This highly anticipated event will be released in the next few hours and promises to be a highlight for all UFO enthusiasts.
In this interview, Luis Elizondo delves deeply into his recently published book, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs, which explores the mysteries surrounding UAP and their potential impact on our understanding of the universe. He shares fascinating details about an attempt to recover UAP, offering a rare glimpse into the stakes involved in these mysterious events.
Luis also shares his personal reflections on the topic, addressing the challenges and revelations he has encountered throughout his career. His unique perspective and expertise make this interview an unmissable opportunity for anyone interested in unexplained phenomena. Don’t miss this chance to hear directly from Luis Elizondo.
Jonnie Hurn: Luis Elizondo, welcome to UAP Check.
Thank you so much for doing this interview with us. We’re absolutely delighted to have a chance to talk to you. I know you’re incredibly busy at the moment. It must be a whirlwind having written this book and having it released, so first of all, thank you for giving us the time to have a little chat. I’ll just quickly run through your bio, which of course you know:
You’re a graduate of the University of Miami, where you studied microbiology and immunology. A former senior intelligence officer, special agent, Army veteran, counter-espionage, and counter-terrorism expert, and for seven years you were the head of AATIP—the USA Department of Defense’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program—which is quite the name for a department. And then you quite suddenly resigned in protest at the lack of disclosure to the public, which we’ll get into. At that point, your life spun off in a crazy new direction, leading not only to going public with some of the things that you knew but also ultimately to writing this book, which is what we’re here to talk about.
I have a copy here: Imminent—Inside the Pentagon Hunt for UFOs. It’s a hefty book. I have read this from cover to cover, I swear. I sat down for two days, did nothing else but read it—it’s absolutely fascinating. Before we dive into it, I just want to read what’s on the back, because whenever you get a book, you always look at the front, read the back cover. This really struck me, so forgive me while I read this:
“While there are valid reasons for secrecy around some aspects of UAP, I do not think humanity should be kept in the dark about the fundamental fact that we are not the only intelligent life in the universe. The United States government and other major governments have decided its citizens do not have a right to know, but I couldn’t disagree more. You might think this sounds crazy; I’m not saying it doesn’t sound crazy. I’m saying that it’s real.”
Wow, what a bit of text on the back of a book! If that doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what would. But I want to go back to that first paragraph, and two words in particular: “fundamental fact.” The fundamental fact that we are not the only intelligent life in the universe. That is an incredible statement to make. Is it a fundamental fact?
Luis Elizondo: Well, before I answer that question, let me go back to something you said at the very beginning. You thanked me profusely for taking my time to be with you, but to be honest, it’s actually me who should be thanking you and your audience. We are only here in this conversation and in this moment of disclosure because of people like you. I’m just one person, but you amplify voices. Furthermore, you bring people together to discuss a topic that, for many years, has been considered fringe and taboo. We’re only here because of people like you and your audience, and that’s a fact.
Also, as busy as I am talking to people about the book, that’s not why I’m having this conversation with you. I’m not here to plug a book. If you want to read the book, great; if not, that’s fine too. I’m here to have an engaging conversation with you and your audience. I think that’s important, and the only reason why we’re even having this conversation is because of people like you who are demanding the truth—they don’t want to be lied to anymore.
Just to clarify, I was with AATIP for about seven years, but I was in the government for much longer than that. I’m an old guy—this is gray, not blonde, unfortunately. So, I’m an old guy!
JH: Me too, me too.
LE: But you look distinguished. I just look old. [Laughs] Now, regarding your question about the fundamental fact—yes, it is a fundamental fact. Most of the time, the one thing we’re right about as humans is that we’re mostly wrong the first time. Every time you try to put Mother Nature in a little box, she finds a way to wiggle out and surprise us.
In our search for intelligent life beyond our planet, NASA has only been actively looking for about 70 years—searching for microbial life on Mars or techno-signatures in our Milky Way. That’s a blink of an eye on a cosmic scale. Is it possible that in the four and a half billion years that our planet has existed, life found us first? Yeah, it’s pretty possible.
