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Luis Elizondo Interview for the 2018 International UFO Congress (Video)


LiquidCoax

Skilled Investigator

I thought I would post the Luis Elizondo interview from the 2018 UFO Congress for those of us who were unable to attend. Disclaimer: this is only about 35mins of the fullinterview. The full interview is only available through the UFO Congress VOD page. I think its about $3 to "rent" but you can get a 7 day free trial, watch it, and then cancel your membership without having to pay anything.

From the video description:
This is an exclusive interview of Luis Elizondo, the former head of a secret Pentagon project to investigate UFOs. The project was called the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP). An article on Dec. 16, 2017 in the New York Times revealing the program made worldwide headlines.

Thus far, short media interviews are all Elizondo has participated in. In this exclusive interview, Elizondo answers questions from UFO Congress social media followers and friends.

See the entire 2018 International UFO Congress presentation, including a review of how this revelation came about, and insight from Nick Pope, who ran a similar UFO program for the UK's Ministry of Defense, at the UFO Congress Video-on-Demand page.
 
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Well at least we're all clear as to the intent from the intelligence community that disclosed this.
  • The ultimate revelation here is that 'earthlings' are powerless against the demonstrated craft behaviours and there's just enough disclosure to make that simple point without compromising 'sources and methods'...
  • Another revelation is that someone in authority has deemed the general population sophisticated enough to safely absorb the information. (Prior december 2017: we were all dumbass yahoos)
The resulting effect is quite amazing... the cat is out of the bag and the planet turned the page in 'been there done that' fashion lol.

Project Blue Book - Wikipedia
  • No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security; (in other words, if we're able to make that assessment today it means that they're leaving us alone)
... why should there be a discussion about how to address the reality of beings visiting us that obviously don't want a discussion. And whose technology would require knowledge of a level of exotic physics that could only be mastered in hundreds if not thousands of years through experimentation ;)

Classified or not is irrelevant... now that the cat is out of the bag, the phenomena will always continue to roam on its own unimpeded. We can only observe and hope their intentions never become hostile.

article-2525602-1A2B2A3600000578-553_634x408.jpg
 
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Well at least we're all clear as to the intent from the intelligence community that disclosed this.
  • The ultimate revelation here is that 'earthlings' are powerless against the demonstrated craft behaviours and there's just enough disclosure to make that simple point without compromising 'sources and methods'...
  • Another revelation is that someone in authority has deemed the general population sophisticated enough to safely absorb the information. (Prior december 2017: dumbass yahoos)
The resulting effect is quite amazing... the cat is out of the bag and the planet turned the page in 'been there done that' fashion lol.

Project Blue Book - Wikipedia
  • No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security; (in other words, if we're able to make that assessment today it means that they're leaving us alone)
... why should there be a discussion about how to address the reality of beings visiting us that obviously don't want a discussion. And whose technology would require knowledge of a level of exotic physics that could only be mastered in hundreds if not thousands of years through experimentation ;)

Classified or not is irrelevant... now that the cat is out of the bag, the phenomena will always continue to roam on its own unimpeded. We can only observe and hope their intentions never become hostile.

article-2525602-1A2B2A3600000578-553_634x408.jpg
@Ezechiel , I do find your metaphor of the cat out of the bag to be a fitting description of this faint disclosure from Luis Elizondo. However, it does not capture the excitement and ominous energy of the “Doomsday scenario” implicit in this present revelation.

Thus, in order to capture the bottomless gravitas and terrifying seriousness of our impending though not yet imminent annihilation by the ETs responsible for the Nimitz video, I would like to propose an alternate metaphor of the Sinking of the Titanic, which offers a ray of hope that some of us will get into lifeboats and survive while of course many more of us will perish in the frozen ocean.

If I may put two timelines together, let us first consider the clock starting on the Titanic’s doom when it struck that iceberg at 11:40 PM on April 14, 1912. Beside it, in parallel, let us lay the UFO timeline starting this “clock” at time t=0 with the Roswell crash of July 1947.

After the iceberg strike, it took 20 minutes for the crew members to realize the doom of the ship and bring the terrible news to Captain Smith that the ship was going to sink.

Today in 2018, we measure a time span of 70 years between the Roswell event and the event of disclosure brought to us by the TTSA team in The NY Times article of two months ago.

It took Capt Smith another 5 minutes before he was able to gather himself, assess the situation and finally to alert the crew to get the lifeboats ready.

