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Pentagon Deletes Elizondo’s Emails

June 11, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jazz Shaw June 1, 2021 (hotair.com)

• Luis “Lue” Elizondo ran AATIP Pentagon UFO investigation program for a number of years before retiring in 2017 and taking his fight for an end to government UFO secrecy to the public. Throughout this process, however, his history with the Pentagon has been shrouded in secrecy and conflicting stories. Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough has repeatedly stated that Lue had “no assigned responsibilities” related to AATIP or anything to do with UAPs/UFOs. Meanwhile, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vouched for Elizondo’s role as the director of the Pentagon program.

• One of the most dogged researchers of government documents via the FOIA process, John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault, has been seeking answers that are few and far between. For years, Greenewald has been submitting FOIA requests seeking some of Elizondo’s old emails from his time at the Pentagon. Greenewald was repeatedly told that there were no records responsive to his request. Finally, he learned why could be no such emails – they had all been deleted.

• A responsive letter to Greenewald read: “After thorough searches of the electronic records and files of OUSD (I&S), no records of the kind you described be identified. Please note that e-mails of former Department of Defense (DoD) employees are not retained unless they are considered historical records and retained by the National Records Center. There are currently no existing e-mail accounts for Mr. Elizondo.”

• Now, two months after this responsive letter, the DoD has confirmed that all of the email records of a man who spent his career working on some of the most sensitive programs and operations in the entire government – a lot more than just the AATIP UFO program – were scrubbed by the Pentagon. Beyond confirmation of that, the DoD offers no official statement explaining or expanding on the situation.

• According to DoD protocol, even if Elizondo had been a DoD employee responsible for nothing more critical than tracking the maintenance of the copy machines at the Pentagon, his emails should have been kept for seven years before being destroyed. He retired only four years ago. Department emails of anyone that might be considered of “historic” significance should never be destroyed, but instead transferred to the National Records Center. Not only was Elizondo in charge of a secret UFO program, the office he worked out of dealt with matters as significant as the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the 9/11 mastermind.

• How in the world could Elizondo’s emails not be considered of historic significance? This is a smoking gun of a government cover-up although much of this story is still flying under the MSM radar. Does this have anything to do with the imminent Inspector General’s Office investigation of the DoD and what they’re doing in terms of UAP investigations?

• Inadvertent admissions Greenewald received from the Pentagon indicate that the email accounts were not scrubbed until sometime after he retired in 2017. So when did they do it? Who at the Pentagon has been trying to sully Elizondo’s reputation? Is Susan Gough tasked with more than just fielding questions from reporters? Is any of this legal? Will anyone go to jail? To keep up with the story, see Greenewald’s full article on The Black Vault website (see here), an accompanying video report (see below), and a follow up podcast interview of Elizondo by Greenewald on June 1st (see here).

Hang on to your hats because this is going to sound like something out of a Tom Clancy movie, but it’s absolutely real. If you’ve followed our coverage of the Pentagon’s secret UFO study program (AATIP) and the anticipated June 25th release to the Senate Select Intelligence and Armed Forces Committees from the UAP Task Force (unidentified aerial phenomena), you are already familiar with the name of Lue Elizondo. He ran AATIP for a number of years before retiring in 2017 and taking his fight for an end to government secrecy on the subject of UFOs to the public. That fight continues to this day.

All through this process, however, his history with the Pentagon has been shrouded in secrecy and conflicting stories that journalists have struggled to sort out. While officials no less high ranking than former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have vouched for Elizondo’s role as the director of the program and his extensive history working for our nation in counterintelligence, the Pentagon has appeared to try to discredit him. Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough (the only person in the entire DoD allowed to answer questions about AATIP, Elizondo or the UAP Task Force) has repeatedly stated that Lue had “no assigned

responsibilities” related to AATIP or anything to do with UAP. One of the most dogged

researchers of government documents via the FOIA process, John Greenewald jr. of The Black Vault, has been seeking answers ever since Elizondo’s name first popped up on the media’s radar. But answers were few and far between. This weekend we learned why and the reasons were shocking to even the most seasoned reporters covering the United States government and our military.

Greenewald had been submitting FOIA requests for years seeking some of Elizondo’s old emails from his time at the Pentagon, requesting any documents mentioning keywords, acronyms and phrases such as unidentified, AATIP, and AAWSAP (the program preceding AATIP), among many others. Each time the answer was the same. John didn’t receive heavily redacted documents lacking in interesting information as you might expect. He was told that there were no records responsive to his request. But this year he finally pried an answer from the Pentagon as to how there could be no such records. He wasn’t getting any of Elizondo’s emails because no such emails existed. They had been deleted. But as shocking as that sounds (and it is), there is much more to the story

than that.

“After thorough searches of the electronic records and files of OUSD (I&S), no records of the kind you described [Elizondo e-mails containing the word “unidentified”] could be identified. Please note that e-mails of former Department of Defense (DoD) employees are not retained unless they are considered historical records and retained by the National Records Center. There are currently no existing e-mail accounts for Mr. Elizondo. We believe that search methods were appropriate and could reasonably be expected to produce the requested records if they existed.”

