Come fly away with us, it’s Luis Elizondo – former Director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Tin foil hats, muddy bootprints, and “we are the coyote.” The goal of the head is to be round; it’s an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Hi, guys. Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to another podcast. Hi, Sean. Hi, Will. This is me. I'm here, too. Hi, it's Jason. Hi.
Oh, there he is. Sean. What's up, Sean? Yeah, Will. There he is. My guy, Sean. Me and Sean on the old SmartList. Welcome to SmartList with Will and Sean.
Ugh.
Hey, JB, speaking of the sidelines of the game last night, I got a text exchange with our buddy, Hall of Fame, former quarterback, Peyton Manning, and he said that I wear a visor better than any non-athlete slash coach. I would agree. I would agree. Because you wear a good visor, too. Yeah, I haven't seen me in one.
Yeah, we could skip it. Yeah, we're good. I can imagine it. Yeah, no, you do wear a good visor. You got to have your beautiful long hair to really pull off a visor or a hat in general. A hat with short hair, it's just too fifth grade. I think it just makes us all look like little tiny little farts that are late for the school bus.
You mean a visor or a baseball hat?
No, a hat of any sort. I think you need a little hair coming out the back, a little kick, a little kick out.
Sean, if this feels like an attack, it's because it is. Yeah. I get it. Now, Sean, walk us through, because your hat situation is loose at best.
Yeah, what do you mean? Well, you know, he always wears those hats that you and I, Willie, we like those sort of those trucker sort of type of a high top.
It's more of a higher crown. You like a slouch. Yeah, I like a baseball hat.
But your baseball hats make your head look like a baseball because they're very round on the top of it.
They have no crown to it, right?
So it's very slouchy.
We like a shape to ours.
Yeah, we like a shape. Yeah, a little bit of a wall. I feel like your trucker hats make your heads look square. F you, bro. Yeah, if you don't, how dare you insult us?
We just spent 10 minutes insulting you. How dare you insult us? It's not the way this works. Hey, Sean, now what is the hat you're wearing today? What is that, the GW?
GW, Clembard West High School, the best high school in America in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Shout out. Shout out. Hey, did you guys ever see the movie Lucas? How is it the best high school in America? Well, I'm going to tell you. Did you ever see the movie Lucas? Remember Lucas? Yeah. With Corey Haim, Winona Ryder's first film. Yes. Charlie Sheen.
I feel like I read for that film. Really? Yeah. Or at least I met with the writer-director, I think, afterwards.
That was filmed in my hometown at my high school. I was an extra, but you can't see me. I got a frame.
Okay. That means you did your extra job well. That's right. You're supposed to go kind of unnoticed. Right. I committed off-camera.
So, how was dinner on Saturday? Didn't we all have fun? Wasn't it fun? That was really fun.
It was fun. It felt short. It felt like it wasn't quite as long as I wanted it. Well, you left early because you had a kid pickup to do. I did, but did it go on much? Did you guys get into games at all? No, we didn't do games this year.
did we oh no we don't play games anymore remember shawnee you used to have a full-blown game night at your house years ago nobody's into them and it's so much work i can't do it i can't do it because some people are into it some people aren't and it's yeah why did that go away i feel like game night was sort of like a big nationwide sort of trend for a while i mean we did that that that movie too that was sort of uh i love that movie kind of at the end of it
Dude, that movie, Game Night, I think we've talked about it on here before. If you haven't seen Jason's movie, Game Night, with Jason and... Yeah, Ron to the theater.
If I'm going to be really honest, I put it on the other night with Franny and Maple, and I had to turn it off in 10 minutes.
Yeah, you said you didn't like it. I think it's one of the funniest movies ever.
I may have been in a bad mood or something, but I was just like, oh, guys, I remember this being better. But I thought those guys did a great job with that film, but it wasn't for me the other night.
You are wrong. No, you're wrong. That movie is so funny, and I've seen it a few times. Yeah. I've seen it within the last year. If it's on... I was in a weird mood, maybe. I'll watch it. No, but you just... Jesse Plemons in that movie? Incredible. By the way, Billy Magnusson, that actor, Billy Magnusson?
He's so good. He's so funny. He and Jesse, and obviously you and Rachel McAdams. Sharon Horgan was awesome in it, too.
Sharon Horgan is amazing in it. What a cast. And if I'm leaving anybody out, it's because I can't remember. I've got to watch it again.
Oh, and another thing that happened at dinner. Jason, I look over to you, Will, and you... weren't even conscious of it, you had like a bowl or a cup or something and you stuck your finger in it and you were really grinding your finger around in a circle to get every last drop or whatever it was.
Of chocolate syrup. Right in your mouth.
It was chocolate syrup. It was like you were in prison.
It was chocolate syrup. Yeah, it was own little bowl dedicated to the chocolate syrup. I guess he asked for it on the side. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't to pour on anything. It was just for him to put his fat finger in it and just stir it around and stick it in his mouth like some kind of seductive freak.
I wasn't trying to do it to seduce anybody. I was doing it because it was delicious. And as you know, I have timed out my weekly cheat meal, one meal to that meal. And it worked out that it happened.
But we're eating over at Jen's three nights a week now.
No, I'm not doing it three nights a week. I'm doing it once.
All right.
Yeah. Speaking of deliciousness, let's get to our guest. Guys, this is really exciting. You're going to be blown away. This is so exciting. Because this involves science.
Great.
Yes. Goddamn celebrities on this show. I know. Well, he's kind of a celebrity. He's an author, a media personality, and the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program at the Pentagon. I'm so excited.
What I used to do. I'm so excited.
I really am. I know, me too. He oversaw counter-espionage and counter-terrorism investigations worldwide for the Department of Defense, while also working for the National Counterintelligence Executive and the Director of National Intelligence very recently.
Jason, that's your forte, right? Counterintelligence, right?
