Elizondo's Methodology for Verifying Sources

[Charlie Wiser]

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: [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.

Multiple things about this answer are not satisfying to me.

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:

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.

"My understanding" means she doesn't know for sure. The questioner was doing the work for her.

Later she says:

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.

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.

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.

 

[Mendel]

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?

Have these methods ever survived competent validation?

This technique is rampant in ufology

I'm attributing this to the fact that UFOlogy is really a field of fiction, i.e. it's about who can spin the best narrative, and you never contradict your audience. They phrase what they say such that belief remains a possibility, and the believers take absence of contradiction as confirmation (which mimics their approach to evidence).

Elizondo has picked examples where the debunk leaves no room for belief, and that's why the audience turned on him (for now).

 

[Mendel]

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.

This kinda sounds like responsible journalism, until you realize that responsible journalists second-source their information, and UFOlogy never does.
Finding a second source serves as confirmation, and also protects the sources: if there's only a single source, insiders can often figure out who it must be.

UFOlogy is trying something like that with their recent efforts to categorize UFO sightings by shape etc., but it's really not because because these are all different sightings that are merely assumed to be the same, based on the criterium that's supposed to confirm they're the same.

It's kinda like you pick the 5 tallest kids in the class, and then say "gosh, there must be something special to them, they're all so tall", when the only special thing is that they're tall, and they're all tall because that's how you picked them. It doesn't confirm anything.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

but an average person with an average camera at 21,000 feet.

the individual has contracts with certain elements in the intelligence community and the Dept of Defense, and maintains a top secret security clearance.

So average.

 

[elvenwear]

Have these methods ever survived competent validation?

He's been sufficiently vague that it's not clear what his methods are and whether they are NLP, which hasn't been validated. Even if his technique worked it wouldn't filter out a delusional person which would seem a pretty big flaw if you were to use it to vet UAP sources.

Daily reminder: The ground is not aerial.

 

[Gaspa]

Have these methods ever survived competent validation?

Nope. That's just a sciency-sounding way of saying "It didn't feel like they were lying to me". The mere fact that this is the sort of argument he puts forward for the idea that the person was honest is one more reason for me to not take him seriously.

It's a sort of way of presenting oneself as an "intelligence officer with special training to see through lies", which doesn't really exist.

The conclusions of an influential meta-analysis by DePaulo et al. (2003) are still valid: The nonverbal cues to deception, although believed in by laypeople, are faint (Vrij et al., 2019). In meta-analytical simulations incorporating publication bias, Luke (2019) showed that the literature is in fact consistent with there being no human ability to detect nonverbal cues to deception, and performance is similarly low when methods have been used to attempt to detect lies in children (Gongola et al., 2017). Thus, the data show that the widespread beliefs are incorrect, and the field of lie detection via nonverbal cues is an excellent example of the power of science to debunk a myth (Brennen & Magnussen, 2020).

From Brennen and Magnussen. Lie detection: What Works? (2023) link

Had he said "I have known this person for a long time and trust him" or "someone I trust has confirmed the trustworthiness of this person", it would at least make some sense. All we get is "I met this person randomly and I didn't feel like they were lying to me".

 

[NorCal Dave]

Elizondo: .... 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.

Interesting that none of this was talked about prior. Now it's not some random pilot, but a contractor for the DoD and Intel community. Adding some credibility and doubling down on the idea this guy didn't know what a circle crop was in 2021 or 2017 and still didn't as of a few weeks ago. The whole story about being passed the photo in the hall never made sense. That meant the pilot knew there were going to be hearings, knew where they were, knew Elizondo would be there and managed to catch him in the hall with this amazing, though un-vetted, photo just before the presentation. The meetings and stuff were public knowledge, but it shows a level of commitment beyond oh hey I don't know where to report this photo, maybe Mr. Elizondo can use it to stress that point.

At the very least, the pilot tracked down the information and made a consorted effort to be on Capitol Hill and find Elizondo in the halls at just the right time. Supposedly to help highlight the need for a civilian government reporting agency, or maybe to promote their own UFO photo? This is someone that is into UFOs. More likely, there was some arrangement of some sort behind the scenes prior to the presentation with someone possibly connected with the rest of the Intel/military/UFO disclosure club.

