DOW-UAP-D175: BAASS Self-Assessment of UAP Analysis Capabilities -- the "Tic Tac" Case, ANSYS Simulations and an 11-Database Data Warehouse (November 2010)

Source file: DOW-UAP-D175-BAASS_Self-Assessment_of_UAP_Analysis_Capabilities_November_2010.pdf Originating agency: Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, LLC (BAASS), contractor to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under AAWSAP Document type: Contractor capability summary report, "Summary Report on BAASS UAP Analysis Capabilities", with three attachments (ANSYS input files and two sets of CFD plots) Date: 23 November 2010 Classification: No classification marking found on the pages; redactions under code 1843(a)(2); released to the public in 2026 Page count: 141 VIRIN: 260508-D-D0360-1167 PURSUE Release: 7

Summary

DOW-UAP-D175 is a report BAASS wrote about two years into the AAWSAP contract. Its stated purpose is "to summarize the field data collection, in-house databases and computational capabilities" built under contract HHM402-08-C-0072 for the DIA's Defense Warning Office. BAASS describes three resources it developed: a suite of portable field sensors and personnel, "the most all-inclusive database of UAP performance capabilities and behavior in the world", and "world class" computational methodology. The report says it touches on all three but "concentrates on the in-house computational capabilities".

About 60 of the 141 pages are simulation plots, and about 11 are ANSYS input files. The central case is the November 2004 Nimitz Carrier Strike Group "Tic Tac" incident, "excerpted from the report of an investigation conducted by personnel assigned to DIA". Alongside it are more generic modelling exercises: a steel disc entering water, a submerged sphere studied acoustically with the 1967 Shag Harbour case in mind, and a metallic sphere whose radar cross section is computed.

The official blurb calls the document a capability statement that was also meant "to reinforce the case for the organization's continued relevance and for the continuation of AAWSAP". The text itself supports that reading. It declares BAASS to be "on the route to being the leading force" in studying the phenomenon, and it ends by promising "quantum leaps in technology".

Research Article

Structure and purpose

The report opens with two title pages carrying the BAASS logo, a table of contents, and lists of 113 figures and five tables. It then has five chapters: an executive summary (pp. 11-13), a historical introduction and description of infrastructure (14-21), "Types of UAPs Observed" (22-25), a chapter of analytical and numerical analyses (26-98), and a conclusion (99-100). The reference list on pages 101-102 is fully redacted. Page numbers in this article are PDF page numbers; the printed numbering is one lower.

The executive summary sets out the national-security frame. It describes silent hovering objects over nuclear weapons facilities along the "Northern Tier" in the 1960s and 1970s, and a March 1967 report of multiple missiles disabled at once "while a UAP allegedly hovered nearby". It says of that event "if true... arguably had national security implications". It adds that USOs "reportedly exhibited superior performance capabilities in velocity and acceleration underwater in the absence of detectable turbulence or cavitation signatures". The historical review (pp. 14-15) covers:

• the 1947 Mount Rainier sighting (the pilot's name is redacted)
• the New Mexico "green fireballs" and Project Twinkle
• Projects Sign and Grudge (22% of Grudge cases unidentified)
• Project Blue Book (about 15,000 incidents, 701 "unidentified")
• the University of Colorado study, funded with $313,000

The review concludes that since then few groups "have been professionally organized, trained, or equipped".

Personnel, equipment and the CAPELLA data warehouse

The infrastructure chapter reads like an inventory:

• Cameras: two Canon 5D MK II (21.1 megapixel), a Sony A350, three Sony HDV 1080i video cameras, four Handicams and three CyberShots
• Night and thermal imaging: seven ATT PVS-7 night-vision devices and an Oasys UTM thermal imager
• Positioning and ranging: Garmin GPS units and two Leica laser range finders (to 1,500 m)
• Scientific equipment: two digital microscopes; a Niton XL3t X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer for on-site elemental analysis; a Colibri TTC dose-rate meter for alpha, beta and gamma radiation; and electromagnetic spectrum analyzers (up to 20 gauss, 1 Hz to 9.4 GHz)
• Counter-surveillance: Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) gear, including an OSCOR 5000E, with staff trained by the manufacturer, Research Electronics International of Cookeville, Tennessee
• Computing: a 12-core Hewlett Packard server with 48 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage

On personnel the report is very general: "scientists, engineers, analysts, intelligence and investigative professionals", most of whom had worked for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. It gives no names, headcounts or roles.

