This UFO Hunter Was Right All Along. Now What?

Luis Elizondo helped release Navy videos of unidentified aerial phenomena. Last month, the Pentagon confirmed they were real.

Max Ufberg
GEN

--

Photo illustration. Sources: To the Stars Academy, U.S. Department of Defense

If we find out one day that aliens really do exist, there’s a good chance we’ll have Luis Elizondo to thank. Elizondo works as the director of government programs with To The Stars Academy (TTSA), an aerospace and science company founded in 2017 by a physicist for the Department of Defense, a former CIA operations officer, and Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge.

TTSA specializes in research around unidentified aerial phenomena — military-speak for any unexplained presence in the atmosphere. Before joining TTSA, Elizondo headed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program at the Pentagon, an initiative secured and promoted in 2009 by Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada for the study of “anomalous” aircraft.

Soon after joining TTSA, Elizondo helped facilitate the release of three videos taken by Navy pilots of unidentified objects. Those videos quickly caught the public’s attention, thanks in part to credulous write-ups in the New York Times. Just last month, the Defense Department officially released the videos and finally acknowledged the presence of these unidentified aerial phenomena.

--

--

Max Ufberg
GEN
Writer for

Writer and editor. Previously at Medium, Pacific Standard, Wired