New Realities recorded on July 17, 2021
Summary
Alan Steinfeld hosts a Clubhouse discussion with Luis Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Elizondo discusses the complexities of UAP origins, the limitations of terms like ‘alien’, and the government’s evolving stance on disclosure. Various participants join the conversation to ask about unreleased videos, crash retrievals, the involvement of the private sector, and the significance of recent government reports on UAPs.
Transcript
Alan Steinfeld
Welcome to New Realities. I’m Alan Steinfeld. I am the author of Making Contact, which is an overview of the whole UFO situation from the hardware to the software of consciousness. Now, at the heart of this issue of UFOs and whether they exist or not, whether they’re real, is the government’s coming forward with what’s been called disclosure. And the person at the center of this disclosure movement is Luis Elizondo. The New York Times reported that Luis Elizondo led the Pentagon’s efforts to investigate UFOs until October 2017, when he resigned in protest over what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the program he was in charge of. Elizondo himself says, despite overwhelming evidence of both the classified and unclassified levels, certain individuals in the department, that’s the defense department, remained staunchly opposed to further research on what could be a tactical threat to our pilots, sailors, and soldiers, and perhaps even an existential threat to our national security. In Elizondo’s resignation letter to the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, to the ATIP program, he asked why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue? Elizondo has said a lot more since he left the defense department, such as, maybe what we thought were monsters are really our neighbors. This is my first interview with Elizondo and he talks about some of the critical issues that he can mention due to his security oath and he hints at what he cannot mention. But this is the guy to follow. I’m very happy to be talking to him. Welcome to the program.
Luis Elizondo
It is my sincere honor and pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Alan Steinfeld
Do you know about some of the work I’ve been doing? Have you been familiar with that at all?
Luis Elizondo
You know, tangentially yes. Please forgive me, unfortunately my operational tempo is absolutely absurd these days. But yes, I am aware of your work.
Alan Steinfeld
I just want to get right to the some of the questions I’ve had for you because you are the guy in front of this movement. You’ve skirted around saying, I would say the A-word, you’ve said they’re not Russians, they’re not Chinese, they’re not ours, it looks like. And you’ve said, I think you’ve said they’re not from any country on this earth. But you have not used that word everyone’s waiting for. Is there a time when you might suggest that these things might be off-world vehicles?
Luis Elizondo
Well, look, the problem is with the definition. My concern is that we, I think, we as a society have gotten a little bit lazy. I think when we use terms like alien or extraterrestrial, the problem with doing so is that it narrows the scope of the inquiry. What do I mean by that? Well, as I’ve said before, could these things be from outer space? Yes, absolutely. But I’ve also said before these could be from inner space and frankly the space in between. The more we learn about quantum physics, the more we realize that the universe is far more complex than we ever thought. To put that case in point, a lot of psychologists right now believe we are what we call cardiosocial animals. That is because the first nine months of our life we spend in our mother’s womb and we are inundated by the heartbeat of our mother, which is basically a binary on, off, on, off. As a result of that we tend to look at life and everything in it in extremes. So if I were to ask you today, sir, how are you feeling? Oh, I’m feeling good. Well, I’m feeling bad. Are you hot? Are you cold? Is it up? Is it down? Is it left or is it right? And the reason why we look at life and the universe that way is because of the theory that we are these cardiosocial animals. But in reality, nature doesn’t work that way. Nature works in fractals, she works in diagonals, and I think it’s important that we keep all options open. I’ve said this before and I’ll certainly say it again. We have five fundamental senses for which we look at the universe. And those five fundamental senses are very limited. If we can’t touch it, hear it, taste it, smell it, etc., we can’t interact with it. And yet, look at any given night, look at the night sky and look at the stars and you will see some beautiful stars. And yet look at that same spot of the night sky this time using a radio telescope and now looking in infrared and ultraviolet, and all of a sudden you see things that were never there before. You see nebulae and you see things that we can’t pick up with the naked eye. Why is that important? Well, because right now you and I are having this conversation and there are wi-fi signals that are coursing through our body. There are radio signals AM and FM. There’s cosmic radiation coming down from the cosmos, in the form of gamma radiation. There’s neutrinos, trillions upon trillions of neutrinos are entering your body at any given time from the sun. And yet we don’t interact with them and yet it’s very real. So my point being is that we tend to say when we say off-world or extraterrestrial or alien, I’m not sure everybody necessarily agrees on what that means because to me anything alien is something that is not necessarily organic to this planet but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not from this planet. These things could be just as natural to our environment as we are. And we’re just now at the technological level to begin interacting. Maybe these things are from the oceans, maybe these things are interdimensional. I guess my point being is that there’s a whole lot of other options other than these are from Proxima or the Pleiades versus right here.
Alan Steinfeld
I get that. And you’re right and there’s a lot more to reality than we can even imagine. But whatever these beings, because there’s obviously an intelligence behind the UAPs. They’re not random objects or whatever they’ve called it in the DNI report. But there’s some intelligence that may be super human. But can we agree about that? There’s an unknown intelligence that is operating these UAPs and manufactured them.
Luis Elizondo
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s quite clear. There is some sort of intelligence behind these things. I think that is probably not at this point a matter of conjecture. I think that’s reality.
Alan Steinfeld
Are you aware of the Project Blue Book, Project Grudge, the history of investigations and some of the crash retrievals, some of the actual bodies that have been found? If you look at the Guy Hottel memo and the FBI vault, there’s evidence of these bodies. Are you aware of that or not?
