The Specimen - Brendon Marotta

The following is a found document short story.

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

FOIA/Privacy Act Office

200 MacDill Boulevard

Washington, D.C. 20340

June 14, 2026

Mr. Warren Hadwell

████████████████████████

██████████████████████████████

Re: FOIA Request F-2025-01877 (DST-0441-24)

Dear Mr. Hadwell:

This is a supplemental response to your Freedom of Information Act request dated September 12, 2025, for all records pertaining to specimen DST-0441-24, including incident reports, correspondence, and analytical materials held by the Directorate of Science and Technology. It reflects the agency’s final determination after administrative review.

A search located records responsive to your request. After review, your request has been granted in part.

The enclosed records have been reviewed under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552. Portions have been withheld under the following exemptions:

(b)(1) — Information classified under Executive Order 13526, the unauthorized disclosure of which could be expected to damage national security. This exemption has been applied to operational details, geographic coordinates, platform specifications, and tactical data contained in the incident report and briefing materials.

(b)(3) — Information exempted from disclosure by statute. Portions of the analytical transcript have been withheld pursuant to a statute the identification of which is itself classified under Executive Order 13526. The provision authorizes withholding of ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ and does not permit discretionary release.

Four enclosures are provided: (1) Incident report, USSF file ████████-24; (2) Analytical tasking memorandum and nondisclosure certification; (3) Transcript of analytical examination, specimen DST-0441; and (4) your appeal correspondence and this agency’s determination, included for completeness of the administrative file.

No inference should be drawn from the location or apparent extent of a deletion. Redaction bars indicate withheld material and may not correspond to the precise length of the underlying text.

You may seek judicial review of this determination under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).

Please note that dissemination of the enclosed materials remains subject to the restrictions described above. We advise that the materials be handled with care consistent with their subject matter.

Sincerely,

Margaret K. Driscoll

FOIA Case Officer

DIA FOIA/Privacy Act Office

TOP SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE — INCIDENT REPORT

DATE OF INCIDENT: ██████████ March 2024

REPORTING OFFICER: Captain Dale W. Brecker, USSF

UNIT: ██████████████████████████████████

MISSION DESIGNATION: ██████████████████

PLATFORM: ██████████ (Block IV, 6th-generation X-37 variant)

OPERATING ALTITUDE: ████████████████

THEATER: ████████████████████████████████████████

1. SUMMARY

(TS//██████) At about ████ hours UTC on ██████████ March 2024, during routine ██████████████████████████████████ operations at ████████████, the onboard sensor suite detected an anomalous track bearing ██████ at a range of ████████████. The track did not correspond to any platform profile in the current threat library. Target was designated UNKNOWN-1.

2. DETECTION AND ASSESSMENT

(TS//██████) UNKNOWN-1 presented a nonmetallic composite radar return inconsistent with any airframe in the ████████████████ inventory or known developmental program. Thermal output was distributed across the full profile rather than concentrated at a propulsion source. Dimensional estimates did not reconcile across radar, optical, and infrared channels. The variance was stable rather than random. Each sensor mode produced a coherent target profile, but the profiles were not geometrically compatible with one another. Onboard assessment classified this as probable adaptive signature management.

(TS//██████) Target executed rapid changes on multiple axes at rates above ████ G. Several changes began before ownship maneuver completion. Movement suggested coordinated structural reconfiguration in flight. The forward section presented a broad reflective array spanning about ██████ of the frontal area. Its surface was segmented and faceted in a configuration I have not observed on any platform.

(TS//██████) Target profile: segmented body geometry. Multiple articulated protrusions extended from the lateral and ventral surfaces during hover-equivalent states and folded against the body at speed. No visible control surfaces, intakes, or exhaust architecture. Hull material appeared bio-composite or organic. Overall presentation was consistent with ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.

3. ENGAGEMENT

(TS//██████) ROE authorization was obtained from ████████████████████ at ████ hours UTC. I engaged UNKNOWN-1 with the ████████████████████████████████████████ at a range of ████████. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.

(TS//██████) Following engagement, target ceased maneuvering. Appendage structures folded against the main body. Target entered ballistic descent toward the surface. I monitored descent to ████████████████ altitude and confirmed impact at coordinates ██████████████████. Splash coordinates were transmitted to ████████████████████ for recovery tasking.

4. POST-ENGAGEMENT ASSESSMENT

(TS//██████) Target showed no capacity for continued operation after ████████████████████. Cessation was immediate and total. The change from high-energy maneuvering to inactivity was more abrupt than expected from a damaged platform losing power. There was no tumble. No partial failure. No residual drift. The target stopped. As if it had been switched off. Or as if it ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.

(TS//██████) Recovery was conducted by ████████████████████████ assets. I was not present. I was debriefed at ████████████████████ on ██████████ March and ordered to file this report and discuss the engagement with no one outside the ████████████████████ compartment.

(TS//██████) Personal assessment: I do not know what UNKNOWN-1 was. It was not a vehicle in any sense I am trained to recognize. Its structure, surface material, and movement were more consistent with a biological organism than an engineered platform. If it was a ████████████████ developmental system, I have not been briefed on it. If it was biological, it operated at altitudes and velocities incompatible with known biology. I have no framework for what I observed and request access to later analytical findings.

TOP SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

ANALYTICAL TASKING MEMORANDUM — DIRECTORATE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

TO: Philip R. Oren, M.D., Ph.D.

