Somewhere in the Skies - Luis Elizondo & Christopher Mellon: An IMMINENT Conversation

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

WARNING: This is a REBROADCAST. With the recent release of Luis Elizondo's book, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs, Ryan revisits a classic episode of the podcast where he is joined by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and former Staff Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Christopher Mellon, and former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and lead investigator of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Luis Elizondo. Mellon and Elizondo discuss an article written by Mellon published by The Debrief about the deafening silence by the United States Air Force on cooperating with the Pentagon and Congress in relation to UFOs/UAPs. They also discuss what role the Air Force has played in the past with this highly controversial topic, reasons why they may be silent, and why that needs to change. Follow Cristopher Mellon on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ChrisKMellon  Follow Luis Elizondo on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/LueElizondo  Learn more about ANOMACON: www.anomacon.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies PayPal: [e-mail] Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/somewhereskies/videos Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Produced by LIONSGATE Copyright © 2024. Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the recent release of Luis Elizondo's book, Imminent, Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs, Ryan rebroadcasts a classic episode of the podcast, where he is joined by former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and former Staff Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Christopher Mellon, and former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and lead investigator of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Luis Elizondo. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome, everyone, to a very special live stream today of Somewhere in the Skies. And I have to personally thank the debrief and specifically Chrissy Newton for putting our show together today with our amazing guests who we will get to in just a second. If you're new to the channel, we chat all things to UFOs in a very grounded, objective way.

We bring on people in all walks of life to talk about it. And that's what we're going to be doing today after this. I would say pretty scathing yet very crucial article came out at the debrief by the author Christopher Mellon of the article who we'll be talking to today as well. Without wasting any other time, I'm going to do a little brief intro here of what we're going to be talking about. So an article came out in the debrief yesterday, February 3rd, about the blitzing. in absence of the United States Air Force in the UAP issue. This is a brief overview of that article that we'll be talking about with our special guests today. So last June, the Director of National Intelligence released a public report entitled

Preliminary Assessment Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. The report confirmed that UFOs or UAPs were operating on a reoccurring basis with seeming impunity in restricted U.S. military airspace. The report cited 144. incident since 2004. The U.S. Air Force contributed very few, if any, of the 144 reports. How is this possible in light of the USAF's global responsibility for aerospace defense and its massive air and space surveillance capabilities? The lapsing USAF reporting raises doubts on the credibility of the Air Force on the UAP issue and its responsiveness to civilian oversight.

The author brings forth convincing data indicating that the Air Force and its component organizations actually detected thousands of UAP from 2004 through 2021. So we are going to be talking all about this today with Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizando. Little brief intro for both of these guys. Christopher Mellon is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense and former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. And Luis Alizando is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

But before we bring them in, I do want to bring in my co-pilot, my co-host for this episode today. And that is Chrissy Newton from the debrief. Chrissy, thank you for joining me. Hi, Ryan. Thank you for having me. Again, like one of my favorite podcasts. So just happy to be here.

My absolute pleasure. Again, you are the one who put this all together today. So I have to thank you and all the guys over at the debrief for making this happen with our guests who we're going to bring in. right now. So welcome to somewhere in the skies. We have Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo. Thank you so much for joining me today, guys. Pleasure to be here. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, okay, Chris. So obvious question, man. This article came out yesterday. It's getting buzz everywhere in the UFO community outside of the UFO community. I've had so many

former Air Force people reach out to me linking to your article. I know the Hill is really interested in this as well. But initial question for you, before we really get started, what prompted you to write this article that came out in the debrief yesterday? Well, thanks for asking. I was having trouble sitting still in light of what has transpired the last couple of years. It was really getting under my skin the complete disconnect between what Congress had asked for and what the Air Force had provided. And when you read the report, it suggests that they may even be contemplating, not filling in that gap, but just going forward and saying, well, we'll do kind of a test experiment program for a while and see how that goes. That, you know, it's hard for me to take off my, my spectacles from being a former Senate staff or I've seen the issue largely through that vantage point and expressing the kinds of concerns and perceptions that I would have.

where I still on the staff advising a senator or a member of Congress. So it just struck me as outrageous, actually, and I wanted to express my concerns and observations about that. Yeah, I mean, and again, the timing for this article, I think, couldn't be better, especially since we now have several groups within the Pentagon and, you know, with former representatives and current representatives, really getting behind the UAP issue and forcing this topic into the mainstream. like never before.

