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Shortly before taking the stage Monday morning at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota to discuss his career as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, John Brennan paused backstage for a few questions from the press. Thirty-seven years in intel, his last four as President Obama’s CIA chief, 2013-17, Brennan had the ear of the president in 1994-95. That’s when he delivered Bill Clinton’s President’s Daily Brief. And this was the so-called Rockefeller Initiative era, when billionaire Laurance Rockefeller persistently lobbied Clinton’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to release all government documents on the UFO issue.

By Billy Cox De Void 1-22-18

Clinton left office without finding those documents, but former First Lady/former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attempted to make UFO transparency an issue during her 2016 presidential run. Last month, The New York Times broke the story about the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program, complete with F-18 pursuit videos and interviews with pilots and the project director, Luis Elizondo. The $22 million study was officially conducted between 2007 and 2012, but Elizondo said research is ongoing. The AATI program is said to have generated three dozen separate reports, none of which have been released.

Five years ago, same venue, Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series, Sarasota, Van Wezel, backstage, De Void grabbed a sound bite from one of Brennan’s predecessors, then-recently retired CIA director/Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Months earlier, the CIA’s ex-Hollywood image-spinner, a guy named Chase Brandon, had gone on record about finding a box in the CIA Historical Intelligence Collection crammed with official documentation of the alleged 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, N.M. Said he found it during the mid-1990s. Gates, a friend and colleague of Chase Brandon, declined to challenge Brandon’s story.

“As director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense,” Gates told De Void in 2013, “I think I have had every security clearance that there is available in the United States government. I first joined the government 46 years ago and I have never seen one shred of evidence or one report of any kind of UFO or remains or cadavers or anything.”

That said, here’s Brennan, the man who worked Gates’ old job until 2017, on the record today, when queried about the Pentagon AATI initiative. America’s spymaster was cordial and unblinking:

“I think over the past several decades there have been a number of phenomena that have been observed by pilots, both commercial pilots, both military pilots, that are basically unexplained. Maybe it’s the result of some type of atmospheric conditions or something else. And so I think the Pentagon rightly is trying to understand whether or not any of these phenomena have implications as far as national security is concerned. Some people refer to it as UFO, an unidentified flying object, it’s something that is observed but there is no determination about what its origin or provenance is.

“During the course of my career, both in the CIA as well as the White House, I was aware that there were endeavors to try to discern what some of these phenomena are.” Me: What did you learn? “That most of them remain unexplained. But that shouldn’t mean that we don’t continue to pursue it. And try to apply the latest technologies and the latest science to understand what may be going on.

“We know that a number of our adversaries continue to try to look for gaps and vulnerabilities in our national defense so anything that might take place in the air, in the atmosphere, is something that I think is rightly an area for pursuit on the part of our intelligence community and Defense Department.”

The schedule was tight. Onto the next question.

My kingdom for another five minutes …

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The former director of the Pentagon program dedicated to investigating possible sightings of UFOs explains in the importance of continuing with this type of program.

By W Radio 1-10-18 Transcribed By Dave Haith

W Radio: Mr Luis Elizondo, good morning and thank you very much for being with us at W radio.

I would like to ask you if you as an official at the Pentagon, had enough proof, or solid proof, that could lead you to believe that there's life outside of the Earth?

Luis Elizando: Thank you very much for having me on your program. What we looked at on our program was two fold - what was it and how it worked?

As a result of our analysis and ten years worth of study and information, leads us to believe that these phenomena are not from any one country that we know. So the question is, if they from outer space, or inner space or any space in between, that is a question that we still don't know, but we are fairly certain they're not from here.

W Radio: Mr Elizondo, why the Pentagon wanted to have a secret program watching the phenomena and these UFOs? Why wouldn't it publish this material this proof or this analysis that the Pentagon had?

Luis Elizando: I believe the answer is for two reasons. One, there is a tremendous social stigma or taboo against officially recognizing the phenomena and, two, I believe it is very difficult for any national security apparatus to have identified a problem or potential threat and not offer a solution. In this case you have phenomena that are in a certain air space. We do not know what it is, we do not know how it works, and there's nothing we can do about it. And that is a very uncomfortable topic for any government to have internally or externally.

W Radio: Mr Elizondo, from the phenomena and incidents that you knew when you were at this program, what was the one that really surprised you or the one that you said, ok this is what makes me believe that there's life outside of the Earth?

Luis Elizando: I think every day was a surprise. There was no one single incident. It was a slow steady flow of information coming in, either through eye-witness accounts or through radar or through video, that began to paint a very compelling picture for all of us.

I think furthermore for your listeners' understanding, we are talking about objects that can be sub-categorized in five different observables. Those observables include extreme maneuverability, hyper-sonic velocities, low observability, transmedium travel and, lastly, positive lift without any type of obvious signs of aerodynamics or thrust, or propulsion. These objects are displaying characteristics that far exceed anything we know currently in the world's inventory.

W Radio: Mr Elizando, regarding the name of the program at the Pentagon that you worked with, it is described as a 'threat', do you really think there is an actual threat from outer space to the Earth, to our planet?