Right, yes. Get dumber, call me. Right. Very recently, and I was watching, and this is like a week or two ago, he was testifying under oath to Congress about the importance of certain, let's call them X-Files, being public knowledge. But today he's talking to us, Dumb Dumbs. It's the very brilliant and super cool Luis Elizondo.
Good morning, sir.
Hi, gentlemen. Good morning. It is my honor and privilege to be with you, gents.
Likewise. This is so cool. I've wanted to talk to you for years.
I'm so happy you brought him on. I know.
I don't... I don't know how you're going to explain all this to us.
Welcome. Sean, do you want to get right to it? Do you want to ask him about the UFOs? Because we can wait.
No, hang on. Let's just say hi. I'm so excited you're here. You have just raised the bar. Because we've had idiots like Conan on here a bunch. Oh, this guy. And Farrell.
Are you familiar with him? He's the red-headed fellow with the talk show. Just an absolute ding-dong.
I might have heard of his name a few times.
Investigate him, please, by the way. Also, just feel free to get into it.
Listen, I got to apologize, guys, for, you know, wearing a hat. I know, unfortunately, I'm one of those guys who has short hair and has to wear a hat because I have an unusually hemispherically round head. Yeah. And so my wife forces me to wear a hat. She's like, otherwise I look like a bowling ball, so...
Listen, you don't need to be forgiven. Forgive us, and if anything, you should fight Jason, obviously, physically. He looks like he could really take care of me.
I know, right? No, remind your wife the goal of the head is to be round. So tell her to just back off a little.
Well, yeah, I've said that a few times. Unfortunately, after 30 years of marriage, I've learned early on that happy wife, happy life. So when she says wear a hat, I wear a hat.
Isn't that the truth, right? You've really got to pick your battles if you want to stay married. You've just got to be able to say you are right nine times out of 10 if you want to keep it harmonious.
I always say happy ex-wife, happy life. That to me is, That applies even more. And don't make the mistake of telling them what you're thinking because that is— Well, I don't have that option.
My wife made it very clear to me that if for whatever reason we were ever to have a divorce, I'd have to buy back my own underwear from her. Wow. Okay. Wow. I prefer to stay in the current relationship I have right now.
Pretty ironclad agreement.
Sean, you guys do that, right? You and Scott do not share your own personal opinions. You just keep like a nice neutral stance on everything.
You know what's great about being in a gay relationship is like, sometimes I have help come over and help with laundry and stuff. And if she mixes up our clothes, I just put them on. It doesn't matter. Oh, you're right. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. It doesn't matter if it's in an opposite drawer or something. Sure. Whatever it is.
Yeah. I like the way you say, like, help with the laundry. I feel like you're standing there, too.
But what about the way you said, every once in a while, I'll call for some help to come over with the laundry. You mean every once in a while, like every Tuesdays and Thursdays? You mean Monday through Friday, good for you? Yeah. As long as they don't park where the chef parks, everything's all right, by the way.
Anyway, let's get into counterintelligism.
Yes, this is so cool.
Counterintelligism.
And thank you in advance for slowing things down and really dumbing it up for us because, like I said, I've been waiting to talk to you forever. I just think... It's fascinating what you do and that you've come forward to want to explain to us, the citizens of this country and people who's ever listening about the things that kind of have been hidden or whatever you've learned.
But my first question, because I just watched you on TV in front of Congress, what, two weeks ago or something like that? What is it like to be asked so many questions about UAPs, and please explain what UAP means, that you either can't answer because of security or you know answering truthfully will blow our minds?
Yeah, so great question. And again, thank you very much for having me on this wonderful program of yours. You know, when you're testifying before Congress and the American people, it's under oath.
So you definitely need to keep your facts straight and remember that everything you're saying is for the record and it's indelible, meaning those words will be there forever, long after I'm gone and whatnot. So... It's important that we communicate clearly. But at the same time, you're right. I have a security clearance, and I cannot violate that security clearance.
The Pentagon was very, very specific with me on what I can and cannot say in an open hearing. And so that's why you saw me a few times when I said, look, I prefer to have that discussion in a closed session. Because then we can start talking about some of the classified nuances of what they're asking me.
And by the way, it's a bit of a precarious situation because, you know, if you don't say enough, then Congress feels that it's kind of like fast food, right? You feel full, but you're not really satisfied. You get some information, but you're not really getting what you're asking for. But at the same time— If I'm overly specific, then I can get in trouble with the U.S. government.
I can actually find myself in very significant legal trouble. And for the record, I do not look good in an orange jumpsuit. So try to avoid that as much as possible.
But if the purpose of the hearing is to gather – information for the public and sort of march towards transparency. Otherwise, why sit in front of a microphone and share it? If you're not able to get all the information out, then is the expectation or the hope is that the public would be pleased with and satisfied with just half the information that you're able to share?
Yeah, unfortunately, that's not the case. The public's never happy with half information. And I understand that. You know, frankly, I would get frustrated too. But if you look at this conversation as it's kind of evolved over the last, let's say, seven years, I think we've come further in this conversation in the last seven than perhaps over the last 70 years.
And none of us had to violate our security oaths. More and more information is coming out every single day. More and more whistleblowers are ready to come out and testify in front of Congress and the American people to let them know what they know about legacy programs and the UAP topic. You asked me to define, by the way, what UAP is.
UAP is basically the new word for the old term UFO or unidentified flying object. It was changed to UAP some time ago. One was because of the stigma, the taboo and stigma surrounding UFO. Look, anytime you say UFO, people think tinfoil hats and Elvis on the mothership. And that's what we're talking about.
What we're talking about are things that are being intelligently controlled that can fly over controlled U.S. airspace with complete anonymity And potentially over our sensitive military installations and have the ability to even interfere with our nuclear equities. So from a national security perspective, this is a very serious topic. It is a national security concern.
But there's other aspects to this conversation that if you were to ask me, I would submit to you the government has no business being involved in. So what do I mean? To make a long story short, if I was talking to a three-star or four-star general about potentially our vulnerabilities regarding UAP and our nuclear equities, great conversation to have with a three-star general.