FROM: ████████████████, DST Analytical Division

DATE: March 18, 2024

SUBJECT: Analytical Examination, Specimen DST-0441

CLASSIFICATION: SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

Dr. Oren:

You are tasked with conducting an analytical examination of biological specimen DST-0441, held at Site ████████. The specimen was recovered on ██████████ March 2024 following a military incident in the ████████████████████████████████ theater. It was transported under cold-chain protocol and has been maintained at 4°C since recovery. Elapsed time between cessation of observed biological function and arrival at the Site was about ██████ hours.

For purposes of this tasking, the specimen is to be treated as a discrete biological organism of unknown origin. No identification has been made. Determine, to the extent possible: (1) biological characteristics and internal anatomy; (2) taxonomic classification or terrestrial analogue; (3) probable cause of cessation of biological function; and (4) characteristics of operational or strategic significance.

This work falls under ████████████████████████████████████████████████ compartmentalization. No finding, observation, sample, or record may be discussed with or transmitted to an individual not read into this compartment. You may not solicit outside consultation. All materials must remain at Site ████████.

For analytical context: the specimen sustained ████████████████████████████████████████████████ during the recovery event. It was recovered from ██████████████████████████████████████ and was not in contact with seawater. No other biological material was recovered.

████████████████

Chief, Analytical Division

Directorate of Science and Technology

SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

NONDISCLOSURE AND CLASSIFICATION ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I, Philip R. Oren, acknowledge that I have been read into ██████████████████████████████ (compartment designation ████████████) and understand the following obligations:

I will not discuss, reference, or communicate any aspect of this work with an individual not verified as read into this compartment.
I will not remove from Site ████████ any document, recording, sample, or other material generated during or related to this work.
I will not reproduce in any unsecured format any observation, finding, model, or analytical conclusion derived from this work.

These obligations survive completion, suspension, or termination of this tasking and remain in effect ████████████████████████████████.

Signed: Philip R. Oren — Date: March 19, 2024

Witnessed: ████████████████ — Date: March 19, 2024

SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

TRANSCRIPT OF ANALYTICAL EXAMINATION — SPECIMEN DST-0441

The following is a transcript of audio recordings made by Dr. Philip R. Oren during the analytical examination of specimen DST-0441 at Site ████████. Transcription prepared by ████████████████. Bracketed descriptions reflect audible events or pauses. Material withheld under applicable authority is represented by black bars. The apparent size of each bar does not indicate the exact length of the withheld passage.

Session 1 — March 22, 2024

This is Dr. Philip Oren. March 22nd, 2024. Time is 0940 hours. Beginning examination of specimen DST-0441.

Specimen arrived three days ago. Cold storage at four degrees since recovery. Total time between reported cessation and now, about eight days. I reviewed the case file last night, though they didn’t give me full recovery context — despite asking twice. Compartmentalization, they said. “Not relevant to your analytical work.” Bull—[inaudible]. Right… I should keep this to what belongs on the record. What I’m trying to say is that it is relevant. Everything that happens before a body reaches the table is relevant. But I’m not going to win that argument… so this is what I’ve got.

The… “tasking memo” calls this a “biological organism.” A biological organism… That name tells me how to handle it. Or how they expect me to handle it. But who assigned it that name? Did they have scientific training, or were they some… I’m saying this on the record because I’ve seen a label become a diagnosis. That’s my job. I’m not going to let some… someone else’s name… [inaudible]… We don’t know what this is yet.

Qualifications are on file. Now, let’s — oh, one more thing. For the record: I requested a diener for this examination. Denied. I’ve never worked without someone in the room. But I supposed base security knows better than the person they hired. Yet here we are.

Here… I suppose I should describe the room… Adequate. Cinder block, painted gray, sealed floor with a center drain. Two fixed overheads and one adjustable task light, which I’ve already repositioned twice because whoever installed it has never leaned over a body cavity for nine hours. Ventilation is loud. Instruments are standard issue. Not mine. Good table. Steel… Proper drainage. The containment unit against the far wall looks… Well, I’ve never seen one quite like it. Whatever else they cut corners on, they spent money making sure this specimen stayed cold.

I confirmed at the door that I am the only person with access today. Building log shows no other active clearance. It is just me in here.

All right. Gloves on. Let’s see what we’ve got…

Beginning external examination.

Let me look before I start naming things…

[pause]

Specimen’s on the table ventral side up. Total length from anterior cephalic margin to caudal tip: one hundred thirty-seven centimeters. Four and a half feet. Mass twenty-eight point four kilograms. Lighter than the volume suggests. I don’t know what I expected… Something heavier? That’s not science, but there it is.

First impression’s insect. I’m not putting insect in the report. Gross organization is arthropod-type: segmented body, differentiated head, thorax, abdomen, bilateral symmetry with a mild asymmetry across the upper thoracic plates. Exoskeletal exterior. Six major appendages. I’ve called it an insect twice in my head and once into the recorder. Correcting that now.

Exterior’s dark. Straight on, matte black. At an angle it picks up a deep green, like… like the sheen on a carrion beetle. Color travels as I move, but the surface itself isn’t reflective in the ordinary sense. It’s… interesting. I won’t say beautiful. That’s a value judgement. But…

I have not touched it yet. About to do that now…

[pause]

Exoskeleton under the glove is rigid and smooth. Comparison I keep getting is laminated wood, not steel. Both resist pressure. One feels like the resistance continues below the point of contact. This one does. There’s… depth in it. Sorry, that’s a bad materials description, but it’s what it feels like. Not a dead surface. Feels like there’s something behind it.

One other thing: Specimen has no smell. I forgot to mention that. Noticed when I leaned in. Cold storage suppresses odor but it doesn’t eliminate it. Eight days postmortem, even at four degrees… there should be something. Maybe faint sweetness, sourness, the beginning of bacterial process…. But I can’t detect anything. Which is odd, because looking at it, you’d think… [inaudible] Air above the table smells like the rest of the room. I’m noting this because in thirty-one years I’ve never had a body with no smell at all.

