Helene Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who serves as Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times. Born in Monrovia, Liberia, Cooper fled the country during the 1980 coup and later became a US citizen. She has reported on national security, defense policy, and military affairs for over two decades, previously serving as the Times' White House correspondent.

Cooper was one of three co-authors, alongside Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, of the December 16, 2017 New York Times article that publicly revealed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The article, titled "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program," disclosed that the Defense Department had spent $22 million investigating UAP reports and included the first public release of the FLIR1 and GIMBAL videos.

The 2017 story is widely credited with transforming UAP from a fringe topic into a subject of serious mainstream coverage and congressional attention. Cooper's involvement brought Pentagon reporting credibility to the story, complementing Kean's subject matter expertise and Blumenthal's investigative journalism experience. The team's reporting contributed to subsequent congressional hearings, the creation of official UAP investigation offices, and ongoing government transparency initiatives.