Luis Elizondo's Claims of Coming UFO Disclosure
- Thread starter Ann K
- Start date
deirdre
Senior Member.
wow 5 years!! and still nothing to show for it. smh.
Mendel
Senior Member.
"Trust me", says the "former director of AATIP"¹.
Article: "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI [the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017."
Wasn't Elizondo going on about the real clear footage they had of a UFO from close up, a while back?² I'd call that an empty promise.
----
¹ This mis-guide was made by the ASA people:
Article: Recommended by
[...]
Luis Elizondo, Ex Director AATIP, head of Pentagon UAP program
² Elizondo Claims DoD Have A 50-Feet-Away Photo & 23 Minute Video
Article: Sean: wow that's crazy yeah
oh, when are we going to see that 50 foot away pic
Lou: oh man, that's not up to me, but yeah
there's a couple there that will rattle you pretty good
um yeah, there's one
I won't go into detail, but the video is about 23 minutes long
it's pretty good, man
gotta get that popcorn and some 3d glasses
and maybe some some coca-cola or something
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FatPhil
Senior Member.
I don't remember anything but empty promises. He doesn't seem to fully understand quite how unreliable he is considered to be in some circles. Maybe he confuses "credible" with "credulous"?
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
I like the quote: "At the risk of haters trying to sabotage our efforts, I can't be precise at this time."
I suppose "haters" are what Coulthard calls "the bleeding debunkers" that are always whining "where's the evidence? where's the evidence?" Like people here. If that's the case, how exactly do we sabotage whatever is to be revealed? Unless of course, what is to be revealed is very sabotageable, that is, it's explainable.
If what is to be revealed is some sort of smoking gun evidence for even one of the various claims made by Lue and the rest of the UFO club, it can't be sabotaged. Now if it turns out to just be another vague IR video of "something" in the air, he may want to keep his cards close so that no one can get a look at it, and possibly place doubt about it, before he has a chance to control the narrative.
We could do like the House UAP Hearings thread, and just start a new one now : "Elizondo to Reveal an 'It Will Be Worth It Reveal' in mid '24", then we can just endlessly speculate about what he might reveal, if anything.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I think it's a matter of "Let's get our message out there FIRST before the 'haters' debunk it right out from under our noses". This whole congressional hearing nonsense has been all about publicity and hype, and, as expected, it didn't produce a dime's worth of solid evidence.
Being a little closer to Lue's way of thinking - I would read this as him not wanting to give away information that could be used by the 'secret keepers', rather than the debunkers. I think he's talking about trying to prevent sabotage of his efforts to bring evidence forward, rather than the evidence itself.View attachment 63931
I like the quote: "At the risk of haters trying to sabotage our efforts, I can't be precise at this time."
I suppose "haters" are what Coulthard calls "the bleeding debunkers" that are always whining "where's the evidence? where's the evidence?" Like people here. If that's the case, how exactly do we sabotage whatever is to be revealed? Unless of course, what is to be revealed is very sabotageable, that is, it's explainable.
If what is to be revealed is some sort of smoking gun evidence for even one of the various claims made by Lue and the rest of the UFO club, it can't be sabotaged. Now if it turns out to just be another vague IR video of "something" in the air, he may want to keep his cards close so that no one can get a look at it, and possibly place doubt about it, before he has a chance to control the narrative.
We could do like the House UAP Hearings thread, and just start a new one now : "Elizondo to Reveal an 'It Will Be Worth It Reveal' in mid '24", then we can just endlessly speculate about what he might reveal, if anything.
Ross alluded to something similar recently - organising his TV interview with Grusch in secret to prevent anyone attempting to interfere with it.
Just a view on the angle, rather than the veracity of the claim...
Mendel
Senior Member.
Yes, but the way to actually do that is to keep these efforts secret, not to brag about them.
Think about it: did people brag about the Panama Papers months before they were released?
Which is why they ran Grusch's statement and the interview questions by the DOPSR in April and went public over 2 months after it was cleared? Come on.