So we are presently at that point where Capt. Smith was definitely dithering for awhile before he gird his loins and took decisive action and ordered the lifeboats to be prepared and launched.

Do we have any equivalent of lifeboats in our UFO scenario? I dare say we do and we have a fleet of the most reliable lifeboats ever constructed to spirit us away from the death, destruction and annihilation inevitably awaiting us from those nasty ETs.

These saving vessels are known as the Bosley Breakwaway Civilization Arks and they are guaranteed to traverse any and all wormholes that will provide escape from the doom awaiting our “Titanic” which is the entire Planet Earth.

And now I would like to invite the farsighted inventor of these metrically engineered arks, the intrepid Paracaster extraordinaire @Walter Bosley , to tell us of his plans to save those chosen few of us who wish to fleee the impending inevitable doom on our planet and breakaway to galaxies and/or multiverses unknown.

They don’t come cheap, but when your very existence is threatened, cost is no object. May I give you now the company slogan which you should recite as your mantra of survival. (I’d write a jingle for it, but since the first line quotes Jesus Christ in the Gospel (Matthew 24:35) I did not wish to desecrate the verse.)

Oh, wait, I almost forgot. Who is our equivalent of Capt. Smith of the Titanic?
Why none other than the Prophet Elizondo of TTSA who speaks these words of wisdom, grace and warning for us all:

Heaven and Earth will pass away,
So buy your Bosley Breakaway!
 
Robert Sheaffer attended the UFO Congress and here is his report on the video.

Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe: A Skeptic at the 2018 UFO Congress, Part 4 (last)

Next came the interview that everyone was waiting to hear - Luis Elizondo, who formerly headed up the Pentagon's secret UFO investigations and now works on To The Stars with Tom DeLonge. Elizondo was originally scheduled to appear in person at the Congress, but because of surgeries he appeared in a video presentation. That video has now been released, and is embedded below. In it, he replies to questions that were put to him by the organizers of the Congress.

Elizondo said that with the Pentagon AATIP program, "we got very clever" in managing our resources after funding was cut off. "Duel use" is the relevant phrase. He said that he had purposely steered away from reading UFO books, so as not to prejudice himself on the subject. (Thus he is unfamiliar with UFO history, with its long history of misperceptions, hoaxes, and self-delusions.)

As for the statement in the New York Times article that the supposed UFO artifacts contain unknown "alloys," that is not correct, he explained. But they do (allegedly) contain anomalous isotope ratios (a claim we have heard before regarding other supposed alien samples).

What I thought was most interesting, he said his job is "Director of Security" at To The Stars Academy, protecting persons and things. So his background (such as it is) in managing UFO investigations is not directly relevant to his job. He is, in essence, their Bouncer.
 
Assuming that we're dealing with alloys manufactured by an alien civilization, a few hundred thousand years ahead in tech lol, the relative analogy of us finding them and analyzing them for the benefit of humanity would be similar to a chimp wrapping its head around the use of a stick in the context of a forest.

chimpanzee-sitting-on-stone-biting-stick-kenya-closeup-picture-id200329413-001
 
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I refuse to pay for wild claims. For someone who may just be just spouting bomsence. Thanks for posting!
Next victim please!

Sent from my SM-J327V using Tapatalk
 
I refuse to pay for wild claims.
I think he's wrong about that - I checked out the full segment from the UFO Congress, and it seems that OpenMinds kindly provided the entire Luis Elizondo Q&A for free on YouTube last week, in that video LiquidCoax opened this thread with.

But honestly this interview was more interesting to me, because in this one Mr. Elizondo discusses the metamaterial (not alloy) that, apparently, is of unknown origin (and which, according to Tom Delonge anyway in this part of his Joe Rogan interview, exhibits some very interesting characteristics):

Assuming that we're dealing with alloys manufactured by an alien civilization, a few hundred thousand years ahead in tech lol, the relative analogy of us finding them and analyzing them for the benefit of humanity would be similar to a chimp wrapping its head around the use of a stick in the context of a forest.
We have no idea how far ahead of us they are technologically - all we know is that they have a form of propulsion technology that we don't have yet. Perhaps we could replicate their propulsion system today, if we knew how it worked. For example: we had the capability of building the first electromagnetic technology at least two thousand years ago (batteries and electromagnetic inductors and capacitors), but presumably we didn't realize that we could even do that, or what uses it might have, so apparently we overlooked it entirely (though some have speculated that the Baghdad battery was an electrochemical battery, because it could've been used to create electrical energy if it had been filled with fruit juice).

