On October 8, 2024, journalist Michael Shellenberger published a story that sent shockwaves through the UAP community. A U.S. government whistleblower, he reported, had provided Congress with a detailed account of a secret Pentagon program called Immaculate Constellation — an unacknowledged Special Access Program allegedly created to collect, quarantine, and conceal high-quality imagery of unidentified anomalous phenomena.
The Department of Defense immediately denied it. Spokesperson Sue Gough stated that the Pentagon has “no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION.’” But five weeks later, a document describing the program was entered into the Congressional Record during a nationally watched hearing — and the questions it raised have not gone away.
The story of Immaculate Constellation sits at the intersection of UAP whistleblower protections, Congressional oversight failures, and the growing rift between what the Pentagon says publicly and what insiders claim is happening behind classified walls.
What the Whistleblower Report Alleges
The whistleblower report, as described by Shellenberger and later entered into the Congressional Record by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), is an 11-page document claiming to be the product of a “multi-year, internal investigation.” It states it was provided to Congress through the UAP whistleblower mechanisms established by the FY23 NDAA and FY23 Intelligence Authorization Act, and that the public version was reviewed and approved for release by the Department of State’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs.
The document’s central claim: Immaculate Constellation is a USAP — an unacknowledged Special Access Program — functioning as a “parent” program that consolidates UAP observations from both tasked and untasked collection platforms. These platforms span Low Earth Orbit, the upper atmosphere, aviation altitudes, and maritime environments.
Most significantly, the report alleges the program can “detect, quarantine, and transfer” UAP imagery incidents before they circulate within the broader Military Intelligence Enterprise. In other words, it describes a system designed to intercept and contain UAP evidence before it reaches analysts, oversight bodies, or the public.
The Evidence Described
The document catalogs several categories of alleged UAP evidence held within the program:
Imagery intelligence (IMINT) and full-motion video (FMV): Examples include a “CENTCOM Cuboid Formation of Metallic Orbs” — daytime footage of approximately 12 metallic orbs over ocean — oval-shaped UAP tracked in CENTCOM’s area of operations, triangular craft in the Indo-Pacific (including a claimed reproduction vehicle), a large disc emerging from clouds captured by overhead persistent infrared sensors, and a “jellyfish” UAP recorded on FLIR.
Defense HUMINT reports: The document states this section was informed by reviewing over 400 defense human intelligence reports spanning 1991 to 2022. Example narratives include a close encounter by carrier flight deck personnel and metallic orbs intercepting an F-22.
Sensor and signature intelligence (MASINT): Correlated electromagnetic signatures and radar data in certain cases.
SIGINT and bureaucratic records: Sections asserting signals intelligence indicating foreign awareness of UAP events, and internal DoD/AARO records alleging patterns of denial and obfuscation.
One specific claim stood out in Shellenberger’s congressional testimony: a secondhand description of a 13-minute, high-definition, full-color video of a white orb emerging from the ocean near Kuwait, filmed from a helicopter and reportedly located on SIPRNet.
UAP Morphology Categories
The document describes six distinct categories of UAP shapes observed across the alleged program’s datasets:
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Spheres / Orbs | Metallic or luminous spherical objects, frequently observed in formation |
| Discs / Saucers | Classic disc-shaped craft |
| Ovals / Tic-Tacs | Smooth, featureless oblong objects (consistent with USS Nimitz encounter descriptions) |
| Triangles | Large triangular craft, often described as silent |
| Boomerang / Arrowhead | V-shaped or angular craft |
| Irregular / Organic | Described as “jellyfish” or “floating brain” morphologies |
These categories overlap significantly with UAP descriptions documented across decades of military encounters, including those cataloged by AARO’s 2024 annual report.
The Pentagon’s Denial
The DoD’s response has been categorical and consistent. Spokesperson Sue Gough stated:
“The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION’.”
