Luis Elizondo's Claims of Coming UFO Disclosure

[JMartJr]

I stated that they are unknown aircraft of unknown origin.
How is that currently not the case?

Respectfully, no. You stated "AARO tacitly accept that the US has unknown aircraft of unknown origin which can move with impunity in restricted areas, or in close proximity to Naval fleets with nuclear-powered aircraft carriers." That is not the same thing at all as "there are some low information zone videos that cannot be fully identified," especially when the claims that they show an object moving in inexplicable ways have been shown here to be unfounded. (Gimbal is not a rotating object, GoFast is moving at around the speed of the wind, Flir1/Nimitz/"TicTac" does not do anything at all but fly along at a steady speed, etc.)

The former statement implies the existence of extraordinary aircraft, the later implies that sensor systems have limits and at those limits things can be detected but not fully identified..

 

[jdog]

AARO tacitly accept that the US has unknown aircraft of unknown origin which can move with impunity in restricted areas, or in close proximity to Naval fleets with nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
If that doesn't warrant further investigation, then what does?

There's a big difference between "image we've identified as probably showing something prosaic but no one wants to stake their professional reputation on stating definitively what it is" and high performance aircraft of unknown origin.

Thrown in some national security concerns about not wanting to precisely outline our sensor capabilities or acknowledge just how much information the United States has about its adversaries' technical capabilities and you leave a lot of leeway for "I want to believe."

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

It's not just the UFO pro-disclosure movement (the movement I am assuming you refer to?) but the UAP hearings have widespread bipartisan support in the Congress.

Yeah it's interesting as there's 2 very different reasons people might want the US military to come under scrutiny even if the reasoning is flawed, left leaning politicians want the military held to greater account for budget etc and right wing qanon politicians want the 'deep state' exposed.

But this is all very complicated and it might even be that UAPTF etc might have missed the rise of real Chinese / Russian surveillance drones and high altitude balloons whilst they were diverted looking for werewolves at Skinwalker ranch.

I'd also note here saying it has "wide bipartisan support" is tricky.
It does not have "wide" support. It is bipartisan. Although if we dive into the actual views stated of anyone involved, there's only 2 of them (Burchett, Luna) who are taking an angle of anything other than unidentified & potential natsec threat. Even if you look at people like AOCs comments - yes, they make statements about the government hiding stuff, but this is more aligned to their broader political views than some alignment point over ET or angel/demon beliefs etc.

That is what the congressional hearings have been arranged to get to the bottom of.

If there's nothing to see here, why has the Schumer UAP amendment repeatedly been blocked?
If it doesn't affect US national security, then why are Reps Mike Turner and Mike Rogers blocking disclosure even to congress?

Turner and Rogers are not "blocking disclosure even to Congress". With the UAPDA, they took issue with very specific points. Despite the UAPDA being written and having the direct support of the "whistleblower" crew - they somehow all managed to disagree with the exact part Rogers and Turner wanted cut out. They then claimed Rogers and Turner are part of the cabal trying to restrict it by removing it - while they simultaneously talk about removing it and accusing Rogers and Turner of being part of some cabal restricting it, for removing it.
The amendment you're talking about is overwhelmingly disagreed on by everyone, even the people who claim its being "blocked" have pretty much all stated disagreement with it. Not a single thing has been presented beyond, maybe, it was removed just following normal congressional procedures - the same agreeableness to removing it being held by the "whistleblowers" even.

In what way?
Have AARO now identified the tic tac and Gimbal and not thought to update their own website? Or do AARO state that the Tic Tac and Gimbal were nowhere near US military assets USS Nimitz and USS Roosevelt?

AARO is not investigating the Nimitz incident. AARO was founded as an actual mission center on behalf of the US government looking at potential emerging threats. They were not created to post public interest stories about things from a decade ago that data is already well capped off on. Further UAP means unidentified. Unidentified means unidentified not "aliens" or anything. Something remaining the status of UAP does not add any greater credibility or veracity to someone's claim about what it could be.
I know a lot of people want this but I've noted before this is an expectation that will be held and entirely cause disappointment. They're not a PR body or anything and, the fact we've gotten any information is actually a blessing. It should be realized govt shops dealing with anything related to potential deception or counterdeception, have some of the widest information access and restrictions to their processes. The FDDC was around for over a decade and we still can't FOIA anything from it besides its simply establishment memorandum & correspondence rooting & held from other offices.

I thought Bigelow urged Reid to set up AAWSAP to investigate UAP? At least that's what Elizondo wrote in a book which was passed by a DOPSR.
I'm not afraid to admit that I could be wrong though....