And then you look at what we’ve been finding on the government side regarding UAP, and it reinforces the notion that, yes, there is something here that is not us, but it’s intelligent. We often perceive life as needing to be carbon-based, requiring oxygen and water. But of course, life doesn’t necessarily need that. Look, depending on how artificial intelligence evolves, we may be redefining what life is very soon.
For instance, my background is in microbiology, immunology, and the study of parasites. There are some scientists today who speculate that viruses may not have originated naturally on this planet. Why? Because they do what living things do—survive, multiply—but they don’t have any of the features we typically associate with life. They only have RNA, not DNA, yet they function as life forms. So, when we talk about carbon-based life forms, it’s possible that life doesn’t need to be carbon-based at all. It depends on our definition of “life.”
JH: So, after a few years—around 2010—you were, I guess, called into an office for a quiet conversation with someone who told you about this new program called AATIP, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. You mention in your book that before that, you hadn’t really considered UAPs; you didn’t have an opinion either way. Suddenly, you’re asked to head up this investigation. What kind of brief were you given?
LE: At first, I wasn’t given any brief. I didn’t know what the program was about. There was kind of a dance—they were feeling me out to see if I’d be a good fit from a counterintelligence and security perspective, as that was the role they wanted me to fulfill. It wasn’t until I met the director of then-AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon Special Application Program), Dr. Jim Lacatski, that I realized what this program was about.
Jim Lacatski is the epitome of a rocket scientist. He’s, by far, one of the most brilliant rocket scientists this country has ever had. This is a man who can explain the burn rate and fuel consumption of a solid rocket motor booster, and the telemetry and re-entry velocity of a multiple re-entry vehicle. He’s truly brilliant and exactly the kind of person you’d want running a program like this.
After meeting him, we had several discussions in his office. During one of our conversations, he looked over his glasses and asked me one final question: “What do you think about UFOs?” I thought for a moment and responded truthfully, “I don’t.”
He clarified, “So you don’t believe in UFOs?” And I said, “No, that’s not what I said. You asked what I think about them, and the truth is, I don’t. I don’t have the luxury to think about it—I’m too busy chasing bad guys and creating programs for the government.” I was never particularly interested in science fiction; I was more of a G.I. Joe kind of kid.
Jim said, “Fair enough, but let me give you some advice: Don’t let your analytic bias get the best of you. What you may learn may challenge any preconceived notion or narrative that you have.” And that was my first realization that the U.S. government was involved in investigating UFOs.
JH: Given his knowledge of physics and how we, as humans, go into space and travel at vast speeds, it must have been quite the shock for you to discover these UAPs doing things we can’t comprehend. Suddenly, you’re learning about objects that exhibit “the five observables”—behaviors and capabilities that no human technology can replicate. That must have been a seismic thunderbolt in your life, right?
LE: Well, it was humbling. It didn’t necessarily challenge anything for me personally because I’m a disciple of science and the scientific process. I believe in the scientific method. My background in microbiology and my career as an investigator always drove me toward collecting data and facts—not opinions or supposition. I’m a very data-driven guy.
So, when I began to see the data for myself, it wasn’t necessarily revelatory like, “Oh my God, this is incredible.” Rather, it was a recognition that our current understanding of physics probably needs to be recalibrated. What we were seeing wasn’t defying the laws of physics; it was defying our understanding of them.
Let me give you an example: There was a time, not too long ago, when scientists believed we’d never break the sound barrier—it was considered impossible. Yet, once we did it, it became routine. Similarly, there was a time when scientists speculated that Earth was the only rocky celestial body in the heavens, even though meteoroids were coming in all the time.
So, it’s not science that’s wrong—it’s our understanding of science. Science is just fact; it is what it is. When you see these things doing what they’re doing, you have to realize that it’s real. And if it can be done, then we can do it too—we just have to figure out how.
It wasn’t as mind-blowing for me as it was for some people. I had already been involved in protecting advanced technologies for the U.S. government—some of which were very advanced. So, it’s important to remember that today’s science is just yesterday’s “miracle.” The impossible is just something we haven’t understood yet.
