My Chat With Luis Elizondo

What on earth was Elizondo on about when the Gimbal video was discussed.
Was he really trying to say that the IR Gimbal image didn't necessarily show a heat signature of the object?
 
So in this interview below, Elizondo once again says that he is contracting to the government
In a 2019 interview he said the same.

What I find odd about that is :

1) He is always saying how the gov hate him for how he left and what he is doing. So why did they hire him as a contractor? Makes no sense

2) In another interview , and look I have seen so many I can't remember which one it was. Elizondo was asked if he was working for or helping the UAPTF, to which Elizondo clammed up and said he could not discuss that.

3) It all raises questions again to me, on what he is doing . Was the whole I'm leaving because of the way the gov is handling things a charade of sorts?

Recent video where Elizondo says he still is contracting to the gov. It's cued up

Source: https://youtu.be/K9hLuKMOesw?t=4099
 
My feeling is the narrative might shift, at the moment the media seems to have bought the "Pentagon confirms UFOs (implied for some aliens)" are real" narrative.

However this seems to be a big of having a cake and eating it, because Pentagon confirms UFOs and Pentagon also hates me for confirming UFOs is a bit of a dissonant approach. I guess you play it as a factional but it's still a harder sell.

Elizondo seemingly treads the "we don't know, we need more investigation but these things are real" line with the mainstream press, whilst also recently seemingly also to be "confirming" basically every "fringe" UFO story/theory when talking to the the UFO believers.

At some point this UAP report might surface and Elizondo seems already to be pre-emptively downplaying it.
 
Something has been eating at me about the whole thing since they started rolling things out around 2017,at first I couldn't put my finger on it.
I am also freely admit to have watched an unhealthy amount of TTSA and their companions work,including the whole first and second season of "unidentified".
For the record I think Mr,Elizondo is very personable and likeable,I also very much like Jeremy Corbell..he seems like a fun dude to party with .

But if we are to take these things that they are putting out there at face value.
A little about me:
1.have some military experience.(nothing elaborate,just your regular enlisted infantryman)
2.Does/done some consulting work where social engineering as applied to PR campaigns



Red Flags:
1.Why,if trying to build credibility are they launching several seasons of a HISTORY CHANNEL show?..the opposite of building actual credibility?
2.In said series and in talks given to various people,Elizondo does some very clever wordplay..in a sense playing with the brains dopamine/endorphine reward system.
Keeps dropping tantalizing clues(to the people in attendance),then proceeds to move the goalpost and in reserve theres the always safe card of "adhering to OPSEC/" aka its classified "so I cant tell you right now".
3.Does the same thing in mainstream media.
4.Every time a deadline of something significant promised approaches Mr.Elizondo or his TTSA surrogates go in and "adjusts expectations" of the target audience.
Example : in the run up to the bombshell report due tomorrow/june etc,they are adjusting their press apperance statements to say "you cant even paint your house in 180 days why expect something more from the Pentagon.
A valid point indeed,if only they hadnt hyped the report up to fever pitch in the prior months while slowly "leaking" NVG videos with camera artifacts or IR optics photography that really could have been showing anything.

These are text book moves for social engineering for PR purposes.
 
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The basic problem with your analysis (on the videos) is as Lue said, you do not have all of the data. While your interpretation is based on what you know, it is what you don't know that may discount that explanation. So it really is a matter of wait and see and from that point of view the videos have not really been debunked. I do like the fact that you have obviously investigated the properties of some of the equipment used in shooting the video's. However, based on some of the pilots testimony and the data that Lue says has not been made public yet, your interpretations are just your own and could be false.
 
Something has been eating at me about the whole thing since they started rolling things out around 2017,at first I couldn't put my finger on it.
I am also freely admit to have watched an unhealthy amount of TTSA and their companions work,including the whole first and second season of "unidentified".
For the record I think Mr,Elizondo is very personable and likeable,I also very much like Jeremy Corbell..he seems like a fun dude to party with .

