Dark Journalist - TO THE STARS AATIP CIA UFO DISCLOSURE: ELIZONDO & DELONGE! DARK JOURNALIST & JOHN GREENEWALD Aired: 2019-04-28 Duration: 52:16 === CIA's UFO File Takeover (03:37) === [00:00:20] Hi, this is Dark Journalist. [00:00:21] Today I have a special show for you on the CIA takeover of the UFO file narrative. [00:00:26] Our special guest is John Greenwald from the Black Vault. [00:00:29] Now, John has been tracking the statements put on the public record by the To the Stars Academy, or TTSA, and its founders, former senior intelligence agent Louis Elizondo and ex Blink 182 singer Tom DeLong. [00:00:42] Now, John has constructed an in depth timeline of obfuscation, inconsistencies, and outright falsehoods in the TTSA's narrative about the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program. [00:00:54] Or ATIP. [00:00:55] With its top tier dominated by CIA officials, the question must be asked is the TTSA just a new government front in the war on truth and the UFO file? [00:01:05] Let's go ask John Greenwald. [00:01:13] John, it's great to have you here for our in depth discussion on the TTSA and the UFO file. [00:01:19] Now, before we get started, I know you have a new book out on the Black Vault and the work that you've been doing for the past two decades. [00:01:25] Can you tell us a little bit about it? [00:01:27] This is my first big release. [00:01:29] I mean, this is very, very cool. [00:01:32] It was highlighted in a big UK book exposition that they had over there, and Roman and Littlefield profiled. [00:01:40] I think there was a total of 10 books. [00:01:43] Out of the hundreds and hundreds that they have. [00:01:46] And mine was on all of their media and big graphics and stuff like that. [00:01:51] And then even in their catalog, when they started listing books, I'm on the first page. [00:01:56] So they, and again, the catalog is 60 plus pages of book after book after book. [00:02:03] And for them, again, to put that kind of backing and belief in it for this topic is huge. [00:02:09] Oh, yeah. [00:02:09] We can definitely observe a sea change taking place there. [00:02:12] Now, your site, theblackvault.com, is an excellent resource for documents. [00:02:18] And has actually been cited by major news organizations in connection with various UFO stories. [00:02:23] They've also used it for things like MKUltra research docs to support these breaking stories as well. [00:02:31] Yeah, I mean, UFOs obviously has always been the most popular topic, but the Black Vault doesn't only deal with that. [00:02:37] And in December of 2018, quite a bit of media publicity came about for documents that I got on MKUltra and the MKUltra experiments. [00:02:47] Well, it's amazing. [00:02:48] This program, so well hidden by the CIA, Which then Director Helms admitted to destroying the files on was truly inhuman with psychological torture and programming of individuals. [00:03:00] You know, it's one of the darkest chapters in American history, and the CIA continues to block access to that information now, right up to the present day. [00:03:10] Yeah, it was quite a revelation for me because it shows the lengths, even though I already knew this, but it shows the lengths that agencies like the CIA will go to to cover everything up. [00:03:22] Yes. [00:03:22] You know, and they will tell you things that are blatantly not true. [00:03:26] Well, with the CIA, that's exactly what we've seen repeatedly this deceptive pattern. [00:03:31] And that leads us into everything that's been going on around the UFO file, and in particular, the To the Stars Academy, or TTSA, where the CIA actually is out front taking a lead role in this corporation. [00:03:45] And former CIA people are literally at the top tier ranks of this organization. [00:03:52] Now, you've done some breakthrough research here that's very revealing. [00:03:55] You've created a detailed timeline. === The Truth About TTSA (11:23) === [00:03:58] Of the ATIP program. [00:03:59] That's the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, so touted by TTSA and run by one of its founders, Senior Counterintelligence Agent Louis Elizondo. [00:04:11] Yeah. [00:04:11] Now, just a brief outline here. [00:04:13] TTSA is something that Tom DeLong, the former Blink 182 singer, founded along with Louis Elizondo, former intelligence officer. [00:04:22] With the idea being that a bunch of CIA spooks and Lockheed Martin guys are going to make UFO disclosure Easy as pie. [00:04:30] And they have entertainment divisions for TV shows, and they raised over $2 million in a stock sale. [00:04:35] And they came out with a major announcement introducing the corporation in October 2017. [00:04:41] That's correct, yeah. [00:04:42] Now, initially, as I understand it, you were very enthusiastic and very open minded about what they were claiming they were going to do. [00:04:49] Yeah. [00:04:49] But this ATIP program that Elizondo claimed to be in charge of, and which was revealed by an article in the New York Times on December 16th, 2017, many inconsistencies arose almost immediately about this ATIP program, with conflicting statements by the TTSA and their associates. [00:05:08] To the point where now you've said that ATIP is, in terms of actual facts, only a rumored UFO program. [00:05:18] Yeah. [00:05:19] Yeah. [00:05:20] Just to give a quick background, you're absolutely right. [00:05:22] I was encouraged. [00:05:23] I was enthused by the October press conference. [00:05:29] Not because I wanted to be an investor in TTSA. [00:05:31] That part actually wasn't of interest to me. [00:05:33] It was, and I wanted to follow it. [00:05:35] But I mean, I didn't really care to say, I'm going to give the $200 to be a stockholder, which is what they were looking for. [00:05:42] They put a man up there, Luis Elizondo, who said that he had headed this unidentified aerospace threat program, I believe, is what his original. [00:05:53] Quote was. [00:05:54] He never said ATIP in October of 2017, never gave the definition of the acronym. [00:05:59] It was just a rough overview of what this threat identification program was. [00:06:05] So I had, in October of 2017, filed FOIA requests, being very encouraged that I might find something that supported what Mr. Elizondo was saying. [00:06:16] Quite the contrary, I was given denials that the agency that Mr. Elizondo said he worked at said, No, we have nothing on a program like that. [00:06:27] Now, some people, and here's, let me address this up front. [00:06:31] Some skeptics out there say, well, you didn't have the name, you just said it yourself. [00:06:34] And you're absolutely right. [00:06:36] What I did was I used the testimony and the descriptions