Background
On 3 May 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General announced a new project, "Evaluation of the DoD's Activities Regarding the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." Project number D2021-DEVOSN-0116.
I, and no doubt others, submitted FOIA requests seeking documents generated by the process which led up to this announcement. To date, I have received no final response to my own request. However, yesterday, John Greenewald of the Black Vault announced that he had received documents relevant to his own request and published copies on his website.
What can we learn from these emails?
I will provide details which from the most interesting of these emails, and include some of my own comments along the way. I will group the emails under their subject content.
1. The initial batch of emails are dated 23 February 2021, and titled "RE: Project title from notes," and although the recipients names are, in general, redacted, the addresses are all in the Office of the Inspector General. The topic is a discussion of precisely what the title of the project announcement should be. The title suggested, was in fact the title used in the 3 May 2021 announcement, namely "Evaluation of the DoD's Activities Regarding the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." There is a a note that the title is "...vanilla enough and not too controversial."
Comment: Nowhere that I can see, in the entire series of emails, provides us with the reason why the Office of the Inspector General decided to initiate this project. Some have suggested that the project originated from Congressional members being unhappy with the information about UAP that they were receiving. Others have suggested that in using the Congressional process, e.g. the Intelligence Bill, that certain Committees of Congress wished to force recalcitrant U.S. government agencies to hand over what they know on UAP.
Involvement of Air Force Office of Special Investigations
2. 4 March 2021 brought another series of emails titled "UAP meeting." One of the emails describing today's meeting is highly redacted. However, one point, was "Unfortunately Brig Gen Bullard was unable to attend."
Comment: Brigadier General Terry L. Bullard is the Commander, Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
3. A 5 March 2021 email also titled "UAP meeting" refers to a discussion with an unnamed individual from the MILDET and refers to another meeting next Tuesday.
POLITICO article
4. 25 March 2021. Title "RE: Military and spy agencies accused of stiff-arming investigation on UFO sightings."
The classified Special EB meeting is to be held on 29 March 2021.
The title of this email series refers to an article in POLITICO, and the full text of that article is given in the emails.
5. 26 March 2021 titled "RE: UAP article (#4) in Defense morning clips 26 Mar 2021." Clip #4 refers to the Bryan Bender article in POLITICO.
Is there a classified objective of the project?
6. On 30 March 2021. Emails titled "Special EB" in part reads "You can sign it off. The unclass objective is the simple one that we discussed, IE "The DoD activities regarding the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon" Correct?"
Then there is:
"Special EB with the classification level TS/SCI in 2 phases.
Part 1: Read-ahead opportunity provided on project proposal/factsheet and supplementary briefing documents on JWICS (at least one week or more prior to meeting in part 2.)
Part 2: Special EB meeting to discuss project proposal and addl. info. (We'll also need to schedule the SCIF.)"
Comment: What to make about "The unclass objective is the simple one..." Does this infer that there is also a classified objective for the project? The mention that the briefing on the project is Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented information and held in a sensitive compartmented information facility might imply that there is such a classified part to the project.
Briefings for congressional staff?
7. 7/8/12/13 April 2021. Titles "Spoke to (redacted) re UAP." and "RE: Special EB results 4/7." Large amounts of these are redacted. Another briefing was held on 7 April 2021. It appears the discussion here is about a revised version of the announcement memorandum. There were apparently "...three announcement memo options...." In short, discussing the memo's wording. One specific point in one email dated 7 April 2021, "...we will run the options by the IG FO and OLAC. OLAC also mentioned the possibility of doing some briefings with interested congressional staff to discuss the project."
Comment: OLAC is the Office of Legislative Affairs & Communications within the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense.
8. Next is a series of emails subject "RE: FY 2021PPT #591." Included is "Please see the attached project proposal for the next EB on 21 April."
9. Email series titled "Proposal Disc. Topics for IG FO weekly 4/14" dated 13 April 2021. Draft discussion topics were attached.
New York Times article
10. Series of emails dated 16 April 2021 on the publication of a New York Times article "They were not alone." Plus text of another article on CNN by Chandelis Duster. "Pentagon confirms UFO video is real."
11. 13/20/21 April 2021. Series titled "RE: Proposed UAP Announcement Memo." Discussion of the latest draft.
12. 20/21 April 2021. Title "RE: UAP Project Hill Engagement." Large chunks redacted. "As you recall at the special EB, OLAC would provide the various legislative staff advance notice of the project and an opportunity to discuss it with them prior to issuing the announcement memo to the Department."
13. 22 April 2021. Title "RE: Proposed UAP Announcement Memo." "Attached is a revised announcement based on the discussions held yesterday. Announce on 3 May 2021.
14. 29 April 2021. "RE: UAP announcement 5/3" .Announcement to Department and Hill, on 3 May 2021.
15. 3 May 2021. Excerpts from an article in the New Yorker: "How the Pentagon started taking UFOs seriously." Plus Announcement on DoD oversight project made and sent out to Department and placed on public website.
Comment: As can be seen by the number of media articles which find their way into the email series, the Office of the Inspector General was closely monitoring media pieces.
16. 4 May 2021. "Pentagon watchdog opens new project into military's handling of UFOs." Text of another POLITICO article about the newly announced Office of Inspector General, Department of Defense, project on UAP.
Key named players
1. Randolph R Stone, Assistant Inspector General for Evaluations, Space, Intelligence, Engineering and Oversight, OIG, DoD.
2. Michael C. Zola, Assistant, Inspector General, Legislative Affairs & Communications, OIG, DoD.
3. Michael J. Roark, SES, OIG, DoD.
4. Nilgun Tolek, OIG DoD.
Update: 3 September 2021
On a re-read of the emails, I found one dated 30 March 2021 which adds to the question surrounding whether or no their was a classified as well as an unclassified version of the announcement memo, or the project objective. Part of that email read:
"Sir, the Pickup project is now loaded as #583 and is ready for you to sign off, or to delegate to have it signed off. I only put in the project title. The other paragraphs just have a statement to see the classified version. I can add the objective if necessary."
In addition, in a 25 March 2021 email there is:
"Come to the classified EB April 7 w/Zola!!"
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