This could also sound like the source maybe worked with Mellon, Gallaudet, Stratton, Grusch, Gravis and other former and current Intel/military UFO enthusiasts.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

The issue is what parts are true and what are false. I don't feel like everything can be true.

I think the initial presentation is mostly true. I doubt Lue would lie outright to them. A carefully curated truth (backed up by Lue's "I didn't say..."), he was careful not to say particular things (he never says he was given the photo by the pilot, originally).

I reckon his excuse for not having the time to see what the photograph really is is utter fabrication and probably mostly lies.

I think there's more truth in the latest statement. It lines up better with the original presentation when the lies in the middle are completely ignored.

And even if we accept Lue's excuse for not seeing beyond the optical illusion, surely we all want to know what this person...

the individual has contracts with certain elements in the intelligence community and the Dept of Defense, and maintains a top secret security clearance

... 's excuse is?

 

[John J.]

He focuses on "microbehaviors/neurolinguistics" to assess the truthfulness of the source

Have these methods ever survived competent validation?

He's been sufficiently vague that it's not clear what his methods are and whether they are NLP, which hasn't been validated.

Neurolinguistics is a valid and interesting field of scientific research, but how Elizondo uses it to assess the validity of someone's claim is anyone's guess, as I doubt he plonked his pilot into an FMRI scanner or connected them to an EEG.
-And anyway; those devices are not "lie detectors".

Neurolinguistics is the study of neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methods and theories from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, communication disorders and neuropsychology. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in neurolinguistics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modelling.

Wikipedia, Neurolinguistics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurolinguistics

Some knowledge of neurolinguistics might enable someone to, e.g., make an educated guess at what parts of the brain might have been damaged in a person with an acquired aphasia, but it's not a field that claims that its researchers can tell a truth from a falsehood in normal conversation AFAIK.

As @elvenwear implies, it's possible Elizondo is confusing neurolinguistics (science) with Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP; pseudoscience). Or that Lue doesn't really care, just as long as sufficient people go along with whatever he's saying.

Neuro-linguistic programming is essentially a "therapeutic"/ personal development franchise; now widely discredited but still around. Bizarrely, some practitioners claim NLP can cure physiological conditions such as HIV/AIDS.
Spoiler: It can't.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that first appeared in Richard Bandler and John Grinder's book The Structure of Magic I (1975)...

...Surveys in the academic community have shown NLP to be widely discredited among scientists. Among the reasons for considering NLP a pseudoscience are that evidence in favor of it is limited to anecdotes and personal testimony, that it is not informed by scientific understanding of neuroscience and linguistics, and that the name "neuro-linguistic programming" uses jargon words to impress readers and obfuscate ideas, whereas NLP itself does not relate any phenomena to neural structures and has nothing in common with linguistics or programming. In education, NLP has been used as a key example of pseudoscience.

Wikipedia, Neuro-linguistic programming, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

Essentially, neuro-linguistic programming doesn't involve neurology, linguistics, or programming. And it doesn't work.
Maybe Elizondo should reconsider how he "vets" his sources.

 

[elvenwear]

As @elvenwear implies, it's possible Elizondo is confusing neurolinguistics (science) with Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP; pseudoscience). Or that Lue doesn't really care, just as long as sufficient people go along with whatever he's saying.

Given what Lue said about the caudate-putamen as just one example, I would say his concern with the accurate use of terminology is similar to anyone else in the industry of woo-woo.

The original post on metabunk about Lue's comments on the caudate-putamen are here. https://www.metabunk.org/threads/elizondos-orbs.13636/#post-322593

 

[Gaspa]

As @elvenwear implies, it's possible Elizondo is confusing neurolinguistics (science) with Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP; pseudoscience). Or that Lue doesn't really care, just as long as sufficient people go along with whatever he's saying.

Neuro-linguistic programming is essentially a "therapeutic"/ personal development franchise; now widely discredited but still around. Bizarrely, some practitioners claim NLP can cure physiological conditions such as HIV/AIDS.
Spoiler: It can't.

