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Joe Rogan Experience #2194 - Luis Elizondo

Luis "Lue" Elizondo is the former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which investigated UFOs, now referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). A veteran of the U.S. Army, he has worked in counterintelligence and counterterrorism worldwide. His new book, "Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs," is available now. https://luiselizondo-official.com

Joe RoganhostLuis "Lue" Elizondoguest
Aug 23, 20242h 15mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 5:53

    Setting the stage: Elizondo’s background and how he was recruited

    1. JR

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. LE

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) What's up, Luke? How are you?

    4. LE

      Hey, sir. I'm doing better than I deserve.

    5. JR

      (laughs) Wow. That's a good statement.

    6. LE

      You know, there's an old, uh, old military saying, "Any, any day above ground's a good day."

    7. JR

      There you go. Um, so tell everybody what your official job was.

    8. LE

      Wow. Um, I had a lot of official jobs. Uh-

    9. JR

      With the government in regards to, you know...

    10. LE

      (laughs) You know.

    11. JR

      You know.

    12. LE

      Up. (laughs) .

    13. JR

      Those, you know, those things.

    14. LE

      Sure.

    15. JR

      One of these things. That's, uh, allegedly, uh, that's a replica of, um, the one that Bob LaSar worked on, the sport model.

    16. LE

      I, uh, I've heard that before.

    17. JR

      Yeah, designs_by_perry. Uh, the, the E with ... In Perry is a, a three, and he's a, a dude on Instagram that sent me that.

    18. LE

      Very cool.

    19. JR

      Pretty dope, right?

    20. LE

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      We have another one that looks just like it at the Mothership, at the comedy club. When you walk in, you walk right through, like, a, a giant suspended UFO.

    22. LE

      Very cool.

    23. JR

      So obviously, I have issues. (laughs)

    24. LE

      Well, y- you know what? This is a, a neat town. Um, I, I, I was strolling the streets yesterday and, um, I came across the, uh, the Texas Toy Museum. Now I'm not one for museums usually, but something I saw was ... It auto- automatically transported me back to when I was a kid. I'm, I'm an old guy, so I grew up '70s and early '80s.

    25. JR

      How old are you?

    26. LE

      52.

    27. JR

      I'm 57.

    28. LE

      So ... You are?

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. LE

      Man. Well, I look (laughs) 10 years older than you. (laughs)

  2. 5:53 – 9:34

    “What do you think about UFOs?”—first briefings and initial skepticism

    1. LE

      but I went there and I went up to the f- to the top floor. Uh, I think it was the top floor, almost the top floor.And I met, for the first time, a gentleman named James Lacatski, Dr. James Lacatski, PhD. And this guy was the epitome of a rocket scientist, um, and when I say the epitome, I mean, he was probably, and that there's no exaggeration, the number one rocket scientist in the US government. Now, he's a humble guy, so he'll probably tell you he wasn't, but he, he really was. He's an amazing human being, and very smart, um, and after a very brief conversation, he looked at me and he said, um, "I wanna ask you a question." I said, "Okay, sir." And he said, "What do you think about UFOs?" And I said, uh, well, I answered truthfully. I said, "I, I don't." And he said, "Well, what do you mean? You, you don't believe in them?" And I said, "No. That, that's not what I said. You asked me if I think, you know, what do I think about UFOs, and frankly, I don't think about UFOs. Um, I really don't have the luxury to think about them. I'm too busy, you know, working intelligence operations and whatnot." And, uh, I remember him looking over his glasses and, um, very seriously, staring me straight in the eye and says, "Well, um, don't let your personal bias get the best of you, because what you may learn may surprise you and may challenge any preconceived notion of what you think something is or is not." And so, let me backtrack for a minute. I've never been a UFO guy. You know, people come up, they're like, "Oh, you're that UFO guy." I'm really not. I, I was never really into science fiction as a kid, um, I wasn't into the Star Trek or the Star Wars like, like a lot of people were, um, so that was not my disposition, you know? I, I grew up, I guess playing GI Joe and, and stuff like that, so um, that wasn't, that wasn't my background. And certainly, in college, um, I, I studied, uh, microbiology and immunology with a focus on parasitology. Not parapsychology, the study of parasites, parasitology, so y- the scientific method has always been something that has been near and dear to me, and then of course, later on, as a, as a special agent, um, you know, the, when you're, when you're conducting investigations, for me, I was always very fact-driven, um, kind of the old gumshoe, if you will, just the facts, ma'am, sort of guy. So I was never really prone to any type of, if you will, uh, affinity towards science fiction or even the UFO topic. I just, I just never really considered it.

    2. JR

      Hmm. So he says this to you, and then how ... So we're talking about like what? 16 years ago?

    3. LE

      Uh-

    4. JR

      15, 16 years ago?

    5. LE

      Yeah, do the math, right? So it's uh, 2024, 2000, early 2009.

    6. JR

      So this is the beginning of your journey towards this sort of bizarre subject of whatever these things are?

    7. LE

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      So you don't have any real previous interest.

    9. LE

      Not at all.

    10. JR

      He says this to you, and, and then what's the steps after that? Like how do you get introduced to this idea that these things are alien crafts?

    11. LE

      Yeah, so, um, great question. So for some people, uh, there's, there's kind of two ways people process this information, at least in my experience, and there may be others. This has just been my, my observation. Some people have this kind of revelatory moment, this epiphany where it's this ah-ha moment where, oh my gosh, this is real, right?