And right now we're engineering the quantum wavefunction of complex materials called topological insulators in various research labs around the world - we've come an awful long way from learning how to poke things with a stick. I strongly suspect that it's our theoretical physics which remains inadequate, rather than our technological manufacturing capabilities, for producing a viable field propulsion technology.

Maybe that's why they seem to be so interested in us lately - perhaps they see that we're capable of meeting them on equal footing, zig-zagging around in total defiance of inertia and traversing the stars, but we just haven't solved the riddle of how to go about it yet. I know that if I were an alien civilization somewhere in our galactic neighborhood, and I noticed that the local savages were now capable of showing up at my home world, but they simply hadn't realized it yet, I'd be keeping a pretty close eye on us.

Robert Sheaffer: "What I thought was most interesting, he said his job is 'Director of Security' at To The Stars Academy, protecting persons and things. So his background (such as it is) in managing UFO investigations is not directly relevant to his job. He is, in essence, their Bouncer."
That's preposterous. His title at TTSA may be that of security director, but he ran what's possibly the most sophisticated ufo investigation and research organization in known human history, for a decade. Anyone who thinks that knowledge isn't playing a large role in the R&D efforts of TTSA is completely clueless.
 
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... Mr. Elizondo discusses the metamaterial (not alloy) that, apparently, is of unknown origin (and which, according to Tom Delonge anyway in this part of his Joe Rogan interview, exhibits some very interesting characteristics) ... We have no idea how far ahead of us they are technologically - all we know is that they have a form of propulsion technology that we don't have yet.
This interview once again underscores the relevance of the question I asked the TTSA as to why they have no ufologists on their team. Elizondo says that in his opinion the meaning of the word UFO is in the eye of the beholder, which is an opinion that is entirely unsubstantiated when it comes to the way official USAF investigations prior to those he was involved with defined the word. In fact the word UFO was invented by the DoD ( specifically the USAF ), and their definition seems pretty much identical in intent to the way Zondo defines AATs ( Advanced Aerospace Threats ).

The intentional ignorance of the serious historical relevance of UFOs by Zondo and the TTSA draws their intent and competence with respect to the subject into serious question. Essentially I'm seeing people who have little to no background or competency in ufology being made responsible for serious UFO investigation and analysis and the follow-up PR. On the so-called metamaterials. I've seen no substantial evidence that the materials in question are in fact metamaterials as defined by materials engineers. In other words materials that are unambiguously engineered in repeating patterns rather than simply made of an unusual combination of materials that are not engineered.


I've alluded to the Bob White artifact as an example in past posts. If one self-servingly twists the interpretations of what "engineered" means, one could say it was engineered. But when one knows how it's made, it's obvious that calling it engineered is misleading. So far we only have loosely associated anecdotes and unconfirmed claims about materials. Zondo also alludes to people in ufology not being happy about the way they're handing things, and given the way people in ufology have been excluded from access to the actual evidence and their team, it shouldn't be any surprise. They're making claims about being all about disclosure and sharing while only superficially coming good on it.

 
This interview once again underscores the relevance of the question I asked the TTSA as to why they have no ufologists on their team. Elizondo says that in his opinion the meaning of the word UFO is in the eye of the beholder, which is an opinion that is entirely unsubstantiated when it comes to the way official USAF investigations prior to those he was involved with defined the word. In fact the word UFO was invented by the DoD ( specifically the USAF ), and their definition seems pretty much identical in intent to the way Zondo defines AATs ( Advanced Aerospace Threats ).

The intentional ignorance of the serious historical relevance of UFOs by Zondo and the TTSA draws their intent and competence with respect to the subject into serious question. Essentially I'm seeing people who have little to no background or competency in ufology being made responsible for serious UFO investigation and analysis and the follow-up PR. On the so-called metamaterials. I've seen no substantial evidence that the materials in question are in fact metamaterials as defined by materials engineers. In other words materials that are unambiguously engineered in repeating patterns rather than simply made of an unusual combination of materials that are not engineered.


I've alluded to the Bob White artifact as an example in past posts. If one self-servingly twists the interpretations of what "engineered" means, one could say it was engineered. But when one knows how it's made, it's obvious that calling it engineered is misleading. So far we only have loosely associated anecdotes and unconfirmed claims about materials. Zondo also alludes to people in ufology not being happy about the way they're handing things, and given the way people in ufology have been excluded from access to the actual evidence and their team, it shouldn't be any surprise. They're making claims about being all about disclosure and sharing while only superficially coming good on it.
Excellent points, @USI Calgary! You illustrate the ongoing untenable severe cognitive dissonance between the purported open disclosure mission of TTS and the actual public impression it creates, especially in the field of UFOlogy. Something’s gotta give and it looks like a “slow train wreck” is happening.

