Colm A. Kelleher, PhD: Biochemist, Field Investigator, and Architect of AAWSAP

Colm A. Kelleher occupies a singular place in contemporary UAP history. 

Trained as a molecular biologist, seasoned by years of immunology work in elite labs, and later thrust into the center of the United States government’s most ambitious modern program on UAP, he has woven together laboratory rigor and field investigation in a way few others have attempted. 

From leading teams on Utah’s Skinwalker Ranch under Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), to managing the day-to-day execution of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) through Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. 

Kelleher has been both a chronicler and a builder of the record. 

His books chart the public arc of that work. His interviews and conference talks lay out the logic behind it. And his insistence that UAP often travel with a penumbra of “high-strange” effects has expanded the conversation far beyond lights in the sky. (Simon & Schuster)

Early life, education, and laboratory science

Kelleher earned his PhD in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin in 1983, then crossed the Atlantic to work at the Ontario Cancer Institute and the Terry Fox Cancer Research Laboratory before spending the first half of the 1990s as an immunology researcher at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine in Denver. 

This phase of his career, summarized by his publisher and by conference biographies, marks him squarely as a bench scientist who operated in mainstream biomedical settings. (Simon & Schuster)

The National Jewish center in those years was an immunology powerhouse, and while Kelleher’s early peer-reviewed work is distributed across several biomedical domains, it is his later shift that has defined his public profile. 

In 2004, on the cusp of that shift, he authored Brain Trust: The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease, a provocative survey of prion diseases, surveillance gaps, and public health risks. The book captured Kelleher’s appetite for unpopular questions and for mapping faint biological signals through incomplete datasets, a habit of mind that would later surface repeatedly in his UAP work. (Simon & Schuster)

From molecule to mesa: NIDS and Skinwalker Ranch

Kelleher’s move from biomedical research into unconventional investigation began when he became deputy director at Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). 

In the late 1990s through 2004, NIDS deployed scientists and field investigators against a portfolio that included black triangle sightings, cattle mutilations, and persistent anomalies at a ranch in northeastern Utah that would later be popularly known as Skinwalker Ranch. 

According to multiple summaries of record, Kelleher led NIDS field teams on the ranch for years. That field laboratory would become the backbone of his 2005 book, Hunt for the Skinwalker, coauthored with investigative reporter George Knapp. (Wikipedia)

Hunt for the Skinwalker is not simply a chronology of events; it is a scientist’s attempt to organize high-strange incidents that resist laboratory replication. Kelleher and Knapp described episodes that range from close-range craft to poltergeist-like disturbances and cryptid reports, and argued that a narrow “lights in the sky” approach cannot capture the complexity of some UAP hot spots. This insistence on clustering, on the co-occurrence of aerospace mysteries with biological and psychological effects, became a durable theme of Kelleher’s later government work and public commentary. (Simon & Schuster)

BAASS and AAWSAP: building the largest modern UAP program

In 2008 the DIA established AAWSAP, a funded initiative to examine advanced aerospace threats and opportunities. Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) won the DIA contract. 

Kelleher became BAASS’s deputy administrator, charged with running the day-to-day execution of the program in Las Vegas. Aside from managing a rapid scale-up of personnel and field operations, his team shepherded technical reporting and case management back to Washington. Government FOIA releases show the contract timelines and the internal reporting mechanics of the AAWSAP effort, including technical report reviews and the generation of Defense Intelligence Reference Documents. (Defense Intelligence Agency)

Kelleher’s own framing of AAWSAP has been consistent since leaving government. In a Rice University “Archives of the Impossible” flash talk and abstract, he explained that AAWSAP was unique because it mandated examination of effects on people alongside performance characteristics of the observed phenomena. That requirement, he argued, produced a database that integrated medical injuries, physiological anomalies, and psychological and parapsychological correlations with UAP encounters. 

In short, the project treated UAP as a system that touches biology and consciousness as well as airspace. (Title of Site | Rice University)

Those ideas were sharpened further in his 2021 co-authored book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon and then in 2023’s Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations with James Lacatski and George Knapp. 