But this is a conversation that affects everybody individually.
both equally and a little bit differently meaning depending how you were raised and your cultural background your religious background this is a topic that affects us from a psychological perspective a theological perspective a sociological perspective even a philosophical perspective and and in that instance i i'm not really comfortable with with a three-star general necessarily dictating to to me
how I should feel about this topic. I was a product of the government. And, you know, there's a lot of things we do right, and then there's some things that we don't do very well.
And is that because—well, a couple of things. Is that because, A, of their— where their interests lie and what their motives are and what they're looking to do differ from yours? Theirs are— X, Y, and Z, and that might not align with you. Is that why?
That may be some of it. I mean, let's face it. Governments are designed to be solution-oriented. What do I mean? We pay a lot of money with our tax dollars to make sure that our government has all the information it needs, all the intelligence it needs, in order to make an informed decision to protect us. Now, when you have an issue like this,
where you can see some of the capabilities, but you have no idea the intent behind these things, it leaves people scratching their head. And that's not a really convenient conversation to have with the American people, especially if you are part of the national security apparatus like the Department of Defense, like the CIA, right? I'll give you case in point.
Back in the 1950s, when the CIA first commissioned the U-2 spy plane with Lockheed Skunk Works, we wanted to build a plane that could fly higher and faster than anybody else in the world so we could fly manned reconnaissance missions over mainland Russia. By the way, in contravention to an existing treaty we had with Russia at the time. So the first few missions went off great.
We flew the aircraft and you know what? The Russians didn't respond. And so we really thought our plane was invisible. It was flying faster and higher and we achieved mission success. It wasn't until the Russians developed the SA-2 surface-to-air missile
and successfully shot one of our planes down and paraded the Captain Powers and the wreckage of the aircraft in front of the world and the United Nations. Yeah, I remember that. Did they admit that they were tracking every single one of the flights from the beginning? They didn't even want to admit to their own people that we had a technology that they had no way of defending themselves against.
It wasn't until they had a solution did they admit that they had a problem. And look, A lot of governments are that way, guys. It's not just the United States. It's not just Russia. It's not just China.
Sean, don't you have like a cartoon sign right on your toilet door that says skunk works? Don't you do that? Like a skunk is waving.
So that's basically, that's the purpose of, I'm assuming, your hearing a couple of weeks ago or any hearings like that lately. where the Congress has questions about what are these, and what is the acronym, Unidentified?
Yeah, so now it's Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon. It used to be called Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. One of the issues we had actually with UFO, we talk about stigma and taboo, but the reality is it's not even accurate because a lot of times we're seeing these things not necessarily even in our atmosphere, we're seeing them underwater, in low earth orbit where there isn't.
Yeah, so there's not, when we talk about it. Yeah, didn't you see the thing?
Why don't we just say, why don't we just say crazy shit? Like, what are we doing? Like, why do we need to make it?
Well, we do say that behind closed doors.
Like, we always need to address it. I don't know, underwater? Yeah, wait, didn't you see the thing? The thing that was released with the little, from the military or from the Navy, right? It was like, dude, we got it on the fucking camera. We got it on the... And it went under the water and it's on camera.
What? So we have a lot of that footage. And, you know, when you talk about flying, there's really, when you understand what flying is, there's four fundamental forces. You have thrust, lift, drag, and weight. And when you understand that, you create wings and you create lift and you fly. These things don't have wings. They don't have any obvious signs of propulsion.
They don't have rudders and elevators and ailerons. Anything that we would normally ascribe to, let's say, an airplane or some sort of aircraft or even missile, these things have none of that. And yet somehow they are able to defy the natural effects of Earth's gravity. So to say that they're flying, that's not even really accurate. We don't know how they're able to.
We know that they're moving, but we don't know. Jay, you've seen – I mean, look, they're – I have seen, I don't even pay attention to it as much as Sean has, but I have, we've all noticed in the last 10 years, I guess, how much more there seems to be footage of stuff. Now, I will say one thing.
We had Neil deGrasse Tyson on four or five years, right near the start of doing this podcast, and he talked about the idea that, look, if there was really stuff, considering how many cameras there are in the world now that everybody's got on their phone, we'd see much more definitive evidence.
We kind of see.
My counterpoint is we are seeing stuff because we're seeing video from airline pilots, military pilots. We're seeing stuff moving through the sky. I've seen a bunch of those. I saw the one recently that it looks like a big box. It looks like a trash can almost. That was a trash can. Was it a trash can? That was a trash can.
And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
100%.
And it's not just me. Look, you've already had, I don't know how close you've been tracking this topic, but we've already had a former director of national intelligence, a former director of CIA. We also had two former presidents of the United States all come out and say, yes, this is real. This is something to this. There are these objects that are able to perform.
In fact, the director of, so when I left my program, AATIP, There were several iterations afterwards. The current iteration is called AARO, A-A-R-O, All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. And they are under the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. And they just said last week, they said, look, we are seeing things that defy our understanding of physics. It is a fact.
We know they are there. We know it is real, whatever it is. And it's something that we need to figure out.
And don't you think we live in a society now where people just don't care?
Well, or they can take it there.
Like, we could be visited by them and people are like, sure, whatever. I got to go pick up my kids. I got to run to the grocery store. And people are like, there's aliens? Okay, anyway, what's on TV tonight? Like, it's just, people just aren't interested. Well, yeah.
Even if they were real. That's a fun, well, we've created that as a function. I know Scotty would probably take the day off for more.
Yeah. This is true.
We created that. We needed to dumb everybody down in order for a lot of different reasons. And it just happens to work and it's come very handy for this. Right. But I mean, if you look at whether it's politics, whether it's whatever it is, if people were really aware of what is going on, and I am not a conspiracy theorist at all. as you guys could probably attest to.