This denial was recorded in the ODNI’s own FOIA release — a one-page, unclassified document (case DF-2025-00021) titled “Description of Alleged ‘IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION’ Program,” approved for release on November 6, 2024. The document summarized press reporting and included the DoD denial, noting that open press “broke a story about a supposed unacknowledged Special Access Program” starting around October 9, 2024.
In January 2026, The Black Vault reported that DoD went further: the Office of the Secretary of War/Joint Staff declined to even conduct an email search for “Immaculate Constellation” in response to a FOIA request, citing that the subject matter “does not exist.”
“A search was not conducted as they confirmed the subject matter itself does not exist.”
— The Black Vault, reporting DoD’s FOIA response
This creates a circular problem familiar to anyone tracking UAP disclosure: if a program is unacknowledged, the government’s standard response is that it has no record of it. The absence of records then becomes the basis for refusing to search for records.
The Congressional Hearing
On November 13, 2024, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a joint subcommittee hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.” Co-chaired by Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), the hearing featured testimony from Shellenberger alongside Luis Elizondo, Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet (Ret.), and former NASA Associate Administrator Michael Gold.
Mace entered the Immaculate Constellation document into the Congressional Record, stating:
“…enter into the Congressional Record this 12-page document… that describes the Immaculate Constellation government program.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) pressed Shellenberger on oceanic UAP activity — whether objects emerge from and submerge into the ocean — and whether DoD keeps Congress “out of the loop” on such encounters.
The hearing added the Immaculate Constellation allegations to the growing Congressional record on UAP, following David Grusch’s landmark 2023 testimony about alleged retrieval and reverse-engineering programs.
Connection to Broader Disclosure Efforts
Immaculate Constellation does not exist in isolation. It fits within a pattern of allegations that has been building since at least 2017, when the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was first revealed publicly.
David Grusch’s 2023 whistleblower complaint alleged that the U.S. government possesses retrieved non-human craft and operates illegal programs to study them — claims the Pentagon has also denied. Disclosure advocates frame Immaculate Constellation as a complementary piece: where Grusch described retrieval and reverse-engineering programs, the Immaculate Constellation report describes the imagery and intelligence collection apparatus that allegedly feeds into or operates alongside those programs.
The FY2026 NDAA included expanded UAP transparency provisions and whistleblower protections — mechanisms that the Immaculate Constellation whistleblower reportedly used to deliver the report to Congress.
AARO, the Pentagon’s official UAP investigation office, has publicly stated it has not found evidence supporting claims of hidden reverse-engineering programs. But the Immaculate Constellation allegations specifically claim that evidence has been withheld from AARO — raising the question of whether AARO’s conclusions are limited by the information it has been allowed to access.
What Remains Unresolved
The core tension is straightforward: a detailed document describing a classified UAP program has been entered into the Congressional Record, while the Pentagon maintains no such program exists. Neither position has been independently verified.
The underlying datasets, videos, and chain-of-custody assertions described in the document are not publicly available. The 13-minute Kuwait orb video has not been released. No government agency has authenticated the document’s claims, and the document’s entry into the Congressional Record via a lawmaker’s office does not constitute official government authentication.
What is documented: a whistleblower used legally established channels to deliver a report to Congress. That report was deemed significant enough for a sitting chairwoman to enter it into the official record during a nationally covered hearing. The Pentagon’s response — categorical denial followed by refusal to search its own records — has done little to settle the matter.
The question of whether Immaculate Constellation is real may ultimately be answered not by FOIA requests or press coverage, but by the Congressional oversight mechanisms that the latest wave of UAP whistleblowers have been counting on.
Sources: Public — Shellenberger’s original report · ODNI FOIA DF-2025-00021 · House Oversight Hearing Record (GovInfo) · Immaculate Constellation Document (Rep. Mace) · Shellenberger Written Testimony · House Oversight Hearing Page · The Black Vault — Pentagon Refuses Email Search · The Debrief — Analysis · Space.com — Hearing Coverage · Spectrum News — Hearing Coverage