Every two-bit conspiracy site claims "copy this content because they might censor it tomorrow", but that doesn't mean it's true—it does make the issues feel more exciting, though. "We're not fringe crackpots, we're fighting the government, and they manipulate people into thinking we're fringe crackpots". Cue ominous music.
It's all part of the hype that makes ufology exist. (Well, that and the hoaxes.)
FatPhil
Senior Member.
It's also priming. True believers are being prepared to think whatever is finally released is as convincing as the advance hype claims it is, even if it's a completely mundane fizzle like everything else has been.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
As most recently seen in the "Case of the Single Best Orb Picture Ever Recorded and Not Just a Butterfly AT ALL Trust Us" (Discussion of pre-release claims HERE, discussion of actual disappointing photo OVER HERE) this is not always a winning tactic. I suppose somebody, somewhere, was excited about the photo when it finally came out, but so far I've not seen a mention of it other than here on MB -- it's a big Internet, I can't keep track of it all, but it looks as if that pic disappeared with barely a ripple, for now at least.
No matter how hard you sell the sizzle, sooner or later you have to serve the steak. And while it is true that some folks can be kept happy with sizzle forever, if it ain't steak, just baloney, eventually some folks start to figure that out. That's why UFO interest comes in waves, as the old customers get tired of the baloney and it all dies down until a new batch of customers grows up.
Ann K
Senior Member.
You mean "sabotage his efforts to sabotage the official secrecy that is necessary for many of our organizations to function effectively"?
As long as the Ufologists phrase it as "us vs them" and "them" refers to governmental organizations, it keeps the pot boiling and the money flowing in to their YouTube channels. But most importantly, they never need to have any actual evidence to back up their claims.
Dave51c
Member
I have had a number of UFO/UAP experiences during my life. Luckily, was was able to temper those experiences with decades of rational thought and reflection. Whilst at university studying science and computation I joined the UFO society on campus. Boy, was that an eye opener! It was so cultish with no critical thinking that I only went to one meeting.
Elizondo et al just seem the same way. I'm so sick of the lot of them and wish they would put up or shut up. The modern UFO Industrial Complex seems intent of causing mass psychosis and I'm not sure what that reason is - fame, money, both or something else.
First post here by the way - so hello from me! (I've been in read only mode for a while).
Elizondo et al just seem the same way. I'm so sick of the lot of them and wish they would put up or shut up. The modern UFO Industrial Complex seems intent of causing mass psychosis and I'm not sure what that reason is - fame, money, both or something else.
First post here by the way - so hello from me! (I've been in read only mode for a while).
I'm somewhat new to UFOlogy but I recently came across an interview with Ross Coulthart who claimed that Elizondo had told him that the US Government had recovered non human technology from UAPs and has apparently made the same claims on US national TV.
Elizondo claim in the first minute of this youtube video
As far as we know, Elizondo has not provided the evidence behind his claims to the AARO where they would be verified and investigated. Why wouldn't a UAP transparency advocate refuse to be transparent with his own claims?
Mendel
Senior Member.
Dude, you need to learn to use quotes on Metabunk. (And screenshots.)
Note:External Quote:
• Elizondo did not head a Pentagon program. (see post #4 above)
• Coulthart does not say that Elizondo has evidence supporting his belief.
• Coulthart tends to be overly sensationalist when UFOs etc. are concerned.
Duke
Senior Member.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/26/ufo-whistleblower-ig-complaint-pentagon-491098External Quote:
This reminded me Elizondo filed an IG complaint against the DoD for denying his role in AATIP and attempting to discredit him. According to the article, the complaint was filed 3 May 2021, or 18 months ago. To my knowledge Elizondo and/or his counsel have neither released the IG report nor commented publicly on its findings.
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Duke
Senior Member.
Hi Dave, and welcome. I can relate to your story of the university UFO society. In the late 70s while in engineering school, I read an article about a local UFO group headed up by a "scientist." The seemingly impressive occupations of a few other members were also mentioned. A phone call to the head guy got me an invite to their next meeting. As you said, it was an eye opener.