But I do believe, I used to always joke, I'd say, if we want to take over a country, you know, one of these things, we don't need to drop, all we need to do are just drop DVDs of our stupid TV shows, and just do to them what we've already done to ourselves, so that they become slobbering morons staring in front of their TV, like Sean and Scotty on a Wednesday night, and then you could do anything.
You know what I mean? You could walk into Sean and Scotty's house and you could take everything and they wouldn't move because they're like, look at this. They're the Housewives of the Bachelorettes. Right, and then we see a dial tone coming out of their mouths. You know what I mean?
Well, I'll tell you, that's an excellent point. I'll offer a counterpoint to that as well. When I was growing up, if I wanted to learn anything in school, I had to go to the library, take out an encyclopedia that's probably 10 years old by then, and thumb through it. Maybe I'd find one or two paragraphs on something I was interested in.
Now, kids, the new generation, have in the palm of their hands more technology, more capability, and the ability to access the globe virtually instantaneously. And I think they may, to some degree, even be more prepared. Look, when I was in the government, we knew about several studies that your taxpayer dollars paid for. And the conversation went something like this.
Are the American people ready to know the truth about UAP, about the reality of UFOs? And time and time again, these studies came back and they said, absolutely not. It'll cause some sort of social discord and it will create havoc and it'll be a destabilizing type conversation. Now, here we are seven years into the conversation. And last I checked, nobody's made a run on the banks.
Everybody's paying their mortgages. Everybody's still going to PTA meetings. So I think this generation, actually the younger generation, may be better equipped to have this conversation to some degree because when we were growing up, we had a lot of Judeo-Christian influence and a lot of basically people saying, look, these are accepted norms, accepted conversations to have, and these are not.
Keeping in mind that we, our government, placed about 70 years— worth of artificial taboo and stigma on this topic. Most of the time, like I said, when you hear the word UFO, you hear about Elvis on the mothership and silly things like that. And that's not really what we're talking about.
What we're talking about are things that have the capability to outperform anything we have in our inventory and have been able to do so for decades.
Right, but the assumption along with that or the implication is that these things have been sent from a place other than Earth. And so that comes with it, as to your earlier point, issues of theology and scientific capability and on and on and on and on.
Jason, can I offer something? Because you said something very, very interesting. When I was at ATIP— Fuck, let's write it down. Hang on. When I was a senior guy— It was – I was told a lot that people really can't handle the truth and whatnot. I think we can. I think we are in a situation now that is different than when I was growing up. I think –
You mentioned about these things being from outer space. And when I'm asked, are they from outer space? I say, well, they can be from outer space, inner space, or the space in between. So what do I mean by that? I went to school, by the way, I'm not a conspiracy theorist either. I went to school to study medicine. So I graduated as a microbiologist and immunologist and studied parasitology.
Not parapsychology, the study of parasites, microorganisms. And I was told it was, if you were to look at modern humans, about the last two to 400,000 years, Homo sapiens sapien, we've been around what we think is a long time, but in reality, in the grand scheme of things, it's not really that long at all.
So if you look at a 24-hour clock, and let's say the beginning of that being when we first became modern humans, It was only in about the last 15 minutes, the last 2000 years, that we realized the two primary forms of life on this planet. And it was the Greeks that suggested you are either a plant or you are an animal.
And it wasn't until the last 10 seconds of our existence, right before it strikes midnight, the last hundred, sorry, the last 300 years ago during the Renaissance or the days of enlightenment, that we discovered an entirely new form of life on this planet that is neither plant nor animal. And it was the world of fungus.
And so we tap ourselves on the shoulder and say, you know, clever little monkey, And it wasn't for the last five seconds of our existence, think about that, the last 120 years that we actually discovered the true alpha life form on this planet that's been here all along.
In fact, if you take all the biomass of every plant, all the biomass of every animal and all the biomass of every fungus and add it up together, it still does not add up to the biomass of this hidden life form that's been here all along. And it wasn't until we could curve glass and put in a little metal tube
and famously shout the words, little beasties, little beasties, did we discover the world of microorganisms? And so, is it possible that these things we're dealing with are just as natural to Earth as we are? Well, it's certainly a possibility. Could these things be from underwater? Well, it's certainly a possibility. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do our own oceans.
We have mapped less than 10% of the ocean floor. Are these things, could they be from outer space? Sure. Could they be interdimensional? And I don't mean interdimensional in kind of a woo-woo sort of way. I mean from a quantum physics sort of way, where a lot of our reality actually lies. So, you know, it's a great question to suggest.
Like traveling through black holes that we might not even see yet. Absolutely, quite possible, right. We are learning more about space and time and the relationship that space and time is flexible. It's compressible, it's stretchable.
And how likely is it that the UAP technology or these things that you're discovering or we're discovering is mistaken for technology from other countries. You know, is that a possibility as well?
So it is, but here's the problem. Let's say this is a Russian, for example, Russian technology. That would mean that despite all the billions of dollars that we invest into our intelligence community, someone somewhere has developed this technology in secret, has been able to deploy it over our controlled U.S. airspace, and there's not a darn thing we can do about it.
So that would be equivalent to the greatest intelligence failure this country has ever endured, eclipsing that of even 9-11 by an order of magnitude. Right.
Let me just say this. Let me just interject and say that I doubt it's Russian. This is the same country that's hiring mercenaries from Yemen to go and do some of their bidding in Ukraine. So I'm highly doubtful of it.
Will, let's look at it temporally, right? So let's 1950s. There's documentation right now that anybody can go out and look at from the U.S. government from 1950s, early 50s that we've been dealing with this. Now, where were we? We had just entered the atomic age. We had barely broken the sound barrier, and we hadn't yet been into space. Where were the Chinese?
Well, they're in the middle of a famine. And where was Russia? They were just developing the atomic bomb for themselves, still using, you know, proverbially horse-drawn buggies to deliver it. So that would be like walking into King Tut's tomb for the very first time in the 1920s. and discovering a fully assembled 747 jet plane sitting inside the tomb. It doesn't make sense.