JH: When you first realized that these technologies—traveling at phenomenal speeds, changing direction in an instant, moving from space to atmosphere to ocean within seconds—weren’t American, Russian, or Chinese but had to be non-human intelligence… How did you go home with that knowledge, knowing you couldn’t tell anyone?
LE: That was a profound moment for me—an epiphany that was far more emotionally dramatic than just seeing the technology. It was grappling with both the hubris and the humility: the hubris being that we consider ourselves the alpha species on the planet, and the humility in realizing that something out there is far more advanced than we are and can do things we can’t.
Mother Nature has a vote. Whether it’s a hurricane, a natural disaster, or possibly a non-human intelligence, there’s something bigger than us. For me, there were moments alone where I reflected on what that means for humanity. Is humanity ready to have this conversation? Are we prepared to recognize something beyond what we see every day?
We’re seeing that play out right now. Some people can’t handle it, and others can. You can go on social media today and see both the best and worst of our society all within the same community. Every day, I see the pettiness and egos of some individuals, the backbiting, and the desperate need for attention. But then, there are others who are incredibly logical, thoughtful, kind, and even generous when they don’t have to be. And so it’s a microcosm of what the rest of society really is.
Do I still struggle wondering if we’re ready to have this conversation? I do. I do think we can handle the truth. I always say America can handle the truth, but I also think the world can handle the truth. And look, even if they can’t, it’s not my decision. You know, if I go to a doctor—let me give you an analogy, if I may digress for a moment. I think the truth is always the most important thing. Let’s say you won the lottery and you have the winning ticket, but you don’t know it yet. Would you want to be told you have the winning lottery ticket?
JH: Of course, yeah.
LE: Right, of course. Now let’s go to the opposite end of that spectrum. If you go to the doctor and they say, “I want to tell you something—do I have your permission to tell you, even if it’s bad news?” Would you want to know if you had cancer? Would you want your doctor to tell you?
JH: Yes, I think I would.
LE: Yeah, same with me. So that’s where we are in this conversation. I’m not saying someone won the lottery or has cancer necessarily. What I’m saying is, truth is truth, and people need to decide for themselves what that truth means to them. I’m not going to be prescriptive here and tell people how they should interpret this—it’s not my job. I’ve got my own challenges figuring out what this means to me. I’m certainly not going to tell you what it should mean to you. My job is simple: here’s the facts; you figure it out for yourself what this means to you.
There is a part of this conversation that affects us beyond a national security perspective, which is where my focus lies. If there’s a two-star or three-star general out there looking at UFOs from a national security perspective, that’s great. But this is a topic that’s much bigger than that; it affects every individual equally and yet differently. It affects us psychologically, sociologically, philosophically, and theologically. In some cases, maybe a Rabbi, an Imam, a priest, or a Buddhist monk is better qualified to have this conversation than a three-star general. Maybe having a conversation around your dinner table with your spouse and family is a more effective way to deal with this topic emotionally and internally.
That would be my advice. And I don’t think any organization, institution, government, or religion has the right to control the narrative. It’s the antithesis of what freedom and democracy are about, and what the free exchange of information is. Now, let me caveat that by saying there are reasons to have information classified. I’m not saying that national security information, which is truly relevant to national security, should be disclosed. I’ve never been a proponent of that; I’ve never leaked information, and I’ve never provided classified information. I’m very patriotic, and I’m loyal to my country. I’m trying to fix it, not hurt it.
With that said, I do support some aspects of this topic remaining classified. I’ve always been honest about it. If I have to choose between national security and disclosure, I will always choose national security because I love my country, and I love my fellow citizens. But I don’t think we have to make that choice—we haven’t had to do it yet, and I’m certainly not doing it now. We can have both conversations: we can protect national security while talking about greater humanity. And if you look back, over the last seven years, we have kind of succeeded at that.
JH: You’ve answered about four other questions I was going to ask you, which is fantastic. There has been a huge change in the public perspective of this whole subject. You know, coming back to what you wrote on the back of your book: “I’m not saying this doesn’t sound crazy—it does—but what I’m saying is that it’s real.” Seven years ago, if you spoke to anyone and said, “I believe in UFOs,” they’d look at you like you were a little bit crazy.
