Ron Blackburn
Ron Blackburn is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel who served at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and later co-founded the ATIP group at BDM International. He is notable in UAP research for a 1998 patent for aerodynamic and hydrodynamic efficiency technology whose development he attributed to analyzing videos of disc-shaped craft, and for subsequent public statements connecting his work to UAP observables.
Patent and Disc-Craft Analysis
On August 22, 1998, Blackburn was awarded a US patent for technology increasing the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic efficiency of a vehicle in motion. The patent documentation included a sketch of a disc-shaped craft. In later public statements — including a podcast appearance — Blackburn elaborated that he reverse-engineered the capability to eliminate sonic booms at high speeds by using videos of disc-shaped craft he had access to.
The significance of this admission is that the patent's combined attributes — aerodynamic efficiency, hydrodynamic efficiency (indicating trans-medium capability), and supersonic travel without a sonic boom — correspond directly to three of the UAP observables catalogued by Luis Elizondo and the ATIP program: trans-medium travel, hypersonic velocity, and no acoustic signature. Blackburn's acknowledgment that these capabilities were derived from studying disc-craft footage is treated by UAP Gerb as circumstantial but significant evidence of UAP reverse engineering activity within Lockheed's Skunk Works.
ATIP Group at BDM International
Blackburn was a co-founder of the ATIP group (Advanced Theoretical Physics group) at BDM International, a defense contractor. The ATIP group was a privately organized effort by former defense and intelligence officials to study UAP in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This separate "ATIP" is distinct from the later Pentagon program of the same acronym (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) established in 2007.