Luis Elizondo

Luis Elizondo was a former employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSDI) and a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent. He currently serves as Director of Global Security and Special Programs at To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science.

Elizondo headed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). AATIP was a $22 million special access program initiated by the Defense Intelligence Agency in order to study Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. Elizondo also claims that the government has recovered "metal alloys and other materials" from these objects. According to the Department of Defense, the AATIP program was ended in 2012 after five years, however reporting suggests that programs to investigate UFO continue.

Elizondo claims he resigned from OUSDI after expressing his concern of what he called "bureaucratic challenges and inflexible mindsets" in all levels of the Department.In his resignation letter,Elizondo wonders why "certain individuals in the Department remain staunchly opposed to further research" of "unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond next generation capabilities" despite numerous accounts by the United States Navy and other Services.Elizondo asserts that "underestimating or ignoring these potential threats is not in the best interest of the Department no matter the level of political contention."

In 2017 Elizondo led the release of three videos made by pilots from the United States Navy taken during the USS Nimitz UFO incident and the USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents.

In April 2019, the Navy acknowledged that it was drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with "unidentified aircraft." Elizondo called this policy decision "the single greatest decision the Navy has made in decades."

A six-part History Channel series titled Unidentified: Inside America’s U.F.O. Investigation features Elizondo and others affiliated with AATIP. Executive producer Tom DeLonge told the New York Daily News that he left his band Blink-182 because he wanted to focus on "setting up the foundations to create a vehicle for the disclosure of the UFO phenomenon". "In sum, DeLonge claims that he is the military’s chosen vessel for UFO disclosure."