"Top questions and doubts about UFO whistleblower, Luis Elizondo "

[SRL+]

If so passionate and resolute, then confront researchers head on, such as Paul Kimball, or Curt Collins. Perhaps you have heard their thoughts on this subject. Listening to a discussion between the three of you would be worth paying for, as learning a great deal.

 

[Randall]

I can totally understand why people want to wait and see where this is going before making up their minds about it.

I guess that all depends on what you mean by "this" and "it". We have two separate issues. One is the motivations and intentions of Elizondo. The other is the veracity of the information he's putting out. Has anyone run across anything from official DoD sources who are still on active duty that confirms any of Elizondo's story? I haven't been able to find anything on the DoD website, or on the Internet yet. The closest thing to anything to do with UFOs was their usual bit about NORAD tracking Santa's sleigh.

 

[mike]

Does the pilots testimonys count as confirmation ?
I think so.
The senators testimony this was a black budget op instigated by him ?
I think that counts too.

 

[mike]

If so passionate and resolute, then confront researchers head on, such as Paul Kimball, or Curt Collins. Perhaps you have heard their thoughts on this subject. Listening to a discussion between the three of you would be worth paying for, as learning a great deal.

Why ?

They don't know any more than we do at this point in time.
I get the interest in this case, but making like a pinball and bouncing off the bumpers and kickers in a frenzy wont do much.
And while the information given thus far doesn't prove ET's are here, it doesn't make any case whatsoever that Mr Elizondo is a liar either.

Frankly i think the information given so far gives far far more mileage to the believer camp than it does the unbelievers, who are zealots of another stripe, Ufological infidels if we really want to frame the debate in quasi religious terms, which i think is silly.

We may get no more detail than we have been given, that doesn't by default make Mr Elizondo a liar. Simply making that accusation is unfair and intellectually dishonest in and of itself.

On the one hand there is no official confirmation he worked for the DoD, but hes gone on national television and the press and said he did, No one has popped up and said nah ahh, he was never in our employ.
We have two Pilots who confirm the Nimitz event and a senator who confirms he got the funding for the project.

The balance of probability at this point favors this being a real event and not a bald faced lie.

 

[SRL+]

Why ?

They don't know any more than we do at this point in time.
I get the interest in this case, but making like a pinball and bouncing off the bumpers and kickers in a frenzy wont do much.
And while the information given thus far doesn't prove ET's are here, it doesn't make any case whatsoever that Mr Elizondo is a liar either.

Frankly i think the information given so far gives far far more mileage to the believer camp than it does the unbelievers, who are zealots of another stripe, Ufological infidels if we really want to frame the debate in quasi religious terms, which i think is silly.

We may get no more detail than we have been given, that doesn't by default make Mr Elizondo a liar. Simply making that accusation is unfair and intellectually dishonest in and of itself.

On the one hand there is no official confirmation he worked for the DoD, but hes gone on national television and the press and said he did, No one has popped up and said nah ahh, he was never in our employ.
We have two Pilots who confirm the Nimitz event and a senator who confirms he got the funding for the project.

The balance of probability at this point favors this being a real event and not a bald faced lie.

Why not present an alternative POV?

Seriously, Mike, if it were not for you and a few others, I may have possibly stayed married to my darling pet, Skinwalker. However, as you pointed out in several instances, the whole affair could have been some type of military PSYOPS experimentation. Now it appears as if Christopher Mellon, (the highly decorated former counterintelligence officer), was not only involved with NIDS & Skinwalker Central, but also instrumental in the orchestration of utilizing Leslie Kean and the releasing of information to the media.

It is baffling why no one else has brought up Christopher Mellon other than John Alexander when discussing how the entire UFO disclosure saga began.

So, as the shoe is now placed on the other foot, it becomes profoundly obvious why an alternative POV is required.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

Ufological infidels

Lol

Why not present an alternative POV?

Seriously, Mike, if it were not for you and a few others, I may have possibly stayed married to my darling pet, Skinwalker. However, as you pointed out in several instances, the whole affair could have been some type of military PSYOPS experimentation. Now it appears as if Christopher Mellon, (the highly decorated former counterintelligence officer), was not only involved with NIDS & Skinwalker Central, but also instrumental in the orchestration of utilizing Leslie Kean and the releasing of information to the media.

It is baffling why no one else has brought up Christopher Mellon other than John Alexander when discussing how the entire UFO disclosure saga began.

