Just two weeks ago, podcaster Lex Fridman asked former President Donald Trump if he’d “push the Pentagon to release more footage” of UFOs (or UAPs) if he’s reelected.

Trump responded: “I’d love to do that. I have to do that.”

Let me offer some unsolicited advice on this issue to POTUS 45, should he become POTUS 47: Please bring Luis Elizondo in for an Oval Office face-to-face.

The Author and His Motivation

“Lue” is the author of the new book Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs. He’s not a journalist or a crank. In fact, far from it: Elizondo was the head of the Department of Defense’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which investigated reports of Unidentified Flying Objects or, as they’re now known, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), for 12 years. Before that, he served in the Army, both in combat and counterintelligence positions, and in the Pentagon. He finally resigned in order to “do the right thing, by going public and revealing the truth about UAP to the American people.”

What is that truth? There seem to be objects or craft operating in Earth’s orbit, atmosphere, and bodies of water, exhibiting technology far beyond what we possess.

Elizondo calls these the six observables: hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, transmedium travel, antigravity, and biological effects. In other words: UAPs are super fast, can get to incredibly high speeds instantly, are often hard to detect or see, travel easily thorough a vacuum, air, or water, have no discernible means of propulsion, and often cause harm (whether intentionally or not) to humans who get close to them.

Still channeling Dana Scully? See three declassified government UAP videos, which Elizondo was instrumental in making public.

A Global Phenomenon

The author describes many other UAP encounters which he knows of, both by American and foreign observers (reminding readers that he’s not revealing classified info).

For instance, there were the “foo fighters” trailing Allied aircraft in World War II. Brazil was swarmed by UFOS in the 1970s, making many people sick. UAPs also were spotted in the Congo, Italy (15,000 “events” since 1901), the UK, the USSR, and many other locales.

In the US, besides the famous 1947 Roswell incident, Elizondo mentions the credibility of the following encounters: the July 1952 “UFO” outbreak in Washington DC; policeman Lonnie Zamora’s 1964 UAP sighting in Socorro, New Mexico; incidents in Michigan in both 1966 and 1981; and others.

UAPs seem particularly attracted to nuclear weapons and energy facilities, both here and abroad — which is very troubling. There are even instances of UAPs turning off our nuclear missiles.

What Might They Want?

Elizondo lays out three possible approaches these “out of town” visitors might take:

1. They’re benevolent and just use our planet as a “galactic way station,” or hope to keep us from destroying ourselves.
2. They’re neutral, and don’t care for us one way or another.
3. They’re hostile, here to take our natural resources (primarily water) and “will show up in vast numbers in the future.”

He fears that last one is the main reason, since “to a guy grounded in the reality of war, everything we have seen thus far looks a lot like (initial preparation of the battlefield). Elizondo goes on:

They have made ceaseless visits to our plane of existence since antiquity, with more recent visits since the dawn of the twentieth century. They have tested themselves against our aircraft. They have meddled with our [intercontinental ballistic missiles], turning them both on and off. At Colares [Brazil] they intentionally enacted a hostile program against humans…. there are certainly no shortage of reports of abductions, subcutaneous implantation of devices, and livestock mutilations. We have evidence that strongly suggests they are interested in our military capabilities and our nuclear technology. Everything I mentioned is what a superior culture might consider doing if they were conducting a long-range reconnaissance.

But how has our government treated this potential existential threat? With neglect, denial and obfuscation.

In fact, a major facet of Project Blue Book for decades was to bully, stigmatize, and threaten UFO witnesses into silence. Despite the UAP videos, in late 2022, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall III, said he had “real threats to worry about” regarding UAP.

The Air Force, since at least 1947, has been the main government entity stonewalling on alien craft, says Elizondo — assisted by the intelligence agencies and defense contractors under something called the “Legacy” program, who hide their possession not only of alien craft but extraterrestrial bodies. He likens this to the native Americans downplaying the arrival of those strange Europeans with boomsticks in the early 16th century (about which I’ve written as well).

Bipartisan Push

Thanks to the efforts of Elizondo and like-minded government officials, helped by politicians like the late Senator Harry Reid and current Senator Marco Rubio, Congress has begun to reassert itself against the entrenched mendacity of the military-industrial complex. We now have hearings on UAP/UFOs, and legislation that mandates annual unclassified reports on the topic by a new entity: the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

Whether the Deep State will honor Congress’ directives remains, of course, uncertain. But it presents another possible reason to vote for Trump, who has promised to bring more info on this topic to light.

Elizondo comes across as knowledgeable, focused, sincere and bipartisan. He does, however, mistrust Christian evangelicals in government — “religious fundamentalists” whom he says comprise an elite group opposed to investigating UAP. Why?

Because extraterrestrians are demons, as one member told him directly. While this is a view some conservative Christians hold — Orthodox, as well as evangelicals — I find it highly unlikely.

There is much more in Elizondo’s book: painful details about navigating the paths of Pentagon power and avoiding being knifed in the back in the process; fascinating speculation about how UAP power their craft and are able to perform their almost-miraculous maneuvers; ways we might be able to actually fight them.

Even if you don’t want to believe UAP are real, you might after reading this book. If they are powered by aliens, hopefully they’re more like David Bowie’s Starman and not Ozzy Osbourne’s Scary Little Green Men.

Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.