from Mr. Elizondo himself, citing him by name, saying, this is how he described the program. [00:06:47] So the way the FOIA works is it really kind of doesn't matter when you have that in depth detail from somebody who worked on the program. [00:06:56] But let's give it the benefit of the doubt that that's why they gave no records. [00:07:02] I don't believe it. [00:07:03] That's not how the FOIA works, but let's move on. [00:07:06] December 2017, New York Times, Politico, Avalanche of Media Publicity started talking about this ATIP program, which was the same thing Mr. Elizondo talked about in October. [00:07:17] Now we have a name. [00:07:18] So I had filed an appeal saying, hey, look, now we have a name. [00:07:23] Let's search for records. [00:07:26] So I'll put a pin in that story. [00:07:27] Story right there. [00:07:29] At the same time, I was working on a History Channel show. [00:07:31] I work as a writer, producer, and director, janitor, whatever comes my way. [00:07:36] And so I was able to pick up the telephone and call the public affairs office. [00:07:41] And so when I asked them about this, you know, advanced, what at first was reported as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, or excuse me, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, she corrected me and she says, no, no, no, it's aviation. [00:07:56] So it's Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. [00:07:59] That started. [00:08:00] In my mind, like, why are these discrepancies there? [00:08:03] Like, I mean, it's a simple name. [00:08:06] I couldn't figure that part out. [00:08:08] And it had kind of snowballed into much more of a debate than I think was worthy. [00:08:17] There were many more pressing issues in my mind that came up. [00:08:21] But that started dialogue between me and the Office of Secretary of Defense trying to unravel what Mr. Elizondo was saying and what the Pentagon was saying. [00:08:30] And as the months unfolded and the FOIA responses were coming in, Nothing was matching up. [00:08:36] That no records response stood until about three weeks ago, and I won that appeal. [00:08:43] It took that long to win the appeal. [00:08:45] And that's a big victory, no matter what your thoughts are on ATIP. [00:08:49] But that being said, the Office of Secretary of Defense said anything related to the ATIP program is under the Defense Intelligence Agency or the DIA. [00:09:02] They're the ones that will release everything. [00:09:05] And so there have been thousands of FOIA requests that are in the backlog of the DIA. [00:09:11] So sadly, there is a huge delay in getting documents. [00:09:16] And so it's a little bit of a waiting game at this point on whether or not this is truly a UFO program or not. [00:09:26] But I will say that the Pentagon, despite the name debacle, because the DIA gives one name, the Pentagon gives another name again, that second word aviation versus aerospace. [00:09:37] So we have a discrepancy there, which again is very, very small. [00:09:41] The bigger question is whether or not this program was truly what Mr. Elizondo said it was. [00:09:48] If it's being embellished wildly, or if possibly there are UFO aspects to it, but not because of the government, but rather the private contractor through Bigelow Aerospace's Bass LLC that actually won the contract. [00:10:05] So there is a lot to unravel here. [00:10:08] And for Tom DeLong, Luis Elizondo, them saying that they were cleared to talk about this, and people on the inside want us to know, on the surface, that sounds great. [00:10:21] When you scratch underneath the surface, all of a sudden you get this wildly different story and denial, not only through the Freedom of Information Act, but also the public affairs offices, that that's not the reality of it. [00:10:35] So is the government lying? [00:10:37] Possibly. [00:10:38] Is Mr. Elizondo lying? [00:10:40] Possibly. [00:10:41] But there are too many people at this point that are just doing what I call blind allegiance or blind belief into something that potentially is not 100% of the story. [00:10:52] So, not to babble on too long, but what I did is I created a timeline and I tried to make sense out of all of the various speeches, lectures, press statements, and so on, primarily from the Starz Academy. [00:11:06] But I do add in the few trickles of information that's come from the government and put it all on a timeline. [00:11:14] And it is an absolute mess. [00:11:17] You could take the government out of the equation 100%. [00:11:19] Just ignore everything that the government said and use only Mr. Luis Elizondo. [00:11:26] Dr. Hal Putoff. [00:11:29] I don't use outside of that with To the Stars Academy simply because those are the two names that were directly involved with the program and the media. [00:11:37] And the media outlets that I only used were the direct contacts with Mr. Elizondo and Dr. Putoff, meaning these were the journalists that were working directly with the people that worked on ATIP and it's still a mess. [00:11:52] Wow. [00:11:53] So my question is how can this be so mucked up in this muddy watered mess? [00:12:00] On whether or not this was a UFO program or not. [00:12:02] Their own stories don't line up. [00:12:04] Never mind. [00:12:05] Not at all. [00:12:05] Yeah. [00:12:07] And it's not just semantics because some might say, well, if they're just recollecting a story, it might be a memory lapse. [00:12:13] I'm talking about hardcore facts on the basic objectives of what ATIP was, when the name was created, when the project started. [00:12:24] I mean, when you've got two people that work on the same exact project and they work together in the private sector and they're asking you for your money so they can. [00:12:35] Invest in space planes and take the next step with UFO research, which is great. [00:12:40] I wish them all the best of luck. [00:12:42] But when you are doing that and you can't get your story to align, in my opinion, that's a huge issue. [00:12:49] And that's something that we need to address. [00:12:52] Might be easy answers. [00:12:53] I've always been open to that. [00:12:55] But they won't talk to me and they won't answer the tough questions. [00:12:59] Yeah, they won't answer the tough questions. [00:13:01] And in many cases, journalists in the UFO field or around the alternative research field aren't putting tough questions to them. [00:13:09] As a matter of fact, one of the co hosts. [00:13:13] For Coast to Coast, he was saying that he had talked to DeLong and that DeLong said, Yeah, I'll come on, but I'm not going to address any of the controversies. [00:13:22] He called it drama. [00:13:24] Drama was his