RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is an American nonprofit global policy think tank and Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1948, RAND grew out of the Army Air Forces' Project RAND (1946), which conducted long-range research of interest to the Air Force. RAND has historically served as one of the US government's primary analytical arms for national security, military strategy, and advanced technology research, and is identified by UAP Gerb as a high-probability participant in UFO legacy program analysis and planning.
| Type | FFRDC/research |
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History and Origins
Project RAND was established in 1946 under contract with the Douglas Aircraft Company to provide long-range research on national security topics for the Air Force. In 1948, it became an independent nonprofit corporation. The organization's early focus on nuclear strategy, missile systems, and systems analysis made it a central institution in Cold War defense planning.
Underground Facilities and DUMB Research
Beginning in 1957, RAND actively investigated the need for what it called "super hard deep underground centers." This program of inquiry, conducted under USAF contract, included:
- A 1959 publication titled "Deep Underground Construction," organized to discuss protecting military installations deep underground or under mountains in the event of nuclear war.
- A 1960 study identifying 12 locations for underground sites, all assumed to be over 1,000 feet deep. Site 3 is of particular interest — located in Santa Barbara, California, within 100 miles of the Antelope Valley complex and within 100 miles of Los Angeles defense laboratories. A separate site in Inyo County, California, shares territory with China Lake.
- The Very High Speed Transit (VHST) study (1972), authored by Robert Salter, which proposed a continental deep underground concept featuring "electromagnetically levitated and propelled cars in an evacuated tunnel" at speeds up to 14,000 mph. UAP Gerb has compared Salter's proposed VHST map to Bill Hamilton's 1990 DUMB network map, finding significant geographic correspondence.
Maglev and Tunnel Research
The Rand Corporation's 1972 VHST study is one of the most significant publicly available documents linking an FFRDC to both deep underground transportation concepts and geography consistent with alleged UAP underground networks. The study explicitly discusses "intermediate staging points" that correspond to UAP Gerb's hub-and-spoke model of connected DUMBs — where major central hubs connect to other major hubs while also branching to smaller local installations.
UFO Legacy Program Connections
UAP Gerb identifies RAND as "a primary semi-government institution up to its eyeballs in UFO legacy programs," noting that the organization has been connected to UFO studies and advanced technology analysis since the earliest days of the modern UFO era. RAND's role as an FFRDC gives it access to classified government programs and the ability to conduct research that bridges private and government functions — a structure well-suited to the kind of bifurcated program management alleged in UAP legacy operations.