LE: You’re right. There was a time when governments would say, “This is a topic full of fringe and cuckoo.” But interestingly enough, those same governments had long-standing UFO programs. So, if it’s so crazy, why spend taxpayer money on it? It turns out there’s a real reason: they didn’t have an answer for it, and they were afraid of the public’s reaction. This is substantiated in documentation.
Let me give you an example. If I say the word “parachute,” the prefix “para-” comes from the Latin “par,” meaning “above” or “beside.” When I say “parachute,” what do you think of?
JH: Something that helps you land safely if you jump out of a plane.
LE: Right, something that deploys above you and helps you land—hopefully with a thump, not a thud. And if I say “paramedic,” what do you think of?
JH: Somebody who helps you if you’re sick.
LE: Yeah, a first responder—usually a hero. Now, how about when I say the word “paranormal”?
JH: [Hesitates] Yeah, I get you…
LE: You just did it. There was an uncomfortable hesitation because you’ve been conditioned to respond to that word as being “abnormal.” But in reality, everything in science, by definition, is “paranormal” until it becomes “normal.” This phone, 40 years ago, was absolutely paranormal. A lot of things we considered paranormal, and that had stigma attached to them, are now routine science.
We respond to words like “paranormal” in a certain way because we’ve been told it’s a “bad word.” We’ve been conditioned to think that way, but in reality, it’s no different than “parachute” or “paramedic.” We can’t allow our thought processes to be hijacked or derailed artificially by labels that someone wanted to stigmatize. The UFO topic is no different. When you say “UFOs,” most people think of tinfoil hats and Elvis on the Mother Ship, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a new paradigm of understanding. We’re talking about technologies being encountered over controlled U.S. airspace and sensitive military installations that have the potential to interfere with our nuclear assets and outperform anything we have.
The problem is that the topic has been so effectively stigmatized for so long that it’s almost impossible to have a real conversation about a real thing because we’ve been told for so long that it’s BS.
JH: You came from a background in the military—counterintelligence and counterterrorism—and you just touched on something. These UAPs have been seen for many years close to nuclear facilities, whether they’re nuclear-powered submarines, ships, reactors, or missile bases. You must have been looking at it as a potential threat since “threat” is in AATIP’s name. Did you ever actually come to a conclusion about what the threat might be?
LE: That’s a great and thoughtful question. Let’s untangle that a little. You know, I’m wearing a black baseball cap that says “New York Yankees,” but I might as well be wearing a hat that says “U.S. Department of Defense.” When you wear that hat, you focus on all potential eventualities as they relate to national security. If we’re talking about diplomacy, that’s the State Department’s job. The DoD’s role is “go to war, win a war.”
At the end of the day—and I don’t want to sound terrible—but we’re not peacekeepers; that’s another organization’s role. Our job is to kill as many of the bad guys as possible while preserving as many of our own. That sounds terrible, but that’s the art of warfare. It’s to kill more of them than they kill of you, and as horrible as it is, that’s what humans have been doing for millennia, if not longer.
So, are there aspects of this topic that could be construed as a potential threat? Sure, and that’s what we pay our defense people to do. For example, we see these things monitoring our military capabilities, interfering with our nuclear technologies—is that a potential threat?
To determine if something is a national security threat, there’s a calculus: capabilities versus intent. We’ve seen some capabilities, but we have no idea of the intent. Therefore, we don’t know if it’s a national security threat. To put it in common parlance, I often ask: Do you lock your front door before going to bed at night?
JH: Yes, of course.
LE: I do too, and most of your audience probably does. Some of us might even go a step further: lock the windows, secure the house, punch in an alarm system. Let’s say you come downstairs one morning to have a cup of tea or coffee, and you notice size 12 muddy boot prints on your living room carpet that weren’t there the night before. No one’s been hurt, nothing’s out of place, but despite locking the doors and windows, there are muddy boot prints. My question is: Is that a threat?
JH: My response is it could be if it wanted to be.
