THE DOCUMENT
DOW-UAP-D175, “BAASS Self Assessment of UAP Analysis Capabilities November 2010”, a Department of War record from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 07, published at war.gov/ufo on 23 October 2026. The title is the release’s, taken from the file name; the war.gov site title hyphenates Self-Assessment and adds a comma before November 2010. The covers’ own title is Summary Report on BAASS UAP Analysis Capabilities, beside the BAASS logo and above the date November 23, 2010 (pp. 1, 2, two copies of the cover), and the page footers repeat the title and date. The 141 pages hold a table of contents and lists of figures and tables (pp. 3 to 10), an executive summary (pp. 11 to 13), an introduction on history, twelve technology areas, personnel, equipment and a Data Warehouse (pp. 14 to 21), a section on types of UAPs (pp. 22 to 25), an account of a November 2004 incident (pp. 26 to 33), analyses of that case and of spherical objects (pp. 33 to 98), a summary and conclusion (pp. 99, 100), references (pp. 101, 102), symbols and acronyms (pp. 103 to 105), and three attachments: ANSYS input files (pp. 106 to 116) and flow contour plots for a “Tic Tac” shape (pp. 117 to 128) and a right circular cylinder (pp. 129 to 141). From p. 3 the printed page numbers run one lower than the PDF page; this briefing uses PDF pages. The report carries no author, addressee or signature, and no classification marking was found at the head or foot of any page. Names lie under thin-outlined white boxes labelled 1843(a)(2) (pp. 14, 15, 20 to 22, 26, 28 to 30, 32, 59), and two such boxes cover the whole reference list (pp. 101, 102). Other boxes carry substitution labels (pp. 20 to 22, 27, 28).
Why this one is worth your time
D175 is BAASS describing what it says it built under its DIA contract: field equipment, eleven databases and modelling software. Its section 4.1 (pp. 26 to 59) sits under the heading of one case, an observation of UAP by elements of a carrier strike group off the coast of Mexico in November 2004, as do the contour plots of pp. 117 to 128.
The war.gov site’s description presents the document as the company’s assessment of itself and reads it as an argument for keeping BAASS and AAWSAP going. The report states its purpose as summarising BAASS’s capabilities and demonstrating the resources built under the contract (p. 11); no page prints AAWSAP or mentions continuing the contract.
What the document says
Purpose and contract. The executive summary says that between 2008 and 2010 BAASS was contracted by the Defense Warning Office of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to create, staff and equip a new organisation to examine and analyse the threat to national security associated with advanced aerospace technology, and that by modelling a few sentinel cases the report demonstrates the resources built under DIA contract HHM402-08-C-0072 (p. 11). The summary also refers to incidents of the 1960s and 1970s along the so called Northern Tier of the United States, over military sites (p. 11, given here in general terms).
History, areas and equipment. Pages 14 and 15 sketch events and official studies from 1947 to the closing of Project Blue Book on 30 January 1970, with the names of the people in them boxed, among them the issuer of a September 1947 Air Force memorandum that p. 14 quotes. Twelve technology areas follow (p. 16), and a personnel section that names no one (pp. 16, 17). The equipment pages list, by type, cameras, night vision devices, a thermal imaging monocular, GPS units, laser range finders and digital game cameras (pp. 17, 18), two microscopes, an X-ray fluorescence analyser and instruments for radiation and electromagnetic fields (p. 19), security equipment, given here in general terms (p. 18), and a server (p. 20).
The Data Warehouse. BAASS titled its Data Warehouse Project CAPELLA and calls it “revolutionary” (p. 20). It holds eleven databases, with supporting documents such as witness interviews (p. 20). Among them are a pilot database whose name is boxed, a Sign/Grudge/Blue Book Database, a MUFON Case Management System Database, a Project Colares Database, a BAASS Database, a Utah Ranch Database and a Post-Utah Ranch Effects Database (p. 20). The format is based on a six-layer model (p. 21). BAASS reports first-level statistical analyses of three databases: two look for patterns of technical information, and the Utah Ranch analysis for patterns in when anomalous activity is reported (p. 21, read from the page image).
Types of UAPs. Figure 1, from a source whose name is boxed, is a chart titled THE UFO PATTERN that draws shapes among them saucers, hats, spheres, cylinders and triangles (p. 22, read from the page image). BAASS, the page says, has focused on shapes that appear to hover or accelerate rapidly (pp. 22, 23).