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    13. LE

      For other people, it's kind of more of a slow, gradual realization, and I think for me, I was probably in the second category, more of a slow, gradual realization that this isn't, you know, a cover for something else. This is really about, about UFOs, about-

    14. JR

      So how do you first get introduced to these things?

  3. 9:34 – 11:46

    From reports to reality: multi-sensor cases and performance beyond U.S. tech

    1. LE

      Well, it, so it was a, I didn't get introduced to the things. Uh, it was, first of all, I was introduced to the reporting, right?

    2. JR

      Right.

    3. LE

      So there was these, these official reports that we were getting from the field, there's official videos, and, and whatnot, um, that describe vehicles doing things, maneuvering in ways that, frankly, outperform anything we have in our inventory. Now, keep in mind, my background was at some point in aerospace, so I, I knew all the capabilities of an F-16 or, for example, uh, an F-22 or the F-35, um, and at the end of the day, as advanced as they are, they're, they're still conventional aircraft, you know? They still have the old, um, there's a, there's a, an adage they use for jet engines. Uh, it (laughs) it may, may seem a little, uh, awkward here, but, uh, it's, uh, suck, squeeze, bang, and blow.

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. LE

      Uh, that's what a jet engine does.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. LE

      Forgive me. That's what it does.

    8. JR

      Right.

    9. LE

      (laughs) You know?

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. LE

      So (laughs) , uh, it's a convention- conventional type engine. Of course, you have a propeller too that can, can displace air and whatnot. These vehicles were different. These vehicles, for the most part, didn't have any type of associated characteristic that you or I or any normal person would associate with, with the plane, with an airplane, an aircraft, right, that, but, and yet it's flying. So how does an airplane work? Well, let's say this cigar, for example, is, is an airplane, uh, and there's four fundamental forces. And so you have thrust, lift, drag, and weight, and if you understand those, you can create, you could build wings and you create lift and you can fly, and then you have to have an engine for that thrust and whatnot. The things that our, our military pilots were encountering, um, didn't have that. They didn't have wings, they didn't have rudders and ailerons and control surfaces. They didn't have cockpits. They, they didn't have engine, n- no obvious signs of propulsion. They were, they were doing things and maneuvering in ways that frankly defied anything that, that we had in our inventory and we were pretty certain the enemies didn't have either, our adversary didn't have these technologies either. And even more perplexing is that they were being encountered over controlled US airspace and over sensitive military installations, so you know, from, from that perspective, you've got a real, you've got a real national security concern on your hands.

    12. JR

      So you said video.

    13. LE

      Mm-hmm.

    14. JR

      What was the f- do you remember the first thing that you saw?

  4. 11:46 – 26:55

    Beyond the three famous clips: higher-quality classified footage and near-miss incidents

    1. LE

      Um, boy, there's so many, you know, th- I think part of the, the challenge is that most people here in this country, they're familiar with the three videos, right, uh, that have been famously released by the Pentagon.

    2. JR

      The Go Fast, the Flir.

    3. LE

      Go Fast, Gimbal, Flir, correct.

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. LE

      But those are, (laughs) those are the least compelling of all the videos that the government has. Those were unclassified, and so those were the ones, those were kind of the low-hanging fruit that could be released to the general public. There's stuff out there that's like 4K ultra high definition, right? So when you see something like that from a, a certain military platform or a certain military equity or an intelligence collection platform, um, you have to look at that and say, "Well, what...... what is that? What the hell is that? And more importantly, that data's being backed up by radar data, right? So you've got, you've got electro-optical data like gun camera footage or a pod or FLIR, FLIR video, and then you've got radar data that's, that's, that is actually confirming what the video is picking up. And then you've got eyewitnesses that are also watching it, right? So you've got trained, trained observers, pilots that, that can recognize the silhouette between an SU-22 and a MiG-25 from 20 miles away and make a split second decision, "Is it friend or foe? Do I kill it or is it, do I let it live?" And they're reporting it. So you have now, you know, three separate, if you will, collection platforms, the, the human eye being one of them. You've got gun camera footage, and you've got radar footage all describing the same event at the same place, at the same time, under the same circumstances, right? And so keep in mind with my background as a former special agent in counterintelligence, if this was in front of a jury, you know, I- as I've said before, I th- I think we're well beyond reasonable doubt that that, that is something there. I mean, that is real. That's not an atmospheric aberration. It's not a, a, you know, anomaly. That is, that is something there. It's tangible.

    6. JR

      So was there an a-ha moment for you? Like the first thing that you saw that you looked at and you go, "What the fuck?"

    7. LE

      No, like I said, for me it was more slow and gradual. Um, I didn't-

    8. JR

      What was the first thing that you saw that made you realize that there's something going on here-

    9. LE

      Oh my goodness.

    10. JR

      ... that defies conventional wisdom or conventional understanding of propulsion systems?

    11. LE

      Um, I think for me one of the most compelling moments was when I attended ... boy, let me go back into memory banks. I attended a dinner, uh, with some individuals who were already associated with the, the larger umbrella program called AAWSAP (American UFO Watch and Study Program) . Um, and I attended dinner at a Washington DC hotel and a Brazilian general attended, uh, this, this dinner, and the dinner was, um, sponsored by a gentleman named Robert Bigelow, uh, the famous billionaire hotelier.

    12. JR

      Yeah, I've met him.