Luis Elizando: I think in national security, we always have to assume anything can be a threat until we can prove it is not a threat.....as an example, we lock our doors and night, we turn on our alarm systems and we lock our windows because there is a potential there might be a threat. There probably won't be, but there might be.
In this particular case, if you can imagine waking up every morning and seeing muddy boot prints in your living room, every morning even though you've locked your doors and you've locked your windows and your alarm is on.

In this particular case, nothing is stolen from your house, nothing is missing, no-one is hurt but at the end of the day you still have muddy boot-prints that aren't yours in your house.

W Radio: Mr Elizando, I would like to ask your opinion around the possibility of this topic that these investigations and analysis, could be a main part of a President Trump administration or that this program could be re-opened in the near future?

Luis Elizando: Well, I think that's a very good question. We, in the office that I came from, are all apolitical, meaning we don't get paid to take sides, so whether it's Democrat or Republican or an Independent in office is really inconsequential for us, but our hope is that whoever is in office, whether it's Trump or it's anybody else, we'll look at the data and allow the data to speak for itself, then at that point, hopefully be able to increase funding and the necessary budget to continue the program in a far more robust manner.

I think it's important for you listeners to know the program never went away. The program was never officially disestablished. Parts of the funding may have ended in 2012 but then more funding came in 2013 but more importantly than that, is that the effort was never stopped, never halted. So the program continues to move forward and in my opinion, whoever's in charge, whoever is the President at the time, needs to allow the data to speak for itself and increase funding for additional research and analysis into the phenomena.

W Radio: Mr Elizando, there are two different scenarios: one is that life in outer space is possible and that it actually exists, and the other one, is that this different life that lives outside of Planet Earth might come to this planet and visit us. So this solid proof remains unknown for us to understand that this life really happens and they might come to Planet Earth. NASA hasn't even recognized this possibility.

Why, if you have observed that there is life at outer space, no-one including NASA has recognized it?

Luis Elizando: Well, keeping in mind that NASA has already recognized the possibility in fact they funded in part our SETI program. SETI is by definition Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and millions and millions of dollars were invested of US taxpayer money to build radio telescopes for exactly that purpose.

I would submit to you, if we are willing to invest millions of dollars on the off-chance we might hear a conversation somewhere in deep space, and here we have pilots who are in charge of multi-million dollar weapon systems with top secret clearances who are telling you they are seeing something right here, right now. I would submit to you, our money is probably better spent listening to the pilots and looking at the hard radar data, and looking at the videos, and trying to figure that out, instead of hoping that we might hear some conversation maybe ten million light years away.

NASA has already acknowledged the high degree of possibility that we are not alone in this universe.

I am not saying that what we are seeing here is necessarily outer space, or as I said before, or inner space or the space in between. I have my personal opinion. But if it's not from here, it's from somewhere else. The binary discussion of, is it from here, or is it from outer space from an alien or is it not - I'm not sure if that's even the right question because there's a lot of different scenarios and possibilities. I do not think it's an either/or question. I think there are several other options of the origins of what we're looking at.

W Radio: Mr Elizando, I would like to know your personal opinion about or around these UFOs might have for coming to Planet Earth or our planet - why would they want to do that?

Luis Elizando: All I can do is put this in a human context. So let's look at this question from the human perspective. Why does mankind do anything we do and why do we explore the horizons? Sometimes we explore the horizons for our sheer curiosity. It's in our DNA, it's in our genetics. Other times we explore to exploit - to take resources and to do something that is to our advantage as a species.

Other times we do it to study and to learn. There's many reasons why mankind goes... pushes the limits and goes beyond his horizon and it could well be the same thing for any other living organism out there.

Again I can only speak to the intentions looking at mankind and our history, why we do what we do.

There could be a whole range of reasons: they could be natural resources, it could be the fact that hydrogen is so abundant here in a very dense form with water, it could be to observe our evolution as a species, it could be reconnaissance, in some cases I've heard people say it could be what we refer to as preparation of the battlefield, you know, to determine if this planet we live on is something... that is something attractive for another species.

I can't answer that question very well, cos it's simply put - I just don't know. I think there's a whole, if you will, spectrum of reasons why something or someone should be interested in this planet. Why are we interested in Mars? Why are we interested in putting mankind on Mars? Why are we interested in putting human beings in outer space in space stations?

W Radio: Well Mr Luis Elizando thank you very much for being with us on W Radio. Have a good day.
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Seth Shostak took to his FaceBook page to do a one man stand-up show, performing his shtick last Thursday (1-18-18) and taking questions in the aftermath. For those who presumed that the revelation of a 5 year secret UFO investigation perpetrated by the

By Frank Warren The UFO Chronicles 1-21-18

Department of Defense, along with Navy pilots coming forward who engaged a UFO, supported by radar and FLIR video, would give Shostak pause re Ufology—it ain’t happenin’!