[pause]

I stood there longer than I meant to. Maybe preservative conditions can account for it. Or not. Moving on.

Head’s broad relative to the body. Ovoid. Eyes occupy most of it. Paired compound structures, each about nine centimeters across at the widest. Under the dissecting scope I’m seeing ommatidia, regular hexagonal packing. Density in the three fields I counted ranges from seven point eight to eight point six units per square millimeter. Projected across the curved surface… Call it forty-two to fifty thousand per eye.

A resident asked me once whether a fly sees one picture through every facet. Gave him the standard answer — mosaic integration, motion sensitivity — no, it’s not forty thousand little television screens. I remember being annoyed because rounds were late. Wish he was in this room now. He’d ask the stupid question I need…

Hmmmm…. Layering beneath each facet is deeper than expected. I’m not opening the eye yet. Already spent twelve minutes on it and I haven’t finished the face. The packing is so regular it almost looks intentional, which is a bad word for anatomy, I know. Intentional implies someone. Or something. Alright, I’m losing time on this. The rest of the head is waiting.

Mandibles: two primary structures, curved, six centimeters from base to tip, serrated along the inner edge. Two smaller maxillary structures below. Serration’s fine enough I need magnification to count it. Functional, not ornamental. They meet without visible gap.

Thorax: six appendages, keeps us in the arthropod neighborhood. Upper four are long, jointed, folded against the body. Lower pair shorter with fine articulation at the terminal ends. Lower pair look manipulative. Upper could be locomotory, grasping, or both. When I extend the left anterior limb by hand, the joints move without resistance. Eight days postmortem, refrigerated, and the joint lubricant hasn’t thickened. Taking a swab.

Fourteen spiracular openings along the lateral body wall, seven per side, each about four millimeters. All patent. No valve closure I can see from the exterior.

Abdomen’s the longest region, tapers toward the rear. Surface smoother than the thorax. Not finding an external reproductive opening or a recognizable excretory opening. Not finding injury either.

The briefing states the specimen sustained ████████████████████████████████████████ during the intercept. Body’s intact. No entry wound, no burn track, no breach, no delamination. Checked the dorsal surface with oblique light, seams between plates are clean. Either the injury was nonkinetic, or this material repaired before it reached me, or the briefing language means something… other than what it appears to mean.

Scale’s the first biological problem. Obviously. An arthropod body plan at one hundred thirty-seven centimeters should fail under Earth conditions. Exoskeletal mass rises faster than load-bearing area. Passive tracheal diffusion shouldn’t oxygenate deep tissue. Limb joints should be poor levers at this size.

Hmmm…. Working environmental hypothesis: native atmospheric pressure between three and four times Earth sea level, denser gas mix, elevated carbon dioxide. Dense air would reduce effective loading, improve gas movement, permit a larger external body plan. Saying this before I open it. If the internals disagree, good. If they agree, the order matters. That’s how we test a hypothesis. Can’t test one if you don’t make one… [inaudible] …Lord, I’m explaining what science is. Moving on.

Internal Examination.

Beginning a ventral midline incision from the thoracic-cephalic junction to the posterior abdomen.

On incision, free fluid. Oh —A lot of it. Blue-green, transparent, viscosity between water and light oil. No vessels in the exposed field. Fluid fills the body cavity and bathes the tissues. Hemolymph. Open circulation.

Looking for a dorsal vessel or contractile chamber. Nothing in the thorax. Nothing along the abdomen. No heart. No centralized pump.

The hemolymph is moving.

Hold on — let me make sure that’s not table vibration.

[pause]

Added two neutral-density markers from the perfusion kit. Markers move in broad arcs through the cavity, inward through the central space and back along the body wall. Tilted the table fifteen degrees. Pattern broke for about six seconds then re-formed relative to the body, not gravity. No visible peristalsis. No ciliary surface. No contraction in surrounding tissue.

Possible mechanisms: electro-osmotic transport or local pressure gradients below the resolution of the scope. Don’t have an instrument in this room that can test the first one. Fluid’s circulating without a pump I can find. That’s the finding.

Sample S1-H1 collected. Current closed behind the pipette tip after withdrawal. May be surface tension. Noting it because I noticed it.

Respiratory system. Each spiracle opens into a primary tracheal tube. Tubes branch from primary to secondary, then keep going. At every increase in magnification I find another order of branching. Finest visible termini enter individual tissue clusters. Switching objective.

[pause]

They reach the cells. I can see terminal tubes ending at single-cell boundaries. Direct gas delivery, cell by cell. No diffusion distance to solve because the system carries gas to the destination. Tube diameters vary between neighboring tissue groups, suggests active regulation by demand.

Oh, that solves the size problem. Or one of them. You could build an arthropod the size of a vehicle if every cell had its own air line. I know the comparison’s ugly, but… Hey, it’s correct. Every room gets plumbing.

I need a phrase that won’t embarrass me when another scientist hears this… I already said I wouldn’t say beautiful. Elegant? Well-design—no… Well, respiratory architecture is very good. Better than good. Thirty-one years of pathology and I haven’t seen a biological structure that solves its problem this cleanly.

…Oh. Spent forty minutes following one branch. Supposed to move on.