word, yes. [00:13:25] Yeah, so that is, I don't want to answer things that will make me look like a liar. [00:13:30] That's the way I read that. [00:13:31] But I will say this about Elizondo that fundamentally what I got, and I have your timeline here and I want to go through it, but fundamentally what I got from this was literally the only person. [00:13:44] Who basically the only evidence that we have that ATIP was a UFO program is just Elizondo saying that it was. [00:13:53] At this point, yes. [00:13:55] I'll be fair here. [00:13:56] Dr. Putoff has supported it, and he was a contractor with Bass LLC. [00:14:02] And you can pick apart what Senator Harry Reid has said about UFOs versus unidentified threats. [00:14:09] So I want to be fair in the sense that it's not necessarily just Mr. Elizondo, but I think that. [00:14:16] With Senator Reid, you can kind of argue both ways on what he is actually saying. [00:14:24] And he adds a very, I'm sure we'll get into this, but he adds a really interesting and sometimes a very bizarre twist to the timeline on how he describes how ATIP was kind of how ATIP came about with his connection with Bigelow and so on. [00:14:42] And it's not popular to say with some of the UFO community that, hey, look, Bigelow Aerospace is located in Nevada. [00:14:49] Senator Harry Reid, when he was senator at the time, is senator of Nevada. [00:14:54] He spearheaded, along with two other senators, both of which have passed away, to get the funding for this. [00:15:00] And the winning bidder was Bigelow Aerospace. [00:15:04] Now, I'm sorry, you cannot get away from asking the question hey, was there a good guy deal here? [00:15:11] And this is such a pressing question that Mr. George Knapp, investigative journalist from Las Vegas, directly asked Senator Harry Reid. === Bigelow Aerospace Contract Deal (05:02) === [00:15:21] To address it, it was addressed in multiple stories. [00:15:25] And in multiple stories from the same media outlet talking to the same exact person, Senator Harry Reid, we get at least two different versions of the story and how long the bidding process took place. [00:15:39] Now, George Knapp is a friend of mine. [00:15:41] I do not mean that disrespectfully. [00:15:43] I'm not trying to attack him, but we have to look at what we are being told and what the actual reality is. [00:15:51] And when it doesn't match up, we have to ask ourselves what happened. [00:15:54] I received confirmation from the Defense Intelligence Agency that there was only one bidder for the ATIP contract. [00:16:01] And let me rephrase that. [00:16:03] ATIP was first published as AWSAP, A A W S AP, or the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications Program. [00:16:11] Say that five times fast. [00:16:13] And so that was the original contract that morphed into ATIP. [00:16:17] That was never originally reported, right? [00:16:20] But this is key because it goes to the top of the timeline. [00:16:23] And I'm not trying to jump ahead, but it's key because it goes to the top of the timeline. [00:16:29] On the New York Times story, saying that they saw ATIP contracts that supported their story. [00:16:35] They never published them, but they said that they used them. [00:16:38] The problem is, there's no such thing as an ATIP contract. [00:16:41] It was OSAP. [00:16:43] So, for the New York Times to just glom over that detail and not care to report it, that could be cured with one single line, but it's appropriate for the history because OSAP was this, ATIP was this on UFOs, according to Mr. Elizondo. [00:16:59] So, why would they not say that if they saw the contracts? [00:17:03] And that therein lies a lot of questions. [00:17:05] It seems to me that Elizondo is also glommed. [00:17:08] Around this OSAP issue. [00:17:10] So he's made some misstatements on it. [00:17:12] The article that you're talking about is Leslie Kane, Ralph Blumenthal. [00:17:18] But there's an editorial. [00:17:19] Who is the third person? [00:17:21] Helene Cooper. [00:17:22] Helene Cooper. [00:17:23] And so, you know, I've worked in newsrooms before. [00:17:28] I mean, there's a very robust editorial thing, and then you have to submit it to a publisher, and the publisher has to know that the facts are taken care of, et cetera. [00:17:36] So they obviously, somewhere along the line, skirted. [00:17:39] The normal verification process because a lot of those facts weren't verified. [00:17:44] And like you said, ATIP didn't even exist when they said it did. [00:17:49] Yeah. [00:17:50] And that was a very hard point when I created the timeline, which was the first point on the start of ATIP. [00:17:57] Because if you listen to the New York Times dealing with Mr. Elizondo as a primary source, it was 2007. [00:18:03] If you listen to Mr. Elizondo in his speeches, it was 2008. [00:18:07] If you listen to Mr. Elizondo in another interview, he gives a broad statement and says, ah, 2007, 2008. [00:18:14] I'm paraphrasing there, but he did say 2007, 2008. [00:18:17] So when you're talking about those types of discrepancies, some might say, well, who cares if it was 2007 or 2008? [00:18:24] But it actually does matter because when you actually go to the contract, what they call a bid solicitation notice, and that means that the United States government, when they take in bids, they post a bid solicitation notice, which now we know was OSAP. [00:18:38] That's how they solicited bids. [00:18:40] So what was going on in 2007 when it wasn't until late in 2008? [00:18:46] That OSAP's bid solicitation notice was posted online, which yielded one single response, and that was it. [00:18:54] Which is absurd, of course, because in a normal process, you're going to have at least 10, 15 contractors trying to bid for the project. [00:19:02] So it definitely looks like a giveaway to Bigelow for some reason, and probably because he's the preferred guy. [00:19:10] Now, it is interesting because Inaway and Stevens aren't around to talk about this. [00:19:15] Stevens died in a plane crash and Inaway passed away. [00:19:19] So, that part is unusual too that we only have Reed as the source for the senatorial side. [00:19:25] So, going deeper with that, we don't really have anything beyond Reed. [00:19:31] Right. [00:19:32] And that may play a role in, again, I hate to make the accusation, but as an investigator, I'll say up front you have to look at all the possibilities and rule them out when the evidence presents itself. [00:19:43] And it still is a possibility that Senator Reed is vying for additional research because who will get the contract? [00:19:50] His great state of Nevada. [00:19:52] And potentially Bigelow Aerospace or one of his subsidiaries