FigureLuis Elizondo
aka Luis Elizondo · Lue Elizondo · Elizondo
Former U.S. Army counterintelligence officer; describes himself as the director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) from 2010 to his October 2017 resignation. The Department of Defense has variously confirmed and disputed his role; his clearance level and access have been confirmed in subsequent congressional record.
What's documented
Former U.S. Army counterintelligence Special Agent; served at Guantanamo Bay; later served at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSDI). Elizondo states that he directed AATIP from 2010 to 4 October 2017, when he resigned in protest of what he characterized as excessive secrecy. The Pentagon initially denied (December 2017) that AATIP existed in any operational form, then partially confirmed (June 2019) that the program had existed but disputed Elizondo’s role. The Inspector General of the Department of Defense released a partially declassified report on 4 March 2024 (“Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”) that documents Elizondo’s tenure in redacted form. His memoir Imminent (William Morrow, 2024) describes a career narrative consistent with his AATIP claims; the book is the longest first-person account by a named former U.S. intelligence officer alleging direct knowledge of non-human craft retrieval programs. The verification status of those program claims as of 2026 is: unresolved in the public record.