Stratton’s Memoir Arrives With New UAP Claims and a Clearance Question

Jay Stratton’s Out of the Shadows is out, alongside an October 13, 2026 PEOPLE interview. The former UAP Task Force director recalls viewing a classified video in 2005 of a triangular object near a nuclear missile site. That account does not independently authenticate the footage.

PEOPLE also describes an alleged submarine operation to attract a UAP. A representative says 21 agencies and departments reviewed the memoir before release.

What publication clearance means

The relevant distinction is explicit in Intelligence Community Directive 711, dated July 12, 2024. It defines prepublication review as a process for protecting classified government information, and separates it from declassification or official acknowledgment. Section D.1 says approval does not imply endorsement, authentication or official acknowledgment by the Intelligence Community or the U.S. government.

The directive covers non-official works by current and former personnel with relevant classified access, including books and interviews. It also provides for coordination among agencies. Multiple reviews can therefore reflect different agencies’ responsibilities for protecting information. The number of reviewers, considered alone, is not a measure of the evidence supporting an author’s conclusions.

The evidence question remains open

The Pentagon’s published position also remains important context. In its February 2024 historical report, AARO said it had found no empirical evidence supporting government or corporate reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology. The report treats witness accounts as potential starting points for investigation and says final assessments require provable facts. Its conclusions are agency assessments, not a case-specific rebuttal to every subsequent allegation.

For readers evaluating the new account, the useful distinction is between identifying an investigable event and establishing its cause. Original recordings, dates, sensor information, contemporaneous reports and independently assessable corroboration would help test an extraordinary interpretation. A witness’s seniority can make an account important to examine; it cannot, by itself, establish an object’s origin.

Dark Fires previously covered the memoir’s television adaptation. The new interview moves the discussion to specific reported events, where the quality and availability of supporting records become the central questions.