Luis Elizondo
Project Grudge, yes I am. Am I aware of the notion that there was some sort of retrieval of biological samples? Yes, I am aware of that notion. Am I aware that there may have been some US government involvement in that? Yes, I am aware of that as well. I’m not sure if that answers your question.
Alan Steinfeld
You’re aware of it, but you’re aware that it’s true or you’re just aware people have talked about it? I’m not sure what you mean by aware.
Luis Elizondo
I am aware that people have talked about it and I have heard it as well, regarding anecdotally of biological recovery. But I have to be very careful and what I don’t want to do is prejudice a jury here. I think it’s important that we continue to allow people to ask the question. I think it’s also important that we allow our government to provide whatever information it can provide and give it time. Look, here’s the bottom line. Not all the government, when we talk about the government is aware of X, Y, or Z. The problem is we tend to give the government this characteristic that is this omnipresent capability and it knows everything. And the reality is that couldn’t be further from the truth. When we say that the government is aware of something, well, that may be true. Part of the government is aware of something, but perhaps part of the government is not. And that’s why it’s so important because we have to give the government time to have a consistent understanding of what’s really going on. And I think that’s my concern. What we don’t want to do is pigeonhole the government in a situation where now it’s forced to say something without having all the data in front of it. Look, the bottom line is that there is a lot of…
Alan Steinfeld
There’s interesting things happening right now. It’s probably more than anecdotal that there is information out there that cooperates the idea that we’re not alone.
Luis Elizondo
At the same time, this I’ve said this before from day one, this is a process. We must allow the process to work. I know people are anxious, I know people are curious, I know people want to know the answers, and I want them to have the answers. But I also want it to be done in a constructive way, not a destructive way. If one were to look at the last three years of our progress, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of people that could argue with the fact that we’ve come pretty far. Because we have taken a very measured approach and allowed the government time that it needs and what is necessary to do its job and that is to ultimately later on inform the American people. The worst thing you can do is just slap something together and say yes or no, and it turns out to be not 100% accurate. I think people are impatient and rightfully so, and I think what we need to do is I’ve said this before, I’d rather have information right than right now, so that’s kind of where we are.
Alan Steinfeld
I appreciate everything you’re doing. You’re the guy in front. You are pushing what’s been called disclosure. And it’s a very honorable position and difficult position I know you’re in because it seems like you want this to become public. What is your goal, you personally, you got pulled into the ATIP program I guess, and suddenly this whole other reality came forward. What’s your vision of how this might progress forward?
Luis Elizondo
Wow. That’s going to require a few beers or a bottle of wine…
Alan Steinfeld
Give us the bottom line.
Luis Elizondo
The truth. I want the truth to come out. I want the American people to know the reality of what you paid your taxpayer dollars for me to do. You paid for it, the information belongs to you. The question is how do we do it without people going to jail or upsetting the system, and causing discord, confusion and panic. I got to tell you, I don’t think we’ve ever been this far in the conversation before, so we have to be very careful and methodical. Look, at the end of the day, I’m a patriot. I don’t want to do anything to hurt the government. I’m trying to be constructive, not destructive.
Alan Steinfeld
I know. But it’s the American people that need to be told the truth. And the world, this goes beyond government and countries of course.
Luis Elizondo
Absolutely. I agree with you and that’s why you see us doing what we’re doing. And despite the naysayers and despite all the crap that we have to deal with on a regular basis and the hucksters and charlatans, guys like Chris Mellon and I and Hal Puthoff and Eric are busy doing what we do. You know, this has been a topic that’s been hijacked by fraudsters for the last 70 years. The absence of information they’ve kind of filled in their own narrative and worse they’ve made a pretty good living off of it. You know, that’s problematic. I think we’re…
Alan Steinfeld
No, continue because you’re the guy I want to hear what you have to say. Yeah, so it’s problematic because we need a real narrative, a true narrative. Let’s just lay it all on the table, I say.
Luis Elizondo
I don’t disagree with you. The problem is that this topic has been for a very long time, portions are very classified and of course there’s been public statements to the contrary that this topic isn’t a valid topic. And now you’re asking an institution like the United States government, which is a huge monolithic enterprise to begin with full of many, many different people, different interests, all of them to reverse course and say definitively, look what we were wrong for the last 70 years and in fact, not only were we wrong, we deliberately kept some of the details from you.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, we’re asking them to come forward because they owe that to the American people.
Joe
So, Lou, if we believe that the Mussolini craft retrieval took place, we may have data from 90 years ago, all the way until now. Is it valid, and I’ve heard, I’ve heard, and it’s also there’s a valid speculation that we know who’s inside of these craft, and I know you may not be able to answer that. But if you can’t, if this information is classified, like who’s in the saucers, who’s inside the triangles, why would that be classified? It’s not sources and methods.
Luis Elizondo
Exactly right. That’s my concern. You can only classify information to protect sources and methods. And you cannot, it’s illegal to classify information just because something is embarrassing. Let’s be realistic, there’s a liability issue here, too. There are people who have lost their careers and potentially their futures. Can you imagine somebody who reported this information and then all of a sudden got submitted for a psychological evaluation or lost or suspended their security clearance, and long story short loses their marriage and is now wind up ultimately homeless on the street, all for doing the right thing. I mean, that’s a real liability. That’s a real fundamental issue now that we’re going to have to figure out because some people have suffered greatly. I’m not going to be the one to tell you that I’ve suffered greatly because people have suffered a lot more than me. But it’s a real topic and it’s a real issue that we need to be prepared for.
