Person
Randy Bostick
Also known as Bostick, Dr. Randy Bostick, Randall L. Bostick
- Former Science Advisor, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)
- U.S. Air Force civilian scientist, more than 20 years (image processing, remote sensing)
- PhD in physics (electro-optical engineering), Air Force Institute of Technology
Randy Bostick is a physicist who served as Science Advisor to the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), where he worked in its science and technology group and on the case resolutions for GoFast, Mount Etna and Aguadilla. Before that he spent more than 20 years as an Air Force civilian scientist in image processing and remote sensing, extracting intelligence from Defense Department and Intelligence Community sensor systems. He holds a PhD in physics (electro-optical engineering) from the Air Force Institute of Technology; the Naval Postgraduate School's spring 2026 UAP issue gives these credentials, and Ross Coulthart's introduction repeats them, citing his conference biography.
Now an independent consultant, he argues that UAP study needs vetted, calibrated sensor data rather than incidental collection and interpretation, and he defends AARO's GoFast finding that the object's speed was an effect of parallax. In a July 2026 interview at the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies conference in Toronto he described AARO's Gremlin sensor system and the loss of military sensor data that is never saved.
Sources: Naval Postgraduate School, CTX special issue (Spring 2026) · NewsNation Reality Check interview (2026)
Facts and claims
- documented The Naval Postgraduate School's spring 2026 special issue on UAP says Bostick served for more than 20 years in the US Air Force, specialising in image processing and remote sensing, was Science Advisor to AARO, is now an independent consultant, and received his PhD in physics, with a concentration in electro-optical engineering, from the Air Force Institute of Technology. Source: nps.edu (archived)
- claimed In the same issue he writes that "Any substantive UAP claims must be founded upon vetted, sharable data with a known and described quality", and that statements such as "It had a plasma field" are not data but "interpretations of what one has observed". — Randy Bostick Source: nps.edu (archived)
- claimed AARO, he says, is not an office that holds UAP secrets but a collector, adjudicator and disseminator of information from other government offices and witnesses: "not really the owner". — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 2:05
- claimed Asked whether AARO could check for a crash-retrieval or reverse-engineering program, he says that was not his job: AARO's analysis and reporting groups had the authority to check out word of such programs, and he points to the first historical record report for what they found. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 4:37
- claimed He says he did not analyse the Gimbal video, which the UAP Task Force had begun before he arrived; the AARO reports he worked on were the Mount Etna, GoFast and Aguadilla cases. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 6:58
- claimed On GoFast he says the object "was not moving as fast as it appeared to be": the effect was parallax, and from memory it was moving at something like 30 metres per second at around 15,000 feet, consistent with a balloon or a bird moving with the wind (AARO's report gives about 13,000 feet). — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 9:43
- claimed He says objections to AARO's GoFast paper were posted within seconds or minutes of the link going out, before anyone could have read it: "at least read the paper". — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 14:14
- claimed He says most of what AARO received of interest came in oral reports, such as the glowing orbs and black triangles reported repeatedly by many different people, which he thinks deserve the most investigative focus. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 12:59
- claimed On the 2024 New Jersey sightings he says AARO looked at some of the data, and that the activity appeared to start with uncrewed aircraft and was then amplified by many people watching the night sky; asked about FAA-authorised drone flights there, he says "Not in our work". — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 17:55
- claimed He describes Gremlin, AARO's own multi-modal sensor system with optical, radar and other sensors, built for persistent collection over days, weeks or months to establish a "pattern of life"; he says its data analysis was not complete when he left and that he knows of no genuinely anomalous case it detected while he was there. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 22:55
- claimed He says the frustration at AARO was less being refused data than finding it gone: "Data were deleted. Data were erased, not available", because the agencies had no requirement to save it. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 31:14
- claimed Asked about PURSUE reports in which aircraft were jammed while observing UAP, he says the signals data are not kept on the aircraft, only used to alert the pilot, and that AARO is strongly urging that such data be saved. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 34:09
- claimed He says test ranges reported unidentified objects showing up during sensitive tests, but when AARO asked how often they appeared otherwise, the answer was "we only turn our sensors on when we're doing the testing", a collection bias. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 37:47
- claimed He says the military videos are redacted because location and time data would reveal sensor capabilities, and in some cases "the bad guys might intentionally be putting these things into the airspace"; he thinks more could be released in relative rather than absolute time and position. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 43:36
- claimed Asked whether AARO is a cover-up, he says it is one only "in the sense that any organization that deals with classified information is a cover-up", and that it is doing its best with what others are willing to share. — Randy Bostick Source: Inside the Pentagon's UFO Office: Ross Coulthart with former AARO science advisor Randy Bostick (NewsNation Reality Check, 2026) at 50:50
Connected files
Claims
- The objects Navy F/A-18 crews tracked off the U.S. East Coast in 2014–15 were not conventional aircraft, drones or balloons (disputes claim)
Programs
- All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (worked at) — Science Advisor to AARO; hired by Sean Kirkpatrick, worked in its science and technology group
Incidents
- USS Theodore Roosevelt encounters (Gimbal / GoFast) (analysed) — Worked on AARO's GoFast case resolution: the object “was not moving as fast as it appeared to be”
- Mount Etna object (2018 drone video) (analysed) — Worked on AARO's Mount Etna case report
- Aguadilla “Puerto Rico object” (analysed) — Worked on AARO's Aguadilla case report