Are you... What's your level of confidence that we're going to learn something definitive before us four, what, 50-year-olds die?
Well, JB, as part of that, what is your level of confidence that you're going to be able to divulge some of what you know and then also reveal more information?
soon well i i think we are well down that path um i think we are having that conversation now within the legislative branch and the executive branch of our government uh politics aside you know whether you're liberal or conservative doesn't matter this is a truly a bipartisan issue and i have seen both the democrats and republicans who would never ever ever even exchange glances with each other are literally sitting side by side having lunch talking about this topic that
Well, I'm bipartisan curious, by the way. It should be noted.
Are you implying that there is something to know and the question only is when are we going to agree to let the public know it?
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.
There is something to know that we're not being told.
Absolutely. Oh, I testified before the American people and so did others.
If I told you right now that we're not recorded and just between us and we're just gonna chill, we're all chill.
We'll cut this out, we'll cut this out. How does that, I mean... You look at, I won't even say people's names, but there are certainly people in the government or about to be in the government that would love to be the one that tells everybody finally this answer. How has that not happened in a world of everyone sort of violating their NDAs and all that stuff?
I can't believe somebody in the government with this clearance hasn't popped off and written a book anonymously or something and said, here's all the goods.
Well, people have, and unfortunately, there have been very serious repercussions for doing it. There have been attacks on their credibility, attacks on their reputation. Some of us have been physically threatened, unfortunately. Really? Oh, absolutely. One of my colleagues, Dave Grush, who testified last year, was ripped to pieces, unfortunately.
Some people in the CIA had leaked some dossier of his and they made it within 24 hours of him testifying. It was headline news that he sought some psychological counseling for PTSD. The attempt was trying to smear his credibility when in reality he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do as a combat veteran. But they tried to use it against him. Reprehensible.
Well, it's unfortunate because it seems like now more than ever we could really use something like this to really – kind of shock everybody into this recognition of, of unanimity and that, that we're all humans on this one planet, even given all of our sort of micro differences, the macro similarity is that we're all human beings, regardless of party affiliation and all that stuff.
And something like one, knowledge that aliens exist or something like this might maybe just snap everybody into like, oh, we're all one.
Well, then some other, whether it's aliens or that there's something else that exists that is beyond our, because it's not even a thing or a spacecraft or a ship or whatever, but just something that we can't even conceive of, that idea, the thing that the human brain can't even, that we can't imagine.
It would right-size our differences.
That's beyond our minds to create, you know, that idea.
Well, I am, you know, cautiously optimistic. You could do that for America right now. I think there's a lot of, you know, the truth shall set you free is an old slogan from one of the agencies I used to work with. And, you know, I believe that truth Truth is, and transparency is the best, you know, sunlight, right, is the best disinfectant. I think America can handle the truth on this topic.
But I will tell you, there is some parts of this conversation that are very uncomfortable for some people because it may challenge some people's preconceived notions of, for example, their religion or the notion of certain governments' preeminence, right? When people realize that maybe we're not the alpha life form necessarily. Yeah. that could create a lot of anxiety for some people. God forbid.
Right. So now they have to reconcile, well, you know, maybe we aren't the top of the food chain per se. What does that mean for us?
Well, think about this. I was just reading a thing, another thing, Jonathan Haidt, the guy who's been doing all this stuff, crusading against phone usage with our kids, et cetera. He wrote That Anxious Generation. Amazing. But one of the things he was talking about was this idea of,
that we're so nervous about letting our kids play and now they've increased the age parents have that they're comfortable letting their kids play outside to like on their own to like 12 years old or whatever because they're so nervous about it. And I think about that and we've gotten increasingly nervous about allowing ourselves. And I think about that idea.
So imagine people are afraid to let their kids play outside until they're now 12 years or whatever. Imagine the idea of turning upside down everything, not just about your religion, everything that you think. This will affect the way you look at interpersonal relationships. This is an existential question, right?
Forever, people through art, through music, whatever, people are always talking about looking for, why? Why am I here? The great Greek philosophers, what is it all about? Blah, blah, blah. Guess what? You're about to find out. here's what it's all about, and it's going to fucking blow people's minds.
Right.
Throw out your drugs. You don't need them anymore.
Right. You know? You know, from a national security perspective, I had—this is a—let me see if I can give you an example of some of the conversations I had with some of the generals in the Pentagon about this topic. Because the first thing to ask me is, Lou, is it a threat?
Yeah, I was just going to say, like, what is the national threat? Yeah.
Yeah, so my response is— We don't know. But here's the bottom line. In order to determine if something is a threat, it's a very simple calculus from a national security perspective. It's capabilities versus intent. Now, we've seen some of the capabilities. We have no idea the intent. So let me give you a little analogy here. And I'll just start with you, Will. Let me ask you a quick question.
I'm sure you live in a beautiful neighborhood, wonderful house. Doors, right. Do you lock your front door at night before you go to bed? No. I do. Oh, yeah. I do too. And you know what? I would submit to you that probably most people do even though you don't expect anything bad to happen.
Let's say one night you go ahead and you lock your front door and you even take the extra step to make sure your windows are locked and you punch in the code, security code to your keypad for your alarm system and you go to bed. And now you wake up one Sunday morning, come downstairs and have a nice hot cup of coffee or tea.
And as you walk downstairs, you notice size 11 muddy boot prints in your living room carpet that were not there the night before. Wow. Now, right, so no one's been hurt, nothing's been taken, but despite you locking the doors and the windows and turning on the alarm, there are now muddy boot prints in your living room that were not there the night before.
So my question to you is, is that a threat? So my response is, it could be if it wanted to be, so we better figure out how it's getting into the house. This is the same rationale from a national security perspective that We see these things coming into our airspace. There's not a darn thing we can do about it.
