Elizondo Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) Claims Investigation

The Elizondo Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) Claims Investigation is a dispute concerning whether Luis Elizondo — a former employee of the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)) — actually led or held responsibilities within the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), as he has publicly maintained. The investigation was principally driven by journalists Keith Kloor and Greenewald Jr., John, and was further informed by documents released through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The central question, as framed by Kloor in a 2019 article, was whether there is any discernible evidence that Elizondo ever worked for AATIP, much less led it.² Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood confirmed to Kloor that AATIP existed and did pursue research into unidentified aerial phenomena,³ but separately stated that Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to AATIP during his tenure at OUSD(I), up until his resignation effective 2017-10-04.⁴

Elizondo’s public profile grew substantially following a front-page article in The New York Times published on 2017-12-17,¹³ which coincided with the period in which Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White had confirmed to Bryan Bender at Politico that AATIP existed and was run by Elizondo.⁶ However, by 2019 Pentagon spokesperson Sherwood told Kloor that he could not confirm White’s earlier statement,⁷ adding that he had spoken with OUSD(I) leadership — including individuals present from when Elizondo started — who confirmed Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to AATIP.⁸ Elizondo had been based at OUSD(I) from 2008 until his retirement in 2017.⁹ In a YouTube video posted on 2017-10-12, Elizondo had stated: “for nearly the last decade I ran a sensitive Aerospace Threat Identification Program focusing on unidentified aerial technologies."²⁶

A significant evidential question centred on documentary proof. Despite providing various materials to reporters, Elizondo had not supplied any documents validating his connection to AATIP — no memorandums, no emails discussing deliverables or findings, and no paperwork addressed to or from him connecting him to the programme.¹⁰ The documents he did provide included recent Department of Defense (DoD) performance evaluations and his 2017-10-04 resignation letter to then-Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, which bore the apparent seal of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.¹¹ Kloor noted that this resignation letter alluded to internal Pentagon opposition to investigating UFOs but did not mention AATIP or Elizondo’s alleged role as its director.¹² Internal DoD documents released via FOIA characterised Elizondo as having “aggrandized his role” in AATIP²³ and stated that, to the best of the author’s knowledge, Elizondo had no job responsibilities related to AATIP.²⁴ Those same documents recorded that AATIP was terminated in 2012.²⁵

A countervailing account was offered by Harold E. Puthoff, co-founder of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, the organisation Elizondo joined in October 2017 several days after resigning from the DoD.¹⁴ Puthoff asserted that, as an Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP)/AATIP contractor and senior adviser, he had attended meetings, provided briefings, gained access to videos, and met with staff, all under the aegis of Elizondo’s leadership and responsibility for maintaining programme continuity until Elizondo resigned.²¹ Puthoff acknowledged there were misunderstandings about Elizondo’s role, and suggested that Public Affairs Office personnel are often themselves unaware of details of highly classified sensitive programmes. Greenewald questioned how Puthoff could have worked under Elizondo’s leadership given that AAWSAP contracted work began in 2008 at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), whilst Elizondo’s alleged leadership was claimed to have begun in 2010 when the programme transferred — and AATIP funding was cut entirely in 2012.²² To the Stars Academy public relations representative Kari DeLonge had separately told Greenewald Jr., John that AATIP was initially run out of the DIA but that Elizondo took it over as Director in 2010, running it from the Office of the Secretary of Defense under the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.⁵

The investigation also raised questions about the institutional context in which Elizondo’s claims were promoted. Elizondo joined To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science — co-founded by musician and entrepreneur Tom DeLonge — which had raised more than two million US dollars from investors and was originally described as a UFO research company.¹⁵ The company’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing identified it as a Motion Picture and Video Tape Production concern.¹⁶ The History Channel series Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation, which premiered in 2019-05, followed Elizondo as he re-investigated UFO incidents he claimed to have learned of whilst running AATIP,¹ and was produced by To the Stars Academy. Kloor observed that media appearances featuring Elizondo and Christopher K. Mellon — a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and national security affairs adviser at To the Stars Academy — did not always disclose their affiliation with the company or the commercial interests underpinning the television production.¹⁷ The Intercept published a Pentagon denial regarding Elizondo’s claims in 2019-06,¹⁸ and The Black Vault subsequently received a further Pentagon statement, issued on 2019-06-13, reaffirming that Elizondo had no AATIP responsibilities — a statement Greenewald noted ran contrary to expectations, promoted in part by Bryan Bender, that a forthcoming Pentagon clarification would confirm Elizondo’s directorship.²⁰ The Reid Harry 2009 Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) Special Access Program Memo — dated 2009-07-24 and written by Senator Harry Reid to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III requesting that AATIP be granted Special Access Programme status¹⁹ — was circulated by some as evidence supporting Elizondo’s account, but Greenewald noted that the memo’s date predates Elizondo’s claimed assumption of the directorship by at least five months, and therefore does not contradict the Pentagon’s position.²⁰