LE: Exactly. We need to figure out how those boots are getting into the house. This is the same analogy from a national security perspective. We see what these UAPs can do; they’re coming into our controlled U.S. airspace over sensitive military installations, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So is that a threat? Well, we better figure it out so we can determine if it is or it isn’t.
You also come up against a lot of other examples of people trying to suppress information, not disclosing things. I liken the Pentagon to a huge building with a solid brick and stone exterior, but on the inside, it’s built of paperwork and bureaucracy. You seem to have come up against brick wall after brick wall, with people wanting to prevent disclosure—except when you wanted to release the videos of the Tic Tac and the Gimbal. That seemed to be easy. Why do you think that was easier?
LE: Well, it wasn’t easy. Let me tell you, it was easier, yes, but by no means “easy.” There was a lot of back-and-forth, teeth-gnashing, and effort to get people to do the right thing. I had the seniority at the time to drive it through, but it wasn’t easy. There was a lot of communication involved.
Ultimately, they realized that, first of all, the videos weren’t classified—or at least those portions of them weren’t. Secondly, our intent initially was to get them out to industry partners—to get the videos in front of some of the best experts we could find, as we couldn’t find the answers internally within the Department of Defense or the intelligence community. We had the CIA and other DoD organizations looking at them, and nobody could figure out what these things were. They were compared to everything in our inventory and every type of adversarial aircraft flight characteristic, and it was a big zero—a big goose egg. So the intent was to get get it out to some other experts. Maybe they could figure it out, right? So, I think at the end of the day, those perspectives prevailed, and it was realized that we needed external help.
JH: You also mentioned that there are a number of well-known companies in the U.S. that have some of this material. You don’t necessarily specify whether it’s organic or technological material, but you say these things have been captured. One thing that really struck me in the book is when you talk about Roswell, which of course is the most well-known UFO incident in the world. I don’t think there’s hardly anyone who believes it was just a weather balloon. You say a lot of people have speculated it was a UFO, a downed craft, and that it’s at Area 51, etc. But you go further and say that yes, that’s true, and someone told you it was true—that there are these craft, and we do have them. You confirm a lot of things that people have long suspected, one of which being that private companies have this technology and are reverse-engineering it. Are the Department of Defense allowing them to do so because, as you said, they don’t have the necessary expertise internally?
LE: Yes, that is how the U.S. government works. We outsource our expertise—always have, especially for scientific endeavors. It’s called the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) or what used to be called the “military-industrial complex.” That’s the model in which our defense operates. For example, if we want to build a new type of plane, we go to the best to build it, right? We don’t build it in-house; the Army or the Air Force doesn’t build it—Lockheed Martin builds it, Boeing builds it, or one of the other major defense contractors like Northrop Grumman. That’s the way it’s always been in our Department of Defense.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that if we come across exotic material and need someone to analyze it, we send it to the best to do so. You don’t send it to some military fort where they might be repairing Humvees; you send it to an aerospace corporation that’s building satellites and highly classified equipment for the government because they have the expertise to analyze it at a high level of fidelity that we simply don’t possess in-house.
Many governments work this way. It’s why Russia has companies like Sukhoi and Mikoyan to build their MIG and Sukhoi aircraft, realizing the value in letting experts create these platforms. It’s why we use companies like Sikorsky and Bell to build helicopters, or Lockheed and Boeing. So, it makes sense that if we have any type of exotic technology, it would be sent to experts for analysis.
JH: When I was growing up, I remember being told about the space program and how some of its byproducts were things like digital watches and non-stick pans—Teflon and such. Is there anything you can tell us that has come from reverse-engineering this technology? I understand that you may not be able to go down this road too far.
LE: I’m not allowed to discuss any type of technology that we may have gleaned or exploited. However, I can expand on your example of the space race. In the decade we were racing the Russians to space and to the moon, around 6,200 industries—not just products—were derived from that short period. Things like LED light bulbs and innovations like CAT scans have far outlived their initial design and benefited mankind. These are derivative technologies, all stemming from one initiative. So, you can imagine a similar scenario—if we were able to exploit technology for the betterment of humanity, there would be significant opportunities there.
