Luis Elizondo

Luis Elizondo
Born	Luis Daniel Elizondo Texas, United States
Other names	"Lue" Elizondo
Education	University of Miami
Occupation	Former military intelligence officer
Organization(s)	Department of Defense, U.S. Army Counterintelligence, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences
Website	luiselizondo-official.com

Luis Elizondo is a former United States Army Counterintelligence special agent, former employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, media commentator and author. Elizondo reports he was a director of the now defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was associated with the Pentagon UFO videos. Elizondo's statements about his Pentagon role with AATIP have been contested by Pentagon officials. Since 2017, he has stated that UFOs (or UAPs) exist and are not the result of human technology.

Early life and education

Elizondo is the son of Luis Elizondo III, a Cuban exile who volunteered for Brigade 2506, a CIA-sponsored group of exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the Cuban government headed by Fidel Castro, which culminated in the Bay of Pigs invasion. According to his 2024 memoir, Elizondo grew up being trained for Alpha 66, which he describes as a "slightly rebranded Brigade 2506". Born in Texas, his family "moved to Sarasota around 1975". Elizondo graduated from Riverview High School in Sarasota in 1990, where he was a member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, and also participated in the drill team and scholastic wrestling programs. At the University of Miami, Elizondo studied double majors in microbiology and immunology, with minors in chemistry and mathematics. During his education, he obtained advanced research experience in parasitology, and diseases including malaria, leishmaniasis, and trypanosomiasis.

Career

United States Army intelligence

Elizondo served in the United States Army with service in the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, and in the United States, and then as a civilian intelligence officer during which he ran military intelligence operations in Afghanistan, South America, and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and its Camp Seven. During military tours in Afghanistan he was an operations officer, joined the United States Army Counterintelligence program, and was "battle captain" managing a tactical operations center. Elizondo ran anti-terrorist missions against the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaeda and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Regarding his military career, Elizondo stated he "dealt with a lot of stuff, like coup d'états, black market terrorism, violent drug cartels, all that kind of stuff". The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in 2021 that during the course of his military career, Elizondo reported to the United States Secretary of Defense, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Office of National Intelligence, the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House.

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence

From 2008 until his resignation in 2017, Elizondo worked with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSDI) in the Pentagon. Elizondo has reported that he worked with officials from the U.S. Navy and the CIA out of his Pentagon office for this program until 2017, when he resigned to protest what he characterized as "excessive secrecy and internal opposition". Elizondo was Director for the National Programs Special Management Staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

At the time of his resignation, Elizondo had reached the highest level of civilian non-political appointment employment in the Federal government of the United States as a "GS-15 employee", the civilian equivalent to colonel rank. Elizondo's resignation was tendered on October 4, 2017, directly to then Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Elizondo's resignation was reported to have caught the Office of the Secretary of Defense off-guard, and various government spokespeople afterwards would issue alternating and conflicting accounts of his role in government over the following years, both confirming and denying his intelligence work and work related to the topics of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAPs). Senator Harry Reid sent a letter to NBC News stating "I can state as a matter of record Lue Elizondo's involvement and leadership role in this program".

In 2019, journalist Keith Kloor reported in Issues in Science and Technology from the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that in a 2016 government performance evaluation, Elizondo was "lauded" for "his ability to manage a highly classified program in a manner that protects US national security interests on a global scale", and that Elizondo's office had "identified and neutralized 6 insider threats" and "co-authored 4 national-level policies involving covert action". Elizondo's performance was further evaluated by the Pentagon as exemplary, and noted that it "cannot be overstated the importance of Mr. Elizondo’s portfolio to national security".

Between his 2017 resignation to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, his subsequent release of the Pentagon UFO videos and 2024, Elizondo retained "the highest security clearance" and still serves as a contractor for the United States government. In August 2024, Elizondo told Ross Coulthart on NewsNation that he had worked on UAP-related topics with David Grusch for the United States Space Force.

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program

Main article: Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program

Elizondo was recruited in 2009 to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a special access program funded at the initiative of the then United States Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada to investigate aerial threats including unidentified aerial phenomena.

The New Yorker reports that Elizondo was asked to take over the program in 2010, which was an outgrowth of a government project awarded to businessman and paranormal enthusiast Robert Bigelow to investigate Utah area cryptids; the article notes that Elizondo then turned the program into part of AATIP to investigate "the national-security implications of military U.A.P. encounters". Elizondo reports that ending in 2012, he was the director of AATIP. Elizondo told a reporter he thought that he might have been selected for AATIP because of his scientific background, work as a counterintelligence agent protecting American aerospace technology, and lack of interest in science fiction. Elizondo asserts that "underestimating or ignoring these potential threats is not in the best interest of the Department no matter the level of political contention". According to the Department of Defense, the AATIP program ended in 2012 after five years due to budget cuts.

In 2017, Elizondo was confirmed as an AATIP leader by Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White to Politico, but White would not divulge further program details due to their sensitive nature. In spring 2019, journalist Keith Kloor reported that Elizondo was asked to take over management of security for AATIP, and had "experience in technology protection", having worked with Boeing on protection of Apache Longbow helicopter technologies, and with Raytheon on cruise missile technology.

However, in June 2019, the Pentagon amended their position, and spokesperson Christopher Sherwood confirmed that AATIP "did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena", and added to The Intercept that Elizondo "had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI, up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017". In response, Elizondo filed a 64-page long complaint with the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General describing "a coordinated campaign to discredit him for speaking out" including "Pentagon press statements asserting he had no official role in UFO research, even after his role was officially confirmed". In the Inspector General's complaint, Elizondo also stated that he was the target of "a personal vendetta from a Pentagon rival", who attempted to harm his career via investigations of Elizondo's role in the 2017 release of the Pentagon UFO videos, despite Elizondo having been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Pentagon. One day after Elizondo filed the complaint, the Inspector General initiated an investigation into Pentagon “actions” on UFOs related to incursions of United States airspace by unknown high-performance craft. "The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the DoD has taken actions regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)", Randolph Stone, assistant inspector general for evaluations on space, intelligence, engineering and oversight, stated.

