John Greenewald: In October of 2017, this counter intelligence
officer and train Special Agent by the name of Luis Elizondo
stepped out of the shadowed halls of the Pentagon and in to
the public spotlight, whether he intended it or not. By doing so
he would become an instant celebrity to UFO enthusiasts for
saying something that would soon shake the entire world.
Luis Elizondo: For nearly the last decade, I ran a sensitive
aerospace threat identification program, focusing on
unidentified aerial technologies. It was in this
position, I learned that the phenomenon is indeed real.
John Greenewald: Within minutes of speaking these words, the
black vault use this once insider information to file
numerous Freedom of Information Act requests to see what
documents could be dug up. The idea was that in the eyes of the
law, if this former government agent was talking about it, then
the documents may just be right for the picking, if one were to
ask for them. So that's exactly what I did. This unfolding saga
brought me hope that after more than 20 years of pushing for the
truth, the veil of secrecy surrounding the UFO phenomenon
might just be lifting once and for all, and things were
drastically changing. Ever evidence of that change was
revealed just two months after Elizondo stepped foot on that
stage. That is when the mainstream media covered
Elizondo, along with his story, and it became a viral sensation
all over the world.
CNN News Anchor: Right now the former Pentagon military
officials who ran the covert government program up until this
last November, Luis Elizondo, we thank you so much for your time
tonight
George Knapp: Until he stepped out on stage last October
alongside rock star Tom DeLonge. And other former government
insiders that most of the world had never heard of Luis
Elizondo, which is how he liked it.
John Greenewald: But as excitement exploded worldwide
about this secret Pentagon UFO study known as the advanced
aerospace threat identification program, or a tip, controversy
had already begun to percolate inside the black vault about
what was really going on. Just three weeks prior to the New
York Times running there now world famous headline, the
Pentagon told the black vault they had no records on any
program that Elizondo had described, not a single piece of
evidence whatsoever. A couple months after that, the Navy
denied they gave anything to the a tip program, despite what
Elizondo had claimed. And then, just months after that, the
Pentagon issued a statement that was the most damning of all.
They claimed that Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities on
the a tip program that he had brought into the spotlight. As
the months and years passed since the initial headlines, the
black vault became highly critical of Elizondo his claims.
This is not a popular stance to take, and a social media can
easily prove that type of stance can come with a little bit of
heat. But it wasn't just Elizondo on the receiving end of
criticism. The Pentagon and the entire US government has had a
history of covering up UFO data for decades. And it appeared
that's exactly what they may be doing again. But to what extent.
My guest today is the man who started it all, Luis Elizondo
himself. Despite the black vaults criticism, and admittedly
the nitpicking of every single detail in order to find the
Absolute Truth. Elizondo has agreed to step into the vault
and share his side of the story in a special one on one
interview. Stay tuned. You're about to journey inside the
black vault.
That's right everybody. As always, thank you so much for
tuning in and making this your podcast or your live stream of
choice. I'm your host john Greenwald, Jr. And to say that I
am well beyond excited about the next hour or so. That would be
an understatement. I've been looking forward to doing this
with my guessed doing a sit down for quite some time now, I guess
approaching probably about three years. And he has been nothing
but gracious and a gentleman despite my high criticism and my
skepticism about some things that have come out, I don't want
to waste any time I want to bring on to the show Mr. Luis
Elizondo, I really on behalf of everybody watching and
listening. Thank you for taking the time today to talk to all of
us.
Luis Elizondo: Well, john, thank you, I appreciate it very much.
You know, I certainly appreciate your audience as well. And I
don't say this frivolously. And I've told you this before
privately, you have managed to do things in this this arena
that very few other individuals have have ever been able to
accomplish, particularly your working employer. You know, for
those who may not know, for you a Freedom of Information Act was
enacted in order to ensure transparency for the American
public and to government workings, if you will, because
in the past, there had been some some issues with that where the
government may have overstepped its its authorities and as a
result, so Congress enacts FOIA process, and I think there has
probably never been anybody who has sat who has been as savvy in
the FOIA process than you. So thank you also, for what you do,
it's sincerely appreciated. I know not just for folks like me,
but on behalf of everybody out there. Your work over the past,
well, past few decades really has been been pretty incredible.
John Greenewald: I really appreciate those kind words, and
as my audience is already seeing, and I'll say it again,
despite that, that that skepticism from me, you have
always been that that gentleman and a scholar, you've always
been open to me. You've spoken to me on the telephone, and now
you're doing this. But But I want to return that respect to
you. And I hope everybody realizes that I've tried to say
that on social media, but also the fact that you're here. And I
want this as kind of a housekeeping note for those
listening and watching. I asked all my guests this and all of
them can attest to it. However, I did ask the same question to
you, which was, is there anything you don't want me to go
into? And you have never once told me even though I've asked
you quadruple check that through the last few months, as we've
set this up, you've never once said, Nope, don't go here. Nope,
don't go there, you've always said the same thing, which was,
everything's on the table. So My respect to you for that, and for
being here. And let's just kind of jump right right into it.
What I want to do and how I structured This interview is,
essentially take a chronological look at some of maybe some stuff
that you've already talked about, but also filling in the
holes, some questions may be a little bit sensitive, we might
get into some areas where you go, sorry, john, I'm going to
talk to you about that. And and, and so I'll apologize in advance
if I start pushing those buttons. But that's who I am, I
have to push them. So take me back to the beginning, if you
could, on how you became involved in a tip and exactly
how that came to be.
Luis Elizondo: Yeah, I'm gonna do that. And but before I do
that, john, let me also offer one one, Mia Copeland apology
also to you, and I'm not sure that, that we really ever had a
chance to address this. But the bottom line is that years ago,
you try, I tried to make myself as approachable as possible. And
years ago, I know, several years ago, you tried to reach out and
try to have a conversation with me. And unfortunately, that
message never got to me. And I want to apologize, because I do.
I do think we should have probably had this conversation
three years ago, and probably through every year after that as
well. And because that information never got to me.
Unfortunately, we never gave you a reply or response that you
deserved. And so I want to, I want to say here, and now I'm
really, really sorry, we never had a chance to do this earlier.
I think this conversation is a longtime company coming and I
really do appreciate sincerely your patience. Thus far, I
promise you it was not intentional on my part. I just
never knew you had even inquired to speak with me until after you
know, we actually talked the first time and you had said,
Hey, Lou, I've been trying to get ahold of you for, you know,
X amount of months. And, and I had no idea. So I want to
apologize here, you know, on air, just so you know, that was
never intention.
John Greenewald: Well, I appreciate that. No, you.
Somebody taught me a long time ago. You don't know what you
don't know. And there's no need to apologize but accepted
anyway. But I appreciate you pointing that out. Thank you.
Luis Elizondo: So back to at&t, how did I get involved? Let's
rewind the clock to about 2008. Now give you kind of the
synopsis of how all this evolved. I was working prior to
that at the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence. I was a senior intelligence officer working
policy strategy, things like that. To be quite frankly, frank
with you, the drive was killing me. I was living on Maryland's
Eastern Shore at the time, and you're looking at a three hour
commute one way. I love my job. I love the people, but the
commute was killing me. So at the time, it was then
Undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Jim Clapper was
over at the usdi. And he was the undersecretary of defense for
intelligence at the time, and a man I respected greatly. And I
was given an opportunity to come back to God for about a year to
to work some some new efforts, particularly in intelligence
sharing, law enforcement, information integration. And so
I came back very eager, because my, my daily commute was cut
about half all of a sudden, and I had my little bit more of my
life back. So I went back to God. And it was at that time, I
was working in the National Capital Region, NCR region,
where some people would come to my to my desk, we were working,
I wasn't in the Pentagon at the time, we were working at a
remote location, but still connected to the Pentagon.