Now, with that said, we haven’t always been very kind to each other. There’s technology out there that can be used for both good and bad. You can use nuclear power to create electricity for a city, but you can also use it to wipe people off the planet. We are a species that has done that time and again. So, we need to be cautious because not everyone may be ready for such technology. In fact, there are places and countries where I would not be comfortable with them having any type of derivative technology.
It’s not as easy as just opening Pandora’s Box—once you do, who knows what comes out. That may be one reason why we’ve been very careful about any technology that could have possibly been derived from exotic material. That’s about as far as I can go with that explanation.
JH: One of the most stunning moments in the book, for me, was when you discuss a very audacious plan to catch a UAP. Bear in mind these are things that can fly tens of thousands of kilometers an hour, suddenly change direction, and go from 80,000 feet to the ground in the blink of an eye. Yet, you hatched a plan to actually catch one. Can you tell us what that plan was, and why it never happened?
LE: Yes, we in the program—myself and others—came up with an operational plan to create an irresistible “Honeypot,” so to speak—a target that would be impossible for UAPs to resist. Think of it like flypaper for a fly. It was called “Interloper,” and we knew from years, even decades, of observation that there was a strong correlation between UAPs and nuclear technology—whether it was propulsion or weapons systems—as well as bodies of water. We knew that our carrier strike groups were, at times, being stalked and even plagued by UAPs, sometimes in combat zones.
The idea was to create a massive nuclear footprint, keeping in mind that sometimes these carrier strike groups have a nuclear footprint larger than the entire state of New York. You put that out in the middle of the ocean, and the idea was that when the UAP showed up, you would have other collection capabilities in the area, unacknowledged, ready to start gathering information on these objects—telemetry data, velocity, points of origin, points of egress—and begin creating a “pattern of life.” We were looking for any type of electronic exhaust—not like a tailpipe, but any type of emissions that could be detected, whether infrasonic, ultrasonic, or otherwise. Some of the details I’m not allowed to discuss as they pertain to sensitive capabilities, but the idea was to spring a proverbial electronic trap. Once these UAPs showed up, we would have the right assets in place to collect critical information on them.
That was the plan—Interloper. It went all the way through the Joint Staff, but it never happened because it was quashed.
JH: What level above you quashed it? The very top?
LE: Yes, it went all the way up to the very top. Someone at the highest level stopped it, and it was very disappointing for us. We had all the accreditations set up, the best and brightest ready to support it, and other intelligence agencies on standby. And then someone said, “No.” That was very discouraging because it indicated that someone knew something—perhaps we were stepping on someone’s toes.
JH: I appreciate you probably can’t reveal any specifics, but did they tell you why, or just say no?
LE: No, they just said no.
JH: You also talk about other groups within the Pentagon that were trying to stop your work and prevent disclosure. You mention a “Legacy Program,” which sounds like a positive term, but it seems that the Legacy Program’s goal was to deny everything and stop anything from being revealed. And you talk about a sort of shady group called “The Collins Elite,” who seem to be within the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, aiming to dismiss all of this for personal beliefs rather than scientific or national security reasons. Was that frustrating? How did you first come to know about that? Was it frustrating to know people were suppressing things for their own beliefs?
LE: It was disappointing and frustrating, but not surprising. A quick Google search will show that the Pentagon has long had some fundamentalists among its ranks. Now, I want to be very careful here: I don’t think fundamentalism is necessarily bad; I think extremism is bad. Whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, or Hindu—I’m okay with fundamental beliefs. What I don’t like is extremism, where your belief is placed above everyone else’s.
As humans, we need to understand that there are two types of truths: a universal truth and a personal truth. Gravity is a universal truth—it affects all of us equally at 9.8 meters per second squared, no matter what. But then there’s another type of truth—a personal truth, such as political or religious affiliations. These are not universally accepted by everyone, but they can be as real to an individual as any universal truth.
My concern arises when personal truths are applied to national security scenarios as if they were universal truths. Some people were threatened not to become whistleblowers—threatened to the point of being told they could be executed without trial if they revealed this information. When I first started to think that more needed to be revealed than was being allowed, yes, that weighed heavily on my mind.