Joe
Do we have any idea who’s inside some of these craft?
Luis Elizondo
You know, I prefer not to answer that question right now, simply because I don’t have a good response for that. I think we’ve got a lot of ideas, and I think there’s a lot of anecdotal information out there. But at the end of the day, we still don’t know entirely what we’re dealing with. And that’s problematic. That’s something that we need to I think collectively sit down and I mean that from as a society, I mean that as academics and scientists, I mean that as a national security apparatus and as politicians and philosophers.Everybody else, there is information that’s pretty compelling. And that’s about all I can say about that, that says maybe we’re not alone. And the problem is we look at everything through anthropomorphic eyes, right? We look at everything in terms of human interests, human motivations, human paradigms. And when you are swimming in the big ocean of the Pacific and a great white comes up to you, that great white is not thinking like a human being. A great white is thinking like a great white. And sometimes there’s no motivation for what it does other than it’s just hungry. I think we have to be mindful of the fact that not everything in nature is going to comport to our neat anecdote of how something should behave in this universe. This is a very large, complex universe. And every day we’re learning more and more about it. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned is that usually what we subscribe or ascribe to something isn’t always the case. Again, we look in terms of human type emotions and human motivations. And I don’t know if that’s entirely useful here. If we were dealing with a human, sure, I don’t think we necessarily are.
Alan Steinfeld
When you say people might get arrested, what are you thinking they would get arrested for if we came forward with some of this? I’m just curious.
Luis Elizondo
Well, certainly if classified information is involved, you will absolutely, you got to be very, very careful and thread that needle. I try to be very diligent myself. I don’t look good in an orange jumpsuit. I spent my career trying to protect my country from spies and espionage and I’m not looking to do that. That’s not my intent. I want to have a conversation in a productive way where the American people can get answers, but not go back 70 years right and all of a sudden now the genie goes back in the bottle and that’s it. I’m not sure that’s very helpful.
Alan Steinfeld
Are you ready to go in front of Congress and tell them what you know if you’re called in front of an intelligence committee?
Luis Elizondo
I have been ready for years and years and years. If I am called upon you damn well better believe that I will be having that conversation.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, great. I think Kyle or someone had a question here. I don’t want to hog because I could talk to you for hours because you are the guy, Luis. You are central to this uncovering this bigger reality.
Luis Elizondo
Listen, I appreciate that, but in reality I’m not. We are here because we have done this as a collective and that’s a fact. People like you who are willing to have the conversation in public around the water cooler, around the dinner table, that’s why we are here. I play a role in that, but so do you and frankly so does your audience, and so do a whole lot of other people. So again, I appreciate that, reality, I can’t accept all the credit for that. That goes to a lot of you.
Alan Steinfeld
I’m also glad you have Danny Sheehan on your side. I think he is the number one guy who knows what’s going on here on the legal side.
Luis Elizondo
Well, he’s a very tenacious attorney, and when you look at what he’s been able to do from things such as Pentagon Papers, Silkwood and Oliver North and all these other things. These are historical moments in time for our country. Sheehan has been right there on the front lines.
Alan Steinfeld
And I think he’s going to do a great job with you and maybe push this forward. Okay. Byron, did you have a question for Luis Elizondo?
Byron
Sure. Hi, Luis. Byron Belir, nice to speak to you again.
Luis Elizondo
Hey, Byron. Good to talk with you.
Byron
Likewise, likewise. So welcome to Clubhouse. One of the things I wanted to mention a few weeks ago there was this long marathon room that Eric Weinstein had created concerning the New York Times article in the run up to the DNI report. And there were maybe upwards of a thousand people in this room, Lou. And there were a lot of folks that were like heads of astrophysics departments and a lot of folks from the academy, scientists. And I noticed that the scientific community in some instances is having a rough time metabolizing these kind of changes and this new information that has really started to come out since December 2017 when ATIP was revealed and when you came out. One of the things that the scientists are suggesting is that the data that’s in the public sphere is just so limited and fuzzy blur. And there’s never really been an exhaustive analysis of the data. And I just wanted to ask you, when you were part of ATIP, could you speak to the number of analysts and scientists and the kinds of minds that you had access to and analyzing this information? Just to kind of set the record straight because…
Luis Elizondo
Yeah. Well, first of all, let me say empirically that the videos that you see now are probably some of the least compelling videos that we had access to. These are the ones that could be released fairly easily because they didn’t provide any sources and methods. Look, we’ve got videos that are extraordinarily compelling and the fact that Congress is now taking this seriously should be an indicator that these videos have been provided to some of those members. So if you’re looking at just a couple fuzzy grainy videos and you’re trying to make a conclusion off of that, I hate to say it, but you’re mistaken. That was never the intent of those videos. Those videos were just provided to get the conversation going so you knew that your government was looking at this topic. It was never intended to be like, “Aha! There’s the silver bullet.” No, that’s the “aha, there’s the silver bullet that we’re taking it seriously.” But there’s other videos that are far, far, far more that have much more fidelity and far more compelling.
Alan Steinfeld
Can you describe those videos, Lou?