that he created just for this. [00:19:57] No, it's unavoidable. [00:19:59] It's unavoidable. [00:19:59] It really is. [00:20:01] And the evidence has to be there. [00:20:02] And on the timeline, one more thing about Bass very quickly is the fact that it was reported in the media that Bass, again, that subsidiary, the LLC under Bigelow Aerospace that was created as reported by the media specifically for the ATIP contract, another misreported. [00:20:22] But that LLC. === Suspicious January LLC Timing (05:30) === [00:20:24] Was formed in January of that same year. [00:20:28] Bids were not posted until August. [00:20:30] So, how did he have knowledge to create an LLC if that media report was right? [00:20:36] How did he have foreknowledge to say, I'm going to create an LLC and come August, I'm going to be that bidder that goes after that contract? [00:20:44] I mean, that's silly. [00:20:46] And so, what are we dealing with? [00:20:48] Are we dealing with misreporting? [00:20:49] That's acceptable. [00:20:50] That's fine. [00:20:51] There should be a correction because that's an unfair thing to have floating out there. [00:20:56] If it's not misreported, meaning Bigelow started Bass to handle this contract, how did he know in January of that year? [00:21:06] How did he have inside information about it? [00:21:09] I can't rule it out. [00:21:10] I don't want to make the accusation, but the documentation using the, I believe it's the Secretary of State of Nevada, it doesn't lie. [00:21:19] I mean, the filings were there in January, so that's problematic. [00:21:24] Before we break into this timeline, which I want to do actually because I'm going to show it for viewers, but the general milieu of UFO investigating and reporting, particularly just the media outlets around it, On the independent side, nobody seems to have taken it further and really spotlighted these issues. [00:21:51] It seems to me they've all been like, you know, from Open Minds to Coast to everybody else, they've all been like falling down at the feet of this story and promoting it and all the rest. [00:22:02] But there's not been a lot of good journalism on it, let's face it. [00:22:06] You're right. [00:22:08] I don't believe there has. [00:22:10] And I think that that's unfortunate because it deserves attention. [00:22:13] If this really is what Mr. Elizondo says that it is, I am 100% hoorah, give it a spotlight, front page stories, you know, from coast to coast around the globe. [00:22:25] Sadly, though, you don't see those follow ups, and that begs to ask yet another question Was the December 2017 avalanche of media publicity a mistake? [00:22:37] Was it based on something that wasn't really real? [00:22:40] Now, let's both remove ourselves from the UFO community and our desire for this to be real or not real, whatever our ideas are. [00:22:51] Let's remove ourselves from that. [00:22:53] In the media world, clicks, hits, and traffic is the absolute top priority because that results in dollars. [00:23:01] We all know that print media is dead. [00:23:03] It's all about dot coms. [00:23:05] I don't know at what rank the New York Times story is on their overall traffic. [00:23:12] I would bet, though, it's either number one or very close to the top with the amount of attention that that story has received on the New York Times website. [00:23:21] Now, what's my point? [00:23:22] You want to bank on that. [00:23:24] Right. [00:23:24] You want to make sure that you do follow up stories, spotlights. [00:23:29] Let's do more. [00:23:30] Let's just keep banging these stories out as much as we can to keep that traffic and the interest going because it generated hits for them. [00:23:39] The fact that they haven't done really anything since then, they did a Project Blue Book story. [00:23:44] I believe it was January of this year. [00:23:47] I think it was. [00:23:49] That's great. [00:23:50] But it was mostly, you know, publicizing Blue Book and the series on history. [00:23:53] It was kind of milquetoast. [00:23:54] Yeah. [00:23:55] I mean, sure. [00:23:56] And so, okay, that has nothing to do with it. [00:23:59] I think they made callbacks to ATIP or whatever. [00:24:01] I don't really recall the content of the whole article, but it was more fluff for let's publicize the History Channel and get some UFO clicks. [00:24:08] But the fact that they haven't pushed for answers, that they're not on the phone with the Pentagon, why would the Pentagon give me a different name than the Defense Intelligence Agency? [00:24:18] That discrepancy is important. [00:24:20] Again, it's not popular for some people. [00:24:22] I am often attacked by what I call the TTSA superfans. [00:24:26] Yes. [00:24:27] That if you say anything against their organization that they are involved in, you're the heathen of the UFO community. [00:24:37] And that's the kind of cult like behavior that has no place when you're trying to get out of the UFO. [00:24:41] I'm glad you said it. [00:24:42] I tried to say it. [00:24:43] But it is cult like behavior, not by TTSA. [00:24:46] I want to be fair here. [00:24:47] I don't believe it's their cause. [00:24:49] But there are some followers of that organization that are definitely cult like. [00:24:55] And if you say something or ask a question, like I've never been accusatory. [00:24:59] But if you ask a question that goes against the line of the day, what they want to believe, they will come after your jugular so fast because they don't want you to hurt that movement. [00:25:12] And it begs the question are these really followers and fans, and they're so passionate about TTSA and what they're doing and so on, that they will attack anybody asking important questions? [00:25:25] Or is this a paid marketing effort? [00:25:29] And we know that that happens, as conspiratorial as that sounds. [00:25:33] We know that politicians are doing it. [00:25:35] They go in, they stir the pot, they hire these social network gurus, they get dialogue going on posts and this and that. [00:25:41] Oh, they have PR firms working TTSA completely. [00:25:45] DeLong has his own. [00:25:47] I've been contacted by DeLong's PR agency as far back as 2016. [00:25:52] So there's no question that they have him out there working it. === PR Firms Stirring the Pot (15:26) === [00:25:55] Yeah. [00:25:55] Yeah. [00:25:56] For the book or for TTSA as a whole? [00:25:59] No, it was for his book, The Secret Machines, back in the day. [00:26:03] Yeah. [00:26:03] Gotcha. [00:26:04] But it is interesting. [00:26:06] And my feeling was that's just like a traditional marketing PR company, they're just going to push a particular thing. [00:26:12] But there's no question now when you're in