It doesn't even make sense to consider the possibility that he was talking about the actual science of neurolinguistics. Surely he was referencing NLP.

 

[elvenwear]

It doesn't even make sense to consider the possibility that he was talking about the actual science of neurolinguistics. Surely he was referencing NLP.

It seems likely he was referring to NLP, but it's also possible he is referring to his own home baked version or something else. Also, it doesn't have to make sense.

 

[Mick West]

Both microbehaviors and NLP related methods are pseudoscience.

Article:

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectivenessof the micro-expressions training tool (METT) in identifyingand using micro-expressions to improve lie detection. Participants (n = 90) were randomly assigned to receive trainingin micro-expressions recognition, a bogus control training,or no training. All participants made veracity judgements offive randomly selected videos of targets providing deceptive or truthful statements. With the use of the Bayesiananalyses, we found that the METT group did not outperform those in the bogus training and no training groups.Further, overall accuracy was slightly below chance. Implications of these results are discussed.

Source: https://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/files/Jordan%20et%20al%20%282019%29%20-%20METT.pdf

Article:

Proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) claim that certain eye-movements are reliable indicators of lying. According to this notion, a person looking up to their right suggests a lie whereas looking up to their left is indicative of truth telling. Despite widespread belief in this claim, no previous research has examined its validity. In Study 1 the eye movements of participants who were lying or telling the truth were coded, but did not match the NLP patterning. In Study 2 one group of participants were told about the NLP eye-movement hypothesis whilst a second control group were not. Both groups then undertook a lie detection test. No significant differences emerged between the two groups. Study 3 involved coding the eye movements of both liars and truth tellers taking part in high profile press conferences. Once again, no significant differences were discovered. Taken together the results of the three studies fail to support the claims of NLP. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3394779/

 

[FatPhil]

Both microbehaviors and NLP related methods are pseudoscience.

Yup, he's clearly going through a classic psychowobble. Might be a degeneratively caused, but might just be transient, just a brief mindburp.

 

[Ben Harris]

It's all showbiz. Elizondo is grifting, no more no less. He uses the same techniques that the pretend psychics do.

 

[Zaiger]

I think in general people are way too charitable with their assessments of Elizondo. The man was in counter-intelligence and was the head of group that worked to identify UFOs. With those two points in mind, i just can't wrap my head around him making all these "honest mistakes" over and over. For reasons unknown he is trying to get a lot of attention on himself and this subject.
If things like the FLIR video, go fast, irrigation crop circles were all "unidentified" by Elizondo, how easily identifiable does something have to be for him to pass on it?

 

[Mick West]

was the head of group that worked to identify UFOs

What evidence is there that he was good at identifying UFOs?

 

[JMartJr]

What evidence is there that he was good at identifying UFOs?

Depends on whether you are speaking of "identify" in terms of what we (mostly y'all) do here -- figuring out what a given UFO really is -- or in the UFOlogy/UAPology sense of NOT figuring out what it was, so it is identified as "unidentified" and thus a "real" UFO.

His skills at the latter seem well established! I can;t recall an instance of him "identifying" something in the former sense, though to be fair, for a UFOlogist such cases would not be the ones you'd publicize.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I think in general people are way too charitable with their assessments of Elizondo.

I think on this forum, it's not so much "charitable " as it is polite. Lacking definitive evidence of hustling, faking, lying, or otherwise being deceptive, we should error on the side of the person really believing what they claim. Wrong or right.

It's definitely a one way street. People from UFOlogy can condemn Mick and others as government shills and agents without evidence all the time.

But as skeptics we need always be on our best behavior so as not to be seen as mean spirited.

The man was in counter-intelligence and was the head of group that worked to identify UFOs.

Not really. The group he was head of, AATIP, was largely an unofficial side hustle he and others conducted in their spare time. As such, he wasn't "trained" to observe anything UAP related.

 

[Rationalman]

The man claims in his book that he and his family witnessed orbs, inanimate objects moving on their own and shadowy figures in his house. He's clearly on the non critical side of investigating phenomena if he really believes he saw these things unless he's embellishing facts or making them up altogether. I doubt that he takes the time to verify many sources. He's already become famous in Ufology and I'm sure he knows many people will overlook any debunked images that he provides also.