And, you know, it's kind of bizarre because like out of out
of a movie.
These two people I still remember today very clearly from
what they were wearing, very nicely dressed. And I remember
someone knocking on the door and Mr. Elizondo, there's some
people here to see you, which is not uncommon, you know, you,
you're always working issues, so you're trying to fix things. So
sure, bring them on. And they came in, and they said, hey,
you're you're Luis Elizondo, and Yes. Can we talk to you? And I
said, Sure. And one of them shut the door behind my door. Okay.
This is probably not a good. You know, I often joke, you know,
what did I do now? Right? I probably upset somebody. And
they sat down. And they started to say, you know, hey, look, we
are part of the intelligence community. We're part of a
program, we're not going to tell you much about it. But do you
mind telling us a little bit about yourself? And I probably
was a little rude. I probably was a little bit standoffish.
But I don't particularly like talking about myself, especially
if I don't know who you are. And they start asking very pointed
questions, specifically about you know, we hear that your
your, your counter intelligence guy, we hear that you did some
background, before you have some background, in advanced avionics
and aerospace industry. Is that true? Yes. Do you mind sharing
with us? I said, Well, I'll share with you at the
unclassified level, the type of systems I've worked on, but I'm
really not comfortable going into any more detail. It's a
long story short, they agreed to to, they would come back and
have another discussion with me. And so when they left, I ran
some trap lines to find out that they were legit, they were part
of a special program, but I didn't have clearance into it.
So I really didn't know. But they really were who they said
they were, they were part of a small organization. And I
presumed that the time had something to do with aerospace.
But I really didn't know. And then a couple more trips, they
came by we talked, got a little bit more comfortable. They got
more comfortable with me, I certainly got more comfortable
with them. And finally, they said we'd like to have you meet
our director. And I said, Okay, sure, no problem. It might have
been john, probably, seven or 10 days later, we had an
appointment to go meet that I was hoping the director would
come see me, I thought I was sufficiently senior enough where
you know, you want to come see me, you can come see me instead
of like, okay, be at this location at this time at this
place. And don't tell anybody, you're coming. So again, a
little bit unusual. I'm like, you know, I'm sorry, who are
you? So I decided to go ahead and do it. And I told my deputy
that time, hey, I'm going to go go to this meeting. I went to
it. And it was an undisclosed location, and also the National
Capital Region. look just like a normal office building, really,
until you go inside. And then you realize that you have, you
know, guards and whatnot, you're like, Okay, this is probably a
little bit more more sensitive. I remember going up the elevator
up to the floor, and it looked like it looked like an office
building you would see like on Wall Street, really, you know,
cubicles all over the place, and people kind of making copies and
doing work diligently on their computers. And there was just
corner office kind of looked like that. Well, last, you know,
the individual sitting back in there. And what struck me is
that the individual was I don't want to stereotype but if you
would ever think of what a rocket scientist looks like. He
was your quintessential rocket scientist glasses. You know,
very, very lewd, appeared very astute
and very, no nonsense. So I went I introduced myself should
contain, hey, glad you're here. He didn't smile. He was just
very serious. And he was mad. He looked at me, he was staring at
me. I felt almost a little uncomfortable because I know he
was assessing the hell out of me. And I was trying to assess
him as well. But obviously, he probably knew a little bit more
about me than I knew about him. Which is never really Good to go
into a meeting like that, as an intelligence officer, you know,
you're kind of one, if you will know thy enemy, not saying he
was my enemy by any stretch, but you know, you want one who
you're dealing with. And he introduced himself. And I'm sure
at some point, his name will become become very public I
have, I have a lot of respect for him. I've never mentioned
his name. He's asked me never to mention it. until he's
comfortable with with his name being out, so I won't. But we
talked, we had a very good candid conversation. And that's
when he asked me, I mean, started, he started with my
background in, in aerospace and the type of technologies I've
worked on. And you know, this is a guy who I really knew his
stuff. And he was like, literally a rock literally, by
definition, a rocket scientists, and probably one of the best
ones that we had in the government. And that's when, you
know, he asked me said, what do you what do you think about? No,
john, he looking straight in the face. And looking back, it was
so weird, because I wasn't sure if he was like, testing me, or
if it was legit, but he said, What do you think about the
topic of UFOs? Now coming from my world, you know, will to test
somebody, we will use provocative statements
sometimes, and then gauge their body language and, you know,
micro behaviors and neuro linguistics to see if, you know,
they're prone to, you know, flights of fancy and things like
that. And, but he wasn't listening very serious. And they
said, Well, I, I don't really think about UFOs This is what
you don't think they're real. I said, No, no, I didn't say that.
I just, I never really had the luxury to think about UFOs. You
know, I'm not particularly a huge science fiction fan. I
never really watched X Files or anything like that. And I've
been so consumed with my work that when I'm not working at my
home, and I'm a father, but those are really the only things
I ever have time for work, and which didn't involve anything at
all involved in the photos clearly, and, and raising a
family. So he said, Okay, that's, that's fair. And he
said, but let me let me just caution you, to caution you at
warning something to that effect, let me caution you that,
don't let your analytic bias get in the way. And he said, you're
gonna, you're gonna see things that you may not, you may have a
hard time reconciling. Now, at this point, I hadn't even
accepted it, I think hadn't been offered even really a job,
right? Yeah. I'm thinking to myself, are you? Are you just a
pitcher, you offer me a job, or this just is just just advice
for life, you know, to take with me and what the hell's really
going on here? So I've not ever had to know. But I've, you know,
very, very fair point, right? I don't really have an opinion yet
on it. And then we agreed, have another conversation. But he
said, Look, I'm looking for a counterintelligence guy. For
those in your audience who may not know what really
counterintelligence is, and a lot of people think they know
what CIA CIA is, is really knowing what the enemy knows
about you. Right? So so foreign intelligence collection is, is
learning what the bad guys know, counterintelligence is knowing
what the bad guys know about you. So if you think of a
chessboard, if you are playing chess against an opponent, you
know, foreign intelligence is knowing what their pieces can do
on the chessboard and how they plan to move. Counter
intelligence is knowing what they know about your pieces,
right, and how you can move. So it's yet another layer of
playing chess to some degree, I guess, you know, not any better
or worse in other forms of intelligence. It's just, it's a
very nice way of doing business from an intelligence
perspective. So instead of looking for a counter
intelligence guy, because we know that there are some foreign
countries, foreign adversaries out there that probably know
what we're doing. And I need a good counterintelligence and
security program, which, by the way, it's not unusual. Anytime
you have a sensitive program, you know, you you want to have,
you want to have good security and counterintelligence
expertise. It's just, it's just an extra layer of, if you will,
insurance to have to protect your program. So it wasn't
unusual that I was that I was being asked to provide
counterintelligence expertise, I wasn't being asked to do
anything with UFOs, per se, it was just to come in and provide,
you know, the background that I already have just used that in
this capacity. So ultimately, long story short, it was
obviously the rest is history. No pun intended, I secure
alcohol, I'll accept the job.
And it was at that point, through through various
conversations afterwards, I began to realize that these guys
are legit. They're real. I mean, they have like real data. And
the individuals at the started that were part of this effort, I
knew from before, like people like help food off and whatnot
that were, you know, they were kind of legends in their own
time anyways. So I knew this was a serious legitimate effort, and
then I began to see the documentation. From the Senate
and Congress, and I really began to recognize that this was a
full fledged program. But they really didn't need
counterintelligence expertise. They didn't have anything. So
they were kind of they were kind of vulnerable from that
perspective. Yeah, I know, it's probably a long winded
explanation. No, that's okay. Um, yeah, that's,
John Greenewald: I mean, yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate it.