The books document the AAWSAP years from the inside and argue that the program’s true scope and mission were often mischaracterized. They also emphasize that the prime directive was not passive observation but learning enough to one day replicate aspects of UAP technology. (Amazon)

Publications: a scientist who writes like an investigator

Books

1. Brain Trust: The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease (2004). A provocative public-health thesis about prions, misdiagnosis, and surveillance blind spots. (Simon & Schuster)
2. Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah (2005, with George Knapp). The core NIDS narrative, blending field notes with theoretical framing. (Simon & Schuster)
3. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (2021, with James T. Lacatski and George Knapp). The AAWSAP epoch from contract to closeout, with appendices of program artifacts. (Amazon)
4. Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations (2023, with James T. Lacatski and George Knapp). A deeper dive into the daily operations, case files, and intent of the DIA-funded effort. (Amazon)

A related 2025 volume, Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: New Insights, extends the series but is authored by Lacatski. Its existence helps mark how the AAWSAP story continues to unfold in the public record. (Amazon)

Academic and technical output

Kelleher’s publisher and institutional biographies note a long record of peer-reviewed work in cell and molecular biology, immunology, and virology before his pivot to aerospace-related investigations. 

His laboratory management at Prosetta in San Francisco led teams on Department of Defense small-molecule antiviral projects, linkages that later informed BAASS hiring and program design when AAWSAP stood up. (Simon & Schuster)

Controversies and counter-narratives

Large public programs attract large public scrutiny. 

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s 2024 Historical Record Review, which surveys decades of government UAP activity, portrays AAWSAP and AATIP as overlapping labels and stresses that AATIP was never a formally established Department of Defense program in the way some media suggested. 

It also notes that after AAWSAP’s termination, there were unsuccessful attempts to secure funding for a follow-on dubbed Kona Blue. Kelleher’s books, by contrast, frame AAWSAP as a distinct, DIA-managed study executed by BAASS with a mandate that included effects on humans and a forward-leaning technology brief. (AARO)

Skeptical commentators have also questioned Skinwalker Ranch claims and the broader AAWSAP narrative, arguing that sensational stories lack reproducible evidence or are confounded by witness bias. 

Others have pressed on the government funding question itself, asking whether taxonomy-expanding studies of high-strange events fit within a defense threat framework. Whatever one’s stance, those critiques form part of the context in which Kelleher’s work is received. (Gale)

Media profiles have added further complexity by highlighting Bigelow’s decades-long pursuit of anomalous phenomena and the personnel ties that knit his private institutes to government contracts. Kelleher appears in these retrospectives as a through-line between private and government efforts. (WIRED)

Finally, the public sometimes conflates AAWSAP with AATIP and with the later Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and AARO. 

Kelleher has tried to straighten those lines in interviews, but because names and missions evolved, confusion persists in coverage. The AAWSAP contract and FOIA materials help anchor the timeline. (Defense Intelligence Agency)

Recent media and public speaking

Television news, late 2025. 

In early November 2025, Kelleher sat for a fresh on-camera interview with George Knapp for the KLAS I-Team in Las Vegas, which was widely syndicated. The segment revisits AAWSAP’s purpose and reports on what he is now willing to say about the program’s scope. For those tracking what principals are confirming on the record post-AARO, it is an important checkpoint. (yahoo.com)

Archives of the Impossible, Rice University. 

Kelleher’s flash talk for Rice’s “Archives of the Impossible” puts his most disciplined version of the AAWSAP thesis on the public record. The abstract and recorded talk spell out why AAWSAP integrated parapsychology with aerospace analysis and offers lessons learned from managing a classified UAP study. Even if delivered earlier than 2025, the recording remains one of the clearest, current statements of his framing. (Rice University)

WEAPONIZED podcast appearances. Kelleher has been a featured guest multiple times on WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp:

• “The Science of Animal Mutilations.” A deep technical dive into the morphology and forensic signatures of livestock mutilation cases that NIDS and later teams examined, including the logic tree BAASS used to triage natural predation, criminal activity, and anomalous cases. (Apple Podcasts)
• “UFO and Paranormal Connections: The AAWSAP Legacy.” His clearest public statement that AAWSAP sought to understand, then eventually replicate UAP technology, and that the program treated the “hitchhiker effect” as an operational reality. (WEAPONIZED)
• “Inside the DIA’s Secretive UFO Investigation” with James Lacatski. A joint appearance sketching AAWSAP’s origin story, casework, and the pragmatic reasons BAASS built secure infrastructure to handle sensitive materials. (Spotify)