But if we are to take these things that they are putting out there at face value.
A little about me:
1.have some military experience.(nothing elaborate,just your regular enlisted infantryman)
2.Does/done some consulting work where social engineering as applied to PR campaigns



Red Flags:
1.Why,if trying to build credibility are they launching several seasons of a HISTORY CHANNEL show?..the opposite of building actual credibility?
2.In said series and in talks given to various people,Elizondo does some very clever wordplay..in a sense playing with the brains dopamine/endorphine reward system.
Keeps dropping tantalizing clues(to the people in attendance),then proceeds to move the goalpost and in reserve theres the always safe card of "adhering to OPSEC/" aka its classified "so I cant tell you right now".
3.Does the same thing in mainstream media.
4.Every time a deadline of something significant promised approaches Mr.Elizondo or his TTSA surrogates go in and "adjusts expectations" of the target audience.
Example : in the run up to the bombshell report due tomorrow/june etc,they are adjusting their press apperance statements to say "you cant even paint your house in 180 days why expect something more from the Pentagon.
A valid point indeed,if only they hadnt hyped the report up to fever pitch in the prior months while slowly "leaking" NVG videos with camera artifacts or IR optics photography that really could have been showing anything.

These are text book moves for social engineering for PR purposes.
What's this history channel show they are launching?
 
So at this point the only explanation is an active disinformation campaign?

A likelier explanation: Pentagon, time and again, has to succumb under political pressure (more recently Reid/Bigelow) to keep an unclassified UFO programme loosely under its wing as a contracted entity.

Reid's letter need not be read in contradiction to the Pentagon tweet IF the tweet is merely a polite dismissal of the AATIP as an autonomous contracted entity with a politically determined mandate. Almost as if the Pentagon is putting out a disclaimer: "Pentagon is not responsible for whatever funny business Reid and Elizondo are into at AATIP,". Elizondo was wearing 'two hats' at the time. His first 'Pentagon hat' comprised his assigned tasks within DoD 'proper', directly under the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Under his second 'AATIP hat' Elizondo's tasks were assigned by Reid/Bigelow instead of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Hence the Pentagon tweet effectively denies that Elizondo was "assigned responsibilities" at the AATIP by the Under Secretary.

Despite being politically compelled to create an entity like the AATIP, the DoD core organization is characteristically hesitant to share classified information on military capabilities with its contracted entities. Hesitation, on the part of the military, to grant contracted entities access to classified information relevant to them is not uncommon amongst armed forces. Even with respect to less politically controversial contracted entities, such as food suppliers and ICT services.

Political interference from the Congress creates a genuine information security dilemma within any government department. DoD is a case in point. Pentagon disinformation likely comes into play only insofar as classified military capabilities must be either flatly denied or hidden under smokescreens. One such smokescreen would obviously be for Pentagon to officially acknowledge, whenever questioned, that leaked UAP footage portrays either something (1) unidentified or (2) non-American.

Pentagon 'proper' withholding classified UAS capability information from the UAPTF would certainly be picked up by the 'believers' in the TF as an air of secrecy. Sensing that key information is being withheld while the alien technology hypothesis is never taken seriously, would frustrate a believer and tickle his conspiratorial instinct. Hence Elizondo's perception of 'dismissiveness' or 'coverup' which prompted him to leak footage and resign from the DoD. In his own mind, Elizondo is sincerely promoting open and honest inquiry into matters of planetary concern.

It would not be the first nor the last time political interference in non-ideological government and research operations creates problems. Both, an information security and a public relations problem where the former is of more serious concern.
 
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they are adjusting their press apperance statements to say "you cant even paint your house in 180 days why expect something more from the Pentagon.
That can't be right, even Tom DeLonge could paint his house in 180 days. and unless Elizondo bought a dilapidated historical home, he can paint his house properly in a week.
 
I have a strong feeling Louis Elizondo is actually a good, stand-up guy (I've got the impression because of the black vault interview).

I also believe he really was not taken seriously within the Pentagon and was denied access to classified information about black projects. He also learned about the stigma among fighter pilots and was actually really upset about it.

It's probably not that he really believes these videos show E.T. but he uses them to instrumentalize the people to demand and force transparency. He became quite emotional and angry in this interview when he talked about how "they work for us, the gov works for us! not the other way around!". That's probably really his main agenda.