To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences

Soon after resigning from the government, Elizondo along with Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, joined To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a public-benefit corporation co-founded by musician Tom DeLonge, CIA veteran Jim Semivan, and engineer Hal Puthoff to research UFO-related topics. According to legal filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a research and development agreement between the United States Department of the Army and To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences to investigate technologies the civilian group had in its possession, Elizondo's title and position with the organization was listed by the United States Army as "Director of Global Security and Special Programs". After joining To the Stars, Elizondo announced they were "planning to provide never-before-released footage from real U.S. government systems—not blurry amateur photos but real data and real videos".

United States Navy UFO videos

Main article: Pentagon UFO videos

In 2017, Elizondo distributed three declassified videos to the press that were made by pilots from the United States Navy aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt which became known as the Pentagon UFO videos, which were publicized by the New York Times. The release was accompanied by the first mainstream press reporting on the existence of the AATIP. Elizondo, speaking with Erin Burnett on CNN in 2017, described the UFOs he was aware of as "These aircraft -- we'll call them aircraft -- are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of", and "things that don't have any obvious flight services, any obvious forms of propulsion, and maneuvering in ways that include extreme maneuverability beyond, I would submit, the healthy G-forces of a human or anything biological."

The classified nature of the videos and the validity of Elizondo's authorization to distribute them were questioned. Elizondo, in a Pentagon memo, stated the videos could "help educate pilots and improve aviation safety"; in interviews after their release, Elizondo remarked his intention was to "shed light" on the Defense Departments program to collect UFO data. Popular Mechanics reported in 2020 that Elizondo stated, "I initially requested the videos be cleared for restricted release to industry partners, however, it was DOPSR, not me, who suggested the videos be released in an unrestricted manner. The emails on this exchange are out there now. They’ve been made public, so people can see this for themselves, precisely how this occurred." DOPSR is the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, under the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and "manages the Department of Defense security review program, reviewing written materials both for public and controlled release".

Journalist Tim McMillan in the article detailed that Popular Mechanics located the involved party who made the recommendation, and wrote, "Not shown in the series of emails, the person recalled, in their coordination with DOPSR, it was suggested it would be easier if the request was amended to 'unrestricted.' Subsequently, the person said this information would have been passed along to Elizondo." The matter of the classification of the videos was settled in 2020 by Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough, who told Popular Mechanics, "The videos were not cleared for general public release because DOPSR did not receive final approval from Navy. Navy’s approval would have included PA review from Navy’s PA office (Public Affairs)," and that after an investigation, "the investigation determined the videos were not classified", and that the Pentagon and Gough faulted neither Elizondo or To The Stars for the release, but as Gough told Popular Mechanics, "DOPSR, in this specific case".

In April 2019, the Navy acknowledged drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with unidentified aircraft, and Elizondo told The Washington Post that it was "the single greatest decision the Navy has made in decades". In April 2020, the United States Department of Defense released the three Navy videos themselves and acknowledged them as real. In response, Elizondo commented, "We are fueled by the Pentagon's significant actions and hope this encourages a new wave of credible information to come forward".

Documentary series and departure to lobby government

A History Channel docuseries titled Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation produced by To the Stars featured Elizondo and others who present themselves as affiliated with AATIP.

Elizondo, along with Christopher Mellon and Steve Justice, left To the Stars in late 2020, saying "Tom [De Longe] is really focused on the entertainment side, so there's not a whole lot for Chris, Steve and I to do [...] Our talents lie in engaging governments, Congress and international organizations, and we're ready to shift into second gear. Entertainment is one way to do it, but it's not comprehensive." In 2023, journalist Art Levine credited both Elizondo and Mellon for their role in President Joe Biden signing that years National Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision to investigate UFO-related topics, including creation of the Pentagons All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

Further UFO-related works

In the summer of 2021 Elizondo appeared on the CBS News program 60 Minutes in a segment titled "UFOs regularly spotted in restricted U.S. airspace" in which he was interviewed by Bill Whitaker, who included interviews with Christopher Mellon and two U.S. naval aviators. Elizondo believes UAPs might be from another dimension, they might use hydrogen found in water to "warp space time", and the US government may be in possession of "exotic material" associated with UAPs.

Elizondo was announced on October 30, 2021 to have joined as a research affiliate to The Galileo Project, a program began by astrophysicist Avi Loeb to search for extraterrestrial intelligence or extraterrestrial technology on and near Earth and to identify the nature of anomalous unidentified flying objects and unidentified aerial phenomena.

2024 memoir Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs

Imminent book cover

Elizondo's memoir, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for U.F.O.s, was published on August 20, 2024 by HarperCollins and debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Elizondo claims that late in his military and intelligence career, he was recruited by Pentagon officials to manage security and counterintelligence for a deeply classified UFO-related research program, subsequently embracing ufology. Elizondo's claims include UFOs created and operated by what he describes as "non human intelligence", a conspiracy to cover up United States government awareness of UFOs and non-human intelligent life, the Roswell crash incident and other crash retrievals including recoveries of alien technology and 'biologics', alien abductions, and alien implants. In his memoir, Elizondo claims to have been involved in a military remote viewing program under Hal Puthoff and claims that a "green, glowing ball" once floated through his home.

See also

• Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Government.

External links

• Official website
• Elizondo and others featured on '60 Minutes' - May 2021