Essentially saying the records were destroyed, The Black Vault reached out to clarify. The DoD has now confirmed nearly two months after they wrote the letter, that their final determination does equate to Elizondo’s emails being destroyed with no backup available. Beyond confirmation of that, they offer no official statement explaining or expanding on the situation.

What is unclear, is whether or not the deletion of these electronic records was authorized by protocol. To delete records such as these, set procedures followed by the agency called “record retention schedules” need to have certain prerequisites met in order to delete or destroy files.

54:15 minute “Inside the Black Vault” with John Greenewald on Lue Elizondo Emails
(‘The Black Vault Originals’ YouTube)

4:40 minute excerpt of Elizondo discussing intel failures on Tucker Carlson (‘TOOL BOSS’ YouTube)

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Pentagon’s Inspector General Launches Probe Into Handling of UFO Encounters

May 18, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Adam Keyhoe May 4, 2021 (thedrive.com)

• In April 2020, the US Department of Defense (DoD) ‘officially released’ three UFO videos captured by Navy aviators off of the US East and West Coasts, including the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO video from 2004, although they had been previously ‘unofficially’ released in December 2017. The DoD re-released the videos “in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos.”

• More recently, filmmaker Jeremy Corbell published “leaked” images of bizarre UFOs swarming US Navy destroyers off of Southern California in 2019. The DoD quickly ‘authenticated’ those images recorded by Navy personnel. Reporter George Knapp also recently published photos depicting a separate set of alleged UAP/UFO events that took place in recent years off the East Coast.

• Dod spokesperson Susan Gough said that the Navy UFO photos and videos were “provided to some web news outlets without following the proper procedures for authorized release of information.” Gough declined to comment on which outlets were “provided” with the information. Also, according to Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Michael Gilday, the DoD has provided no details regarding the context of these confirmed UFO videos. The UFOs remain unidentified and the underlying facts surrounding these UAP/UFO incidents remain extremely limited. Gilday did note that “there have been other sightings by aviators in the air and by other ships not only of the United States, but other nations – and of course other elements within the U.S. joint force.”

• According to Gough, no formal investigation has been opened into the unauthorized release of the UFO photos and videos. The DoD has further declined to comment on the context of the videos, or the accuracy of media claims that these videos depict advanced craft.

• This repeated pattern of unaccountability has raised concerns that these airspace breaches arguably constitute a major intelligence failure. The confusing and often controversial nature of these UFO sightings may also contribute to a delayed or muted response by relevant governmental agencies.

• In an attempt to clear up some of this confusion, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence requested a public report on these strange UFO encounters, which is to be released in June. The committee’s request specifically acknowledged a lack of a “unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena, despite the potential threat.”

• On May 3, 2021, the apparent lack of seriousness surrounding this topic, as well as the lack of support in terms of Pentagon resources and expertise, prompted the DoD’s Inspector General to announce that it is opening an ‘evaluation’ into “the extent to which the DoD has taken actions regarding unidentified aerial phenomena”, i.e.: UFOs. The notice gives various organizations within the US military, including multiple entities in the US Intelligence Community, five days to designate a senior individual as a point of contact.

• The commands on the Inspector General’s list include the US Central Command, US Northern Command, and US Special Operations Command. However, the list does not include the US Indo-Pacific Command, which has seen unusual incidents involving unidentified aircraft in recent years.

• It is unclear whether the Department of Defense Inspector General’s evaluation will impact the timing of the release of the Senate Committee report. Hopefully, in the coming months the public will learn more facts about the UAP/UFO issue and the DoD’s response to it, or lack thereof. If new insights do not surface from the Senate report, they may well come from the DoD’s Inspector General’s report.

The Department of Defense Inspector General issued an announcement yesterday

that it is opening an evaluation into “the extent to which the DoD has taken actions regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).“ Importantly, the announcement specified an evaluation rather than an investigation, likely framing the inquiry in terms of policy instead of specific allegations of wrongdoing. The notice gave various organizations within the U.S. military, including multiple entities that are also members of the U.S. Intelligence Community, five days to designate a senior individual as a point of contact.

The distribution of the list notably includes the commanders of U.S. Central Command, U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Special Operations Command. The list does not however include other combatant commands, such as U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which has seen unusual incidents involving unidentified aircraft in recent years. The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General could not be reached for comment on why only some commands were included.

**sphere ‘transmedium’ UFOs off of the East Coast in 2019, released by George Knapp**

The Inspector General’s announcement comes at a time when this issue is receiving

**‘pyramid’ UFOs seen off of West Coast in 2019, released by Jeremy Corbell**

high-profile media attention. The War Zone team has covered this topic for several years, including a recent story concerning a bizarre incident involving unidentified aircraft swarming U.S. Navy warships off the Southern California coast. Since our story, filmmaker Jeremy Corbell published leaked photos and videos apparently connected to the event. The photos and video were quickly authenticated by the Department of Defense as being recorded by Navy personnel, but no details regarding their context have been confirmed by the Pentagon. Reporter George Knapp also recently published photos depicting a separate set of alleged UAP events that took place in recent years off the East Coast.

