Published in 2010, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record is the book that changed what serious journalists and government officials were willing to say publicly about the UAP phenomenon. Leslie Kean spent ten years building it: tracking down generals, military pilots, air traffic controllers, and government investigators across a dozen countries who had documented encounters with objects they could not identify — and who were willing to say so under their own names.

The book’s method is scrupulous. Kean does not include tabloid cases or second-hand accounts. Every case in the book comes from credible, named witnesses with professional credentials, official documentation, or both. The cases span Belgium’s 1990 triangle wave (investigated by the Belgian Air Force and NATO), the 1976 Iranian Air Force encounter in which a jet’s systems failed as it approached a UAP, the 1997 Phoenix Lights, and dozens of other carefully documented events. Former presidents, generals, and government officials wrote contributions. The foreword is by former White House chief of staff John Podesta.

Seven years after the book’s publication, Kean co-authored the New York Times front-page story that revealed the Pentagon’s secret Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program — the story that broke six decades of mainstream media silence on UAPs and triggered Congressional investigations that continue to this day. UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record is the essential background reading for anyone trying to understand how that story was possible.