PR, you're thinking about Twitter responses, you're thinking about YouTube responses. [00:26:19] It's like when you have a book out and you have to make sure you have enough good reviews on Amazon. [00:26:23] And those PR companies look into that. [00:26:24] There's no question about it. [00:26:26] Yeah. [00:26:27] So you're absolutely right. [00:26:28] You have to always wonder who are you dealing with when you're having those social media tussles. [00:26:33] But whenever there's a big pounce, You know, on a particular thing, so that a narrative can't get rolling that's about investigative journalism, you know there's a problem. [00:26:42] Yeah. [00:26:42] No question about it. [00:26:43] And you've had that problem, and you faced it down quite well because you've been trying to get at the truth about this. [00:26:50] The timeline itself very much speaks for itself, and there's so many questions that it raises that I think it's good for people to really. [00:27:00] First of all, I'm going to direct them to where it is, which is it's at the Black Vault, and I'll put the link in the description. [00:27:07] But I think it is important to follow along. [00:27:09] But I'm just going to pick out a few choice moments here in there. [00:27:15] The initial one at the very top, which is the actual New York Times article, the quote that you use is The shadowy program, parts of it remain classified, began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, who was the senator, as we said, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader. [00:27:37] That's another point, which is This isn't some low level senator. [00:27:40] I mean, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, LBJ, these are people who have immense power. [00:27:47] So that's a little bit different than just a senator from a state trying to get contracts. [00:27:52] He has a much bigger stick to wield. [00:27:54] But anyway, back to the quote It was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate Majority Leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. [00:28:08] And then you came back with the problem. [00:28:10] This contradicts the timeline that Mr. Luis Elizondo set up that the OSAP contact program was renamed ATIP in 2008, not 2007. [00:28:22] Mr. Elizondo was at least one of the sources used by the New York Times for the facts, but it contradicts his later statements that ATIP started in 2008 and was quoted as saying, ATIP evolved from OSAP, but it is not OSAP. [00:28:43] See below for additional details. [00:28:45] Yeah. [00:28:46] So that is really fundamental because we're talking about the actual describing the genesis of the program. [00:28:53] And the genesis of the program is way off in terms of factual detail. [00:28:59] That's absolutely right. [00:29:00] And the New York Times reported it as a start date of 2007. [00:29:04] And the source that I used to contradict it, Mr. Luis Elizondo, who was a prime source for that story, I don't know firsthand, so I can't say sole source. [00:29:15] So if they had other sources, that's fine. [00:29:17] But now let's rank those sources, whomever they might be. [00:29:21] You have Mr. Luis Elizondo as the head of the program. [00:29:24] You kind of can't get higher than that unless you're talking to the Secretary of Defense. [00:29:27] Right. [00:29:28] Highly doubt that that's who they were talking to. [00:29:31] So, needless to say, I believe that that would probably be the most important source. [00:29:35] Yet, the source, excuse me, the reference then that I used for Mr. Luis Elizondo was a later lecture after December 2017 when he was lecturing. [00:29:46] He made a definitive point. [00:29:49] To say that OSAP was not ATIP and that ATIP was morphed from OSAP, but in 2008. [00:29:59] And why that's important is the fact that that is not what was reported at the time. [00:30:06] And to just kind of change the story, you have to ask okay, did the New York Times really just not care? [00:30:13] Did they not do the research? [00:30:15] Did you tell them erroneous information? [00:30:17] All of those questions are very important to ask. [00:30:19] Because if it's the media, well, then the New York Times should be publishing a correction. [00:30:25] It is important. [00:30:26] Because if they're right and it was 2007, then that contract was awarded to LLC in Nevada by the Senate majority leader a year before they solicited bids. [00:30:38] So, like it or not, that has to be a very important note because those type of good guy behind the closed doors deals, we know they happen, but they're not supposed to happen. [00:30:53] And the fact that they have addressed it directly and said, no, no, there's no way that this was a sweetheart deal. [00:30:59] We posted a solicitation for bids and Bigelow won it. [00:31:06] I just don't see that that's not an important question to ask, given that here we are just at the genesis of the program and we can't figure out what the reality is. [00:31:16] Fascinating. [00:31:17] So, complete contradiction there between OSAP and ATIP and the statements about it. [00:31:24] And the dates and awarding the contract to Bigelow. [00:31:29] Talk briefly about Bigelow. [00:31:32] Bigelow, Robert Bigelow, with Bigelow Aerospace, one of the main things they want to do is set up hotels in space. [00:31:39] They're about space tourism in some sense in competition with people like Richard Branson. [00:31:47] But he has a lifelong trail of being interested in the subject of UFOs. [00:31:52] I know I've spoken to people that he's approached before, like Linda Moulton Howe, to join his organization, et cetera. [00:31:58] That didn't happen. [00:32:00] But I've gotten some feel for the background story there on him. [00:32:05] The presence of this billionaire aerospace developer on the commercial side in this story, does that bother you? [00:32:14] I'm not sure because it goes to the root of what OSAP was that was awarded to him as a contractor. [00:32:21] Keep in mind that the New York Times did give out details that I don't really even think Mr. Elizondo has directly addressed, meaning these mysterious medals. [00:32:31] Now, TTSA has, but when it comes to ATIP and these specially designed. [00:32:37] Hangers and buildings that were created just for this, as the New York Times reported. [00:32:42] To house metamaterials. [00:32:44] Right, to house metamaterials. [00:32:47] And I don't know what to think of that because I think that the metamaterials angle of this story is largely being embellished. [00:32:57] I mean, I can show you thousands of pages of government, literally thousands and thousands of pages of government documents on metamaterials that have