The November 2004 incident. The account says it is excerpted from a report by personnel assigned to the DIA, who used the term Anomalous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) (p. 26). During approximately 10 to 16 November 2004 a ship of the group detected multiple AAVs that would descend “very rapidly” from approximately 60,000 feet to approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds, hover, and depart at high velocities and turn rates (p. 26). On 14 November two fighter aircraft returning from training were vectored to intercept and made visual contact at approximately one mile with an object reported as an elongated egg or Tic Tac shape, solid white, smooth and approximately 46 feet long; their radar could not obtain a lock, and the AAV took evasive action but no offensive action (p. 26).
A pilot under a substitution label, sent to investigate, saw a roughly round water disturbance 50 to 100 metres across but no object (pp. 27, 28). One of the crew of the lead aircraft, whose names are boxed, saw first a disturbance localised underneath the object that looked like frothy waves and foam “almost as if the water was boiling”, then the object; according to a crew member, it was uniformly white, and asked whether it glowed or reflected sunlight, one said it looked like it had a white “candy-coated shell, almost like a white board” (p. 29). One crew member’s report differs from another’s, the page says, in having the object travel level at approximately 500 to 1000 feet at approximately 500 knots (p. 29). As they manoeuvred, the object appeared, according to a crew member, “to recognize us”, pointed towards their aircraft and ascended quickly at a supersonic speed, and a radar picture they requested then placed it at their training point, at approximately 24,000 feet (p. 29). The second section’s crew saw it on the infrared sensor, stationary, after their radar could not take a lock: it “appeared as if the radar couldn’t hack it”; one crew member estimated it at 15 to 20 thousand feet (p. 30). A crew member whose name is boxed never had visual, saw it only on the infrared sensor, and could not confirm it was the same object (p. 32). The Key Assessments that follow call the AAV no known aircraft or air vehicle currently in the inventory of the United States or any foreign nation, with advanced low observable characteristics, aerodynamic performance and propulsion, and a possible ability to cloak and to operate undersea undetected (pp. 32, 33).
The models. For a descent from 60,000 feet to sea level in 0.5 to 10 seconds, Table 2 runs from 7,453 g to 19 g (p. 35); 75 g at 5.0 seconds, the page says, would require some form of acceleration manipulation to limit what a human pilot would experience (p. 34). Flow contours around a Tic Tac shape and a right circular cylinder, from 100 to 1500 mph, show, for the Tic Tac shape, detached shock waves from 700 to 1,500 mph (p. 47), and no significantly different lift advantage between the shapes (p. 48; plots pp. 42 to 47, 117 to 141). A model of a steel disc entering water follows; the .mpeg animations the page says are provided are not in the record (pp. 48 to 50). The page says this tool can greatly assist in studying human effects to reverse engineer UAP technology (p. 59). The acoustic section opens with a 1967 case at Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, which a UFO study whose name is boxed left unexplained (p. 59), then models a 10 m sphere, the plots captioned in Water, and concludes that ships and submarines could possibly detect such pressure disturbances in future (pp. 61 to 83). A radar cross section model of a coated 10 m sphere at 300 MHz closes the analyses (pp. 90 to 98).
The summary. BAASS calls itself one of the few companies able to do such studies, and says it has built the largest known UAP performance and behaviour Data Warehouse in the world (p. 99). Operation in different mediums and a goal of hypersonic flight, it says, would provide superior performance in reaching intended targets and faster delivery of weapons (pp. 99, 100).
What the document does not say
The report names no author, addressee or preparing office and carries no signature: author and prepared by return zero. It does not identify the excerpted DIA report by title, date or number, or mark where the excerpt ends: the account includes questions put by “We” (p. 28), and the Key Assessments sit under a heading crediting the DIA report (p. 32). The object is 40 feet long in the executive summary (p. 12) and approximately 46 feet in the case pages (pp. 26, 29).
AAWSAP, renew and continuation return zero, and so do relevance, rigorous and strategic, words of the site’s description. No page presents the Threat Assessment the report calls part of BAASS’s mission (pp. 99, 100). No Utah investigation is described: Utah occurs three times in the text layer, only in database names and the statistics sentence (pp. 20, 21). The site gives the record the Incident Location Las Vegas, Nevada, which no page prints, and as Incident Date the report’s own date.
