The controversial former Pentagon official who claims he headed up a program examining reports of UFOs by military aviators said the release of a government report on the phenomena was as a “historic moment” Friday.
“This is certainly a historic moment for us, for our country, and I think, for our military and our intelligence community,” Luis Elizondo, who says he formerly led the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“The government has formally and officially come out and informed Congress that these things are — a, they’re real — and two, that they’re not ours and that they seem to be performing, at least some of them … in remarkable ways,” he added.
The long-awaited report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) acknowledged 144 UFO sightings by armed forces personnel across the US since 2004. The report described the objects as a threat to flight safety and possibly national security, but added that there was no “single explanation” for their appearance.
The report separated the unknown objects into five categories: airborne clutter, such as birds, balloons and random debris; atmospheric phenomena; classified programs by US corporate or government entities; technologies deployed by foreign nations or non-government entities; and what the report describes as “a catchall ‘other’ bin.”