The data warehouse, "Project CAPELLA" (see DOW-UAP-D167), is called "revolutionary". It is based on the "Six Layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena", developed by AAP Person 5, AAP Person 58 and a third, redacted name. The six layers are physical, "anti-physical", psychological, physiological, "psychic" and cultural. The warehouse holds 11 databases:

1. NIDS
2. a pilot database (name redacted)
3. Sign/Grudge/Blue Book
4. UFOCAT
5. the MUFON Case Management System (compare DOW-UAP-D166)
6. Project Colares
7. the Canadian release
8. the UK release
9. the BAASS database
10. the "Utah Ranch Database" (compare DOW-UAP-D174)
11. the "Post-Utah Ranch Effects Database"

Seven are complete, and four continue to take in reports. A "first-level" statistical analysis was done for only three of them: the pilot, Blue Book and Utah Ranch databases.

On pages 22-24 BAASS also concedes that "possibly a majority" of reports can be explained as misidentified aircraft such as the SR-71, F-117, B-2 and X-45A. It says it focuses on the subset of cylindrical, spherical and ellipsoid objects with "inherently poor aerodynamic properties".

The "Tic Tac" case: the DIA excerpt

Pages 26-33 are the most detailed text in the document. According to the excerpt, between about 10 and 16 November 2004 the cruiser USS Princeton detected multiple "Anomalous Aerial Vehicles" (AAVs). They descended "very rapidly" from about 60,000 ft to about 50 ft "in a matter of seconds". A radar operator with 17 years on Aegis cruisers (name redacted) said the AAV showed "ballistic missile characteristics". Figure 8 (p. 27) is a Google Earth map that marks the AAV at sea off Baja California, south of San Diego and Tijuana.

On 14 November two F/A-18Fs were vectored to the contact:

• The lead crew (names redacted) carried only two CATM-9 training missiles and no FLIR pod. They saw a disturbance on the water, "frothy waves and foam almost as if the water was boiling". Above it was a white object about 46 ft long, "holding like a Harrier", which looked "like it had a white candy-coated shell, almost like a white board". As the jets closed in, the object "pointed" toward them, the water disturbance stopped, and the object climbed "at a supersonic speed". It was next reported at the crew's CAP point, at about 24,000 ft.
• AAP Person 9, flying a single-seat F/A-18C, saw a round water disturbance 50-100 m across from a distance, but did not see the object.
• A second crew from VFA-41, at about 1500 local time, could not get a radar lock ("It just appeared as if the radar couldn't hack it"). They did record the object on FLIR, which is the source of Figures 9 and 10 (p. 31), in "White Hot" and "Black Hot" modes.
• The submarine USS Louisville logged no unidentified sonar contacts.

The excerpt ends with five "Key Assessments According to DIA Report":

1. the AAV was no known US or foreign aircraft
2. it showed advanced low-observable characteristics
3. it showed advanced aerodynamic performance with no visible control surfaces
4. it showed advanced propulsion capability
5. it "possibly demonstrated the ability to 'cloak'"

There is an internal contradiction. The executive summary (p. 12) describes a 40 ft object seen by "four F/A-18F aircrew", while the excerpt itself gives about 46 ft.

The modelling exercises: speeds, flow, water, acoustics and radar

Because "there was little hard data", BAASS built a parametric table (Table 2, p. 35) for a 60,000 ft descent lasting 0.5 to 10 seconds:

All values fall in the hypersonic range or above.

