Cappy Army - "Pentagon Insider UFO Interview: Lue Elizondo" (August 31, 2026)

• Spotify episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3JNgiFbYpIFDcH522wI94o
• Official YouTube counterpart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpMJS0ZzOrU (members-only when sourced)
• Show: Cappy Army
• Publisher: Red Seat Ventures, LLC
• Host: Chris Cappy
• Participants: Luis Elizondo, Chris Cappy, Josh, Diego, and Ivan
• Published: 2026-08-31 15:50:38 UTC
• Declared duration: Spotify 1:26:32; publisher RSS 1:26:31
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• Publisher transcript: https://cdn-media.speakeasystudio.ai/users/proj/01a05882-72c7-7627-9d90-d44b44baed19/src/captions/auto-captions-01a05882-72d5-7461-acf5-e1f232f13468.vtt?t=1788191553000
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TL;DW

Most of the conversation revisits Luis Elizondo's AAWSAP and AATIP background, his family's reported encounters with green orbs, anomalous flight data, underwater objects, nuclear links, government secrecy, and a possible spiritual component. The main addition is his unusually broad firsthand framing: after the host groups secret retrieval and reverse-engineering programs, Pentagon discussions of non-human bodies, evasion of congressional oversight, and nuclear links, Elizondo answers, "these are firsthand knowledge." He also says he personally handled unusual material, saw 4K footage and multisensor data, supplied inspectors general with program names and locations, and worked with David Grusch at Space Force on the UAP Task Force. He gives a more operational description of Project Interloper as a proposed effort to create an attractive nuclear signature at sea and surround it with sensors rather than attempt a shoot-down.

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[0:00] Hey Spare Parts Army, your host Chris Cappy here. We recorded a podcast with Lou Elizondo, who I want to give you quick context on. Lou is a former U.S.

[0:08] Army counterintelligence officer who eventually said that he ran ATIP, which is the Pentagon's advanced aerospace threat identification program, which investigated military encounters with unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs. Lou Elizondo is one of the central figures in the entire modern UFO disclosure movement.

[0:28] When he left the Pentagon in 2017, he started speaking publicly and he helped turn UFOs from this fringe subject into a serious national security debate that eventually reached Congress.

[0:39] So joining me today are Josh, my head researcher and our resident expert on UAPs, who previously worked nuclear facilities, uh nuclear security for the Air Force. And you got Diego Esetuno, my head story producer and a former Coast Guardsman.

[0:54] And you'll be hearing from me, Chris Cappy, and to put my cards on the table. I'm skeptical about the origins of these UAPs, but I think it's a national security issue worth investigating deeper, no matter what their origin is.

[1:06] What I wanted to know in this podcast is when you strip away all the UFO lore, what does somebody who actually worked inside these programs say that the government really knows?

[1:16] So we get into alleged crash retrieval programs, strange encounters around nuclear sites, classified sensor data, objects moving underwater, government secrecy, and whether any of this could actually be foreign tech or US intelligence operation itself.

[1:32] Gets pretty wild, so I just wanted to prepare you so that you weren't going cold turkey into this. Wanted to give you some information up front on what to expect.

[1:40] Here's our conversation. Enjoy. First, Lou, great to meet you. Um a little bit about my about my background. I used to work uh nuclear security over at analysis area two.

[1:52] I did do an interview with uh Ross Coltart about it. I know a lot of people in this space kind of saw it. So it's it's kind of great to talk to you, great to talk to someone on the inside.

[2:02] Maybe can offer a little insight into like the crazy stuff that you know we experienced and that we saw. It was I still get messages to this day from guys that I served with that were out there just trying to get answers, you know, because some of the stuff like it leaves it leaves emotional impacts.

[2:21] But uh I kind of wanted to give you a chance with the questions. The way I set them up is like I wanted to give you a chance to basically state your position first because our audience isn't as familiar with the UAP topic as you know the traditional UFO crowd that follows this like a lore.

[2:40] So first uh I wanted to ask kind of off the record, you you stated you had experience with a hitchhiker phenomenon at one point, right? I believe they used to be you were seeing like orbs in the house and inside your house and stuff.

[2:54] I was just just personally because of myself and other people that were in some pretty close range UAP related events. How did that kind of start for you? Like, were you actually exposed to UAP, or was it just from you pursuing the topic?

[3:12] Yeah, well, first of all, Yosh, let me say to everybody here thank you very much for having me. It's an honor and privilege to be with you here today and also with your wonderful audience.

[3:22] Um, I believe you're absolutely right, uh Yosh and Chris. This is a national security conversation right now. Two, Josh, allow me to extend my sincere gratitude for your service to our great nation.

[3:33] I am familiar with some of the work that and responsibilities you were responsible for. I won't go into details, uh, which I'm sure you'd appreciate me not going into details, but uh thank you for what you did for our great nation.

[3:46] That's uh, you know, that's that's profound service. And so I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. And then as far as going into a little bit about these these orbs you asked me, let me, if I can, let me kind of rewind the tape a little bit and start a little bit more from the beginning to kind of give you a an understanding of of of the way I think and and the way I I I the way I I approach things.

[4:10] So, first of all, after I had a relatively uneventful childhood, and then uh things got really bad, and and the relationship between my mother and my father soured, and I wound up living in a very dysfunctional uh situation for many years.

[4:25] And as a result, it made me a pretty angry kid. I went to high school like everybody else, got decent grades, I guess, but I really didn't fit in.

[4:32] Um, there was a lot of uh a lot of trauma and drama in my my my later childhood that really kind of shaped some of the decisions later on.

[4:42] So after high school, I went to college, University of Miami, where I graduated with degrees in microbiology, immunology with a focus area on parasitology, not parapsychology, the study of parasites, parasitology.

[4:54] So I've always been a disciple of the scientific principles and methods. You know, if you were to ask me who my heroes are, uh nine out of ten of them are are are scientists of of yesteryears.

[5:05] So I really am a disciple of of the scientific principles. Later after college, I joined the army and after a uh relatively short stint with the U.S. Army, I was recruited into the intelligence community as a special agent in counterintelligence.

[5:21] A lot of people think they know what counterintelligence is. Um the reality is they they really don't. Counterintelligence is just trying to understand, know what your enemy knows about you.

[5:31] So if you imagine a chessboard, uh if you're playing, let's say, the black pieces and your your opponent is playing the white pieces, your opponent's always trying to figure out the chessboard and and the pieces you have on on the board and what they can do.

[5:47] Your job as counterintelligence is to know what they know about you, right? So it's kind of like the same thing as foreign intelligence and collection uh FI, but it's kind of the opposite for the opposite reasons, but the same methods and principles.

[6:00] In 2009 ish, early 2009, um, I was asked to be part of a um a very interesting program at the time. They did not tell me what it was about, other than it was uh it was a very sensitive program in the Pentagon.

[6:13] And I was already a senior intelligence officer managing multi million dollar programs. So it wasn't a big stretch. They needed somebody with counterintelligence and and security experience. So I was asked to come on.

[6:25] And at the time, this program was called OSAP, A W S A P. That was a contract vehicle that was signed by three members in Congress. They're in the Senate, and it was they were part of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and you had Senator Harry Reid, who was the chairman, you had Senator Inue from Hawaii, and you had Senator Ted Stevens, oh, co sponsoring a bill, because there were reports that they were aware of of things in our skies that were interfering with our military equities, and they wanted to get to the bottom of it.

[6:54] That's the short story of it. So I was brought in, and about a year, year and a half later, I wound up becoming the senior guy and actually taking over a little piece of OSAP, which was called ATIP, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

[7:08] Now, uh, before I continue down that road, I think it's important to understand the difference between the two. You can think of OSAP as a big umbrella, and you can think of ATIP as a smaller umbrella that fits underneath that bigger umbrella.

[7:21] ATIP was focused primarily on military encounters with UAP, something that had long and well been established within the U.S. national security apparatus. And there was conversation at very senior levels that we needed to get a better handle on it.

[7:34] So ATIP, whereas OSAP focused on a lot of different pieces, including information at the ranch and and other what some might consider paranormal activities, ATIP was really UAP focused only and focused only on military equities and technologies.

[7:51] So uh it's important to make that that that have that difference of understanding in in the back of your brain. And I continued to work that program in 2012.

[7:59] The funding finally ended for OSAT, but ATIP continued because there was a clear and pressing requirement to figure out what these things are in our skies. After years of running this effort with my colleagues, I made the decision that we finally had to get the secretary visibility on this topic.

[8:17] The reason why is because the bureaucracy was so obscene and so stringent that those who needed to know what we were doing, because we were being paid taxpayer dollars, using taxpayer dollars to do it, they weren't being informed.

[8:31] So people like the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, members of Congress who are part of those oversight committees like the HIPSE and the HASC and the Senate Settled Committee on Intelligence, the CISI, and the uh SASC, Senate Armed Services Committee.

[8:44] They they have a legal requirement to know what's going on from an oversight perspective, and they weren't being informed of what was going on. So that was a problem.