nothing to do with aliens or UFOs or anything. [00:33:09] So, the fact that people started injecting, like, oh, it's a metal material, we got to investigate it because it's connected to UFOs. [00:33:15] No, not really. [00:33:16] And so, what I did in the beginning stages when the story started to look a little bit weird to me was say, look at our past. [00:33:24] There was something called Project Moondust that had UFO aspects to it, but it was more or less collecting fallen space debris from the Soviet Union or whomever might have been flying in space. [00:33:37] They were capturing these objects on the ground, going out, recovering them. [00:33:41] Figuring out the composition of the metals, how they were made, what are the Soviets doing, how are they creating this, and so on. [00:33:49] And essentially, you're reverse engineering it. [00:33:51] My point with bringing this up is who better to award such a contract if they are dealing with those types of materials that potentially have fallen than a private sector corporation that is getting into space travel and space habitats and so on? [00:34:07] Is that a UFO program? [00:34:09] Not really. [00:34:10] But that was prior to when OSAP broke, the idea that OSAP broke. [00:34:16] Now, you completely blow all those possibilities out of the water because OSAP was very much just looking at advanced technology, advanced into the next 40 years, what it could be, how do we combat it, so on and so forth. [00:34:31] A very contradictory explanation, versus the New York Times saying Bigelow created these special buildings and he's housing these metamaterials and they're connected to UFOs and whatever they may be. [00:34:44] So, this is very important. [00:34:47] So, this is sort of creating a narrative, basically, but not providing real backup facts at all. [00:34:54] None. [00:34:55] None. [00:34:55] And the weird thing about AWSAP was it was posted on a public server for bids, not classified, not anything. [00:35:05] No mention of unidentified phenomena, UFOs, UAPs, USOs, pick your acronym, it doesn't matter. [00:35:13] It's not in there. [00:35:14] And that was another contradiction. [00:35:17] I don't even think that was one that I didn't even, I don't think I put in the. [00:35:21] Timeline, but I'll bring it up. [00:35:24] At a recent lecture, Mr. Elizondo said, Look at the contract. [00:35:27] I'm slightly paraphrasing here. [00:35:29] So, not an exact quote, but you can look it up. [00:35:32] He said, Look at the contract. [00:35:36] The word phenomena is in there, folks. [00:35:39] You can see it for yourself. [00:35:41] It's black and white. [00:35:42] There's two problems with that. [00:35:43] Number one, the contract has never presented itself, at least not that I'm aware of. [00:35:48] Number two, if he meant the bid solicitation notice, which has been public, And anyone can download it from the government. [00:35:55] It's still on there. [00:35:56] There's no mention of the word phenomena, phenomenon, plural, singular, doesn't matter. [00:36:02] It's not there. [00:36:03] So, why did they say it? [00:36:05] You tell me. [00:36:06] This is exactly the problem you have a narrative that you want to spin on the surface. [00:36:12] It seems great. [00:36:13] Scratch beneath it, different story. [00:36:15] There's something that I talked about on my radio show recently, which I call the I want to believe syndrome. [00:36:21] And very briefly, the I want to believe syndrome, which I believe sadly there are more and more that are suffering from it, is that you sacrifice logic, common sense, and that good old fashioned researcher fact checking. [00:36:33] In exchange for believing in something that you just simply want to believe. [00:36:37] And Mr. Elizondo, when he stands up to a crowd of UFO believers, or largely, I don't want to take away from that crowd or the crowds that he's spoken in front of. [00:36:47] But you know that if you speak for a UFO organization, you're primarily speaking to UFO believers. [00:36:53] And so when you say this is real, the government isn't doing anything about it, potentially even covering it up, and oh, I got a secrecy oath so I can't deal with the hard questions, that's all great. [00:37:03] But you know that you're speaking to the Choir at that point, and you're giving a narrative that they want to hear. [00:37:08] Yeah. [00:37:09] And I think that that's the problem that a lot of people are not looking at right now is that the documentation and the facts, not even just the government denying UFOs, because the government lies, we all know it. [00:37:21] But it's so, so take that out of the equation. [00:37:23] I'm not saying that that's the reality. [00:37:25] What we can trace the words of Mr. Elizondo, Dr. Put off, trying to make this timeline, the publicly available information, the fact that OSAP was not classified. [00:37:37] So many different things, the solicitation notice was not classified. [00:37:40] So many different things do not support that narrative. [00:37:44] There's too many at this point. [00:37:46] And when I made the timeline, I'll be honest with you, I didn't realize it would be this big and this problematic. [00:37:52] I thought I'd find a couple things, and yes, they're important, but just a few. [00:37:57] It's across the board. [00:37:58] From 2007 through 2017, when Mr. Elizondo resigned, it is problematic from top to bottom. [00:38:06] Wow. [00:38:08] The. [00:38:10] The timeline, your conclusion, fundamental conclusion about the story that TTSA and Elizondo have presented about ATIP and the UFO program, based on the timeline, what is your conclusion at this point? [00:38:27] Other than it's a mess, I try to keep my conclusions out of it. [00:38:31] I don't think that there's enough evidence to pose a conclusion. [00:38:35] I really don't. [00:38:36] I am not saying ATIP is not a UFO program. [00:38:40] I'm saying there is. [00:38:41] No evidence to support it. [00:38:43] I'm not saying Mr. Elizondo is lying. [00:38:45] I'm saying that there's no evidence he's telling the truth. [00:38:49] So it's hard to conclude anything other than there is a problem here. [00:38:54] And the one pointed statement I did make that some people didn't want to hear, and I know that you saw some of the public comments posted, was that I said that there is a journalistic standard that has largely been forgotten when reporting about these ATIP related stories. [00:39:11] Now, I don't mean that directly at all, just the journalists and the mainstream media, but rather everybody talking about this. [00:39:19] You have bloggers that have popped up since December of 2017 that, like, if you look at the 20 stories they published in