THE DOCUMENT
DOW-UAP-D173, “BAASS Monthly Report November 2009”, 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 adds a comma after Report. The cover’s own title is November 2009 Monthly Report, under the BAASS logo and the words Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (p. 1, read from the page image); the title page reads November 2009 Report (p. 2), and the Preface calls the document This Progress report, for the period of 1 to 30 November 2009 (p. 3). The 155 pages hold the cover, title page, Preface and contents (pp. 1 to 3); a summary of BAASS’s purchase order with MUFON and five MUFON case reports (pp. 4 to 59); a status update on the Utah ranch in four sections (pp. 60 to 126); a status report on a 2007 blue orb case (pp. 127 to 154); and a one-page Conclusion (p. 155). Where a page carries a printed number, it runs one lower than the PDF page; this briefing uses PDF pages. The report carries no date of issue and no signature. No classification marking was found; the title page carries a proprietary footer struck through by a line (p. 2, read from the page image). Names, places and some whole pages lie under thin-outlined white boxes labelled 1843(a)(2), 1843(a)(3) or both, or carrying substitution labels; pp. 144 to 146 and 148 to 154 are each one box filling the page. In the MUFON case reports, typed asterisks stand in for witnesses’ names and addresses: that is MUFON’s own masking, part of the typescript.
Why this one is worth your time
D173 is BAASS’s progress report for November 2009: MUFON’s case reports as MUFON’s investigators wrote them, then the Utah ranch as BAASS’s officers, investigators and scientists recorded it, then a 2007 blue orb case.
In two places the report weighs its own material: it says the officers’ coin reports are open to the criticism that fraud by the officers, trespassers or animals could easily explain them, and calls them difficult to interpret (p. 114), and a note withdraws its own memorandum’s threat assessment (p. 126).
What the document says
MUFON. In February 2009 BAASS executed a purchase order with MUFON for notice of significant sighting reports, investigators’ reports and physical evidence (p. 4). After appraising MUFON’s performance during October 2009, BAASS was dissatisfied with its tendency to warehouse significant sums of money every month and will reduce the monthly stipend by $10,000 for the remainder of the contract (p. 4).
Five MUFON cases. Each is on MUFON’s form. In California on 7 October 2009, a father and his daughter saw two blue lights converge on their car and hover in front of it; after a call to a hobby store, a Chief Investigator recommended that the investigator consider re-evaluating the case from Unknown to IFO: Man Made Object, radio-controlled model gliders with blue lights attached (pp. 5 to 10). In Missouri on 25 October 2009, a man reported a large craft landing in the woods behind his home, seven small lights, and a figure about five feet tall about 50 yards from the house (pp. 12, 13); at a bare area the investigator’s instruments registered nothing and her compass read 40 degrees off (p. 14). In central Texas on 18 November 2009, many residents saw lights in a line, listed under seven case numbers, with an eighth just added (pp. 19, 20); the findings page carries four headings with nothing under any of them (p. 39, read from the page image). In New York State on 25 November 2009, a driver saw lights on an object he put at around 200 feet in length, and his car and cell phone turned off as it passed over (pp. 40, 42). In Texas on 1 November 2009, a witness reported a saucer-like object hovering over her back yard, where plants appeared stressed (pp. 52, 53).
The officers’ logs. Section (a) says BAASS began round-the-clock surveillance of the Utah property on 3 August 2009, and presents selected reports with areas of potential interest detailed in yellow (p. 60). The logs, dated 10 to 21 November 2009, record patrols and a stereo that turned on by itself (p. 61), and pennies laid out in a set arrangement and found moved, with a bracketed note that the investigators were nowhere near the coins (pp. 63, 65, 70). One officer describes, in bed, a very cold grip on the officer’s left ankle by what felt like a slender hand with extremely long fingers (p. 68).
