Emmy-winning writer Terence Winter is developing a television series based on the memoir of a former senior U.S. intelligence official who says the government has hidden evidence of non-human intelligence for decades.
Winter, who wrote for “The Sopranos,” created “Boardwalk Empire” and earned an Oscar nomination for “The Wolf of Wall Street,” is adapting “Out of the Shadows” by Jay Stratton. William Morrow, a HarperCollins imprint, publishes the book Oct. 13. Dan Farah, director of the documentary “The Age of Disclosure,” acquired the film and television rights and is spearheading the project, which is still seeking a distributor. Winter and Farah will executive produce through Cold Front Productions and Farah Films.
Stratton once served as Chief of Air & Space Warfare in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Warning Office. He says a UAP sighting over a nuclear missile site set him on a new course. He cofounded the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, the first official federal effort to study unidentified aerial phenomena since the Air Force closed Project Blue Book in 1969. He later led the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. He spent 16 years on the subject, according to the project’s announcement, and stated in Farah’s film that he has seen non-human craft and beings.
Those claims remain unverified, and the memoir’s account rests on Stratton’s word. He says he wants to press the case publicly. “It’s time for the world to learn the truth,” he said in a statement.
Farah pitches the series as a family drama as much as an investigation. He called the book a political thriller and said it captures the toll Stratton’s pursuit took on his household. Winter said he wants to explore a world the public knows little about.
The announcement lands at a moment of heightened interest in the subject. Farah’s documentary premiered at South by Southwest in March 2025 with on-camera interviews of 34 current and former officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Its trailer drew 22 million views across platforms, a reported record for a documentary. The Trump administration has since released large volumes of declassified UAP material, and Stratton has worked with the White House, the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of War on those disclosures.