Now, even though Luis has the body type and tats to qualify as a Bouncer, I see him more as a Gatekeeper or Doorman. He really doesn’t know much at all, and thankfully he is aware of and admits his ignorance. Indeed, As Robert Sheaffer points out, Luis is deliberately ignorant of UFOlogy, which makes him, in the word used by @Thomas R Morrison to dismiss Rober Sheaffer, literally “clueless” about the 7 decades of UFOlogy leading up to the present “disclosure”, such as it is.

But even though Luis is clueless, at least he is not disrespectful of UFOlogy. But Tom DeLonge is arrogantly disrespectful of UFOlogy as you can see in Robert Sheaffer’s next posting about TTSA and Tom’s financial shenanigans about whether To the Stars is legally an incorporated Hot Dog Stand. In short, is “To the Stars” really going “To the Dogs?”

Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe: To The Stars, or To The Dogs? The Case of the Missing Hot Dogs

However, the real contempt that Tom DeLonge holds for anyone in the UFO community who disagrees with him is vividly illustrated in Robert Sheaffer’s further research into Tom’s financial dealings. Here is the company that Tom formed 20 years ago for his Blink182 group

Poo Poo Butt, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA | Company Info & Reviews

And here is an article in a music magazine about it, where I quote the relevant passage which shows Tom deLonge’s real attitude toward those who disagree with him.

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Punks-go-beyond-joking-around-246287.php

And they named their company Poo Poo Butt Inc. "We did it because it was the most immature, dumbest thing ever," DeLonge said. "We thought it would be funny to have our accountants, managers and attorneys having to say that over the phone every day. "We were always like, 'Let's have fun doing what we do and (hell with) everybody else. It doesn't matter what impressions we leave. It doesn't matter how many people get offended,'

In that last sentence you can see Tom’s attitude which still exists today toward UFOlogy. In fact I might say that Tom DeLonge puts the FU into UFOlogy.

So there you have the two most prominent public faces of TTSA in the media today:

Luis the Clueless and Tom deContemptuous
 
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Excellent points, @USI Calgary!
Thanks. Something else I noticed when listening to Zondo's other appearances is that on one of them he said he had planned to simply exit the program and get a regular job and "fade quietly off into the sunset". On another he was all gung-ho to resign as if in protest to the secrecy so that he could become a shining knight for disclosure. Which is it exactly? There's something about this whole AATD program that's making me twitchy. I really don't know what we should believe other than, yes, UFOs are real. So what? Tell us something we don't already know. Picking them up on radar isn't anything new. Pilots chasing them isn't anything new.

What's more mysterious that I'd like to get to the bottom of, is why the media wide shift in attitude that is decidedly serious about the subject? Is it some kind of perfect storm where this story broke after all the cynics that were running things before retired, leaving more open minded or pro-UFO people in managerial and editorial positions? It's like overnight the whole fog of derision around he subject that's been prevalent in the media for years simply lifted, and instead of zombie like automatons performing their usual giggle-factor antics, we're getting serious reporting.
 
This interview once again underscores the relevance of the question I asked the TTSA as to why they have no ufologists on their team. Elizondo says that in his opinion the meaning of the word UFO is in the eye of the beholder, which is an opinion that is entirely unsubstantiated when it comes to the way official USAF investigations prior to those he was involved with defined the word. In fact the word UFO was invented by the DoD ( specifically the USAF ), and their definition seems pretty much identical in intent to the way Zondo defines AATs ( Advanced Aerospace Threats ).
I think it’s perfectly reasonable observation to state that the term “UFO” is taken to mean different things to different people nowadays. The debunkers love to emphasize the “unidentified,” while those of us with a genuine interest in the phenomenon generally focus on the subset of reports that involve solid technological objects that demonstrate advanced exotic flight characteristics.

So the AATIP commonly used the term AAV (Advanced Aerospace Vehicles) to specify the category of significance, and sidestep the horrendous psychological baggage and controversy associated with the term “UFO.” Why that’s a problem for you or anyone else completely mystifies me.

