Dispatches

The Danger and Implications

October 9, 2026

On October 2, 1952 H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, sent the Director of Central Intelligence a memorandum titled "Flying Saucers." It reported that consultants had recommended a study group to analyze the problem and determine which fields of fundamental science should be investigated, and it continued: "Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Vice President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has indicated to CIA that such a group could be constituted at that Institute. Similarly, Project Lincoln, the Air Force's air defense project at MIT, could be charged with some of these responsibilities."¹

At eleven in the morning on December 2, Philip G. Strong of the Office of Scientific Intelligence met Julius A. Stratton, Executive Vice President and Provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Max Millikan, director of the Center for International Studies, the Institute's CIA-funded research center. Strong briefed them on the Limestone Base sightings, a Florida scoutmaster's case and the Utah motion pictures, and brought Stratton up to date "since our previous discussion of the subject in August." His memorandum of the next day records: "Dr. Stratton reiterated his earlier position that this is a subject which must be investigated and he said that probably the best means of getting a thoroughly competent review of the problem would be through Project LINCOLN." Stratton said that "Alfred Hill would be the best man to head the group." Albert G. Hill, who had succeeded Stratton at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, was then director of the Lincoln Laboratory. Should Lincoln prove impractical, Stratton "felt very strongly that Cal Tech would be the better" choice, "in view of the presence there of Robertson, Lauritson, Spitzer (on temporary duty from Princeton), Millikan's brother and others." He "asked particularly that we keep him informed of the progress that we make in having this problem investigated as he is personally very interested as well as fully aware of the potential danger and implications of the situation."²

Strong lunched the same day at the faculty club with Lloyd Berkner and Jerrold Zacharias. Berkner "felt strongly that the saucer problem should be thoroughly investigated from a scientific point of view." Zacharias proposed Shirley Quimby of Columbia University, "probably the most expert man in the country on magic and general chicanery." Strong concluded that "it will probably be necessary to secure the full backing of DCI in order that a scientific review of this problem may be laid on."²

The panel met under the Office of Scientific Intelligence from January 14 to 18, 1953. It was chaired by H. P. Robertson of the California Institute of Technology, and Berkner sat on it. Its report of January 17 is signed by Robertson, Luis W. Alvarez, Berkner, Samuel Goudsmit and Thornton Page.³ On January 27 Chadwell wrote to "Dr. Julius A. Stratton, Provost": "Remembering your request to be kept informed of any progress in the problem of 'unidentified flying objects,' this letter will bring you up to date." He enclosed the report, the list of personnel and the evidence presented, and wrote: "Since the problems related to this subject appear to be operational rather than intelligence in nature, we will be concerned only indirectly in the future. However, if there are any developments in which we believe you might be interested, we shall inform you. Incidentally, knowledge of any interest of CIA in the subject of 'flying saucers' has been carefully restricted, in view of probable misunderstanding if it were publicly known."⁴

Our Largest Funder

October 8, 2026

Claire Zabel joined Open Philanthropy as a research analyst in August 2015 and, from December 2019 to January 2022, was described on its team page as leading "our grantmaking on effective altruism."¹ On July 18, 2019, Companies House records, she became a director of the English company of the Centre for Effective Altruism, later Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), and a person with significant control holding more than 25 percent of its votes. She remained a director until March 28, 2024.²

Open Philanthropy grant pages from 2017 to 2022 name her as investigator on at least 31 grants totalling about 21.2 million dollars, among them several to the Centre: 180,000 dollars in February 2020 for a longtermist project incubator, 500,000 dollars more for the incubator in September 2020, and 5,000,000 dollars to the Atlas Fellowship, via the Centre, in March 2022. Of the September 2020 incubator grant, 451,264 dollars was returned to Open Philanthropy in March 2023.³ The largest general-support grant to the Centre, 7,500,000 dollars in February 2021, names a committee as its investigator.⁴