Asked by The War Zone about the circumstances surrounding the apparent leak, Department of

Defense spokesperson Susan Gough told us that the photos and video were “provided to some web news outlets without following the proper procedures for authorized release of information.” She further stated that the Department of Defense concluded that confirming the cockpit photographs and night-vision video were taken by Navy personnel would “reduce public misperceptions regarding their authenticity.” Gough declined to comment on which outlets were “provided” with the information.

It is interesting to note that the Pentagon used very similar language to Gough’s statemen when it officially released three controversial UAP videos, seen below, including one with the filename “FLIR” that shows an object that is now commonly referred to as the “Tic Tac,” in April 2020. “DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos,” a statement at the time read.

According to Gough, no formal investigation has been opened into the unauthorized release of the photos and videos. She further declined to comment on any questions regarding the context of the video, or the accuracy of media claims that these videos depict advanced craft.

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Pentagon Confirms That Leaked UAP Photos and Video Are Real

April 17, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Duncan Phenix April 9, 2021 (mysterywire.com)

• Pentagon spokesperson, Susan Gough, has confirmed the photographs and video released by George Knapp at Mystery Wire and Jeremy Corbell are real and were taken by US Navy personnel. (see previous ExoArticle on 2019 encounters here) The following statement was sent to Mystery Wire: “I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel.” (see videos below)

• “The UAPTF (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force) has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations. As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.”

• The Pentagon had first confirmed this to The Black Vault.

• [Editor’s Note] Mystery drones, spheres and flying pyramids. George Knapp’s I-Team on Mystery Wire along with Jeremy Corbell have collected the images and video of several UFO encounters by the US Navy in spring and summer of 2019. These videos were leaked by technicians compiling the UAP Task Force’s declassified UFO report requested by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and due July 25th.

UFO incidents start with mechanical objects photographed over the ocean off of Virginia in March 2019 by the crew of an F-18 jet in broad daylight. Night vision video shows a swarm of ‘pyramid drones’ and disembodied colored lights that buzzed US Navy battleships off of Los Angeles over several days in mid-July 2019. Also in the summer of 2019, the USS Omaha, an Independence-class littoral combat ship, took video of a small round ‘transmedium vehicle’ that flew over the ocean and then dove beneath the water.

MYSTERY WIRE — A Pentagon spokesperson has confirmed the photographs and

**‘transmedium sphere’ diving into the ocean**

video released by Mystery Wire and Jeremy Corbell this week are real and were taken by Navy personnel.

A Pentagon spokesperson sent Mystery Wire the following statement: “I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents

in their ongoing examinations. As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information

that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” – Susan Gough, Pentagon Spokesperson

The Pentagon had first confirmed this to The Black Vault.

3:33 minute video of Jeremy Corbell discussing 2019 UFO incidents (‘Mystery Wire’ YouTube)

18-second night vision video of flying pyramids off of LA in July 2019 (‘Mystery Wire’ YouTube)

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With the Passage of the IAA, Will We Get A UFO Dump From the Pentagon?

January 15, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jazz Shaw December 31, 2020 (hotair.com)

• Back in June, some big UFO news focused around a provision that was inserted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) that directed the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force to produce an unclassified report on what they know about UFOs. It directed that this report be released to the Senate committee within 180 days of the enactment of the IAA. Well, the IAA was included in the $1.4 trillion government funding package that was passed on December 27th along with a $900 billion COVID-relief fund. So the 180 day clock is ticking. So what can we expect to see when that clock runs out?

• Christopher Mellon is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and former staff Director of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee. Mellon played an integral role in the development of the committee’s UFO legislation. He points out that the UFO phenomenon enjoys the support of both parties in both Houses of Congress, and therefore it is more likely that some sort of report will be released. Any expectations of revelations of UFO incidents or discoveries under current investigation, however, are more unlikely.

• First of all, the Pentagon can respond by saying that they’ve not being given enough time and will need to postpone it – for a very long time. Second, this report specifically pertains to unclassified material. All of the juicy stuff will no doubt be deemed ‘classified’. Thirdly, back in September, after the Pentagon’s verification of the existence of the UAP Task Force, numerous reporters were contacting the Pentagon’s one and only spokesperson to handle UAP questions, Susan Gough. Gough began issuing a boilerplate refusal to any and all questions regarding details of UAP incidents under investigation. To wit: “To maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to our adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examination of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” You can rest assured they have zero intention of starting to discuss it publicly now. Short of the President ordering specific documents from the UAP Task Force declassified (document that they somehow already know about), it seems obvious that the Pentagon intends to keep a lid on all of this.

• The military and the intelligence community routinely overclassify information, covering virtually every area of interest, not just UFOs. And once they lock something down it requires a herculean effort to bring it back to light. I can’t see those channels in our government sweeping away more than 70-years of obfuscation and deception with one sweep of a new broom. While cautiously hopeful about the pending release of this report, I’m definitely not getting my hopes up.