Others have touched here but I'll provide a tiny addition to it. So, there are some, very few but some careers, where you are required to go through this process no matter what. This is true, even if, you explicitly write a fiction book. That alone showcases DOPSR processing is not a valuation of fact or fiction - they don't dictate the book is fiction (the writer does), they simply clear it for release or restrict it based off their evaluation of potentially restricted materials in the writing.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Jeez rather aggressive posting style there. Think I'll not engage any more.
You win.

Steve, it's not about winners and losers here, it's about evidence. You've made a number of claims that need to be backed up such as:

AARO tacitly accept that the US has unknown aircraft of unknown origin which can move with impunity in restricted areas, or in close proximity to Naval fleets with nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The 3 Navy videos remain "unresolved" at this time, in that, given the information presented no one can say with certainty exactly what is in the videos. Take GOFAST for example, Mick and others here on Metabunk, as well as others have shown that whatever it is, it's not moving that fast, it's just parallax. The same conclusion a NASA panel came to and because we're here on Metabunk, I don't expect you to take my word for it, I will instead share a bit of the NASA/DoD report which includes that conclusion:

A well-known UAP event is the "GoFast" video, recorded by navy aviators from the USS Theodore Roosevelt. A still frame from this video is shown in the Figure below, where the infrared camera has locked onto a small object in the center. The video gives an impression of an object skimming above the ocean at a great velocity. But analysis of the numerical information on the display reveals a less extraordinary interpretation.

Our calculation has neglected wind effects on the aircraft, and thus there is uncertainty in this result. But the analysis reveals that the object need not be moving at an extraordinary velocity. Note also that the object appears bright against a dark ocean for these display settings. This indicates that the object is colder than the ocean. There is thus no evidence of heat produced by a propulsion system. This further supports the conjecture that the object is most likely drifting with the wind. The availability of additional data would enable a more firm conclusion about the nature of this object.

https://science.nasa.gov/uap see also https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/documents

Note that the reports says a "more firm conclusion" might be possible with "additional data". So, even though they don't know exactly what the fuzzy dot that only occupies ~ 7 pixels of a poor quality 480p recording, they're pretty sure it's not moving at an incredible speed. There's just not enough data to say exactly what it is.

Not knowing what the fuzzy dot is, in no way amounts to ARRO accepting that "the US has unknown aircraft" as in the government possesses these craft and that even though the government possesses these craft they are of "unknown origins". There is simply no evidence at all for this statement. Implying that this statement is true because ARRO has left some videos as "unresolved" or "unknown" is giant non-sequitur.

As I have said before, one cannot "identify" something as "unidentified" and there by attribute characteristics to the "unidentified" object by "identifying" it as "unidentified". This argument is used all the time in the UFO community, when something is "unidentified", it becomes "identified" as alien. Just no. It's by definition, unidentified, so it could be a balloon, a bird, a plane or an alien spacecraft, we don't know. That's what "unidentified" means.

And if we don't know what exactly is on the screen of the GOFAST or GIMBAL video, how can we say the government has them? We don't know what the government is supposed to have. It's unidentified.

I thought Bigelow urged Reid to set up AAWSAP to investigate UAP? At least that's what Elizondo wrote in a book which was passed by a DOPSR.
I'm not afraid to admit that I could be wrong though....

I think this is where you've been misled a bit, as have a lot of people. There was no real government UFO program the way it gets commonly told. Elizondo's AATIP was an unfunded and unofficial side gig that he ran, along with a guy named Stratton in their spare time. A UFO club if you will.

The '17 NYT article was particular misleading with this claim. Possibly because their main source was Elizondo and he was representing ATTIP as something more than it was and/or conflating it with AWWSAP without ever mentioning AWWSAP. Something lead writer Lesile Kean was willing to go along with as she has repeatedly made it know she is advocating for the acceptance of UFOs as alien visitors.

AAWSAP was an official program in the DoD's DIA, however the official documents describing AAWSAP had absolutely NO mention of UFOs or UAPs. None. Only Reid, Bigelow, the guy running AAWSAP, Lacatski and maybe a few others, knew it was about UFOs, paranormal stuff, Skinwalker Ranch, werewolves and God knows what else.

It was never offered as an official UFO/UAP program, it was supposed to be about speculation on possible future technologies. Not UFOs. All the nonsense at Skinwalker Ranch and the bit of UFO hunting done by AAWSAP was done in secret to hide where the funding was going. Namely to Ried's campaign donor, Bigalow.

I'm not going to link to evidence for this here as @Mendel linked to the thread about AAWSAP above and I'll do likewise:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-origins-of-aawsap.12484/

 

[John J.]

AARO tacitly accept that the US has unknown aircraft of unknown origin which can move with impunity in restricted areas

FLIR (Tic Tac) (USS Nimitz)
Gimbal (USS Theodore Roosevelt)
Gofast (USS Theodore Roosevelt)

AARO does not state anywhere that any of the above are aircraft, and certainly hasn't claimed the US has any of them.
(To be fair, I guess Steve meant "...the US has evidence of..."; I've missed out words while enthusiastically typing many a time).