The AATIP was not a USAF program – Mr. Elizondo ran the program as a civilian, and it was formed by Sen. Reid and others. So it was completely independent of past work in this area. I can see why you perceive that as a failing, but frankly I can see the value in starting with a clean slate and arriving at a totally independent conclusion based only the empirical evidence which they had direct access to and could subject to modern scientific analysis.

The intentional ignorance of the serious historical relevance of UFOs by Zondo and the TTSA draws their intent and competence with respect to the subject into serious question.
It’s churlish to call him “Zondo.” I thought you'd be above employing this kind of intellectually dishonest and purely rhetorical debate tactic - my mistake, I guess.

Completely independent analysis is a pillar of the scientific method for a reason. They started from scratch and analyzed modern reports and data using modern methodology and came to the same conclusion that other investigative efforts came to half a century ago using far less sophisticated instruments. That lends their findings even greater weight, which we should all be happy about, imo. Because nobody can assert that their conclusions were colored by any bias.

Essentially I'm seeing people who have little to no background or competency in ufology being made responsible for serious UFO investigation and analysis and the follow-up PR.
“Background” and “competency” are two totally independent factors. You don’t need background to exhibit a high level of competency, which Mr. Elizondo and the AATIP appear to have done. They reached the same conclusions that you and I have reached, and generated three dozen technical reports using professional scientists and modern military resources. We need to see those reports, but it sounds to me like this was the most scientifically competent investigation of this phenomenon that has ever been conducted. And he’s going around telling people that we’ve been right all along – yet you’re going around calling him “Zondo” and mounting semantic attacks because, what – he didn’t spend his time reading hundreds of mostly dubious books on the subject like Tom DeLonge did? He looked at the problem with clear objectivity, and with proper empirical methodology, and concluded that indeed there are highly sophisticated non-terrestrial devices operating our airspace from time to time. That works for me, and it should work for you too, imo.

On the so-called metamaterials. I've seen no substantial evidence that the materials in question are in fact metamaterials as defined by materials engineers. In other words materials that are unambiguously engineered in repeating patterns rather than simply made of an unusual combination of materials that are not engineered.

I've alluded to the Bob White artifact as an example in past posts. If one self-servingly twists the interpretations of what "engineered" means, one could say it was engineered. But when one knows how it's made, it's obvious that calling it engineered is misleading. So far we only have loosely associated anecdotes and unconfirmed claims about materials.
We haven’t seen any evidence of any kind regarding these materials – all we know is the little that has been said about them verbally. I think you’re conflating this metamaterial (and yes it’s a metamaterial – Mr. Elizondo had it scientifically analyzed while director of the AATIP), with Linda Moulton Howe’s industrial grinder residue material. I thought they might be the same thing at first also, but after examining this issue in detail in the thread that became so toxic that Bob had to lock it down, I no longer think so. The metamaterial that Mr. Elizondo has spoken about was found to have highly sophisticated manufacturing characteristics (DeLonge claimed that the atoms of the material are precisely aligned, and Mr. Elizondo has stated that the isotopic ratios are not naturally occurring on the earth), and it was estimated to be approx. 80 microns thick, totally unlikely the thick slab of lumpy rubbish that LMH looked into as “Arts Parts” years ago.

Zondo also alludes to people in ufology not being happy about the way they're handing things, and given the way people in ufology have been excluded from access to the actual evidence and their team, it shouldn't be any surprise. They're making claims about being all about disclosure and sharing while only superficially coming good on it.
I’ve been following this story very carefully, and if you have too, then you should be aware that they’ve released everything that’s gone through official declassification procedures, and much more is making its way through that process right now, including two dozen more videos. So it’s not TTSA that’s holding things up, it’s the DoD.

There’s only one thing the TTSA seems to have that they haven’t released yet – a third video clip that’s been declassified. After hearing Leslie Kean’s remarks on The Unexplained back in late December, it seems that she’s working on a new article and it will probably be published with that video clip. It think that’s a wise strategy – keep releasing compelling new data every few months to keep the topic alive in the public mind, and slowly but surely shift the conversation toward a serious, open public debate. Because public perception has a great deal of inertia, and a lot of people need time to process and accept the reality that we do in fact have alien devices operating in our airspace and that the DoD has known about it for a long time.

But I very seriously doubt that the DoD will ever let us see that metamaterial or the technical reports about it. Because if it is what they’re saying it is – a fragment of actual alien technology, then its defense significance is inestimable, so it may never be declassified.

I gather that’s why Tom Delonge announced on his Twitter page a few weeks ago that TTSA is going to try to independently replicate that material and its exotic physical properties, so we can see for ourselves.