The charity's accounts for the year to June 30, 2023 describe her in a note on related parties as a program director at "Open Philanthropy, our largest funder," and state that "Claire has significant influence over some of the funding decisions made by Open Philanthropy in relation to several of the charity's projects." That year the charity took 39,037,949 pounds in grants from Open Philanthropy and 2,766,546 pounds in donations from the FTX Foundation. The same note states that one of its trustees had been the chief executive of the FTX Foundation during the year. The trustee list for that year includes Nick Beckstead, who resigned in August 2023.⁵

The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into the charity in December 2022. Its report of May 2024 found that trustees were not required to disclose potential conflicts of interest on joining the board until October 2022, and found no evidence of unmanaged conflicts concerning funds from the FTX Foundation. It does not name the trustees or mention Open Philanthropy. The report is marked as withdrawn on May 27, 2026.⁶

Promotional Material

October 8, 2026

Among the research files of Danny Casolaro, who was found dead in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, is a folder labeled "Promotional Material." Its five items are hand-numbered "BD|AI|PM-01" to "PM-05." In the order in which the folder was photographed they run: a sales sheet of the Chilean arms maker Industrias Cardoen, a printed page on fuel-air munitions, a Brunswick Corporation cover sheet and drawing, the resume packet of Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc., and a brochure for an energy-transfer device called the Inter-Probe.¹

The Cardoen sheet states that the company "initiated the manufacture of military products in 1978" and that "several export transactions have been successfully completed with ally countries." Its product list includes a "Cluster type bomb" in 100-pound and 500-pound sizes.¹ In October 1991 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that the CIA had believed Cardoen to be "the primary supplier of cluster bombs to the Iraqi government" between 1984 and 1988. From January 1986 until his death in January 1988 James D. Theberge, ambassador to Chile from 1982 to 1985, sat on the CIA's Senior Review Panel while consulting for Swissco Management Group, "a subsidiary of Cardoen Industries of Chile," a tie he disclosed to the agency in December 1985.²

The Brunswick sheet reads "RAW / Rifleman's Assault Weapon / for / Urban Warfare / October 1976," from the company's defense division at Costa Mesa, California, and is marked "PROPRIETARY DATA."³ The CTC packet was faxed on June 20, 1990. It lists the BCCI defense coordinator E. Lawrence Barcella, a Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation vice president and an unnamed former CIA counterterrorism chief.¹

In another folder of the same papers, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch clipping of February 19, 1991 reports an affidavit by Ari Ben-Menashe stating that Carlos Cardoen told him in January 1989 that he had brokered a sale of PROMIS by Earl Brian to an Iraqi military intelligence representative, consummated in Santiago. Brian called the allegations "nonsense."⁴

On May 26, 1993 a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Cardoen, his company and Swissco over zirconium and fuze components exported to Chile for cluster bombs sold to Iraq.⁵ On January 31, 1995 Howard Teicher, who had served on the National Security Council staff from 1982 to 1987, signed a declaration in the case stating that "the CIA authorized, approved and assisted Cardoen in the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs." The declaration was sealed.⁶ Robert Parry reported that the government sealed it as a state secret while attacking Teicher's credibility, and that Teicher was kept from testifying; Consortium News reported that a federal grand jury heard testimony on a complaint over the defense's filing of an affidavit in the case.⁶⁸

On November 8, 1996 the United States served a corrective declaration that Teicher had signed on October 31. In it he wrote that lawyers for Teledyne had drafted the January text, that he had not reviewed his National Security Council files since 1987, and that his statements in paragraphs 15 through 18 were his best memory and belief rather than "categorical statements of fact." He wrote that he was "not aware of any specific evidence that the United States government or any government official or agency took steps to help Cardoen obtain any U.S.-origin components for use in cluster bombs." The corrective declaration does not address paragraph 14 of the January text, which describes the supply of Cardoen's cluster bombs to Iraq as an "extension" of United States policy.⁷⁶