[8:52] And finally in 2017, I wrote a letter directly to my old friend Jim Mattis, who was the Secretary of Defense at that time. Years prior, he and I had served together, had the honor and privilege of serving with him in Afghanistan, and then later in the Middle East.

[9:05] So he's an incredible human being. And so I looked at this as my opportunity, because he's now Secretary of Defense, to go ahead and uh resign and write in my resignation my most precisely why I was resigning.

[9:17] Now, people often say, Well, why did you resign, Lou? Because in the Pentagon, it's a matter of pro forma that if you object to something, then um, rather than make a mess of things while staying on the inside, you do the right thing and you resign your position.

[9:32] And then you can go ahead and make noise, but you can never do it while you're inside. Why? Because that is disrespectful to the chain of command. It will not be tolerated, it cannot be tolerated, which I understand and I respect.

[9:42] And by the way, when people look at me and they say, Isn't that kind of strange you resigned in protest? I turn around and say, No, it's actually quite common because Secretary Mattis himself, about a year later to the date, resigned in protest as well for the exactly the same reasons.

[9:55] So, no, it is it is common. Now, you asked me a question, Josh, about orbs, because I think it's important I had to kind of preface all that for your audience who may just be coming into this conversation for the first time, not knowing anything.

[10:08] So what the hell are you talking about? Orbs in your house? This sounds silly. Click next I, you know, next next podcast. The reality is that yes, the reason why I wrote in my book about this encounter is because A was very perplexing.

[10:20] Scientifically, it did not make sense. We can chalk it up to ball lightning, you can chalk it up to atmospheric ionization, maybe there was a short in the attic somewhere and it created some sort of atmospheric condition, or now you had electrified air in my house.

[10:34] The problem with that is that while I was experiencing in my family and my neighbors were experiencing these strange occurrences, other individuals who were assigned to ATIP and OSAP at the same time were also having these experiences along with their families.

[10:48] So therein lies the interesting piece to this not the fact that Lou Elizondo had green balls of light in his house, but the fact that other individuals that were also assigned to the program were simultaneously having these same events and incidents occur in their private homes as well, which was later referred to by some as a quote unquote hitchhiker effect.

[11:09] Now the next logical question is well Lou, why why do you think that you you experience these things you know do you have any type of pre desp preposition dispositioning to to um I don't know anything that's paranormal and the answer is no I don't I I again I'm a disciple of the scientific methods and principles.

[11:29] So I can't tell you what these were but what I can tell you is that they they coincided with similar events that others were having while inside the program.

[11:37] And I didn't feel scared my family wasn't threatened by these orbs. We were more curious than anything else. It would happen periodically and we would see them and they would float right down the the the long hallway we had uh it was a white hallway and uh before people say well could it be a reflection of light we had two recessed lights in the hallway.

[11:56] They were dimmable and they were LED soft white so they were not these active luminescent bulbs that would cast off you know light and then maybe hit something in and a shadow.

[12:05] These were green diffuse balls of light did not seem to have any type of energy source where you look in the middle perhaps like a light bulb and you see the filament.

[12:14] This was just a glowing ball. And it would travel down the hallway pass sometimes through our bedroom door into our bedroom there was no noise there was no ill feelings there was no fear my daughters were amused by it my wife was curious about it not overly concerned and for me I did not want to exacerbate a situation and scare my family or tell them that other people in the program were having these same encounters and the reason why I chose not to do that was because I did not want to scare them.

[12:46] Until we understood what was going on there was no sense of scaring my family and and you know having conversations that I didn't have an answer for. So we just kind of chalked it up to well we live in a very old neighborhood you know there's a lot of electrical activity in the atmosphere before a storm maybe it has something to do with that.

[13:02] But the reality is that others were experiencing the same thing and so it was it was a direct result of the of involvement in the program. Yosh I think there's a little bit of feedback still from the microphones on your end.

[13:14] Let me turn this down a little bit lower you want to turn your speaker lower so that you don't so that the microphone doesn't pick it up the feedback.

[13:23] Did you have any reason to believe that possibly these the things that you're seeing that and the fact that it is people who are involved in this same unit that it is potentially surveillance from the government on your team or potentially surveillance from a foreign government on your team?

[13:40] You know, Chris is a great question whether or not this could be foreign intelligence related and is this some sort of surveillance or reconnaissance operations against us targeting us.

[13:50] Now it's true that the Russians did want to know what we were doing the Chinese but if you look back historically at this orb experience we have recently the US government released a trove of information.

[14:00] A lot of these reports are going back to the 1940s mid and late 1940s and early 1950s and these orbs were being encountered back then where we certainly did not or no foreign intelligence services had the capability or technology at that time to create diffuse balls of lights that could conduct reconnaissance and surveillance.

[14:17] Keep in mind that Allied aircraft in World War II described these things called foo fighters and there were these luminous balls of light that would follow these pilots Allied pilots into and out of combat and then if you look at some of the indigenous lore here and oral traditions here in the United States of indigenous peoples you will see that there's been a long history of orb activity.

[14:40] These go back centuries if not millennia with indigenous peoples I had the honor and privilege of speaking when I was in South America down in the Patagonia area of Argentina in an area called Las Lajas very close to another place called Barreloche, which are kind of hotspots for UAP had an opportunity to speak to a tribal elder of the Mapoche, indigenous group of individuals, and he explained to me that these orbs are very common uh and in fact that they believe these orbs are somehow related to their ancestral spirits.

[15:11] Other indigenous peoples also have a similar explanation but the reality is is it's it's certainly something it's something that mankind humankind has been dealing with now for a long time and I doubt that these orbs of light could have been some sort of reconnaissance capability because quite frankly we have means to conduct reconnaissance that are far more sophisticated right now.

[15:35] I won't go into detail so you don't need to be intrusive there there's a there's a kind of a rule that we have unwritten rule in intelligence when we're conducting investigations is and it's called least intrusive means meaning before you get to the intrusive stuff of surveillance you first have to exhaust all the most the the non intrusive and you do that for two reasons.

[15:56] One to protect the civil liberties of individuals and two also because sometimes you can get information that you need with something much more simple than something much more advanced.

[16:06] So I I do not believe Chris that these were directed by any type of foreign intelligence service. Something that I saw frequently in our comments from the viewers of I would say what's most valuable possibly to talk about sometimes is the skeptics, the people who are very skeptical there one of the main things that they say is you know, we have all these high definition cameras everyone in in our pocket we have these HD cameras how come all the only thing that we've gotten of all these UAPs is just like super blurry black and white thermal footage I'm wondering when you were in ATIP did you maybe come across any harder evidence better video footage or physical things you could hold or know someone who came across better footage that's being withheld from us?

[16:58] Yeah, Chris very insightful question. To put it simply absolutely 100% we were privy to in some cases ultra 4K ultra high definition videos of things that left absolutely no question in your mind what you're dealing with is something very advanced technologically speaking.

[17:14] But there's more than that right because proof isn't a pudding the only thing better than seeing something is touching something. And so when you have material in your hand that we still defy our ability to manufacture right now and uh has some very interesting properties and you realize that only in the last two years have we as a nation, the most technologically advanced arguably one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet have just been able to recreate at a very macro and gross level when I say gross, I don't mean disgusting I mean at a large level some very interesting material.

[17:50] And we know for a fact that materials provenance goes back to the early 1990s, but allegedly it goes back to Roswell. And so when you have something in your hand material wise speaking that cannot be manufactured by concurrent today's day and age of of state of the art technology someone created it right someone someone engineered it.

[18:12] So the question if it's not us then who right and who would have that capabilities back in the 40s? Well if you look at 1947 we had just entered us the United States entered the atomic age we had barely broken the sound barrier and we had not been to space if you were to compare technologies moving at hypersonic velocities and instantaneous acceleration and the ability to operate not just in the atmosphere but in low Earth orbit and possibly even underwater, you're talking about a very advanced technology and let's just say for example hypothetically that yes, you know what Russia or China has managed to create this technology and somehow been able to create it in secret and after 80 years of billions and billions of dollars each year of our intelligence community all 16 agencies working the hard targets never once had a single trace or an inkling of an idea that Country X had somehow cracked this code in advanced technology this would be the greatest intelligence failure in the history of our nation eclipsing that of even 9 11 because that means someone somewhere has invented something completely off the radar with a tremendous amount of resources and technologies and oh by the way not only has this technology but can deploy it and employ it over our own controlled and sensitive military airspace and do it completely anonymously right so that that's a big problem.

[19:33] If that's the case then then we need to fire everybody in the US government and we just need to go ahead and start over again because you know we're we're we're way behind.

[19:42] So I I don't think I don't think you know skeptics I and I look I appreciate healthy skepticism. What I don't appreciate is a skeptic because by nature no matter what you tell them they're never going to believe it's just like a true believer.

[19:55] In fact a true believer of UFOs and a true skeptic are one and the same person They're just on opposite ends of the spectrum because a true believer, no matter what you tell them, they're always going to believe.

[20:04] And a true skeptic, no matter what you show them or tell them, they're always going to disbelieve. So I I really don't waste much of my time engaging individuals who are either true believers or or skeptics because there's already a bias there.