Thanks. Something else I noticed when listening to Zondo's other appearances is that on one of them he said he had planned to simply exit the program and get a regular job and "fade quietly off into the sunset". On another he was all gung-ho to resign as if in protest to the secrecy so that he could become a shining knight for disclosure. Which is it exactly?
This came up in the NYT thread shortly before Bob locked it down. Apparently Mr. Elizondo was feeling fed up with the bureaucracy around this topic at the Pentagon, and was planning on leaving the program to go work in the private sector and leave this all behind him. Then he met with DeLonge and they decided to start the TTSA so they could let the public in on the AATIP's findings.

But if you want to make it into some kind of conspiracy theory, like S.R.I. and Realm and Hollywood_Tomfortas, knock yourself out.
 
This interview once again underscores the relevance of the question I asked the TTSA as to why they have no ufologists on their team.
That just isn't really their core business. It would be pretty hard to make money or grow the company with handing out UFO related information, and charging for it wouldn't win many hearts. Their core business is entertainment (according to the official filings as well), and they have severely unrealistic hopes of extending into aerospace/space related businesses. The UFO videos and the vague talk about those materials seems to be more like marketing.

On the so-called metamaterials. I've seen no substantial evidence that the materials in question are in fact metamaterials as defined by materials engineers. In other words materials that are unambiguously engineered in repeating patterns rather than simply made of an unusual combination of materials that are not engineered.
Nowadays it seems to be more about isotopes, which is also another common feature of earlier similar claims. I also haven't seen much indication those would actually have anything to do with metamaterials and those repeating patterns you mentioned. Everything I have seen indicates they are just repeating claims of earlier materials that Linda Moulton Howe and Jacques Vallee among others have talked about, and metamaterials seem to be just an added buzzword on top of old claims.

In that one interview Elizondo also refused to even acknowledge that the AATIP had acquired any materials, and despite that, continued to advertise the purported features of those metamaterials, which seems to indicate they don't really have anything to do with the AATIP. Which would also mean they do not actually need to withhold evidence because of classified information or anything like that, but more likely because they don't want to reveal how little they really have.


So far we only have loosely associated anecdotes and unconfirmed claims about materials. Zondo also alludes to people in ufology not being happy about the way they're handing things, and given the way people in ufology have been excluded from access to the actual evidence and their team, it shouldn't be any surprise. They're making claims about being all about disclosure and sharing while only superficially coming good on it.
At the same time Elizondo has repeatedly stated he doesn't want people to believe him, but the evidence. That would be a bit less hypocritical if he would actually deliver the evidence before making such statements.
 
Thanks. Something else I noticed when listening to Zondo's other appearances is that on one of them he said he had planned to simply exit the program and get a regular job and "fade quietly off into the sunset". On another he was all gung-ho to resign as if in protest to the secrecy so that he could become a shining knight for disclosure. Which is it exactly? There's something about this whole AATD program that's making me twitchy. I really don't know what we should believe other than, yes, UFOs are real. So what? Tell us something we don't already know. Picking them up on radar isn't anything new. Pilots chasing them isn't anything new.

What's more mysterious that I'd like to get to the bottom of, is why the media wide shift in attitude that is decidedly serious about the subject? Is it some kind of perfect storm where this story broke after all the cynics that were running things before retired, leaving more open minded or pro-UFO people in managerial and editorial positions? It's like overnight the whole fog of derision around he subject that's been prevalent in the media for years simply lifted, and instead of zombie like automatons performing their usual giggle-factor antics, we're getting serious reporting.
It is a well known fact that the CIA has censored stories run by The NY Times and the Washington Post concerning UFO type stories. You can probably be sure that the editorial staff of these newspapers did not have some sort of change of heart. You would need to ask the CIA what their endgame is.

I can speculate that whatever is driving this story, it will not involve being open and transparent to the citizens of the US.
 
What's more mysterious that I'd like to get to the bottom of, is why the media wide shift in attitude that is decidedly serious about the subject?

I don't think there's anything mysterious about that. We got a case that could be taken seriously. A similar thing happened after the O'Hare incident. People in general are interested in the topic, and reporters and scientists are more open to it than many would claim. It's all about credible information and evidence, and over the years there hasn't been much of it. I at least can't name any cases that would be anywhere close to the Nimitz in that respect. Can you?
 