The Jet Center

October 8, 2026

St. Thomas Jet Center is the fixed-base operator for private aircraft at Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas, and runs the lower-cost operator Alliance Aviation at the same field. Michael Hancock and Susan Hancock bought it from the Boehlke family in 2002.¹

On October 1, 2012 a message to Todd Meister read: "We will land at 12:15PM in St. Thomas FBO: Alliance Aviation. Tail # N3FD." Meister forwarded the message to Jeffrey Epstein and to Lesley Groff, who wrote to Epstein, copying the pilot Larry Visoski, that Meister would be "going to the island tomorrow with his Venezuelan friend and that Larry is to pick them up in the helicopter upon arrival."² The Justice Department's Epstein Library returns 29 documents for "N3FD."³ The FAA's records list two earlier aircraft under the mark, a Wittman W-8 cancelled in 1994 and an Extra 300 exported to Germany in 2005; no aircraft was registered as N3FD in October 2012, and the mark has been held in reserve since July 2022.⁴

On May 16, 2014 Epstein's accountant Richard Kahn asked Visoski to "poke around tonight about Black Diamond Trading," a company he had heard was trying to buy the Jet Center. At 5:40 PM Visoski sent Kahn "LearJet 60," "N114BD" and "Is Blackdiamond," and wrote that "They arrived this evening at 7 PM in the Learjet, can you ask if you want me to introduce myself?" Kahn asked Epstein whether Larry should "meet the aircraft and poke around with them tonight." The reply from the account "jeffrey E." reads "yes why not?"⁵ The Epstein Library also holds a photograph of the business card of Stephen Deckoff, founder of Black Diamond Capital Management, numbered next to a screenshot of an aviation application showing a St. Thomas to Newark route at 5:40 PM.⁶ The FAA lists the Learjet 60, serial 166, as registered to Black Diamond Aviation Group LLC from 2004.⁷

In November 2018 Signature Flight Support agreed to buy St. Thomas Jet Center with Alliance Aviation, taking 49 percent at signing and the rest within 14 months.¹ On April 19, 2024 the FAA registered an EC135 helicopter, N615BD, to Stephen H. Deckoff as an individual in St. Thomas.⁸

The Roster

October 8, 2026

On August 1, 1988, CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P. was filed as a limited partnership in Delaware. The next day Carter Cornick, recently retired from the FBI's terrorism section, and the former federal prosecutor Eugene Propper announced Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc., seeded with about $500,000 from investors they declined to name. E. Lawrence Barcella, who had worked with both men on the Letelier and Edwin Wilson cases, was to advise on extradition.¹²

Shortly after the October 1988 indictment of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in Tampa, Barcella was brought in to coordinate the bank's defense.³

On September 18, 1989, the partnership registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Its one foreign principal was the Government of Jamaica, from which it reported $25,000 received before registration. Its short-form registrants were Cornick, Propper and Gerald S. Walker.⁴

On June 20, 1990, a twelve-page resume packet on the partnership's letterhead went out by fax. Besides Cornick, Propper and Barcella, it lists James B. Motley, vice president for national security studies at Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation since September 1987; Francis J. McNeil, ambassador to Costa Rica from 1980 to 1983; and an unnamed former CIA chief of counterterrorism, a Navy aviator who had run the agency's air and maritime elements from 1974 to 1977 and retired in 1987. A copy of the packet is among the papers of Danny Casolaro, in a folder labeled "Promotional Material" where it follows a Brunswick cover sheet and drawing for the Rifleman's Assault Weapon; the folder opens with a sales sheet of the Chilean arms maker Industrias Cardoen. Casolaro was found dead in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991.⁵

In March 1992 the House October Surprise Task Force hired Barcella as its chief counsel. The biography printed in its January 1993 report describes him as "presently a partner in the Washington office of Katten, Muchin, Zavis and Dombroff." The report found "no credible evidence" of a deal.⁶