They seem to be able to interfere with our nuclear equities, and they are very interested in our military capabilities. Is that a threat? Well, it could be if it wanted to be, so we've got to figure it out. Right, we don't know until... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's more... It's almost like... The equivalent is almost like in The Godfather with the horse head in the bed. It's like... You know, we could do this. We could do whatever we want. We're just letting you know we're here. We're rattling your cage. Now, look, they might not.
We might turn out to be so... Well, we might even turn out to be so primitive that they're like, these ding-dongs think that we're threatening them, but we don't need to threaten them. We're just looking around and they're so, you know, we're just like these little peons who are like reacting.
Are there protocols or safety measures in place for dealing with a possible whatever? Muddy boots.
There are, you know, we do a lot of war planning in the Pentagon for contingency planning.
So mocks are ready.
But it's, look, let me give you another example, Will, what you just said. it could be just like us flying in a helicopter over the Serengeti looking at the wildebeest, right? And let's say we go a step further and we decide to dart one and we tranquilize it and we land the helicopter and we pull blood from it and we're looking at its migratory patterns and its health and whatnot.
Can you imagine from the perspective of that wildebeest, now all of a sudden it wakes up, it kind of waddles over to the watering hole and it's like, Bill, you're not going to believe this man.
Yeah, yeah.
i was just sitting there by myself all of a sudden something came down from the sky uh all of a sudden people were touching me things were happening to me and now my butt hurts right yeah i had a similar experience by the way i'm not joking the other night i was driving and i saw a coyote or a coyote as some people say um erroneously and i was driving right here near my house and i saw this coyote and he was whipping along the street because i was driving my car but he was freaking out and
And then he kind of got out of my way and then I was past him. I kind of slowed down and he went behind me. And I was thinking at that time, I was like, oh, silly little coyote, I'm not going to hurt you. Yeah. And I thought like from his perspective, he's like, oh my God, this huge machine with lights and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, for sure.
And there I am. And I don't realize that I'm the coyote and I'm probably more scared and dumber than that coyote in the grand scheme of things. Or we are.
Right. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show.
Luis, talk to Will and Jason about the animal mutations. Yeah. Because that's crazy.
Yeah, so I actually had the privilege of speaking to an individual in Montana. He works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is one of the senior bovine veterinarians there. And he is particularly concerned of what you refer to as cattle mutilations.
It's been going on for decades where farmers here in the United States and around the world have been having some of their livestock completely and totally mutilated. It's gutted and disemboweled without any blood loss. In some cases, it looks like the wounds have been cauterized instantly by some sort of laser. No blood loss. In other cases, very perplexing.
One in particular I heard about up in Montana where the only thing that was missing from the animal was the tiniest little bone from inside the ear. So when you look at natural predation in nature, you can expect, you just talked about a coyote, for example, you can see puncture wounds in animal flesh. You can see how the canines and the incisors will tear away flesh. That's not the case here.
These animals, in some cases with surgical precision and a knowledge of anatomy, Their sexual organs have been removed. In some cases, their brains have been removed. Again, no sign of predation, no blood loss. It's as if someone came in with a laser scalpel and just decided to remove certain portions of the animal while leaving the rest behind.
Okay, okay, okay. This is, I mean, first of all... Who knows everything? Who's the one person other than Sean who's guessing everything? Who knows? Is there one or is there a body of people who are sitting there going, A, laughing at us for worrying about elections and all that stuff, just saying, guys, you are wasting your goddamn time on the wrong thing. And who are those people?
Yeah, is there a department that knows everything that there is to know?
So historically, the CIA and the Air Force had managed this effort for the U.S. government. And then you had some special operations units like Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, who also appeared to have had a piece of it in the Department of Energy. To say that there's one particular group that had all-knowing or all-encompassing insights into this, I don't think so.
I know that there were, when I had our program, ATIP, there was discussions in the hallways of a much older program, a legacy program. that was involved for many, many years in this topic and really was involved in what we call now crash retrievals and trying to exploit that technology. But again, we get back to intent, don't we, right?
We can look at something all day long from a nuts and bolts perspective and still not have any idea it's intent.
you know one one one way to look at this too people say well is it possible there is no intent like artificial intelligence it's just binary it's just doing what it does yeah that's absolutely a possibility as well you know intent seems to be a very human thing and when i say intent i don't mean motivation you know when a shark bites a surfer its intent isn't to hurt the surfer the motivation is that it's hungry and it wants to eat right humans
are really some of the and and some some advanced primates are really the only animals on this planet that have true intent where we we can manipulate things in order to achieve whatever our our intention is um are we dealing with something that is not only very very smart very intelligent but also has intent or is that more of a uniquely human thing right so these are all questions that are that are being asked philosophically from some of the scientists that are that are still part of this effort by the way
We had some of the best theoretical physicists and astrophysicists and mathematicians and scientists in our program.
Based on – and I think I asked this before, and I apologize if you gave me an answer. I probably just didn't understand it. But based on your knowledge of the current pitch of – Do you anticipate having some answers before we die?
Absolutely. No, I think within the next three to five years, you're going to have a heck of a lot more clarity on this.
That's what all the pharmaceutical companies say too. We'll have a cure in three to five years.
Well, do you think AI will help with some of this intelligence gathering?
It is already. We're using it to actually look at deepfake videos to determine if a UFO video is real or faked. And that's important when you're briefing members of Congress, right? You've got to be 100% accurate. And if not, it could blow up.
Is AI going to be able to ask tough questions that we can't or sort of sift through not just images but information? We don't even need to know to ask.
Yeah, so artificial intelligence, unfortunately, its limitations are it's only as good as its teacher, right? And its teacher tends to be humans. What you prompt it, yeah. Right.
Well, Sean used to think that artificial intelligence was when he drank smart water, and he thought, like, he's like, if I just drink it, if I drink enough of it. Trying so hard.
If I drink enough of it. You would think with our current level of, like, global surveillance that, like, every corner of this world has got a camera on it via satellite, so it would think that... There wouldn't be any flying around this planet that goes undetected or unmonitored or stored or something. Is that a safe assumption?