That UFO Podcast (December 2023). Around the release of Initial Revelations, Kelleher discussed new witness material and clarified where his views had evolved since Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. He reiterated that AAWSAP’s lens was wider than traditional aerospace intelligence and that the cross-domain effects were part of the data, not side notes. (Apple Podcasts)

Micah Hanks Program (May 2023). In a conversation hosted by Micah Hanks and covered by The Debrief, Kelleher walked through AAWSAP’s structure and why BAASS hired the blend of investigators that it did. The interview complements his other appearances by focusing more on program mechanics than case narratives. (The Debrief)

As of 2025, those appearances serve as primary sources for understanding his current positions. They present Kelleher as calm, methodical, and still guarded about details that he believes remain sensitive.

Professional affiliations and roles that shaped his approach

Kelleher’s biography goes beyond field work and writing. He has been a laboratory director in biotech (Prosetta), the head of environmental control and life support systems at Bigelow Aerospace after AAWSAP ended, and briefly an advisory board member for To The Stars Academy during its first years, before resigning in late 2019 according to SEC filings. 

The mosaic of these roles explains his unusual mix of project management, laboratory science, and operational field oversight. (Rice University)

Contributions

1. Designing a cross-domain research architecture. 

Kelleher helped engineer a program that did not silo UAP into air defense or aerospace alone. Under AAWSAP as he describes it, medical and psychological effects, sensor tracks, and ground investigations were woven into single case files. Whatever one’s view of the subject, that architecture is a contribution to method. (Title of Site | Rice University)

2. Normalizing “high-strangeness” in the UAP literature. 

Through Hunt for the Skinwalker and later works, Kelleher made it academically defensible, or at least discussable, to look at UAP alongside poltergeist-like events, cryptid reports, and psi phenomena when the cases demanded it. That expansion of the frame has influenced researchers, journalists, and witness networks. (Simon & Schuster)

3. Integrating biomedical attention to UAP exposure. 

Few public figures prior to the AAWSAP era pressed so hard for a clinical registry of UAP-linked injuries. The notion that energy-delivery effects or other mechanisms may leave measurable biosignatures has since migrated into broader policy debates. (Title of Site | Rice University)

4. Codifying field criteria for animal mutilation investigations.

In explaining how he and colleagues separated predation from anomalies, Kelleher provided a set of practical forensic blinds and thresholds that have utility beyond the ranch. (Apple Podcasts)

Where Kelleher is most controversial

Kelleher’s strongest claims naturally draw fire, which he acknowledges. 

Critics contend that extraordinary reports from Skinwalker and AAWSAP cannot be replicated on demand, that witness memory under stress is unreliable, and that parapsychology has not met mainstream evidentiary standards. 

Kelleher replies that the AAWSAP database and classified supplements hold far more than is public, and that the “convergences and overlaps” are empirically there whether or not they make current scientific sense. 

The official AARO historical review concludes there is no substantiated government evidence of nonhuman craft or materials in hand, a finding sharply at odds with the trajectory of Kelleher’s books and interviews. The tension between those readings defines the present debate. (AARO)

He has also been criticized for the breadth of AAWSAP’s remit. 

Was it appropriate for a defense-funded study to inventory poltergeist-like events, cryptid reports, or apparitions if they co-occurred with UAP? Kelleher’s stance is that the program chased what the data demanded and that the human effects and high-strange adjacency were part of the operational picture. 

That view will continue to be tested as more documents emerge through FOIA and as DIA alumni speak more freely. (Defense Intelligence Agency)

The public record in 2025: what he is saying now

The late-2025 KLAS segment with Knapp, paired with the continuing release of AAWSAP-related books, underscores how carefully Kelleher is widening the aperture. 

He repeats the line that the program’s core purpose was to understand and ultimately replicate aspects of the technology, and that the collision of UAP with human bio-effects is not fringe but central. 

His recent remarks also echo an ethics of restraint: prosecutions of whistleblowers, friction in Congress, and the AARO report have made him measured about specifics while firm about conclusions. (yahoo.com)

The Rice talk remains a key resource for those trying to understand his schema, both because it is explicitly pedagogical and because it anchors AAWSAP’s claims in the language of research design. 

Meanwhile, his podcast appearances in 2023 and 2024, especially on WEAPONIZED and That UFO Podcast, stand as the plainest public walk-through of his logic. 