    13. LE

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      I've had him on the podcast.

    15. LE

      Yeah. And, and by the way, he's, he's an American hero. He's a patriot. Uh, he funded a lot-

    16. JR

      Brilliant guy.

    17. LE

      He is brilliant. And he's ... and people don't realize that he funded, self-funded a lot of this stuff on behalf of the US government for ... by himself. Like he, he paid it to do it himself. Um, he, he really is a, a, you know, an American patriot in my opinion. But anyways, he, um, flew in, this guy named General Uchôa. General Uchôa was a Brazilian general, uh, very, very senior in the Brazilian government, who led an investigation, uh, about a, um, an event that occurred over several days in-

    18. JR

      Is this the Varginha incident?

    19. LE

      No, it's actually called Colares, uh, in Brazil.

    20. JR

      Oh, another one.

    21. LE

      Yeah, and, uh, the Colares incident, and, uh, they had tr- I mean, overwhelming number of eyewitnesses and there was even some, some video and, and photographs that they had produced internally there to Brazil, uh, and, um, it was overwhelming, the evidence. And for me that was... it was more listening to him and explain the concern they had and some of the interactions the, their, the Brazilian government officials had with these UAP that really ... I, I left there that, that dinner scratching my head and really at that point beginning to absorb the profoundness that we're, we're dealing with something that, like is, is real. This is not a cover plan for some other technology we're trying to protect. This-

    22. JR

      Did he show you this video evidence?

    23. LE

      So he was... it was... I was sitting at the... kind of like a table like this. There was a whole lot of people at the table. He was sitting at the head. I was kind of way down over here and he brought out a manila envelope and he was showing photographs to everybody, right? And, and some reporting as well. I think he brought, if I recall correctly, his daughter to translate, um, because I don't think English was his, his, you know, very good. It wasn't his language.Um, but for me that was... and I think for one of my colleagues too, which I probably can't say his name right now because he hasn't come out publicly yet. But, um, we both left that dinner, I think, scratching our heads and saying, "Wow, this is... so this is legit. This is real. The US government is interested in this and there is interest by our government." Um, as... after that dinner, um, attending more meetings and beginning to read the reports, the field reports and, and speaking to the scientists, it became evident to me that this was a very serious issue. We had near misses, uh, over some of our, our, our areas of operation, in some cases literally these, these UAP splitting a, a combat formation. Now if you know how planes fly-

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. LE

      ... they fly very close in a combat situation. Um, these things were splitting the formation, right? Um, that, that there were reports being, being provided through the Air Force, mostly through the Navy, uh, about air safety issues where, where pilots literally could, could run into these things, right? They're, they're, they're pervasive. It wasn't like a onesie and twosies.

    26. JR

      Was there ever an incident where a pilot or a jet did run into something?

    27. LE

      S- not that I'm aware of. What I can tell you that there has been incidents where there's... appears to be some sort of provocation where, uh, one of these things seems to be coming deliberately close to an aircraft, not necessarily trying to hit it, but maybe trying to demonstrate performance capabilities. There was (laughs) one video in particular, um, I haven't been cleared by the Pentagon, so let me see if I can speak about it in gen- general terms. Um, there's a pilot flying and a, a, a ... you can hear on the radio this chatter back and forth. Uh, "Do, do you see it? Do you have eyes down on it?" Pilot, "Nope, negative. No eyes down." "Uh, okay, you should have on radar." "Yeah, I got something on radar, but no eyes, no, can't see it." And then all of a sudden, um, a, a, a craft, a, a, a, an object goes whizzing right by the cockpit and I mean probably like 15 feet away. Uh, and, um, (laughs) you could hear the pilot, the expletives of the pilot, you know. I, I won't say it here on air, but you can imagine, right? Uh, what, what a pilot would say when they're very, very surprised. Um, that was one. There's, uh, there, there's ju-

    28. JR

      Can you describe what he saw?

    29. LE

      I think I can. I want to be careful that I don't, because again, I haven't had apr- what I, what I have approval to talk about-... I've, I've spoken about. Um, let me preface this by saying I still have my security clearance, uh, and on occasion, I still will consult for the US government, and so I wanna be very mindful. I, I have no problem going up all the way to the line.

    30. JR

      Right, understood.

  5. 26:55 – 35:21

    Historic documentation: 1950s memos, sensitive sites, and why ‘it can’t be ours’

    1. LE

      Joe, I'm so glad you asked me that question. It just so happens I brought you something.

    2. JR

      Oh.

    3. LE

      Uh, I brought you-

    4. JR

      When the glasses come out, you know it's getting serious.

    5. LE

      (laughs) No, it just means I-

    6. JR

      What'd you bring?

    7. LE

      It means I'm old. Um ...

    8. JR

      Me too.

    9. LE

      Yeah. Um, I'm gonna provide you a document here, um, it's a, it's a short document. But, uh, the portions, I think, are highlighted that you're gonna want to pay attention to. And, uh, let's see here. Okay. So if, uh, this is just for you and if your audience is interested, um, it's this paragraph here you're gonna want to read.

    10. JR

      Okay.

    11. LE

      And then it's the last one that's highlighted, and then take a look at the date and the subject line.

    12. JR

      This is it right here? Jamie brought it up here.

    13. LE

      Oh, great. Yeah, so-

    14. JR

      Okay. Wait, what do I, which one do I want to read here?

    15. LE

      Paragraph six right now, so if you want to scroll down to paragraph six.