Because I want the groundwork here. Now, in this next
question, I want you to kind of clarify, you can do it quickly,
if you could, the difference between what we learned of the
advanced aerospace weapons. Now I'm drawn on that. Yeah, thank
you the offset program and I get tongue tongue tied, versus the
program that you joined, that you just described the advanced
aerospace threat identification program or a tip. What was the
difference between the two? Because this has been an area of
much confusion not only by myself, but it seems like those
that even worked on the program, which I'll explain in
Luis Elizondo: a moment, absolutely not, not not only
you, but I mean, honestly, probably to all of us, to some
degree in the beginning. So in the in the, in the very
beginning days, there was very little difference between all
seven, eight, there really wasn't a clear line distinction.
There were there were focuses of the same effort. And what it was
you had portions of all SAP, which of course, now know,
Bigelow Aerospace was part of had some incredible scientists
working at at the at the ranch facility. And by the way, other
places, it wasn't just the ranch.
John Greenewald: And it just jumps. Just to clarify, you're
talking about skinwalker Ranch. Okay, so so you're, and this is
another one, but since you brought it up, I'll just ask it
really quick. So so a tip or OS app are both operated on the
grounds of skinwalker Ranch in Utah?
Luis Elizondo: I want to be clear, I don't want to answer
for Bob Bigelow, or the former director of the program, because
those are probably nuances, you'd have to ask them, I will
say that it didn't involve the ranch, all SAP was that it was
looking at looking at the phenomenon through through a
very broad lens. And, you know, that's, that's what they were
doing. And by the way, there was some pretty compelling data. And
I'll share with you that it was there was some fairly compelling
data. Some of it was was a little bit disturbing, to be
honest with you. But in 2009, a decision was really made to
formally if you will, partition off that that part of the study
involving the UAP phenomenon under a tip and the reason why
is because we were getting data from all different sensor
platforms that weren't necessarily ranch related. These
were, you know, of course, everybody knows Nimitz and all
these other other cases. But, you know, you had, you know,
strategic carrier groups out in, in, in certain ao ours, areas of
operation, if you will, were where we were picking up UAP
activity. And so we realized that there was a really a
concerted need to, to focus on the topic of ua peas, from a
nuts and bolts perspective. Now, let me caveat a lot of people
when I say that they kind of retract and say, Yeah, but you
can't look at these from a nuts and bolts perspective, you have
to, you know, look at this from this perspective and that
perspective. And you know, that that could be absolutely right.
But in the Department of Defense, we had to be able to,
to do two things, and that's qualified and quantify data.
Otherwise, for us, it was useless. I'm not saying it is
useless. I'm saying, for our purposes, and Department of
Defense briefing, senior leadership, that unless I can
qualify and quantify data, it's it's conjecture. There's,
there's no there there, I can't do anything with it. So. And
there was enough sufficient data coming in where we could, I
mean, we could say there were these many incidents occurring
in this particular month, and these particular parts of the
waters with these particular assets, you know, these are
videos or pictures that were taken and radar information. So
it helps you paint a compelling picture to leadership, an event
that is occurring or events that are occurring. And so that
decision really started to occur started to solidify 2009 and
that's why you see I think in the in Senator Reid's now now
infamous letter that came out everybody's now knows about all
way back in 2009. He then Deputy Secretary land that he wants to
take this portion of eight tip that you actually see the
advanced aerospace threat identification program become a
formalized effort and put that into into SAP channels to
protect it. Because we knew based upon the efforts that were
going on with Aw, SAP, that you had two camps, you had some
people that really supported the effort. And then you had some
people that really didn't support the effort. And by the
way, this is just a loss at least All this before with how
poodles program with Stargate and the remote viewing program
that, you know, anytime the government was dealing with
something that was maybe maybe a bit unconventional fringe, it
would tend to be considered by some fringe, it ruffled a lot of
feathers. And so, you know, the, I guess the solution, then the
mindset was let's, let's take this program that's kind of
exposed, and let's put it under this umbrella of sapper, we can
protect it. And, you know, we can still continue to collect
the information without fear of people on the outside not
understanding what we're doing, and having this knee jerk
reaction to just shut it down. So that's, that's kind of how
that all evolved. Gotcha.
John Greenewald: So then all SAP, from what it sounds like,
was was completely different. A tip was branching off on just
UAP investigations fair to say that
Luis Elizondo: I mean, from my perspective, I mean, I'm sure if
you talk to people that were in all SAP that were still doing
stump stuff in the a tip side of the house, and vice versa, they
would probably tell you, it was more of a gray area, there
wasn't really a heart and the early days, and yet it was but
in the early days, there wasn't really a hard transition, or if
you if you will have an event horizon. Yeah, separating the
offset program and the a tip, there was kind of a blurry line
there. That's sometimes shifted, but by 2010, we were firmly by
2010. Nine, really, but 10. It was, there was no question about
it. A tip was its own focus area,
John Greenewald: I want to ask you about the some of the public
documentation, the verified information that has come out.
And that is involving aos app. Now, I know that you didn't lead
aos app, and sometimes you don't like to talk about it. But I do
want to ask you something that also encompasses a tip, which is
that public documentation has absolutely zero mention of
paranormal UFOs uaps unidentified craft and so on
that rather it was more of a forward looking program. At
least that's what the public bid solicitation stated. Where I
have a very big question on this is that disconnect from what we
know, to then bass getting the contract? It's a UAP study. And
then that bores out? A tip, and voila, we have the rest is is
history? What What am I missing just by looking at that
documentation? So
Luis Elizondo: what? That's a great question. So anytime you
look at any governmental solicitation, we call these
service contracts elicitation. This goes out to the public
sphere, right. And that means anybody and everybody can look
at it to include Russians because the contract you're
spending american taxpayer dollars to do job XYZ. So even
when you want to build a B two bomber, right? In Air Force
contracts, you don't put out a contract saying, Hey, we want
somebody come up, build a super secret spell the space, stealth,
you know, technology. Let me repeat that again. Sorry about
that. Even when you're doing the B two bomber, and you want to do
a solicitation for someone to build you a super secret stealth
bomber, right? You don't you don't in the solicitation that
will never say that. It will say very nebulous, ambiguous
language, because you don't want to tip off to your foreign
adversaries key technology that you're trying to develop a bill.
So it's the same thing with this. When when the solicitation
which by the way, for the record, I wasn't part of Sure,
yeah. But I can tell you from general perspective, how we do
this. At the unclassified level, you're going to see these
solicitations always very generalized. And that is
specifically because you don't want to tip your hand
unnecessarily to your foreign adversaries that you're working
on project ABC are doing. So that's why you said I would I
would I would challenge anybody in your audience to go ahead and
look at other solicitations. You know, now we can look back and
you know, look back 1015 years, look at some of those
technologies back then that were really protecting whether it's
drone technology, right for to help us on the Global War on
Terror. Those solicitations when you read those unclassified
solicitations, almost read nothing like the classified
portion of what the job really is you In fact, when you look at
it, you're gonna see, you know, I've read this solicitation six
times, I still have no idea what it's for.
John Greenewald: So ambiguous in general, and let me jump in
there because I get a lot of heat for bringing this up. And I
don't think it's as bad of an act, quote, unquote, accusation.
I'm not accusing anybody, but I don't think it's as bad of a
thing as people make it sound like when I posed this, but if
there's a classified portion of a bid solicitation, right, and
you have that public setting, and then you have something
behind the scenes that only cleared personnel can see when
contractors come in. I'm with you on all of that. However, in
kind of digging into that area, where I get myself into trouble
from some people, is that Bigelow Aerospace, who obviously
has a vested interest in this personal interest has invested a
lot of his own money away from A tip and OS app and all that into
the UAP phenomena. If he's not right upfront, getting that
classified description, he sees the public part they bid on it.