Compressible flow. The CFX module modelled a "Tic Tac" shape and a cylinder at 1/6 scale, at 223 K (-58 F) and an assumed average altitude of 30,000 ft, from 100 to 1,500 mph. Attachments II and III hold 49 pressure, temperature and Mach plots. The findings are modest: detached shock waves from 700 mph upward, and "no significantly different aerodynamic lift advantages" between the two shapes.

Disc entering water. The next simulation (pp. 48-59) drops a steel disc at 5 m/s toward water about 10 ft below it, over 10 seconds in 50 time steps. Figures 26-33 show the circular ripples it produces. The report says the original animations were supplied as .mpeg files; they are not part of the release.

USO acoustics. The acoustic analysis of a 10 m spherical USO (1/100 scale, at 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 Hz) rests on the assumption that USOs "operate on a frequency driven system". It concludes that ships and submarines might one day detect such pressure disturbances.

Radar cross section. The radar cross section (RCS) study models a 10 m metallic sphere with a 1 m dielectric coating at 300 MHz, and relies on figures from Aerospaceweb.org.

In both the acoustic and radar studies, the "success" reported is mostly a technical check of mesh independence: 1,052 vs 1,103 Pa, and -6.48 vs -6.64 dB.

What the report does not say

None of the modelling exercises analyses field data that BAASS collected. The disc, the submerged sphere and the radar sphere are generic shapes, not documented cases. The report presents no BAASS field investigation of its own. It does not explain how the DIA excerpt reached BAASS, and it does not say which databases were quality-checked. There are also signs of hasty editing:

• Figure 36's caption says 50 elements per wavelength, but the plot itself is labelled "EPW=25" and shows the 25-element value of 1,052.
• The RCS conclusion calls a decibel value "a pressure", probably carried over from the acoustics section.

The names of all staff, aircrew and cited authors are redacted.

Significance

DOW-UAP-D175 is the most detailed Release 7 record of what BAASS claimed to have built, and it gives a mixed picture. On one side is a concrete equipment inventory and a documented data warehouse. On the other are computational analyses that are mostly software demonstrations on minimal or hypothetical inputs.

Its greatest documentary value is the long DIA "Tic Tac" excerpt, with two FLIR frames and the Key Assessments. It shows that by November 2010 this material was already in use by the AAWSAP contractor. At the same time, the report's language ("revolutionary", "first of a kind", "the largest known... in the world") supports the official blurb's reading: this was written to justify the programme at a time when its continuation was uncertain.

Read alongside DOW-UAP-D110 and DOW-UAP-D112 to D116 from Release 6, and DOW-UAP-D167 and DOW-UAP-D174, it allows a comparison between the objectives set in 2008 and what the contractor presented as results in late 2010.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"BAASS over the past two years has focused on developing three separate resources, each unique to the study of UAP: 1) to obtain the most comprehensive suite of portable field sensors and personnel available, 2) to build the most all-inclusive database of UAP performance capabilities and behavior in the world and 3) to acquire world class computational methodology for analysis of UAP data." -- page 12

"In contrast, one purpose of this report is to show BAASS is on the route to being the leading force in complete investigation and scientific analysis of the phenomena." -- page 15

"To our knowledge, this powerful computational capability has not been previously utilized in the 64 year history of UFO study." -- page 17

"As an important component of these studies, BAASS understands a considerable number, possibly a majority, of UAP reports can be explained by simple misidentification of current advanced technology platforms." -- page 22

"The AAV possibly demonstrated the ability to 'cloak' or become invisible to the human eye or human observation." -- page 32

"These are extraordinarily high values and would require some form of acceleration manipulation to limit what a human pilot would experience and be able to survive." -- page 34

"This tool can greatly assist in the goal of studying human effects to reverse engineer UAP technology." -- page 59

"BAASS' acquired knowledge and capabilities are leading the way to quantum leaps in technology for travel in the atmosphere, space and under water, along with advances in armament and defense systems." -- page 100