A lot of news came out of that massive COVID relief bill with bazillions of dollars in other spending wrapped up in it. One item that didn’t draw nearly as much attention was the fact that the annual Intelligence Authorization Act was rolled in as part of that mess. The IAA is obviously a necessary bit of housekeeping that Congress has to take care of on a regular basis, but this year’s version was of particular interest to people in the ufology community. I wrote about this when the measure was drafted back in June, specifically focusing on the provisions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that made it so interesting to the saucerheads. It dealt with internal communications challenges for the UAP Task Force (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and directed the UAPTF to produce an unclassified report on their progress within 180 days of when the measure was enacted. Well, now it’s enacted. And as The Debrief pointed out this week, that means that the clock is ticking. But what should we really expect to receive when that clock strikes midnight?

“Now, with the recent passing of the Omnibus, the clock has officially started ticking, and The Pentagon’s

UAP Task Force has 180 days to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with their unclassified report detailing The Pentagon’s current investigations into UFOs.”

“The newly enacted Intelligence Authorization Act incorporates the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report language calling for an unclassified, all-source report on the UAP phenomenon. This was accomplished in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the bill,” says Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and former staff Director of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, who played an integral role in the development of the legislation.”

“Consequently, it’s now fair to say that the request for an unclassified report on the UAP phenomenon enjoys the support of both parties in both Houses of Congress,” Mellon told The Debrief in an email.”

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The Pentagon Has No Intention of Sharing UFO Information

September 24, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jazz Shaw September 10, 2020 (hotair.com)

• All of the UFO/UAP (‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’) news this summer created a considerable excitement in the air. Florida Senator Marco Rubio made an unprecedented request for a report from the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force. Most people, civilians and government officials alike, didn’t even know we HAD a UFO task force. Then the Pentagon came out and officially announced the ‘formation’ of the task force. Then the NY Times published an article alluding to additional programs and an acknowledgment of a government “crash retrieval program” that could be in possession of “off-world materials”. Heady stuff.

• Journalist Roger Glassel contacted Pentagon UAP spokesperson Susan Gough with some specific questions about the new task force. Ms. Gough provided answers in a professional fashion, but seemingly doused most hopes for some new era of government transparency on the subject.

• Question: Will the public be informed about any findings from the UAPTF of the nature and/or origins of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena? Answer: “[T]o avoid disclosing information that may be useful to our adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examination of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” (ie: “No.”)

• Question: Will the newly established UAP Task Force look into other aspects of the nature and origins of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or will the UAPTF just look at the aspect of UAP being a potential threat to U.S. national security? Answer: “The Department of Defense established the [task force] to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP incursions into our training ranges and designated airspace. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAP incursions that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security. (ie: Pentagon is sticking to its position that they have no curiosity as to what these things are or where they came from, and are solely focusing on the potential national security threat, severely limiting the scope of what might be examined.)

• To summarize, the Pentagon’s UFO task force will take reports about UAP encounters if they might constitute a threat to national security and they promise to do a better job collecting and correlating such reports. But they won’t be releasing any of it for public consumption. The same goes for the Senate Intelligence Committee and the report the “requested”. That committee request may not even make it to the House bill, much less law. Furthermore, Congress hasn’t tied the request to any funding, so the DoD is under no obligation to comply. They can simply thank Congress for their input and proceed to ignore them, just as Ms Gough evaded the journalist’s questions.

• If there’s going to be any serious UFO disclosure it’s going to be up to the private sector and organizations such as Tom DeLonge’s ‘To The Stars Academy’, or whistleblowers like Luis Elizondo, or some high-ranking deathbed confessions – which the Pentagon can deny or obfuscate.

Some disappointing news on the UFO front came out this week, likely dampening the hopes of many people in the ufology community who have been eagerly looking forward to some sort of forthcoming disclosure from the government on this subject. As regular readers are already aware, there was considerable excitement in the air this summer following a number of revelations and surprising announcements on the topic of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). First we saw a request from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Marco Rubio, for a public report from the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force. This came as quite a surprise to people, including many in the government, who didn’t even know that we had a UAP Task Force.

That was followed by an official announcement of the formation of the task force by the Pentagon. After that, major newspapers such as the New York Times began digging into the subject, even raising the prospect of the potential disclosure of additional programs that might even include an acknowledgment of a government “crash retrieval program” that could be in possession of “off-world materials.

This led journalists in the ufology field to press the Pentagon for additional details. One such person was investigative journalist Roger Glassel, who contacted Pentagon UAP spokesperson Susan Gough with a number of specific questions about the new task force and its anticipated activities as they proceed to compile existing information on UAP encounters by the military and create channels for the collection of future reports. I first saw the article teased on Twitter.

The answers Roger received give us the disappointing news I alluded to above. Ms. Gough (which is pronounced “Goff,” by the way, as I only learned from her this week) provided Glassel with answers in a professional fashion, but seemingly doused most hopes for some new era of government transparency on the subject. Here are two of the key questions that produced bad news.