Long story short, the "scientist" turned out to be a junior high school science teacher. The "police officer" was really a rent-a-cop. The "RN" was a nurse's aide. My personal favorite was the woman who claimed to be a "computer expert," she turned out to be a punch card machine operator. The most interesting of the lot was the proverbial "little old lady in tennis shoes" who insisted on referring to any and all UFOs as "alien space craft." Like you, I never went back.
Tezcatlipoca
Senior Member.
They personally have not released it, no, but TheBlackVault has released documentation related to it. The idea being promoted that he did not run it is still up in the air, the debate largely roots from misunderstandings about job titles and positions, the reality is, the D/AATIP claim is unknown.
https://www.theblackvault.com/docum...nscript-of-luis-elizondo-interview-much-more/
Given the, granted limited, amount of information we have about AATIPs staffing, it was small. When you see a SIOS in a small program like that, they tend to be the Director. For larger staffs, they tend to be a technical advisor to the director, or functional manager for a sub-component.
The actual issued claim he has is his claim that he was Director / National Programs Special Management Staff. At least currently, this is not ran by a SIOS, and due to what it represents a majority of the SIOS there are acting as technical advisors to the current Director. That could've been different when Elizondo was claiming to be there, but he also claims in his ICIG report that he was simultaneously D/NPSMS while D/AATIP. This does not really make sense, you could theoretically be "Director" of multiple programs (key: theoretically), but NPSMS is not a program, it's an actual full time functional staff, him claiming to have been D/NPSMS would be impossible if he was consistently acting as the D/AATIP (which he has framed as a full time job - what D/NPSMS also would have been). The D/NPSMS claim has also not even been referenced by the ICIG, which, as shown above, has recognized his former status of being a SIOS assigned to AATIP.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Which, perversely, has to be the worst evidence he has. The BEST evidence has the issue that you can see clearly -- you can see the string hanging off the balloon, or the wings on the plane, or the stars undistorted by bokeh.
Only the very low-quality evidence can be passed off as something unusual. The best evidence for his purpose has to be the worst when the goal is to see what's actually being observed.
Duke
Senior Member.
Great post. I made a similar post on another forum saying essentially the same thing, key differences being terminology based on what I assume are differences in backgrounds. And yes, we had directors (usually GS-15/O-6) of what the USAF acquisition career field called "basket SPOs" (System Program Office) that were made up of many small dollar programs. The divisions within basket SPOs were a function of mission. Those divisions were headed by O-4s/O-5s. Individual programs within the basket SPOs were managed by young CGOs and in one case even an E-6.
I immediately questioned Elizondo's claim of being a "director" of a program with an annual $4M+ program budget as a GS-15. Even in the inflated grade/rank structure of the Pentagon/DC, there is no way he's going to run a program that small at that pay grade. We had O-2s fresh out of program management school running programs with 3-4 times that budget.
Things became clearer after Elizondo appeared on C2C one night with rent-a-host George Knapp. He admitted he had had no permanent staff on AATIP, and that AATIP was just one of a number of programs he was responsible for. To me, that pegged him as what we'd have called a basket SPO division chief, and his grade (in DC) also matched. They were indeed responsible for all the programs within their divisional portfolio, but were more glorified clerks than they were actively managing day-to-day activities of those individual programs. Most of those guys were passed over O-4/O-5s waiting to get their 20 years for retirement.
All that said, the point remains Elizondo has not released the IG report on his complaint. As you would Grusch, you'd expect Elizondo to release an IG report that supported his claims. Neither has done so as far as I know.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
Article: On May 3, 2021, Luis Elizondo filed a Department of Defense (DoD), Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Fraud, Waste & Abuse Hotline Complaint. Elizondo made numerous allegations specifically against three people within the Department of Defense, which included Garry Reid, Susan Gough and Neill Tipton, alleging "… malicious activities, coordinated disinformation, professional misconduct, whistleblower reprisal and and explicit threats perpetrated by certain senior-level Pentagon officials, including the Director of Defense for Intelligence and Security (DDI I&S), Garry Reid, Public Affairs Officer Susan Gough, and any other officials who were complicit in these acts."
