RAND Corporation is a nonprofit policy-research organization with longstanding classified defense-research relationships. Though not a formal FFRDC in the DoD-technical sense, it operates similarly and has historically conducted classified analysis for U.S. national security agencies.
UAP Records Investigation
In June 2026, Rep. eric-burlison expanded his contractor-side UAP records investigation to include RAND Corporation alongside mitre, aerospace-corporation, mit-lincoln-laboratory, and northrop-grumman, citing the theory that classified UAP programs have been routed into private contractors to evade congressional oversight (src-thehill-burlison-private-labs-2026-06).
Burlison’s framing: “If you really want to hide something from Congress, you don’t put it in a government file cabinet. You hand it to a private contractor.”