FigureTim Gallaudet (b. 1962)

What's documented

Born 1962; United States Naval Academy 1984 (same year as David Fravor). PhD oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Naval career across 32 years; commanded the Naval Oceanographic Office at Stennis Space Center; served as U.S. Navy’s Chief Oceanographer and Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command 2014-2017. On retiring from active service as a Rear Admiral (Upper Half), nominated by President Donald Trump in October 2017 and confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, serving as Acting NOAA Administrator from October 2017 through January 2019.

Gallaudet’s public engagement with UAP discourse began with the publication of a previously-internal Navy email he had circulated in January 2015 regarding the East Coast Roosevelt-era encounters. The email — released as part of the 2020 Black Vault FOIA tranche — confirmed that he, as Chief Oceanographer at the time, had received the GIMBAL footage internally and had directed the encounter pattern be taken seriously. In April 2023 he spoke at the SCU (Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies) conference and stated on the public record that “UAP appear to be a real and physical phenomenon, and they appear to be operating in the transmedium domain — air, sea, and space — without regard for current understanding of physics.”

In late 2023 Gallaudet co-founded the Oceanic Anomaly Initiative at the Sol Foundation, a research effort focused on the underwater and sea-entry UAP report corpus (USOs — unidentified submerged objects — the longstanding sub-genre of the literature now drawing renewed attention given Navy radar trace data). He is the senior-most retired U.S. Navy flag officer publicly engaged with the question. He testified at the November 2024 House Subcommittee on National Security hearing on UAP transparency, calling for the establishment of a dedicated NOAA-side UAP reporting infrastructure for civilian maritime reports.