    16. JR

      Okay.

    17. LE

      There you go.

    18. JR

      Uh, "this summary of observations of aerial phenomenon has been prepared for the purpose of re-emphasizing and reiterating the fact that the phenomena have continuously occurred in the New Mexico skies during the past 18 months and are continuing to occur, and secondly, that these phenomena are occurring in the vicinity of sensitive military and government installations."

    19. LE

      And if you want to go back to, like, paragraph two, there you go.

    20. JR

      The, the highlighted part?

    21. LE

      Yeah, "the observers of."

    22. JR

      "The observers of those phenomenon include scientists, special agents of the Office of Special Investigations, the US Air Force, airline pilots, military pilots, Los Alamos security inspectors, military personnel, and many other persons of various occupations whose reliability is not questioned."

    23. LE

      And now scroll to the top, at the very top of that document. And that, where does it-

    24. JR

      It says that it-

    25. LE

      A little higher.

    26. JR

      ... was determined ... Oh, above that?

    27. LE

      There you go. Yep.

    28. JR

      "The summary of observations of aerial phenomenon in the New Mexico area, December 1948 to May 1950."

    29. LE

      And the date of that document, if you scroll a little bit higher, you are going to see the date of that memo. 19-

    30. JR

      Oh, 1950.

  6. 35:21 – 42:28

    Global and institutional dynamics: foreign encounters, stigma, and why disclosure is hard

    1. LE

      There was reporting. Yeah. And again, I got to be careful because so- some of that stuff I haven't been cleared to talk about, but there a- ... There are reports, uh, we call f- foreign intelligence, FI, foreign intelligence reports. I can't say where or who or anything like that. But on classified systems where we know without a shadow of a doubt UAPs were encountered in other countries, adversarial countries. Why? Because we spy on them and we know.

    2. JR

      Mm.

    3. LE

      Um, again, I can't say how we know and, and whatnot-

    4. JR

      I understand.

    5. LE

      ... because I could get in trouble, but j- just-

    6. JR

      So we know this is not a, a United States phenomena?

    7. LE

      Precisely. It is not a US-only phenomenon. And in fact, in other countries, whether it's in Latin America, South America, or in Europe or Russia, China, there is an extreme interest in this topic. In fact, the Chinese ... It was in the newspaper. I think it was the China Morning Sun. They have something called the Five Continents Initiative, where allegedly they were trying to broker a deal with the United Nations that would allow China to run all the UFO investigations for the United Nations. Right? So, we also know that Russia, they've come out and said, "Yeah, we're interested in this topic." There were some released old KGB footage that showed MiG interactions with these UAP. And there's also ... In Latin America you have the same thing. If you go to Latin America now, they don't have the same level of stigma and taboo associated with this topic like we do. And so they talk freely about it. They, they have no problem talking. In fact, when I was in, uh, in the Patagonia area of Argentina, uh, there is a ... Near a town called Bariloche and, and Las Lajas.One of the chief of police was telling me, they have... there's an area there called La Miranda. La Miranda means to see, to view. And they call it that, the town, and... because UAP are so frequent there that local law enforcement actually built an observatory, an observation post, to look at these things because they were so frequent. So, this is not a new phenomenon. This is something that's been around for quite a long time. The problem is, in my opinion, and I could be wrong but this is my assessment, the reason why it's so difficult to have the conversation here is because our government had placed so much emphasis and interest trying to stigmatize this topic that it almost worked too well. Now we're at the point where we should be having this conversation and people still don't want to because they think it's crazy. They think of tinfoil hats and-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. LE

      ... Elvis on the mothership, when in reality, we're talking about a real national security issue. I mean, the- these things are here. You, you have, Joe, you have a former Director of National Intelligence, Ratcliffe, a former director of CIA, Brennan. You have former presidents all coming out and saying, "Yeah. There's something to it. It's real." Right? Now, what it is, where it's from, and all that stuff, I'm not sure we're quite ready to go there yet. But the acknowledgement is, "Hey, man. Yeah. This is real, it's not ours, and we probably should do something about it."

    10. JR

      So, if we go back to the history of the debunking of it, you know, like the Project Blue Book stuff, J. Allen Hynek, after he had left Project Blue Book, he became a proponent of UFO disclosure. During Project Blue Book, he, i- it was his job to ba- essentially dismiss everything-

    11. LE

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      ... and to come up with some sort of a reason, swamp gas, mass hallucinations-

    13. LE

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      ... whatever it was, to attribute all these sightings to something that was very easy to explain. Did they ever ex- is there any documentation or any discussion of why they did that, why they chose to debunk everything?

    15. LE

      Yeah. My, my understanding is if... you have to look at where America was at the time they were doing these investigations. It was at the height of the Cold War, right? And, you know, despite what some people think, it... the Cold War wasn't very cold at all. It was pretty hot and we had Russia and the United States engaging in these proxy wars. Neither side wanted to let the other side know what we had and what we didn't know, right? So, if you have these UAP coming in and out, the last thing you wanna do is tell the other side broadcast, "This is what we've learned from it, and more importantly, this is what we don't know about it." Right?

    16. JR

      Right.