the last year and a half or so, it is 100% on Tom DeLong, TTSA, and ATIP. [00:39:34] And there's no journalistic standard of fact checking, asking important questions, nothing. [00:39:40] And so, what happened to getting second sources? [00:39:45] You know, what happened to asking those important questions like, well, wait a minute. [00:39:50] If you're telling a group, a UFO group, in a lecture, Mr. Elizondo, that ATIP did not exist until 2008, then how is this major media outlet who worked directly with you on the story getting it so wildly wrong? [00:40:06] Is that the media? [00:40:07] Well, then fine. [00:40:08] I stand by my statement that there's a journalistic standard. [00:40:11] Is it Mr. Elizondo? [00:40:13] Great. [00:40:13] I stand by my statement. [00:40:14] There's a journalistic standard that's been forgotten. [00:40:17] They should be pushing him on why there's varying details in this story. [00:40:25] They should go after and ask Dr. Hal Putoff, why did you tell everybody that ATIP was only a nickname? [00:40:32] It wasn't even a program. [00:40:34] Wow. [00:40:35] That's what he said. [00:40:36] It's amazing. [00:40:37] So you've got the head of the program saying OSAP morphed into ATIP and it was a different program entirely beginning in 2008. [00:40:45] Then you've got Dr. Hal Putoff, who's lecturing. [00:40:48] At an event in Las Vegas, saying, and this was, didn't name me by name, and I'm not going to be egotistical saying he meant me, but he says there are some people out there confused by the fact that they're not finding anything under the Freedom of Information Act. [00:41:04] This was not too long after I got my denial originally. [00:41:08] So I don't know of anybody else who got denials like that. [00:41:11] So whether or not he was referencing me directly, I'm not sure. [00:41:14] But he said they're not using the right name. [00:41:16] It was AWSAP, Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program. === Denials and Secret Programs (10:01) === [00:41:21] And so. [00:41:23] That's very problematic on many levels because now you're going against the head of the program that you're working directly with. [00:41:33] And on top of that, it's a complete show of a lack of understanding to what the Freedom of Information Act is and how it works. [00:41:43] And I go back to that October FOIA request that I did, where I used the exact words of the head of the program to describe it seeking documents. [00:41:54] And so for him to say that, It's problematic on multiple levels. [00:41:58] And so, again, that journalistic standard that there should be follow up stories. [00:42:03] I hope the New York Times does do a follow up and start looking at what the DIA is telling FOIA requesters like me. [00:42:11] What is the Pentagon still maintaining to this day? [00:42:15] And that is the fact that it was not a UFO program, that there was nothing in regards to unidentified aerial phenomena, and they were looking at projected aerial threats. [00:42:27] And that's been the story that they've maintained, and they're holding to that. [00:42:34] We'll find out eventually, excuse me, when documents are released. [00:42:38] When that is, I don't know. [00:42:41] The Defense Intelligence Agency just responded to a request of mine about a month ago, and it was from a request from 2014 for only about 30 pages worth of material. [00:42:53] So from 2014 to 2019, you're talking about quite a long wait. [00:42:59] So, what year will we get? [00:43:01] ATIP related material or OSAP related material? [00:43:04] I have no idea. [00:43:06] But, well, that's interesting. [00:43:07] In the public domain, there's nothing on the government side to support what Elizondo said about ATIP being a UFO program. [00:43:15] No. [00:43:16] What we do know is the 38 defense reports that were released by the DIA, that was released through the Freedom of Information Act. [00:43:25] Nick Pope, to compliment his contribution to this, he was the first one to get it because they emailed it to him. [00:43:35] So, what I believe happened is there were a bunch of FOIA requests that went in for the list of deliverables, the reports that were generated. [00:43:43] It was only two pages or so in length. [00:43:47] So, what they did was they declassified it, sent it over to the Public Affairs Office. [00:43:52] Nick was communicating with them. [00:43:53] They emailed it to him. [00:43:55] We got it snail mailed. [00:43:56] Regardless of how it unfolded, that list has now existed to show us the type of documents that they were, or excuse me, the type of research angles that they were looking into. [00:44:08] And these documents were the ones that were created as deliverables from Bass LLC back into the DIA. [00:44:17] There's a lot of speculation here on what all this means or what it meant. [00:44:22] And some are saying, aha, the government is into the Drake equation and warp drives, and there's only one conclusion it's aliens. [00:44:31] Well, that's not necessarily true. [00:44:33] And so I started digging to see again, it's that history repeats itself thing. [00:44:39] And time and time again, this is proven right. [00:44:42] In the 1970s, there was a program called Project Outgrowth. [00:44:46] Now, Project Outgrowth, which I obtained these documents through the Freedom of Information Act, anybody can get them. [00:44:51] It was a program to look at advanced propulsion methods through the next 30 to 40 years from that timeframe and to figure out how potentially spacecraft or aircraft or both would travel. [00:45:05] Sure sounds familiar, doesn't it? [00:45:06] Projecting about 40 years into the future. [00:45:09] And I got the document. [00:45:11] They actually went into various advanced propulsion systems, very much fringe level science, including psychic energy and psychokinesis. [00:45:21] Wow. [00:45:21] Meaning, can you propel a spacecraft with your mind? [00:45:25] And, you know, very fringe, even paranormal angles to this. [00:45:30] Yeah. [00:45:30] Not a UFO program, not anything. [00:45:33] But it showed me that when you look into the future, these contracted agencies or corporations look at everything. [00:45:41] That's what they're contracted to do. [00:45:43] So now, fast forward. [00:45:45] Ironically, about 37 years, almost 40, OSAP bid solicitation was posted publicly. [00:45:53] Now, I don't know if there's a connection to that, but the one program is looking 30 to 40 years into the future. [00:45:58] OSAP is posted almost 40 years thereafter. [00:46:01] Wow. [00:46:02] Now, the whole point with all of this is the fact that there is no UFO aspect to outgrowth, but it still went into paranormal fringe like