What are the odds that that organization gets this contract
to secretly? In a classified setting? Investigate uaps. And
according to the Defense Intelligence Agency, he's the
only one out of every government contract IE that contract or
that that could actually bid on this. He's the only one. And
that leads to a discussion about a sweetheart deal. I doubt you
want to comment on that. But I bring it up just simply because
that's the disconnect that I still don't understand. Because
he can't grab that classified portion of the solicitation, or
correct me if I'm wrong, before he gets granted the contract.
Luis Elizondo: Right? Well, I can't comment on it, because I
wasn't there. But I can come at it from the perspective of a
couple things. So first of all, I do know, Mr. Bigelow personal.
He's an amazing human being anybody who who's never had the
chance to meet this guy. He really is an American hero. He
has he has contributed more to this topic. Behind the scenes, I
think that done just about anybody, certainly even more
than certainly more than I have. So that's the first thing.
Second of all, I think if you look at aerospace, in general,
look at Lockheed Martin, look at Boeing, look at Northrop Grumman
and all these others. You know, there's only certain companies
that can build an F 22. Right. And at the end of the day, it's
up to two companies. I think you had Lockheed, and then you had,
you know, the other guys that they wind up going with. You
know, a lot of times there are contracts where you might tell
somebody ahead of time, look, we're gonna write this contract,
you're probably the only company that can do it. So just be
advised that this contract may be coming out at some point.
Because there's only certain amount of certain certain
companies that can do certain things you wouldn't expect, for
example, look at the early days when we had Jeep, I'm a Jeep
guy, right. So I love old war, Jeeps, Korean War and World War
Two jeeps. A lot of people don't realize people look at a jeep
and say, Oh, that was you know, that was a Jeep product. But
there were a lot of companies that were making jeeps in the
early days of World War Two, you had Ford making them. And then
you had, of course, you know, the overland Jeep overland
company, and you had some other organization that were bidding
for a contract. And at the end of the day, it turned out to be
only only two companies from my understanding that actually got
the Jeep contract, and then later want to be just one,
believe it or not. So it's it's a bit convoluted the way that
contracting world works. It's not perfect. But at the same
time, I think there's enough oversight. Now, when you look at
how, how contracts are selected. They're not selected by anybody
who's connected really to the contract or connected by an
outside independent organization. And there's a
reason for that, because you have to be fair and unbiased.
Now, I don't know this to be true. But I've been told that
apparently, Bigelow was the only one Bigelow, bass was the only
one to actually bid for the contract. So, you know,
naturally, if you only have one bidder, and they have the
qualifications are probably at the contract. But I,
unfortunately, like I said, that occurred before my time. Sure, I
came in really in 2008, that that ship had sailed back in
2007. So I, I truly, honestly can't tell you exactly how it
went down. Only because I wasn't there for
John Greenewald: I gotcha. Fair enough. During the a tip days, I
want to talk a little bit about the the controversy. We're about
halfway through the interview, and I want to make sure that I
give you ample time to address some of this. And that is the
government's reaction to you coming out, you resign, you come
out, you become a part of to the stars Academy, you bring videos
along with you. I'm going to combine like 700 of the
questions that I have here for for, for time reasons. But I
want to talk about that controversy. Let me ask first
quickly, if I may, at what point you were resigned October
4 2017. If I remember correctly, you had submitted your your
resignation letter. At what point did you meet Tom DeLonge
and plan to join to the stars Academy and bring all of this
information to light?
Luis Elizondo: Yeah, I had made a decision to leave actually,
I'd spoke with my dear My dear colleague and friend Chris
Mellon. And it was you know, it was a soul searching moment for
me. And finally, I made the decision. I said, Look, you
know, I I can't fix this. On the inside. I can. This is a guy
this is Secretary Mattis is a guy that I had been been in
combat with, served with and just an amazing human being.
And, and, you know, the bureaucracy unfortunately was
such It just wasn't getting the information to the right people.
And so sometimes, you know, in a situation like that, you do what
you have to do. And in order to fix the problem, I, I felt that
I had to I had to leave the organization, because I knew
they wouldn't be able to stop, the one thing they couldn't stop
would be my resignation memo. And, by the way, let's let's not
forget that almost a year later, to the day, Secretary Mattis did
the same thing he resigned, right. So rather than cause
problems inside the system, in the Department of Defense, you
know, if if you can't solve it, you need to get out of the way.
And don't don't stay in a system that you don't don't agree with.
If it's if it's really problematic, then resign. So the
organization organization can continue doing what it's
supposed to do, and you don't become, if you will, a friction
point. That's just kind of a code of honor we have in the
department, it's common, you see it in all the services, it's
just what happens. As far as meeting Tom DeLonge. It wasn't
till afterwards, actually, once I resigned, it's when I was
approached to say, hey, Lou, you know, there's this little
organization over here, led by some guy, some some rock star,
which, for the record, when you're when you're a guy like me
used to living in the shadows, that's the last thing you want
to do is ever be in any kind of spotlight or it's just, it's not
our character, the way we operate. But what I realized
that it was how and Steve justice and Chris mallet and Jim
semi van onboard, whoa, now, those are people I do know, now
don't get me wrong. Tom's a great guy. But I never knew the
guy, you know, for that I'm being in the intelligence
community, you know, I might been able to pick out a song,
but had no idea who this guy was, and really didn't pay
attention to it. But when I saw who else was on, and you had the
advisors like Dr. Norm Khan, and some of these other really big
names that I had a chance to work with, while I was in the
intelligence community. Whoa, now that's, that's significant.
This guy may be a punk rocker, but he managed to get these
folks together in the same room and support this cost. You know,
that's, that's, that's a hell of an accomplishment. You know, so
I was like, wow, that's, that's really hard to say no to.
Especially when you have those people on board, that, and there
was a lot more people that were affiliated with ttsa. That's not
publicly known. But again, some some pretty significant people
who had the honor and pleasure to serve with back in my day in
military and Department of Defense, and later on in, in the
intelligence community. So that was really for me, I had a
conversation with my wife and said, Look, you know, what do
you think and, you know, she says, Well, you know, these
people and you know, do you trust them? And the answer is,
you know, and statically Yes, I do. trust them with my life. So
that was kind of an easy decision for me.
John Greenewald: So you had known Christopher Mellon prior
to resigning. It sounds like you had a conversation with him but
did not did not know anyone else. When it came to to the
stars Academy until after he resigned. And it was it seems
like no, I
Luis Elizondo: knew how put up I knew how it worked. For sure. He
John Greenewald: was part Yeah, and I'm sorry. backtrack. Did
Then did you know that he tell you about to the stars.
Luis Elizondo: Before you it was Jim semi van. Who, who actually
said hey, why don't you consider jumping on board with us? If I
we met up Don't hold me to it. But and we were going back three
years now. I'm pretty certain it was Jim who who actually was one
to offer me a position,
John Greenewald: pre resignation or post just for chronological
post
Luis Elizondo: post post.
John Greenewald: I gotcha. So you
Luis Elizondo: Yeah, cuz I think they knew that I was gonna wind
up working at I gotta be careful, though. I don't want to
put a plug in for it. I was gonna wind up working, you know,
at a probably at a supermarket, just to just to pay my bills
afterwards. Because, you know, even though I had left the
department, I'm not the age of retirement yet. I can't collect
my pension. So you know, I still I still needed employment.
