The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is producing and refining a new deployable surveillance capability — the Gremlin System — to enable personnel to capture real-time data and more rapidly respond to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) incidents as they occur, the acting chief of the office told DefenseScoop during a press briefing Wednesday.
Tim Phillips, AARO’s acting director on assignment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, shared the first public details about these in-the-works, sensor-equipped Gremlin “kits” during the Wednesday briefing, which was more broadly focused on the office’s release of the congressionally required “Volume I Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP.” That report is attached below.
“We’re working with some of the government labs, such as the Department of Energy labs, and we have a great partner with Georgia Tech. And what we’re doing is developing a deployable, configurable sensor suite that we can put in Pelican cases. We’re going to be able to pull it to the field to do a long-term [collection]. Since the UAP target — that signature is not clearly defined — we really have to do hyperspectral surveillance to try to capture these incidents,” explained Phillips, who stepped into the AARO lead role when its inaugural director Sean Kirkpatrick departed last year.
The AARO team began developing the sensors and associated capabilities for Gremlin in October.
The team is currently experimenting with Gremlin at “a very large range in Texas,” where officials have been testing the system against known drone-type targets, and some unknown targets as well, Phillips noted.
“It’s picking up a lot of bats and birds. We’re learning a lot about solar flaring. We’re really starting to understand what’s in orbit around our planet and how we can eliminate those as anomalous objects,” he said.
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