Luis Elizondo
I got to be careful, because I don’t want to reveal sources and methods. The government has not released those videos yet, for whatever reason that they have, and so therefore I have to honor that. But there are far more compelling videos, and yes, we had an entire inter-agency, if you will, group of people that were dedicated into trying to figure this out. This was a very significant issue, and those people are still looking at this topic. So again, I want to be careful and warn people, look, if you’re just looking at a couple videos online, you’re probably missing the point. There’s much more to this. And I think that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do here. And the government has become increasingly forthcoming. So the good news is that it’s working. Again, I have to be careful, but we had members from the entire intelligence community that were looking at these videos and providing the necessary expertise. And they’ve all said the same thing, that these things are real, and we don’t know what they are. They’re not artifacts of the camera, they’re not some sort of weird weather anomaly. These are real things, and these are real things that are in our atmosphere that we can record and we can measure. And that’s where we are right now in this conversation. Like I said before, look, we’re not at the beginning of the end of this conversation, we’re probably at the beginning of the beginning. And I know that’s frustrating for a lot of people, but again, part of the problem is that in the UFO community, they’ve kind of set themselves up for failure. Because they have for whatever reason come up with these preconceived narratives of what this is about, and the fact that it’s not falling neatly within some of those narratives is creating a little heartburn for some folks. What my recommendation would be is to just sit back, relax, settle down for a little bit, and let the conversation happen. This is not instant gratification and about satisfying people’s idle curiosity. This is a conversation that includes national security. This is a conversation that includes perhaps one of the greatest enigmas that our species has faced since we crawled out of the cave.
Alan Steinfeld
You told Danny Sheehan, I mean he reported this, that he asked you “Is this really a threat?” and you said something like the higher ups don’t consider this a threat. So are we going to downplay this threat idea and go for more curiosity and exploration?
Luis Elizondo
The bottom line, if anything can interfere with our nuclear capabilities, for some people that’s a potential threat. Whether you agree with it or not, or I agree with it, is really rather immaterial. Because from a national security perspective, that is very much a potential threat. Now, let me state this for the record. There is a difference between a potential threat and hostile intentions, okay? So when I go to the airport and I board an airplane, there’s no real threat there. When I go to the airport and if I were to run on the tarmac to that same jet plane that I was boarding earlier, and I stand behind the jet engine, chances are there are some consequences that I have to deal with, right? I may lose my hearing. I may get burned by the jet engine, right? There’s a lot of things that aren’t necessarily intended to be a direct threat, but are indeed a threat. So this is why we need to look at this topic without trying to interject any type of preconceived narratives. I don’t think that’s helpful. I think what we need to do is let the facts and the data speak for itself. And if we can do that, then we’re going to get a little bit one step closer maybe to determining if this really is a threat or not.
Alan Steinfeld
Joe, did you have something to add on to that?
Joe
I do. I am actually one open to threat or non-threat, I have no idea. On that angle, in the ATIP slide, infamous slide nine, it says, “The science that exists for an enemy that can manipulate both physical and cognitive environments and influence decision makers.” So what are they talking about there, influence decision makers? And if they can manipulate cognitive environments and affect our perception, shouldn’t I be a little concerned about that?
Luis Elizondo
Well, sure. But I wouldn’t read too much into it. Look, there’s all sorts of ways to influence decision makers. The mere fact that we have tier one adversaries that have nuclear capabilities, don’t think for one second that they’re not influencing our decisions, they are, just like we are influencing decisions by other countries because of our capabilities. And that’s important, right? So influence isn’t necessarily a spoken word. Influence can be yielded multiple ways. And I think it’s important that when you look at a slide like that, you look at it in the context of what we’re saying. Look, if you have this beyond next generation technology and you have the ability to literally do barrel rolls over our best, most capable capabilities we have in our inventory, that’s influence. That’s real influence to our decision makers. So without going into the slide too much and talking about that specifically, I think it’s important to recognize that influence can be yielded many ways. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a spoken word. It doesn’t have to be through some sort of conscious interface. There’s all sorts of ways that can happen.
Alan Steinfeld
I’ll ask one more question, bring some more people on. Are you as excited as a lot of us that this could be a breakthrough in technology, biology, cosmology? We are at the threshold of a whole new awakening. Is that exciting, I know you have to be careful, but does that really excite you about these possibilities?
Luis Elizondo
Well, yes. Both hopeful and cautiously optimistic, but also realistic, right? There’s been times in our society where we thought things were going to turn out a certain way and they didn’t. I think if there is technology being used by some sort of intelligence that is exponentially ahead of us, the opportunity for us to learn is monumental, right? So the last time we faced anything even in comparison to something like this was probably during the space race against the then Soviet threat, against the Russians. And it was a race to the moon. And as a result of that ten year period, over 6,200 life-changing industries were made. So products such as the LED light and the CAT scan that we use every day to save people’s lives. These are technologies that had its infancy in the NASA space program. So you can imagine if there’s technology out there that allows us now where space time is no longer a significant factor, that’s pretty huge. That’s pretty monumental. Can you imagine what lies ahead of us? The sky is the limit. But of course, with that comes the double-edged sword, right? Because, with nuclear power we have nuclear weapons, right? With any technology that we have today, it can always be used for bad things.
Alan Steinfeld
Right.
Luis Elizondo
The same fire that we used to light our campfires was used to burn people’s villages.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, technology is always a two-edged sword, but the potential is way beyond anything we discovered with NASA.
Luis Elizondo
It is. I mean, obviously that’s just an example, that’s a poor example to kind of paint a picture for you. I’m not sure we could even ever possibly really appreciate now what that potential is because it’s that far ahead of what we have today. How do you predict and how do you know what something’s going to be able to do for us until you get a chance to see it and exploit it?
Alan Steinfeld
I’m excited about it. That’s why I wrote about it in this book, Making Contact. This is a whole renaissance of possibilities that I think we could come into once this stuff is all out on the table and we could look at it and integrate it as a civilization.
