Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
Elizondo is on Stephen Diener's podcast - Stephen has so far released only a 2-min excerpt with this tweet, relating to the UFO photo.
Elizondo really needs to address how a pilot could mistake crop fields for a UFO. It's a little scary that a contractor with TS clearance, flying his plane with an external-mounted camera that has the specific capability of photographing the environment - farmland riddled with circles in this case - would not be able to identify these two circles.
Elizondo confirms his changed narrative that he and the pilot both thought this was a UFO when he presented it to Congress, which contradicts his original narrative/excuse. If he was going to stick with the original narrative, it wouldn't matter whether it was a set-up or not (since the unvetted random photo was merely to illustrate his point about pilots not knowing where to report). Yet clearly it does matter very much to him, belying that initial excuse he gave after the photo was first debunked. (There is also the narrative before the original narrative, that being his description in the hearing of a large object and its shadow, i.e. a UFO.)
He says he would expose the source if it was a set-up. That's great news! But do we know of any example where he or anyone else with a similar position in ufology has ever exposed a source after the information was found to be a deliberate hoax? He doesn't elaborate - I think that point requires a lot of elaboration. It opens up an important discussion about sources, the quality of information, and under what conditions sources should be exposed, that nobody in ufology who's receiving all this amazing info seems willing to have. Instead he quickly moves on to reassure us that he doesn't expose sources.
I would also like him to confirm that the source was the actual photographer, and how he confirmed it. If the source wasn't the photographer, various other points here become moot.
He focuses on "microbehaviors/neurolinguistics" to assess the truthfulness of the source, instead of discussing whether or not a pilot should know what irrigation circles are. A follow-on from this would be: If it turns out the source did know it wasn't a UFO, will Elizondo reassess his own ability to detect guile using those behavior-related methods he's so proud of?
He doesn't tell us what follow-up questions he asked the source after the photo was debunked, or what the pilot's response was (other than being upset) - perhaps this is covered in the full interview.
He had said the photo was handed to him in the hall outside the hearing. Now he says their meeting was "really by chance". If the pilot knew the hearing was happening, their meeting was quite likely not by chance, surely? Elizondo didn't elaborate, which adds mystery, but I wouldn't be surprised if details about the meeting, were he to give them, would cast public doubt on the source that he doesn't want to deal with. My suspicion is that to avoid this, he keeps the source and the meeting shrouded in mystery in order to project the opposite impression.
This technique is rampant in ufology when it comes to whistleblowers or anyone who formerly worked for the government - I just heard a similar thing in a Twitter Space this morning with Richard Doty. He talked about time travel programs using a lot of "I think", never saying he personally worked on any such program. Fair enough. Then he ended by saying the USG was "close to figuring out time travel" when he left in the 80s, a statement based on all those "I thinks", i.e. speculation presented as fact.
The host then said she believed (based on feelings) that USG contractors are already using time travel, asking for his opinion on that.
Doty: "There are certain classified things I can't talk about. I'll leave it at that."
The host said something like "I love your answer!" - she's become convinced, by his mysterious refusal to add detail, that he knows more than he's saying and is agreeing with her, yet he just made it clear that the most he knows (even assuming it's true) is that they were close to figuring it out 40 years ago.
Here's Anjali doing the same thing in a Twitter Space from last week, when someone asked her about the MARVEL program:
Later she says:
By phrasing it this way, mixing qualifiers with "facts", and in the context of the questioner already labeling her an information-sharer and "diplomatic" (i.e. "I can see you're being careful with what you say"... mysterious!), it leaves the impression that she really does know something she can't share. Yet her entire answer is pure speculation - by her own admission.
Multiple things about this answer are not satisfying to me.External Quote:Elizondo: [After explaining people in his position are sometimes set up with disinformation to discredit them]
Is that the case here? I really don't think so... The individual would have a lot to lose because the individual has contracts with certain elements in the intelligence community and the Dept of Defense, and maintains a top secret security clearance. Because it would be very easy to expose that. If it was deliberate, and I found out it was deliberate, then I would certainly expose that individual because I do - you know, I do protect my sources very well, everybody knows that, even when I first came out 8 years ago, I could've throwed [sic] people under the bus and I never did, even to defend myself. So I'm not that way. I don't think the individual that provided - I think he had good intentions, I really do. Could I be wrong? I could be. But there's no indicators there, there were no microbehaviors or neurolinguistics or anything that that individual was doing that would tell me otherwise. And the way we met was really by chance. I'm not gonna go into detail here. But I do not see this as a set-up, to be honest with you. Could it be? Sure, and we know that these things have happened before in the past... Just, I don't get that feeling in this particular case.