[20:17] Um it does make them bad people. Let me just caveat that. These could be very wonderful people and taxpayers and great American patriots, but you there's no convincing them.

[20:25] So why waste your energy trying to convince or compel somebody about something if if there's no chance of of having a conversation with them? Uh so my focus typically are those people who are just now coming to this conversation perhaps for the very first time, kind of curious, maybe UFO curious, if that's a if that's a word, and uh trying to to figure out what this means for them.

[20:49] Yeah, that's where I would describe myself personally, is in that bucket of people who I'm you know, I won't I wouldn't discount any of this. I find it very fascinating.

[21:01] I also I don't have personal experience that would prove it one way or the other, which is part of the reason why I find it so interesting. One of I think the arguments that it is not a foreign country and not a is that potentially this is a type of psyop by, say, the CIA, who has in the past done, you know, this is not like this is not a fairy tale here.

[21:28] We we do we know, or at least we know that they've claimed to have, the CIA has claimed to have planted false stories in the past uh to cover programs like the SR 71, I believe.

[21:41] Um do you do you have reason to believe that it is not that in this case? So, Chris, we have to be really careful, at least I do, how I proceed to answer that question.

[21:54] And let me say explain why. It should make more sense. And Josh can probably back me up on this. But when you're in the US government, especially with the intelligence community, or you're working sensitive or critical technologies like nuclear technologies, there's a there's a real reason why we keep things classified, right?

[22:08] We keep them classified because we want to protect sources and methods, we want to protect capability from getting into the hands of bad people. So, if you have developed some sort of really cool super stealth technology, let's talk about, for example, the development of the F 117 nightfighter, aka known as the Wobbly Goblin.

[22:27] That aircraft, that stealth aircraft that was first introduced during Operation Just Cause in 1989 over Panama was actually decades in the making. Lockheed Martin Skunkworks had decided to shift to stealth technology and cloaking, radar cloaking technology back in the uh early 70s as part of the tacit blue and half blue programs that the Air Force was running.

[22:49] And we didn't, Americans had no idea this was even a reality until some fateful evening where we use them in Operation Just Cause. So, so there's a long history of the United States covering up for real technologies, and there's a reason for that.

[23:06] And I don't disagree with that, but what I do disagree with is lying to the American people. I think that's a problem. I think you can keep things secret and classified without necessarily lying to the American people because once you do that, you lose your credibility forever.

[23:18] And the government in the past has done very, very terrible things. And look, I'm a patriot. I'm I'm I'm I'm an American, I've been to war several times. I I love my country and I love my people and I love my love my government.

[23:30] But with that said, we can't we can't be complacent because there are laws in this country that are on the books specifically there to protect not just you and me, but also the Constitution itself.

[23:41] The very Constitution. And so you have a requirement when you what there are certain exceptions you can lie to the American people. And I won't I won't belabor this right now, but you can get on, look at Executive Order 1233, United States Intelligence Activities that was recently re signed but goes back to 1981.

[23:58] And you can go to other documents about specifically covert action. Look at the legal definition of what covert action is, and you will see that the American government, under certain circumstances, is allowed to lie to the world and the American people.

[24:10] And they do that to protect national security. Now, even in those circumstances, there are legal requirements and hoops you have to jump through to make sure that it's still legal, meaning there are certain people in Congress that still have to be briefed, the president has to be briefed and approve it and whatnot.

[24:26] And so there are these moments in time where we do that. And let's also not forget there's laws on the books now that prevent the US government from conducting propaganda against the American people.

[24:35] Why? Well, because we haven't always been forthcoming with the American people. We've done bad things. If you want to look at just a brief history, you can look at things going back to, for example, the MK Ultra tests, where we actually administered LSD to unsuspecting people to catastrophic consequences.

[24:53] Another example uh was the Tuskegee experiment, where the United States uh purposely allowed uh certain vulnerable demographics to be infected with syphilis, a disease, right? A venereal disease, and allow it to progress to its natural conclusion, which was oftentimes death.

[25:11] And even though we had a cure for it, we did not administer that cure and we allowed people to die simply because the government wanted to. So there are examples where the government hasn't always done things in the best interest of the American people, and that's why we now have laws in the books to protect us.

[25:27] So if anybody in the CIA or the executive branch were to make a decision unilaterally that ha ha ha, we're gonna fool the American people, you have to understand there's huge risk doing that because at some point you you you risk you risk a situation that I'm very familiar with because my father lived through one, which is a coup d'etat.

[25:45] It's when the people have had enough with their government, they rise up against the government and they overthrow that government. And if you don't think we've had one before, I would just say look at 1776, right?

[25:57] And why we have a 4th of July. Because the American people got tired of it and they decided to do something about it. You have to be very careful when you're in government and you do things like this.

[26:07] My father was an immigrant from Cuba. He was a political prisoner of Castro because of my father's involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion. And uh, my father was considered a rebel because he decided to take up arms against a tyranny, a regime that was very bad for to his people.

[26:26] So people in government need to be reminded of this, Chris, that that you can only, you know, like Bob Marley said, you can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

[26:36] That's if you do that, you're a tyranny, you're you're you're a tyrannical government, you're not a democracy. And so, you know, this is why I I don't think the CIA or anybody else is purposely trying to fool the American people, because that's a very dangerous game.

[26:50] At this stage and age, that this far down the road, you've already had the president briefed, you had other individuals briefed. You would be going to jail for a very, very long time if if if if you were culpable of of doing a disinformation campaign like this against the American people.

[27:06] Right. I understand. And I Josh, I'm sorry, I know you have you had a a bunch more really good questions. I didn't mean to step on them. Uh, I appreciate the answer on the hitchhiker question.

[27:17] That one was kind of a personal one that I was asked by several buddies that I serve with to ask you specifically. Uh it wasn't so much for for this because we pretty much all of us have experienced that hitchhiker kind of phenomenon after working at the area and having our experiences.

[27:35] So um I think this is why I personally I I want to end the ridicule culture stigma and open up the conversation 'cause there's people living with real trauma and they have nowhere to turn to.

[27:48] So I I appreciate the answer. That was uh let me dive into the the actual questions, though I'm sure we're gonna end up using that too. So your position is and just restated for the so that the audience uh knows, is that secret retrieval and reverse engineering programs exist.

[28:06] Bodies were discussed in the Pentagon, uh bodies of NHIM, and that some programs evade congressional oversight and UAP have a direct connection to nuclear sites. So the question would be of these claims, which do you have first hand knowledge of, and which are based entirely on secondary or even tertiary tertiary sources?

[28:26] So everything that I've spoken about is first hand knowledge. I I don't talk about hearsay. Hearsay as a as a former special agent myself and very familiar with with you know threshold of what it takes to go to court and prove something.

[28:38] And and I'm sure Ivan Hinnell here can jump on and also reemphasize that, you know, laws, laws are very, very important to us. Now, Josh, your your specific question as it relates, I'm I'm I'm kind of curious because I do think that the stigma and the taboo of this topic has has really interfered with us having an open and honest conversation with ourselves until recently.

[29:00] I do agree with you with with that entirely, but you said something else. And if you don't mind, can you repeat that again? Because I want to make sure I address it down.

[29:08] You asked a question, but I want to make sure I understand it exactly. Can you can you repeat that last part of your your statement? Yeah. Basically, of the the claims that you've made publicly, which one of these did you have firsthand direct knowledge of and which were based on like secondhand sources?

[29:27] Yeah, no, this these are first hand knowledge. Now, let me also preface this, and you can read between the lines. I've said this before, and I said in an open testimony to the American people under oath when I was being when I was up uh there speaking before Congress.

[29:42] I signed a paper, I signed a document, an official U.S. government document several years ago that said specifically, I'm prevented from discussing crash retrievals. So I never said I can't admit I signed a paper.

[29:56] It just says that I can never talk about crash retrievals. So let me say that again. Unfortunately, as it relates to crash retrievals, I would not be able to answer any questions you have.

[30:07] But the fact is and the fact remains that I did execute a non disclosure agreement with the United States government several years ago in a SCIF that prevents me from discussing discussing the topic of crash retrievals.

[30:19] And that is a a statement that I have said over and over and over again. Clearly you don't sign a document to protect information if it's not real.

[30:31] And I agree. And relating specifically to your knowledge on these issues and the fact that you have signed NDAs, if you were to just be put in a SCIF, have all legal jeopardies waived, would you be able to just on your knowledge alone, be able to name places, programs, personnel that Congress could investigate directly?

[30:54] Yeah I've already provided those names believe it or not several times to the Inspector General's office both in the DOD and then later on with the D and I's inspector general.

[31:02] And they have, we were in a secure environment and they have those names and then later again I had a conversation with somebody who was part of DI's DIG and uh they're also very well aware of of code names and program names and and facilities persons and locations.

[31:19] It's I'm aware that with the David Gruch situation it's kind of frustration about not being put into a skiff and stuff. So I specifically wanted to ask that question because I know that some part of the audience is familiar with David Gruosh and people are going to be wondering like, well how close is your personal knowledge to the topic?