John Greenewald: Gotcha. Okay. So you joined to the stars
Academy. It all seems to happen pretty quick after you had
resigned because a couple of weeks go by and you're on so
very fast. Yeah, it was very fast. Sounds like it. So and you
brought with you a couple videos. I want to focus in on
that now. And then we'll we'll get more to the do.
Luis Elizondo: Just to be clear, I didn't actually bring those
videos. That wasn't me. I did not I facilitated the process of
getting them releasable through Department of Defense channels,
but I didn't actually bring them that was somebody else.
John Greenewald: Okay, so you would file the paperwork,
obviously, that
Luis Elizondo: yes. Okay. Good. And, and by the way, with after
having a long discussion with my team, because I was a senior
guy, I'm the one who had to request it, but it was a mutual
decision that we would go with. So the initial intent, john was
to have a unclassified repository because that was my
experience before when I've worked in department events is
really setting up these special enclaves, where you could share
a very sensitive national level intelligence via what we call a
terror line. And getting that information down to a level
could be consumable by by anybody out there. That's, you
know, local law enforcement, state authorities, anybody like
that? That's, that's actionable information. But it was super
classified. So you have to come up with a mechanism where people
who don't necessarily have security clearance can access
really, really classified information. So there's a
mechanism to do that. So that kind of was my forte for some
time. So we wanted to build an unclassified repository where
information could be put on that was not super, super, super
sensitive. There wasn't any like, classified metadata, or
call signs or locational information. But we could create
this database that allowed other people from the outside to look
at this and say, oh, because we didn't we really, we went
through analysis after analysis, and we were still coming up with
a goose egg. We had no idea what the hell the things were. We
were hoping that maybe some other people say, yeah, you know
what, we picked that up too, and, and maybe some some state
authorities and you know, Kansas said, Yeah, actually, we've been
seeing these things over our nuclear facilities, or just as
an example, let's say just Kansas, a nuclear facility where
I got to give you this example,
John Greenewald: a lot of people are going to read into that and
go in Kansas nuclear.
Luis Elizondo: Right. That's what I'm saying. It's anecdotal.
anecdotal. Yeah,
John Greenewald: there's gonna be blogs about this in about an
hour. So
Luis Elizondo: I know God, I promise you, I don't really mean
can't ya say? compensation. But my point being is that we're
trying to create a an enclave that allowed us to share this
information that came from US government sources, to a broader
audience in industry, the, you know, the big boys, Boeing's of
the world and the Raytheon's and try to get more people into the
conversation because we really had no idea what we were dealing
with, and and even the folks that we're working with, and
other agencies, were scratching your head. I mean, to the point
where I remember one meeting, john, we we, we did such mental
gymnastics, trying to come up with there was one particular
video I won't go into detail, but it was so so incredible that
we were doing these mental gymnastics trying to come up
with a what if scenario, what technology? would this have to
be to be able to do this? Yeah. And it was one of being so
preposterous, so so ridiculously over the top, we all just kind
of looked at ourselves and said, All right, that's, there's no
way that that was, you know, that could be what it is. So
that was, again, a long, probably a much longer winded
response that you were looking for, but that Oh, no,
John Greenewald: you mentioned a video. Lou, can you tell me what
video that was?
Luis Elizondo: The ones that we got released? Yes.
John Greenewald: So it was one of the ones that you came up
with the explanation not to step on you.
Luis Elizondo: Oh, oh, unfortunately. Can I?
John Greenewald: I knew I'd get let her know if I didn't try
Luis Elizondo: no longer the US government now. Yeah, I, I I
have to be careful. Those those, you know, I want to be be very
clear that. You know, the, it's US government's business to
determine what is releasable and not not mine? Okay. I gotcha.
And anything that I may have been then exposed to back in a
tip I really, until the government is gives the green
light. I just, I just,
John Greenewald: I just had to push on that one. You mentioned.
I had to I had to go. So let me ask you, one of the few
sensitive questions that that I talked about in the beginning,
and that is the paperwork that came out through FOIA. I went
after those documents, as you know, we've talked about this
privately. But I went after those documents for those
listening and watching that aren't aware and found the
emails that you were sharing back and forth with what is
called Doppler and that is the arm that essentially will
authorize either public use or essentially them declassifying
something or something's unclassified and clearing it for
release, and so on. Just kind of quickly summarize it. Those
documents come out in the form that had already leaked in part
had come out. But that was kind of re verified on an official
level. And the way you would describe the videos is what what
really kind of intrigues me in a way that is a big fat question
mark. And that is that you described the FLIR, the gimbal,
and the go fast as balloons, drones and UAS is and what kind
of confuses me about that is Doppler is cleared at the top
secret level. So they've got the, you know, J, which
protocols to send them to, let's say top secret data, and they
review it. They can say Nope, you can't use this whatsoever.
But they have those channels. I've heard but I want to ask
from you because I don't think I I've ever asked you this part
before, I've only heard from others through, you know, third
hand info, that you felt that you couldn't inform them
properly. But again, I want to ask you this, why were the
videos described in that way if they would be cleared at the top
secret level?
Luis Elizondo: Sure. So if you look at the way dogs are worked,
you're actually supposed to do the request at the unclassified
level. So there's several God instructions and direct actions,
instructions, and manuals, and then there's some some brochures
on how you're supposed to request something for
publication of meaning that can be disseminated out. And that is
through an unclassified document. 1910. And when you ask
Dr. They say please send it to us unclassified level. So we had
just gotten over the this this awful situation with Wikileaks,
where we knew for analysis adversaries were hacking our
systems. That's a fact that's, that's that's not conjecture.
And the US government acknowledged that. And then, of
course, you had insider threats where you had I don't want to
get political here. But there's, you know, whether you're for or
against folks like like, private Manning, that that took some
very sensitive information and released in an unauthorized
manner. So because we were dealing with something that was
so sensitive, and there was so few people that were read onto
the program, and I couldn't even brief my boss at the time about
this, this program. I couldn't very well, brief doctor who's
two and three degrees removed from my own chain of command.
And mentioned the word UFO. So, the UAS, we had coined for
unidentified aerial systems, some say unmanned aerial
systems, but literally a UAS is an unmanned or system that's not
manned by a human being. So that's, that's actually a
legitimate term that we could use without saying UFO or UAP.
Knowing that the OCA, the original classification
authority, who adopts would have to go back to anyways, right to
get the approval was read onto the program, and knew exactly
what this was about. So So, you know, a lot of people say, well,
was that disingenuous? We're trying to mislead? No, no, no,
everybody was about everybody knew what we were talking about.
But it was a way that we could protect this from having some
sort of what we call an inadvertent disclosure, this
information getting out to somebody who wasn't read on. And
all of a sudden now the whole department is aware of what's
going on. So that's, that's how that's how that if you will that
process, gotcha occur.
John Greenewald: Okay. So one of the other things on the the same
form was your intended use. Now, for those just tuning in or
maybe missed the part earlier in the show, you had said you did
not bring these videos out? Somebody else did. So I want to
make sure that I repeat that. But internally, the paperwork
showed that you only intended this for internal government use
only not in
Luis Elizondo: corrected initially correct initially.
That's what we were, we wanted to create a an internal enclave
unclassified. So you know, the public, could we put industry
partners, because that's broad enough, where if you're working
with the United States government, in any type of
capacity, you could be labeled as a type of industry partner.
So whether you're local law enforcement, or your FAA, or
you're one of the services or, you know, whoever, if you're
working in some sort of kind of official capacity, we wanted to
get people who had a had certain expertise, open the aperture so
we could get more scientists, more people to look at this data
and help us try to figure it out. And
John Greenewald: that was what you internally called the
community of interest REITs or COI, which,
Luis Elizondo: which was Yeah,
John Greenewald: I've always once those emails kind of
revealed themselves through FOIA. I was always intrigued by
that, because that sounds like wow, why didn't they do this
prior? So you know, I've as Yeah, one would think right. So
that in, by the way, I've gone after, I think I may have told
you privately, but trying to find more information, if any,
is there that they take that idea? Because from what I've
seen, when you look at these types, there's a
Luis Elizondo: lot more info john?