Why is he going after Reid? Well:
Article: One of the documents, obtained by The Black Vault through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), is a "memorandum for record" written by Garry Reid, the then-Director for Defense Intelligence, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)). In this document, Reid calls into question Elizondo's role within AATIP, asserting that Elizondo had "aggrandized his role" in the program. Further to that, it was stated, "To the best of [Reid's] knowledge, [Elizondo] had no job responsibilities related to the AATIP."
So then we get this:
Article: To this day, the exact name of the program, its dates and functions, and what–and when– was Elizondo's precise role, if any, in researching UFOs for the government has changed with different tellings by the Pentagon and especially by Elizondo. In fact, as a new trove of internal DOD memoranda obtained by UFO researcher John Greenewald shows, even Elizondo's immediate supervisors at the Pentagon were baffled after the 2017 Times story broke by his claims that he ran the AATIP UFO program.
Garry Reid, then director of Defense Intelligence at the USDI office, wrote in a memo that Elizondo had "aggrandized his role" and "to the best of my knowledge, he had no job responsibilities related to the AATIP." (Apparently, AAWSAP was such a can of supernatural worms they didn't even refer to the program by its correct name internally.) The Reid memo also said Elizondo claimed that for several years he had been tasked on a super-secret project (see 4th page) on UFOs directly for Defense Secretary James Mattis, and that "nobody at USDI was cleared for this program and would not discuss it further." Reid noted, "I discussed his claims with senior officials who would likely have known of such an arrangement, but was unable to substantiate them."
After the new revelations about AAWSAP broke in 2018, Elizondo at first said he had no role in AAWSAP, but then later started claiming that he held an array of leadership posts with AAWSAP, too. These assertions have been contradicted by the actual leaders of that program, who have indicated he never worked there. As one former Pentagon official familiar with AAWSAP bluntly told this reporter: "Lue Elizondo played no role in AAWSAP."
On the other hand, Senator Harry Reid, who was instrumental in setting up AASWAP, and a friend of Bigelow's, spoke out for Elizondo:
Source: https://twitter.com/GadiNBC/status/1386872125835812864
AATIP had a budget?
Attachments
JMartJr
Senior Member.
This probably does not matter at this point anyway, but I note that Sen. Harry Reid had a brother named "Larry Reid." Given the similarity of the names, I have to wonder if "Garry Reid" is related to Sen. Reid. My Google-Fu is weak tonight, I cannot find anything. Not sure why I care, other than it might help explain some of the level of UFO interest Sen. Reid seems to have helped gin up over in the Pentagon.
Dave51c
Member
Thank you.
I think I was naive to think there would be inquiring minds there with whom I could have free, frank and robust debate. But, alas, I was the blasphemer and expected the Spanish Inquisition to arrive at any time! No-one expects the Spanish inquisition...
John J.
Senior Member.
Maybe I'm being slow on the uptake, but I'm guessing that it's not a coincidence that the AATIP funding of $22 million mentioned here is the same amount as the payment ($22 million, obviously) reportedly given to Rob Bigelow's Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency in 2008?
Mendel
Senior Member.
Yeah, but that was under AASWAP.
Duke wrote about an "annual $4M+ program", referring to AATIP, if I read him right.
Duke
Senior Member.
When the story broke, Elizondo claimed AATIP had had a $22M budget over 5 years. Reid's letter (above) confirmed the program and dollar amount of the claim, but didn't mention the funding period. $22M ÷ 5 years=$4.4M annually.
Later, when Kelleher, Knapp, and Lacatski wrote "Skinwalkers at the Pentagon," they claimed that $22M was for AAWSAP, not AATIP. Didn't read the book, but heard the terrific trio say that when Knapp had his coauthors on C2C on Oct 14 2021. That assertion is repeated here in the Lacatski's bio from that C2C website.