[31:38] Yeah. David Gruosh and I actually worked together at US Space Force um in the 2020 timeframe on the specifically for the UAP task force and and on this topic.

[31:48] You know there's obviously frustration there but I'll tell you there's stuff about this topic that I don't think should ever be revealed to to the public because there's no ways to keep it out of the hands of of a foreign adversaries.

[31:58] So for example Josh let's go back to you know uh nuclear equities it's no secret that Kim Jong un has atomic capable, possibly nuclear capable warheads above his missiles with a potential atomic yield and maybe even nuclear yield.

[32:12] What we don't talk with the American people or the world are the specific capabilities, right? It's loiterability, its longevity, its total velocity and altitude before it starts coming back down, the targets that it has in mind, the technologies that it's using for the triggering devices versus you know all these things that that you and guys like you and I learn about things like criticality and whatnot.

[32:33] That really doesn't need to be discussed with the American people or the world because all you're doing is is is opening yourself up to potentially a very significant vulnerability down the road.

[32:43] So I I I I understand some people want all their information. They want it now but I think they also need to understand that truthfully and realistically speaking they're not going to get everything and nor should they that are just too sensitive that we can't afford an adversary replicating.

[33:00] But by the way, make no mistake, China and Russia have their own UAP program right now, and they've already admitted it, so that cat's out of the bag. I I agree entirely what you say, especially if what we're seeing by the capabilities of the phenomenon if we were able or God forbid an adversary were able to unlock that it would be just disastrous so I I agree completely.

[33:25] Number two and I I'm gonna later I want to dive into your counterintelligence background to get your perspective on the phenomena I'm really excited for those questions. Number two what is the single strongest case or piece of intelligence you've encountered the most clear indicator of either non human biology or technology that exceeds known human capability?

[33:47] Well from that perspective there's not one it's like choosing your favorite child right they're all different and unique in their own way and they all have the strengths very much same with with the UAP topic there are so many interesting compelling bit you know let me give you one that just was released by the US government so it's not you know world according to Lou.

[34:04] During the second and third tranche release of information from this administration real recently there were documents that were released from NASA. Now before we get into what those documents were keep in mind that for decades plural NASA had refuted the claims that any other astronauts ever encountered anything strange up there and there were no photographs or video evidence of anything up in our heavens other than stars and planets.

[34:31] Well uh despite that even that statement as recently as last year NASA decided to release some pictures taken during the Apollo missions from the surface the lunar surface and some of these photos depict some very interesting things in a lunar orbit.

[34:46] Now keep in mind people say well it could be a satellite no it couldn't because we only had one thing orbiting the moon back then and that was a lunar orbiter that was waiting to rendezvous with a lunar lander that was actually taking the photographs.

[34:57] So you have these things that are orbiting the moon and and these pictures being taken some look just like a triangle and oh by the way NASA comes out and says by the way what you're seeing here might actually be real objects like not camera artifacts not reflection and refraction from light and we're beginning to realize there's a whole bunch of neat interesting things on the moon that we weren't ready to discuss publicly before not just things in the sky that are that are seen over the lunar surface but strange bursts of light emanating from the lunar surface where there should be there is no active light source.

[35:32] Objects on the moon that have right angle what appear to be engineered cuts with with with almost exacting precision, right? So there's a lot of things happening on the moon you also have experiments that were were conducted by astronauts now we're beginning to learn about and other astronauts having their own encounters with something while in space and NASA now is finally being forthcoming about it.

[35:55] So you know it's not like there's one interesting incident you know there's another report that came out I think in the first or second tranche where there was actually as of last year an investigation done by the DNI where they sent a senior intelligence officer to actually investigate an area of high frequency UAP frequency it was over a sensitive military installation and the guy was a skeptic I was told ahead of time and when he came back not only did they witness and encounter these but they're all over the helicopter both he and the pilot were stunned and shocked and came back and said yep this is real.

[36:28] Like we're we we saw it. So there's a lot of things I think that that you could look at with this release of information. You don't have to rely on what Lou Elizondo saw which I I already said was very compelling.

[36:40] There's stuff you can see as a general public and make up your own mind, you know, how significant that really is I think it's all significant I agree. Yeah that uh what I found curious specifically about that uh helicopter incident was he described the lights forming into the same T shaped pattern that in the earlier trancha documents you had a World War II report from the uh was it the four nineteenth Night Fighter Squadron with the exact same pattern.

[37:10] That was that caught my attention as I was reviewing the documents. You've testified that at least some of the technologies observed were not created by the US government or other human agents what specifically makes you so confident of that assertion given the possibility that there are domestic and foreign projects you may not have had access to?

[37:29] Sure. Well I actually I had access to a lot without going into detail I was a STO officer designated many of us there think of them as a super user special technical operations where you are working national level programs.

[37:42] So you have access to every DOD program and national level program because your job is to deconflict certain efforts for the US government. So I was a designated STO officer I was trained so I had the same guys that carry around the nuclear key codes you know for the president same same level of clearance.

[37:59] Now is it possible some country has managed to replicate some of this technology? It is but I I it's very doubtful. I think someone's talking if I'm not mistaken someone's on the phone oh yes sorry I think somebody might no worries I don't mind Chris I just want to make sure you guys are aware sorry about that I think my pup got brought up into here sorry we got no no that's okay how you doing? Dog, dogs are always welcome. I've got five so all right yeah we could sorry continue yeah so uh it's my little alien no no listen you know uh there was I don't know if you ever remember uh the the old singer uh Mel Tourme so he used to have a saying he said you know the more I get to know people the better I like dogs I remember that quote yeah yeah so uh anyway back to your your question about foreign adversarial look you know what makes something truly unique in intelligence is looking at something that has a very unique signature that's not similar to anything else that you have in your current inventory.

[39:06] So there were five basically things observables that we were able to identify as being unique and distinct for UAP. One was instantaneous acceleration one was hypersonic velocity one was low observability one was transmedium travel and the last one was in the vernacular anti gravity.

[39:21] So let's talk about those very briefly just to to to explain to your audience what I mean. Instantaneous acceleration is the ability to move from point A to point B in different directions very quickly, right?

[39:30] So it's a change in velocity. And because of that you you encounter certain inertial forces related to changing speed and direction. And we call those G we experience them as g forces or or the force of gravity times whatever.

[39:44] So to put that into perspective the average human being can withstand about nine g forces for a very short period of time before it's suffering before suffering medical consequences such as blackouts and red outs and ultimately death.

[39:56] So that's why pilots wear G suits and if you compare that to One of our more highly maneuverable aircraft, it's an older platform, but still one of the most highly maneuverable, is the General Dynamics F sixteen Fighting Falcon.

[40:08] And at the unclassified level, that can pull about 17 G's before you start having structural failure, meaning wings begin to snap off, the airframe begins to disintegrate around you.

[40:18] What we are seeing are objects that are doing in excess of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 G forces, right? Well beyond the healthy limitations of anything biologically to withstand, and even from a material science perspective.

[40:33] Now, another observable is hypersonic velocity. Now, hypersonics is described as five times the speed of sound. What is the speed of sound? Well, speed of sound is Mach 1, or roughly 763 miles an hour at sea level plus or minus, depending on barometric pressure.

[40:47] So if you're going five times the speed of sound, you're going very, very fast. So why is that important? Because you know what? We do have objects that are very fast.

[40:55] We have, you mentioned the SR71, the Lockheed YF 12A SR71, the Blackbird. And at the unclassified level, that can do about 3,200 miles an hour, basically right there on the cusp of MOP Mach 5.

[41:07] But if the SR 71 wants to take a right angle turn at that speed, it roughly takes half the state of Ohio to execute that turn. What we are seeing are objects that are doing immediate right angle 180 degree turns without any of that associated banking that we would associate with an aircraft, right?

[41:26] So we can't do that. Another one is low observability. You know, we still have aircraft that are that are hard to see with radar, but you can still see them with the naked eye.

[41:35] This is not the case. We're talking about objects that even with the naked eye are hard to see, they're hard to distinguish. Uh they appear blurry and obscure sometimes.

[41:43] And there's a reason for that, and we we we think we understand why. The fourth observable, which is transmedium travel, is the ability to operate seamlessly seamlessly through different domains or what we call environments.

[41:54] Now, do we have transmedium vehicles? Yes, we do. Let's look at a seaplane, for example. A seaplane can fly and it can float, but a seaplane is neither a very good airplane nor a very good boat.

[42:06] Why is that? It's because we have to compromise in design and performance. The more types of environments we want to design something to operate in, the more sacrifices are made to performance and design.

[42:17] There's no way around it. And yet, what we are seeing right now with these UAP, there doesn't seem to be any of these associated uh design consequences or performance consequences.

[42:27] They can seem to operate in the air and the space and even underwater and transit the three domains without uh without skipping a beat. So whoever's been able to do that, that's that is a strategic advantage, certainly, from a national security perspective.

[42:42] And then the last is is in it's a bad word in science, but but anti gravity. In essence, the the ability to defy the natural effects of Earth's gravitational pull.