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Leaked Documents Show Pentagon Studied UFO-Related Phenomena

February 22, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by MJ Banias February 14, 2020 (vice.com)

• In 2017, The New York Times revealed the existence of $22 million dollar UFO investigation program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. Two months ago, however, a Pentagon spokesperson said that AATIP had nothing to do with UFOs. Now, newly leaked documents acquired by Popular Mechanics from Bigelow Aerospace (BAASS) show that the Department of Defense program did indeed concern UFOs.

• One BAASS report that appeared on an AATIP list investigated injuries sustained by people who experienced “exposure to anomalous vehicles.” The report mentions UFOs several times. However, the report’s author, Christopher “Kit” Green, told Popular Mechanics that the report does not refer to any non-human extraterrestrial technology.

• Another BAASS report from 2009 explored a vast assortment of strange phenomena including “physical effects” of unknown aerial phenomena (UAP); the “biological effects” of UAP encounters on biological organisms; a request for documents from the Air Force’s UFO investigation program, Project Blue Book; the mention of several UAP incidents, including violations of restricted airspace near a nuclear weapons facility; and that Utah’s infamous Skinwalker Ranch is a “possible laboratory for studying other intelligences and possible interdimensional phenomena.”

• Last month, the DoD spokesperson also stated that Luis Elizondo, who claimed to have run the AATIP program for the Pentagon, was not involved in AATIP. But an unpublished document received by Popular Mechanics alludes to his responsibilities under AATIP without mentioning Elizondo by name. Elizondo called this “vindication,” adding, “the truth always prevails.” Elizondo maintains that the Pentagon is still investigating sightings of and encounters with UAP under a different program.

• Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told VICE/Motherboard that the Pentagon will release a new public statement in the following weeks concerning the AATIP program, and Elizondo’s role in it.

Newly leaked documents show that the Department of Defense funded a study concerning UFOs, contradicting recent statements by the Pentagon.

In 2017, The New York Times revealed the existence of $22 million dollar UFO investigation program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. A twist came two months ago, however, when Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told John Greenewald—curator of the Black Vault, the largest civilian archive of declassified government documents—that AATIP had nothing to do with UFOs. Greenewald also wrote that the Pentagon told him that another program, the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program or AAWSAP, was the name of the contract that the government gave out to produce reports under AATIP.

In a new Popular Mechanics article, journalist Tim McMillan acquired documents from Bigelow Aerospace’s exotic science division, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, or BAASS, indicating that the organization did explore strange phenomena under the auspices of the AATIP program.

One BAASS report, leaked to McMillan by an unnamed source, previously appeared on a list of products produced under the AATIP contract “for DIA to publish” that was obtained via FOIA laws. The report was cited incorrectly on that list, but Popular Mechanics tracked down its author, who confirmed its authenticity. The report investigated “exotic” propulsion via injuries sustained by people who experienced “exposure to anomalous vehicles.” The text mentions UFOs several times.

“What can not be overly emphasized, is that when one looks at the literature of anomalous cases, including UFO claims from the most reliable sources, the extent and degree of acute high but not necessarily chronic low-level injuries are consistent across patients who are injured, compared to witnesses in the far-field, who are not,” the report states.

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Luis Elizondo Opens Up On Why the Pentagon Keeps Changing Its Story on AATIP and UFOs

January 25, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jazz Shaw January 13, 2020 (hotair.com)

• Since we first learned of the (Pentagon’s $22 million) ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’ (AATIP), we’ve been told that it was a Department of Defense study of UAPs/UFOs, which Luis Elizondo ran before leaving the Pentagon to join the ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences’. Both Elizondo and Harry Reid, the former Nevada Senator who initiated the Pentagon program, have gone on record confirming the UFO program and Elizondo’s role in it.

• Then more recently, DoD spokesperson Susan Gough backtracked saying that Elizondo was not involved with AATIP. Even stranger, Elizondo didn’t come forward to defend his statements. Said Elizondo, “There are elements in the Pentagon that are seriously upset with me for me ‘breaking rank’ in their eyes.” “I think (this disinformation is) a vendetta by a few in the Pentagon. But I think we will all know the real reason this year.”

• In a recent interview with John Greenewald of The Black Vault, Elizondo broke his silence stating, “As the senior ranking person in the AATIP program, I was ultimately responsible for ensuring the efficient and effective operations …performed by the outstanding men and women we had working in the program. My job was primarily to fend off the distractions so the rest of the team could do their job. …This includes fighting for resources, support, and personnel.”

• So why would Susan Gough keep insisting Elizondo wasn’t involved? Was the Pentagon deliberately and knowingly lying about Elizondo? Or was it a case of the DoD having lost the accurate records, as Gough has said? Elizondo suggests that this may have been a case where some in the Pentagon made “a deliberate attempt to confuse, hide, and conceal the truth.” Given the Pentagon’s casual relationship with the truth on this subject, that’s not so tough to believe.

