Neil McCasland

William Neil McCasland is an astronautical engineer, retired United States Air Force Major General, and former Commander of Air Force Research Laboratory. He is currently the Director of Technology at Applied Technology Associates.

Neil McCasland
Official Portrait
Born~1957
Allegiance United States
Branch United States Air Force
Years of service1979–2013 (34 years)[1]
Rank Major General
Commands held • 7th Commander of Air Force Research Laboratory
 • Director, Special Programs, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, AT&L
 • Director, Space Acquisition, Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force
Spouse(s)Susan Wilkerson[2]
WebsiteAir Force Biography

Early life and education

McCasland grew up in an Air Force family, the son of Lt William H. and Robin (née Chambless) McCasland. His father was killed in a tragic flying mishap when he was young, and his mother eventually remarried to another airman, Lt William R. Casey.[3]

McCasland went on to attended the United States Air Force Academy, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in astronautical engineering in 1979.[1] He went on to receive a full scholarship from the Hertz foundation, and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a Master's degree in aeronautical engineering estimation and controls[4] in 1980.

He returned to MIT in 1985 to complete a Doctorate in astronautical engineering.[1] He defended his dissertation "Sensor and Actuator Selection for Fault-Tolerant Control of Flexible Structures" in August, 1988.[2] Dedicated to his late father, McCasland's thesis was supervised by Richard Battin, primary designer of the Apollo program guidance computer.[2] He later went on to attend the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, graduating in 1995, as well as the Advanced Program Manager's Course at the Defense Systems Management College on Fort Belvoir, Virginia.[1] In 2004 he participated in the United States-Russia Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[1]

Military career

Assignments

After graduate school, McCasland served in Payload Systems Division with the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects-6 and 8 at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California until 1985, when he returned to MIT for a Doctorate. After graduation he returned to Los Angeles AFB, this time as Assistant director of Office of Special Projects-13. As a lieutenant, McCasland reportedly stood out among his peers, becoming one of just a handful of lower officers given large program leadership responsibilities for highly classified development units within what became the birth of Air Force satellite reconnaissance as it exists today.[5]

In 1992 he moved to Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, serving as director of mission planning for the Aerospace Data Facility through 1994. After a hiatus in 1995 to attend Air War College, he returned to Buckley to command the operations squadron at the Aerospace Data Facility through 1997.[1]

After Buckley he returned to Los Angeles AFB this time spending three years as the Chief Engineer of the Navstar GPS Joint Program Office, the controlling authority for the Global Positioning System for government, commercial, and consumer applications.[6] In 2000 he took control of the Space Based Laser Project Office at LA AFB as Systems Program Director,[7] before moving to Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico a year later to begin a three-year stint as Materiel Wing Director, Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, and Commander of the Phillips Research Site.[1] Several of these postings involved close work with the National Reconnaissance Office.[4]

In 2004 McCasland became Vice Commander of the Ogden Air Logistics Center, a facility attached to Hill Air Force Base, Utah, spending a year leading operations before returning yet again to LA AFB as Vice Commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center.

In 2007 McCasland was assigned to the Pentagon as Director of Space Acquisition within the Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force. In 2009 he was promoted to Director of Special Programs within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.[1]

Serving as Director of Special Programs also made McCasland Executive Secretary for the Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC), in charge of the oversight and review body for America's most sensitive and secretive knowledge, capabilities, and programs.[8][9]

In May 2011 McCasland left Washington for his final posting, assuming command of Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio until retirement in October 2013.[1] At AFRL he led billions of dollars in advanced materials sciences and future weapons research across one of the largest scientific centers in the U.S. military.[1]

Awards and decorations
Basic Parachutist Badge
Air Force Distinguished Service Medal Defense Superior Service Medal Legion of Merit w/ 1 oak leaf cluster
Defense Meritorious Service Medal w/ 2 oak leaf clusters Meritorious Service Medal (United States) w/ oak leaf cluster Joint Meritorious Unit Award
Air Force Organizational Excellence Award w/ 1 oak leaf cluster National Defense Service Medal w/ bronze service star Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
Air Force Longevity Service Award w/ 3 oak leaf clusters Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon Air Force Training Ribbon
Master Space Badge
Headquarters Air Force badge Office of the Secretary of Defense Identification Badge