So, as the shoe is now placed on the other foot, it becomes profoundly obvious why an alternative POV is required.

As I see it - and honestly I think it's irrational to see it any other way - it's one thing to hold an opposing view if a person can defend that position with a compelling factually supported argument, but it's another thing entirely to argue that an alternative viewpoint has merit simply by virtue of being an alternative viewpoint.

Take a very simple example for clarification: nobody would say that we need an alternative explanation to evolution just because a single explanation seems kinda paltry. If you're going to argue that evolution is the wrong theory, then you're going to be expected to present a viable alternative theory based on facts and reason. Nobody's better off if we decide to bring spontaneous generation back into the debate simply because evolution has a monopoly on explaining the diversity of biological life.

The only evidence I'm seeing to support an alternative POV for this story is the fact that Elizondo and Mellon worked in counterintelligence, but why do so many people immediately assume that's something sinister? "Counterintelligence" doesn't mean "mind games against the public." Here's how Wikipedia describes it:

"Counterintelligence refers to information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted for or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons or international terrorist activities, sometimes including personnel, physical, document or communications security programs."

Sure, there's a small sliver of counterintelligence which sucks: disinformation and PsyOps etc. But the vast majority of it is totally above-board defensive stuff like catching shoe bombers before they murder our families.

So unless we have some evidence, any evidence, that Luis Elizondo and/or Christopher Mellon are perpetrating some kind of hoax or otherwise have a suspicious background, then I see it as the worst kind of idle speculation to simply assume the worst about them. That's what the legions of online conspiracy theorists do over at InfoWars and 4chan.

And honestly I think it's kind of weird to dismiss the events at Skinwalker Ranch just because, in concept anyway, it could have been a military PsyOp. All kinds of things could have been a military PsyOp. But without any factual reason to think that it actually was a military PsyOp, it makes no sense to assume that it was. I've never studied the Skinwalker Ranch or NIDS in any depth, so maybe there's actual evidence of a PsyOp taking place - I have no idea. But sure, if someone has factual reasons for believing that the Skinwalker Ranch incidents were hoaxed by the military, then since Christopher Mellon is associated with both of these stories it might be possible to build a rational argument that this latest AATIP story is some kind of elaborate PsyOp that reaches all the way up to Sen. Harry Reid.

But frankly it just looks like grasping at straws to me at this point, an empty hypothesis dreamed up because some people think that counterintelligence means something diabolical, when in reality >95% of it is solid honorable work. It's going to take a lot more than that to make a rational case for a conspiracy. I mean, literally nothing that I've seen yet with this story looks shady to me, and I have a good BS detector - I immediately knew they were lying about the WMD's in Iraq for example. This story has none of the earmarks of a government disinformation campaign.

If so passionate and resolute, then confront researchers head on, such as Paul Kimball, or Curt Collins. Perhaps you have heard their thoughts on this subject. Listening to a discussion between the three of you would be worth paying for, as learning a great deal.

I've debated with Paul Kimball here on the forums, and the ensuing arguments made our little spat here look like a prom date. I'm not even sure if he believes in UFOs - his favorite debate tactic is to throw around defamatory slurs like "true believer" and other religious innuendos, rather than making rational factual arguments. Then he complains about the "intellectual dishonesty" in ufology: total hypocrite, imo.

I don't know how obvious it is to other people, but I've noticed that everyone I debate here who can't mount a compelling argument against my points, resorts to rhetorical religious branding instead. Besides being an incredibly intellectually dishonest debate tactic "if I can't make a rational argument, then I'll just pretend that the other guy is some kind of fanatical kook so nobody will take him seriously," I find it deeply offensive at a personal level as well. Because I've been railing against religious mental conditioning since I was about seven years old, and I've always embraced the scientific method and logic. One of my best friends even calls me Spock to poke fun at me about it.

 

[mike]

It is baffling why no one else has brought up Christopher Mellon other than John Alexander when discussing how the entire UFO disclosure saga began.

To my mind the Mellon narrative confirms and supports Elizondo's. Their experience seems identical.

Q: Do you recall any incidents involving UFOs while you were in government?

A: Yes, there were a handful of incidents. Knowing of my interest in UFOs, a breathless naval aviator called me one day to report that he was present minutes earlier when a Navy jet landed after being circled by a UFO in broad daylight. The Navy did not pursue the issue as far as I could tell. I also recall the Maui Optical Tracking Facility, which tracks satellites, recording a flight of four or five fiery UFOs traversing the night sky. Nobody knew what to make of it. But no government official expressed the slightest interest even after the tape was featured on ABC’s Nightline. I found the utter lack of scientific curiosity due to political correctness highly frustrating.