• Toward the end of the interview, Elizondo refers to the recent admission from the Navy that there is at least one more, longer video of the tic-tac UFO encounter – something the Pentagon has repeatedly denied. “I am happy with the fact that recently some Navy former senior officials have come out and admitted there were more videos (of) greater length,” said Elizondo. “Also the Navy’s admission about the reality of UAPs and the fact they are creating new (UAP reporting) policies. … (This) is definitely a step in the right direction. I am not sure I can take credit for it but I like to think I played a small part in it.” “[I]t makes me feel a little vindicated.”

• Elizondo is still under an Non-Disclosure Agreement and doesn’t want to lose his security clearance, so he can’t say more. But perhaps he’s let something slip here. When referencing the “thousands of documents” related to the AATIP program that haven’t been cleared for release, he mentions “videos”… plural. There could be many UAP videos in the Navy’s possession from other incidents, but no one has filed a FOIA request for them. Still, Elizondo is confident that we will see a major disclosure of UAPs/UFOs by the Department of Defense this year.

One of the repeating themes we’ve run across in our coverage of the ongoing story of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)

and the search for information about UFOs/UAP is the disconnect between what the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) has said about Luis Elizondo and what the Pentagon has had to say about him. If you ask TTSA, Harry Reid (who requested the program initially) or Elizondo himself, he ran the program. If you run the question by the Pentagon, specifically spokesperson Susan Gough, Elizondo had “no assigned duties” in the Defense Intelligence Agency and was not involved with AATIP.

So what’s with that disconnect? It’s a question I asked early on when researching this subject and never found a convincing answer. And the fact that Elizondo himself never seemed to come forward to defend his statements made it seem all the more strange. But now he’s broken his silence. In an interview with John Greenewald at The Black Vault, Elizondo tackles that question and many others. There’s no new documentation coming out of this interview (at least not yet) but at least we get to hear his side of the story. I’m going to include a couple of the more interesting snippets from the interview here, but if you have any interest in the subject I would suggest you click through and read the entire thing for yourself.

First of all, what does Elizondo say his role in AATIP was?

“As the senior ranking person in the AATIP program, I was ultimately responsible for ensuring the efficient and effective operations of the overall effort. However, in fairness, the lion’s work was performed by the outstanding men and women we had working in the program. My job was primarily to fend off the distractions so the rest of the team could do their job. In essence, my job was to catch the proverbial bullets so our folks could do their job without distraction. Not an unusual role for the senior person in any program to assume. This includes fighting for resources, support, and personnel.”

So if that’s the case, how does the Pentagon get the story so wrong? Why would Susan Gough keep insisting he wasn’t involved? Elizondo mentions that he’s kept quiet about this in the past primarily because he was threatened with having his security clearance taken away when he first came out with TTSA and he doesn’t want to lose it. But now he feels he needs to set the record straight.

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The Navy Has a Secret Classified Video of an Infamous UFO Incident

January 22, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by MJ Banias January 10, 2020 (vice.com)

• In response to a FOIA request submitted by Christian Lambright, the US Navy says that it has ‘briefing slides’ that are classified TOP SECRET and videos classified SECRET, under Executive Order, pertaining to the “Nimitz Encounter” ‘Tic Tac’ UFO video taken in 2004 off of San Diego (see 2:45 minute video below) and two other UFO videos taken off of the East Coast in 2015, which were released to the public in late 2017 and early 2018. The Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these newer materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States.

• But the Navy also possesses a video classified SECRET for which the Office of Navy Intelligence is not the Original Classification Authority. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told Motherboard “The Department of Defense, specifically the U.S. Navy, has the video. As the Navy and my office have stated previously, as the investigation of UAP sightings is ongoing, we will not publicly discuss individual sighting reports (or) observations.” “We do not expect to release this video.”

• Last November, Popular Mechanics reported that several original witnesses of the Nimitz incident saw a longer, higher resolution video of the UFO encounter. A Petty Officer who served on the USS Princeton (part of the USS Nimitz carrier group), Gary Voorhis, said that he “definitely saw video that was roughly 8 to 10 minutes long and a lot more clear.” However, Navy pilot Commander David Fravor has stated that the longer video probably does not exist.

• Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon staffer who ran the Pentagon’s ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’(AATIP), resigned in 2017, and along with ‘To The Stars Academy’, was instrumental in releasing the ‘Tic Tac’ and the other two UFO videos, said that due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement he made with the government, he was “not able to comment further on the existence of a longer video”. But Elizondo did say that “people should not be surprised by the revelation that other videos exist and at greater length”

• Luis Elizondo remarked that straightforward messaging does not seem to be the Pentagon’s strong suit. In (December) 2017 the New York Times ran the story about the $22 million AATIP Pentagon UFO program which Elizondo ran. The Pentagon has repeatedly changed its story since then. In September of 2019, the Navy confirmed the videos contained footage of “unknown aerial phenomena”. Last month, a Pentagon spokesperson said that AATIP had nothing to do with UFOs. “The Pentagon has a long history of sometimes providing inaccurate information to the American people,” says Elizondo. “I can only hope that the inconsistent message is due to the benign results of a large and cumbersome bureaucracy and not something more nefarious like a cover-up or deliberate misinformation campaign.”