Post-military career

McCasland is currently the Director of Technology at Applied Technology Associates, an Albuquerque, New Mexico based technical services contractor creating custom solutions in line of sight stabilization, inertial sensing, and real-time processing systems for government and commercial customers. McCasland lead technology identification and development, strategic vision, R&D, and risk assessment. The company was purchased by Arlington Capital Partners and is merging with AEgis Technologies and several other defense contractors to become Arlington, Virginia based BlueHalo, a defense contractor "purpose-built" to provide capabilities "in the domains of Space Superiority, Directed Energy, Missile Defense and C4ISR, and Cyber and Intelligence" to "lead the transformation of modern warfare".[10][11][12][13]

Since 2013 McCasland has been an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.[14]

In June 2019, McCasland joined the Board of Trustees for Riverside Research, a not-for-profit "chartered to advance scientific research for the benefit of the United States government and in the public interest".[15][16]

McCasland is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).[4]

Involvement in Unidentified Flying Object disclosure

McCasland's involvement with the topic of Unidentified Flying Objects became public when WikiLeaks released an archive of Hillary Clinton Campaign chairman John Podesta's email records in 2016.[17] The archive of documents was obtained from a data breach by Fancy Bear, a hacking group which the United States Government alleges is associated with military intelligence assets of the Russian Federation.[18][19][20][21] McCasland is the subject of an email[22] dated January 25, 2016 from Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge to Podesta in which DeLonge says of McCasland:

He mentioned he's a "skeptic", he's not. I've been working with him for four months. I just got done giving him a four hour presentation on the entire project a few weeks ago. Trust me, the advice is already been happening on how to do all this. He just has to say that out loud, but he is very, very aware- as he was in charge of all of the stuff. When Roswell crashed, they shipped it to the laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. General McCasland was in charge of that exact laboratory up to a couple years ago. He not only knows what I'm trying to achieve, he helped assemble my advisory team. He's a very important man.

McCasland is also the recipient of another email,[23] this time directly from Podesta, inviting McCasland to a Google Hangouts meeting with DeLonge and Podesta. Also CC’ed on the invitation are Rob Weiss, Chief of Lockheed's Skunkworks Division[24] and Air Force Major General Michael Carey.[23]

Podesta's involvement in UFO disclosure initiatives is well documented throughout his service in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and DeLonge runs To The Stars... Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA), a nonprofit associated with the UFO disclosure movement.[17] McCasland's involvement with To The Stars marks yet another surprisingly credible asset to DeLonge's unusual group which already employs a conspicuous number[25] of former senior members[26] of the intelligence, military, space, academic, and commercial defense communities. Others involved bring similar credentials to McCasland, including CIA and NSA officers and scientists, Special Access Program defense contractors, NASA propulsion and directed energy researchers, presidential advisors, a former Undersecretary of Defense, and the former program manager for the Department of Defense's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) UFO investigation operation during the Obama Administration.[17][25][26] McCasland's expertise at Air Force Research Laboratory and post retirement at ATA is notably similar to one of TTSA's current projects outlined in a 2019 CRADA contract with the U.S. Army Futures Command involving materials exploitation of purported metamaterials the group claims to have secured.[27]

The combination of highly qualified people working on seemingly fringe science supported by government procurement agreements has led some to theorize online[28] regarding DeLonge and his advisors’ true knowledge or intentions, and others to speculate that DeLonge is being manipulated by government officials like McCasland into developing a UFO cover story for new classified American defense technology of a more terrestrial origin.[29] Many drew conclusions from McCaslands previous role as head of oversight for all of the Department of Defense's most classified programs and his post retirement activities with UFO phenomena in support of both conclusions.[30] Other questions and speculation focused on a relationship McCasland was known to have with the late Dr. Michael Duggin, an Australian-American scientist with the Air Force Research Lab division at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico who spent years of his Air Force career in research on UFO phenomena.[30] Duggin also once worked for J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer who led the Air Force's infamous Project Blue Book, one of the first investigations of reported encounters with UFO's by the United States Government.[30]