I think it’s perfectly reasonable observation to state that the term “UFO” is taken to mean different things to different people nowadays.
That's beside the point.
So the AATIP commonly used the term AAV (Advanced Aerospace Vehicles) to specify the category of significance, and sidestep the horrendous psychological baggage and controversy associated with the term “UFO.” Why that’s a problem for you or anyone else completely mystifies me.
It's a problem simply because it is "sidestepping" the baggage instead of helping the rest of us clean it up. They're basically saying "To Hell with the rest of you, we don't care about your mess, but please send us money so we can play the same game as you are without getting our fingers dirty."
The AATIP was not a USAF program – Mr. Elizondo ran the program as a civilian, and it was formed by Sen. Reid and others. So it was completely independent of past work in this area. I can see why you perceive that as a failing, but frankly I can see the value in starting with a clean slate and arriving at a totally independent conclusion based only the empirical evidence which they had direct access to and could subject to modern scientific analysis.
Reinventing the wheel and ignoring history isn't a responsible way to approach the problem.
It’s churlish to call him “Zondo.” I thought you'd be above employing this kind of intellectually dishonest and purely rhetorical debate tactic - my mistake, I guess.
Hmm. I think "Zondo" has a nice ring to it. Never thought of it as a "tactic". But if you want to see it as part of my diabolical plan to overthrow the TTSA, that adds to the entertainment value.
Completely independent analysis is a pillar of the scientific method for a reason. They started from scratch and analyzed modern reports and data using modern methodology and came to the same conclusion that other investigative efforts came to half a century ago using far less sophisticated instruments. That lends their findings even greater weight, which we should all be happy about, imo. Because nobody can assert that their conclusions were colored by any bias.
I think it's fine somebody was doing something. I think there's a lot more going on we don't know about too.
“Background” and “competency” are two totally independent factors. You don’t need background to exhibit a high level of competency, which Mr. Elizondo and the AATIP appear to have done. They reached the same conclusions that you and I have reached, and generated three dozen technical reports using professional scientists and modern military resources. We need to see those reports, but it sounds to me like this was the most scientifically competent investigation of this phenomenon that has ever been conducted. And he’s going around telling people that we’ve been right all along – yet you’re going around calling him “Zondo” and mounting semantic attacks because, what – he didn’t spend his time reading hundreds of mostly dubious books on the subject like Tom DeLonge did? He looked at the problem with clear objectivity, and with proper empirical methodology, and concluded that indeed there are highly sophisticated non-terrestrial devices operating our airspace from time to time. That works for me, and it should work for you too, imo.
Hey, I hope Zondo blows the lid clean off the whole the thing. After all, there is a flip side to the whole thing as well, and I think that you do a very good job pointing out the positives.
We haven’t seen any evidence of any kind regarding these materials – all we know is the little that has been said about them verbally. I think you’re conflating this metamaterial (and yes it’s a metamaterial – Mr. Elizondo had it scientifically analyzed while director of the AATIP), with Linda Moulton Howe’s industrial grinder residue material. I thought they might be the same thing at first also, but after examining this issue in detail in the thread that became so toxic that Bob had to lock it down, I no longer think so. The metamaterial that Mr. Elizondo has spoken about was found to have highly sophisticated manufacturing characteristics (DeLonge claimed that the atoms of the material are precisely aligned, and Mr. Elizondo has stated that the isotopic ratios are not naturally occurring on the earth), and it was estimated to be approx. 80 microns thick, totally unlikely the thick slab of lumpy rubbish that LMH looked into as “Arts Parts” years ago.
We don't know that it's a true metamaterial unless a full report can be furnished. If it can't be, then so much for the disclosure. It's just more unsubstantiated claims. And even if it is a metamaterial. We can make them. So what is there linking the alleged sample to a UFO besides a lot of unanswered questions and unsubstantiated claims?
I’ve been following this story very carefully, and if you have too, then you should be aware that they’ve released everything that’s gone through official declassification procedures, and much more is making its way through that process right now, including two dozen more videos. So it’s not TTSA that’s holding things up, it’s the DoD.
Like we don't already know they have all kinds of stuff. And what they Hell does the DoD need the TTSA people for to release it? They can simply declassify it and post it on their own website along with their other stuff.
... I gather that’s why Tom Delonge announced on his Twitter page a few weeks ago that TTSA is going to try to independently replicate that material and its exotic physical properties, so we can see for ourselves.
That won't tell us anything about the original sample or where it came from. If the DoD is already studying it then they'll be light years ahead of the TTSA people. In the meantime there are real labs dedicated to exploring these materials. Why pay the TTSA people to do the same thing?
This came up in the NYT thread shortly before Bob locked it down. Apparently Mr. Elizondo was feeling fed up with the bureaucracy around this topic at the Pentagon, and was planning on leaving the program to go work in the private sector and leave this all behind him. Then he met with DeLonge and they decided to start the TTSA so they could let the public in on the AATIP's findings.
In the audio Zondo makes it sound like both his attitudes were in place concurrently before the TTSA people approached him. But riding quietly off into the sunset is something you do after you retire and get your pension, which is something he said he purposefully sacrificed to get the message out. So I'm getting the sense that Zondo's fed-upness with the bureaucracy may have had more to do with it than his martyrdom for the cause than he's let on.
But if you want to make it into some kind of conspiracy theory, like S.R.I. and Realm and Hollywood_Tomfortas, knock yourself out.
Hmm ... I think we already proposed "The MeliZonDong Conspiracy" ... lol ... yes some days I can still be a brat. To quote Ogden Nash. "You can only be young once. But you can stay immature indefinitely." Keep up the good work following the story. I really mean it when I say that I hope the pressure blows the lid off it at long last. But if it happens, I won't hail the TTSA as the great liberators. There's been a long history of people who have dedicated significant portions of their lives to studying the phenomenon and raising awareness. The whole TTSA effort is just a springboard off that, and they're giving no credit to it.
 