 

[Scaramanga]

To say that nothing has really changed regarding this general topic since the 1970s is a stretch too far, in my opinion.

--2017 NYT article confirming that after decades of denial, UFOs are being actively investigated within the Pentagon
--3 videos confirmed UAP are released (and still show as unresolved UAP at the time of posting this, on the AARO site)
--18th May 2022 first Congressional hearing relating to UAP
--26th July 2023 first whistleblower Congressional hearing involving key witnesses
--13th November 2024 further Congressional hearing currently scheduled

I certainly can't remember anything like this in my lifetime.

No, its not a stretch at all. Nothing of any consequence has happened.

The 2017 NYT article revealed AATIP, but we have since learned that AATIP was to all extents and purposes a spare time Lue Elizondo job using money assigned to AWSAP to study dino-beavers and paranormal stuff at Skinwalker Ranch.

None of the Congressional hearings have revealed any actual substantive evidence for UFOs. The entire thing is a ' he said...she said' hall of mirrors. We have had all this before, in the 1950s, then the Condon Report, and so on. Always...UFO 'disclosure' is just around the corner if you wait a bit. But it never happens. And I do not believe it ever will.

Now we have claims by some that the November 13th hearing is going to drop a bombshell revelation. Yeah, yeah, yeah....seen it all before, bought the book, got the t-shirt.

Someone wake me up when some actual substantive, scientifically verifiable, peer reviewed, evidence for UFOs finally emerges. I'm increasingly tired of the whole UFO circus.

 

[MapperGuy]

No, its not a stretch at all. Nothing of any consequence has happened.

The 2017 NYT article revealed AATIP, but we have since learned that AATIP was to all extents and purposes a spare time Lue Elizondo job using money assigned to AWSAP to study dino-beavers and paranormal stuff at Skinwalker Ranch.

None of the Congressional hearings have revealed any actual substantive evidence for UFOs. The entire thing is a ' he said...she said' hall of mirrors. We have had all this before, in the 1950s, then the Condon Report, and so on. Always...UFO 'disclosure' is just around the corner if you wait a bit. But it never happens. And I do not believe it ever will.

Now we have claims by some that the November 13th hearing is going to drop a bombshell revelation. Yeah, yeah, yeah....seen it all before, bought the book, got the t-shirt.

Someone wake me up when some actual substantive, scientifically verifiable, peer reviewed, evidence for UFOs finally emerges. I'm increasingly tired of the whole UFO circus.

Also consider how the world has changed since the 1970's. Commercial imagery and radar satellites, the surveillance society placing endless millions of cameras watching and recording us and the world around us, the billions (?) of camera phones that are moving around the world instantly ready to record sightings of aliens and UFO's. The sheer bulk of data collection that is happening just about everywhere today is beyond the wildest dreams (or nightmares) of us folks back in the 1970's.

Where is the flood of UFO information that could have been generated by all of this technology? Should have been generated, if there really were aliens joy-riding in our skies every day. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it becomes harder and harder to accept that with all of the human races capabilities we just can't seem to find that definitive evidence.

 

[Scaramanga]

Where is the flood of UFO information that could have been generated by all of this technology? Should have been generated, if there really were aliens joy-riding in our skies every day. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it becomes harder and harder to accept that with all of the human races capabilities we just can't seem to find that definitive evidence.

Many famous past cases would today be caught on police body cam, dashboard cams, doorbell cams, etc, etc. It's interesting that most of the remaining famous 'unexplained' cases date from before any of those devices. Does anyone really imagine that a mile wide UFO could fly over Phoenix today and not be caught on countless CCTV cameras, police cams, home cams, mobile phones...etc...rather than just the one terribly grainy video at the time.

 

[FatPhil]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but it becomes harder and harder to accept that with all of the human races capabilities we just can't seem to find that definitive evidence.

If people are searching where they think the evidence will most likely be, then absense of evidence is to some extent evidence of absense. (And I just saw a red bus, this helps prove all ravens are black. There's a reason it's sometimes called a "paradox".)
If they aren't searching where they think the evidence will most likely be, then, well, you may guess what I conclude from that.

 

[Scaramanga]

If people are searching where they think the evidence will most likely be, then absense of evidence is to some extent evidence of absense. (And I just saw a red bus, this helps prove all ravens are black. There's a reason it's sometimes called a "paradox".)
If they aren't searching where they think the evidence will most likely be, then, well, you may guess what I conclude from that.