The Pentagon has Top Secret-classified briefings and a Secret-classified video about an infamous UFO incident, the U.S. Navy said in response to a public records request.

The files concern the 2004 encounter between the USS Nimitz and strange unknown aerial objects. In 2017 and 2018, three videos of bizarre aircraft taken by Navy pilots from their fighter planes made national news. In December 2017, The New York Times ran a story about Navy pilots who intercepted a strange object off the coast of San Diego on November 14th, 2004, and managed to shoot video of the object with their F-18’s gun camera. In September of 2019, Motherboard reported that the Navy confirmed the videos contained footage of “unknown aerial phenomena.”

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent by researcher Christian Lambright seeking more information on the incident, the Navy said it had “discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET. A review of these materials indicates that are currently and appropriately Marked and Classified TOP SECRET under Executive Order 13526, and the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States.”

“We have also determined that ONI possesses a video classified SECRET that ONI is not the Original Classification Authority for,” the letter continued.
Motherboard independently verified the FOIA response with the U.S. Navy.

“The Department of Defense, specifically the U.S. Navy, has the video. As Navy and my office have stated previously, as the investigation of UAP sightings is ongoing, we will not publicly discuss individual sighting reports/ observations,” Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, told Motherboard. “However, I can tell you that the date of the 2004 USS Nimitz video is Nov. 14, 2004. I can also tell you that the length of the video that’s been circulating since 2007 is the same as the length of the source video. We do not expect to release this video.”

2:45 minute FLIR1 ‘Tic Tac’ UFO video from 2004 (‘To the Stars Academy’ YouTube)

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Pentagon’s ‘Real Men in Black’ Investigated Tom DeLonge’s UFO Videos

January 4, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Listen to “E211 Pentagon's 'Real Men in Black' Investigated Tom DeLonge's UFO Videos” on Spreaker.

Article by Tim McMillan December 20, 2019 (vice.com)

• For the first time, spokesperson for the Secretary of Defense’s office of public affairs, Susan Gough, revealed that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations conducted an investigation of the two Navy videos, “Go Fast,” and “Gimbal”, that were captured off of the East Coast by Navy cockpit video in 2015. These two videos were released by the New York Times in 2017 along with a third FLIR1 ‘Tic Tac’ video taken by Navy fliers off of the coast of San Diego in 2004. Tom Delonge’s ‘To the Stars Academy’ were instrumental in releasing these video. (see videos below)

• While the Air Force’s Special Investigations affirmed that the “Original Classification Authority” for the UFO videos was the U.S. Navy and that Navy retains custody of the source videos, the Air Force also confirmed that the videos were not classified.

• For many in the UFO community, this comes as especially significant considering the nefarious history of the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) when it comes to UFOs. Federal statute gives the AFOSI authority outside of the traditional military chain of command to conduct criminal investigative, counterintelligence, and protective service operations worldwide for the entire Department of Defense. Many consider the AF Special Investigators to be the original “Men in Black”.

• The AFOSI is notorious for seeding disinformation and denial of UFOs since the 1940’s. A 1997 CIA study (see here) detailed how in the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA and AFOSI promoted UFOs to cover up the then-classified U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance planes. The agencies claimed that half of the UFO sightings back then were of top secret military spy planes. “This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public…”

• It was the Air Force that conducted the only official investigation into UFOs with Project Blue Book in the 1950s and 60s. One of the most famous examples of Air Force deception is former AFOSI agent Richard Doty who admitted to seeding a cornucopia of misinformation on UFOs in the 1980s in an attempt to safeguard classified UFO technology.

• For over a year, the DoD admitted to investigating UFOs under the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Last September, the Pentagon announced that all UFO matters would now be handled by the Under Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs office. Enter Susan Gough who then changed the DoD’s position, saying that the AATIP was not related to UFOs after all, but rather it investigated advanced aerospace weapons systems and future technology projections of adversarial Earth-bound foreign nations, “… to create a center of expertise on advanced aerospace technologies”.

• [Editor’s Note] It appears that the U.S. Air Force is still playing games, denying that the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program had anything to do with UFOs. Now the Air Force has established a public relations office charged with disseminating more disinformation.

And by the way, if you read the entire article, Ebens are not the same as Greys. Ebens are a highly advanced species from the planet Serpo who retrieved one of their own from a UFO crash in the 1950’s, and then worked with government and military officials to organize a cultural exchange to send a dozen Americans to Serpo in the 1960’s, with most of them returning to Earth in the 1970’s. On the other hand, Greys are highly sophisticated android beings that typically make contact with Earthlings on behalf of their creators, the negative Arcturian Blonde Nordics that are allied with the Draco Reptilians. The two alien species look somewhat similar, but are distinctly different beings.

Since reports first surfaced in 2017 that the U.S. Navy had been encountering UFOs, the Air Force has been remarkably quiet when it comes to mysterious objects that may be flying around the skies.