Personal life

Early in his Air Force career McCasland married San Diego native Susan Wilkerson.[31]

References
  1. "Major General William N. McCasland U.S. Air Force Biography". www.af.mil. 2013-10-01. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  2. McCasland, William (1988-08-31). "Sensor and Actuator Selection for Fault-Tolerant Control of Flexible Structures" (PDF). MIT Dspace.
  3. "Obituary for Robin (Chambless) McCasland | French Funerals and Cremations". French Funerals and Cremations. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  4. "Neil McCasland – SpEC". Space Enterprise Consortium. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  5. Swan, Peter; Swan, Cathy; Larned, Rick (2015-09-08). Birth of Air Force Satellite Reconnaissance: Facts, Recollections and Reflections. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-329-16478-9.
  6. Brewin, Bob (1999-03-21). "DOD to step up defense of GPS signals". FCW. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  7. "Space-Based Laser Team Advances Beam Director Design with Successful Integrated Laser Test". www.defense-aerospace.com. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  8. "Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC)". fas.org. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  9. McMillan, Tim; Rogoway, Tyler (2019-07-22). "Special Access Programs And The Pentagon's Ecosystem Of Secrecy". The Drive. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  10. "Arlington Capital Partners Announces the Formation of BlueHalo through the Combination of AEgis Technologies, Applied Technology Associates, and Brilligent Solutions". Businesswire. 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  11. "BLUEHALO – Leading the Transformation of Modern Warfare". BLUEHALO. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  12. "Investments: Aegis Technologies". Arlington Capital Partners. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  13. "Brilligent Solutions to Join the Formation of BlueHalo in Combination with AEgis Technologies and Applied Technology Associates". Businesswire ITSecurityWire. 2020-10-30. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  14. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2013-01-15). "Maj Gen William Neil McCasland - 51st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting". YouTube.
  15. "Neil McCasland, PhD | Riverside Research". www.riversideresearch.org. 2019-12-01. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  16. "Riverside Research Welcomes Dr. Neil McCasland to their Board of Trustees". Cision. 2019-09-19. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  17. Blistein, Jon (2016-10-11). "Read Tom DeLonge's Leaked Email to Hillary Clinton Campaign About UFOs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  18. Jim Sciutto, Nicole Gaouette and Ryan Browne (2016-10-13). "US sees more signs Russia feeding emails to WikiLeaks". CNN. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  19. Miller, Greg; Entous, Adam (2017-01-06). "Declassified report says Putin 'ordered' effort to undermine faith in U.S. election and help Trump". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  20. "Report: CIA has Kremlin in cyber sights". Boston Herald. 2016-10-15. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  21. Chozick, Amy; Confessore, Nicholas; Barbaro, Michael (2016-10-08). "Leaked Speech Excerpts Show a Hillary Clinton at Ease With Wall Street (Published 2016)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  22. "General McCasland". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  23. "Re: Invitation: DeLonge/Podesta Meeting @ Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:30am - 11:30am". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  24. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. "Rob Weiss Named Lead For Aeronautics Advanced Development Programs, A.K.A - Skunk Works®". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  25. Rogoway, Tyler. "Tom DeLonge's Origin Story For To The Stars Academy Describes A Government UFO Info Operation". The Drive. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  26. "To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Team". To the Stars. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  27. Joseph Trevithick and Brett Tingley. "The Army Wants To Verify To The Stars Academy's Fantastic UFO Mystery Material Claims". The Drive. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  28. Mantis, Monad (2020-03-19). "Wikileaks Reveals: Major General William N. McCasland involved in UFO disclosure movement". Medium. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  29. Robinson, Kurt (2018-06-24). "Tom DeLonge's desire to believe and be deceived by government". Steemit. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  30. "theozfiles: The Australian scientist who was a potent part of the UFO "Invisible College" - Dr. Michael Duggin (1937-2016) - a tribute". Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  31. "Mary Whelan Cain and Susan Wilkerson McCasland". www.johnfry.com. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
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