Q: The taboo against taking UFOs seriously is a huge problem. How can we get more government officials to change this ingrained attitude?

A: I think we have to ask ourselves a key question, and then bring it forward. “Are there UFO cases that are sufficiently well-documented to warrant a scientific investigation of the phenomenon?” In my view, the answer is yes.

The patterns in the data are too strong; the reports from credible witnesses separated widely by time and place too similar; the evidence from videos and trained military and law enforcement observers too extensive; and the independent radar data in select cases correlates too highly with visual observations to safely ignore. Finally, when someone you trust and respect, like a naval aviator, looks you in the eye and tells you he saw something truly extraordinary at close range, it’s hard not to take his testimony seriously. It is arrogant, unreasonable and unwise to dismiss such reports. We should simply and impartially follow the trail wherever it leads.

Is There a UFO Cover-up? A Government Insider Speaks Out | HuffPost

 

[mike]

I don't know how obvious it is to other people, but I've noticed that everyone I debate here who can't mount a compelling argument against my points, resorts to rhetorical religious branding instead. Besides being an incredibly intellectually dishonest debate tactic "if I can't make a rational argument, then I'll just pretend that the other guy is some kind of fanatical kook so nobody will take him seriously," I find it deeply offensive at a personal level as well. Because I've been railing against religious mental conditioning since I was about seven years old, and I've always embraced the scientific method and logic.

Like you i'm often confounded by the tactic.

Religion is the business of answering valid questions with a one sized fits all ignorant answer. Testing of that answer is fundamentally forbidden.
Science is a totally different and more honest method.

But i find this tactic like insults (which is what they are veiled as) are the last resort of those who have nothing else with which to counter a data point.

 

[Realm]

3.) He provided an impressive report backed by at least two of our top gun Navy fighter jet pilots, Cmdrs. Fravor and Slaight, as an example of the kind of credible cases that he investigated while directing the AATIP. Again, this is a first in perhaps 50 years. And Mr. Elizondo even got classified ATFLIR footage declassified and released to the press, which is historically unprecedented. If he hadn’t done so through proper official channels then he would’ve been arrested by now, because releasing classified military intelligence is a criminal offense that’s taken very seriously by federal law enforcement.

Do we actually have any evidence so far that he got it declassified or that TTSA actually has the chain of custody documentation they are claiming?

The quality of the video we have is actually a bit worse (probably due to additional compression) than the one that was leaked to Internet a decade ago. Is there any evidence it came from some official source? Could an original really be so low quality?

Is there actually any evidence that Elizondo or TTSA for that matter have actually released any information that:
- Was classified before
- Hasn't been already leaked before (so that their information can come from those leaks)
- Isn't from those pilots or their friends (so they have been the ones who have taken the risks)

The video and log leaked more than a decade ago, most details were already in that Fightersweep article a couple of years ago, and their report and the latest interview just document what Fravor and Slaight have told them now.

So if someone would accuse Elizondo for leaking information or breaking his NDAs, what information would that be?

Hopefully Mr. Elizondo and perhaps Steve Justice will appear on The Paracast so we can get more of the answers that we'd all like to have, because the 2-5-minute interviews that we've seen in the news lately are entirely insufficient for a story this big and complex.

Amen to that! I mean, there has to be some media that is willing to invest more than 2 minutes for such an interesting story. But what bugs me even more than the way media is handling this, is the way TTSA is handling this.

TTSA and Elizondo supposedly have all the necessary inside information that would enable them to ask the right questions and so on. When they publish a video to YouTube, they don't have time restrictions to compress it to a couple of minutes. Why is it then that we only got 6 minutes, that for the most part repeat stuff that has been already available elsewhere for some time already? And since they did that interview already in November, why did it take them so long to publish it?

I see that kind of drip feeding as an indication that they haven't got much more to publish. Either because they don't have the data or Elizondo doesn't actually want to break the rules and they are basically hoping that the publicity encourages others to open up so they themselves don't need to.

 

[mike]

That there was a program seems pretty much beyond dispute.

The DIA says there is some "confusion" about the program, but the DoD says there is no confusion

However, when contacted by Sun Online, the spy organisation Defence Intelligence Agency claimed there had been some misunderstandings.

A spokesman said: “There is some confusion about this program and claims about its purpose in press reporting ... the Defence Intelligence Agency has not released any information, files or videos.”

