower’s Claim on Secret UFO Program ‘Immaculate Constellation’,” UFO Headlines, October 12, 2024 (aggregator summary). ufoheadlines.com
7. ^ John Greenewald Jr., “Pentagon Says It Has No Record of ‘Immaculate Constellation’ — NSA Denies Appeal and Won’t Say Whether It Does,” The Black Vault, September 17, 2026. theblackvault.com
8. ^ “The Schriever File: Immaculate Constellation or Wargame Scenario?” The Galactic Mind (secondary analysis; cites Space Force, DoD and AARO statements). thegalacticmind.com
9. ^ Jason Colavito, “Misinformation Abounds in a Busy Week for Government UFO Fantasies,” May 2, 2025. jasoncolavito.com
10. ^ “Air Force Space Command Conducts Schriever Wargame 2018,” GPS World, October 11, 2018. gpsworld.com
11. ^ “Immaculate Constellation – Alleged USAP focused on UAP identification and crash-retrieval,” Metabunk forum thread, started October 9, 2024. metabunk.org
12. ^ “Matthew Brown: Immaculate Constellation Report Author/Whistleblower,” Metabunk forum thread, April 29 to May 14, 2025. metabunk.org
13. ^ “Matthew Brown asks Trump for immunity to reveal more UAP secrets,” Cybernews, August 2026. cybernews.com
14. ^ “Brown, Matthew – alleged Immaculate Constellation whistle blower,” Anomaly Archives (compiles Brown’s Substack and commentary). anomalyarchives.org

External links

• Hearing transcript (Rev.com)
• The Black Vault: FOIA responses on Immaculate Constellation