While working on the first interstellar meteor IM1 detected by US Government satellites, I received generous support from the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House which reached out to the US Space Command, leading to an official confirmation letter on the interstellar origin and fireball light curve of IM1. This allowed my research team within the Galileo Project to proceed with a related expedition to the Pacific Ocean in search for the materials left over from IM1’s fireball.
The official letter and data from the Department of Defense allowed us to receive funding and visit IM1’s site, where we recovered spherules of potentially extrasolar composition. Our findings were recently published in two research notes and summarized in an extensive paper.