"Know your place, you guys work for us! If we have questions, you must answer them and take it seriously or you can go!" (paraphrasing)

Smart play... CIA trained him very well :)
 
I have a strong feeling Louis Elizondo is actually a good, stand-up guy (I've got the impression because of the black vault interview).

I also believe he really was not taken seriously within the Pentagon and was denied access to classified information about black projects. He also learned about the stigma among fighter pilots and was actually really upset about it.

It's probably not that he really believes these videos show E.T. but he uses them to instrumentalize the people to demand and force transparency. He became quite emotional and angry in this interview when he talked about how "they work for us, the gov works for us! not the other way around!". That's probably really his main agenda.

"Know your place, you guys work for us! If we have questions, you must answer them and take it seriously or you can go!" (paraphrasing)

Smart play... CIA trained him very well :)
I feel the same way,or I did feel more strongly that way initially and still find the fighter pilots accounts very compelling.
Then I see all the moneyed interest that gets mixed into this ,which muddies the waters with speaking engagements and TV show deals etc..
I understand a guys gotta earn,but it erodes the perception of approaching the subject in good faith.
Also if it only had been the things in the media recently and the videos published.
But there have been talks at UFO conferences where hinting at crashed materials analyzed have "made it to the top of the government/letter agencies/OGA" among other things heavily hinted at but then kind of obscured.
This makes me a little suspicious frankly and I hope to be proven wrong.
 
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This makes me a little suspicious frankly and I hope to be proven wrong.
i havent watched that many elizondo appearances until the black vault interview.

Based on the appearances i do know, he does seem to always act according to what the target audience of the interview would emphasize with.

Mick West: Lou stays calm, doesnt speculate, mentions data a lot (even if he cant talk about it so he comes across "russel teapotting" <- i just invented this verb lol)

The basement / UFO gatherings: He goes down the alien rabbit hole, talks about ghosts etc

Black vault: Demands free information etc

He also tends to compliment the hosts a lot to a point where it does feels ingenuine to me

Exactly what a cia trained interrogator / spy would act like imo lol
 
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i havent watched that many elizondo appearances until the black vault interview.

Based on the appearances i do know, he does seem to always act according to what the target audience of the interview would emphasize with.

Mick West: He stays calm, doesnt speculate, mentions data a lot (even if he cant talk about it so he comes across "russel teapotting" <- i just invented this verb lol)

The basement / UFO gatherings: He goes down the alien rabbit hole, talks about ghosts etc

Black vault: Demands free information etc

He also tends to compliment the hosts a lot to a point where it does feels ingenuine to me

Exactly what a cia trained interrogator / spy would act like imo lol
Yup he literally says whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear.
 
He reminded me of a manager, who really does not understand details. As a technician, I have seen that face/response multiple times. You are trying to explain something and they nod their head but, deep down, you know that they have no idea what you are talking about and seem uninterested in learning
As a retired service tech. who attempted to explain to a sales rep. expensive repairs I had to make on a piece of equipment I also saw that look a thousand times. The eyes glaze over as the mental process behind them goes into damage control mode.
 
Based on all the valuable Metabunk efforts so far, here is an attempt to put together a Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis (statements 1 through 5) followed by two observable theory-predictions (statement 6). Please feel free to rip it apart and improve on it.

Comprehensive UAP Hypothesis

(1) All UAP footage acquired by the UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) from the DoD portrays phenomena that were initially genuinely unidentified by some or many of the military staff observing them.

(2) Some of this footage feature classified military capabilities (such as prototype drones and drone swarms). The rest portray more commonly known phenomena (such as planes and weather balloons) in a visually unusual manner.

(3) File names such as GIMBAL and FLIR suggest the DoD had already identified the commonly known phenomena shown in some of the footage while obviously aware of its own classified capabilities featured in other footage.