JH: There are a couple of examples in the book. I’m not sure how much you can discuss, but let me ask in general terms: We’ve not always been forthcoming, and governments haven’t always acted in the best interest of the public. There are examples where people’s lives have been ruined, sometimes in the name of science.
LE: Yes, absolutely. There was a time when our country conducted the infamous syphilis experiments, where we allowed people to suffer and die from syphilis—even though we had the cure—just to observe its effects. We’ve also experimented on our own people with things like LSD to see the effects. And there have been times where we’ve lied to the public. At one point, we pretended burn pits weren’t real, we said that Agent Orange wasn’t harmful. People died. There are things we’ve done over and over, even as recently as the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, where we still tell people, “It was fine.” No, it wasn’t. People died—people were clinging to the skin of a C-17 and plummeted to their deaths. That’s not fine, and I don’t care who you are in government, that’s—well, if I may say, that’s just wrong.
This is ultimately what drives me, if you really want to know. Yes, UAPs are a topic for disclosure, but we also have a serious accountability problem in many of our governments. You can’t say you’re the best government in the world if you don’t lead by example. To be the best government, you actually have to act like it, behave like it, and lead like it.
All governments claim to be the best, but I genuinely believe our government was—and is—the best in the world. My family came to this country as exiles from Cuba; my father was a revolutionary, and the U.S. gave my family opportunities no other government could or would give. So, I’m very loyal to my country, and it has the potential to truly be what it was intended to be. The problem is that individuals within the government have corrupted that process. They’ve hijacked the very essence of what it means to be American, making decisions unilaterally about what they consider to be in the best interest of the American people—without the authority to do so, without informing Congress, without informing the president.
This is why public confidence in our government is at an all-time low: because the government continues to lie to its people. People forget that our government is for the people, by the people. It’s the government’s job to serve the best interests of its citizens, not the other way around. If you’re in government and you forget that oath and pledge, then it’s time to go—you’re part of the problem.
Whether it’s UFOs or anything else, we’ve got many issues. Take Havana Syndrome; they finally admit it’s real, then try to sweep it under the rug again: “Nothing to see here, folks.” People died! What do you say to their families? “Oh, they imagined their deaths”? It’s egregious. This is what motivates me to move forward and do what I do. UFOs aside, UFOs are just one example of 70 years’ worth of obfuscation. There are other matters demanding transparency that Congress needs to be aware of.
If you really want to say you’re the best country in the world, you’ve got to act like it. When people say, “The government doesn’t lie to you,” well, unless you consider things like Iran-Contra, the Pentagon Papers, Silkwood—it’s constant. And that behavior needs to end. We as a society need to take back the control that was supposed to be there all along.
Let me share something personal. A couple of years ago, my father passed away on Father’s Day. He was a tough old revolutionary, and about a month before he passed, I had the chance to drive with him from my home in Wyoming down to South Florida. About halfway through the trip, probably somewhere in Kansas, I asked him, “Dad, what is the greatest threat to humanity?” I was expecting something like terrorism or a pandemic, but he thought for a moment and said, “Son, it’s corruption.” Not just financial corruption—corruption in general. The act of giving away a core value for something else. Whether it’s religious, moral, financial, or governmental corruption, it all erodes the foundation of democracy. And from there, it’s a slippery slope from democracy to tyranny, as he experienced firsthand in Cuba.
This is why the topic is so important. It’s indicative of a bigger problem. A government that will come out and say one thing, then do something else. And to be clear, I’m not blaming the entire U.S. government. Most of the time, our government does a great job—it’s made up of great people. But in those instances where it doesn’t, rather than coming clean, they lie and obfuscate. Eventually, those lies come out, and it reflects poorly on everyone trying to do a good job in the government. That’s a shame.
People have gone to war and died for this country because of its ideals. My family came here as immigrants, and this country has been amazing for me. I want it to be amazing for my kids and grandkids. But that starts with accountability and transparency. If you want to stop corruption, you first need to hold people accountable. And you can’t hold people accountable without transparency.