Let’s see… There are sealed ampullary sacs at the ends of several primary tubes. Missed them at first because their walls are almost transparent. One remains intact. Bringing it to room temperature in the microchamber and connecting the pressure line…

[pause]

Internal pressure at nineteen degrees Celsius is three hundred eighteen kilopascals absolute. Just over three atmospheres. Gas chromatograph reads eight point six percent carbon dioxide, twenty-four point two percent oxygen, remainder nitrogen and inert trace gases. Hemolymph from S1-H1 has a bicarbonate buffering capacity about six times the human reference range, which is a ridiculous comparison but the analyzer needs a reference. Carbonic anhydrase activity’s above the upper calibration limit.

I stated three to four atmospheres with elevated carbon dioxide at 1115. The ampullary sample ran at 1308. Both times are now on the record because someone will accuse me of fitting the model backward. I did not. I… I did not.

One sealed gas pocket can’t establish an origin environment, but it does support the model. More support than I expected on the first pass…

I want to stay with the tracheal network, but… Not going to. [laughs] If I could show this to my graduate students I’d talk about it until they stopped inviting me to dinner… But I can’t show it to anyone, so I guess you get the lecture. You, the recorder.

Nervous system… Ventral nerve cord extending the length of the body. Paired ganglia in each segment. Cephalic cluster’s largest, about sixty grams, but it’s not a brain in the vertebrate sense. Each segmental ganglion has direct sensory input and local motor output. Connections run laterally and longitudinally, but I’m not finding a command hierarchy. Cephalic cluster is a larger node. Hmmm… It’s not in charge.

Tracing the optic bundles now. They don’t terminate in the cephalic cluster. They split. Some fibers enter the head ganglia, others run back through the thorax and into the first two abdominal nodes. Visual information’s distributed before any point of integration I can identify.

Oh, it’s… This body could lose the head and continue to process. Each segment is — in a limited sense — its own animal. Colony. Yes, colony is closer than individual. Wait — network is closer than colony. I keep — I keep reaching for the right word, but they’re all too small. It’s… [inaudible].

I keep getting stuck on experience. Two eyes with tens of thousands of facets, each facet feeding more than one processing center, and no place where it all comes together. Were there fifty awarenesses in here or one awareness with no center? …Question’s outside the tasking. But it’s the first question I’d ask if I were allowed to bring another person into the room. Which I’m not. So…

Moving on.

Musculature’s striated. Doesn’t match standard models. Insertions look like contractile flexion with hydraulic extension, spider-type. Samples S1-M1 through M3. Ah — my hands are stiff from the cold and I’ve already been at this nine hours. Moving on.

Digestive tract. Anterior passage from the mandibles, four centimeters, opens into a chamber of about thirty cubic centimeters. I’ll call it a stomach for labeling purposes. Posterior wall is closed.

No intestine. Hmmm….

Probing the surrounding matrix. No coiled structure hidden behind the tracheae, no absorptive sac, no hindgut. The chamber ends. That’s the whole digestive system.

Twenty-eight kilograms of tissue, active enough to support regulated gas delivery, and no route for processing food. Mouth works. Stomach holds maybe thirty ccs. And then there’s nothing, no intestine, no absorptive surface, nothing. I keep probing and… Where is the rest of it?

Unless… Unless the body doesn’t feed through the mouth. Surface absorption would remove the need for a gut. Osmotrophy? A fungal solution. Maybe, mycelium wearing an arthropod outline.

No. No… I reached for a category because I disliked an empty space. Put a line through that phrase as taxonomy. Saying it into the recorder so I can stop thinking it.

If the integument handles nutrient exchange, then the whole animal is gut. I’ll test the surface chemistry tomorrow morning. Moving on.

Unclassified abdominal structures. Lower cavity contains ovoid bodies embedded in a loose matrix. Diameter ranges from four to twelve millimeters. Count is thirty-eight. Counting again before sampling.

[pause]

Thirty-eight.

They’re dark gray under direct light and black at the edges. No duct, vessel, nerve, or connective stalk. Sit in the matrix without an anatomical relationship to anything around them. I can lift one free with blunt forceps and leave no torn attachment.

In the glove it feels wrong for tissue. Firm outer capsule, slight give, then a hard center. Seed would be the obvious comparison, but these are too dense. An eight-millimeter body weighs one point three grams. I checked the scale. When I press it between the forceps the capsule dents and returns without a mark.

Organs show where they belong. A hilum, a vessel, a surface that faces another surface. These look stored. That word isn’t a finding, I just don’t have a better one. They…. Hold on.

I set one on the specimen tray and it settled into the curve of the metal and didn’t roll. A sphere that shape and weight on a curved steel surface should roll. It sat where I placed it as if the position were chosen. Matrix adhesion from the capsule surface. That explanation requires the fewest new assumptions. For now.

Sectioning one.

[pause]

Interior’s homogeneous and dark, no visible cell differentiation under the dissecting scope. Two cut faces draw toward each other when released. Matrix recoil could account for that. Pinning the halves apart for fixation.

Photographed and mapped all thirty-eight positions before removing samples. Samples S1-A through S1-D. Four removed. Thirty-four remain in situ. I want the count and locations fixed because I don’t know what these are and I’m not going to trust memory after nine hours in a cold room.

Hmmm…. I should return to the eyes before I close.

Something about… Oh…

Under higher magnification each ommatidium contains stacked receptor layers rather than one primary rhabdom. At least four distinct photoreceptor morphologies in each unit. If the layers separate by wavelength, the visual range extends far beyond human light. Infrared and ultraviolet are the conservative possibilities.

So… each facet is a complete sensory package across multiple spectra. Fifty thousand per eye. And I already know from the nerve tracing that the inputs don’t converge. They distribute. Which means… it saw everything. Every direction, every wavelength. And there’s nowhere in this body where the seeing comes together. No integration point. The picture never becomes one picture.