 

[NoParty]

I just saw this new thread title for the first time:

Elizondo's Methodology for Verifying Sources

Into my mind leapt the image of Lue's vetting checklist:

 

[Mendel]

The group he was head of, AATIP, was largely an unofficial side hustle he and others conducted in their spare time. As such, he wasn't "trained" to observe anything UAP related.

His "project" was the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, with "identification" in the name. He could've delegated the identifying, like AARO does it, with its teams of scientists and IC/law enforcement people who look at unresolved cases.

I can't recall an instance of him "identifying" something

Elizondo published "Imminent", a biographical book. Does he ever mention identifying anything in that book (himself or AATIP)?
We already know he didn't manage to identify or even investigate the "orbs" in his home, see https://www.metabunk.org/threads/elizondos-orbs.13636/

Incomplete flowchart of Elizondo's process

His process for vetting sources is similar.
It's the approach laypeople use, so they empathize with it.

A skeptic/scientific approach would include the steps
• collect hypotheses of what it could be
• try to verify/exclude each hypothesis

 

[psikiwi]

Incomplete flowchart of Elizondo's process

Should there be a step related to:
'do i have to vet the source', -> 'No, they seem genuine, I don't have time because I'm running off to talk to suggestible people in power, and anyways, my NLP spidey-sense isn't tingling' -> 'go public'?

Is this veering toward, and at what point, does this become debunking humour? Or is it not, because it is 'gentle' send-uppery of a specific individual?

 

[Slow Joe]

I think in general people are way too charitable with their assessments of Elizondo. The man was in counter-intelligence and was the head of group that worked to identify UFOs. With those two points in mind, i just can't wrap my head around him making all these "honest mistakes" over and over. For reasons unknown he is trying to get a lot of attention on himself and this subject.
If things like the FLIR video, go fast, irrigation crop circles were all "unidentified" by Elizondo, how easily identifiable does something have to be for him to pass on it?

Yes, but what did he do in counter-intelligence?
In the US Army counter intelligence is not a branch for commissioned officers or a military occupational specialty for enlisted. It is a duty position for those in military intelligence, which is a very wide field covering a bunch of stuff, but focused in processing intelligence, not acquiring it. They guys interrogating people are either military police, infantrymen with an additional skill identifyer, or private contractors, who then report their findings to the military intelligence officer, who then creates the intelligence packages used to build operational missions.

As I understand it, Elizondo was enlisted, so his would have had a lot of different jobs as he raised through the ranks from private to whatever NCO level he made it. He claimed 20 years of service, so he must have made it at least to E7 Sergeant First Class, though technically the requirement to make 20 is E6 Staff Sergeant.

Does anyone knows what rank Elizondo had when he retired from the US Army?

 

[Mendel]

Is this veering toward, and at what point, does this become debunking humour? Or is it not, because it is 'gentle' send-uppery of a specific individual?

For it to be humor or a parody, it would need to be an exaggeration of what Elizondo actually does.

 

[Mendel]

As I understand it, Elizondo was enlisted,

was he, though? His final rank was GS-15, which makes him a civilian.

You can find a summary of his career at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/preview-of-luis-elizondos-ufo-book-imminent.13571/post-320307 and more discussion in that thread and elsewhere on Metabunk.

 

[psikiwi]

For it to be humor or a parody, it would need to be an exaggeration of what Elizondo actually does.

Fair point.

 

[jarlrmai]

'it's not some random pilot, but a contractor for the DoD and Intel community'

Doesn't Lues pilot description oddly describe, well, himself?

Or maybe even David Grusch, who as @flarkey pointed out worked at an airbase really near the site of the photo?

What are the odds this pilot is just one of the usual suspects?

 

[Ravi]

was he, though? His final rank was GS-15, which makes him a civilian.

You can find a summary of his career at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/preview-of-luis-elizondos-ufo-book-imminent.13571/post-320307 and more discussion in that thread and elsewhere on Metabunk.

"Graduated college"
That's "all"? I mean, no details? What education did he get I wonder. MSc? BSc?