But I know yesterday on Chrissy's show, you talked a little bit about these sensory systems that the Air Force is privy to and use on a constant basis. So I was hoping maybe could you briefly touch on a few of these for us and why you think the Air Force is literally the branch of the military that should be taking the reins on this entire issue? Sure. Well, I've provided a few. brief examples. So there's a system called the space fence, which is unique to the United States,

and we have two locations, one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere where this system operates. And essentially, anything in orbit that passes through the beams of this system is going to be cataloged in high detail, in high resolution. Incredibly powerful system. In addition, we have these solid state phase-dray radars that are the most powerful emitters on the planet Earth that are in locations around the periphery of North America to guard us against ICBM and cruise missile attacks and bomber attacks from afar. They can see in some cases objects potentially 20,000 miles away the size of a baseball. So the taxpayers' money has been invested extensively to provide these capabilities.

They're obviously collecting mountains of data every day 24-7, 365 all year long. And it's inconceivable that with all of that data, they're not having any incidents involving unknown aerial phenomenon. Yeah. And again, it goes to show like how much they should be on top of this. And not only that, but reporting something, something to the Pentagon, something. something to Congress. Lou, I love to ask your thoughts on that as well.

In your time during atyp and whatnot, were these sensory systems anything that you ever looked into with the DOD or with the Air Force specifically when it came to looking at UAP incursions over military airspace, I guess? Yeah, sure, sure. Great question. In essence, look, Chris is absolutely right. We spend billions of dollars on avoiding any type of strategic surprise from an adversary. And so what makes our capabilities so capable, so effective, is that we don't just rely on one system.

We imagine a cloth that has woven fibers. They kind of go this way and then some go up and down. And that's the strength. That's what provides a strength to the fabric. And very much the same way when we are looking at having what we call, for example, air domain awareness, being aware of what's actually in our skies. We have all sorts of very capable systems from electro-optical, hyper-spectral, to electromagnetic like radar.

And these are capabilities that exist not just on the ground, but also at sea, also airborne, and finally space-borne. And so when you have capabilities that are looking from the ground up and from the sea up and from the air across and from space down, you get a much better comprehensive picture of what's going on. And that is the value of our intelligence assets because it's not just one system. There are multiple systems that are designed in some cases, some cases to work with each other. In other cases, integrating the systems can be a bit of a challenge.

But therein lies the utility. As far as the Air Force kind of not playing much of a role, in this. If I may remind you in your audience just a few months ago, the Secretary of the Air Force said for the record, look, we know these things are out there. We know they're real these things. But since we don't know what they are, it's not really a priority. Now, think about that statement for just a minute. I'm not trying to beat up on Secretary Kendall. I'm just simply saying that that's like saying, okay, a submarine pops out of the Potomac River outside of Washington, D.C. and we know it's not ours, but because we don't know whose it is, we're not going to pay attention to it.

That really doesn't make much sense, and especially when you're talking about controlled U.S. airspace, you know, there are definitely some no-go fly zones that we have, and we have them there too because of a result of 9-11. And so making sure that we can maintain air domain awareness is an imperative of this country, good or for bad. And yet we know, as a matter of fact, these things continue to come in unimpeded into our controlled U.S. airspace. And they're displaying technology, quite frankly, that is rather perplexing. It's beyond anything that we have in our current inventory. Yeah, to exemplify what Lou is talking about, the U.S. space surveillance system alone has 29 distinct components in subsystems. So you've got a ground-based optical network that's

the world that's looking at the sky and comparing the movement against the stars of anything that is reflecting light from the sun, for example. And then imagine 28 other components, including satellite systems and ground-based radars and other things. So it is quite an extensive mesh, as Lou said. But part of the reason that in addition to that, that it seems so unconscionable to me that the Air Force was not presenting or sharing any cases is some of this stuff is in the newspapers. We've got Air Force interceptors taking off from fighter squadrons in Oregon chasing UFOs

that commercial airline pilots are reporting to the FAA, and the FAA's got them on radar, and we've got the chatter from the pilots on radar, and the Air Force is acknowledging these planes were scrambled. So how can they not list and identify those as this UAE, incidents. So it ranges not only from things that may be highly classified, but things that are already very much in the public domain. And it's very hard for me to understand and reconcile the Congress's request for

information and this seeming near complete dearth of information provided by the Air Force. Yeah, I was going to ask. It perfectly leads into the question I was going to ask then next is about terminology, Chris. You say that terminology might play a part in the reason why the Air Force. wasn't handing any of the reports over. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because maybe that's one of the reasons as well, especially if we're seeing it in the mainstream.