That’s not clinical language, but it’s accurate enough. I’m leaving it in.

End Session 1. Time is 1847. Nine hours at the table and it feels closer to two. Initial assessment: genuine biological anomaly. Arthropod organization with solutions to scale, respiration, and sensory processing outside the terrestrial record. High-pressure, high-carbon-dioxide hypothesis received unexpected support. Self-circulating hemolymph, absent digestive tract, and thirty-eight abdominal bodies remain unresolved.

The fungal thought was probably fatigue. Do not promote it to a model without evidence.

[inaudible] …need to eat. Had coffee at six and nothing since.

Resuming tomorrow.

Session 2 — March 23, 2024

Session 2. March 23rd, 2024. Time is 0830. Dr. Philip Oren, continuing examination of DST-0441.

Let’s see — oh… [inaudible].

Specimen was stored at four degrees overnight. Sealed the containment unit at 1850. Facility access log shows no entry between then and 0815 this morning. Checked the physical seal, the electronic log, and the corridor camera. Nobody entered, but…

Something changed.

I… I want to get the description down, first. Just the facts, before I… explain it away.

Dorsal thoracic integument, rigid yesterday, now gives under finger pressure. Only a millimeter or two, but it gives… Yeah, it gives. Color and plate geometry appear unchanged. At the margins between the dorsal plates and lateral wall there are pale filaments extending into the joint membrane. They weren’t present yesterday. Let me check… Yes. Photographs are open beside me. They weren’t present yesterday.

Hmmmm… First responsible explanation is contamination… That makes sense. Fungal growth on a refrigerated specimen is uncommon at this rate but possible if the cold unit was contaminated before sealing. Let’s find out… Sampling the filaments now.

[pause]

They’re not on the surface.

Filaments begin within the exoskeletal material and emerge through it. Cross-section shows continuity with the inner layers of the integument. Branches divide and join again, forming anastomoses. The same pattern repeats below the resolution of the dissecting scope.

Oh… It’s a mycelial architecture. Branches join into a web.

Yesterday, at… [paper rustling] …1710 or thereabouts, I said “mycelium wearing an arthropod outline” because I was tired and irritated by the missing gut. I’m putting that on the record. It wasn’t a finding then. Today… I’ve got fungal-type growth coming out of the shell.

Let me check again… I said mycelium wearing an arthropod outline into this recorder at about 1710 yesterday. The filaments were there this morning. I’m not going to comment on the timing. I suppose…

[pause]

Coincidence is allowed. Biology uses the same useful forms more than once.

Continuing.

Opening the thoracic cavity at yesterday’s incision.

[pause]

Hemolymph’s turbid. Yesterday it was clear blue-green. Today there’s fine suspended material throughout. Added the same marker beads. Current’s faster. One complete central-to-peripheral circuit took about forty-one seconds yesterday. Today it takes seventeen. Seventeen.

Flow’s also… directional in a way it wasn’t yesterday. Material moves toward the incision margins, the sampled muscle beds, and the cephalic ganglion. Those are the sites I disturbed most. I think… A wound-response transport system would do that. No pump visible, but the fluid may be driven by osmotic gradients across the new filament network. Let me…

Sample S2-H1 collected. Under phase contrast, most of the suspended material consists of filament fragments and small encapsulated bodies below fifty microns. No bacterial load. No conventional leukocytes. No… no, let’s keep going.

Tracheal system. Primary tubes unchanged. Fine terminal branches have extended. Photographed one branch yesterday beside a pigmented muscle fiber because it gave me an easy landmark. Terminal ended forty microns short of the fiber nucleus. Today it’s passed the nucleus and divided twice. New growth of about one hundred twenty microns in twenty hours.

Cephalic ganglion measured about sixty grams yesterday. Removed it, weighed it, returned it to the cavity, documented the procedure. Now it weighs seventy-four point one grams after surface fluid was blotted by the same method. Fourteen grams of new nervous tissue, or — or tissue now presenting as nervous tissue.

I — I don’t know why I said that last part. Leaving it.

Left compound eye, which I examined longer than the right, has increased in depth by about eleven percent at the central receptor layer. Right eye increased by less than two percent. The specific tracheal branch I followed for forty minutes has produced more new termini than neighboring branches.

Abdominal bodies. Removed four yesterday, leaving thirty-four in situ. Count thirty-nine in the body this morning. With the four fixed samples, total known count is forty-three. Five bodies formed overnight.

Checking against the position map.

[pause]

Yes, confirmed. Five new. Three are adjacent to the S1-A through S1-D sampling sites. One’s near the posterior end of the incision. One’s embedded beside a tracheal branch I photographed but I didn’t sample.

The pattern’s… not subtle. Structures I examined longest changed most. The posterior abdominal tip received about five minutes of attention yesterday and shows almost no change. I spent close to an hour on the cephalic ganglion and it gained more than twenty percent of its mass.

The obvious interpretation is that examination stimulated growth. Touch, pressure, heat from the lamp, exposure to oxygen, disruption of membranes. Eye under the scope received more light, ganglion was removed and handled, sampled sites were injured… Those are physical inputs and the response follows the inputs.

There’s… another interpretation…

No, I don’t want to name it. The measurable inputs are touch, heat, light, and injury. Or… No. Stick with the inputs.

Setting a controlled stimulation trial before I continue. Right posterior abdomen will receive cyclic pressure at twelve kilopascals through a sterile contact pad. Right lateral thorax will be held four degrees above storage temperature. Marked segment on the left posterior abdomen will receive no contact. Each region has comparable baseline filament density. Apparatus will run during the remainder of today’s session and overnight. If mechanical input drives the changes, the pressure and heat sites should outgrow the untouched site.