 

[Giddierone]

There are several breaks in the presentation, before Elizondo presents the photo, where informal conversation occurs. There are several people in the room — James Fox, Leslie Keane, Avi Loeb, Ryan Graves etc, to whom Elizondo could have shown the image to for a second opinion before he holds it up and tells us it's a massive silver lenticular flying object.

 

[Ann K]

"Graduated college"
That's "all"? I mean, no details? What education did he get I wonder. MSc? BSc?

At the University of Miami, Elizondo studied in microbiology and immunology

(Wikipedia)

It's a skimpy bio. No mention of whether he graduated.

 

[Gary C]

... Yes, but what did he do in counter-intelligence?
In the US Army counter intelligence is not a branch for commissioned officers or a military occupational specialty for enlisted. It is a duty position for those in military intelligence, which is a very wide field covering a bunch of stuff, but focused in processing intelligence, not acquiring it. They guys interrogating people are either military police, infantrymen with an additional skill identifyer, or private contractors, who then report their findings to the military intelligence officer, who then creates the intelligence packages used to build operational missions. ...

Your experience is likely more recent than mine.

[Warning, May include War Stories]
In my limited Cold War experience, counter-intelligence was almost all human intelligence, i.e. tracing known leaks back to the source or identifying foreign operatives who were looking for vulnerable US personnel to exploit. The only one I knew personally was a Warrant Officer CW2 who split his time between looking for low level Soviet operatives at the usual social hang-outs, or interviewing US personnel to determine if they were the source of a suspected leak. IOW he hung out in bars talking to people, occasionally followed or staked-out a service member, and wrote reports about it. Evidence that might lead to criminal charges got turned over to the appropriate jurisdictions; Chain-of-Command/Military Police/FBI for Americans, or host-nation authorities in the case of non-Americans (at the time West German Federal authorities).

The actual work of a Counter-Intelligence agent did not require detailed knowledge of specific classified programs. They were looking for people violating the rules about revealing or discussing those programs or more generally, people who were already 'disgruntled employees' prone to shooting their mouths off, braggarts trying to attract attention to themselves, or people already at risk for financial or social blackmail.

If a CI's report indicated they had come into possession of information for which they themselves were NOT cleared, an investigator would be sent from a higher HQ to debrief the CI in order to get a better understanding as to the scope and severity of the leak. If done properly, the investigator would neither confirm nor deny any specifics of the classified program. If necessary, the CI could be required to sign an additional NDA but that could also be just bureaucratic ass-covering.

tl;dr - Someone working in Counter-Intelligence could literally 'hear a lot of things' without ever learning if they tracked back to anything concrete.

If you really have trouble sleeping, most of the applicable regulations are available online for download as the investigative procedures are themselves not classified. Just to get started:

AR 15-6 Investigation Officer Guidelines - https://home.army.mil/riley/5515/1630/6429/15-6InvestigationOfficer.pdf

AR 380-67, Personnel Security Program, eff 27 Apr 2025 - https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/Sites/trialjudiciary.nsf/xsp/.ibmmodres/domino/OpenAttachment/sites/trialjudiciary.nsf/2A901902D7BF56B885257B480066DE3D/Attachments/AR 380-67, Personnel Security Program, eff 27 Apr 2025.pdf

Counterintelligence Special Agent - Job Description - https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/35L Counterintelligence Special Agent

[Edited for grammar]

 

[Zaiger]

What evidence is there that he was good at identifying UFOs?

Absolutely none. All i know is that he has attached himself to these pentagon ufo videos one of which was previously leaked over a decade prior and as i recall, it didn't go over too well back then either.

 

[Zaiger]

Yes, but what did he do in counter-intelligence?

Who knows, he tends to be rather vague when talking about his career in the armed forces.

 

[yoshy]

Is this veering toward, and at what point, does this become debunking humour?

@Mendel's flowchart is sadly pretty damn accurate for many of the recent photos from Lue, especially the lamp reflection "mothership" and farm field UFO. The only missing step is something like "Does the source have valid credentials*?" where the "Yes" and "No" both lead to the rest of the flowchart as is.

* Credentials can range from IC officer to "has flown plane before, maybe"