topics. [00:46:11] Fast forward to OSAP, which led to ATIP, whoever. [00:46:15] Whatever version of the story you want to believe. [00:46:18] But if ATIP was looking at the same thing, now the question is who made the decision to do Drake equation, warp drive, dark energy type research? [00:46:29] And it was actually Dr. Hal Putoff who gave us the answer. [00:46:32] And the answer was him that he was the one that made the decision in the private sector being contracted to shell out these 38 contracts for these reports to be written. [00:46:42] Okay. [00:46:43] Why is that important? [00:46:45] Because that completely contradicts. [00:46:47] The media reporting that the Defense Intelligence Agency was the one financing research into the Drake equation and so on. [00:46:55] Was it their dollars? [00:46:56] Yeah, okay, you can argue that. [00:46:58] Did they want it? [00:47:00] That's a question mark. [00:47:01] I'd love for it to be true that they said, look, we need to look at the Drake equation and warp drives and we need to see how these UFOs are flying. [00:47:09] Of course, that's what I want. [00:47:11] But the reality is, as Dr. Hal Putoff says on the timeline, he was the one that shelled out those. [00:47:19] What he called contracts to create those 38 defense reports, which means ultimately the government really didn't have a say in it. [00:47:29] You could argue either way. [00:47:31] It's still undetermined. [00:47:32] It's still a question mark. [00:47:34] But now we have to accept the reality that it was Bigelow Aerospace's LLC that made the decision to inject those types of reports into the contract. [00:47:45] Right. [00:47:45] And just like Put Off injected his own kind of spin on how to do the research, that wasn't something coming from the government. [00:47:53] But Put Off now has over four decades of work with the CIA. [00:47:57] And I want to bring in the CIA here because. [00:47:59] In the beginning, we talked about how the CIA has done such a brilliant job of lying to the public for 70 years on various issues, from WMDs in Iraq to the Kennedy assassination and so on. [00:48:12] So we just have this trail there of them saying anything in order to keep their mission secret, to keep the wall of secrecy in place. [00:48:20] Looking at these CIA connected people involved with TTSA, does it give you pause in terms of getting the truth from an organization like this? [00:48:31] I find it. [00:48:32] Interesting that they're involved because I do want to ask why some of these other names are involved. [00:48:38] My primary focus has always been the ATIP claims. [00:48:41] Excuse me. [00:48:44] My primary focus has always been the ATIP claims by Mr. Elizondo. [00:48:48] But it is interesting where you've got these former government personnel, names that you'd recognize people involved in this organization. [00:48:57] The question is why? [00:48:58] I mean, are they doing it because they're really fascinated by UFOs or UAPs or whatever they want to call them? [00:49:05] You know, that for the greater good of humanity, they're trying to really make this work. [00:49:10] Is it a money thing? [00:49:11] I mean, if you raised $50 million, which was their target, and they turned around and started over the next three years, five years, 10 years, investing and being successful with it, you've got a billion dollar company. [00:49:25] Is that motive for some of these guys to be involved? [00:49:28] I don't know. [00:49:29] But it is interesting that here we are with an aura of we want to end the secrecy that the government has been putting on this topic. [00:49:39] And to do that, we're going to surround ourselves by people from the government. [00:49:43] Right. [00:49:43] It doesn't make sense. [00:49:44] Especially their most super secret spy agency. [00:49:47] Right. [00:49:48] I mean, none of that makes sense. [00:49:51] If this was a private push and Tom DeLong brought together some high level scientists outside the government, let me phrase it that way, that weren't working for these top level agencies, you have a little bit of a different aura to what he's trying to do. [00:50:07] But you can't, in one breath, say the government is essentially, I'm paraphrasing, of course. [00:50:12] But the government is lying to you. [00:50:14] There's a lot of secrecy involved with this. [00:50:16] We need to know more, and they're not telling you. [00:50:18] Mr. Elizondo is saying this is a very real phenomenon, and we need to research it, and the government's not doing anything. [00:50:25] So they surround themselves by people from the government. [00:50:28] That's really a contradictory way to handle everything. [00:50:33] So I think that there are a lot of unanswered questions. [00:50:35] Well, the presence of CIA officials like Jim Semivan, a senior intelligence service member of the CIA, and he's VP of operations, for heaven's sake. [00:50:45] Dr. Norm Khan, 30 years with the CIA, Hal Put Off, Elizondo, all CIA, all intelligence. [00:50:51] This is a problem, I agree. [00:50:53] And, you know, the question is, is this just the latest venture on the move for the Central Intelligence Agency to control the UFO file? [00:51:02] So we're not looking for CIA disclosure here, but the real truth, uh, regarding this very important issue. [00:51:09] And I think what we're getting here is a lot of intel, uh, promo and a huge marketing push on the other side with TV shows and everything else. [00:51:19] This is exactly the wrong direction on this, and I'm so glad that you've done this work, John. === Real Truth vs Marketing Push (00:53) === [00:51:23] Just amazing work. [00:51:24] The new book is inside the black vault. [00:51:26] That and the ATIP, a timeline that you've created, very in depth, showing obfuscation and contradiction and outright falsehoods in the TTSA narrative, is there as well. [00:51:38] Now, we'll do a part two on this shortly, and it's just great to see you. [00:51:42] Hey, you too. [00:51:43] Thanks for having me, man. [00:51:44] Anytime you need something, let me know. [00:51:46] All right, we'll talk soon. [00:51:47] Thank you. [00:51:48] I appreciate it. [00:51:49] Thank you, everyone, for joining us. [00:51:50] Remember to go to darkjournalist.com for the latest interviews and documentaries. [00:51:54] You can also find the X Series right here, Friday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern. [00:51:59] And guests coming up for May include Graham Hancock, Catherine Austin Fitz, and a whole lot more. [00:52:05] Just an incredible month of interviews and shows coming up. [00:52:09] Subscribe now to the site at darkjournalist.com for some amazing surprises this summer. [00:52:16] See you soon.