John Greenewald: Well, that plugging away That's right.
That's what I'm, that's what I'm going for. So, so but at very
admirable intention there. But again, I just wanted to ask,
according to the do D anyway, that those videos had to adhere
to what was on that what they call the DD Form 1910, which we
didn't label it yet. But the DD Form 1910 was, again for that
that private, US government use only and when Christopher Mellon
had come out recently, he had said that he supplied those
videos to the New York Times. Then in the James Fox has great
documentary getting rave reviews around the world. James, I've
known for a very long time. So quick shout out to him. Make
sure you watch his new documentary called Yeah,
Luis Elizondo: he did a fantastic job. He really did.
John Greenewald: Yeah, he's he's a he's a Great human being, I
know how much blood sweat and tears went into that just from
knowing him personally. So my kudos to him. But in that
Christopher Mellon came out and said somebody didn't name them.
But somebody bent the rules. That was, what his wording was.
Which I want to juxtapose that with how we were shown the
videos from to the stars Academy. I don't expect you to
speak for to the stars. I'm not asking you to, but I do want to
ask about what they called the chain of custody, because that's
another one of those disconnects where paperwork says internal
use only cleared for that, then we see the videos, and they were
kind of advertised at Well, not kind of they were advertised as
going through the declassification process through
God. And they had Chain of Custody documentation. And that
has always confused me because that, for me anyway, I found the
do D Chain of Custody forums and stuff like that. It just
wouldn't apply. Is that accurate? So what is that show?
Luis Elizondo: study? You know, I can't speak for Chris Mellon.
And quite frankly, I've never asked Chris I don't want to
know, you know, there's a just a plausible deniability is
sometimes a good thing. But out of respect to Chris, I, I've
never asked him this source. And I don't really plan to to be
honest with you. That's between Chris and whoever he talked to,
you know, the, how ttsa wound up putting them forward? I will
tell you, if you were to ask me, you know, I, I probably would
have been more hesitant to do that. But, you know, it
happened. And it happened without me knowing that really
what do
John Greenewald: you had no idea that they that they were going
to release those videos?
Luis Elizondo: Not until the New York Times article. Yeah. That
was not I was not, I was not aware.
John Greenewald: Were you aware they had them? If I can ask
that.
Luis Elizondo: Now, actually, let me think. JOHN, I don't
recall I really don't i don't think because I remember being
very surprised. Because the intent originally was for a
community of interest and unclassified. But for official
use only, if you will, community of interest. And I didn't, I
wasn't the one who provided them. So I really don't know
what ttsa was thinking you probably want to talk to them as
you know, I no longer publicly affiliated with with ttsa.
They're, they're great people. Tom's great guy, you know, it
was Yeah, they'll talk. But I can't speak for teachers,
John Greenewald: I got you know, I and I understand that and
respect that. And and I want to actually ask you about that. But
I do want to make sure I have enough time to ask you this kind
of round of questions, which is the do Dee's reaction to all of
this that after you resigned after these videos came out in
the way that you did, which you've already outlined?
Obviously, internally, this created kind of a riff we can
see Oh, yeah.
Luis Elizondo: Oh, hey, listen, life was very uncomfortable for
Lou Elizondo for a long time, I would imagine. It was, well,
first of all, you had the problem. Most people didn't know
the program is real. So they thought blue went deep sex, he
went blue went crazy. And then as I started to unfold
internally, they're like, Oh, crap, this program was real.
And, you know, we never got briefed on it. Because Lou was
going to the much higher levels with this program. Then they got
some some people in there, well, to two camps, one said, oh, wow,
you know what? Yeah, we better we better not treat them so
harshly. Because he had very, very senior people in the loop.
He was actually doing his job. Then you had another faction of
people say, Well, he still should have told me, so let's
burn him to the ground. Let's launch an investigation. Let's
pull his security clearance. And let's, you know, let's do
everything we can to blow up his credibility. And there are still
some pockets of those that are those individuals that exist. I
think that's probably why you see, you know, despite the
senator and all these people coming up saying, Yeah, it was
real and yeah, we would push the guy running it and all these now
obvious things that people look back and say, well, that's
obvious back then. It wasn't Yeah. And there were people
there were factions in the in the d. o. t, that were not very
happy with me. And those are the same factions that are still
influencing some of your FOIA process, where you know,
something exists, but they come back saying, Man, nothing to see
here. Yeah, and you might have to try three or four times
before you finally get something and you're like, you know, what
the heck hockey puck I'm now believe. I'm only getting this
when I requested. Did you know two years ago? Yeah. During a
tough spot, and I don't want to disparage the DMV, because I do
think I don't think we can hold accountable a few people there
for for that dysfunction and blame the entire department
because because the Department of Defense is very, very good at
what it does. The Acting Secretary right now is a
fantastic human being the guys is a national hero, I won't go
into details, because you may be watching this, but but the guy
was there in the early days of Afghanistan, I mean, super,
super key person. And, and that is representative of most of the
Department of Defense. They're good people that want to do a
good job for the American people. The problem is, you get
some bureaucrats in there and people that are, are political.
And, you know, there, there becomes an issue about ego. And
just because I wasn't told about something, therefore, it must
not exist. Well, that's not necessarily so. And it wasn't up
to me to tell because when you look at that 2009 memo from the
Senate, the access list to that program was super, super small.
I can't just go out and brief somebody, I know the authority
to do that, again, trouble. So that created a lot of a lot of
challenges for me. And, you know, I often tell people say,
Well, why don't you just back then say A, B, and C? Well,
because I made a promise to certain people. And I wasn't
going to, to violate that trust, I knew damn well, getting into
this, that this was going to be an uphill battle, I had probably
a 5% chance of mission success, which isn't very good. Those are
not good odds. Don't go to Vegas with those odds. But I had a
heart to heart with my team members. And we in order for
this, for this topic to to finally get the light that it
deserved. Someone had to step out. And that's someone I being
a military guy had to be me, I was a senior guy. So and let me
ask
John Greenewald: you, this, focusing in on the do D what I
call they took a shot at you. And I apologize if that phrasing
is not appropriate. But essentially, you know, they took
a shot at your credibility. And they're challenging you as a
person as a dedicated military, then later civilian employee of
the Department of Defense, they are by name, taking this
credibility shot at you. And I will admit, when that story
broke, I was surprised it despite my again that that
criticism, which you have not shied away from that you've
always spoken to me about. And I want to point out again, for
those who missed it in the beginning how admirable that is
to you because you're not afraid of these questions. Nor were you
privately when we chatted on the phone or through email. But when
they did that, I just kind of like took a step back and like,
Okay, I'm not this isn't about Lewis Elizondo, for me. This is
about what is the truth behind what I believe is this active
UFO cover up. After they did that? This let's zero in on the
spokespeople because they did that we don't have to name names
or make accusations. But sure, you know, the spokespeople did
this. And they took that essential shot. Why? Why don't
you take a shot back and just say, look, here is the
irrefutable proof. And let me just quickly preface why I'm
asking that is that I've seen that there are a very, and this
is posted posted publicly, a small list of people that
include a couple journalists and at one UFO what I would call
like a UFO blogger, in particular, that have made
reference to you showing them documentation or what they call
irrefutable proof that you are who you say you are. Now, I'm
not challenging that. I believe that they saw something. Let me
just quickly ask yes or no. Is that classified information?