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I don't think there's anything mysterious about that. We got a case that could be taken seriously. A similar thing happened after the O'Hare incident. People in general are interested in the topic, and reporters and scientists are more open to it than many would claim. It's all about credible information and evidence, and over the years there hasn't been much of it. I at least can't name any cases that would be anywhere close to the Nimitz in that respect. Can you?
The Nimitz case was online before the TTSA people used it as part of their media strategy, and that story isn't officially sourced either. If we're not using officially sourced reports then there's been all kinds of cases. Unless the pressure from the TTSA venture finally cracks it all wide open, it will probably settle down and go quiet for another so many decades. The '52 DC Flap was as good ( or better ), and newspapers reported on that case as well. Why didn't we get disclosure then? Historically the grandstanders tend to come and go and try to take as much glory for themselves as possible. What else would you expect from a former rock star? Yes I'm hopeful, but I'm also totally with what Jerome Clark had to say about it on his last appearance.
 
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The Nimitz case was online before the TTSA people used it as part of their media strategy, and that story isn't officially sourced either. If we're not using officially sourced reports then there's been all kinds of cases. Unless the pressure from the TTSA venture finally cracks it all wide open, it will probably settle down and go quiet for another so many decades. The '52 DC Flap was as good ( or better ), and newspapers reported on that case as well. Why didn't we get disclosure then? Historically the grandstanders tend to come and go and try to take as much glory for themselves as possible. What else would you expect from a former rock star? Yes I'm hopeful, but I'm also totally with what Jerome Clark had to say about it on his last appearance.

Until we trip on tech that brings us close to a semblance of parity with these external intruders (and we become a bigger menace), delving on '52 DC type flaps will continue to be wasted breath.
To Zondo's credit, his disclosure is a bit of healing ointment to all those that suffered under a cloud of derision. Not to mention that the "they can't get here from there" argument has kind of been heavily damaged. (Wonder what Carl Sagan would say?)
Based on the 'overwhelming' global reaction (sarcasm) to the TTSA disclosure effort, I personally (and likey the majority here) won't be expecting too much.
 
The Nimitz case was online before the TTSA people used it as part of their media strategy, and that story isn't officially sourced either.

Yep, it just shows how little they actually have.

The '52 DC Flap was as good ( or better ), and newspapers reported on that case as well.
Which was already 66 years ago, and since there are alternative explanations for at least some of it, it is once again one of those cases where it's hard to say which parts to believe.

Why didn't we get disclosure then?
Maybe that was all there was to disclose.

With the AATIP, the situation looks to be basically so that either some blurry videos and cases like Nimitz are all there is to disclose, or alternatively that project didn't have access to all the significant data. Either way, it looks we have already seen the kind of material we can hope to get from it, although by Elizondo's latest remarks, it's actually our job to try to get that declassified and published, not his/theirs. There's no reason to expect any sort of disclosure beyond that.

Historically the grandstanders tend to come and go and try to take as much glory for themselves as possible. What else would you expect from a former rock star?
Good point.

Yes I'm hopeful, but I'm also totally with what Jerome Clark had to say about it on his last appearance.
What did he say?
 
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