External Quote:
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/james-t-lacatski/
That Oct 21 C2C show pretty much accused Elizondo of being less than forthright. Like everything else in this saga, you have to decide who/what you believe.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Harry Reid's letter calls AATIP an "unclassified but unpublicized investigatory effort", which tracks with the opinion of some Metabunk members that AATIP was essentially a hobby of Elizondo's. It also fits the "no assigned duties" language. If John Greenewald hasn't been able to get official documentation for an "unclassified effort", it stands to reason that AATIP was never an official program.
If there was a budget item for it, it would undeniably be official, but afaik AATIP was what Elizondo called AASWAP after that funding was cut, and it no longer existed.
There's just no evidence that AATIP ever existed officially. But maybe it's one of these fraudulent SAPs that Grusch blew the whistle on? (Just kidding. Harry Reid wrote that AATIP was unclassified. Can't classify what doesn't exist.)
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Totally a bit Off Topic, but as Lue hasn't revealed anything yet, what the hell. Burningman '16 and Kentucky Fried Camp was serving sizzling fried baloney with Bourbon for breakfast. It sounded horrible. Fried baloney on warmed white bread with ketchup and mustard and a shot of "top of the bottom shelf" bourbon. I gotta say, I became a big enough fan, that not only do we search them out every year, I've taken to making my own version on occasion at home.
Which is to say, some people are fine with the baloney (fuzzy photos) as long as it sizzles.
Tezcatlipoca
Senior Member.
Spinning back around here since the prior discussion was hosted off it and the disclosure point. So, in connection to my prior posts, we know Elizondo, Stratton, and Mellon have worked together as part of a communications campaign related to the UAP topic since around 2017. One person connected to this in-group, but we have very little information on in re their relation to it itself, is Karl Nell. At the Sol event the other day, Nell featured, along with a presentation of a campaign plan that he mentioned as being "for" disclosure, in the sense that, this is how it should be done. Although, there are some very interesting break downs to be had from the available snippet. I'll be posting a slightly altered version as the image so the wording is more apparent, I'll link the original at the end in link form to save some space.
View attachment 64191
First, the plan presented here is not really how LOE matrices of traditional public communication plans are formed. This is how LOE matrices are designed within the DoD, more specifically, for both communications matters and also military campaigns.
I want to focus on one specific part of that, and that is "Phase 0: Shaping" - The term "shaping" does cross sometimes into public communications, although, pretty much entirely with folks who take gov/mil concepts and apply them to private sector work.
"Shaping" specifically enters an area where its application becomes almost entirely malign, as in this context it relates to preparing an information environment for the introduction of information into it, or in other words, artificially attempting to adjust group behavior and attitudes to enable the rest of your efforts to work most efficiently. This is usually conducted in a way where agency is removed from the audience and/or information is misleadingly or deceptively presented to them.
Curiously, they consider that list under Shaping as being part of it. That gives us a very interesting key, that being either that, he is proposing that the government take past-situations and consider it into a current plan, this makes little sense as you would not include a "Phase" that, well, is not actually part of the campaign and instead just considering past events. Or alternatively, that this was part of a standing communications plan before presentation, in which we do know Elizondo and Stratton have admitted to such and have spoken in ways aligned with the "phases". Unfortunately lack of much more info to draw anything from that.
Source: https://imgur.com/1LQ0iA1
.
View attachment 64191
First, the plan presented here is not really how LOE matrices of traditional public communication plans are formed. This is how LOE matrices are designed within the DoD, more specifically, for both communications matters and also military campaigns.
I want to focus on one specific part of that, and that is "Phase 0: Shaping" - The term "shaping" does cross sometimes into public communications, although, pretty much entirely with folks who take gov/mil concepts and apply them to private sector work.
"Shaping" specifically enters an area where its application becomes almost entirely malign, as in this context it relates to preparing an information environment for the introduction of information into it, or in other words, artificially attempting to adjust group behavior and attitudes to enable the rest of your efforts to work most efficiently. This is usually conducted in a way where agency is removed from the audience and/or information is misleadingly or deceptively presented to them.