But Department of Defence officials disputed this, saying they did not know what “confusion” the Defence Intelligence Agency was referring to, and stating they had been “clear” about the program’s aims.

Government accused of backtracking on footage

“But we’ve got Elizondo who led the program going on the record to talk about it — so it’s clear that they were investigating UFOs.”

Sun Online has now lodged a Freedom of Information request with the Defense Intelligence Agency for any other UFO files or videos related to AATIP.

Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program - Wikipedia

 

[mike]

Catholic online seem to take this at face value.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon head of a virtual X-Files program within the Department of Defense, broke the news that aliens are real and have been visiting Earth. He even had evidence to support his claim in the form of videos that show Navy pilots pursuing a UFO and making commentary about it. By all metrics, Elizondo, the video and the claims behind it appear to be verifiable and authentic.


In other words, the U.S. government, has just unofficially admitted to the world that aliens exist, they visit Earth, and we have known about it for awhile. The admissions is unofficial because Elizondo is now retired from the program, which has officially ended. Elizondo says the program is still ongoing in some form.

But Elizondo isn't crazy. And his evidence isn't faked. The Navy pilots have also been interviewed. The reports have been gathered and declassified. So what gives?


There is no single hypothesis that neatly explains why the news has been met without fanfare. It is possible that the news release was timed for the holiday season and leaked in a fashion to minimize its exposure. It may be the powers that be wish to ease the world into knowing, rather than putting a spotlight on the issue.

Government official confirms aliens are real, so now what? - Technology - News - Catholic Online

 

[Walter Bosley]

Having worked in counterespionage operations and in counterintelligence for several years, and having worked with CIA personnel etc, I come from a position of skepticism where Elizondo's actual role in all this is concerned. My associates and I from a perspective inside that world all have a different view of this situation than the believers want to hear. (Here comes the 'You weren't in his program' comments now...LOL)(Same 'program' or not, I know wherefore I speak.)

 

[mike]

Having worked in counterespionage operations and in counterintelligence for several years, and having worked with CIA personnel etc, I come from a position of skepticism where Elizondo's actual role in all this is concerned. My associates and I from a perspective inside that world all have a different view of this situation than the believers want to hear. (Here comes the 'You weren't in his program' comments now...LOL)(Same 'program' or not, I know wherefore I speak.)

So do you think he worked for the DoD ? or is he making that up ?

We know the program is real, the DoD have confirmed that in giving their reasons why they wrapped it up.

The only question left is was Mr Elizondo the head of the program as he claims.

 

[Walter Bosley]

I don't question his background or his resume. I'm saying I suspect a perception management element to it.

 

[Realm]

Sun Online has now lodged a Freedom of Information request with the Defense Intelligence Agency for any other UFO files or videos related to AATIP.

That brought to my mind another related question: How many Freedom of Information requests has TTSA done? Have they ever indicated anywhere that they would have tried that route, or were going to try that route?

For what I have understood, one of the issues in getting some actual FOIA responses is that you need to know quite specifically what to ask and how. They should at least know how to do that.

 

[mike]

I don't question his background or his resume. I'm saying I suspect a perception management element to it.

So as someone having worked in counterespionage operations and in counterintelligence for several years, and having worked with CIA personnel etc you dont question he worked for the DoD as head of the AATIP program ?

That's a significant answer to one of the larger questions in this thread.

 

[Realm]

Catholic online seem to take this at face value.

Then again, they wouldn't be catholics if they didn't tend to do that .

 

[mike]

Do we actually have any evidence so far that he got it declassified or that TTSA actually has the chain of custody documentation they are claiming?

I too have concerns over this aspect. they have made the claim they have the CoC docs but have not released them. They should.

 

[Walter Bosley]

So as someone having worked in counterespionage operations and in counterintelligence for several years, and having worked with CIA personnel etc you dont question he worked for the DoD as head of the AATIP program ?

That's a significant answer to one of the larger questions in this thread.

Are we sure we truly know what AATIP was all about? Yes, he could very well have worked the program on behalf of/with/for DoD. That's not the issue. The issue is the public interpretation of all this.

 

[mike]

The issue is the public interpretation of all this.

As i see it there are two issues. His interpretation of the data, and the public's.

His interpretation is on record, the public's is as you would expect a mixed bag.

I'm interested in your interpretation of his data. and the testimony's of the pilots and what they think they saw.
What do you think they saw ?