(4) UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) is a contracted entity loosely under Pentagon’s wing whose existence owes to pressure from influential politicians in the Congress, rather than DoD’s own national security priorities.
  • From the perspective of DoD core functions, the creation and operation of the UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) is a fringe exercise to appease certain political influencers with certain agendas.​
  • These agendas may include a genuine interest in alien technology (Reid/Bigelow) as well as satisfying an alien-believing demographic of voters in the name of public interest.​
(5) This politically motivated and unclassified fringe exercise under the Pentagon poses an obvious information security challenge within the DoD.
  • The DoD, on one hand, must provide the UAPTF (and its predecessor the AATIP) with unclassified material to work on while, on the other, ensure that any unclassified UAP footage featuring classified military capabilities (e.g. the USS Omaha radar footage as possibly one such piece of footage) must be ambiguous and inconclusive, and not definitively reveal the exact nature of these capabilities.
  • Any low-information-content footage taken by military staff (say, a USS Omaha crew-member) of a classified military capability specifically designed for tactical deception (say, a type of drone swarm), would rather comfortably qualify as unclassified UAP footage for the UAPTF to work with.
(6) Two Observable Predictions from the Hypothesis:

6.1 All unclassified “UAP” footage released by the DoD will continue to be grainy, fuzzy and low in information content.

6.2 The DoD will continue to officially acknowledge that at least some of the released footage portray unidentified aerial phenomena, while such an acknowledgement does not logically imply that all the footage so defined is actually unidentified.


P.S. An official Pentagon denial of classified US military capabilities featuring in the UAP footage would make sense in both scenarios; (1) such capabilities actually featuring in the footage or (2) not.
 
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@LilWabbit - I like this hypothesis, and it seems to line up with a lot of what is being observed. The only portion of it that I find weak, is the suggestion that the Pentagon must keep allowing the AATIP/UAPTF "fringe exercise" to continue in order to satisfy the demands of some specific influential politicians. AATIP was created due to the actions of Reid, Stevens, and Inouye - the latter two are now deceased, and Reid is no longer in congress. UAPTF was created in 2017 - who do you suggest were the influential politicians behind that?

The Senate Intelligence committee "voted to require United States Intelligence Community and the United States Department of Defense to publicly track and analyze data collected on unexplained aerial vehicles." [1] For such a vote to pass, there must be more than just a few influential politicians interested in the subject. Furthermore, for your hypothesis to be correct, it would require that the Pentagon basically lie in it's report, which was requested by the Senate Intelligence committee, just to please "a few influential politicians". I find that hard to believe. The point where the Senate Intelligence committee gets involved is the point where I would expect the Pentagon to clarify (not to us, but to the Intelligence Committee) that the reality of what is going on is what you have described in your hypothesis. And if that happened, I wouldn't expect people like Martin Heinrich to make the statement that he has made:
I don't know what it is, but anytime you have legitimate pilots describing something that doesn't seem to conform to the laws of physics that govern aviation and is in US airspace, I think it is something we need to get to the bottom of [...] If there is a foreign government that had these kinds of capabilities I think we would see other indications of advanced technology. I can't imagine that what has been described or shown in some of the videos belongs to any government that I'm aware of.
Otherwise, it implies that the Pentagon is lying to the intelligence committee (or if not outwardly lying, withholding the information that has been requested) just to placate the posited influential politicians in congress.

I think your hypothesis fits well with the genesis of this all, but doesn't seem to line up with the state of things as they currently exist.
 
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Great interview, Mick. I think it's clear that Luis did not fully comprehend the analyses of the different videos.

I guess that the type of investigations performed by AATIP were more holistic, with less in-depth and detailed analysis of individual videos.

The "tic-tac executive report" could give a taste of the type of investigations they did (attached). The only thing it states about the flir1 video is that the object appeared stationary upon approach and subsequently moved out of the field of view to the left. No claims are made about otherworldly accelerations. Instead the report even states that they could not be 100% sure it was the same object Fravor saw.

The specific claims for the videos came later, during the TTSA period, and now Luis has painted himself in a corner a bit with these claims.

Too bad we don't have more data...
 

Attachments

  • TIC TAC UFO EXECUTIVE REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf
    10.2 MB · Views: 224
@LilWabbit - I like this hypothesis, and it seems to line up with a lot of what is being observed. The only portion of it that I find weak, is the suggestion that the Pentagon must keep allowing the AATIP/UAPTF "fringe exercise" to continue in order to satisfy the demands of some specific influential politicians. AATIP was created due to the actions of Reid, Stevens, and Inouye - the latter two are now deceased, and Reid is no longer in congress. UAPTF was created in 2017 - who do you suggest were the influential politicians behind that?