Unfortunately, no. With all due respect, when we actually started calibrating our radar systems to look for UAP, something very interesting happened about a year and a half ago. We started tracking Chinese balloons that were wafting over the northern hemisphere and continental United States. If you remember the stories about these surveillance balloons, they've been there a long time.
The bottom line is we really don't have a very good handle on what we call U.S. air domain awareness. We're supposed to, but the sad truth is we don't. There's a lot of things in our skies that we do not have any visibility into. And that's part of the problem with UAP because UAPs, you know, potentially you could have a near air collision.
And we've had this before with both private pilots and also in some of our military pilots. Right.
I read that too. Because these things are potentially made of material that we haven't programmed our detectors to detect.
It's a little more complicated than that. Let me see if I can break this down for you just from some of the performance parameters. There's five fundamental observables that we have noticed from an intelligence perspective that puts this technology leaps and bounds beyond anything we have. So the first observable is instantaneous acceleration.
That's the ability to move from point A to point B very rapidly. Now, a human being like me We can withstand about nine G-forces wearing a G-suit for a short period of time before you start suffering medical consequences like blackouts, redouts, and ultimately death. So if you compare that to, let's say, the General Dynamics F-16, right?
The F-16 can pull about 16 to 17 Gs before you start having structural failure, meaning the airframe starts to disintegrate around you. What we are seeing are things that are doing 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 G-forces. Well beyond anything that we have. And then you have the other observable, which is hypersonic velocity.
That's five times the speed of sound, or roughly five times 763 miles an hour at sea level, roughly. So you're looking at about 3,200 miles an hour. Now, do we have technology that can go that fast? Yes, we do. The Lockheed YF-12A SR-71, the Blackbird, for example, can do about 3,200 miles an hour at the unclassified level.
But when it wants to take a right-hand turn, it takes roughly half the state of Ohio to do it. And yet what we are seeing... are things that are not doing 3,000 miles an hour. They're doing 10,000, 13,000 miles an hour, and they can execute immediate right-angle turns in 180s, right? So these are some of the things that when you see them, you realize, okay, this is not our technology.
This isn't Russian. This isn't Chinese. This is something completely different.
What's the weirdest thing you've come across that you still can't explain?
How about that? It's so frustrating to not understand that technology because my God, I bet you that could just solve so many things for us to just have technology like that and engineers like that.
Here's what I suspect a little bit. And I think, Sean, this is good news for you. I think that back in the day, back in the 70s, that some of these entities, these unknown entities, if you will, tried to soften the blow of blowing our minds by seeding, slow playing, and through stories, through storytelling.
Battlestar Galactica. Star Wars.
They got into George Lucas' brain. And so my point is this, Sean. You might get... you might get to tattooing. After all this, you might get to fucking tattooing.
I'll go. I'll fucking go.
But you think that we've got a shot, you think within the next three to five years, maybe get a significant breadcrumb here that can satisfy some of our curiosity and some explanation.
What's the holy grail of that, of what Jay's saying? Like, what's the holy grail piece of it?
Well, you know, you don't want to share technology and insight into breakaway technologies. Knowing that there are rogue nations out there and non-state actors that would love to take that technology and do something bad with it. So that's terrifying. Imagine being able to fly over the White House completely anonymously and instantly and do whatever you want and then leave.
That's not exactly a good news situation for our national security. And so that's priority number one, right? How do you have this conversation while keeping it out of the hands of people who don't want to do good things with it? Then you have other issues. How long have we known about this and how long have we kept it from the American people? There's liability there.
There's a very significant problem. For example, look at this from a business perspective. You have company A, aerospace company A, and aerospace company B. Someone in the government decides to take a very interesting piece of material that was found during a crash and gives it to company A. Meanwhile, 10 years later, company A becomes a multi-billion dollar aerospace corporation.
Company B goes bankrupt and now 200 jobs are lost and people, investors now lose their money on the stock market because the company goes belly up. There's like – there's security exchange – there's SEC violations on doing that. You have to – in the government, you have to give everybody a fair chance to compete. And when you give an unfair advantage to company A over company B –
there could be billions of dollars worth of liability in that alone, right? And then you have the problem where people in government were telling people, members of Congress, nothing to see here, folks. Meanwhile, all along, there was a lot to see here. We were actually investigating this and we learned a lot about it.
Do you... Let me ask the... Let's see how I'm going to phrase this. Have you been exposed to enough information in your life that what you think you know or what you do know or what you've heard about or been exposed to, that were the circumstances different, that if we just knew that much, that we'd all be blown away? Stuff that you're not willing or can't talk about. Can you even say that?
Yeah, yeah. Sure, absolutely there is. But let me just give this in a term that everybody will understand here. We live in an incomprehensibly complex universe. And in fact, we judge our universe by the five fundamental senses which we have, which is if you can't touch it, taste it, hear it, smell it, etc., we can't interact with it.
And yet, if you have the ability to look at this world around you through something as simple as cell phone vision— And now you could see in 5G and in Wi-Fi and GPS, you would see an entirely different reality around you. For example, I live here in Wyoming. Beautiful, unoccluded night skies. But if you look at that same portion of the night sky through, let's say, infrared, you will see nebula.
You'll see a whole different reality in front of you that's just as real as the reality you live in now. In fact, maybe even more real. The problem is we can't interact with it. The way we look at the universe through vision alone is only 0.0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Meaning, most of the universe remains hidden because it lies within a frequency beyond what we can perceive.
And then you've got the other challenge of size. So, as...
big as this universe is, most people don't really understand just how big... By the way, just to interrupt, Jason, still applies, size doesn't matter, you're good, it doesn't matter. Okay, okay, okay. Thank you. Okay, okay.
I won't comment.
I saw him get nervous because he's been told so many times he's fine.