For researchers and policy makers, those appearances provide structured access to how a principal investigator in a classified program thought about the architecture of the problem. (Title of Site | Rice University)

Legacy and impact

Kelleher’s lasting contribution may be less about any single case and more about how he normalized a systems-level view of UAP. 

He treats each case as a nexus of aerospace performance, human biology, psychology, and locality. 

He is also one of the very few to document, from the inside, a funded, multi-year UAP program with DIA provenance and robust contracting and deliverables. 

Whatever one thinks of his strongest claims, these are durable contributions to the literature and to the institutional memory of how the United States has approached the problem.

For UAP historians, Hunt for the Skinwalker is the indispensable prequel; Skinwalkers at the Pentagon is the institutional bridge; and Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations is the operational and methodological sequel. 

Taken together, they situate Kelleher not only as a narrator of UAP history, but as one of the designers of the questions future investigators will ask. (Simon & Schuster)

Selected chronology

• 1983: PhD, biochemistry, Trinity College Dublin. Moves into immunology and cell biology posts in Canada and the United States. (Simon & Schuster)
• 1996–2004: Deputy director and field lead at NIDS, including Skinwalker Ranch investigations; coalesces NIDS case management approaches for high-strange events. (Wikipedia)
• 2004: Publishes Brain Trust. (Simon & Schuster)
• 2005: Publishes Hunt for the Skinwalker with George Knapp. (Simon & Schuster)
• 2008–2010: Deputy administrator at BAASS, running AAWSAP operations for DIA. (Defense Intelligence Agency)
• 2012–2020: Leads Environmental Control and Life Support Systems at Bigelow Aerospace. (Title of Site | Rice University)
• 2021: Coauthors Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. (Amazon)
• Late 2019: Resigns from To The Stars Academy advisory board, per SEC filings. (SEC)
• 2023: Coauthors Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations; joins multiple podcast interviews laying out AAWSAP’s intent and scope. (Amazon)
• 2025: Appears in a new KLAS I-Team segment with George Knapp discussing AAWSAP and current views. (yahoo.com)

Final assessment

Colm A. Kelleher is best understood as a system builder. He took the instincts of a bench scientist into the field, built teams that refused to amputate “inconvenient” data, and argued for a UAP research architecture that treats human effects and parapsychological correlates as signal rather than noise. 

His books and current interviews continue to press those ideas into the public sphere, even as official reviews and skeptical analysts push back. The resulting friction is not a flaw; it is the engine of the present moment. 

As more AAWSAP documents emerge and as additional principals speak, it will become easier to assess the balance of his claims. 

For now, his legacy is already secure: he helped move UAP study from a narrow aerospace lane into a broader science of anomalies in which biology, technology, and place are inseparable. (Archives of the Impossible | Rice University)

References 

Debrief Staff. (2023, May 25). Colm Kelleher: AAWSAP and the Skinwalker Enigma [Podcast summary]. The Debrief. https://thedebrief.org/colm-kelleher-aawsap-and-the-skinwalker-enigma/ (The Debrief)

Defense Intelligence Agency. (2008). Statement of Objectives for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program [FOIA FileId 170057]. https://www.dia.mil/FOIA/FOIA-Electronic-Reading-Room/FileId/170057/ (Defense Intelligence Agency)

Defense Intelligence Agency. (2010). AAWSAP Contract documentation and technical report review slides [FOIA FileId 170018]. https://www.dia.mil/FOIA/FOIA-Electronic-Reading-Room/FileId/170018/ (Defense Intelligence Agency)

Kelleher, C. A. (2004). Brain Trust: The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease. Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Brain-Trust/Colm-A-Kelleher/9781416507567 (Simon & Schuster)

Kelleher, C. A., & Knapp, G. (2005). Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah. Paraview Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Hunt-for-the-Skinwalker/Colm-A-Kelleher/9781416505211 (Simon & Schuster)

Kelleher, C. A., Lacatski, J. T., & Knapp, G. (2021). Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government UFO Program. RTMA. Audiobook listing: https://www.audible.com/pd/Skinwalkers-at-the-Pentagon-Audiobook/B0BT6MKSKK (Audible.com)

