The UFO Lie: Shocking truth of Pentagon AAWSAP program | The Basement Office

Transcript

so you are here in the middle of a domino effect one  that started years ago and one that shows no sign   of stopping a bombshell story said ufos are real  a whistleblower said the government knows the   military has encountered them every day for years  there are videos and photos insiders say off-world   vehicles congress says we need to know more about  the ufo a task force created to figure it out   are they aliens is there doubt a reports release 

saying maybe it's real the information comes   with an official seal a ufo office without  delusions will look to the skies and find   conclusions the government seems ready for  the long haul and on and on the dominoes fall i will tell you unequivocally that there is  very compelling evidence that we we may not   be alone this all seems like it's heading towards  an ultimate truth no longer ignored a revelation   for better or worse will further define the 

universe but the story was too good to be true   the story was wrong and instead of being closer  to the truth we probably couldn't be further away for those of you unfamiliar with the  current ufo story and the cast of   characters within here's a quick primer based  on information that was originally reported   in 2007 at the behest of senator harry reid the  pentagon via the defense intelligence agency   created a ufo program called the advanced 

aerospace threat identification program or   atip the first director of atip was a person whose  name wasn't reported and who remained unknown the   next director of atip was luis salazando a counter  intelligence official at the pentagon who by now   has become the face of the whole story  atip was funded with 22 million dollars   the pentagon awarded the 22 million dollars to  bigelow aerospace advanced space studies or bass   bass was contracted to perform 

atip's ufo research and investigation   bass was founded by millionaire and long-time  harry reid financial supporter robert bigelow   bigelow's been hunting ufos his whole life within  the bass team was hal put off a former member of   the church of scientology who claims to  be a psychic who can predict the future   during the cold war put off was involved in  the cia's project stargate which attempted   to create psychic spies that could use 

paranormal powers to fight the russians   stargate was shut down after not achieving  this goal the rest of the bass team was largely   unknown atip investigated ufos  for five years from 2007 to 2012. in 2012 the pentagon pulled the program's  funding and shut it down saying it was   determined that there were other higher 

priority issues that merited funding   despite losing funding luis elizondo claimed he  kept atip going for years after this staying on   as the program's director on october 4th 2017  elizondo resigned from his job at the pentagon   frustrated that ufos were not taken seriously  by military leaders at the department of defense   immediately after his resignation elizondo hal put  off and others took the atip ufo story to former   blink 182 rock star tom de long and his to the 

stars academy or ttsa a for-profit science and   entertainment company on october 11th ttsa held  a press event featuring tom delong lou elizondo   hal put off and other former government officials  who claimed to have new revelations about ufos   the long introduced elizondo to the world for the  first time my name is lou elizondo for nearly the   last decade i ran a sensitive aerospace threat  identification program focusing on unidentified   aerial technologies it was in this position 

i learned that the phenomenon is indeed real   in addition to revealing elizondo and the  pentagon ufo program de long also announced   that he was going to build an exotic craft with  an energy source that can revolutionize the world   build his own ufo another presentation by former  dod official chris mellon revealed a shocking   new ufo case and he displayed a large photo of  the ufo at one point the object soars to 80 000   feet hovers then drops at supersonic speeds 

coming to a full stop how did it accomplish   these feats the ufo in the photo was later  reported to just be a blurry party balloon   the mainstream media reaction to this event  was couched as cheeky celebrity news rather   than science or national defense but that was  all about to change on the same day he resigned   members of ttsa had introduced elizondo to ufo  author and longtime ufo researcher leslie kane   she interviewed him and published two stories in 

the huffington post in mid-october which revealed   in a media exclusive the existence of the pentagon  ufo program and elizondo's role in it however   these two stories were still mostly  ignored by the mainstream media   leslie kane then reached out to long-time  associate and journalist ralph blumenthal   blumenthal pitched the atip and  elizondo story to the new york times and on december 16 2017 the new york times 

