Dan Smith

Dan T. Smith is a civilian UFO networker who, from about 1991, kept up a long private friendship with CIA scientist Ronald Pandolfi, and who has presented himself ever since as an informal channel for what the agency's alleged "The Weird Desk" thinks about UFOs [S1][S3]. Much of what circulates publicly about Pandolfi arrives through Smith, which makes him a node worth knowing about even though almost nothing about him is documented outside the UFO community's own press.

From crop circles to the CIA

Smith has said an "extended psychic experience" led him to MUFON in 1991, and through MUFON to Pandolfi [S4]. The better-attested version runs through crop circles. In the early 1990s he was researching the British crop-circle scene with paranormal writer Rosemary Ellen Guiley; a 1993 account calls the pair "directors of the Center for North American Crop Circle Studies," and a Bekkum profile has Pandolfi striking up the friendship while Smith "had been busy investigating crop circles" with her [S1][S2]. Contemporaneous diary entries by Jacques Vallee from 1993 already link Guiley, Smith, Pandolfi and crop circles [S4]. Grant Cameron's recent retellings of the same story are downstream of these [S5].

Per a Bekkum profile citing the Washington Post, his father was Dan Throop Smith, the Harvard economist who was Treasury's chief tax adviser under Eisenhower [S2]. Smith has described doing graduate work in physics before turning to "metaphysics" [S4].

The Aviary and the Aquarium

The 1990s The Aviary rosters list Smith as "Chicken Little", a "civilian UFO researcher/volunteer interlocutor" between CIA and congressional sources and civilian researchers [S6]. In spring 1993 he and Guiley circulated "The Aquarium Conspiracy" on bulletin boards, warning of an "eschatological emergency" and proposing a network of "spiritually advanced individuals" to assist the Aviary — "how an Aviary helps to spawn an Aquarium, and how birds learn to swim" [S1]. No membership beyond the two authors has been found.

His own framing was openly religious. In a 2000 interview he said the visitation was "in preparation for a messianic event which is imminent" [S4].

Spokesman or self-appointed?

Whether Smith speaks for Pandolfi is disputed, and the two sides are both parties to it. Grant Cameron writes that Smith was best man at Pandolfi's wedding, has had "at least 1,000 conversations" with him, and "has been told by Pandolfi that he speaks for him" — and, in the same passage, that Pandolfi "has stated that Smith 'makes stuff up'" [S3]. In the earliest account, from 1993, Pandolfi said Smith "certainly isn't functioning in the role of a conduit for me" while allowing he "may very well be doing that" [S1].

What is documented is sustained contact and some real tasks through it:

• 1994–96. Dr. Kit Green urged Vallée to meet Smith; C.B. Scott Jones arranged a Washington meeting with him; a 1996 conversation among Vallée, Hal Puthoff and Green concerned Smith spreading "rumours and confusion" [S4].
• Late 1990s. Pandolfi asked Smith and researcher Bill LaParl to compile what was known about Richard Doty and his "Raven" source [S7].
• 2000. A plan to brief President-elect George W. Bush about UFOs through a family connection of Smith's failed; Pandolfi declined to take part [S3].
• 2024. Michael Shellenberger's written testimony to the House Oversight Committee repeated Cameron's account of something Pandolfi allegedly told Smith — a citation of a citation, not independent record [S8].

Smith also claimed to have been "indirectly responsible" for a 1992–93 CIA Inspector General inquiry into Pandolfi that cleared him [S2]. No record of it has been located.

Sources

[S1] "The Aviary, the Aquarium, and Eschatology" (Vince Johnson, 1993) / https://docs.preterhuman.net/The_Aviary,_the_Aquarium,_and_Eschatology / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Aquarium text; Smith–Guiley crop-circle roles; Pandolfi's 1993 "conduit" denial

[S2] "Ron Pandolfi the CIA's Real-life X-Files Fox Mulder?" (Gary Bekkum) / https://www.colinandrews.net/CIA-Pandolfii-XFile.html / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Crop circles with Guiley; family background; IG-inquiry claim

[S3] "ronald pandolfi" (Grant Cameron, Presidentialufo) / https://presidentialufoblog.wordpress.com/tag/ronald-pandolfi / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Best man, 1,000 conversations, "makes stuff up"; 2000 Bush briefing attempt

[S4] "Dan T. Smith - UAP, and the 'end times'" (compiles Vallée, Forbidden Science Vol. 4, and a 2000 Smith interview) / https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2019/04/dan-t-smith.html / Accessed 2026-09-18 / MUFON 1991 contact; physics; eschatology; Vallée diary 1993–96

[S5] "I Met The Head Of The Entire UFO Program!" — Grant Cameron (American Alchemy, 2026) / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpUa3xJN64Q&t=8823s / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Crop-circle origin retold

[S6] "Birds of a Feather No Longer" (Aviary roster, bibliotecapleyades) / https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_aviary02.htm / Accessed 2026-09-18 / "Chicken Little" entry

[S7] "Would Someone Please Tell the President?" (Patrick Huyghe, Swamp Gas Times) / https://www.anomalist.com/features/president.html / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Doty/"Raven" report

[S8] Written testimony of Michael Shellenberger, House Oversight Committee, 13 Nov 2024 / https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-ShellenbergerM-20241113.pdf / Accessed 2026-09-18 / Repeats Cameron's Smith anecdote

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