Jay Stratton

Jay Stratton is a former senior executive in the US intelligence community whose 32-year career across the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, US Strategic Command, Naval Air Systems Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and two US embassies brought him into formal contact with the UAP question for sixteen consecutive years. While serving as Chief of Air and Space Warfare at DIA, he was central to establishing the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) in 2008.

In 2020 he was named the public Director of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) when the Department of the Navy stood it up under congressional mandate. The UAPTF produced the FLIR1, Gimbal, and GoFast video releases and led directly to the June 2021 Office of the Director of National Intelligence Preliminary Assessment on UAP. He retired from federal service in early 2022, shortly before the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was established as the formal successor body.

In 2024 it was announced that HarperCollins had acquired Stratton's memoir of his career inside the apparatus, making him the first former programme director to publish a long-form account through a mainstream publisher rather than coming forward through whistleblower protections.

Stratton's public statements have been measured and largely limited to confirming his role and the existence and timeline of AAWSAP, AATIP, and the UAPTF. His longer-form account is expected in the forthcoming HarperCollins memoir. Where he has spoken publicly, his framing has emphasised the seriousness of the threat-assessment work and the legitimacy of the congressional mandate under which the UAPTF operated.

His investigative remit at the UAPTF included the 2004 USS Nimitz Tic Tac encounter and the broader pattern of US Navy aviator UAP reports off the eastern seaboard documented in the 2019 and 2021 press disclosures.