From the record
contracted by the Defense Warning Office of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to create,
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 11, the executive summary’s second sentence, which opens on the line above with the years 2008 to 2010; the sentence continues: staff, and equip a new organization in order to examine and analyze the threat to national security associated with advanced aerospace technology
these sightings may be explained by natural phenomena, or by unacknowledged aerospace
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 11, the close of the executive summary’s second paragraph; the sentence begins: It should be stressed many, but not all, of
possibly a majority, of UAP reports can be explained by simple misidentification of current
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 22, the first sentence under Figure 1, in which BAASS says it understands that a considerable number of reports can be explained this way; the sentence continues: advanced technology platforms
The following summary is excerpted from the report of an investigation conducted by personnel
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 26, the first sentence of section 4.1, on the November 2004 incident, which goes on to name the investigators as personnel assigned to the DIA and the observation as one by elements of a carrier strike group the page names, off the coast of Mexico in November 2004
Key Assessments According to DIA Report
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 32, the italic subheading above the bulleted assessments, which run on to p. 33
BAASS’s mission to produce a Threat Assessment of UAP and USO performance and
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 99, section 5, the summary and conclusion; the sentence begins: From the data accrued, it is also
vehicle in different mediums, as well as a goal of hypersonic flight would provide superior
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 99, section 5, on non-conventional propulsion research; the sentence begins: Operation of the
BAASS’ acquired knowledge and capabilities are leading the way to quantum leaps in
DOW-UAP-D175, p. 100, the report’s last sentence; the sentence continues: technology for travel in the atmosphere, space and under water, along with advances in armament and defense systems
Where the case connects
DOW-UAP-D174, BAASS’s Utah ranch investigation report of 2010 and the subject of Release 07 Briefing 9, is a field report; D175 lists a Utah Ranch Database (p. 20). Both name game cameras and a Celestron 44340 digital microscope (D175 pp. 18, 19; D174 pp. 5, 18, 35, 36). Neither cites the other, and neither says whether the database holds D174’s interviews.
DOW-UAP-D168, the December 2008 project management plan covered in Release 07 Briefing 5, prints the same contract number (p. 1), the twelve areas in the same order with some wording differences (D168 p. 14; D175 p. 16), and Projects Northern Tier and Colares, the latter on events of 1977 in Brazil (p. 9). DOW-UAP-D167’s cover carries the name Project Capella (p. 1). The Northern Tier recurs in the 2009 monthly reports DOW-UAP-D170, DOW-UAP-D171 and DOW-UAP-D173 (Release 07 Briefings 6, 7 and 8), which also print one sentence calling the BAASS database of cases larger than any other owned by UAP organisations in North America (D170 p. 50, D171 p. 134, D173 p. 155).
Outside this record, Release 06 Briefing 10 reports contract HHM402-08-C-0072 with Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, LLC, and twelve study areas in a July 2008 statement of objectives.
Read it yourself
DOW-UAP-D175, “BAASS Self Assessment of UAP Analysis Capabilities November 2010”, is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 07. The executive summary is pages 11 to 13 of the PDF, the November 2004 incident pages 26 to 33, and the summary and conclusion pages 99 and 100.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
Related wiki entries
The wiki entries below give background on the programme and publisher behind this briefing, and on the subjects it touches.
- PURSUE
- Department of War
- BAASS Capabilities Report 2010
- Defense Warning Office
- DIA
- AAWSAP Contract HHM402-08-C-0072
- Project Northern Tier
- Utah Ranch Investigation 2009-2010
References and further reading
- DOW-UAP-D175, “BAASS Self Assessment of UAP Analysis Capabilities November 2010”, PURSUE Release 07, U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov/ufo
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- AARO UAP Records, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, aaro.mil/UAP-Records
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefing 9, on DOW-UAP-D174, the BAASS Utah ranch investigation report of 2010
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefing 5, on DOW-UAP-D166, DOW-UAP-D167 and DOW-UAP-D168, the BAASS records of 2008
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefings 6, 7 and 8, on the BAASS monthly reports of 2009
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 06 Briefing 10, on the AAWSAP contract file