    17. LE

      And so both sides were keeping this very quiet, but there was an interesting agreement at the classified level, uh, I believe in the late '60s, where there was this relationship with the United States. We were putting up our Northern Tier radar system to detect r- uh, then Soviet Union ICBMs, and they were doing the same thing, right? 'Cause none of us really trusted each other, but we trusted each other enough to say, "Look, before you hit that button, if you see something coming over the horizon, before you hit that button and launch, give us a call because it might be a UFO, right? And we don't wanna start World War III because either side mistakes a UFO for an ICBM."

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. LE

      And that's how serious they took the topic. I mean, that's real. That's, that's a real memo that, that, that existed between the United States and Russia. So that's, that is an indicator how much both sides took this topic seriously.

    20. JR

      Mm. Jesus. And so, when Philip Corso was dismissing all these different things, did they have anything, any film footage, any s- any stuff from that time from Project Blue Book that was, like, definitively not ours?

    21. LE

      I'm not privy to... well, I am, I'm aware of the fact that people say it does exist and people have been briefed on it. I wasn't privy to that. I was, again, more focused on the here and now.

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. LE

      I was aware of people who had attended certain meetings, very senior level meetings, where that was discussed, where they saw certain footage. But that's... I'm hearing that secondhand. I, I did not see the old footage. My, my focus was, uh, more s- on the, on the current, what's going on now. But back to your point, why was this effort to try to create so much stigma and taboo? I think it was because of that. I think because you had Russia and the US at this weird stalemate where neither one wanted to tell the other side what we know and what we didn't know about UAP. And, and that really the... I think the focus from a national security perspective, let's say you're a general and I'm a general, "Look. We've got a real cold war going on here right now. As long as these things aren't coming in and zapping my people, that's gonna be my focus right now. That's, that's a real potential threat that I have to deal with now. I've got Russia pointing nukes at me and I'm n- pointing nukes at them. At any time, we could launch. Let's focus on that-

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. LE

      ... more so than the other stuff." And that was... that is, that has been my observation on why they didn't want to address the, the, the, the problem, the challenge openly with the general public back... and they also were worried. There was a, there was, uh, several studies that suggested that most people would be very uncomfortable with that idea that there's something else in the cosmos, potentially, or even right here on Earth, and that it would create some sort of societal disruption, right? They didn't wanna cause panic. They were afraid that people would, kind of, like, think of a run on Wall Street, right?

    26. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    27. LE

      When people get panicked, they do, kind of, s- strange things sometimes. And I think the government was very worried about that.

    28. JR

      What's the most compelling modern thing that you've seen?

    29. LE

      Oh, my God. I can't talk about it, unfortunately. That's what's... that's... this is my frustration, Joe-

    30. JR

      Mm-hmm.

  7. 42:28 – 44:15

    Why DoD didn’t use civilian reports: intelligence oversight and “US persons” limits

    1. JR

      How do they hide this stuff from the general public?

    2. LE

      Well, we have classified systems. We hide a lot of things.

    3. JR

      Right. But how does it... how is it getting filmed? Is any of it getting filmed by the general public, or is all this military stuff?

    4. LE

      So, let me backtrack a little bit. This. There is... there are, there is a general public that is filming stuff, but from a Department of Defense perspective, our focus... now, AARO is a different story, but when I was in the government, we had to be very, very careful of something that we called intelligence oversight. Back in the '60s and '70s, the US intelligence apparatus, particularly in the Department of Defense-... was kind of naughty. They were doing things they shouldn't do. They were spying on students and they were spying on American citizens and they were doing-

    5. JR

      You don't say.

    6. LE

      Yeah. Yeah, right?

    7. JR

      Crazy.

    8. LE

      Say it isn't so. Um, so Congress passed some laws and said, "Okay, you, you can no longer do this kind of stuff on, on, on, on American citizens," right? "You can't conduct intelligence operations on American citizens." You can't do it, it's illegal, right?

    9. JR

      Okay.

    10. LE

      So you have Executive Order 12333 and all these other rules and laws and DoD 5240.1 that all come out and say, "No más." Um, so Department of Defense is supposed to focus on military. That's it. You don't, you don't bring in US persons information and adjust them into a Department of Defense database, especially a Department of Defense intelligence database. That's a super no-no. That's called US persons information and it's pretty much verboten. So, uh, our focus was looking specifically at military sourced information. I was not focusing at all on what the private citizens were seeing because at the end of the day, we couldn't use it. You can't, you can't do anything with the data.

    11. JR

      And it seems like you got plenty of compelling footage from the military.

    12. LE

      Overwhelming. Overwhelming. Uh, it, it... There's absolutely no doubt that, uh, we didn't have to look at civilian data because we had better collection sensor systems from the military that was looking at stuff and giving us better insight.

  8. 44:15 – 47:19

    Transmedium UAP and underwater cases: ‘oil rig’ video, Navy tracking, Aguadilla

    1. JR

      If you, you can't tell us about... Can you give us some sort of an understanding of, like, what you're talking about?

    2. LE

      Yeah, sure. Um...

    3. JR

      Without being specific.

    4. LE

      Yeah. Let me see. Um... Okay, yeah. Um, there is a, uh, a video, high resolution video of... Uh, I can't say what platform it was taken from, I can't say where it was taken from.

    5. JR

      Okay.

    6. LE

      But, um, an object that... You know, do you know how large a, um, an offshore, shore oil derrick is? They're huge, right?

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. LE

      They're like a, almost like a small city, right? They're like one city s- block. They're huge. They're enormous things. Um, there is video that shows one of these objects underwater that goes by... Uh, the speed was calculated between 450 and 550 knots underwater, and it was bigger than the offshore derrick that it was passing. 'Cause you could see in the video the offshore derrick and you could see this thing zip right by it.