I'm fine, right? Luis, tell me before I let you go because, by the way, this has been... It's mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. It's incredible. You have a book called Imminent, which I'm getting. It's inside the Pentagon's hunt for UFOs. It's called Imminent. And I haven't read it yet, but I can't wait to read it. And you wrote it... What was your wife's reaction? I think you...
Yeah, let's just say my involvement in the UFO program went over like a lead balloon. Mrs. Elizondo was not very happy about that.
Just to go back to what you were talking about, and I don't mean to oversimplify it or make it too brief, but are you basically saying that in answer to your question to Will, the stuff that you do know that you're not able to share with us that you are convinced would blow our minds— that the sort of the context of that, the root of that lives in what you're talking about, which is,
the stuff that's amazing is kind of like all of this stuff we can't see, like cell towers or radio frequencies and television stuff that's going through the air that we can't see.
It all kind of lives in there and then eventually we're going to kind of learn about this stuff that, yeah, there's all this stuff around and we just have never seen it because you can't see it just like cell tower technology. The space in between.
Yeah, in essence, you know, look, today's technology was yesterday's magic. That's just the fact, right? And what we consider paranormal, by the definition of science, everything in science is paranormal until it becomes normal. That's just the world we live in. And so we have to recalibrate a little bit how we think about things and how we look at ourselves and our place in the universe.
Like I said, you know, imagine this universe being 100 billion light years across, and we're this tiny little speck, you know, in the middle. And as big as that seems, if you look at one hydrogen molecule, Avogadro's number, one times six-something times 10 to the negative 23rd, that's roughly the same order of scale, guys. Meaning...
As small as we are to the universe, if you compare an atom to our body, that's roughly the same order of magnitude. That's right. We, as a species, can only interact with one or two degrees order of magnitude up or down. Otherwise, the universe is simply too big or too small. And we'll never be able to interact with it.
I love that. I think that's fascinating.
And that's where most of reality lives.
Yeah. Now, final question, at least.
Can you explain why Sean and Scotty won't go past five block radius from their house?
Is this related to that?
It's a microcosm.
Yeah, we're the atom of our neighborhood. Yeah. Right. Final question, at least. What's a talent or skill people would never expect you to have? Oh my God, you got any theater stories?
Yeah, you have any theater stories? Ever forget your line on stage? Okay, so there's three things that... So despite looking like I'm from Iowa, I'm actually Cuban. So I speak Spanish and I'm Hispanic. Okay. We do three things coming out of the womb quite well. One is we smoke cigars quite well. It's genetic for us, I guess. Two, we can dance salsa and merengue pretty well.
And the third thing I probably can't discuss over the airwaves is probably not appropriate. But those are kind of the three things that as Latinos we do well. Nice. Very nice.
Can you once for all also say that definitively that, because Sean said in the opening that- By the way, I was talking about drinking rum.
Yeah. No, I know, I know. Of course you were. For sure, for sure. Good for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just want to make sure I clarify that.
But Sean went to say that whatever, you know, Gwyneth Walston High School or whatever, Glen Ellen Illinois is the best. But it's not, whatever. It's not the best, right? We have evidence to support this. It's kind of the best. Don't answer that.
Don't answer that.
I plead the fifth.
It's a pleasure having you on.
What a pleasure.
I've watched you in documentaries. I've watched you in Congress. I just think what you're doing is incredible. And thank you for it.
Yeah, keep it going, please.
And by the way, thank you for your service to the country as well.
Gentlemen, it's always a team effort. Thank you very much. By the way, my two daughters, who also work for the government, are huge fans of you guys. Oh, tell them hello. Oh, I absolutely will. When I told them I was going to do your show, I think both of them were about to jump out the window. They were so excited.
Can you also make us this pledge? If you get the green light to kind of like divulge a bunch of stuff, will you just give us a heads up real quick? Yeah.
We really want to know. We're so curious, but we really want to know.
We love breaking news on this show. You have my word.
But we'll be sure to pick up your book.
And thank you for spending some time with us. Thanks, Luke. Guys, I appreciate it. Look, I didn't come on here to plug a book. Just wanted to have a conversation with you guys. No, of course. I love it. Appreciate it.
Yeah.
But if there's anything you guys ever have any questions, let me know. Thank you, sir. Okay, thanks, buddy. We got a lot.
Nice to meet you. Enjoy your day. Take care, John. Bye-bye. Isn't that guy great? Wow, wow, wow, wow. Can we make a commitment that we're going to have more non-actors on this show?
I said to Will last week, I was like, you're going to fucking love this guy. I know. I was trying to think. You kept saying, you were trying to send me, you were like, you're going to go crazy. You're going to love. And you were so right.
But you've never seen Luis in documentaries or anything? No. Yeah, and he's always testifying. I don't know what kind of time you think I have.
Yeah, man. You think I'm just like going down wormholes on YouTube for congressional reports? Hey, it was interesting in front of Congress this week.
By the way, the other day I was reading in bed in the middle of the day. It was on a Saturday, so I was just enjoying myself. And Abel said, my fourth junior was like, hey, Bubba, we're texting. He's in the house and he goes, where are you? And I go, I'm in my bed reading. He just writes, nerd. Nerd.
Nerd. Hey, that guy, I got to tell you, man, as we start to get more and more of these bigger breadcrumbs about what is and what isn't, I think we're going to find out a little bit more what is and isn't. it is going to make us feel appropriately smaller and more naive and more humble. And I think I'm ready for that. I bet you most of the world is ready for that and can bear a little bit of it.
Sean, you're ready. I mean, you live in this world. You want to know, but are you worried? Are you worried that... that there might be information that will blow your mind too much? No.
That's going to fucking change?
No, I don't think so. Well, I think, look, some people want to know. I think that information like this, I think that it runs the risk of really bifurcating everybody.
There's too much of a sentence left afterwards. Yeah. Okay, sorry. Don't accept it. Okay. You should have said the sentence and then said, no, that would be very... There's a lot of... It might...
Bye for Katie. Bye for Katie.
Okay, bye. That's smart.
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