[42:52] Now, what is gravity? Well, a lot of us think this is gravity, as I drop my pen. It is not gravity. That is an effect of gravity. Gravity is actually the warping of space time.

[43:02] And what you get is this the what we experience is this attractive force between mass between two objects. So Earth, because of its mass, pulls us all down equally at 9.8 meters per second squared.

[43:14] And if we were on something heavier, it'd be more, and something lighter like the moon, it'd be less. But the way we experience gravity is all because of the mass of Earth.

[43:22] Now, if you want to defy Earth's gravity, there's really only three ways we know how to do it. The first one is through the fundamentals of and principles of flight.

[43:32] You have four fundamental forces you have thrust, lift, drag, and weight. And when you understand those, you can create wings and a lifting body, and you can fly as long as you have thrust.

[43:41] The other way to defy gravity is through buoyancy. Think of a hot air balloon or think of a helium balloon. You have this cavity, and inside this cavity, the air is less dense, dense than outside, and so the object will rise to a point of equilibrium.

[43:54] And then the last way we know how to defy Earth's gravity is through the principles of just sheer ballistics. Force equals mass times acceleration. Think of this as an ICBM.

[44:05] If I put enough energy behind this, I can launch it out of a tube until it decides to fall back to Earth and hit a target. Or if I throw a baseball in the air, that's the same thing.

[44:13] That's that's ballistics. These things we're seeing don't seem to have any of those associated technologies. They don't have wings, they don't have control surfaces, they don't have any obvious signs of propulsion, and yet there they are.

[44:25] They can defy Earth's natural effects of gravity and they can float sometimes there and hover in the air, even against 120 mile an hour winds and do really incredible things that we can't replicate.

[44:37] So when you see something like that, you go back and look at your own inventory of what you have and say, okay, does this fit any type of category or signature that we have with stuff that we're working on?

[44:47] And if the answer is no, then you look at the bad guys, right? Okay, well, we have information what the bad guys are developing. Does this fit into any of those categories?

[44:54] And if the answer is no, then chances are you might have something really anomalous. And so we continue looking at it from that perspective.

[45:04] Just uh because I know that there's gonna be people that want to know specifically this is gonna get brought up. I can see it already in the comments. When you mentioned objects that move two, three thousand miles an hour.

[45:15] I've personally seen that myself happen. But uh did you have access to and without going into ways and means, did you have access into high fidelity enough data that you were confident that you could accurately measure that type of acceleration?

[45:29] Yeah, if you could just comment that. Yeah, we had we had actually radar tracks where some of these things were were were clocked at doing 40,000 miles an hour in low earth atmosphere conditions, where the where the friction coefficient would be astronomical.

[45:41] You would ionize the atmosphere all around you, and you would you would create a shockwave that would obliterate cities. And and yet there it was. We had very compelling information.

[45:49] We had electro optical data, we had hyperspectral data, we had uh radar data, and some very, very fine radar systems, right? Multi phase raid uh radar systems. So we really had the best of the best looking at this thing.

[46:03] And when you had eyewitness testimony that was being backed up by electro optical data, like gun camera footage, which was being backed up by radar footage, those are three separate bits and pieces of information that are all cooperating the same event at the same time, at the same place, under the same circumstances.

[46:18] So it is it is done very scientifically. This isn't just like oh grandma seeing some lights in the backyard. This is the same instruments we use to prosecute a war, right?

[46:28] Are the same instruments we're using and that are detecting UAP. I've actually got a quick follow up question on that. Um as we're developing more sophisticated sensor capabilities, radar, all that kind of thing, has UAP ever interfered with the development process of these where they actually had to design increasingly capable military sensors around accounting for UAP that might be encountered in the field?

[46:52] Wow, Diego, that is a very relevant question and a question that I can't answer right now because there are people right now that may be trying to answer that question for our government.

[47:02] But I I have to be very careful not to discuss something that could potentially compromise ongoing efforts and operations. If those operations and efforts are indeed ongoing, it's something I would not want to jeopardize.

[47:16] But it's a great question. Very, very insightful question. Yeah, it makes sense, of course. Moving on. There's been a lot of talk about the uh legacy UFO program, especially from David Groosh.

[47:28] Obviously, a core part of why you went public was your concern over the legality and lying to the American people. Given your knowledge of how these types of programs operate, could you sort of describe how it would be possible for such a high profile, far reaching, and long lasting program to remain hidden, remain secret, and avoid congressional oversight for an estimated now eight decades?

[47:58] Yeah, I mean, guys, we don't have to, you know, imagine very hard. There's countless examples where the government was doing highly secret things and only later did people find out that were going on.

[48:10] For example, the use of CIA black sites to prosecute the war on terror, right? GWAT. People had no idea we had these black sites anywhere, and then they realized, oh, we did, right?

[48:20] And we were involved in interrogation operations. You can look at all sorts of examples going back into even Oliver North, right? You can look at efforts like Watergate, where these things were done in secret, and only when there was a misstep did American people even find out.

[48:36] So these are the ones we know about. Think about the ones that we don't know about because nothing's gone wrong, because people have very good sense of OPSEC and they're keeping these things secret.

[48:44] So people say, Well, you couldn't keep this secret for that long. Sure, we could. We've done it. Look, you don't even know who killed Kennedy yet, right? And that was done in the open in front of everybody.

[48:51] And apparently, now all the the the records have been declassified, and we still haven't gotten to the bottom of Kennedy, right? Somebody knows. So, no, we we have a very good ability to keep things secret when we absolutely need to.

[49:02] And of course, we have laws backing us up, like you know, the uh US Espionage Act that was done in the early 1900s in order to go after and dissuade and prosecute individuals who decide to compromise national security.

[49:17] And if you don't believe me, just ask the Rosenbergs, who were hung because of giving the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Russians, right? So we do keep things secret.

[49:28] If you don't think that your government will take action to protect those secrets, let me give you a piece of advice. Don't ever go to a military installation at night and try to cross a fence because you're gonna see signs there that say least lethal force is you use of lethal force is authorized beyond this point.

[49:44] They're telling you if you if you cross this, you will be shot, you will be killed. So it shouldn't be any surprise, be any surprise to anybody that there are things that are worth taking extreme measures over in the name of national security.

[49:56] Now, do I agree with that or not? Well, that's a different question. But the bottom is that we do we do protect information and we're very good at doing that if we need to.

[50:06] Aaron Ross Powell Given the knowledge that you had and without going into any specifics, would you say in your opinion that if the publicly available claims about the legacy UFO program's actions, its criminal actions, just based off knowledge that you had or have, would you say would you do you believe that it's justified in keeping itself a secret, or do you believe that maybe it's crossed the line?

[50:33] I believe all secrets have a shelf life. I believe all secrets are perishable. I think secrets can only be kept secret for so long and then it starts working against uh your interest to keep it secret.

[50:44] A lot of people think secrets are like fine wine where the longer you keep a cork on it, the better it gets. I disagree. I think secrets are like vegetables in your refrigerator and the longer they stay in there, the sooner they're gonna start to rot and and stink and you're gonna have a big mess on your hands.

[51:01] Are there things worth keeping secret? Sure, absolutely but there comes a point where by keeping something secret beyond its shelf life you begin to lose credibility with those who you're trying to protect in the first place.

[51:12] And so we have to be very careful of that. You know there's a lot of topic parts of this conversation that are very sensitive, which I will never get into.

[51:21] But the mere fact that we're not alone in the cosmos and it's something that we've been looking at for a very long time, that should not be kept secret.

[51:29] That that's that you're you're not there's no national interest in doing that. And so I think you're now having that conversation. I think people are beginning to wake up and realize look it's it we know it's real.

[51:40] It's probably good that we have a conversation about it now in a fair and rational way, non conspiratorial, non accusatory right this this topic has been fraught with social stigma and taboo for a long time and for good reason because it was engineered that way.

[51:54] The U.S. government itself had a role in doing that and and obfuscating so now how do you rewind that tape? And you talked about legal implications here. Josh there's a lot let me give you an example let's let's say you're an attorney right and uh you come to me and uh no better yet you're a senator how about this and I'm I I work for a company you say yeah Lou we want you to be honest do we uh do we have advanced technologies that exist?

[52:19] Well I'd have to answer that and say yes they do your next question as a center is say well where did we learn about that information? Did we get that from a foreign adversary?

[52:28] No we might have gotten it from somewhere else right so now we're admitting the fact that these things are real now let's go back the other way and you ask me as a senator Lou, are UFOs real?

[52:37] Well I yes senator they are they are indeed real so your next question is hmm have we learned anything about that about about them and then I say actually Senator we have well that's funny because you would say as a senator to me Lou, you never briefed us on it.

[52:53] So you mean to tell me for 15 20 years we've been working on this technology and we've been spending billions if not trillions of dollars reverse engineering it where's the oversight where's a couple you know the the accountability of this who spent the money what did we learn how far did we get you know and all that kind of stuff that makes life very uncomfortable and then you can go back even from a more financial issue let's say uh let's say Ivan over here is uh the CEO of company A and I am the CEO of company B.