    9. JR

      Jesus.

    10. LE

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      So that's a lot of them, right? A lot of them are reported as being transmedium.

    12. LE

      Right. So that... E- exactly. Why, why do we use the term UAP, right? Now it's unidentified anomalous phenomenon because it's all domain. Initially it was UFO, unidentified flying object, and for several reasons they changed the name. One of them, not just because of stigma like people think, but because the word flying object means flight.

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. LE

      And you have to have wings to fly. That's flight. And these things don't have wings. So that term we're not even sure is even accurate anymore because they're not necessarily flying. We see them underwater, we see them super high altitude, uh, so the term was changed to unidentified aerial phenomenon, but again that did not encompass all the observations we were seeing. So now the term UAP, I think the latest description of it is unidentified anomalous phenomenon to help describe this multi-domain or transmedium characteristic that we are beginning to see and record that these things can do. And that, that is... I'm gonna... If I can digress for a second, because that's super important, Joe.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. LE

      We have transmedium vehicles, right? We have things like seaplanes and it's a plane and it can float on water, but let's face it, a seaplane is neither a really good plane or a really good boat because it's a compromise. It's a design compromise between an object that you want to perform in the air and in the sea. And that's why it's neither really good at both. Um, same thing with, for example, the space shuttle. It goes out into space and it can glide down, but it's not a very good airplane, comes down like a brick, you know?

    17. JR

      Right.

    18. LE

      Because there's design compromises and performance compromises. But what we are seeing doesn't have any of that attributable compromise. It's not... These objects aren't slowing down. They're not changing their, their, their, their performance capabilities. They can do the same thing that we're seeing in the air and, and, and possibly in space and, and even underwater. So that is a, that is a fundamentally different type of technology than we are used to dealing with.

  9. 47:19 – 55:10

    How could it work? Warp/gravity ‘bubble’ model and a unifying explanation

    1. JR

      Is the assumption that they are doing something with spacetime and gravity around them-

    2. LE

      That's correct.

    3. JR

      ... rather than using something like a jet propulsion engine that-

    4. LE

      Correct.

    5. JR

      ... blasts fire out the back and it makes it go fast forward?

    6. LE

      Right.

    7. JR

      That they're doing something that alters the gravity around them.

    8. LE

      Yeah. So-

    9. JR

      And that's why they can go through everything.

    10. LE

      Yeah. So we had some of the best scientists on the team. Uh, folks like Dr. Hal Puthoff and some other folks that I'm not allowed to say their names.

    11. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    12. LE

      Uh, Dr. Eric Davis and some others, that were doing the calculations, um, mathematical calculations on h- on how this is possible, and the consensus was by, by the scientists... Not me, because I'm not a, I'm not a physics expert, I'm not a astrophysicist. Um, they were saying that... So let me back up here. Initially, the government for years was trying to identify the different exotic technologies that could explain the different performance characteristics, and it was during the AATIP years that the scientists had this consensus that if you had one type of technology, if you could do one thing, all these other observables now become possible. Kind of think of like a unifying theory.

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. LE

      And so if you had the ability to, to create this bubble around you in a localized area that insulated you from the effects of Earth's gravity... Now, what is gravity? People think that, you know, when I drop my glasses, that's gravity. That's not gravity. That's an effect of gravity. Gravity is the warping of space...... time. And that's important because people don't, they, you hear the term thrown around a lot, but they don't realize that space and time are actually connected. They are, they are, they are one and the same. They are opposite sides, if you will, of the same coin, and so you can't have one without the other. And so you have this ability to create a bubble around you that insulates you from the warping of space time, let's say in this case Earth's gravity or something like that. Then the way you experience time inside that bubble is perhaps fundamentally different than the way you might experience space time outside that bubble, because you're not, you're not subject to the effects of gravity, which would explain por- potentially, potentially why things don't need wings and why they don't need propulsion systems like that, right? So it's, it's a completely different way of looking at, at how we understand physics and how we as humans move about. Everything we do is fundamentally force equals mass times acceleration, right? F=MA, right? Mass times acceleration, you get force. Um, this may be something a little bit different. This is, this is not using a c- again, conventional thrust. Or if I, you know, Newtonian, right? If I, if I push this way, I have an equal and opposite reaction that way, right? That's how, that's-

    15. JR

      Are there any theories as to how it's accomplishing this?

    16. LE

      There is. Uh, actually, Dr. Hal Puthoff about f- three years ago gave a speech on this, uh, a very, uh, interesting talk, lecture about this technology and if you ever have the chance, you really should have him on 'cause he's a, he's a, he's incredible human being. He's also the one who helped start the government's remote viewing program and a bunch of other stuff for the government. Um, he's been involved in a lot of our nation's probably most, most classified efforts. But he was working with us on, on A2P as one of our scientists, and he gave a lecture about three years ago to some other scientists about the specifics on how this is possible. I am not a scientist so I definitely not gonna speak on behalf of Hal Puthoff 'cause I'm sure I will muck it up, but I do recall a time when he came into our skiff and gave us about a three-hour (laughs) lecture on this unifying theory. And at that moment, it was very much for us the epiphany that a lot of us had been, been searching for. He's like, "Look, at the end of the day, this is how it's possible." And that was kind of this, wow. So it's really not-

    17. JR

      Can you give us a-

    18. LE

      ... magic.