The thing I find shocking is the vast chasm between the claimed 'evidence' and hype of the likes of Elizondo, Jeremy Corbell, and others, and the reality in which there is actually ZERO evidence. I mean...no evidence at all. There is not, nor has there ever been, a single piece of 'UFO evidence' that stands up to scrutiny in the entire 80 year history of the alleged phenomenon.

Thus it baffles me to see Corbell, Knapp, Elizondo, and others carry on as if some vast dam of 'disclosure' was about to burst, when the continued lack of any evidence at all suggests UFOs are the biggest 'nothing to see here, folks' malarkey in history. Not since Plato tried to pass off Atlantis as real has so much complete and utter nonsense been spouted.

 

[Mendel]

Not since Plato tried to pass off Atlantis as real has so much complete and utter nonsense been spouted.

Please don't marginalize the achievements of the Flat Earth Society.

 

[Leekster]

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.

Concur.
This is important also because people out there have a perception that this is some giant secret government program. They are picturing a bunker in Area 51 with men in black monitoring UAP activity. Meanwhile a floor below them scientists are doing an Alien Autopsy.

The truth is with a budget this small it's a few people in a small government office with outdated computers sifting thru a hundred emails every day.

Ask me how I know....

 

[jdog]

Concur.
This is important also because people out there have a perception that this is some giant secret government program. They are picturing a bunker in Area 51 with men in black monitoring UAP activity. Meanwhile a floor below them scientists are doing an Alien Autopsy.

The truth is with a budget this small it's a few people in a small government office with outdated computers sifting thru a hundred emails every day.

Ask me how I know....

A globe-spanning conspiracy with unearthly technology, unlimited money and agents positioned throughout government agencies and private industry that can be exposed by just the right PowerPoint presentation.

 

[Ann K]

Please don't marginalize the achievements of the Flat Earth Society.

Cue the picture of the cat knocking everything off the edge...

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Concur.
This is important also because people out there have a perception that this is some giant secret government program. They are picturing a bunker in Area 51 with men in black monitoring UAP activity. Meanwhile a floor below them scientists are doing an Alien Autopsy.

The truth is with a budget this small it's a few people in a small government office with outdated computers sifting thru a hundred emails every day.

Ask me how I know....

Yeah IMO this is another area where they largely just rest on the wider public not knowing, not having access, and/or otherwise being unable to find out about how that stuff usually is.

I point it out in relation to their claims about government influence activities too. Despite most of them having experience in one IA or another - they all seem to claim the spooky cabal practices the activities with knowledge and framings held in the 1980s, but they promote it as being even craftier and more capable than what they were doing even. Or what's more likely, they just talk about the old stuff that's entirely public at this point, and further, don't make referential points to current understandings that could allow people to search up the modern stuff that does exist in the public.

 

[Ann K]

Or what's more likely, they just talk about the old stuff that's entirely public at this point

That's the advantage (in their eyes) to old stuff in the LIZ: it's harder to debunk conclusively, therefore can be dragged out again at every opportunity.

 

[Mendel]

That's the advantage (in their eyes) to old stuff in the LIZ: it's harder to debunk conclusively, therefore can be dragged out again at every opportunity.

disagree
they don't care if it has been debunked or not
see e.g. Rendelsham

 

[JMartJr]

This is important also because people out there have a perception that this is some giant secret government program. They are picturing a bunker in Area 51 with men in black monitoring UAP activity. Meanwhile a floor below them scientists are doing an Alien Autopsy.

All this with NO amazing new technology from reverse engineering vehicles that have traversed the gulf of space and can fly around defying physics... either in our military tech or in the civilian sector.

Perhaps we just are terrible at reverse engineering?

 

[John J.]

Perhaps we just are terrible at reverse engineering?

Worse than the aliens are at reverse parking?

 

[Scaramanga]

All this with NO amazing new technology from reverse engineering vehicles that have traversed the gulf of space and can fly around defying physics... either in our military tech or in the civilian sector.

The craziest thing about the Elizondo, Corbell, etc, claims and the Congressional hearings is that that's just the USA. Now I know the USA is powerful and has much influence but other nations have UFO reports and incidents and if there was anything substantively real to it all you'd think at least one of them would have their leader giving the expected 'we are not alone' speech. One thus has to believe, if one is a conspiracist, that the conspiracy covers the entire world and even countries that are enemies of the USA and that would happily want to upstage the USA in announcing alien contact.

And yet, there's silence from Russia, silence from China....where one would imagine UFOs must also have crashed, unless they are only bad drivers in the USA. The Iranians have had UFOs ( including one of the most famous cases ) yet I don't see the Ayatollah rushing to announce aliens before the US does. The idea that all these nations could be conspiring together with the USA to 'hide the truth' is just plain ridiculous.

The reason there has not been disclosure is very simple. There is nothing to disclose.