and politico released front page bombshell   news stories that revealed the pentagon's atip  ufo program to the world included in the stories   were videos of ufos filmed by the u.s navy within  hours dozens of other news agencies had the story   within days hundreds the first domino had finally  fallen there is very compelling evidence that   we uh we may not be alone whatever that means but some people had doubts they noticed that  something was off that some things were not   adding up one of those people was researcher john 

greenwald one of the nation's leading authorities   on government secrets he runs the black vault  a website that hosts millions of pages of   government documents obtained via the freedom of  information act when he read the december 2017 ufo   stories he immediately noticed some strange  discrepancies well right off the bat i noticed   that the reporting from brian bender politico and  leslie kane ralph blumenthal helene cooper at new   york times had a slightly different program 

name politico says advanced aviation threat   identification program new york times reports  advanced aerospace threat identification program   why was there that difference the amount of  sources that both news media outlets had were   very very small and likely the same so how is it  that the reporting was different as the reporting   went on it got worse i mean there were like seven  or eight i i lined them all up with dates and   who the the media outlet was and there were like 

seven different variations of what atip even stood   for and to an an investigator a researcher like  myself and there's a lot of other people out there   if you're looking into something you need to  have the name right because if you don't have   the name right how are you gonna find anything  right because when you submit a freedom of   information act request you have to be specific  with the government what you're asking for   so if you requested for the advanced aviation 

threat identification program they could come   back and say hey that doesn't exist absolutely  because the name was wrong yep and you could   suddenly be on a goose chase looking for  the truth for the real documents correct   absolutely the accuracy there was incredibly  important the pentagon officially acknowledging   its advanced aviation threat identification  program pentagon has confirmed the existence   of the advanced aerospace threat identification 

program the advanced aviation advanced aerospace   aviation aerospace aviation the advanced aerial  threat identification program so the writing   was on the wall that there was something  odd just behind the meaning of the acronym   another reported detail that is inconsistent  was the years all this supposedly occurred   the original new york times report said the  program began in 2007 but further down the same   article they report the funding and 

actual contract creation of the program   wasn't until late 2008. you start digging in  on that and realize that the bid solicitation   was never posted for companies to bid on  getting the contract wasn't posted until 2008.   yet we were led to believe that atip started in  2007.

created in 2007 2007 2007. so how can you   solicit bids a year after the program allegedly  started when the reporting said 22 million dollars   went to a contractor that uh started a year before  the bid went in wait none of that makes sense   adding to the confusion politico's reporting  released on the same day as the times with   reportedly the same sources as the times says 

atip began in 2009. what now in journalism   dates and names are so basic you want to get  the basic names right you want to get the basic   dates right you can't be a year or two  off and to this day the reported dates   of the ufo program remain all over the  place generally in reporting like that   if one thing is wrong you have to ask the question 

what else is wrong further questions and issues   arose with lou elizondo's role with atip in  hundreds of media reports elizondo is credited   as the director of atip media outlets  also phrased it as he ran the program   or he was in charge of the program and elizondo  without doubt is the face of this whole story now   but the pentagon has released statements stating  mr elizondo had no responsibilities with atip   and this is a statement the pentagon has doubled 

down on and they're not budging and even now   over four years later this central part of  the whole story continues to be disputed   another confusing detail is at the very top of  the original times report is a video of a ufo   filmed by the us navy the times reports that  atip investigated and released this now famous   video to the public yet the video was shot in  2015 atip shut down in 2012.

also the department   of defense released a statement saying no that  video had not been cleared for public release   and some in the media wondered how much of this  was simply a so-called sweetheart deal between   senator reid and his longtime friend and financial  supporter robert bigelow back in 2017 there were   a handful of journalists who pointed this out as  a potential red flag public records show bigelow   contributed about twenty thousand dollars 

to reed and his political action committee   that campaign contributor got research contracts  from this program that just is a bad picture   there are other outstanding questions confusing  statements and blatant errors but despite all this   the story mostly as originally reported over  four years ago mostly without any corrections   or updates or disclaimers continues to spread like  wildfire and has become legendary so what you're   telling me is that ufos are real bill i think 