    19. JR

      ... moron's view of how it's possible?

    20. LE

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      Like explain it to someone like me?

    22. LE

      Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm in that category, Joe, so (laughs) -

    23. JR

      (laughs) Good.

    24. LE

      We speak in the same language. (laughs)

    25. JR

      (laughs) Yeah. Sure.

    26. LE

      Yeah. Single syllable grunts, right?

    27. JR

      (laughs)

    28. LE

      Um, yeah. So you have, uh, you have an object like this cup on your table, and you want it to, um, be insulated from the effects of Earth's gravity. So you, you, you create this bubble artificially using a, uh, a, a, a certain energetic source at a certain frequency, and it interacts with certain material, certain metamaterial. And I have t- again, I gotta be careful w- exactly what I say, but a certain skin of the craft, this aluminum v- uh, cup here, and all of a sudden, voop, you have this bubble around you where what you see on the outside is not necessarily what you see on the inside. In fact, may, may do-

    29. JR

      Sure.

    30. LE

      ... one more drawing for you?

  10. 55:10 – 1:04:54

    Recovered materials and internal conflict: what he can say, and why factions resist

    1. JR

      No problem. So, how, uh, how much of this is theoretical and how much of this, uh, is observed from recovered vehicles?

    2. LE

      I am not allowed to talk about what the government may or may not have in its possession other than that, um, I have, I, I... So I went through a very lengthy Pentagon review process. Recently, I, I, I wrote some- I won't talk about it here, but, but I wrote something and, um, I had to go through Pentagon to have a review process, and it took almost a year. Um, in this, this thing I wrote, um, I, I, I talk about up to the leg- up to the part I can talk about-

    3. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. LE

      ... and they approved for me to talk about up to that point. When it comes to what the government may or may not have in its possession, all I can simply say is that, um, there is very compelling evidence to suggest that the US government is in absolute possession of exotic material that is not made by humans. Now beyond that, I can't really expound upon. I haven't been given permission to talk about it, but what I can say is what I've already said for the record, which has been approved by the Pentagon, won't get in trouble by saying it-

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. LE

      ... is that, that, that we are, uh, there's very compelling data to suggest that we are in possession of exotic material.

    7. JR

      Why is the Pentagon teasing us? Why do they tell y- why are they allowing you to say, "We are in possession of something that was not made by human beings," but not allowed to elaborate, not allowed to show these very compelling videos that you're talking about that you've seen?

    8. LE

      I don't th- well, two reasons. I don't think they have a choice. I think with now the introduction of cell phones and ring cameras, the cat's outta the bag. It's, it's the worst kept secret at this point. Two, there is a faction, unlike before in the Cold War, I believe there is a faction of people inside the government that do want this conversation to occur. But equally, there's still a faction of people that are very mad with me, they do not want me having this conversation, and mark my words, just by me being on your show, it is gonna cause an absolute storm inside the Pentagon, and I am sure, uh, the other shoe's gonna drop. I promise-

    9. JR

      So-

    10. LE

      ... you it's gonna, you're gonna hear all sorts of stuff. People make stuff up about me trying to discredit this topic because as many people are in the government that want this topic to be discussed now, there's still some people that do not want this conversation.

    11. JR

      Could you steel-man their position?

    12. LE

      S- say again?

    13. JR

      Steel-man their position, meaning could you-

    14. LE

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      ... argue it from their perspective?

    16. LE

      Absolutely. Yeah.

    17. JR

      Like why- what would be a good reason-

    18. LE

      Sure, and I-

    19. JR

      ... to keep this stuff quiet?

    20. LE

      Sure. Um, and I wanna preface here, I'm not f- I'm not fearmongering.

    21. JR

      No, I, I don't think you are.

    22. LE

      But, um, look, if I was, if I was a military person, right, I would look at this from the perspective of there's three options: they're good, they're neutral, or they're bad. So let's go down this road for a second. Let's say they're good, right?

    23. JR

      Okay.

    24. LE

      Well, we got nothing to worry about. The problem is, there's noth- nothing to suggest that they truly are benevolent. People say, "Well, you know, they're like, they don't want us to nuke ourselves." Well, you know, I discuss it in, in, in what I wrote that there's no, there's no, there's no data to suggest that. They, they didn't stop us from dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and vaporizing 500,000 living souls, they didn't stop us when we started developing nuclear weapons from the atomic age, they didn't stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, they didn't stop the devel- uh, the testing in the Nevada range of, of, of atomic and nuclear weapons. And now how many countries have atomic weapons and nuclear weapons? A lot, right? Um, they didn't stop Chernobyl, they didn't stop Fukushima, they didn't stop Three Mile Island. So to say that they're here to help us, I'm not sure there's, there's data. People say, "Well, you know, in, in, in Minot and, and in North Dakota and Montana, they, the UFOs came in and they stopped, they, they interfered with our nuclear weapons and they brought the entire Echo flight offline." Which by the way, I have the government report on that if you want it. Um, but in Russia, what a lot of people don't know, they turned them on, right? So that's equally scary. They're interfering with our nuclear capability whether to attack or to defend ourselves. Um-

    25. JR

      So when you say they turned them on in Russia, this is a, a Russian report?

    26. LE

      Yeah. So this is a, uh, I don't know if you remember the hearing, Congressional hearing that occurred last year where the, uh-

    27. JR

      With David Grusch?

