Luis Elizondo is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Pentagon official who claims to have led the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) — a classified DoD initiative to study UAP reports. After resigning from the Pentagon in 2017 in protest over lack of institutional support, he became one of the most prominent public advocates for UAP transparency.
Elizondo spent nearly two decades in U.S. Army counterintelligence and intelligence roles before joining the Pentagon's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He has stated that he ran AATIP — a program funded through a $22 million Senate appropriation secured by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — from approximately 2010 until his resignation in 2017.
The program studied UAP encounters reported by military personnel and contracted with Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) for research. Elizondo resigned via a letter to then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, citing bureaucratic resistance, lack of funding, and religious opposition within the DoD to taking the subject seriously.
After leaving the Pentagon he joined Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science alongside other former intelligence and military officials. In 2017, he and the TTSA team helped coordinate the release of three declassified UAP videos — FLIR1 (Nimitz, 2004), Gimbal (2015), and Go Fast (2015) — which were subsequently confirmed as authentic by the U.S. Navy.
The Pentagon has stated that Elizondo was not the official director of AATIP and that the program was not his responsibility, a claim Elizondo contests. He has since written a memoir, "Imminent," published in 2024.
Becomes director of AATIP at the Pentagon (by his account)
Resigns from DoD, citing institutional obstruction
The New York Times publishes AATIP story; Nimitz FLIR video released publicly
U.S. Navy officially acknowledges the three released videos are authentic and unexplained
Calls for government transparency at multiple congressional hearings
Publishes memoir "Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs"
Elizondo's precise role at AATIP has been disputed by some Pentagon officials, though he has maintained his account consistently. He was one of the central figures in bringing the Nimitz UAP videos to the public.
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