Luis Elizondo: It's not classified. No, but understand
that I'm not going to give up the identities of other
individuals just to save my skin. I've never been really I'm
not that guy. What I could have I could have settled this three
years ago. And you know, there when you talk to Senator Reid
himself, that for the record, he's telling you, yeah, Lou is
the guy running the program. When you talk to how put off who
was working for me? Who's clearly part of it. Yeah, I
worked for Lou. I mean, these are I don't need to go toe to
toe and get into a mudslinging contest with the Pentagon when
they've already flipped flopped on the position six times.
Firstly came out said yeah, he was real about UFOs. And Lou ran
it. Then they came back and said, Well, no, he wasn't about
UFOs. Then they said, Well, he was about UFOs. But he didn't
run it. I mean, it's, if you look at the track record, and I
know, I know, you've seen this over and over again. Sure. You
know, my position has been consistent and I've been backed
up by by everybody that needs to back me up. This isn't about
Lewis It's not about me if I make it about Lou Elizondo, then
we take away from the progress we've made. Look how far we've
come in three years. In just three years. JOHN, we have now
the videos coming out that were official government videos never
before release the acknowledgement that they're
real, the acknowledgement that they are some sort of
unidentified aerial phenomenon, the establishment of a UAP Task
Force Congress being briefed at the classified levels. By the
way, if you don't think I was part of that program, How the
hell do you think ever made it on the hill to brief people? I
mean, it's, it's at this point, it's kind of silly I know and I
don't need to rehash all this because if you go for half an
hour a laundry list of laundry lists the bottom line john, it's
not about me. I don't really care what people think about me
never have never will. This is about this is about this, this
incredible movement for for transparency and real meaningful
disclosure. Yeah, I mean, that's what's more important me going
up and saying, hey, look at me and I'm you know, gonna go ahead
and, and make the government look silly now, because we still
need to work with the government. If I did that, then
we run the chance of just to just so I can go ahead and quote
unquote, prove who I am, which I don't need to prove anybody
don't really give a damn what Sure. Yeah, I guess just to
prove that I risk now putting my guys that are still there in the
program, where now all of a sudden, it gets shut down
because it becomes too hot of a topic. Yeah. Now the Pentagon's
getting sued by Lou Elizondo, now there's defamation, Karen
and others this, nobody wants to touch that hot potato. Nobody
does. So and by the way to come out and say, Here's document
12345. It's not classified, but it's legit of what it is, with
with there's people on those emails that are still engaged in
those efforts. And I can't compromise them. I won't do it.
I never have I never will. So until those people come out,
which at some point, I'm sure they will, then people come
under documents, and oh, wow, look at that, that isn't that
interesting. But until that occurs, I'm not I'm not going to
do it just to say face. I'm not that guy never happened. I'm not
going to come out there and say that, because this isn't about
Lou never has been about blue. And this is why I try to tell
people, you know, people say well lose. Now the face of these
UFOs I'm not the face. Look in the mirror, you're the face.
It's everybody out there in your audience. They're the face of
this. I just happened to be one of the tools in the tool bag,
like Chris Mellon and other people. But this is this is a
long game we are. You know, I hate to say we're in a running
gun battle here. But this is this is a long war. Not a short
word. This isn't about instant gratification. This isn't about,
you know, Lou going up there and making the Department of Defense
looks stupid. They've already had they've already put
themselves in that box. I don't need to help them with that.
Yeah, you know, in fact, what they need is a solution. So they
can continue to tackle this problem without people coming in
and getting mad at because that's, that's really what they
need. And if I do anything to poke the bear, all it's going to
do is, is make the situation worse, when really we're trying
to help find a solution. I got, by the way, if it's at my
expense, I'll take it, john, I'm okay with it. If the cost of us
getting this far in three years, if people say man, loose full of
it, you know what? Fine, I'll take it, because enough people
know exactly who I am. And what I did. And by the way, this
story is still unfolding. It's just not over. So there's a lot
more to this narrative that when comes out, people are gonna go.
Wow, okay, that's interesting. I had no idea
John Greenewald: what I only have a couple minutes left, I
again, appreciate your time. And I want to work this in if my
audience has heard me talk about these types of issues a lot.
passing it to you. If there's one thing that I haven't
covered, but you want to talk about or say, or a message or
anything, what would that be?
Luis Elizondo: You know, boy, let me let me say this. I
believe as dysfunctional as our family of UFO enthusiasts are,
whether it's UFO, Twitter or UAP, research group, etc, etc.
We have achieved this together. And yes, even the naysayers,
even those contrarians, even those skeptics, we need you. We
need them all. come on board because this is a conversation
that affects all of us. And no one owns the narrative. I'm not
out pushing the book. I'm not just anybody who wants to have a
conversation with we can have a conversation. We are achieving
this together. And that is the success here. It's not that john
Greenwald is doing the foil or Lou Elizondo is out there, doing
TV shows or anybody else. It's everything. Buddy doing what
they do best in this sphere that is creating this moment in time
that we have never seen the likes before. We need it and
it's okay. I don't mind if I have haters. That's okay. If
that's the cost of doing business. And that's the cost of
doing business, the truth has nothing to fear. So I would
encourage people to to know that, that the second success we
are seeing right now is a result of all of our contributions, not
just one person. And, and I think everybody plays a vital
role in this. You know, we would not be where we are today, john,
if you hadn't done and are doing the things you're doing, from
your perspective, that by the way, nobody's as good as doing
it as you are. Just like, there are certain things that I can do
because of my access to to help happen and Chris Mellon and and
yes, even everybody on out there in the in the UAP, Twitter
world, they're making a difference there. They're
campaigning, the look at Marco Rubio when he just came out and
said not too long ago. That's because people are telling him,
it's okay to have this conversation. We want to know,
it's interesting, right? We're not going to talk about Elvis on
the mothership anymore in tinfoil hats. This is a serious
topic that deserves serious attention. And, and whether you
realize it or not, john, people begin to look at you. And if you
want to know what the face of disclosure looks like, you're
looking at it. It's it's, I'm looking at it right now, you're
part of that people out there, like, you know, the I gotta be
careful. I don't want to plug any particular people out there.
But there's a there's a huge sea of of advocates out there in
social media that are writing the congressman writing the
government they're doing they're learning from you. I mean, how
amazing is that? Right? People are now learning from john
Greenwald's playbook and FOIA. And it's working. I mean, it's
at some point, you know, you can't stop the tidal wave. So I
would, I guess my, my final thought on this would be, don't
stop doing what you're doing. You know, you don't have to be
in anyone's camp. Just keep doing what you're doing. And
then I would also say, beware of those selling the snake oil,
beware of those who are telling you about these preconceived
narratives that they have in their mind, and are saying,
Don't pay attention to those guys. That's the real threat,
when someone tells you don't listen to that person. That's
the real threat. I encourage you, you know what, listen to
anybody and everybody you want to listen to, and then make up
your own mind. That's my word of advice to anybody out there who
wants to know about this topic? And by the way, no, there is no
expert out there. I don't care who you are what you say, I was
in it for 10 years working for the US government, and I'm not
an expert. So that would be my advice to people. And by the
way, when they say, well, do you're pushing the threat
narrative? No, I'm not pushing a narrative that they could be a
threat if they want it to be because we don't have enough
information. That's what I've always maintained. And if you
think it's fear mongering, well, then fine. I mean, if you think
you have some sort of special relationship with a UFO, and,
you know, you want to charge people money, so they can have
a, you know, close encounter, you know, while you're paying
pilots to drop flares, okay, fine. I don't know, do whatever
you want. I just, I think I think we need to, I think we
need to have a conversation where everybody has a voice. And
we stop trying to mute each other. I think that's the real
danger
John Greenewald: of the great words. And by the way, the
threat potential narrative. I have agreed since day one with
you guys that ttsa as a whole, obviously has dealt with that a
lot. I've done FOIA requests upon FOIA requests on that, but
that threat potential, it's very real. I don't know why people
are afraid of the T word. I know I'm out of time. If I could ask
you just one more question. Yeah, absolutely. Because I want
you to have the opportunity to respond, because this is all
kind of unfolding right now. As you mentioned, you've decided to
as you put it, not be affiliated with ttsa. Although you still
have high respect for them. I've been kind of waiting. I've
reached out to them unrelated to the show, but reached out to
them to get like some type of, you know, risk response press
release. Are they informing their investors only because I
know my listeners and watchers want to be updated on that. So
can I ask you just kind of a two parter here. Is there a reason
why you've decided to not be affiliated anymore? And the
second part which is the most important to me, is where does
that leave off on the credo agreement with the US Army where
you guys are taking pieces of uaps that you have collected
over the last couple of years? created legend? We
Luis Elizondo: don't know let you get there. Actually. I just
want to be fair, but let's, let's have you out that you
know, we really don't know we want to just make we're doing
our due diligence. We're
John Greenewald: trying to find out gotcha and and thank you for
that and So you've got these these alleged pieces of UAP that
you're going to have analyzed through this army agreement
you're listed on there, you're the main contact, I forget what
the exact wording was, and the agreements Been a while. So
that's my last question to you is, why did you choose to leave
them? Where does that leave us with that crater agreement? And
was there anything that transpired thus far? Yep.
