Ronald Moultrie
Ronald S. Moultrie served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from June 2021 to January 2025. The position, abbreviated USD(I&S), is the senior intelligence official at the Department of Defense and oversees the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and the broader Defense intelligence enterprise. Moultrie was the Pentagon official with institutional ownership of the UAP question during the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group in November 2021 and its successor body, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, in July 2022. On 17 May 2022 he provided sworn testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, the first US congressional open UAP testimony since the 1968 Roush symposium fifty-four years earlier.
A Life
Ronald Moultrie's federal career was built through the senior career-civilian ranks of the United States intelligence community rather than through political appointment or uniformed service. He completed a bachelor's degree at Indiana University and a master's degree at George Washington University. The bulk of his pre-2021 career was spent at the National Security Agency, where he rose to Director of Operations, the senior career civilian role responsible for the agency's signals-intelligence collection and analysis enterprise.
From the NSA he moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as Director of Mission Integration, then to a series of consulting roles in the private intelligence-services sector. In April 2021 he was nominated by President Biden as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. He was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote on 27 May 2021 and sworn in on 1 June 2021.
The position of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, USD(I&S), is the Pentagon's senior intelligence official. The portfolio includes oversight of the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, and the broader Defense intelligence enterprise. The position also carries direct responsibility for the Department of Defense's UAP analysis programmes through their successive institutional forms.
The Department of Defense is committed to declassifying and releasing as much information about UAP as we can without compromising sources and methods.Ronald Moultrie, House Intelligence Subcommittee, 17 May 2022
On 23 November 2021 Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, AOIMSG, the successor body to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force that had been stood up in August 2020 following Senator Marco Rubio's FY2021 instruction. The AOIMSG announcement explicitly placed institutional ownership of the UAP question within Moultrie's USD(I&S) portfolio at the Department of Defense.
On 17 May 2022 Moultrie provided sworn testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, chaired by Representative André Carson. He appeared alongside Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. The hearing was the first US congressional open UAP testimony since the 17 July 1968 Roush symposium, a fifty-four-year institutional silence. The proceedings included the public viewing of a multi-sensor UAP encounter video captured by US Navy aviators that Bray narrated and Moultrie introduced.
The 17 May 2022 hearing was followed by the July 2022 National Defense Authorization Act for FY2023, which restructured AOIMSG into the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO. AARO inherited the full institutional UAP brief and reported through the USD(I&S) chain to Moultrie. Sean Kirkpatrick served as AARO's first director from July 2022 until his retirement in December 2023; Tim Phillips served as acting director through early 2024; Jon Kosloski took the directorship from May 2024.
Moultrie remained USD(I&S) through the publication of the AARO Historical Record Report Volume I in March 2024 and the publication of the AARO Phase 1 Review of Reports in May 2024. He departed federal service in January 2025 at the conclusion of the Biden administration.
On UAP
Moultrie's public position throughout his tenure was the official institutional position of the Department of Defense. He testified to the existence of unidentified anomalous phenomena observed by US military aircrew, the establishment of formal reporting and analysis structures inside the Department, the commitment to declassification within sources-and-methods constraints, and the absence of substantiating evidence for the retrieval and reverse-engineering claims subsequently made by David Grusch in July 2023.
His framing across the 17 May 2022 hearing and subsequent public statements emphasised the flight-safety and counter-intelligence dimensions of the question rather than the substantive UAP-origin claims that would dominate the post-2023 discourse. The AARO Historical Record Report Volume I, published under his oversight in March 2024, found no empirical evidence of any US UAP retrieval or reverse-engineering programme. The Volume I framing remained the Department's institutional position throughout the remainder of Moultrie's tenure.
Career Record
The publicly available record of Moultrie's federal service:
- Indiana University. Bachelor's degree.
- George Washington University. Master's degree.
- National Security Agency. Senior Executive Service career civilian. Rose to Director of Operations.
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Director of Mission Integration.
- Private sector consulting in intelligence services.
- April 2021. Nominated by President Biden as USD(I&S).
- 27 May 2021. Senate confirmation by voice vote.
- 1 June 2021. Sworn in as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
- 23 November 2021. Pentagon announces AOIMSG within USD(I&S) portfolio.
- 17 May 2022. Sworn testimony, House Intelligence Subcommittee. First US congressional open UAP testimony since 1968.
- July 2022. AOIMSG restructured into AARO under FY2023 NDAA, reporting to USD(I&S).
- March 2024. AARO Historical Record Report Volume I published under his oversight.
- January 2025. Departed federal service.
Sources
This biography is built from publicly available material:
- House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence · Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation · Hearing of 17 May 2022, sworn statement
- Senate confirmation hearing record, May 2021
- Department of Defense USD(I&S) press releases, 2021 to 2025
- Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks · AOIMSG establishment memorandum, 23 November 2021
- National Defense Authorization Act for FY2023, AARO restructuring provisions
- AARO Historical Record Report Volume I, March 2024
- National Security Agency career service record (public)
The archive takes no position on the substance of the Department of Defense's institutional UAP framing during Moultrie's tenure, only documents that he was the senior intelligence official at the Pentagon during the establishment of AOIMSG and AARO and that the AARO Volume I report was published under his oversight. The contradiction between AARO Volume I and the sworn testimony of David Grusch and Luis Elizondo is documented on those biography pages and on the United States country page. If anything on this biography needs correcting, please get in touch.
