UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 06 · SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D139AAWSAP DIRD, Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy, April 2010
This DIRD, dated April 2010 and written for the AAWSAP program, explores wormholes: hypothetical tunnels in spacetime, allowed by Einstein’s equations, that could connect distant places by a shortcut. The release describes a theoretical physics paper.
Wormholes, stargates and the energy problem
The paper reviews the standard models of wormholes that a person or ship could pass through, then describes a variant with a flat throat that it calls a “stargate.” The recurring theme is that any such structure would collapse unless propped open by exotic matter with negative energy density.
The author argues that the “energy conditions” of general relativity, which such matter would violate, are not firm laws, citing laboratory effects like the Casimir force that produce tiny, brief regions of negative energy. The release notes the paper’s own admission that nobody knows how to scale those microscopic effects up, or to generate, gather and stabilize the quantity of exotic matter a large wormhole would need.
How to read it
Wormhole solutions are legitimate mathematics in general relativity; a buildable one is another matter. The release describes the gap between theory and technology as enormous. For the measurement side of negative energy, see Quantum Tomography of Negative Energy States in the Vacuum; for warp drives, Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions.
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 examines traversable wormholes and “stargates” as hypothetical spacetime structures within general relativity that theoretically offer a means of faster-than-light travel or communication. The report focuses extensively on the requirement for exotic, negative-energy matter to stabilize and keep such geometries open for the passage of macro-scale objects. It reviews standard wormhole models, describes a flat-throated “stargate” variant, and argues that violations of general relativity's standard energy conditions do not physically rule such structures out, citing microscopic, transient negative-energy effects observed in Casimir-type laboratory phenomena. However, the document acknowledges that the transition from microscopic quantum fluctuations to macroscopic engineering is an unresolved barrier. While small-scale negative-energy effects are observable, there is no known mechanism to generate, concentrate, or stabilize the amounts of exotic matter proposed to be required to sustain a traversable macroscopic wormhole. Ultimately, while the paper frames wormhole concepts within accepted relativistic physics, it confirms that the gap between theoretical models and any realizable technology remains enormous.