[53:20] You are Josh are Josh are a three star general back in the 50s and you say you know what I found this really interesting piece of material. Lou I'm going to give you this piece of material and tell me what you can think about what you think about it.

[53:32] Now keep in mind there is free and fair competition in the United States. That's what capitalism is and that's how our government is set up especially as it deals with contracts and the military industrial complex.

[53:42] So now what happens in 10 years? Well in 10 years my company is now a multi billion dollar aerospace company Ivan's company here company A has folded has gone bankrupt 200 people lost their jobs and oh by the way the investors themselves in that company have all lost their investment.

[53:57] So now you're caught talking about security exchange commission violations and now you as a lawyer Josh come to come to me and realize that I'm a multi billion dollar aerospace company can you imagine the next 20 years of lawsuits that would come up coming after me because now it could be it could be into the trillions of dollars right keep in mind I'm I'm a I'm a big part of the aerospace community for the United States government you can't afford me to go bankrupt.

[54:24] You need me right you have too many of my assets and equities are being used right now. So how do you deal with that right and so there's this huge snowball effect that we have to recognize and have this conversation internally a lot of people you know they want their idle curiosity satisfied oh I want to know the truth right now I can handle it and you can't keep it from me.

[54:43] Well I'm sure you can handle it and we're not trying to keep it from you but there are there are legal questions that have to be answered right before you wind up doing something.

[54:53] You know I always say there's a there's a difference between doing things right and doing things right now. And and Ivan will tell you here I am often guilty of doing things right now.

[55:04] But that's not that's not always the best way to be right so we we have to really take our time and be diligent looking at the potential minefields and how we can navigate around those nine minefields if possible I really appreciate you bringing up the aerospace example um one thing I always strive when I have this conversation with people about disclosure and stuff is that it it's it's there's a lot of nuance to it this isn't just about like alien life real or not.

[55:33] Like there's so many legal headaches like I I appreciate you bringing more perspective to that. Let me see you once said that those interested in the phenomenon should read Chains of the Sea which I'm actually I just finished the first novella in it.

[55:50] Could you speak more to that like it what's specifically about I guess if as long as it doesn't violate something like that Josh you almost got to the best part you gotta read the second one that's that's the one where the magic happens you gotta you gotta see that I'm about to start that one.

[56:06] That's the one really that I that I tell people because it shows a a connected it shows a a a connectedness a a a a hidden relevance between what seem to be opposing or if not even contradictory philosophies about something and presents the notion that actually there may be a relationship between UAP, between what some may consider paranormal and even artificial intelligence.

[56:39] And so I encourage people to read it not because it's necessarily fact or not because it's necessarily a good work of fiction, because it forces the reader to think alternatively about this topic in a way that you're not used to thinking about.

[56:51] And so um I like perspectives that do that. I like perspectives that challenge people and provide new ways of thinking about something.

[57:02] I I agree I've been uh speaking with the former uh social media manager for the Skywatcher team and we just had this whole conversation about how it's the phenomena it's not just here it could also be here and here and I I think we need to open aperture on on how we look at not just this phenomena but possibly other phenomena how it might be related to see here I got another quick follow up question on that uh so obviously the most people know about the aerial phenomena but uh what can you tell us about what we know about like underwater or seaborne phenomena are those just as common as aerial and we just don't see it as often uh what's kind of like the untold story there?

[57:52] Yeah so you know there's a challenge whenever we're dealing with anything in the water. Why? Well first of all it's yet a different environment and it's f it's it's it's far more difficult to pierce the veil of darkness.

[58:04] You know natural light goes down to about 200 feet and then you lose most of usable light at least to the human eye. Now there's other animals that can be far deeper and they kind of have big eyes and they collect light and they can see you have things like bioluminescence and whatnot.

[58:17] But the reality is we know very little about the depths of our oceans. In fact we know more about the lunar surface than we know the depths of our oceans and I think only about 20% of the entire ocean floor has even been mapped at this point.

[58:28] So there's a lot that we don't know. And there's a whole lot of stuff that can be underneath there and we've heard over the decades from the Navy through their fast mover program that they have been tracking unusually large and unusually fast objects underwater for decades.

[58:42] It started when we first started the SOSIS program with the Navy and it continued. And I actually had an opportunity to speak to a to a Navy captain who was in charge of a boomer class submarine, a very large submarine and he was being debriefed about a USO incident and he said look this thing was was was bigger than we are and it was moving faster than us and as he's explaining this story I'm I'm listening I'm like wow oh my gosh so I I I asked an honest question you know I asked what'd you do when you were coming up to it and he looked at me almost annoyed as if you know the obvious he looks at me says Lou we went around you know it's he wasn't gonna you wasn't they weren't gonna do anything to challenge something like that.

[59:21] And I I kind of shook my head I'm like yeah yeah that that makes perfect sense. That's logical again I guess I would too so yeah I mean you you you hear about these things all the time about these objects hitting the water with no splash being able to move seamlessly between air and water very very fast underwater be able to go from one end of the horizon to the other underwater in the blink of an eye you know where where the the friction coefficient is astronomically higher than the atmosphere.

[59:47] You know it's very tough to push something large underwater because of the forces of drag and resistance of the water and friction and things like that. So when you are able to to travel fast

[1:00:00] faster than the speed of sound underwater, because remember sound travels even faster underwater than it does in the air. You're talking about a really a breakaway technology. That's something we if if if there's a foreign adversary that's mastered that technology, we've got serious issues.

[1:00:13] We've got serious power. That's really interesting because I've I've heard we've heard a lot of stories, like Diego, like you were saying, of stories about UFOs flying in the air or near the ground.

[1:00:25] But I had not heard any stories about submarine commanders or submarine, you know, any sailors speaking about this. So it's interesting to hear that somebody saw some s or saw some readings on, I guess, sonar that seemed really strange.

[1:00:40] That I'd not known about that. I I'd be curious we should, Diego, we should make a note to to dive into learn more about that. We have so much to teach you.

[1:00:49] If you get a chance, I would talk to Admiral Tim Galudet, U.S. Navy Admiral. He he could be very informative. He was actually with the USS Roosevelt during the events of the UAP incidents that were plaguing that that aircraft carrier and it and the carrier battle group.

[1:01:06] So he can tell you a lot. Yeah that'd be that'd be great. Yeah my background is Coast Guard, but we still had some like anti diver sonar systems and everything.

[1:01:14] So it's it's a murky world under there. So there's a great report if you get a chance a Coast Guard report from the late 80s you should read about on the Great Lakes.

[1:01:23] Pretty harrowing account of some USOs that become UFOs and it's pretty pretty incredible. Wow yeah I'll make a note of that thank you. Is uh Lou getting really low volume for anybody else or just me?

[1:01:36] No he sounds all right for me. Seems okay on my end yeah. Test one talking sure one two three one two three hello testing testing one two three better now.

[1:01:48] It's weird everybody else was normal volume I can turn the volume up a little bit do you want me to do that? It's already it's popping out a little bit okay but actually that was just fine.

[1:01:57] Okay just random issue I guess I kind of wanted to start diving a little into your counterintelligence background to try to get specific perspectives on the phenomenon to see not necessarily by your knowledge but to see how based off your training how you might see different aspects of the phenomenon there's a a common narrative now that the US has taken action against UAPs, down UAPs through either electromagnetic weapons, there's tacosionics now.

[1:02:29] If we assume that these narratives are true and if we uh if we just accept just hypothetically accept UAP do represent technology from a superior intelligence in what what kind of scenarios do you think would compel the United States to take such a massive risk in downing an object from an advanced civilization knowing that they could massively retaliate against us?

[1:02:57] Like what kind of place do you think the US would be at to where they would actually take these actions? Well I think it'd be a mistake to to conduct any type of operation that would be construed as being hostile or or being a hostile act.

[1:03:10] It's the reason why when a Russian bear reconnaissance aircraft comes towards the the west coast of the United States, we scramble two F 22 fighter jets and we escort it back.

[1:03:21] But we don't shoot it down. Why? Because you don't want to escalate into a situation that you're not prepared for. And the same is true with UAP now it is true when I was an ATIP we had our own program.

[1:03:31] We created our own honeypot if you will to attract UAP and it was called a project interloper and it was proposed as an O plan operational plan through the joint staff and had coordinated gotten coordinated all the way through in the interagency.

[1:03:43] So we were going to do it but we weren't going to attack what we're going to do is have an irresistible nuclear footprint huge in the middle of the ocean and start doing maneuvers up there and doing workups and then when the UAP showed up we'd have collection devices in the area where we could collect data on these things.

[1:04:00] But never was there discussion to kinetically interact with these things or try to take one down. I think that's a mistake. It's like trying to catch a hornet with your hands be careful what you try to do.

[1:04:12] Can you catch it? Yes. Will you get stung probably so you know I would I I would if anybody is thinking about taking any type of kinetic action against a UAP I think that there are probably better ways of doing that than than hostile efforts in my opinion.