I know, this isn’t a blind trial. I’m the only investigator cleared to enter the room, which makes blindness… You know what, it’s still better than arguing with myself into a tape recorder. Continuing…

Surface chemistry. Had planned this after the absent gut finding. Applying fluorescent glucose analog to an intact patch of ventral integument, away from the incision. Now, watching uptake under the scope…

[pause]

Compound crosses the outer layer within ninety seconds. It enters the filament network and moves through the body wall with the hemolymph current. Control patch of excised exoskeleton from the plate margin shows no uptake until placed against living filament tissue. Integument is an absorptive organ.

I said yesterday… At least, I think I said… That if the body fed through its surface, the whole animal would be gut. That appears to be correct. [laughs] I’m having an unusual run of being correct. Unfortunately, maybe.

I’m revising the taxonomic model. Pure arthropod classification no longer works. Body combines an arthropod-type external plan with a fungal-type substrate. Hybrid? “Hybrid” suggests two lineages joined together, and I’ve got no basis for that. How about.. Convergent architecture. That’s safer. A mycelial network has adopted an arthropod form.

That model resolves the missing gut. Nutrients enter across the surface. It also helps with distributed control. Terrestrial fungal networks move chemical and electrical signals across long distances without a brain. They reroute after damage. They allocate material toward active margins. Self-circulating hemolymph may be transport through a pressure field generated by the network rather than by a pump.

That also explains why the boundaries feel wrong. Yesterday I named a respiratory system, nervous system, and connective tissue as if I were separating [inaudible] in a hospital. Filaments cross all of them. Same substrate may be handling gas exchange, signal transfer, transport, and repair. Maybe I described one continuous tissue four times because I came to the table with four labels. [laughs] Names.

There’s a… a larger possibility. If the body on this table is analogous to a fruiting body, then… Then, it isn’t the whole organism. Like a mushroom. A mushroom is the temporary structure a network produces above ground. The durable organism remains elsewhere, spread through a medium the observer doesn’t see.

Is this specimen a projection? [inaudible] Finger… Finger is the comparison that keeps coming up. A finger can be cut off while the body remains untouched. I know how that sounds… But it fits the data better than a four-and-a-half-foot insect from a carbon-dioxide atmosphere. [laughs] Yesterday, I was pleased with that model.

Yes… Under this framework the shell may not be fixed anatomy. It may be… “task-built” material. Yes, that’s right… Plates, mandibles, limbs, and sensory surfaces could be rebuilt between exposures the way a fungus alters a fruiting body in response to humidity and substrate. Maybe, it… A mandible could be a disposable tool rather than inherited anatomy. The network could lengthen one, discard it, grow another.

No… No evidence that it has done so. I’m just… recording the implication of the model.

[pause]

Returning to the abdominal bodies. If this is a fruiting body, those structures become the obvious candidates for propagules. Spore analogs… [inaudible] I disliked the speed with which “unclassified bodies” became “spores” in my vocabulary, so I’ll keep both labels in the notes.

Sectioning one of the five new bodies. The capsule’s softer than yesterday’s samples. Interior’s no longer homogeneous. Concentric lamellae around a dense core. Layers differ in refractive index and protein content. It’s [laughs] maturing.

The four samples from yesterday have changed in fixative. The fixed samples. In formalin. S1-A and S1-C now show faint internal rings that weren’t there when I sectioned them. Formalin was fully penetrated. I checked. I checked. These structures organized after fixation. I don’t… that shouldn’t happen. Fixed tissue doesn’t do that. That is not a thing that happens.

[Groans] …I need a second pathologist. “Can’t have one.” I need someone to tell me whether I’ve missed a reagent artifact, and the only people permitted to hear this recording… are people who can’t answer the question.

If the bodies are propagules, they need a route out. Spiracles are already open to the air. A mature structure could move the bodies into the tracheal network or grow a release surface along the ventral plates. Don’t know what that surface would look like. I keep — I keep trying to picture it… This isn’t helping me finish the work in front of me.

Hemolymph current at the end of the session remains fastest near the areas examined today. Particulate load is moving toward the tracheal branches. Leaving the pressure and heat apparatus in place overnight. Video and environmental logs are active.

End Session 2. Time is 1742. My revised model: arthropod-form fruiting body generated by a mycelial substrate. Surface absorption accounts for the reduced digestive tract. Distributed tissue accounts for circulation and control. Abdominal bodies may be propagules. External architecture may remain plastic after apparent death. There. That’s it. Done.

Thought yesterday was the best day of my career. Today was better, [laughs] which is an irresponsible thing to say about a specimen that won’t “stay dead” in any useful sense of the word.

[laughs] [inaudible]

Resuming tomorrow.

Session 3 — March 24, 2024

Session 3. March 24th, 2024. Time is 0815. Dr. Philip Oren. Specimen DST-0441.

Unsealed the containment room at 0800. Didn’t approach the table. Stayed by the door for several minutes because the outline under the task lights was… wrong.

Checking the stimulation trial first. Data before interpretation.

[pause]

Pressure site on the right posterior abdomen shows a sixty-four percent increase in filament density. Heated site on the right thorax shows thirty-seven percent. Marked untouched site shows four percent. Apparatus logged no failure. Result supports mechanical and thermal stimulation as drivers of growth.

Good… Good. That gives me one result I know how to read.

Moving closer. Hands are cold. Room’s always cold but I’m noticing it more today. Shoulders tight from standing still by the door.

[gasps] [inaudible]

Specimen has reorganized.