The Senate Intelligence committee "voted to require United States Intelligence Community and the United States Department of Defense to publicly track and analyze data collected on unexplained aerial vehicles." [1] For such a vote to pass, there must be more than just a few influential politicians interested in the subject. Furthermore, for your hypothesis to be correct, it would require that the Pentagon basically lie in it's report, which was requested by the Senate Intelligence committee, just to please "a few influential politicians". I find that hard to believe. The point where the Senate Intelligence committee gets involved is the point where I would expect the Pentagon to clarify (not to us, but to the Intelligence Committee) that the reality of what is going on is what you have described in your hypothesis. And if that happened, I wouldn't expect people like Martin Heinrich to make the statement that he has made:

Otherwise, it implies that the Pentagon is lying to the intelligence committee (or if not outwardly lying, withholding the information that has been requested) just to placate the posited influential politicians in congress.

I think your hypothesis fits well with the genesis of this all, but doesn't seem to line up with the state of things as they currently exist.

Thank you for your valuable points, Empiricist.

The UAPTF was the direct successor of the AATIP which was, in turn, largely Reid's and Bigelow's baby. During Elizondo's "reign" the already modestly funded 'fringe' Pentagon programme became in fact increasingly trivialized within the DoD until its funds were fully depleted in 2012 and not renewed. After 2012 the programme continued but had to rely on individual donations. Elizondo's leaks in 2017 are what seem to have revived increased congressional (and public) interest in the UAP across the aisle and the UAPTF took shape to satisfy that revived interest. I guess the point was less about AATIP/UAPTF existing to appease a select few influential politicians and more about being set up within the executive branch out of congressional / political interest rather than DOD's own initiative and national security priorities.

Owing to executive privilege, a lot of classified information within the executive branch is commonly withheld from the Congress. Sometimes even flatly denied (yes, lied about) if deemed to pose a national security risk, as the Congress is largely viewed by the executive branch as public domain rather than government 'proper'. Releasing to the Congress a piece of classified information (even if it claims to treat it in confidence), is commonly viewed as equivalent to a public leak.
 
Reconnaissance, surveillance and intelligence are part and parcel of DOD's core functions in every military discipline. Improving them to quicker and better identify potential airborne threats is a core area under perennial development. These core functions of the military do not rely on a separate poorly funded and unclassified fringe entity in the Pentagon that (1) exists mainly to satisfy public curiosity and (2) is demonstrably impotent in identifying and explaining UAP footage.
 
Owing to executive privilege, a lot of classified information within the executive branch is commonly withheld from the Congress. Sometimes even flatly denied (yes, lied about) if deemed to pose a national security risk, as the Congress is largely viewed by the executive branch as public domain rather than government 'proper'. Releasing to the Congress a piece of classified information (even if it claims to treat it in confidence), is commonly viewed as equivalent to a public leak.
Indeed, but I don't think this is enough to explain it. If the "unidentified" videos and other events which have been reported on represent nothing more than advanced drone prototypes/drone swarms (plus some other prosaic objects thrown in), and the executive is indeed trying to keep that secret, fueling this media circus through their various statements seems to me to be a very bad way to accomplish that mission. A simple "we know what the objects in both the videos and photos are, and we have nothing further to say publicly" statement, issued in 2017 and repeated without variation since then would have been much more successful. And if I understand correctly, your hypothesis is that the reason that hasn't happened is basically to avoid hurting the feelings of/offending a few true believer congresspeople by shooting down their UFO dreams. I find that hard to believe.

Plus, you also have the statement made by former CIA director Brennan, who is part of the executive branch. What incentive does he have to participate in walking this fine line of appeasing UFO true believer politicians?

But I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.
Even Obama has come to believe that there is a real unexplained phenomenon. Who are the congresspeople that have such intense power over the defense department that they are allowing people like Obama and Brennan to be misled to avoid offending their sensibilities? The explanation as proposed is not just "executive lying to congress" but "some members of the executive lying to congress and large portions of the executive".

Anyways, there is another thread discussing these broader theories in the open forum, perhaps we could continue this there, since these sorts of more general hypothesis aren't encouraged in this forum.
 