The field trip. Two BAASS field investigators, under substitution labels, travelled on 16 to 19 November 2009 to continue the investigation into the phenomenon reported at and around the ranch property, and report 5 additional witnesses to an unidentified flying object, a bright blue orb and/or a large dog like creature (p. 72). The pages print their approaches: at an inn one asked about room rates as someone who travels through the area, and they photographed its front for identification purposes (p. 73); to interviewees they described themselves as employed by the property owner (pp. 74, 81).
The interviewees’ names are boxed. A young interviewee said he had seen a large dog-like creature behind his home three times in three years, upright on its hind legs and over six feet tall; he and a relative fired at it with a rifle, and the report says it bled thick black blood but the shots did not appear to kill it (pp. 77, 78). A woman described a blue orb of about golf ball size that kept about 50 feet in front of her car in 2007 or 2008, seemed to mimic its movements, then shot off (p. 90).
The experiments. BAASS scientific staff has started seed germination experiments on the Utah ranch, comparing seeds there with seeds kept at BAASS (pp. 107, 108); the recording table is blank (p. 113, read from the page image). For the coin reports, BAASS has devised brain teaser games in locked briefcases and puzzle boxes to be placed at the ranch, one holding tiles in a Fibonacci series for any intelligence there to continue (pp. 114 to 116). The photographs carry camera date stamps of 12/02/2009 and 12/08/2009, and a label on the puzzle box reads, upside down in the photograph, OPERATION INDEPENDENCE (pp. 114 to 116, read from the page images).
The website memorandum. Section (d), its title boxed (p. 116), holds a memorandum of 12 November 2009 from a field investigator to the Deputy Administrator, both under substitution labels, on a website about the ranch and the private individual who runs it, judged a threat. It is derogatory material about a private individual, given here by kind only. A note that follows says most of the posted material came from Internet sources and BAASS no longer considers the person a threat (p. 126).
The blue orb case. The status report of 17 November 2009 says that on 16 August 2007 a woman and her daughter were driving in Northern California; the report says three blue orbs were seen, and one entered the woman’s left shoulder and left through her right upper arm (p. 127). It reports a decline in her health, given here by kind only, and says the main question is whether the incident is the cause of her sickness. In a telephone interview of 28 August 2009 the daughter said she felt the incident had been accidental (pp. 136, 137). Under the heading Documented Medical Records Summary the rest is boxed, apart from Figure 20, a skeletal diagram, and one heading (pp. 143 to 154).
The Conclusion. Northern Tier, entry into classified archives, Project Oral History and contacts with key people in the military and private sector are on hold because BAASS currently does not have the Need to Know for this information (p. 155). It reports progress in training and initially deploying field investigative teams during the fall 2009 months, and MUFON’s case numbers, although improving, still lower than originally expected (p. 155).
What the document does not say
It names no sponsoring programme or agency and no contract under which BAASS itself works; the contract it mentions is MUFON’s purchase arrangement (p. 4). AAWSAP, HHM402 and Defense Intelligence return zero, DIA occurs only inside other words, and sponsor occurs once (p. 155). The war.gov site gives the Incident Date 11/1/2009, the first day of the period, and the Incident Location Las Vegas, Nevada; Nevada returns zero, and none of the incidents the report describes took place in Las Vegas. The site’s description opens with a paragraph on AAWSAP as a DIA-administered programme and speaks of case database expansion: that framing is the site’s. Expan returns zero; the page says that the BAASS database of cases is now larger than any other owned by UAP organisations in North America (p. 155).
The report carries no date of issue. Its experiment photographs carry the date stamps 12/02/2009 and 12/08/2009, read from the page images, which fall after the reporting period if read month first (pp. 114 to 116); the latest date the text gives for anything done is 27 November 2009 (p. 42). That the report was compiled in December 2009 is an inference from the stamps; no page says so.
Section (a) refers to previous reports on the officers’ deployment (p. 60); the release holds no BAASS monthly report between June and November 2009. The yellow it announces is not on pp. 60 to 70, by a colour measurement of the page images.