Curiously, they consider that list under Shaping as being part of it. That gives us a very interesting key, that being either that, he is proposing that the government take past-situations and consider it into a current plan, this makes little sense as you would not include a "Phase" that, well, is not actually part of the campaign and instead just considering past events. Or alternatively, that this was part of a standing communications plan before presentation, in which we do know Elizondo and Stratton have admitted to such and have spoken in ways aligned with the "phases". Unfortunately lack of much more info to draw anything from that.
Source: https://imgur.com/1LQ0iA1
.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
I was going to say "as long as they don't go forwards to stage 2 and onwards before they've completed stage 1 - 'Demonstrate Existence' - then I'd be somewhat pacified". However, I then noticed that their "analytical approach" was "hypothesis generation".
They're going to "demonstrate existence" by "hypothesis generation"?
RTM
Senior Member.
Steven Greenstreet posted this list of Lue Elizondo's predictions on twitter recently. On another thread, I saw someone describe these type of predictions as LueAnon.
So going by the Sol presentation, I wonder what the next six or seven years will entail ? Corbell's recent drop was horrible, even by old standards (one of his recent shows dealt with remote viewing), will people who believe in the ET hypothesis fade out from it or will the lack of evidence bolster the idea that the government is hiding something.
Source: https://twitter.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1726323575995748445
So going by the Sol presentation, I wonder what the next six or seven years will entail ? Corbell's recent drop was horrible, even by old standards (one of his recent shows dealt with remote viewing), will people who believe in the ET hypothesis fade out from it or will the lack of evidence bolster the idea that the government is hiding something.
Source: https://twitter.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1726323575995748445
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Mendel
Senior Member.
That is very obviously a believer strategy that doesn't allow for evidence of aliens to be absent.
One of the worst choices for the job at AARO.
It was reported on Twitter that Grusch made a presentation at the Sol conference by Zoom.
Source: https://twitter.com/planethunter56/status/1726065504799121495
He looks to have gone full woo-mode now.External Quote:
Maybe I missed some reporting from the Sol conference but am I the only person wondering why a conference that appears to be mostly about "disclosure", has a road map for disclosure, a motherhood statement about how great it's going to be when we finally get disclosure but absolutely nothing about what will be disclosed?
From what I can see we had a bunch of people involved in this conference who claim to have first or second knowledge about UAP retrievals, and/or actually worked for government teams investigating UAPs. You'd think all the best knowledge we have about UAP retrievals was in that room or a phone call away but nobody thought it was a good idea to actually catalog and produce the ultimate list of what needs to be disclosed.
Mendel
Senior Member.
That only works if there is something to disclose.
Disclosure is the new rapture these days, what with the "spiritual awakening" and all. Equally likely to happen, too. Lots of witnessing, no evidence.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
"gone ... now"?!?! I've been trying to say this from the start (within the restrictions of the politeness policy).
FatPhil
Senior Member.
I was genuinely going to post something almost word-for-word identical in response to that list of predictions/pronouncements from The Fabulous Zondo posted upthread (#33)
JMartJr
Senior Member.
I wonder if anyone is thinking through the potential of disclosure to further divide humanity, the possibility that knowledge of NHIs will make our place in the cosmos less certain, possibility that disclosure would lead to a marked DECREASE in spiritual beliefs or whether the "ability to transform our world" is a good or bad thing. The assumption that if we only knew who was piloting UFOs, all would be kumbaya and flowers and butterflies seems naive...
The lack of anything to disclose would obviate the need to think more deeply about it, never mind...
Mendel
Senior Member.
That's an insult to magicians everywhere.
Spectator: "What happened to my vanished wedding ring?"
Zondo: "Something truly amazing, but I'd be breaking my security oath if I showed you. You might get it back next year for sure."
Article: Writing in The New Yorker in 2021, Gideon Lewis-Kraus reported that after talking with Elizondo, it was difficult to determine what AATIP had accomplished, and when pressed, Elizondo "invokes his security oath like a catchphrase". When in 2019 Elizondo was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Elizondo suggested that the government had fragments of a UFO, "then quickly invoked his security oath".[14]
(That's presumably where Grusch learned to do that.)
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