Luis Elizondo
I agree. I agree. If we can avoid the temptation of using it for our own selfish purposes, which I’m not convinced we can. I don’t have as much faith in humanity because inevitably we always do dumb things when we’re given an opportunity.
Alan Steinfeld
Maybe we’re growing up.
Luis Elizondo
I hope so.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, no, I hope so too. Kyle, Did you have something you want to ask Luis Elizondo?
Kyle
Yes, first of all, thank you, Alan, for bringing me up. I appreciate it. And Lou, it’s an honor to be here with you. I really…
Luis Elizondo
Oh, my pleasure. No worries.
Kyle
I’ll skip a long preamble and just go to a one-sentence preamble if I could ask three questions. So, you were in the AATIP program from its start in 2007, and you were director of the program from 2010 to 2012. That’s my understanding. That’s correct?
Luis Elizondo
No, I was director till 2017. From 2010 to 2017.
Kyle
Oh, okay, that’s good to know. So, my questions: What can you tell us about the AATIP report that we don’t know already? That was a 600-page report, unless I’m mistaken. So that’s my first question. I’ll ask them all at once.
Luis Elizondo
Yeah, it was about 400. The executive summary was about 400 pages.
Kyle
Okay. What can you tell us about that? That’s my first. My second, what possibility is there that this report can be released, either in the near or longer-term future? And thirdly, what’s your reaction to the nine-page preliminary report? Those I think are the three most important. Number one, could you tell us about the AATIP report? What can you tell us about that 400-page report?
Luis Elizondo
Well, it was very compelling, but it wasn’t just about UFOs. It had a lot of other stuff from the AAWSAP program. And so, therefore, there was a lot of other ingredients involved in that 400-page executive summary to Congress. Some of it involved UAP, some of it did not involve UAP. So when people say the AATIP report, it really wasn’t the AATIP report. It included a lot of the elements from AAWSAP. Not good or bad, just it is what it is. They saw fit to include some of that data in there. As far as, will that report ever be released? I think it’s inevitable. I think it absolutely will come out. You know, either by hook or by crook, but I think at some point it will come out because simply just too many people have had access to it. So I don’t think… I think it’s probably one keystroke away from being released. Now, am I going to release it? No. Probably not, unless I’m allowed to. Now back to your last question. What do I think about this UAP unclassified report, the nine-page report that came out? I think it’s historic. I think it is, if you read between the lines and you know what you’re looking at, you will recognize this is really something monumental. First of all, let me start by doing a quick diagnosis, if you will, and triage of the document. This is an unclassified report of a much more comprehensive classified document. The very first couple words in the very first paragraph, our very first sentence, says this is a preliminary report. Meaning there’s other reports that are going to come out. So congratulations. Don’t look now, but you just won that hurdle. The government is taking this seriously. Two, there were 144 incidents and only one they were able to identify. So that’s 143 incidents. And when you look at the report, of course, the devil is in the details. You realize 99% of the reporting, all but one incident other than the Nimitz, were a result of incidents that occurred from November 2019 to today. So in a year and a half, you had 143 incidents involving primarily the US Navy. Not the Army, not the Coast Guard, not the Air Force, not the Marine Corps, just the Navy. And that was in a year and a half. And oh, by the way, they also say in the report that the majority of the reports go unreported because people are afraid of the stigma and taboo and retribution. So if you think to yourself that only 10% of reports actually got reported, that’s over 1,400 incidents that occurred in the last year and a half alone, only involving the Navy. Now, if that’s not a big deal to somebody, I don’t know what else is. I don’t know else how to tell you that this is a BF problem. It is a very big problem for us, a very big challenge. So that’s important. And second of all, if you look within hours of that report being released, what else was released? Well, there was a memo by the Deputy Secretary of Defense saying that we’re going to establish a long-term capability and we’re going to have a strategic plan moving forward on how to address these issues. You know, for being a short, pithy, nine-page report, I think there was a lot of data put into that report if you know how to read between the lines.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay. Great, great. Okay, I want to bring up Eric Weinstein. Welcome to the party, Eric. I saw your comment about coming late to the UFO party. Do you have a question for Luis?
Eric Weinstein
Well, hey Lou, good to be with you. Just here with a friend of yours, Dan Sheehan.
Luis Elizondo
Yeah, I was just gonna say, he talks very highly of you.
Eric Weinstein
And conversely of you behind your back, sir. No doubt. But what I wanted to say was just to lend support to you in that a close reading of that report goes in exactly the opposite direction of a casual and cursory reading of that report. I think that it’s much more important that people just know that this is what close reading was designed for. To read between the lines for what was written between the lines, rather than to take things at face value.
Luis Elizondo
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Eric Weinstein
You know, Edgar Allan Poe dealt with this in a story that isn’t much read anymore called ‘The Purloined Letter,’ in which you take the most valuable stuff, you crumple it up as a piece of paper that doesn’t matter to anyone, you throw it in a corner in the middle of the living room, and nobody bothers to look at it while they’re pulling apart the floorboards looking for the secret. And I’m pretty sure that in signature management, ‘other’ is another bin that if you look at it very carefully and you take the time to read the six pages that matter, it’s very clear what at least one of the authors of that report is because it looks like a report that is the result of a conflict between multiple authors.