Shostak, in my view seemed only to have taken a cursory look at the reports surrounding the disclosure of the formerly secret UFO program. At one point he couldn’t recall what the acronym, AATIP (Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program) meant—the very subject of what he was addressing! If a university student gave such a presentation, he would have been given a failing grade.

Ironically, Shostak spoke a bit about arguments from ignorance ….
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When the famous 15th-century inventor and scientist Leonardo da Vinci examined petrified shells with borings in them long ago, he had a remarkable insight. The strange fossilized formations, he determined, were likely left behind by ancient organisms.

By Elizabeth Howell Seeker 7-12-17

Half a millennium later, this perspective is potentially useful in our search for alien life, argues a new paper that appears in Earth-Science Reviews, whose findings were recently presented at the European Astrobiology Network Association congress in the Netherlands.


In this latest study, Baucon and his colleagues attempt to explain the best way to find extra-terrestrial traces. One method could be looking for "meandering" trails and burrows, which is an efficient way for microorganisms to look for food. ...
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Astronomers say they have detected "strange signals" coming from the direction of a small, dim star located about 11 light-years from Earth.

By David Mosher Business Insider 7-15-17

Researchers picked up the mysterious signals on May 12 using the Arecibo Observatory, a huge radio telescope built inside of a Puerto Rican sinkhole.

The radio signals appear to be coming from Ross 128, a red dwarf star that's not yet known to have any planets and is about 2,800 times dimmer than the Sun.
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The first workshop of the new German SETI initiative recently convened in the southern town of Freiburg, with experts in fields ranging from social science to satellite imaging on hand to discuss how to advance the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life.

By Dirk Schulze-Makuch airspacemag.com 7-13-17

Michael Schetsche from the University of Freiburg started things off with a talk on the possible consequences of first contact with an extraterrestrial species, and how we might prepare for such an encounter. A symposium held at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. three years ago had a similar theme, but Schetsche’s talk focused more on contact with artificial intelligence or machine-based life.

Other talks had to do with SETA, the search for extraterrestrial artifacts, which will be one subject of future research by the German research network. Hakan Kayal from the University of Würzburg outlined today’s technical state of the art in detecting and identifying objects in space ....
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“When the Sumerians settled here, they knew full well that the atmosphere was suitable for flying to outer space. It was from here that the Sumerian spaceships took off towards the other planets.” (Credit: Ricardo Ricote Rodríguez Creative Commons License).

Iraqi Transport Minister Kazem Finjan held a press conference recently in the Dhi Qar district to announce the construction of a new airport. He included some rather startling statements: “Perhaps many of the people of the Dhi Qar Governorate do not know that the first airport to be built on planet Earth, 5,000 years ago, before the Christian era, was built here, in Dhi Qar.” “When the Sumerians settled here, they knew full well that the

By Lee Speigel The Huffington Post 10-13-16

atmosphere was suitable for flying to outer space. It was from here that the Sumerian spaceships took off towards the other planets.”

“The Sumerians were the first to discover the 12th planet, which was acknowledged by NASA, and named Nibiru, and which completes its orbit around the sun every 3,600 years.”

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In one of Carl Sagan's last books, he noted that astronomy has brought humanity to a series of "great demotions." Simply put: When we first observed the night sky, we thought the Earth was in the center of the universe. Over time, as he described in Pale Blue Dot, we

By Elizabeth Howell Space.com 7-14-16

tried out other theories as the criteria fit: Maybe the sun is at the center of the universe? Perhaps we're in an important part of the galaxy?

We now know the Earth is in the suburbs of the Milky Way, and our solar system is only special because we live in it, but this series of demotions shows us one thing: it's easy to project our image on to the universe. This is especially true when searching for life. Because there is only one case of life as we know it — life on Earth — it's easiest to look for life like ours. But in reality our kind of life may not be the most common type to look for after all.

A new paper in Astrobiology is asking the astronomy community to help the SETI Institute. (SETI stands for "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.") With more data on exoplanets coming in from the Kepler space telescope, and 50 years of space and SETI observations behind us, the hope is new tools can emerge to improve the search for life. ...
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Less than 70 miles from the provincial seat of Salta, between the communities of Cachi and La Poma, along Route 40, can be found a "Pleiadan base" whose occupants claim to be the embodiment of extraterrestrial beings from some distant corner of the universe.

By Inexplicata 3-16-16

Amid messages and entreaties to return to primitive simplicity, the residents claim having reached this northern Argentinean province to herald "the end of an evolutionary cycle".

Reaching this location is not easy, as the curious must first cross a set of gates and walk along meandering paths.

The homestead, little more than hills and blocks, is hidden in the vegetation. Upon arrival, a bell dangling from a post allows visitors to make their presence known.

There is little recorded material on the site, but in a recent interview, the "Pleiadans" welcomed a reporter with the following disquieting statement: "We were expecting you. Our brothers of light told us you would be coming."

According to the news media in Salta, there are over 30 "Pleiadan" communities and only two in that province: another in Cafayate and this one, in the Andean "puna", in a land that can only be used for walking and praying to the aliens.
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