UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 06 · SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D135AAWSAP DIRD, Antigravity for Aerospace Applications, March 2010
This DIRD, dated March 2010 and prepared for the AAWSAP program, asks whether gravity could ever be weakened, cancelled or redirected to move a vehicle. It is a theoretical survey that ranges from Newton’s gravity and Einstein’s relativity to cosmology and quantum field theory, and the release’s summary mentions no sightings.
The ideas on the list
The paper catalogs routes to gravitational control: extremely dense matter; gravitomagnetism, the relativistic counterpart of magnetism produced by moving or spinning mass; masses moving close to the speed of light; negative energy; the dark energy of cosmology and the energy of the vacuum; and quantum vacuum or dispersion forces such as the Casimir effect. Some of these, the author notes, are permitted by established physics under extreme, idealized conditions.
Every route then hits a wall. The release lists the problems the paper itself acknowledges: astronomical energy needs, exotic matter that has never been shown to exist in usable form, apparatus kilometers across or otherwise impossible to build, and very immature experiments.
Where it sits against mainstream physics
The building blocks are standard physics, but the suggestion that they could add up to working antigravity propulsion departs, the release says, significantly from the mainstream physics view. Narrower papers on the same theme include The Role of Superconductors in Gravity Research and Negative Mass Propulsion.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released September 18, 2026, quoted in full
This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed.
This DIRD surveys a range of proposed “antigravity,” or gravitational control, concepts for aerospace applications, drawing mainly from Newtonian gravity, general relativity, cosmology, and quantum field theory to hypothesize that gravity might someday be reduced, counteracted, or redirected as a means of propulsion. The report reviews mechanisms including ultra-dense matter, gravitomagnetic effects, relativistic moving masses, negative energy, dark or vacuum energy, and quantum vacuum or dispersion-force approaches, while presenting some of these ideas as theoretically permissible under extreme, idealized conditions within established physics. However, it notes that any practical implementation faces currently insurmountable engineering barriers, including astronomical energy requirements, currently unproven exotic matter conditions, kilometer-scale or otherwise unbuildable apparatuses, and highly immature experimental foundations. Although the report draws on broadly accepted theoretical concepts, its implication that those concepts might eventually yield viable “antigravity” propulsion systems deviates significantly from mainstream physics consensus.