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The idea that those in positions of power within the government are waxing poetic about mysterious "things" in the sky just to avoid hurting the feelings of someone like Harry Reid is, frankly, laughable. Every time a question about this stuff is posed from those in the media it comes with giggling, winks, and groans. It's a joke and they've gone out of their way to give officials the opportunity to laugh it off or deny it.

"Have you been able to rule out.... the science fiction scenario of any kind of lifeform. Can you just say, for people that are interested, that you've ruled out any kind of lifeforms out there?"



If anything about this whole saga is surprising, it's the continued insistence by a wide swath of officials that something really is going on and there is evidence of things moving in ways unexplainable by our understanding of aeronautics, if not physics. Sure would be nice if we could have a look at this supposed evidence.
 
To be honest, I only watched part of the interview but I got a bit fed up with his song and dance when Mick confronted him with the explanations.

  1. He reminded me of a manager, who really does not understand details. As a technician, I have seen that face/response multiple times. You are trying to explain something and they nod their head but, deep down, you know that they have no idea what you are talking about and seem uninterested in learning. I have been in meetings where managers/supervisors simply ask irrelevant questions while you and the engineers try and resolve the technical problem.
  2. Showing a bunch of aircraft flashcards is not an example of analysis. I bet you can buy those exact same cards online somewhere. They used to give cards like this to the ground observer corps back in the 40s and 50s. These cards have no bearing in the videos since one object is a dot, another is a very small line, and the third is oversaturated by the thermal image. I would think that real analysts don't bother with such cards since they probably know what a MIG-21 looks like anyway. You don't see fighter pilots pulling up flashcards in the middle of a dog fight! You do give such cards to people who are not familiar with the subject. See #1 where I mention managers with little knowledge on the subject matter. All the cards demonstrate is he needed a crutch to help him learn the subject he was unfamiliar with.
  3. When it comes to analysis, he states there were other factors involved in the AATIPs analysis that are not available to the public that demonstrates that the analysis is wrong. I guess my first question to this is, "why did you release the videos in the first place if you are not going to release all of the information?" It seems that it is more a publicity stunt to get money for the TTSA. My second question is, "Did the TTSA do any "analysis" on the videos and why weren't these published?" Once again, if there is no attempt at analyzing these videos, then it was just a publicity stunt. Another thought on this, "What is the difference between data that is unavailable and no data at all?" I am very skeptical that any such analysis was ever done and if there really was any additional data. Remember, we are talking about an individual, who seems to be unfamiliar with the details and was little more than a manager (if he was even that) that quickly left the DOD in order to start a money-making scheme with a singer interested in the subject of UFOs.

On #1: I get the impression Elizondo isn't familiar with any of the arguments. I don't think he understands the science, engineering or math.

In the recent 60 Minutes piece, Luis Elizondo says:

Imagine a technology that can do 600-700 G forces, that can fly at 13,000 mph, that can evade radar, and that can fly through air, and water, and possibly space. And, oh by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces, and yet still can defy the natural effects of earth’s gravity.

He's sort of gathering all the best data points from any account he can find and lumping them all together into one unexplainable Super UAP. And, yet, none of the videos show any of these characteristics.

On #2: The flashcard part of the video made me literally laugh out loud. What point did Elizondo think he was making?

If I was Mick, I would have had to bite my lip not to ask, "You have...little pictures of planes on cards? And this is relevant, how?"

It was that moment in the video I realized Elizondo might have no idea what he's talking about.
 
It's worth remembering the character Elizondo is playing has evolved quite a bit since he appeared on the scene in 2017. Really, all the way up until TTSA dissolved he was still playing the "dumb guy with connections" role. He'd often display self-deprecating humor while praising the abilities of his colleagues. Once TTSA collapsed he started getting a little more philosophical and began speaking about quantum physics, block time theories, extra dimensions, etc.

It has been an interesting evolution and his fans seem to have eagerly bought into it. UFO Reddit seems to pretty much consider him an authoritative scientific figure at this point. The next year should be interesting as there are strong indications the UAP Task Force will continue its mission and may even expand and be under the purview of Space Force. I don't think we've seen the end of this subject.
 
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