Ever wondered why Lue Elizondo, self-described "torture czar" at Gitmo and "head of AATIP" (he wasn't; he was "head" of his own personal follow-on project that co-opted the name "AATIP" - the nickname for the official AAWSAP located at the DIA from 2008-2012 - probably so that he could draw narrative succor from the funded program and confuse people along the way about his actual role, with even Pentagon spokespeople finding it difficult to keep track of what these names were referring to or what Elizondo did in relation to them) hasn't received more pushback in the media? Here are some things that are likely contributing:
-- he got a head start with the imprimatur of respectability afforded to the overall UFO/UAP topic by the NYT's infamous 2017 article and later the DoD's confirmation that the now-famous UAP footages (Gimbal, Tic-Tac and Go-Fast) were genuine. Then 60 Minutes got in on it. I'm no media expert, but when the NYT, the DoD and 60 Minutes all air some measure of approval for at least the basic theme, that sends a powerful psychic signal to the public that "it's for real this time".
-- the many media mentions of him as "head of AATIP" (including, crucially, that NYT piece), which has solidified into a type of mantra or truism that is hardly questioned. Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post and Jason Colavito have provided push-back, as have Art Levine of The Washington Spectator, UFO-investigator and FOIA-document archivist John Greenewald Jr of The Black Vault, and skeptic and video analyst Mick West on his YouTube channel and website Metabunk, but their voices have been largely overwhelmed by the steady stream of adulation and pseudoscience emanating from countless clickbait outlets but also the more respectable establishments, who at least court Elizondo's claims and seemingly have a reticence toward really looking into his actual record and the veracity of his claims. West has provided a partial analysis of such claims as made in Elizondo's recently released book, Imminent. If they are anything to go by, then the rest of the book - which includes stories about psychic soldiers and UFOs flying through Elizondo's house - should be a premier specimen of pseudoscience, speculative masturbation, gaslighting and outright falsehood.
-- the media's possible treatment (maybe unconsciously) of the UFO/UAP topic as an arena for reconciliation that transcended politics at a time of deep political rift, just as in the Cold War the flying saucer acted as a symbol for unity and world peace during that time of danger (according to Carl Jung's analysis in Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky). This might act as a self-reinforcing loop, because while the UFO topic provides an arena for people across the political divide to come together, once they do, it then seems to "confirm" that there's really something to this UFO stuff after all - otherwise, why would these people who can't agree on anything say that it's real? Curiously, or tellingly, even though the UFO offers a window for political reconciliation, it is still embedded within a broader threat narrative, with the topic being treated in a manner that implies that the technology can be "captured" and weaponized, that the beings controlling the UAP might be hostile, and with right-wing and neo-fascist commentators like Tucker Carlson leaning into the topic to extract anti-government/the-government-isn't-protecting-us talking points. Elizondo himself has spoken of the UAP being a threat and of his "somber" reflections about what he's "learned". President Ronald Reagan, in a speech to the United Nations, once mused about how quickly we would give up our earthly differences if we were presented with a threat from another world. Though I ultimately disagree with her take on the ET hypothesis for UFOs/UAP, I recommend reading Jensine Andresen's work for commentary on how the topic is seen through an unhelpful militaristic lens.
-- the term "UAP", to my mind at least, sounds a bit more "sciencey" and slick than "UFO", which had taken on some unfortunate baggage and even ridicule over the decades.
-- the nature of television and media in general has changed radically since Carl Sagan's heyday as a public intellectual. Now we have a million "news outlets" offering their opinions, so even if Neil deGrasse Tyson does get around to dealing with UFOs (as he has on occasion, though not in as forceful a manner as he could), he'll likely be drowned out by an avalanche of other voices. Though I think her overall interpretation of UFOs is hopelessly off the mark, Diana Walsh Pasulka does raise many interesting points in her book American Cosmic, especially when she describes the "realist montage" of movies and websites that are made to look like documentaries or records of real events (a trend that really took off with the shaky-cam movie The Blair Witch Project), causing many people to conflate fiction with fact. It seems that a lot of social media and YouTube movies/documentaries (98% of which are outright trash) converge to create a giant realist montage in which people's senses are being continually bombarded and infused with themes and ideas that they assimilate as "fact". Allan Hendry described in his 1979 book The UFO Handbook how, in his own study that he detailed in that work, he came across many witnesses who volunteered elements of their stories that reflected elements of how UFOs "should" behave (acquired from mass media depictions) despite these witnesses professing to not to be at all familiar with the UFO topic. How much more pronounced must this infusion of ufological themes be now that every huckster and his grandmother is out to squeeze every drop of cash from this genre and has access to digital media and is operating in an abysmal epistemological climate?