Elizondo really needs to address how a pilot could mistake crop fields for a UFO. It's a little scary that a contractor with TS clearance, flying his plane with an external-mounted camera that has the specific capability of photographing the environment - farmland riddled with circles in this case - would not be able to identify these two circles.
Elizondo confirms his changed narrative that he and the pilot both thought this was a UFO when he presented it to Congress, which contradicts his original narrative/excuse. If he was going to stick with the original narrative, it wouldn't matter whether it was a set-up or not (since the unvetted random photo was merely to illustrate his point about pilots not knowing where to report). Yet clearly it does matter very much to him, belying that initial excuse he gave after the photo was first debunked. (There is also the narrative before the original narrative, that being his description in the hearing of a large object and its shadow, i.e. a UFO.)
He says he would expose the source if it was a set-up. That's great news! But do we know of any example where he or anyone else with a similar position in ufology has ever exposed a source after the information was found to be a deliberate hoax? He doesn't elaborate - I think that point requires a lot of elaboration. It opens up an important discussion about sources, the quality of information, and under what conditions sources should be exposed, that nobody in ufology who's receiving all this amazing info seems willing to have. Instead he quickly moves on to reassure us that he doesn't expose sources.
I would also like him to confirm that the source was the actual photographer, and how he confirmed it. If the source wasn't the photographer, various other points here become moot.
He focuses on "microbehaviors/neurolinguistics" to assess the truthfulness of the source, instead of discussing whether or not a pilot should know what irrigation circles are. A follow-on from this would be: If it turns out the source did know it wasn't a UFO, will Elizondo reassess his own ability to detect guile using those behavior-related methods he's so proud of?
He doesn't tell us what follow-up questions he asked the source after the photo was debunked, or what the pilot's response was (other than being upset) - perhaps this is covered in the full interview.
He had said the photo was handed to him in the hall outside the hearing. Now he says their meeting was "really by chance". If the pilot knew the hearing was happening, their meeting was quite likely not by chance, surely? Elizondo didn't elaborate, which adds mystery, but I wouldn't be surprised if details about the meeting, were he to give them, would cast public doubt on the source that he doesn't want to deal with. My suspicion is that to avoid this, he keeps the source and the meeting shrouded in mystery in order to project the opposite impression.
This technique is rampant in ufology when it comes to whistleblowers or anyone who formerly worked for the government - I just heard a similar thing in a Twitter Space this morning with Richard Doty. He talked about time travel programs using a lot of "I think", never saying he personally worked on any such program. Fair enough. Then he ended by saying the USG was "close to figuring out time travel" when he left in the 80s, a statement based on all those "I thinks", i.e. speculation presented as fact.
The host then said she believed (based on feelings) that USG contractors are already using time travel, asking for his opinion on that.
Doty: "There are certain classified things I can't talk about. I'll leave it at that."
The host said something like "I love your answer!" - she's become convinced, by his mysterious refusal to add detail, that he knows more than he's saying and is agreeing with her, yet he just made it clear that the most he knows (even assuming it's true) is that they were close to figuring it out 40 years ago.
Here's Anjali doing the same thing in a Twitter Space from last week, when someone asked her about the MARVEL program:
"My understanding" means she doesn't know for sure. The questioner was doing the work for her.External Quote:I became aware of a program named MARVEL in early 2022... So my understanding was that MARVEL was the time travel program, it is no longer called MARVEL – why? Because we're talking about it. So it's done, it's gonna be sealed for who knows how long. They have deniability, there is no program, we have no program.
Questioner: That was an extremely diplomatic way of sharing that information, thank you.
Later she says:
So, she doesn't even know that MARVEL is related to time travel, uses qualifiers (perhaps, could've) and then contradicts herself with "definitely came from somewhere", a statement that she should not make definitively after her previous admission that MARVEL might not even be experimenting with time travel.External Quote:Well I don't know what project MARVEL is doing. I couldn't tell you any of their activities. I can tell you what I believe they're engaged in, which is they're experimenting with time travel technology and perhaps have information that has led them to a point where they are able to use that tech. That info could've been given to them through an advanced human intelligence or a breakaway society or a nonhuman intelligence, but it definitely came from somewhere.
By phrasing it this way, mixing qualifiers with "facts", and in the context of the questioner already labeling her an information-sharer and "diplomatic" (i.e. "I can see you're being careful with what you say"... mysterious!), it leaves the impression that she really does know something she can't share. Yet her entire answer is pure speculation - by her own admission.
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