we're beyond that already i put my entire career   on the line because i believe in what i believe  he ran the pentagon's top secret ufo program   i knew this was breaking news for the front  page of the new york times and then bam the   new york times story it changed everything it was  a bombshell right that's what it was this is too   big to turn away from this is real wake up tmz  investigates i don't know if i'm going to have a   job tomorrow just for having this conversation 

with you ufos the pentagon proof tuesday then in october of 2021 the plot twist remember that unknown and unnamed individual who  was the first director of the atip ufo program   well we eventually learned his name james lakatsky  and after that we learned his story he's finally   come out of the shadows to set the record straight  lickatsky along with colm kelleher a project   manager for the pentagon program and journalist  george knapp released a book titled skinwalkers   at the pentagon an insider's account of the secret 

government ufo program they say the story we've   been told for over four years is wrong lickatsky's  book says since the december 2017 article in the   new york times there has been a multi-year  frenzy of speculation misinformation and   confusion about the nature of the program one of  the purposes of this book is to correct the record   co-author colin kelleher did an interview saying  the new york times article in december 2017   mistakenly used that acronym atip and they 

mistakenly assigned lou elizondo to be head of   this program and that you know that was a mistake  in reporting by the new york times they say many   details in the original story were in error  and guess what there's actually real documented   evidence to back that up and surprisingly some of  these documents have been out in the public domain   for years now it's just that many people including  myself didn't fully understand what they were or   how they related if at all to a pentagon ufo 

program called atip probably because they don't   mention anything about atip and they don't mention  ufos they mention something else so i now present   to you the mostly untold and underreported  story of the pentagon's assap program   in 2008 at the behest of senator harry reid the  pentagon through the defense intelligence agency   created a program not called atip but rather the  advanced aerospace weapon systems application   program or awsap we know this because here is the 

actual official pentagon document outlining awsap   not atip the director of asap was a defense  intelligence agency scientist named james lakatsky   we know this because here is his name  listed on official pentagon documents   as being in charge of the program in many ways all sap started with james lakatsky  according to both lakatsky and senator reid   lakatsky had approached the senator to say he  believed the ufo phenomena was real and he wanted   a program to investigate not just ufos but also 

how ufos might fit into the realm of what we might   consider the paranormal reed told lakatsky  he would support the creation of a program   but according to reed they faced a challenge how  to convince congress to allocate taxpayer money   to investigate ufos could they create a ufo  program without actually mentioning ufos   reid told new york magazine i said to lakatsky  well if you were me what would you say to people   in power in the united states senate who have 

huge control over the spending of defense money   and here's what lakatsky said what i will do is  prepare something for you that anyone can look   at that wants to it's strictly science he put  it in scientific language what the study should   consist of here are the actual asap contract  objectives there are no mentions of ufos at   all to anyone reading it it might seem like just  a normal aerospace technology contract the actual   objective of the program was essentially using 

currently evolving technology trends predict what   kind of aerospace technologies foreign adversaries  will have 40 years from now that's basically it   all sap appeared to be something normal that  the government would normally spend money on asap was funded with 22 million dollars the  pentagon awarded the 22 million dollars to   bigelow aerospace advanced space studies or  bass bass was contracted to perform all of   alsap's technical research and analysis we 

know this because here is an actual pentagon   document acknowledging bass as the contract  recipient bass was founded by millionaire and   long-time harry reid financial supporter robert  bigelow within the bass team was hal puthoff who   we already briefly discussed as well as other  scientists with a history of unorthodox ideas   including dr colem kelleher and dr eric davis an  astrophysicist who's written papers discussing   psychic teleportation time travel through stargate 

wormholes and bending spoons with your mind   bass hired a team of 50 people and then  the work on awsap began on the surface asap   appeared to be an aerospace technology program  to harry reid in his words asap was actually   a program to study ufos and related phenomena  with bass however that so-called related phenomena   would take awsap in a shocking  and very unexpected direction   a lot of asap's investigations took place at 

skinwalker ranch a supposed paranormal hot spot   in utah owned by robert bigelow as outlined  in great detail on the record by lakatsky   and bass leadership the so-called pentagon ufo  program was not just a ufo program but rather   an investigation into a cornucopia of spooky  and scary things including werewolves ghosts and half dinosaur half beaver monsters literally the project manager of the program  referred to skinwalker ranch as a   paranormal disneyland so the idea was to to 

have a living laboratory on skinwalker ranch   that we could uh assess what was going  on unusual creatures uh discarnate voices   poltergeist activity so it was a paranormal  disneyland that really started the whole thing off asap spent only one year investigating ufos ghosts  and goblins before the pentagon started to pull   the plug in 2009 after reviewing ossap's reports  the pentagon states that it was determined the   reports were of limited value in the december 