[1:04:33] I've seen a couple of videos of the government release of them firing at them. I thought it was hilarious. Yeah I I wouldn't recommend doing that yeah you know I They're like what is that thing?

[1:04:44] I don't know shoot it. Yeah yeah um yeah I agreed it it seems suicidal to potentially try to take kinetic action against something that's so much more advanced. Aren't there some reports of like uh China and Russia downing UAPs as well?

[1:05:03] Like I think I've heard a coup a little bit about that with that it may have happened already as part of like this I guess arms race of trying to collect this evidence or whatever.

[1:05:11] Yeah. Yeah.

[1:05:17] If we accept that the phenomenon is real as broadly presented, UAP represents an alien intelligence or at least a non human intelligence. Based off all that you know privately and from publicly what would be your guess as to the motivation or the agenda behind the phenomenon?

[1:05:38] Well therein lies the challenge right because we're ascribing it human values and intent. You know we are anthropomorphic creatures we are humans and though therefore we look at everything through human eyes.

[1:05:49] As I said earlier I have five dogs I have five German shepherds and they all have human names and I treat them like little humans and I talk to them like humans.

[1:05:56] Why? Because I'm human. I don't know how else to talk to them right I I I I I look at them and and I give them human attributes. But the reality is intention is really only a a a a a human thing and greater greater primate thing.

[1:06:12] Great white sharks when they eat a surfer there's no intent to cause harm there's motivation they're hungry they see something it looks like a seal hey I'm hungry I'm gonna eat it but there's no intent.

[1:06:21] Intent is really something that that has evolved especially with our species we have a motivation behind it a very distinct human motivation that most animals don't have and so when we're talking about non human intelligence we have to avoid that temptation of ascribing human attributes and intentions to something that may entirely be not human at all.

[1:06:41] So for example look at artificial intelligence there's a perfect example of non human intelligence. Artificial intelligence is here it is real and it is intelligent and it is distinctly not human and it does not have intentions like human beings.

[1:06:55] There's processes there's input in and input out and that's it binary ones and zeros, ones and zeros up to an infinite order of magnitude and out of a sudden now you've got artificial intelligence.

[1:07:06] But it's not human and it might talk like it's human and we might perceive it as human but that's because the way it's been trained. It is not human.

[1:07:14] And so when you look at asking the question what is the intent of non human intelligence or in this case you know aliens or extraterrestrial you're really asking a question through a human lens.

[1:07:26] And I'm not sure that's such a great idea. I think I think we have to be prepared for something far less satisfying. Maybe there is no intent maybe it just is and it's hard for us to accept that because we're humans because for us everything has has meaning everything has value everything has has has uh has some sort of intrinsic essence that that we connect with you know even cars I'm a big gear head I collect cars and I rebuild cars and motorcycles and and and all of my cars have have girl names why is that oh isn't she a beauty I can't help it right they all have these these qualities about them that that are distinctly human.

[1:08:08] But the reality is they're not human. My dogs aren't human my jeeps and my cars aren't human and non human intelligence is not human. And so I don't know if I answered your question but I'm not sure they have an intent.

[1:08:24] I think I think you gave a valuable insight there. I always personally strive to kind of stress exactly what you're saying that it's impossible to kind of like we can look at patterns and try to ascertain through our own lens maybe an agenda but it it's it's such an impossible task.

[1:08:42] I take it you're not a you're not an a uh a believer in the well evolutionary pressure should create similar psychology no matter where it happens well it doesn't unfortunately we know that to be not true because you can look at World War two for example you know different countries are represented are representative of different peoples and different peoples will react differently so let me give you a perfect example the Inca in South America during the 1500s when Spaniard had just gotten over its its con its the conquest of the Moors had occupied Spain for almost 700 years.

[1:09:23] So you had this effort called the La Reconquista or the reconquering and basically they Spain rather than send out its emissaries and and and diplomats sent out its army rangers to go to South America grab as much gold as they can cut off the heads of a bunch of people and come back and fill the coffers of the Spanish treasury right so when the Inca were on the beach and they saw the Spaniards come ashore they never seen horses before and so they assumed that these people coming out with armor on top of a horseback, they assumed it was a monster they assumed it was just one creature.

[1:09:55] They had never seen anything like that and they'd never seen a ship like that before it might have well been a spaceship. So they had no way of of reconciling this new paradigm that was being thrust upon them.

[1:10:05] And what happened? Well they got slaughtered. Now look at the Japanese what happened when they first were introduced the American and the British fleets and the and the fleets from from Europe.

[1:10:14] Japan was isolationists were isolationists. They could have done the same thing and just kind of closed themselves in a in a shell and and you know worry about it when they had to.

[1:10:24] But instead they took the opposite approach. They actually learned from these visitors and they realized that they too needed a naval fleet. And within 15 20 years they had one of the most formidable navies in the world.

[1:10:36] Right? So these are two groups of individuals facing a similar type situation but yet reacting completely different. So I I I don't subscribe to the fact that that societies under similar social pressures will respond similarly.

[1:10:52] People will respond similarly based upon their previous experiences. And that's all we know what to do. So a society that has not been introduced to advanced technologies would have no idea how to respond.

[1:11:03] A society that has been introduced to advanced technologies might have a better chance of responding one way or the other. So yeah I don't know if I answer your question but I don't subscribe to necessarily that that theory I think a lot has to happen in order for societies to respond the same way I agree.

[1:11:23] Based off kind of going to the agenda thing based off what you were exposed to the knowledge that you have that you might not be able to speak of, do you see any potential for threat?

[1:11:34] Like do you think that either the phenomenon or maybe aspects within the phenomenon, different agents possibly do you think there's any potential for a national security threat? So I'm going to answer that in two ways and it's going to seem a l a little bit contradictory okay but but if you want me to be truthful and honest with you I I I have to give you both sides of the conversation.

[1:11:55] So first and foremost let's start with you Chris I'm going to I'm going to pick on you here for a second. And please don't give me any specific details of where you live but but can I ask do you on what coast of America do you live?

[1:12:07] I'll I'll dox myself I'm I'm in New Jersey. I'm on the east coast. Okay New Jersey so the garden state beautiful area and I'm sure you probably live in a very nice neighborhood and very safe.

[1:12:16] Let me ask you this Chris do you lock your front door at night before you go to bed I I don't I don't lock doors no. Wow okay how about you Diego do you lock your front door at night before you go to bed?

[1:12:28] I do. I live in Los Angeles County so it's kind of a necessity. Okay Josh how about you do you lock your front door before you go to bed at night?

[1:12:36] I live in Burbank so I actually don't okay and last but not least Ivan do you lock your front door at night before you go to bed? As you know I wait for people to come in and lure them into the trap so there's uh the lawyer trap so that's uh so of course I leave my doors wide open actually but I I know what you're saying Lou.

[1:12:54] Okay so we have three of you that leave your door open and two of us that lock our doors and uh Diego and myself. So I suspect if you talk to most people half of them at least will probably say they lock their front door at night.

[1:13:07] Now they're not expecting anything bad to happen nothing to to happen but just out of extra caution we go ahead and lock our front doors and if you're paranoid like me or maybe you were a former cop or or military, you might even go as far as to lock your windows at night before you go to bed.

[1:13:21] So let's say one Saturday morning you wake up rise and shine you have a nice stretch and you start walking down the stairs and all of a sudden as you come downstairs to have a nice hot cup of coffee or tea you know you notice size 11 muddy boot prints on your living room carpet floor that were not there the night before.

[1:13:40] Now, no one's been hurt and nothing's out of place but despite you locking the front door and locking the windows and even turning on the alarm at night there are now footprints in your living room that were not there the night before.

[1:13:53] So my question to you Chris is that a threat? And my answer to you is well it could be if it wanted to be so we better figure out how they're getting into the house, right?

[1:14:02] That's just due diligence. Now let me answer that same question the other way around. I'm not concerned about any potential threat UAP pose. I am concerned away concerned about humans' response.

[1:14:14] The fact that we are not alone doesn't change anything. This was an eventuality that we were going to face anyways as a species like it or not. So the truth is not dangerous to us.

[1:14:26] What is dangerous is how we respond to a truth, to a new truth. Do we do what the church did to Galileo and threaten to crucify him and burn him at the stake because he proposed a heliocentric model of our solar system which contradicted the teachings at the time or do we listen to Galileo and we look at his proposal and determine whether or not it's true and accurate and if it is maybe recalibrate our own thinking about things.

[1:14:53] That's the danger that we don't we don't recalibrate our thinking that we react to this like the church did with Galileo several centuries ago that to me is dangerous.

[1:15:05] Whether or not we're alone in the cosmos whether or not we're the only intelligent life form that's not dangerous to me. That knowledge is is it either is or it is not that's it and doesn't change anything.

[1:15:19] It's how we take that information how we use that information and how we respond to that information which can be dangerous.

[1:15:29] For the record, if I didn't live in the very specific place I live, I would absolutely lock my door. It's a very specific community. When I watch a scary movie, I'll lock the doors that night.

[1:15:39] Yeah.

