Jim Semivan is a former senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).1 Born and raised in Ohio,2 he attended Ohio State University3 before joining the CIA in 1982.4 He served for 25 years as an operations officer within the agency’s Directorate of Operations, working across the United States and internationally,5 retiring in 2007.6 Over a career of multiple overseas and domestic tours and senior management positions at CIA headquarters,7 he recruited high-level operatives, including foreign ambassadors and attaches,8 held a top secret security clearance,9 and received the agency’s Career Intelligence Medal10 along with numerous Exceptional Performance Awards and Meritorious Unit Citations.11 At the time of his retirement he held Senior Executive Service rank, roughly two levels below the CIA director,12 and was a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service.13 He has also been described as a former CIA national clandestine service executive14 and as a former senior operations officer and trainer for the agency’s Directorate of Clandestine Operations,15 and, in a documentary produced by Tom DeLonge, as a former senior intelligence service officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.16 After leaving the agency, Semivan remained a CIA contractor and stayed connected to agency activities.17
According to Luis Elizondo, Semivan had heard rumblings of a real Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) programme being run out of the Pentagon18 before Harold E. Puthoff introduced him, then a senior CIA figure, to Elizondo’s effort,19 having earlier suggested to Jay Stratton that they meet Semivan at the Pentagon.20 That meeting was, according to Elizondo, the first time his group brought in an outsider,21 and a later meeting in which Elizondo cautioned Semivan about confidentiality marked the first time the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) was referenced to someone outside the team.22 Elizondo has said that Semivan later confided a personal UAP experience from his time as a senior CIA official,23 which Elizondo considered similar to other incidents he was aware of.24 Elizondo has also said that Semivan revealed he was working with a group of former senior military and intelligence officials and a rock star,25 whom Elizondo identified as DeLonge,26 described by Semivan as the lead singer of Blink-182.27 Semivan, together with Stratton, invited Elizondo to a dinner for the programme team held in a hotel in Roslyn, Virginia;28 at the time, the programme Semivan ran was not sharing UAP data with other nations, out of concern for national security.29 Semivan also introduced Elizondo and others to Brazilian general Paulo Roberto Yog de Miranda Uchoa, along with his daughter and personal translator.30 In the autumn of 2009, Elizondo and Semivan attended a meeting with James Lacatski to discuss whether the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) should drop investigations widely considered paranormal and focus solely on UAP threats.31 Elizondo, Semivan, and John Robert later decided to move the remnants of AATIP away from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and house it within Elizondo’s portfolio of national programs.32 Semivan, a mutual CIA friend of Christopher K. Mellon, brought Elizondo to Mellon’s attention.33 Elizondo has said that Semivan told him it was Semivan who had informed Mellon about AATIP and where to find it,34 and Semivan vouched for Mellon to Elizondo.35
According to Elizondo, Semivan told him that To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA) could use his knowledge of the UAP topic and his help setting up security, and encouraged him to meet DeLonge.36 Semivan was one of the organisation’s two co-founders,37 alongside DeLonge,38 and remains on its board as Vice President of Operations.39 To The Stars Academy (TTSA) pursued a triple directive covering UAP science and engineering, educating laymen and journalists, and producing film, television, and publishing content about UAP.40 Jason Samosa has described Semivan as one of the organisation’s advisors.41 Puthoff has said the team involved Mellon, Elizondo, Semivan, Steve Justice, and Puthoff himself.42 Semivan has said that the UAP topic needed to somehow be brought to the public,43 and Elizondo has said that Semivan and his team were working to move the UAP conversation out of government silos and into the hands of the American people.44 Mellon, Puthoff, and Semivan met with Elizondo and journalist Leslie Kean in the lobby of a hotel near the Pentagon,45 a meeting that lasted four hours,46 during which the three urged Elizondo to connect with the media in order to reach the American public on the UAP issue.47 When Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon in 2017, he joined TTSA in part to rejoin Puthoff, Semivan, and Mellon.48
Semivan considers himself an acknowledged experiencer of the UAP phenomenon.49 He has said that he believes there is an entity, some kind of non-human intelligence, living with humanity on Earth,50 and has separately said that he considers there to be a nonhuman intelligence living with humanity on Earth.51
In a 2026 podcast discussion, Samosa said that Semivan talks about the idea of a non-state hostile intelligence network in the context of Havana syndrome, and suggests considering what Mike Pompeo said about such a network.52 Samosa also said Semivan references non-state intelligence networks in connection with WikiLeaks, suggesting the WikiLeaks material may have come from such a network,53 and that, according to Semivan, a non-state intelligence network was responsible for leaking the emails from the hack of John Podesta’s emails, a leak Semivan is said to have described as decisive in the 2016 United States presidential election, putting Donald Trump into office and keeping Hillary Clinton out.54 Jesse Mitchells has suggested that Semivan’s remarks about a non-state hostile intelligence network are simply about WikiLeaks, because Pompeo hated Julian Assange.55 Samosa has said he accepts the remark could simply describe WikiLeaks, but finds Semivan’s focus on it in the context of Havana syndrome significant.56 Samosa has also recounted that Ryan Bledsoe said Semivan told him the Bledsoe family, which includes Christopher Bledsoe, are thought to be hybrids, and that their experiences may be due to having more, or a certain strand of, non-human DNA.57 Mitchells has noted that this anecdotal human-alien hybridization material comes from people who were very senior in the CIA, such as Semivan.58