Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman is one of the largest U.S. defense prime contractors, specializing in aerospace, defense electronics, and information systems. The company was formed through the 1994 merger of Northrop Corporation and Grumman Corporation, then significantly expanded through a series of strategic acquisitions: TRW Inc. in 2002 (for approximately $7.8 billion), and Orbital ATK in 2018. These acquisitions created new divisions — Mission Systems, Space Technologies, and later Northrop Grumman Innovative Systems (NGIS) — giving the company unparalleled breadth across national security space, missile defense, airborne surveillance, and advanced airframe design. Northrop Grumman holds classified research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) access to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, alongside Lockheed Martin and Boeing, making it one of only three contractors with operational presence at that government-owned facility.
| Type | defense contractor |
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Alleged UAP Involvement
Northrop Grumman is alleged by David Grusch and other sources to be the primary corporate custodian of UAP legacy programs following its 2002 acquisition of TRW, which is alleged to have held UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs dating to the 1950s. The company's radar cross-section facility at Tejon Ranch is alleged to conceal a massive underground complex used for testing recovered non-human vehicles. Terry Phillips and associates are alleged to run a dedicated security infrastructure within Northrop Grumman to protect these activities from disclosure, and the company's Independent Research and Development (IRAD) spending increased from approximately $331 million to over $500 million following the TRW acquisition, allegedly providing cover funding for clandestine UAP-related research.
Aerospace Corporation Research Identification
In Jacques Vallee's Hidden Science 5, Vallee alongside Kit Green, Hal Puthoff, Eric Davis, and Kristen B. Zimmerman identified Northrop Grumman — alongside Lockheed Martin and The Aerospace Corporation — as one of the suspected legacy private corporations engaged in "real UAP research." This identification aligns with allegations about Northrop's acquisition of TRW's alleged UAP programs in 2002.
Aditionally, Northrop Grumman was involved in DSP satellite development through its TRW heritage, as TRW (later acquired by Northrop) played a significant role in developing the Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites that have been detecting Fast Walkers since 1972.