the Inspector General Investigation that got the Director of Defence Intelligence fired.
THE STORY OF Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) started over four years ago with the release of The New York Times article that documented the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and it’s then confirmed director, Luis Elizondo. At the time, the Pentagon acknowledged that AATIP existed and that Mr. Elizondo headed the program. This of course was before he famously resigned in 2017 to blow the whistle on a unacknowledged phenomena and a lack of accountability by officials in the Department of Defense (DoD). Elizondo had run a program called AATIP which was linked closely to the larger program - the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP). AATIP focused on UAP military incursion cases, whereas AAWSAP was a much broader effort to understand associated phenomena to UAP.
For those who were taking notice, the entire UAP initiative involving AATIP had played out like some clichéd screenplay. Arguably it could have been written by some aspiring New York writer in his dank apartment or basement office, as he desperately tried to make it big. The over-the top plot-lines read right out of Hollywood and is filled with the changing character arcs of heroes and villains. The story of deception also contains those who have been caught in the middle while trying to make sense of a phenomena that defies logic and rational thinking.
This is a story that ultimately started with a former counterintelligence officer who quit his prestigious role (giving up his pension) within the Pentagon to tell the world that the anomalous exist and possibly that the world might not be alone. He claimed something extreme, that something anomalous is here with us and that something might also be a significant matter to national security. And most alarmingly of all, Elizondo claimed that his ‘UFO’ program ATTIP actually found evidence of something significant.
Luis Elizondo
As the narrative continues we find that our stories protagonist – Luis Elizondo, a patriotic Department of Defense official who served his country – comes under attack from his former employers at the Office of the Under Secretary for Intelligence (OUSDI). Very real threats to his security clearance were made by his former boss and one of the stories main antagonists, Garry Reid. He vowed to paint Elizondo as a ‘crazy-person’.
Within months of leaving office, Elizondo is investigated over the way he managed to facilitate the release of those three infamous UAP videos. ‘GO FAST’, ‘GIMBAL’ and ‘FLIR1’ were unclassified although never destined for release to the public – essentially meaning there was nothing illegal about the process by which they reached The New York Times in 2017. As it would turn out, Elizondo facilitated the process but did not release them to the public - that happened through Christopher Mellon. An internal investigation was launched to derail Elizondo by his former boss at OUSDI. However, the famous UFO videos were never deemed to have been classified as reported by The Debrief.
Having failed to attribute any issues of legality, and, failing to remove Elizondo’s security clearance, our main antagonist is said to have set about waging a lengthy discrediting campaign of disinformation against Elizondo which would extent to AATIP and anything UAP. In 2022, The Debrief reported the claims of Elizondo who stated that Reid was influencing the Pentagon’s Public Affairs Officer (PAO), Susan Gough.
Now it is at this point that our story takes a strange turn. Keep in mind that from late 2017 until summer 2019, the PAO had maintained that AATIP was a UAP program and Elizondo headed it. But now something had changed, a process had begun from behind the scenes which would undo the entire AATIP story. The first move came against Elizondo directly, with PAO Sherwood stating that Mr. Elizondo had nothing at all to do with the UAP program – much to the sneering delight of some FOIA researchers at the time. Gough’s narrative, was one which arguably benefited them.
That first move would come through an article in the Intercept, and from a well-known journalist by the name of Keith Kloor. Kloor would write an article that questioned whether Elizondo worked for a UFO program based on the PAO statement of Sherwood. Strangely, he would also insult Elizondo’s appearance, for real no reason at all.
Over those next few months, leading up to December 2019 the entire AATIP saga was slowly but surely, buried. The tone within the UAP research community was fractured as the targeted disinformation spread through the veins of the UAP truth movement. Everything was reliant on Elizondo being who he said he was and the role of AATIP being a UAP program.
Consequently, the entire momentum was dependant on those foundation truths being untouched and pure. And those across OUSDI (and associates) knew this more intimately than most. One might make the argument of internal efficacy efforts of deflection and displacement were very purposeful, that those people who detest UAP transparency would bludgeon the truth until it is no longer recognisable. Repeatedly doing so until it was representative of their inner selves - cold, calculating and cinical. When the truth offends, manipulate it.
And that is exactly what they did. With the help of career Ufologists whose stall was already set out happily in their favour, who never wanted real UAP data if it meant real disclosure that would bring the end to profitable Ufology. Never before had there been such pushback, never had it occurred in quite the same way that was given to Luis Elizondo or to To The Stars Academy (TTSA - now just simply To The Stars.) In quite an ironic sense, the anger of a 70-year Ufology history was focused on those people who were trying to change the system and force the government to take accountability for UFOs.
As the war across social media raged over claims of conspiracies, limited hang-outs and psychological operations, it was Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough who was cutting into the narrative with some very openly chatty email dialogue with a select few. Some in the UAP community have even gone as far to claim that the select few were chosen through their willingness to accept and adopt the PAO’s position without so much as a passing objection. However, we must state that we have never been able to verify such claims and such speculation should be questioned.
Susan Gough, was effectively employed with a background in strategic psychological planning. She ensured that AATIP was not UAP, and ensured that it was known the DoD didn’t use the term ‘anomalous’ (covertly eliminating the BAASS contractor terminology) after conversations with tenacious researcher Roger Glassel.