Luis Elizondo
It is. It is. It is. And in fact, I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but one of the authors was one of my former deputies in AATIP. So I’m very familiar with how this report went down. A lot of the internal friction. Look, this is a report that was written by some folks who had an impossible job and an impossible mission. They were underfunded, under-resourced, and yet they did their best shot at it. And then all of a sudden, now it goes through the Department of Defense for a review, then it goes through the Director of National Intelligence for a review, and everybody la-di-da-di. And come to find out that there were a lot of offices that were never even contacted to write this report in the first place. So, this is a report that has been absolutely from the get-go full of challenge and fraught with stigma and it wasn’t easy to put out. And then on top of that, at the unclassified level, truth be told, I don’t know, I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know if I could have done that, to be honest with you, if I had the same task.
Eric Weinstein
Let me just say this. The way it reads on a close reading is, we are going to hide behind the fact that we didn’t have uniform reporting standards to pretend that everything before 2019 doesn’t meet the definition of scientific because of the lack of regularity. Ergo, can you guys please forget about everything before 2019? Don’t ask.
Luis Elizondo
Correct. Right. Correct. Mr. Weinstein, let me be very clear here. We have stacks, and I mean stacks, of historical US government reporting that was once…
Eric Weinstein
Lou, I… No offense, sir, but I don’t actually want you saying it because I can tell you that I have shut down every UFO conversation I’ve ever encountered until last year, because I can’t stand the topic. I found this was hokum and BS. And what I’m telling you is that you don’t need to say it. No question, but that that report was absolutely one of the most riveting things, but only when read closely.
Alan Steinfeld
Eric, I think he does need to say it because I think Luis knows probably more as much as anyone.
Eric Weinstein
Sorry, Alan. Just to wrap up. I wanted to bring people into the room, and I also wanted to say that I don’t think Lou should be defending it. I think that we should recognize that we just aren’t reading these things closely like we used to anymore.
Alan Steinfeld
I agree. And it’s only a preliminary report. And do you think the 80-page that went to the Senate Intelligence Committee should be released, Lou?
Luis Elizondo
Well, of course I do. I think sunlight is the best antiseptic, especially regarding this topic. Look, your money paid for data through your taxpayer dollars that is owed to you. You paid for it. And I think it should, I do, I think it should be released to the American public. It’s your information. The problem is that decision’s not up to me.
Alan Steinfeld
No, but yeah, I mean, but you are compelled to come forward and we all appreciate that. Thank you, Eric, for being part of this. And I will interview sometime what changed your mind. Rodrick, do you have a question?
Rodrick
Yeah. Yeah, appreciate it. And thank you guys for bringing me up. And Lou, just great pleasure just being here with you as well. Being a UFO investigator myself and looking at some of the report, one of the main things that stood out to me was, well, first, let’s go back to Morgan Stanley. And I always say, follow the money, right? And, you know, Morgan Stanley has been telegraphing the new space economy, it’s going to be worth trillions of dollars. And then, of course, the very last line of the report, we need more money. Will this come into, are they kind of shying away from the black budget operations now and going to more the private sector? And is the money got something to do with it?
Luis Elizondo
Well, look, we’ve learned a long time ago that space and any other type of endeavor is usually… that type of competition usually brings innovation. And there are things that the government does very well, but even in the space race to the moon, we had to bring in the private sector to help us out. Just because they, through the laws of business, they understand how to do things more efficiently and faster than we do. They have less bureaucracy, less liability. So I’m not surprised at all that the private industry is being brought into this into the fold. The question that you ask, is it incentive for this topic of UAP? I don’t… If you talk to some of the major players in the private industry, they think this topic is hokey. They don’t even believe that the government even looked at this topic for a long time. I’m not going to mention names here, but that’s a fact. Some of these folks don’t support this endeavor. So I don’t think we’re there yet. Now, at some point in the future, could it happen? Yeah, absolutely it could. Once they get convinced that this is real and there’s potentially some sort of capital advantage, then that’s, you know, that’s kind of the law of capitalism anyways. That’s going to happen. But I don’t think it’s a motivation right now for us to begin looking into this. You know, the initial budget is paltry. Some would consider it budget dust by current standards of other platforms and capabilities that we invest in. Look, $22 million is a lot for maybe folks like you and me. But it’s not a whole lot of money for the US government. Again, that’s what we consider that budget dust. And so, if we really want to get to answers here, we’re going to have to spend a lot more money, just like the space race. And I don’t think it necessarily needs to be militarized. I think, you know, if we bring in folks like the National Science Foundation and some of these other Centers of Excellence on the civilian side, you know, we probably stand a pretty good chance of trying to figure this out without necessarily weaponizing, so to speak, this endeavor.
Rodrick
Appreciate you answering that. And I just had one other quick little statement or question. Now, would this also be more beneficial because they can avoid the FOIA, you know, now the Freedom of Information Act, if it’s in a private sector? And that’s exactly where I was headed.
Luis Elizondo
Well, that’s true. I mean, it shouldn’t be used to do that, but yes. I mean, it has been done before that FOIA, you know, if you keep it in the private sector, you may not necessarily get the information you’re looking for. In my opinion, that’s probably not the right way to do business because ultimately it’s going to catch up with you, and people are going to find out anyways. But, you know, yeah, that’s a problem we need to figure out. And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, if you spend a penny of government dollars to do something, then, my perspective is that it should not be FOIA exempt. But that’s certainly not up to me. And gentlemen, listen, forgive me for doing this, but unfortunately, my timeline is limited today. But what I would like to do, to offer to you, is sometime next week perhaps, come back for a full hour and address more questions and have this conversation.
Alan Steinfeld
Anytime. Luis, it is an honor to have you here. We are on Clubhouse sometimes six hours a day talking about this subject. So we could go on and on.