2017 politico article a congressional staffer   is quoted as saying there was really nothing  there that we could justify using taxpayer money   and that even harry reid agreed it was not worth  continuing the pentagon decided not to renew all   sap's funding and shut it down completely by  2012 stating that the program was terminated   in 2012 due to lack of real progress and  concerns about the viability of the program   and that it was determined that there were other 

higher priority issues that merited funding   james lickatsky says he spent the next  few years trying to get new funding to   resurrect the dead program and to keep  the paranormal investigations going   but he was unsuccessful finally lakatsky says he  retired in 2016. and that is the mostly untold   story about how 22 million dollars in taxpayer 

money was spent on a wacky paranormal fun house and it appears that at the time the pentagon had  no idea this silly spooky stuff was even happening   how is that possible well lakatsky the pentagon  director of the program says that for security   reasons he was hiding awesapp's activities from  officials at the pentagon people in my own office   they didn't know what we were doing they had  no idea that i was running skinwalker ranch   they had no idea whatsoever and was harry reid 

aware of the ghosts and goblins well i guess   it depends on which version of his story you  want to believe in 2018 in an interview with   new york magazine re-denied ever being briefed  or updated on any of asap's activities ever   ever but then in 2021 reed told george knapp  that not only was he aware of asap's activities   at skinwalker ranch but that he was potentially  planning to go to the ranch himself i remember   getting a call from you while you're in 

the well of the senate and you asked about   skinwalker ranch whether your staffers  should go there whether they'd be safe   did you consider sending some of your people to  the ranch and did you ever consider going there   yourself i considered it but based on information  i got from you and others i decided not to go   it would also have drawn attention to the ranch  and the program right if you went there you'd   have to tell somebody about it that's for sure 

and senator reid would eventually fully endorse   this whole crazy story two months before his  death by writing the forward to lakatsky's book   in it he calls out the new york times the december  2017 new york times story has done a tremendous   amount of good but unfortunately it has also  muddied the waters it left the government's   all-sap program completely out of the narrative  yeah why wasn't any of this stuff reported in   that bombshell 2017 new york times article 

how did a story about a program called ossap   which investigated ufos werewolves ghosts  goblins become a story about a program called   atip which only investigated ufos well leslie kane  is a long time ufo believer and ufo researcher   writing ufo stories going back decades she wrote  a bestselling book on ufos in 2010 and it was   leslie kane who approached ralph blumenthal to  pitch the big ufo story to the new york times   she was one of the authors of the new york 

times article in a recent showtime documentary   leslie kane was asked why stories about alleged  encounters with alien creatures were not included   in her 2017 new york times article and she  replied that her specific goal with that article   was to give ufos credibility so she avoided  reporting on some things i chose not to focus   on it because the angle that i was taking in my  reporting was to try to get credibility for the   subject and i knew that that was not the way to 

go that was not the first step in terms of getting   people to accept this so an author of the original  new york times article the article that was the   first domino to fall in all of this says she  wrote the article with a specific angle in mind   get people to accept ufos as real that sounds  like the goal of an activist not a journalist   but i see where she's coming from because could  you imagine if that first new york times article   had talked about werewolves and poltergeists and 

giant dino beavers it would have been laughed at   and ridiculed and used as a prime example  of the government wasting taxpayer money   but because all of that wasn't mentioned and only  unidentified flying objects were that new york   times article continues to validate ufos with not  just your average citizen but also with members of   congress since the new york times story came out  december 2017 it's politically viable for elected   officials to come forward and say i support this 