By the end of 2019 Reid had all but won. Elizondo had already been officially ousted from being associated with AATIP and then Gough confirmed the ousting of AATIP from being a UAP program. John Greenwald Jnr of the Blackvault used the now famous red ‘no-entry’ symbol as part of his cover photo in the article that “ended AATIP”.
It was over. The UAP initiative died to the sound of a small few who objected.
One thing that Reid and Gough probably didn’t expect, was that one journalist had integrity. Initially, Tim McMillan had his concerns about Elizondo and even featured as part of Kloor’s 2019 summer article. But unlike those that were building a narrative based on predetermined ideology, McMillan built his upon finding objective truth, whatever that might mean. A former police officer with a background in interrogation, McMillan’s investigation for Popular Mechanics took him to the witnesses of the USS Nimitz event of 2004. He had the chance to interrogate Elizondo and would eventually be provided with data and resources that substantiated the claims of the former OUSDI official.
The cover of BAASS’s Ten Month Report, issued in July 2009.
BIGELOW AEROSPACE
By the February of 2020, the first major pushback against Reid/Gough occurred with an article in Popular Mechanics, much to their frustration we are told. Journalist Tim McMillan was in contact with some significant people who had access to the data of AAWSAP and its contractor BAASS. He was able to show that the 10-month report was filled with UFOs (UAP) which was in direct contradiction to the official statements trying to claim that AATIP/AAWSAP were not UFO related.
This was a body-blow for obfuscation attempts and the first time we started to see fingers pointed at the acting PAO. Articles started to be written to expose the controversy of AATIP and what was looking increasingly likes lies on behalf of Susan Gough. Further investigation by researchers was encapsulated within an article by Danny Silva who showed that Susan Gough was very active in facilitating the FOIA process, potentially, it was claimed by some as overreaching her role as a PAO to accumulate anything and everything UAP through her. The ‘make no comment’ saga showed that orchestrated efforts were being taken to ensure UAP FOIAs were tightly controlled. And yet still the extremely chatty Susan Gough filtered down pieces of information to select researchers who happily pushed out their controversial narrative as absolute fact.
Elizondo provided documentation and testimony of high ranking government people to Gough in 2020, that verified his position and his role at AATIP. Nothing changed. The narrative was set into position and nothing was changing the stance. All the while it would seem that Garry Reid was overseeing proceedings, backed up by his close deputy, Tara Jones.
Eventually, AATIP creator Senator Harry Reid provided a written statement to confirm Elizondo’s leadership at AATIP. Rumour has it that even former Secretary of Defense James Mattis would vouch for Elizondo when 60 Minutes called. Given the vast number of people openly on record vouching for Elizondo, not one person is openly on record to discount that AATIP wasn’t a UAP program or Elizondo headed it.
To further the claims of Elizondo et al, McMillan wrote in The Debrief’s December 2020 ‘Fast Movers’ article, that the DoD were taking UAP very seriously with briefings on UAP occurring. Congress would indirectly give credence to Elizondo’s claims regarding UAP by creating a task force that produced a report and that would eventually an office under the Airborne Object Investigation Management Synchronisation Group (AOIMSG).
Interestingly, AOIMSG or ‘AIM’ for short, was created prior to the Congressional NDAA legislation that demanded a UAP Office and was formulated within the OUSDI. And in particular, as reported by The Debrief, under Garry Reid.
In the mix of all this it was reported by POLITICO that claims of targeted disinformation had occurred, and Elizondo’s emails had been deleted after he left the OUSDI by unknown individuals. Although it is probably very well know who deleted those emails. Also it is known who framed the situation to look like Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities to AATIP or that AATIP/AAWSAP weren’t UAP programs when they very clearly were.
Then finally in the April of 2022, McMillan reported on the obfuscation of the entire UAP issue by a recently fired individual, Elizondo’s former boss, Garry Reid. The article shows that Reid was the subject of an Inspector General claim by Elizondo and that it was Reid himself who was behind the entire AATIP saga. Elizondo claimed that Reid had been conversing with Gough, and Gough, had been misleading the American public about Elizondo’s role at AATIP and about AATIP itself.
The story was covered in the POLITICO and then in the Daily Mail by former UAPMediaUK writer Christopher Sharpe alongside Josh Bosswell. It was revealed in the Daily Mail article that Tara Jones was ‘Employee 1’, who had ‘gone after Elizondo’ with Garry Reid after Elizondo left his position in 2017. Jones, is reportedly now in Reid’s position as Director for Defense Intelligence (DDI).
The bizarre thing is that this isn’t a screenplay, this isn’t some obscure plot-line to some X-Files episode or bargain basement conspiracy. This is the backstory to a Pentagon UFO program which has played out over the past 4 years on blogs and within the UAP research community. All of the drama, battles and disinformation over AATIP had been down to members from within USDI (and other agencies) and their efforts to retaliate against Elizondo and ultimately stop the UAP education initiative. While the Inspector General investigation is still ongoing we don’t know exactly the final conclusion and we can only speculate who else might have been associated. Despite this, the saga of AATIP now has some small form of closure and some small vindication for Luis Elizondo.
What we do know, is that this is just the very beginning of this AATIP investigation. From what we are being told, it’s doesn’t look good for those who took active steps to lie to the American people.
Should any journalist, current member of Parliament, or member of the House of Lords, wish to reach out and discuss how the UK could play their part, you can reach us securely here.
