In his newly released memoir ‘Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs’, former senior defense official Luis Elizondo revealed that glowing green orbs, roughly the size of basketballs, mysteriously invaded his home. Elizondo, who spearheaded a top-secret Pentagon program investigating Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), shared these unsettling experiences in a book that took a year to pass Department of Defense censorship.
The memoir details his tenure at the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications Program under the Defense Intelligence Agency and suggests ongoing government knowledge of UFOs dating back to the 1940s.
Elizondo claims that his work at the Pentagon often spilled into his personal life. Over a period of seven years, his home in the DC area was allegedly visited by green, glowing orbs that appeared to be under intelligent control. These events were witnessed not only by Elizondo but also by his wife, their two daughters, and neighbors, who referred to the mysterious entities as “our friends from out of town.”
“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand. We know we are not alone,” Elizondo says in his book.
Elizondo’s diverse background includes service in the Army in Afghanistan, involvement in counterterrorism operations, and work at Guantanamo Bay before being assigned to the UFO program. The extent of Pentagon knowledge and the secrecy surrounding it left him astonished.
“I know that our US military takes very seriously their job of defending our nation, and I believe they will take the necessary actions to ensure our defense against all threats,” he told the Daily Beast after retiring.
According to Elizondo, the Pentagon has been amassing a significant body of knowledge about UFOs since the 1950s, initially driven by the need to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining such information. “Whoever controlled such technology could control the world,” he writes. His program investigated Navy pilots’ encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena, capturing videos of mysterious craft performing seemingly impossible maneuvers. Three such videos, first reported by The New York Times, were later confirmed by the Pentagon in 2020 as authentic, though they did not confirm whether the craft involved alien intelligence.
“The nonhuman intelligence controlling them presents, at best, a very serious national security issue, and at worst, the possibility of an existential threat to humanity,” Elizondo writes regarding the unknown spacecraft.
Due to government censors, Elizondo was limited in what he could discuss in his memoir. However, he hinted that other secretive alien-hunting programs exist but have never been fully disclosed.
Elizondo’s program gained public attention in a unique way. Established by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2007, it received $22 million, discreetly inserted into other spending. Although the unit was officially shut down in 2012, Elizondo continued his work with the Navy until he resigned in 2017. In a letter to then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, Elizondo emphasized, “There remains a vital need to ascertain the capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”
Following his retirement, Elizondo became a prominent voice on UFO-related issues. He briefed his successors on the Pentagon’s crash retrieval program and named Harold E. Puthoff as the government’s chief scientist on alien matters for 50 years—a role that had remained unreported until the memoir. Puthoff, who holds a Stanford PhD, has also faced accusations of pseudoscience.
Puthoff supported Elizondo’s claims, stating, “He has briefed us on information that he obtained that appears to be firsthand data, and I have no reason to discount that. He certainly had clearances to get primary information.”
Elizondo’s assertions about government knowledge extending back to the 1940s go beyond what official agencies have acknowledged. While the CIA has declassified many documents detailing its UFO investigations from that period, their findings are generally inconclusive.
The Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which investigated 12,618 reported UFO sightings between 1947 and 1969, concluded, “There has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles.”
Despite such official statements, Elizondo remains convinced that extraterrestrial intelligence exists and poses significant implications for national security and humanity as a whole. His memoir seeks to shed light on his experiences and the broader scope of government knowledge on unexplained aerial phenomena.
“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand. We know we are not alone,” he reiterates in his book, urging for greater public understanding and official disclosure of what he and others have encountered.
The memoir details his tenure at the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications Program under the Defense Intelligence Agency and suggests ongoing government knowledge of UFOs dating back to the 1940s.
Elizondo claims that his work at the Pentagon often spilled into his personal life. Over a period of seven years, his home in the DC area was allegedly visited by green, glowing orbs that appeared to be under intelligent control. These events were witnessed not only by Elizondo but also by his wife, their two daughters, and neighbors, who referred to the mysterious entities as “our friends from out of town.”
“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand. We know we are not alone,” Elizondo says in his book.
Elizondo’s diverse background includes service in the Army in Afghanistan, involvement in counterterrorism operations, and work at Guantanamo Bay before being assigned to the UFO program. The extent of Pentagon knowledge and the secrecy surrounding it left him astonished.
“I know that our US military takes very seriously their job of defending our nation, and I believe they will take the necessary actions to ensure our defense against all threats,” he told the Daily Beast after retiring.
According to Elizondo, the Pentagon has been amassing a significant body of knowledge about UFOs since the 1950s, initially driven by the need to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining such information. “Whoever controlled such technology could control the world,” he writes. His program investigated Navy pilots’ encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena, capturing videos of mysterious craft performing seemingly impossible maneuvers. Three such videos, first reported by The New York Times, were later confirmed by the Pentagon in 2020 as authentic, though they did not confirm whether the craft involved alien intelligence.
“The nonhuman intelligence controlling them presents, at best, a very serious national security issue, and at worst, the possibility of an existential threat to humanity,” Elizondo writes regarding the unknown spacecraft.
Due to government censors, Elizondo was limited in what he could discuss in his memoir. However, he hinted that other secretive alien-hunting programs exist but have never been fully disclosed.
Elizondo’s program gained public attention in a unique way. Established by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2007, it received $22 million, discreetly inserted into other spending. Although the unit was officially shut down in 2012, Elizondo continued his work with the Navy until he resigned in 2017. In a letter to then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, Elizondo emphasized, “There remains a vital need to ascertain the capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”
Following his retirement, Elizondo became a prominent voice on UFO-related issues. He briefed his successors on the Pentagon’s crash retrieval program and named Harold E. Puthoff as the government’s chief scientist on alien matters for 50 years—a role that had remained unreported until the memoir. Puthoff, who holds a Stanford PhD, has also faced accusations of pseudoscience.
Puthoff supported Elizondo’s claims, stating, “He has briefed us on information that he obtained that appears to be firsthand data, and I have no reason to discount that. He certainly had clearances to get primary information.”
Elizondo’s assertions about government knowledge extending back to the 1940s go beyond what official agencies have acknowledged. While the CIA has declassified many documents detailing its UFO investigations from that period, their findings are generally inconclusive.
The Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which investigated 12,618 reported UFO sightings between 1947 and 1969, concluded, “There has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles.”
Despite such official statements, Elizondo remains convinced that extraterrestrial intelligence exists and poses significant implications for national security and humanity as a whole. His memoir seeks to shed light on his experiences and the broader scope of government knowledge on unexplained aerial phenomena.
“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand. We know we are not alone,” he reiterates in his book, urging for greater public understanding and official disclosure of what he and others have encountered.