kind of research but if you that's for researching   things in the sky that might be a threat  to national security or the aviation safety   it's another matter for a politician to say  i agree with spending money to investigate   places like skinwalker ranch with spooky stories  of boogeymen and werewolves no politician is going   to fund poltergeist research or looking into  werewolves they'd be crucified so how much of   the actual story did the original new york times 

article report how much of the actual story is   currently influencing congress the scope of the  asap program was gigantic compared to the small   sliver information that was reported from the via  the new york times and so the purpose of the book   was really to set the record straight i think the  book really encapsulates about 97 percent of asap   whereas the three percent was what the new york  times article had uh had described 3 according to   those actually in charge of the actual program the 

original new york times article about the program   only contains 3 percent of the actual story 97  wasn't included so let's talk about the three   percent that was it was originally reported that  the name of the program was a tip and it was led   by a guy named lou elizondo so first where the  heck did the name atip come from in his book   program director james lecatsky writes atip was a  made-up substitute name to describe asap a made-up   name so he's saying that a-tip a-tip didn't even 

exist that a-tip itself was a nickname and only   a nickname to the ossap program so they were  the exact same thing atip was just a nickname   asap being the program the program was nicknamed  advanced aerospace threat identification   program atem people have trouble trying to get  documents out of the pentagon by saying they want   all documents in atip and they have a hard time  because that wasn't actually the name of the   program the top name there is the actual name 

of the program but atip was with the nickname   that it went by and even harry reid and the  pentagon have previously agreed with this   reed stated in an interview that atip and ossap  should be considered together when researcher   roger glissell asked about the names atip and asap  a pentagon spokeswoman replied that they were the   same program and that asap was just an alternative  name for atip so how did atip become a nickname   for asap well remember how lakatsky said he was 

hiding asap from other officials at the pentagon   how according to lekatsky they had no  idea whatsoever about asap's activities   in their book the authors say senator reid and  those working at skinwalker ranch were worried   that asap's activities would eventually come to  light as such senator reid submitted a request   that asap be given top secret special access  status which if approved would have officially   limited how many people had access and control 

over the program here is the special access   request letter submitted by senator harry reid to  deputy secretary of defense william lynn in 2009   but instead of saying awsap the actual program  name reed used the nickname atip but reed's plan   to protect osap apparently backfired his request  was denied and his letter was widely distributed   within the pentagon the cat was out of the bag  suddenly the rest of the pentagon which had no   idea that this program was underway they had no 

idea suddenly everyone knows about it and they   start asking questions gosh what if this gets  out that we're involved in study of ufos and   ghosts and creatures so two things appear to have  happened here one reed's letter was the first time   many within the pentagon had even heard about this  program and reid's letter used the nickname atip   so according to those who were previously in  the dark about all this atip was the name of   the program two the pentagon didn't want this 

embarrassing story spreading outside the pentagon   they didn't want it in the press and they didn't  want speeches in congress about government waste   so they moved to shut it all down the new  yorker quotes a pentagon official saying   people worried that if all this came out that the  government was spending money on this this will be   a bad story the pentagon pulled all sapp's funding  in 2010 and by 2012 the funding had completely   dried up and asap was officially dead but despite 

the program being shut down lou elizondo who had   become interested in the ufo aspects of asap  claims he kept the effort going at the pentagon   according to james lakatsky elizondo adopted  and appropriated the name atip to describe this   new small unfunded and unofficial effort lickatsky  has only done a handful of interviews since going   public here's a revelatory clip from one  of them on the coast-to-coast radio show   where he specifically addresses this the atip name 

was created for a letter that senator reid sent in   trying to establish a dod sap for our program for  various reasons uh and lou used that name when he   and i guess it had to be in the time frame of  2012 and he used the name atip nothing wrong   with that i mean that's that's fine but there was  a difference between the two programs ours had 22   million dollars in funding his had zero  but he did his thing we did ours but   i can say that we were the only game in town 

so what did lou elizondo actually do you know   the guy who everyone refers to as the director  of atip the pentagon ufo program luis elizondo   former director of the pentagon's advanced  aerospace threat identification program   luis elizondo ran the advanced aviation threat  identification program the man who ran that secret   program luis elizondo thank you for joining us was  he even involved in the official pentagon program   at all in the 221-page book about the pentagon 

