Robert Weiss, also referred to in sources as Rob Weiss, was executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works1, serving as its executive vice-president and general manager until 20192. He has appeared in published accounts of contacts between the aerospace industry and figures pushing for UAP disclosure, principally musician Tom DeLonge.
According to In Plain Sight, the 2016 leak of John Podesta’s emails, catalogued here as the Podesta email leak correspondence with Tom DeLonge, contained a string of exchanges between Podesta and DeLonge revealing plans for a Google Hangout meeting between DeLonge, two US Air Force generals, and Weiss3. The book records the proposed attendee list as DeLonge, Podesta, Weiss, Hillary Clinton campaign assistant Milia Fisher, and retired Major General Michael Carey4. It further states that the correspondence shows DeLonge in contact with one of America’s most senior private aerospace chief executives, a campaign manager for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, and two senior recently retired US Air Force generals, with UAP discussed among them5. Separately, according to Jason Samosa, presenter of The UFO Cover-Up Leads to One Secret Society — and One Final Event, the Podesta correspondence describes a meeting involving William McCasland, Carey, Weiss and Podesta6.
In the book In Plain Sight, journalist Ross Coulthart said it was “a fair bet” that the Lockheed executive DeLonge met at a families’ event was Weiss7, and the book separately identifies Weiss as probably the executive DeLonge refers to by the pseudonym ‘BossMan’, with whom DeLonge says he held a one-on-one conversation about the potential disclosure of the US government’s purported secret UAP programme8. According to DeLonge, the executive he called ‘BossMan’, probably Weiss, told him that Lockheed Martin could not be involved in any project associated with the UAP topic because there had never been any evidence that it existed9. DeLonge said he responded by invoking Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the Moon, arguing that if Mitchell was telling every kid in the world the topic was real, there was a problem, and asking for time to address credibility issues10. DeLonge said he asked for a five-minute meeting alone with ‘BossMan’, and it was agreed that all other executives and engineers would leave the room11.
In that meeting, held around March 2016, DeLonge said he told ‘BossMan’ that he understood the national security implications of the UAP subject and was not naive to it12, and that over the previous thirty years there had been a programme to indoctrinate people to the idea that UFOs or UAP might be real13. DeLonge told Weiss that he knew about “some bad things” the government had done regarding the UAP subject14, prompting Weiss to demand to know what kind of bad things he meant15. DeLonge replied that if he were allowed to pursue his disclosure work, he would need advisers to guide him so that he did not misinform people16. DeLonge regards this exchange as the breakthrough point in gaining access to military and intelligence gatekeepers on the UAP subject17, and said that in the months that followed, progress on his project accelerated rapidly18. Within two weeks of the meeting, he said he was introduced to senior military and government figures, including US Air Force generals and intelligence officials, high-ranking NASA officials, and senior officials at the White House19.