Luis Elizondo
Well, that sounds great. Like I said, I’d love to be part of that. There’s a lot going on right now and, you know, this is a topic that involves each and every one of us. I tell people that it involves us equally and yet differently. Just because of, you know, we’re human beings.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, I appreciate what you’re doing to push this forward into the public awareness. And it’s never… we’ve never gotten to this place before, so I think you are a big part of it. So I really appreciate that.
Luis Elizondo
Well, again, truth be told, a lot of that is a testament to the work you all are doing. You know, obviously, I’m just one voice. Maybe a little bit loud and obnoxious at times, but just because of people like you and your audience that are interested in this topic and are continuing to pursue it, I think is why we are where we are today.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, we haven’t let up for 74 years since 1947. This has been underground and now it’s finally reaching the light of day. So anytime you want to come back on this Clubhouse, you are welcome. And Drew will put us in touch. Thank you, Drew, for setting this up. And we have a couple of hundred in this room now, I think. So it catches on quickly. We got your back.
Luis Elizondo
No worries. Well, you know what, guys? We’re doing this all together, guys and gals. This is a group effort, you know? This has been a bit of a grassroots movement. You said at the beginning, this is a movement. I agree with you. I think we’re finally taking control of the topic and putting the power back where it belongs, which is to the populace. Let the people decide what this topic means to them and what we need to do about it as a nation. I agree wholeheartedly.
Alan Steinfeld
And we haven’t even mentioned the experiencer component. So that’s a whole other field that maybe we’ll get to at some point.
Luis Elizondo
Sure. Okay. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you Drew.
Drew
Yes. And Alan, if you can keep this room open for a little while after Lou leaves, we can continue the conversation like we always do so.
Alan Steinfeld
Absolutely. Great. Thank you.
Luis Elizondo
All right gentlemen, thank you so much and special thanks to everyone out there and your audience and of course Dan Sheehan and everybody else. Really appreciate it.
Alan Steinfeld
Thanks for being here.
Luis Elizondo
Yes sir, my pleasure. Take care.Okay. Thank you.
Alan Steinfeld
That is really, he says it’s up to everyone, but that is the guy who is center stage I feel in this disclosure momentum we are in. Anybody want to jump in here with a comment about what we heard? Jim, what did you hear? Jim?
Jim
Hi Alan, how are you doing today? Well, it was pretty exciting to talk to Luis even though he’s kind of vague points, but what did you get from that conversation? Without disclosing what you and I have been talking about in this room where there are probably 3,000 people. He talked about how it’s a grassroots approach, putting the power into the hands of the people. And that there’s a level of consciousness that’s developing throughout the world.
Alan Steinfeld
This is what Jim and I and a lot of other people are talking about. It’s great to have government come forward, but it’s really a people’s movement and it’s up to each one of us to go forward and tell as many people as we can. This is a reality and this is not science fiction and we have to wake up to the fact that we’re part of a bigger cosmos. Joe, did you get any new gems from this conversation, UFO Joe?
UFO Joe
No. I didn’t think there was really anything new. There was a couple of points where he mentioned he’s aware of the bodies, but he didn’t say he was confirming that. But when Lou talks about people being disappointed because we’re at the beginning of the beginning, I’m not one of those people. Obviously I want this to progress faster than it has. But Alan, we’ve been at this for so long. I started in ’96. So for me to see the progress now, it’s just like, I actually appreciate a little lull for the past week because there was so much information leading up to the report, nobody could keep up with it.
Alan Steinfeld
This is not the beginning of the beginning. This is sort of midway through the beginning because there’s so much to unfold and unpack in this phenomena. Just listen to Linda Moulton Howe’s Earth files and she will go into the depth of what the secrets of this government has with alien races that are already here. I didn’t want to ask Lou that question because it doesn’t sound like he’s even ready to talk about what he’s seen in those videos. But how about Priscilla? You were here from the beginning of the conversation. Did you learn anything today?
Priscilla
Yes. I had a really cool question about interdimensional travel because in a couple of his interviews he’s talked about the possibility of them being interdimensional beings or interdimensional consciousness.
Alan Steinfeld
So you would have asked what evidence does he have that this might be interdimensional?
Unknown
That’s actually true.
Priscilla
Yeah, I would have asked. The intergalactic stuff is all true and he does…
Alan Steinfeld
What do you mean it’s all true? I don’t know what that means.
Priscilla
It’s all true. There’s documents behind it. Also, there’s two interviews that stood out to me done by Lou within the past couple of months, maybe the past three or four months. One was done by Max Moszkowicz and he actually gets into a lot of the physics. He drew these amazing diagrams about why some people see spheres and then they morph into other things. And he threw out a theory about how the gravitational propulsion systems within the craft can actually make it appear that two craft are one and that’s why there are some of these blobby type shapes. And then in engaging the phenomenon’s interview, he was asked about what cognitive human interface was. And that’s on one of the slides. I can’t remember if it’s seven or nine or both of the AATIP slides. But he said the same thing. He said, doesn’t that sound like your CE5? He’s like, I normally don’t talk about CE5, but nobody’s asked me about CE5. So this is a human interfacing cognitively with an intelligent being. So I wanted to ask him, since there is the theory that interdimensional travel is on the table and we kind of know, I just wanted him to say, what physics do we have? And I have my own theories about that. What kind of physics do we have that would explain that for people to understand, for more people to understand and get on board? Because that’s the problem with the public, they don’t understand, so then they’re afraid. And if he can break it down in a way, and he’s really good at this, by breaking it down in a way that everybody can understand it, then I think more people will support the cause.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, you’re going to ask that question next time we’re back. So Drew, set that up for next week so Priscilla can ask that question. I would love to hear what he has to say about the physics of interdimensionality and the proof that such a phenomena actually exists. I think that’s really key to this phenomena. Who else has been here? Kyle, what would you have asked that we missed this time?
