National Reconnaissance Office

The NRO is the U.S. agency that designs, builds and operates reconnaissance satellites.

Program B. Program B was the CIA's element of the National Reconnaissance Program, the joint CIA–Air Force framework, and ran until the end of 1992, when the framework was reorganized under an independent NRO. Richard Bissell managed the early effort. From 1982 to 1989 the CIA's deputy director for science and technology, Evan Hineman, was Program B's nominal head. The only documented UAP link is a referral, not evidence of UAP work: in a recorded 1989 call, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman said he honestly did not know whether recovered UAP vehicles might be opened to outside study, and named Hineman as "the best person to ask." No declassified document links Program B's work to anomalous phenomena.

People. Donald Kerr moved from deputy director for science and technology at the CIA (2001 to 2005) to NRO director (2005 to 2007). According to a 2023 Reddit post, Joanne Isham and Doug Wolfe also worked at both agencies. David Grusch was the NGA and NRO representative to the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021.

Claims. The Black Group, a framework attributed mainly to attorney Danny Sheehan, alleges that administrators at the NRO and the CIA's DS&T act as gatekeepers who block the flow of UAP information. It rests on whistleblower testimony, not declassified records. Podcast retellings tie Tim Taylor to the NRO and to the Aerospace Corporation; no independent record supports either tie.