Sunday, December 17th., 2017
Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public
The Pentagon is seen in an aerial view. (Charles Dharapak/AP)
The videos, all taken from cockpit cameras, show pilots struggling to lock their radars on oval-shaped vessels that, on screen, look vaguely like giant flying Tic Tacs. The strange aircraft — no claims are made about their possible origins or makeup — appear to hover briefly before sprinting away at speeds that elicit gasps and shouts from the pilots.
Elizondo, in an internal Pentagon memo requesting that the videos be cleared for public viewing, argued that the images could help educate pilots and improve aviation safety. But in interviews, he said his ultimate intention was to shed light on a little-known program Elizondo himself ran for seven years: a low-key Defense Department operation to collect and analyze reported UFO sightings.
Current and former Pentagon officials confirm that the Pentagon program has been in existence since 2007 and was formed for the purpose of collecting and analyzing a wide range of “anomalous aerospace threats” ranging from advanced aircraft fielded by traditional U.S. adversaries to commercial drones to possible alien encounters. It is a rare instance of ongoing government investigations into a UFO phenomenon that was the subject of multiple official inquiries in the 1950s and 1960s.
Spending for the program totaled at least $22 million, according to former Pentagon officials and documents seen by The Washington Post, but the funding officially ended in 2012. “It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DOD to make a change,” Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson explained in a statement.
But
officials familiar with the initiative say the collection effort
continued as recently as last month. The program operated jointly out of
the Pentagon and, at least for a time, an underground complex in Las
Vegas managed by Bigelow Aerospace, a defense contractor that builds
modules for space stations. It generated at least one report, a 490-page
volume that describes alleged UFO sightings in the United States and
numerous foreign countries over multiple decades.
Neither
the Pentagon nor any of the program’s managers have claimed conclusive
proof of extraterrestrial visitors, but Elizondo, citing accounts and
data collected by his office over a decade, argues that the videos and
other evidence failed to generate the kind of high-level attention he
believes is warranted. As part of his decision to leave the Pentagon, he
not only sought the release of videos but also penned a letter to
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis complaining that a potential security
threat was being ignored.
“Despite
overwhelming evidence at both the classified and unclassified levels,
certain individuals in the [Defense] Department remain staunchly opposed
to further research on what could be a tactical threat to our pilots,
sailors and soldiers, and perhaps even an existential threat to our
national security,” Elizondo said in the letter, a copy of which was
provided to The Post.
The first public revelations of the
program came in a video conference aired in October by To the Stars
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the firm Elizondo joined as a consultant
after retiring from his Pentagon job. The New York Times and Politico
reported the existence of the program on their websites Saturday. The
Washington Post conducted several confidential interviews over two
months with Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant
secretary of defense for intelligence who also is an officer of the
private firm.
Documents
provided by the former officials included letters of support by former
Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), a key backer of the
initiative who helped secure funding for the program and sought to
ensure a high degree of secrecy. Elizondo said knowledge of the program
was limited, even within the Pentagon itself. He said the program had
multiple enemies at senior levels of the department, from officials who
were either skeptical or ideologically opposed to AATIP’s mission.
“I
was honored to serve at the DOD and took my mission of exploring
unexplained aerial phenomena quite seriously,” Elizondo said. “In the
end, however, I couldn’t carry out that mission, because the department —
which was understandably overstretched — couldn’t give it the resources
that the mounting evidence deserved.”It is difficult to draw conclusions about the nature of the unidentified vessels from the videos alone. Experts generally urged caution, explaining that reported UFO sightings often turn out of have innocuous explanations.
Elizondo, a 22-year veteran of the department who has held top security clearance and worked on secret counterintelligence missions, said he chose to join the private venture because he believed it was the best way to continue the work he was unable to complete as a government employee.
“I left to find an environment where investigating these phenomena is priority number one,” he said.