-- the DoD's numerous contradictory statements regarding AASWAP/AATIP/Elizondo's duties made it seem like they had "something to hide", strengthening Elizondo's case that he retired because of official malfeasance around the UAP topic. While the DoD was contradictory and seemingly indifferent to public sentiment, Elizondo - former soldier - provided a face that the public could "trust" and that played to the underdog motif that Americans are so fond of. In this case, it was the brave serviceman who went up against a cynical bureaucracy/establishment to tell it like it is but was ignored and sanctioned but kept fighting for the public's right to know.
-- many in the media don't want to retract their prior endorsement of Elizondo's narrative because it would mean admitting that they got it wrong, so they keep going along with the sham, especially if it gains them access, all the better for more clickbait and viewer time.
-- the media's reluctance to seriously fact-check what they might otherwise count as a "human interest story" for fear of appearing "out of touch", but also in keeping with their somewhat schizophrenic treatment of the topic (see Hendry's chapter in his book, where he talks about the media climate in the 1970s). The UFO topic might be in a type of "holding pattern" with regard to the media, ready to be called upon on a slow news day, but otherwise more or less kept at arm's length.
-- Ross Coulthart and his exuberant promotion of the topic. I wonder if in some ways his own book, In Plain Sight, might have served as a sort of preamble to Elizondo's.
-- the "whistleblower" assist, with testimonies by David Fravor, Ryan Graves and David Grusch to Congress, providing another imprimatur of authenticity to the underlying theme that Elizondo is trying to concretize in his own terms. Importantly, Elizondo was who almost certainly the source for Grusch's adoption of the bogus Magenta UFO story.
I also recommend reading a multi-part series by Jeremy McGowan, member of the civilian research group UAPx and former associate of Elizondo. McGowan details his journey from his 1995 UFO sighting in Jordan all the way through the unpleasant and disturbing interactions he had with Elizondo.
Jeremy also has a very interesting article on his website about why space-faring extraterrestrials are likely to be benevolent (a theme that Andresen also explores at length in her books), a counter to the threat narrative so often tied up with the UAP topic. The general belief in hostile beings, by the way, relates to another fairly popular notion: that UFOs/"aliens" are specifically demonic. I would say this belief is even more unpleasant and dangerous than the hostile ET belief, especially as it pertains to mental health, and has an even greater potential to act as a vessel for anti-science attitudes and motifs (particularly among religious fundamentalists), and perhaps also greater potential to be exploited by the far-right. In a way, I think that the aliens-as-demons position is a type of hate speech. Just imagine that super-advanced ETs did in fact visit our planet, and that these beings were not only technologically and scientifically far more advanced than us but also spiritually and ethically more advanced - only for them to be greeted by xenophobic and petty humans looking for a reason to be prejudiced against anything that doesn't fit into their parochial and barbaric belief system derived from an ancient book.
For a quick rundown of why the ET/UFO cover-up story is harmful and dangerous, see this video, but here is an even quicker gist in case Tony Milligan's thick Scottish accent gets in the way: ancient aliens lore that undercuts the ingenuity and history of indigenous cultures; how the cover-up theme feeds into anti-government sentiments and current attacks on democratic institutions; people being distracted by fantasies instead of real issues and problems; and how the "disclosure" message could put pressure on the government to unveil sensitive military capabilities, thus helping our adversaries. Also check out this article by Milligan highlighting these points.
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Note: 1) Every text that appears in blue color leads to a video if you click on there.
2) We do not agree with all the concepts of Prof.Cayetano, but we totally agree on what he says about Elizondo, the complaisant and irrational attitude of the media, and the enormous quantity of videos produced every day about UFOs, which are trash. MWH