Luis Elizondo: So I, again, I people are gonna get mad at me
for saying this, I can't speak for ttsa can only speak for
myself. What I have mentioned before is that ttsa is a company
and they owe their investors a results, right. She's all good
companies should do the storage of investment. Where my
expertise lies, specifically me and reselling. shondo is not
necessarily in the entertainment division, which is where ttsa
does a lot of its focus areas on and for me, my skill sets are
probably better used in a different capacity. So that
decision was made. My, again, all my friends at ttsa I love
them dearly, great people, great human beings. But, you know,
this is battlefields evolve. battlefields change, they're not
static, right? They're an evolving situation. And
sometimes you have to move troops around the battlefield,
in order to, to, to to win the battle, right? That's not
uncommon. You don't just sit there in rank and file and just
march forward, you have to adapt with the environment and the
situation as its evolving. And that's very much what what I'm
doing this is, again, a long game, let me remind people that,
you know, we have achieved a lot in three years, but I think if
we want to achieve more in the next three years, we have to
adapt, we have to adapt, we have to continue moving the ball
forward, and sometimes look at a football game, right? The
quarterback doesn't do the same thing every time. The
quarterbacks got to change plays, otherwise, you know that
the guys know what you're doing, and then they figure you out and
you lose the game. So you got to you got to you can't ever take
for granted the battlespace that we're operating in. And I say
battle spaces. Again, people say, oh, there's a threat
narrative again. No, no, that's just the way I talk. I'm a
military guy. Right? So I look at everything as a military
style campaign or an intelligence campaign. Right?
It's a multi pronged, it's it's a multi dimensional battle
space. I tell people, you know, there's several ways you can
look at the battle space, some people look at battle space,
like the game Connect for some people look at the battle space
like checkers, some people look at the battle space, like three
dimensional chess. And that's kind of the way I think, you
know, we need to look at this, this, this is no different. This
is a very complex, highly evolving topic where we're
learning every day more and more and more. So we have to maintain
our our momentum by always adapting to to the environment,
anticipating not just the environment of tomorrow, but the
environment next week, next month, next year. So we can stay
ahead.
John Greenewald: When you ask me another question I didn't want
Will you stay connected with that crater agreement? Or are
you essentially out of that out?
Luis Elizondo: Well, okay. So, again, as it relates to ttsa, I
can't speak about that, I can tell you that we're always
looking for opportunities for new partnerships, right? This
being perfect example, you and I are having this conversation.
This is a partnership. This is this is what it is, you know,
whether you like me or hate me, or I like you or hate you or
whatever. We're working with each other because you realize,
I'm sorry,
John Greenewald: I said you hate me. No, no, no, no.
Luis Elizondo: I'm just saying I'm just general terms. Either
way, you know, whether we like or hate each other. No,
actually, for the record, actually, I like it. But that's
inconsequential. Doesn't matter if I like you. That's my point.
The point is that we each have a role to play and and we we need
each other if we want to continue to push the ball down,
down the field, just like we need everybody else right now,
on social media in this in this crazy grassroots effort. We need
to call UFO Twitter, right or, or the UAP research enclave? I
mean, it's working. It's working. Again, I can tell you
don't look now but you're achieving what you what you're
setting out to do. So I think people shouldn't be surprised
that by continue to, to engage certain elements of the US
government for the purposes of research, that that that's
probably a no brainer. I think most people should if they see
that, that shouldn't be a surprise.
John Greenewald: Well, look, I can ask you questions all day,
I'm down to 6437 left to go. My guess is we're probably not you
know, in a position to ask them all right now. So tell you what,
I hope that after this last hour or so that you will come back
that that you will continue this conversation with me because I
hope that you've realized not only through this last hour, but
obviously we've shared a lot of conversations privately. You
know, and I hope you know where I'm coming from. And you started
with an apology to me, and I want to end it with one to you.
I caught myself by critiquing the story that was coming out,
then starting to shift towards it being personal, not by
intent, but it came off that way. And for you, I apologize.
I've already done it privately. But I want to do it publicly.
Luis Elizondo: No worries, no worries. Where this is, we're in
this together, man. And and this is something that I think, you
know, my concern for you My biggest concern, I told you this
privately, just having me on your show, I'm concerned that
there going to be some of your your followers fans. You know,
folks, your associates, that may criticize you for this. They may
say, oh, you're drinking the Kool Aid. Oh, you know, you're,
you're falling for misinformation for Lou, I hope
that's not the case for you. I really hope that by doing having
this conversation together, people realize on both sides
that, you know, we we can work together, we should be working
together. I hope this doesn't have any negative impacts for
you. If anybody out there is listening, and they think that
this is some sort of scheme you and I came up with. It's not
what you see is what you get. This is very frank. JOHN Did not
you did not load me with any questions beforehand. Everything
you've asked me, you've asked me without me knowing ahead of
time. So hopefully people see that level of transparency. And,
you know, maybe we can show them that, you know, we all can work
together.
John Greenewald: Yeah, we should be working. And I hope that this
serves as an example of that. You've been so gracious with
your time I blew through the agreed amount. So I appreciate
your willingness to take a little bit more time with me.
You're welcome back anytime you know my number, you know, my
email, please know,
Luis Elizondo: you got mine. So I think people know Just give me
a call give me give me a couple days head notice because I do
have a honey do list I have to stay on top of but I'm happy to
have a conversation anytime. Absolutely been my honor and
pleasure. And I really appreciate it. By the way. Thank
you for what you do. I'm telling you you are and I've told people
this privately I told him publicly. There is only one john
Greenwald that can do what that does what you do. It's it's
amazing what you've been able to achieve and accomplish using the
government system against itself. That takes a high degree
of savvy and sophistication that not everybody really understands
and appreciates. But, you know, I see it with you and you play a
vital role. So thank you for what you do.
John Greenewald: Well, I appreciate that. I always love
ruffling feathers wherever those feathers may lie. So thank you
for that.
Luis Elizondo: And you're really good at it. Thanks.
John Greenewald: I appreciate that. And thanks again for your
time and your graciousness, and thank you all for listening and
or watching this is John Greenewald, Jr signing off.
We'll see you next time.