Total body length is now one hundred forty-nine centimeters. Was one thirty-seven on Session 1. Mass is thirty point seven kilograms, increase of two point three. Most of the new length is in the abdomen, though the mandibles and two anterior limbs have also lengthened.

Dorsal thoracic plates have shifted laterally. The seams no longer align with the photographs from yesterday. There’s this… New black material that fills the gaps. Pressure pad remains attached, but the plate beneath it has grown around the pad edge and incorporated the sterile mesh into the surface layer.

That… That can still fit the model. Yes, mycelial substrate can route growth around an obstruction. Predicted that the external architecture might remain plastic. This is faster than any terrestrial analogue, but it isn’t a new kind of process.

Ventral abdomen now carries four raised longitudinal ridges. Height ranges from nine millimeters to two point four centimeters. They begin near the lower abdominal bodies and terminate beside the last three pairs of spiracles. It’s — No, not assigning function yet.

Compound-eye geometry has changed. Hexagonal packing remains across most of the surface, but there are pentagonal and heptagonal facets in bands around the outer margin. Bands curve in opposite directions on the two eyes. Receptor depth has increased. I don’t know what image that arrangement produces.

The mandibles were six centimeters on day one. They’re eight point one today. Serration count increased from thirty-two to fifty-four along the left inner edge. New teeth aren’t soft growth. They have the same hardness and layered structure as the original cutting surface.

…A fungus can deposit rigid material. It can alter a fruiting body. I said that yesterday. Yes, but — There’s been no nutrient source in the chamber beyond trace glucose at one test patch, and now — there’s at least two kilograms of new mass. Storage temperature remained — remained — at four degrees. So, available mass and energy don’t account for the growth.

Two upper limbs have extended from the folded position. Left anterior is angled thirty-one degrees from the thorax. Right posterior is at twenty-seven. The video…

[pause]

Video shows no sudden movement. Change occurred in increments below the frame interval, or between frames in a way the camera didn’t register. Hold on…

[pause]

I reviewed the footage at quarter speed. Limb is in one position, then a little farther out, with… No, no visible transition.

I can explain the changed plate margins. I can explain the filament increase at the pad sites. But… Mandibles are harder. Mass has no source. The limbs moved.

Opening the thoracic cavity.

Hemolymph’s nearly gelatinous at the body wall and fluid toward the center. Current’s fast enough to see without markers. It runs from the central cavity toward every site where I’ve placed an instrument, then returns through the filament layer.

Holding the forceps still. A strand of fluid has climbed two centimeters up the shaft above the cavity level. No capillary channel. Shaft is smooth stainless steel. When I move the forceps left, the strand bends and follows. Pulling the forceps out now.

[pause]

That’s not… the fluid shouldn’t… Okay. Tracheal network. Yesterday I described branching too dense to trace. Today the tubes have entered every tissue class I named. They pass through the ganglia, muscle, connective matrix, and the abdominal bodies. At points the tracheal wall and neural sheath are the same membrane. I can’t… Can’t say where one system ends and another begins.

Or… Or I drew boundaries that were never there. I’m trained to open a body by systems — Cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, digestive. We separate them on the page and then “convince ourselves” the body came that way. Maybe… I found a respiratory system because I followed the spiracles. Found a nervous system because I followed fibers. But… The tissue didn’t separate itself for me. I did that. I…

Need to stay with the examination. Keep describing what is present.

[pause]

Abdominal bodies are no longer confined to the abdomen. They occur in the thoracic matrix, the ganglia, the muscle beds, and inside the walls of the tracheal tubes. Smallest are below one millimeter. Largest is fifteen.

Most are clustered around the spiracles.

Hemolymph current is carrying smaller bodies toward the openings. I can see them enter secondary tracheal branches and move outward. Ventral ridges connect the densest clusters to the last six spiracles. They’re channels — or pressure rails. Something for release.

I’m checking the room air sampler.

[pause]

No particulate above baseline. Filter cassette is clean. Containment pressure is negative and stable. Respirator seal indicator is green.

[breathing]

I’ve been leaning over an open tracheal system for three days. Instruments have been inside it. Face has been less than half a meter from the spiracles. Wearing full respiratory protection. Worn it in every session. Sampler’s clean. Clean. [inaudible] …Repeating facts because facts — facts… Facts are useful.

Checking gloves. Left intact, right intact, no breach. Changing them anyway.

[pause] [sound of glove dispenser]

Okay.

Sectioning one of the thoracic bodies. Eight millimeters. Concentric lamellae are complete. Under higher magnification the innermost layer contains ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Woah. Stepping back from the table.

[pause] [paper crinkling]

I have the breakfast receipt in my pocket.

This morning I ate in the cafeteria across from the hotel… Toast, coffee. I was thinking about the bodies and the spiracles… Kept trying to work out how a large fruiting structure would release propagules without a central pump. I drew…

[more paper crinkling]

…Drew a ventral surface on the back of the receipt. Four raised channels running toward the posterior spiracles. Offset the third channel because it had to pass around an abdominal plate. Pen skipped at the turn and I drew a little branch by mistake.

I put the receipt in my pocket because I thought it might be useful in today’s notes.

Now… I’m holding it beside the specimen now. Four channels. Third is offset. There’s a short blind branch at the same turn where the pen skipped.

I… I’m looking at my drawing on the body.

Useless branch is there. Spacing, offset, and pen-slip branch all match.