Lacatski, J. T., Kelleher, C. A., & Knapp, G. (2023). Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations. Erasmus Press. Amazon listing: https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Government-Covert-UFO-Program/dp/B0CKP3YQRM (Amazon)

Lacatski, J. T. (2025). Inside the U.S. Government Covert UFO Program: New Insights. Erasmus Press. Goodreads metadata: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/45291020.James_Lacatski (Goodreads)

Rice University, Archives of the Impossible. (2023). Flash Talk Speakers: Colm A. Kelleher [bio and abstract]. https://impossiblearchives.rice.edu/flash-talk-speakers/colm-a-kelleher (Title of Site | Rice University)

Rice University, Archives of the Impossible. (2023). Flash Talk: Colm A. Kelleher . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD0ZVbtbnfI (youtube.com)

Sheaffer, R. (2020). Claims about a Government “UFO Program”: How Much Is Real? Skeptical Inquirer. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA629606515&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r (Gale)

Simon & Schuster. (n.d.). Colm A. Kelleher | Official author page. https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Colm-A-Kelleher/23515040 (Simon & Schuster)

To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science. (2017). Offering Circular [Advisory Board listing]. https://to-the-stars-web-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/TTSA_Offering_Circular_092917_vLAUNCH_DAY.pdf (to-the-stars-web-assets.s3.amazonaws.com)

To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science. (2020). SEC filing noting resignation of Dr. Colm Kelleher from advisory board. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000110465920072815/tm2022367d1_partii.htm (SEC)

U.S. Department of Defense, AARO. (2024). Historical Record Report, Vol. 1 (Unclassified). https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/AARO_Historical_Record_Report_Vol_1_2024.pdf (AARO)

WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp. (2023, Feb 21). The Science of Animal Mutilations — Guest: Dr. Colm Kelleher [Podcast]. Apple Podcasts page. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-science-of-animal-mutilations-guest-dr-colm-kelleher/id1664299388?i=1000600768745 (Apple Podcasts)

WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp. (2023, Apr 10–11). UFO & Paranormal Connections — The AAWSAP Legacy — Guest: Dr. Colm Kelleher [Show page]. https://www.weaponizedpodcast.com/episodes-1/episode-number-12 (WEAPONIZED)

That UFO Podcast. (2023, Dec). Dr. Colm Kelleher: Initial Revelations [Episode listing]. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-ufo-podcast/id1542656609 (aggregated listing link example: SeekYourSounds) https://www.seekyoursounds.com/podcasts/that-ufo-podcast/dr-colm-kelleher-initial-revelations/ (Apple Podcasts)

Yahoo News (via KLAS-TV I-Team). (2025, Nov 4). Scientist reveals details of top-secret UFO research in Las Vegas [Syndicated clip and article]. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/scientist-reveals-details-top-secret-024313181.html (yahoo.com)

WIRED. (2017). Inside Robert Bigelow’s Decades-Long Obsession With UFOs. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-robert-bigelows-decades-long-obsession-with-ufos (WIRED)

Claims and working hypotheses

Across books, talks, and interviews, three linked claims recur in Kelleher’s narrative.

1. UAP clusters co-locate with a spectrum of effects. 

He argues that certain places and cases show “convergences and overlaps” between flight performance and what parapsychologists would call psi. AAWSAP therefore tracked not only kinematics but also medical injuries, physiological markers, and follow-on “hitchhiker” effects that seemed to attach to personnel and families after exposure. The program’s database, as he describes it, was designed to capture those threads. (Title of Site | Rice University)

2. AAWSAP’s mission always included understanding and eventually duplicating technology. 

On the WEAPONIZED podcast, Kelleher said plainly that the goal was to identify and one day replicate aspects of UAP technology. He also asserted first-hand knowledge of crash retrieval efforts, a topic he treats carefully but which he regards as part of the government’s historical engagement with the problem. (WEAPONIZED)

3. Medical and biological effects deserve the same weight as sensor tracks. 

In media appearances Kelleher has emphasized that some UAP cases deliver biological injury profiles consistent with concentrated energy exposure or novel mechanisms of interaction. He points to case morphologies and clinical data that AAWSAP compiled to argue that the human effects are not incidental. (Title of Site | Rice University)

As a matter of method, these claims push against the common reduction that treats UAP strictly as an aerospace target set. They insist that the phenomena should be studied as a coupled human-environment system.

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