[1:15:42] Based off what you know Lou and I don't know if maybe maybe this is just a question that you can't answer, but do you do you know or do you believe if the phenomenon is singular agent or if there are multiple agents multiple independent agents within the phenomenon?

[1:16:01] Well what we see at this level there appears to be multiple different forms. And I'll leave it at that whether or not there's a relationship between the two that's harder to tell because you know people say well there's there's uh four distinct groups or nine discrete groups or two distinct groups of NHI.

[1:16:20] Well okay you could say the same thing about us right there's Russians and Americans. We have different political agendas yeah but we still share a lot as human beings right the the the requirement to to provide nourishment and shelter to our families the requirement for we want good education for our children and healthcare right we want all there's a lot of things that are that bind us as human beings to one another but then there's other things like religion and and perhaps culture and perhaps political leanings that divide us.

[1:16:50] You can look at this one country here alone in the United States and see how divided we are if you're a liberal or you're a conservative you might as well be an alien from another planet because the other side just does not relate to you, right?

[1:17:01] And yet we're all human beings and we're all Americans. Hell we might even live in the same city. So we have to be careful whenever we say is there a you know are they different competing agendas?

[1:17:13] There might be but then again there also might be a relationship there that we just don't understand yet or that we're not privy to yet when you were at the Pentagon was all was there like a working theory on or did anyone have any pet theories on like these UAPs are coming from the ocean.

[1:17:32] They come out of the water and or they zip away and they go into space like where where do they go to these UAPs when they're not yeah there was a lot of conversation about that Chris and in fact the water wound up being some place of of significant interest for the U.S.

[1:17:46] government that's why the Navy was very involved in this topic. We do seem to see a lot of these things around nuclear equities US nuclear equities and foreign nuclear equities and also large bodies of water.

[1:17:58] And so the question is why? And there have been some theories some people presumed that water was probably nothing more than a glorified gas station, a way to mine hydrogen and and convert that later on to energy which allowed them to do what they were doing.

[1:18:10] Others said no that there were bases under there. Others said no there's no relationship at all in fact there's it's it's something else. So there were a lot of theories that were being batted around by people that were a lot smarter than I was but there wasn't anything conclusive.

[1:18:29] Um and by the way gents I'm looking at the timestamp I I I am a little bit hard pressed by and by I have like an I can give you like another eight minutes.

[1:18:38] Is that okay? Yeah yeah totally okay sure let me pick my best question of the ones I have left Josh I'm a Gemini I like long walks on the beach and Pina Coladas.

[1:18:49] We're halfway there this is one definitely I know I personally love some insight on increasingly those involved in the disclosure movement are claiming that there's a non physical component to at least part of the phenomenon in the form of spiritual and telepathic experiences.

[1:19:07] Did you ever see any official data or anything that would make you either agree or disagree with this conclusion.

[1:19:16] I'd agree with that. There was a lot of stuff done in the intelligence community in the past decades that at least for me substantiated the reality that there's more to the human experience than simply a physical experience.

[1:19:29] You know I've I've always hear people say oh we're we're human beings having a spiritual experience and I tend to differ with that. I I I think we're spiritual beings having a human experience.

[1:19:38] And because of that there's a lot more to to this reality than than most of us really can perceive or appreciate so you you would basically agree that it's not just a nuts and bolts phenomenon at this point that maybe we have to open our own aperture up to better understand it.

[1:19:58] The whole human experience is is Is a bigger thing than physical, right? I mean, there's a the reality is that what makes you Josh isn't a physical aspect. In fact, about five months ago, I was involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident and I avoided hit hitting a deer, but it almost cost me my life.

[1:20:14] They had flown me to shock trauma. They gave me less than a 50% chance of survival, and unfortunately, I survived. But let's let's look at that. Let's say I had lost an appendage during that motorcycle accident.

[1:20:24] Would I still be Lou Elizondo? Well, of course I would be, right? Because who Lou Elizondo is isn't a physical thing. And so, well, does that mean Lou Elizondo is an intellectual person?

[1:20:35] Well, I I did sustain a traumatic brain injury. Um, I had like 32 cranial and skull fractures, but even though I I I had some some impairment because of the traumatic brain injury, I'm still Lu Elizondo, right?

[1:20:49] That that doesn't change who I am either. So the real question is what makes up Lou? What what defines Lou? If it's not physical and it's not intellectual, then what is it?

[1:20:58] Well, that's a much more profound question, because now we're forced to ask each of ourselves what is the element that makes us human? And if it's not physical, then it's not intellectual, then it must be spiritual.

[1:21:11] And what does that look like? And what does that mean for everybody? And now you start going down, you know, a very profound rabbit hole that can leave people very insecure because you have to reconcile the reality that maybe what we see and perceive in front of us isn't everything.

[1:21:30] Let me give you an example, Josh, if I can. We are very limited. We have two, we have two limitations for us to, and I'll leave it, I'll leave it with this.

[1:21:38] We have two limitations that we have in order to interacting and observing our our our our our observable universe. One is a biological limitation, the other one is a physical limitation.

[1:21:48] So let me talk about the biological limitation. We have five fundamental senses by which we judge and interact with our environment. And for the most part, if you can't touch it, taste it, hear it, smell it, et cetera, it doesn't exist.

[1:22:00] You'll never know it's there. And yet, most of reality actually lies beyond our ability to perceive it. If you look at human vision for a second, the way we we we look at each other, the electro optical spectrum represents 0.0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, meaning we see the entire world through a very narrow sliver called visible light.

[1:22:23] If you were to look at a night sky through a telescope, you might see some beautiful stars and planets. Now look at the same part of the night sky through a radio telescope.

[1:22:30] Look at it in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. You'll see a whole different reality around you. You'll see nebula and large Magellanic clouds, and you'll see star stuff that is there, but the human eye can't pick it up, right?

[1:22:42] Just like dark energy and dark matter. That's where most of the universe is. And yet we can't we can't perceive it. Imagine if you could be like a bumblebee and see the world through ultraviolet, you would see flowers completely different, people completely differently.

[1:22:55] Your world would be different. And that's very real. Now you also have the other limitation, which is physical limitations of human beings. So if you have a biological limitation, meaning we can only hear within a certain frequency, see within a certain frequency, etc., you have a scalability issue.

[1:23:11] We are in an infinitesimally small speck in the compared to the overall size of the observable universe. So if I were to look in my to my left and to my right, to the farthest of the known universe's visible horizon, it's going to be roughly 27 billion light years across.

[1:23:30] Now that is a huge difference because a distance, if you think about what a light year is, it's the time it takes a photon of light to travel in one year.

[1:23:38] Well, how fast is that? Well, it turns out to be about 186,000 miles per second, or roughly seven and a half times around our planet in one second. Now imagine how far it can go in a month, imagine how far it can go in a year.

[1:23:50] Now multiply that by 27 billion, right? It's a huge, huge distance. And in that observable universe, which by the way only represents about 10% of the actual size of our universe, right?

[1:24:02] Because the universe is so big and so vast that light leaving those stars beyond that horizon will never reach Earth. It's just we're simply too far away. It'll never get here.

[1:24:11] So we live in an incomprehensibly large universe, and there are estimated to be over 200 sextillion stars in the observable universe. Now, what's a sextillion? I don't know, but it's got a lot of numbers behind it.

[1:24:25] But it's been estimated that there are more stars in our observable universe than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of all the world combined. Now think about that for a second.

[1:24:37] And as incomprehensibly huge as that is, think of now your time in chemistry class as a kid in high school. Remember Avogadro's number? If you compare the size in this case, even a little smaller than a hydrogen atom, look at a quark and compare a quark, the size of a quark to a human, and that's roughly the same order of magnitude as we are compared to the observable universe.

[1:25:01] Meaning, inside every single human being, there's a comparably large amount of space in scale, as there is outside of us. And we as human beings can only interact with one or two orders of degree magnitude up or down.

[1:25:15] Otherwise, simply Mother Nature is either too big or too small. We'll never be able to interact with it. And that is yet where statistically 99.999999 keep going on of the universe actually resides.

[1:25:27] It's in those other scales. So if we can't perceive most of the universe and we can't ever interact with it or comprehend it, and yet that's where most of everything is, then we've got a long way to go, guys.

[1:25:38] We got a lot to learn, you know. Uh we've got to maybe be a little more humble in our approach to things and realize that not everything is gonna, you know, abide by our rules and our understanding of things.

[1:25:51] And that includes even our understanding of physics.

[1:25:56] Lou, I really greatly, greatly appreciate your time answering these questions. I I feel like I understand things a little bit better now. Josh, thank you so much for bringing your expertise to the discussion and the the great questions.

[1:26:12] Really appreciate it. Uh, Lou, fantastic talking to you. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, guys, my own privilege. If you ever want me on, just let me know. I'm happy to do this again.

[1:26:20] I'm in the middle still of a crazy move, so apologies only giving you an hour and a half. My schedule is very tight, but I do appreciate it very much.

[1:26:26] Thank you. True honor and privilege, and also to your amazing audience. Thank you so very much.