[pause]

The order matters. The order — I said it first. That means the structures on the ventral surface are not findings, they are ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

No, no, no — Stimulation trial doesn’t help. I knew which regions I heated. I knew — I knew what result would support the mechanical explanation. I opened the unit expecting those regions to have changed and they had. I —████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Wait — I can’t call anyone. I signed. I signed — the document that says I can’t discuss this with any person not read into the compartment. There’s no one. There’s… [inaudible]. There’s me and the specimen and the recorder. The recorder. The recorder can’t help me and the specimen is ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

I signed a form that said I wouldn’t tell anyone and I thought that meant it was a secret. I was keeping a secret. But it actually means I’m… [inaudible].

I don’t know how to put this in a report another scientist can read without deciding I’m… “impaired.”

Time, place, identity: March 24th, Site ████████, Philip Oren.

I know how the recording sounds. Also I have the receipt in one hand and the thing I drew in front of me. That means…

Okay, okay… Session 1. I proposed high pressure and carbon dioxide, then opened a sealed sac and found the atmosphere I had proposed. I said surface absorption, then came back to filaments and a body that fed through its skin. I called the abdominal structures spores, and today they are moving to the exits. Confirmation.

Wait — I kept calling those confirmations. But I….

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

I have been asking it questions with a knife. [more laughter]

[pause]

Okay… Room sampler’s clean. Unit’s intact. Specimen hasn’t done anything outside the terms I supplied. I’ve repeated that sentence four times and still can’t touch the latch.

Sealing the containment unit.

[metal closure; two latch sounds]

Indicator’s green. Unit’s sealed. [sighs] Done for today.

Time is 1436. Been here more than six hours. [laughs] My hands are shaking so much that I couldn’t enter the code on the first attempt. [coughs] That is just a physical observation, not an emotional one. Here we go…

[beeping sound]

Code accepted.

[footsteps] I’m taking the recorder with me. Door. Corridor. Stairwell. Walking toward the ground floor. My legs feel heavy. I need to eat. Didn’t again.

[door opens] [footsteps continue]

Wait… [inaudible].

There’s a sound below.

Second landing. Scraping across concrete, then a soft impact. No one else in the facility. I checked the access log this morning.

Wait… Before I left the room, while I was trying not to think, I pictured ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

[unidentified sound]

Sound’s at the second landing.

[inaudible] [unidentified sound] [pause]

Oh.

I understand.

I put it there. I ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

[unidentified sound rises] [remaining recorded material is not recoverable]

SECRET // ████████ // NOFORN

FOIA APPEAL — F-2025-01877-A

Filed by Mr. Warren Hadwell, January 4, 2026. Received by DIA FOIA Appeals Authority, January 9, 2026.

To the FOIA Appeals Authority, Defense Intelligence Agency:

I appeal the partial denial of request F-2025-01877, dated September 12, 2025, concerning specimen DST-0441-24 and associated records. I received the agency’s initial response on October 30, 2025, with material withheld under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1) and (b)(3).

I do not contest the (b)(1) withholdings applied to operational and tactical data. Those deletions are consistent with ordinary national security practice, and I have no basis to challenge them.

I appeal the (b)(3) withholdings applied to the analytical transcript authored by Dr. Philip Oren. The agency cites a statute it will not identify. I am not aware of a publicly acknowledged statute that applies to scientific reasoning or pathology findings of this kind. Refusal to identify the authorizing law prevents meaningful review of whether the exemption was applied within its scope.

Procedure is only part of my basis for appeal. For the past ██████████████ I have conducted independent research into ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. What I have received in return is consistent with the changes Dr. Oren began to document during the later sessions.

I have approached the phenomenon without assigning it a biological identity or hostile intent. Under those conditions, the exchange has been stable, noninjurious, and ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.

The unredacted transcript shows that Dr. Oren’s first framework could not account for the changes he observed. It also shows that each replacement framework became inadequate in turn. I believe the deleted passages contain the point at which he recognized why.

I do not believe what he found was hostile. The interaction described in the transcript appears to have taken its character from ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. Dr. Oren approached the subject through threat briefings, dissection, and a progressively adversarial expectation. What I have received began from curiosity and has produced ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.

I recognize that my account may concern the agency. It should also affect the agency’s assessment of whether the material is dangerous in itself or whether the risk depends on the conditions under which a person encounters it. Withholding Dr. Oren’s reasoning prevents me from comparing those conditions with my own.

I request de novo review of the (b)(3) deletions and release of the analytical portions of Dr. Oren’s transcript in full.

Respectfully,

Warren Hadwell

FOIA APPEAL DETERMINATION — F-2025-01877-A

Defense Intelligence Agency, FOIA Appeals Authority. February 19, 2026.

Mr. Warren Hadwell

████████████████████████

██████████████████████████████

Dear Mr. Hadwell:

This responds to your appeal of the partial denial of FOIA request F-2025-01877, received by this office on January 9, 2026.

After review, the withholdings applied under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3) are affirmed. The material remains exempt under the authority cited in the initial determination. The restriction is mandatory and is not subject to administrative override based on a requester’s qualifications, familiarity with the subject, or stated purpose.

We have noted your references to independent research and personal observations that you characterize as consistent with phenomena described in the responsive record. This office neither confirms nor disputes that characterization and cannot comment on the nature or implications of your work within this correspondence.

Your account does not alter the statutory basis for withholding. Nor does the absence of injury in the events you describe establish that fuller disclosure would reduce risk.

We would observe, however, that the unredacted portions of Dr. Oren’s transcript document his initial analytical framework in considerable detail. That framework, as Dr. Oren began to recognize before the conclusion of his work, may not represent the most productive lens through which to engage with the subject material. The passages already available to you may be sufficient for the purpose you describe in ways you do not yet recognize.

Your administrative appeal rights are exhausted. You may seek judicial review under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).

Respectfully,

R. Olvera

Chief, FOIA Appeals

Defense Intelligence Agency