Given the Air Force is America’s principal aerial and space warfare branch, and in the 1950s and 60s it conducted the

only official investigation into UFOs with Project Blue Book , many UFOlogists have found the Air Force’s recent aversion to discussing the topic to be particularly odd especially when considering that the Navy has been rather vocal on the issue.

Yet after months of deafening silence, in an official statement, the Pentagon suddenly throw the Air Force into the mix with recent UFO reports. More excitingly, it also mentioned one of the most notorious agencies in all of UFO lore.

Susan Gough, a spokesperson for the Secretary of Defense’s office of public affairs, said the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations looked into the release of two videos originally filmed in 2015.

According to the DoD, the objects shown in these videos, originally released by Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy, are considered “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” or “UAP.”

“The two 2015 videos appeared in the New York Times in December 2017. At that time, AFOSI conducted an investigation, focusing on the classification of the information in the video,” said Gough.

Gough’s mention of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations looking into the popular “Go Fast,” and “Gimbal” videos is intriguing given it appears to be the first time the Pentagon has revealed the Air Force has indeed been involved in the Navy’s UFO encounters.

For many in the UFO community, this comes as especially significant and concerning news considering AFOSI has a long and nefarious history when it comes to UFOs, with many claiming AFOSI are the “real men in black.”

1:08 minute US Navy ‘Gimbal’ UFO video from Jan 20, 2015 (TIME YouTube)

36 second US Navy ‘Go Fast’ UFO video from 2015 (USA TODAY YouTube)

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Pentagon: Our Secret UFO Program Wasn’t About UFOs

December 19, 2019
ExoNews Editor

Listen to “E192 Pentagon: Our Secret UFO Program Wasn’t About UFOs” on Spreaker.

Article by Jazz Shaw December 7, 2019 (hotair.com)

• On December 6th in an email to John Greenewald’s ‘Black Vault’ website, Pentagon spokeswoman, Susan Gough, wanted to ‘correct the record and clear up some inaccuracies’. Now the Pentagon is saying that neither the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) nor its progenitor, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) were related to investigating UFOs.

• According to the Pentagon’s email, “Neither AATIP nor AAWSAP were UAP related.” “The purpose of AATIP was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapons system applications with future technology projections over the next 40 years, and to create a center of expertise on advanced aerospace technologies.” This announcement comes after two years of constant media buzz following the bombshell announcement in December of 2017 that the Pentagon had been investigating UFOs.

• Either the Pentagon or the people at To The Stars Academy (specifically Luis Elizondo) are lying. TTSA has consistently claimed that Elizondo not only ran the AATIP program but that it definitely involved investigating UFOs. In fact, Elizondo said he left government service because of his frustration over the slow pace of those UFO investigations. But Susan Gough has previously stated that Elizondo wasn’t even involved with AATIP.

• Elizondo is given the benefit of the doubt here because it’s the Pentagon that’s been changing their story. They’ve been telling reporters for two years now that AATIP was created at the request of Harry Reid to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena. Then the Navy came out and affirmed that the objects in those three famous videos were indeed UAPs because they had no other clue what they were.

• Two possibilities come to mind. The first is that the DoD has grown uncomfortable with how close TTSA and others are getting to uncovering the truth about UFOs and have decided to shut down any sort of “disclosure”. The other possibility is that the Pentagon is aware of these UFOs belonging to secret military programs in the US, China or Russia. But this is unrealistic because it would require an unimaginable leap in technology that most scientists don’t think possible. Until the government offers any further clarification, this just doesn’t add up.

After two years of constant media buzz following the bombshell announcement in December of 2017 that the Pentagon had been investigating UFOs (or UAPs, as they prefer to call them now), the government dropped another bombshell yesterday. Or perhaps we should call it a “curveball,” as John Greenewald jr. of The Black Vault described it. According to a Pentagon spokeswoman I’ve also worked with in the past, neither the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) or its progenitor, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) were related to investigating UFOs.

Claiming they want to correct the record and clear up some inaccuracies, the Pentagon now says AATIP was not a UFO or UAP program.

“Neither AATIP nor AAWSAP were UAP related,” said Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough in an e-mail to The Black Vault. “The purpose of AATIP was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapons system applications with future technology projections over the next 40 years, and to create a center of expertise on advanced aerospace technologies.”

Since 2017, details have been scarce. However, the DoD’s latest position that AATIP wasn’t a UFO program, seems to represent one of their most dramatic about-faces on the issue since the program was first revealed.

This caused quite the stir in the ufology community last night as you could probably imagine. Some were pointing out that the language used in Gough’s email seemed carefully worded and left some wiggle room for them. It was noted that the phrase “foreign advanced aerospace weapons system” is somewhat ambiguous because “foreign” simply means “not from the United States” in this context, and that could extend to the rest of the universe, not just “foreign countries” on Earth. But that would seem to be in direct contradiction to the opening statement saying that neither program was “UAP related.”

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Tag: Susan Gough