ufo program elizondo appears one time that's a bit   strange right one time at a 2009 dinner sitting  at a table with members of assap and bass   where the authors claim he was telling war stories  about his psychic powers that's it well elizondo   himself has stated multiple times on the record  that he had nothing to do with asap including this   emphatic tweet which says it's been brought to my  attention that despite my constant assertion in   the media about my non-involved in asap some are 

under the false impression that i was part of it   for the record again and again i was not part  of assap elizondo instead says he was in charge   of the pentagon's atip program which i think  we've established probably didn't even exist   insiders say it was not an official program  it was a completely separate small initiative   a small unofficial effort not a program as the  p and a tip suggests but more in his spare time   when his normal day job allowed he looked for ufos 

there are two pieces of documentation that further   supports this one is an email from the year 2020  released via the freedom of information act to   john greenwald in it elizondo is challenging the  pentagon press office regarding their statements   denying his role with atip elizondo concedes  that his atip could be defined more as simply   an activity versus an actual program the second is  an annual pentagon evaluation of elizondo from the   year 2016.

it outlines all his officially  assigned responsibilities at the pentagon   none of which have to do with ufos or  anything called atip so with all that in mind   let's look again at the pentagon's  official statement regarding elizondo that appears to be a true statement in april 2022 brian bender the author  of the original 2017 politico article   tweeted that he now feels like he was purposely 

misled by numerous sources on what atip really was   and wasn't in response to a twitter user stating  seems clear that they wanted to gloss over the   paranormal stuff which is like where all the money  really went bender replied 100 they buried the   origin story because they were afraid it would  be perceived as a utter waste of taxpayer money   it would have also further soured the whole  effort given the bigelow connection to harry reid   it was a pork project to investigate voodoo 

that morphed into ufos and regarding myself   and all the basement office episodes  i've made about atip and elizondo   i was apparently wrong it wasn't intentional  but in an honest attempt to report the truth   about the pentagon ufo program i  too feel like i was purposely misled as for elizondo he along with other former  members of tom delong's to the stars academy   have been lobbying congress to spend more money on 

ufos they say the original new york times article   continues to influence congressional leaders since  many of the paranormal aspects weren't included   in that story chris mellon the guy who  once stood in front of a gigantic photo   of a blurry party balloon admits that telling  congress about asap would be counter productive   their efforts appear to have paid off bipartisan  congressional leaders like senators kristin   gillibrand and marco rubio helped create a new ufo 

program at the pentagon the new program is called   the airborne object identification and management  synchronization group and another domino falls i'm gonna leave you with one more thing lou  elizondo said he had nothing to do with asap   nothing to do with the werewolves and  ghosts and goblins nothing to do with asap   in may 2021 elizondo filed a complaint with the  department of defense inspector general's office   written in his own words signed with his signature 

elizondo's complaint accuses some of the pentagon   of smearing his reputation by releasing statements  denying his involvement as director of atip   in his complaint which i obtained a copy of he  outlines in detail each and every role he claims   to have had from 2008 to 2017. in  2008 he says he joined james lakatsky   on awsap his role was in his words asap's chief of 

counterintelligence and security from 2008 to 2010   elizondo describes his various duties with allset  including reviewing incoming reports from bass   in april 2010 he writes dr lakatsky approached  me and asked if i would consider assuming the   role of asap an atip director and in may 2010 he  says his new role was director for atip and asap i think we should stop and ask ourselves how  did we get here what stories brought us here   who told those stories are we closer to the 

truth or are we further away perhaps to find   the answer instead of waiting for the next domino  to drop maybe there's only one thing left to do a true story will stand the test of time   change one thing and it can look completely  different like something else all together if you went back and re-followed the  evidence would the story sound the same   would it look the same would you see  something different something new   something that was always right 

there right in front of you you are here at the beginning over the next few episodes we will go back  to re-examine and reassess some of the most   incredible ufo stories ever told the only  question is where will this new journey take us   so let's begin you