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Luis Elizondo, a former investigator for the Department of Defense UFO program, says some of the newly released files contradict what NASA has been saying for years.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon released dozens of UFO files. The files, which date back almost 80 years, include several never-before-seen videos, photos and documents related to UFO sightings
Luis Elizondo, a whistleblower who worked for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a covert Pentagon UFO investigative program, has now weighed in on the documents and made some interesting claims.
For anyone who is wondering about AATIPs authenticity, here is documentation dated 2009 that clearly concerns AATIP and my participation early on. This memo was made by the program sponsor himself, senator Harry Reid. I’m not sure why there’s still a question about this? pic.twitter.com/c6e4Bf2Qit
— Lue Elizondo (@LueElizondo) May 18, 2026
“I was happy to see the Administration take this topic seriously and begin the process of increasing public transparency,” Elizondo told Los Angeles. “Although some of the information may seem less than what was expected, of particular significance were the lunar photos taken by NASA during the Apollo missions. For decades, NASA has said it had nothing related to UAP in its holdings, and we now know that was not accurate. Between photographs and audio recordings, it’s apparent that NASA does have some historical information regarding UAP.” (UAP stands for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena – the government’s new term for UFOs.)
Luis Elizondo’s previous claims about the U.S. government’s UFO program
In his book, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs, Elizondo spoke about the years in which the Pentagon tasked him with investigating reports of UFOs. One story he shared is that the U.S. government has a decades-long UFO crash retrieval program made up of government officials working with defense and aerospace contractors. He claims that the program has retrieved technology and biological remains of nonhuman origin.
He also claimed in his book that while working for the Pentagon his team figured out how to “trap” UFOs.
“We had a plan to set up a real big nuclear footprint, something we knew would be irresistible for these UAP,” he explained in a video. “And then once we started to see these UAP, the trap would be sprung.
“Congress is being briefed fairly routinely by whistleblowers, some of them have not been made public yet,” he continued. “New whistleblowers are ready to come out, provided they have the right legal protection.”
Also in his book, Elizondo expands on claims he has made, including one in which he says government officials retrieved “technology and biological objects” after the infamous Roswell crash of 1947.
“Our primitive EMP (electromagnetic pulse) device must have somehow disrupted their propulsion bubble, rendering them vulnerable,” he wrote, adding it was “like a 757 losing all power on its jet engines. Four deceased nonhuman bodies were in fact recovered from the 1947 Roswell crash.”
Luis Elizondo’s claims have not gone unchallenged, however. One egregious example occurred in 2024 when someone called his credibility into question during a presentation at a private event in Philadelphia. During his talk, he shared a photo of a UFO that experts swiftly debunked after discovering it was nothing more than a chandelier reflected in a window.