No result is given for the Missouri soil samples, for its video and still pictures, whose further analysis is called pending (p. 16), for the seed experiments or for the puzzles. The ten full-page boxes carry only their label; that they held medical records is an inference from the heading on p. 143.
From the record
In February 2009, BAASS executed a Purchase order with MUFON that
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 4, the first sentence of the MUFON summary; the sentence continues: entitles BAASS to: (a) receive notification of significant reports on UAP sightings
Conclusion: Unknown UAV, Entity, and Landing Sight. CAT. 3
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 16, the conclusion line of the MUFON investigator’s report on the Missouri case of 25 October 2009, above notes on video and four soil samples
Independent evidence was a electromagnetic and electrostatic effects on
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 49, the last item on the page in the summary of MUFON case 20706, the New York State case of 25 November 2009; the sentence continues: the effected vehicle as compared to test vehicle of identical make and
Since BAASS initiated round the clock surveillance of the Utah property on August
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 60, the opening of section (a), Utah Ranch Security Officer Events; the sentence continues: 3, 2009 the security officers have reported multiple incidents:
knowledge must be gathered while maintaining the highest level of respect
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 95, the Conclusion of Utah Trip, in a sentence that opens on p. 94; the sentence continues: for the tribal members and Native American culture.
they can be easily explained by (a) fraud perpetrated by the officers, (b)
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 114, Tamper-Proof Games Located on the Ranch, on the officers’ reports of moved coins; the sentence begins: However, all of these anecdotal reports suffer from the obvious criticisms that
BAASS database of cases is now larger than any other database owned by UAP
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 155, the Conclusion, the sentence on the BAASS case database; the sentence continues: organizations in North America.
separate Capella database for the events on the Utah ranch and surrounding
DOW-UAP-D173, p. 155, the last sentence of the Conclusion; the sentence continues: areas, a report on which will be forthcoming in the coming months.
Where the case connects
DOW-UAP-D174, the Utah ranch investigation report of April 2010 and the subject of Release 07 Briefing 9, reports two later deployments to the Utah ranch, 22 to 26 March and 19 to 23 April 2010 (p. 5). Neither record cites the other. D173 prints unboxed, on pp. 117, 119 and 122, the property name that D174 boxes on its narrative pages. These are release slips, and the name is not repeated here.
DOW-UAP-D175, BAASS’s capability report of 23 November 2010 and the subject of Release 07 Briefing 10, lists a Utah Ranch Database among eleven databases (p. 20). Whether that is the separate Capella database D173 announces, neither record says.
DOW-UAP-D171, the June 2009 report and the subject of Release 07 Briefing 7, proposes a further review of MUFON’s performance by the end of October 2009 (p. 12). D173 reports an appraisal during October 2009 (p. 4) and does not refer back to D171. Two of the projects on hold, Project Oral History and Project Northern Tier, are set out in BAASS’s project management plan of December 2008, DOW-UAP-D168, a record of Release 07 Briefing 5 (p. 9).
Outside this record, Release 06 Briefing 10, on the AAWSAP contract file, reports that the contract’s deliverables include monthly status reports. D173 names no contract under which BAASS works; whether it is one of those reports, the record does not say.
Read it yourself
DOW-UAP-D173, “BAASS Monthly Report November 2009”, is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 07. The Utah ranch sections are pages 60 to 126 of the PDF, and the Conclusion page 155.
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.
References and further reading
- DOW-UAP-D173, “BAASS Monthly Report November 2009”, 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 5, on DOW-UAP-D166, DOW-UAP-D167 and DOW-UAP-D168, the BAASS records of 2008
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefing 7, on DOW-UAP-D171, the BAASS monthly report for June 2009
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefing 9, on DOW-UAP-D174, the Utah ranch investigation report of April 2010
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 07 Briefing 10, on DOW-UAP-D175, the BAASS capability report of November 2010
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 06 Briefing 10, on DOW-UAP-D110 to DOW-UAP-D116, the AAWSAP contract file