Kyle
You mean what 200 questions would I have asked? Well, the top two maybe. I would have been really interested to hear him talk a bit about how he got into the AATIP program, his early days in the AATIP program. I don’t believe he’s addressed that, at least I haven’t seen it.
Alan Steinfeld
Wasn’t he picked as just an intelligence officer because… was there more to it?
UFO Joe
He did speak about it. One of the interviews he did, a couple of interviews, one was with John Greenewald, he talked about the first day and how they came to visit him and they invited him to the office and he met the man that we now know to be James Lacatski, who headed up AAWSAP, who was the man who had the experience at Skinwalker Ranch which started everything. That’s a really good interview if you want to go back to the very beginning and how he met them and what he started doing. So yeah, he has spoken about it. The other thing about interdimensional. Alan, you were there when Daniel Sheehan and he said it so many times. On June 4th, Lou did a Zoom interview with the Associated Press. And they asked Lou, ‘Listen,’ Lou goes, ‘The chances that this is Russia or China is infinitesimal.’ And the guy Dan Huff, the reporter at AP, said, ‘Well, what do you think it is?’ And he goes, ‘We’re open to extraterrestrial and interdimensional.’ Go read the Associated Press report that they did on that. Not one mention of any of that. So that’s really a big deal. Because AP goes everywhere and they left out the most important thing that Lou said during that interview.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow. That is key. This interdimensional component is really at the source of this phenomena. That’s why they went from object to phenomena because it affects time, space, cognition. All these ramifications of what this is about. And he keeps hedging in a very kind of frustrating way what’s really going on.
Jim
Alan, I had a question for you and Joe. The experience that you guys have had in the field. One of the things I was struck by is the language in the DNI report, how in so many ways it’s identical to the 1947 Schulgen memo or the Twining memo, just in terms of what the government is willing to say is there, the performance of the craft, basically almost framing the five observables. Do you have any remarks on why you think even in the midst of this kind of swelling interest and the momentum of this topic how the government just really almost hits a brick wall and they can’t go past that wall with what they want to put in print?
Alan Steinfeld
Well, like he said, there’s many levels of government. So you get Marco Rubio, he says, ‘What? There’s stuff out there?’ And then you get people who are deep into this saying, ‘No, we can’t tell this.’ And that’s why they may have said Lou never even worked at AATIP or, so there’s many levels. I think there’s such a split inside that they’re scrambling for a unified narrative. That’s my feeling. Does anyone else have a feeling? Joe, do you have a feeling about that?
UFO Joe
Yeah, well, you have the group, he’s mentioned the people in there who are very, very powerful, from people I’ve spoken to, and they will do anything they can to just kill AAWSAP and AATIP. That’s what they were trying to do because a lot of them are evangelical Christian and they think this is demonic. And that went on back in the remote viewing program. Some of the same people tried successfully to kill that program. But then you also have Luis Elizondo in his interview with Richard Dolan said that a close colleague of his encountered this men in black type quasi-governmental group that would swoop in and grab UFO data and they would intimidate people. So if that’s true, and that came from Lou, and he said, ‘I never encountered them, but my close colleague did.’ So if that’s true, do they intimidate people in the government to shut up? I mean, I know that’s conspiratorial, and he said the same thing, but when he says it, I take note and I listen. So yeah, I don’t know why we’re stuck, but we definitely are stuck right now. We’re making progress, a little bit, but I don’t know how much.
Alan Steinfeld
I don’t think we’re stuck. It’s just like there’s such a big boulder to push. I think they’re sort of panicking and they haven’t have a narrative yet. What are we going to tell? It’s not a threat. Like Danny Sheehan told us, Joe, or somewhere he said. Danny asked Luis, ‘Are people concerned about this?’ And Luis said, ‘The higher ups aren’t concerned.’ Where did he say that? Because that was…
UFO Joe
He said that a few times. And you asked Lou about that, but Lou didn’t answer. So I don’t know. It’s like, and I am somebody who’s open, I was telling the other day, Whitley Strieber, one of the most famous experiencers out there, was doing an interview recently and he’s like, ‘I don’t know what we’re dealing with. It could be a threat.’ He goes, ‘Obviously they haven’t blown us up, but it could be a threat on the mental. If they’re influencing our thoughts, that could be a threat right there.’ So, but Lou seems, if Lou knows a lot and he doesn’t think it’s a threat, I definitely take that into consideration when I’m forming an opinion, and it’s only an opinion. But yeah.
Kyle
I thought there was value in how he characterized and contrasted threat versus hostile intent.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, I think we’re trying, I don’t think they know what’s really, Luis might know more than a lot of people, but he doesn’t have the deep stuff that seems like Linda Moulton Howe has dug up. Like if you look at the day after Roswell, Colonel Corso said we reverse engineered lots of material. So there’s levels here.
Kyle
Let me put it to you this way. Lou knows pretty much everything. Everything beyond what we know times probably a thousand, a thousand times. So it’s one of those things where the problem is is that he has to be very careful about how he speaks because of his security clearance. That’s the only reason. That’s the only reason why he takes his time to answer questions is because of the security clearance. If he didn’t have the security clearance….