JH: I’d like to read you a quote from former CIA Officer Jim Semivan, who told USA Today: “It’s unlikely the U.S. government, nor any other government that has UAP-related research programs, knows exactly how to selectively release information on UAPs. You can’t just say ‘UAPs are real, and we’re not alone’; the questions would never stop, and people would demand more information. It’s all or nothing.”
Having read your book and what you said about Roswell earlier—the fact that you confirm or imply that, yes, it did happen as suspected—this book went through about a year of back-and-forth with the Department of Defense for redaction. Yet, within the book, very few things have been blacked out. Maybe they made you take some things out, but the things that were redacted are usually just names and places.
They haven’t redacted your statements about Roswell being real, or that non-human intelligence exists. Coming back to the beginning, the fundamental fact that we are not the only intelligent life on this planet… The fact that they didn’t redact that is startling. I would have expected them to redact a lot more.
LE: I think there’s a faction within the U.S. government that’s finally ready to have this conversation. I think they realize it’s become a liability. Secrets aren’t like fine wine; they don’t get better with time. They’re more like perishable vegetables—if you keep them too long, they rot and start to stink, and then you’ve got a real mess. I think there are people in the government who realize that the time has come to talk about this. Of course, there are still elements who don’t want me doing anything, and they’re working every day to try and take me down. But there are also people who want to have the conversation, who think we’re at a critical mass and that people can handle the truth.
Let’s face it—we’ve come this far, and people are still paying their mortgages, taking their kids to school, going to work. A lot of the fears the government had haven’t come true, proving that people can handle the truth.
JH: I can see there are probably people in the Department of Defense and higher up in the U.S. government who are actually relieved you wrote this book. It allows them to release information without them having to admit it directly. I just want to ask a couple of questions from Michael Valiant, the founder of UAP Check.
Now that there is a department called AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) within the Pentagon, what needs to change for AARO to become a force for disclosure?
LE: First of all, their leadership—and that has thankfully happened. They’ve got new leadership now. By all accounts, this new individual seems to be proactive and objective—focused on fact-finding, not for or against disclosure, and with no hidden agenda. There doesn’t seem to be any external influence at the moment. So, I cautiously think that whatever changes needed to happen are actually taking place, but only time will tell.
JH: Another question from Michael: If you had the power to call anyone to a committee for a formal hearing, maybe under subpoena, who would you call, and what would you ask them?
LE: That’s happening right now. We’re working on that issue, but I can’t say the names because I don’t have permission to do so at this time.
JH: We haven’t had a chance to talk about the personal effects your decision to leave the Pentagon had on you and your family. You go into great detail about how it affected you, the hardship you faced, which is incredibly humbling to read. It’s one thing to take that step, but it truly affected you personally. I urge people to read the book for your personal story alone, to see what you went through and the hardship your family faced due to your decision. It emphasizes why it was such a significant decision and how important it was for you to do this. Thank you for that; it must have been very difficult.
LE: No worries. If I get beat up so others don’t have to, then it’s worth it.
JH: War of the Worlds, Close Encounters, Alien, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Stargate, V, Men in Black—which one is closest to the truth?
LE: Well, let me tell you the one that has a lot of accurate pieces to it, and that’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I didn’t know this at the time, but Jacques Vallée was one of the advisors to Steven Spielberg on that production. When I watched it, some of the observables were so accurate, I was like, “How the hell did they know that?” The way the UAPs fly in a constellation and then split up or make 180-degree turns, those are right out of government reports I’ve personally seen. The superficial sunburns on the characters, the time dilation—so much of that is only now coming to light, and Spielberg got a lot of it pretty accurate.
JH: It’s a fantastic film. So, the book Imminent: Inside the Pentagon Hunt for UFOs—we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much information in here; it’s an incredible revelation. Thank you for writing it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and I’ve learned so much. And thank you for your time.
LE: It’s my honor and privilege. And to anybody in your audience, please know you don’t have to buy my book. If you want to talk, I’m happy to share what I know—and, frankly, also what I don’t know, which tends to be a lot. That’s life.
JH: Wonderful, Lou. Thank you very much—it’s been an absolute pleasure.
LE: My honor and privilege, thank you, my friend, so very much. [Music]