    28. LE

      Nope, the other one with Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Ronald Moultrie and some people from the Navy, and, uh, I think it was Congressman Gallagher that asked a very specific question. And he said, "Are you aware of, uh, UFOs interfering with our nuclear capabilities?" And the response was something like, "No, not really familiar with it, never heard of it." And then the question was, I think re-asked specifically at these locations and the government's response was, "No, not familiar with it." Well, here's the actual report from the Department of Defense. This is the actual intelligence report that was released through FOIA. There's a, there's a gentleman out there, uh, who runs a site called The Black Vault, his name is John Greenwald. He's probably the world authority on Freedom of Information Act and he has a wealth of data that is out available to the public that he has received from the government. This is one of those documents. This is the document that our own government has no idea apparently exists.

    29. JR

      I like how they write it in all caps.

    30. LE

      (laughs) Yeah, yeah, that's through the, the old reporting.

  11. 1:04:54 – 1:08:47

    Legal/oversight obstacles: amnesty, contractor advantage, and SEC-type liabilities

    1. JR

      Is there an issue of legality, like of c- of spending and like...

    2. LE

      100%. 100%. There's, there's oversight issues.

    3. JR

      So, there's people that would be liable for-

    4. LE

      Yes.

    5. JR

      ... not being straightforward with Congress?

    6. LE

      Yes, and I know people want their pound of flesh. I know there's people out there, "You, we've been lied to for decades and I want..."

    7. JR

      Right, and then they make it a political issue-

    8. LE

      Right.

    9. JR

      ... and they go after someone for... Yeah.

    10. LE

      And I think that's the wrong approach. I think, you know, there was a time where we needed to keep this secret, and I think what you do is you, you, you give those guys awards, give those guys and gals awards who, who did it.

    11. JR

      Right.

    12. LE

      Don't, don't make them enemies. Make them friends and say, "Okay, look, but those were different times. Now is the time to, to, to come clean, talk to the members of Congress-"

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. LE

      "... talk to..."

    15. JR

      Forgive all the past sins.

    16. LE

      Yeah, truth and reconciliation.

    17. JR

      Make them immune to prosecution.

    18. LE

      100%.

    19. JR

      And let's just get clear with all this-

    20. LE

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... and understand that it was all in good faith that you did it in the first place.

    22. LE

      100%. Now-

    23. JR

      All in the interest of the United States' security.

    24. LE

      You talk about legal issues. The problem is, there are the real legal issues. So, let's say you have, again, my... these cups, forgive my analogies. Um, you have two aerospace companies, Company A, Company B. And let's say I am in the Department of Defense back in the '50s, '60s, and I come across this interesting technology. I have no idea what the hell it is, it just came out of the sky. And I go to Company A and I said, "Tell me what you can figure out about that." Right?

    25. JR

      Right.

    26. LE

      10 years later, Company A becomes a multi-billion dollar aerospace company. Company B goes bankrupt, 200 people lose their jobs, and now people who have stock, investors in that company, lose their money.

    27. JR

      Hmm.

    28. LE

      Right? Unfair advantage. Keep in mind, you're supposed to have fair competition in the US government.

    29. JR

      Right.

    30. LE

      So, if you give an unfair advantage to Company A, to B, you're talking a serious liability. There's SEC violations there, there's all sorts of concerns one has to pay attention to, because someone somewhere gave an unfair advantage-

  12. 1:08:47 – 1:15:46

    From Lazar to Neuralink: mind-machine interfaces and ‘paranormal’ stigma

    1. JR

      Yeah. So this kind of technology, um... I'm sure you're aware of the Bob Lazar story.

    2. LE

      I'm aware. I, I don't know Bob. I've never met him, so.

    3. JR

      You never got into that?

    4. LE

      I've... I did not. I-

    5. JR

      How could you not with your line of work?

    6. LE

      Be- because, you know, I, I always wanted to be insulated from prejudicing the jury.

    7. JR

      Okay.

    8. LE

      And I know it sounds kind of strange, but I didn't ever-

    9. JR

      No, it makes sense.

    10. LE

      You know, it's, it, it's, it, it's kind of something I impose on myself because I didn't want to have any preconceived notions of going in. Most people kind of, I suspect, would be tempted to say, "Well, I'm gonna learn everything I can about, you know, UFO lore." I wanted the opposite. I-

    11. JR

      You're a better man than me.

    12. LE

      I ne- well... (laughs)

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. LE

      All of I'm better, yeah.

    15. JR

      I'll keep fucking chasing that shit down.

    16. LE

      (laughs) I, you know, I think, um, I just... I, I just wanted to be very, very careful to preserve the investigative integrity, right?

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. LE

      And we're... Look, we're all humans. We're all biased.

    19. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    20. LE

      That's... There's no way around it. We all have some degree of bias. Let's, let's be honest and truthful here. It doesn't matter what type of bias it is, we all have some sort of bias somewhere, whether it's food or it's the people you like to date or whatever.

    21. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    22. LE

      Um, I wanted to avoid that as much as possible, and so I, I always kept it very, very focused on the here and now.

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. LE

      And, you know, what, what can we see today?

    25. JR

      Right. You're aware of the story though, right?

    26. LE

      I, I...

    27. JR

      The basic...

    28. LE

      Tangentially. I... That-

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. LE

      That he worked at a particular facility, and at that facility he was exposed to some sort of, uh, UAP technology.

Episode duration: 2:15:03

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