Well, I'd like to share a story in that regard. And this goes back to the days of Project Blue Book. And there was some public debate and criticism between the main astronomer, chief scientist of Project Blue Book, Mr. Heineck, and Carl Sagan, who was a critic of UAPs and Carl Sagan said, well, if they were really these, these UFOs around, certainly NORAD would see some of them. So Dr. Heinek went to NORAD headquarters with Dr. Valet, got a briefing, challenged them. And it turned out that the Air Force, while they were saying we have no UFOs, they were saying,

oh, well, we call them UCTs uncorrelated targets. Yeah, we do have a lot of those, but that's not what you asked about. So, you know, people can't play semantic games in terms of how they characterize things and categorize things. And we know that after 9-11, for example, they provided Congress statistics on unknowns in the atmosphere in North America. There were hundreds of cases per annum. They updated that in 2015 and provided data on that. So why is it so hard to do that today? And similarly with space-based surveillance,

They acknowledge publicly. We have thousands of unidentified objects in orbit, mostly pieces of space debris and junk. But again, they were not forthcoming in terms of trying to provide a picture that would help members of Congress decide how effective this system is. Do we have gaps? Do we have problems? Should we be spending more?

How much of a threat is or that sort of thing? The members are sort of being asked to operate in a vacuum, and I don't think that's acceptable. That's what always bothers me is the different terminology that could be put in place to sidestep this issue and what can be classified, what can be unclassified as well. And NORAD is certainly the place that I think a lot of people are looking, the Department of Energy as well. So that kind of leads into my next question, Chris and for Lou too, is this blanket denial that you speak of in the article. Why aren't policymakers and whatnot, you know, kind of holding the Air Force to the flames with this thing? The Navy seems to be out front with this and being very open and public about it.

But why do you each personally think the Air Force has been so absent from this issue? And giving what has been asked of them from representatives, from Congress, from the Pentagon. Yeah, would either of you like to touch on that? Why is the Air Force doing this? I'll be happy to take an initial stab at it. You partly seem to be asking why was Congress seemingly not more outspoken? Why were they accepting this or allowing this to happen? And I think the reason is because they were provided gross numbers,

not specific breakdowns as far as I know in terms of the service components. So I don't think initially they realized that out of the 144 incidents identified that they were, essentially all Navy. And I think had they known that at the outset, it would have highlighted this gap and this discrepancy, and there would have been more questions. It's taken a while to process that. In terms of why that is, this is speculative, but the behavior we're observing does suggest that there's either a degree of contempt for civilian oversight, or there's something that they're very concerned about concealing and hiding, or they're very disorganized or some combination. of the above. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it serves the public or the service well.

Yeah, I'll jump on board that too. I've got a couple points here that I think for me may resonate. First of all, if you look at the history of the U.S. Air Force, when this topic was really being discussed, it goes back to the Cold War. You had there it was a winner takes all chess game for the globe, really. And you had the United States on one side, and then you had the then Soviet Union on the other side. And we're in the midst of, despite what people think of being a cold war, is actually pretty hot. And we had a lot of proxy wars going on as a result of that.

I think when presented with data and say, look, we've got this, we've got priorities and we can only handle so many priorities as a national defense organization. You have this real threat where Russia has nukes and we are in this winner, winner takes all mindset. And then we've got this other thing out there that we don't really understand very well. We don't, you know, we don't understand how it works and who's behind it, but we don't see any really overt hostile intent, at least not yet. So we probably should focus on the real threat that we all agree is there, which is then Soviet Union.

Also, you're talking about things like Operation and Blue Book, right, where you had this whitewashing of certain data. There was a lot of pressure on the Air Force at the time to say, look, these things aren't real. Let's not cause a panic. Let's just kind of tamp this down and we can deal with it later, perhaps. So they've said for the record to the American people in the Congress that there's nothing to see here, folks. Now we're asking the Air Force to come back online and say, well, actually, maybe there is something here. And then, of course, you have some of the efforts by the U.S. Air Force in the past on this topic, maybe they're uncomfortable, you know, talking about it. Maybe, maybe there's some national security equities involved. And last but not least,

I think there may be a generational thing here, too. You know, generation of you folks, you know, Chris and I being the exception, our generation intended to be a little bit closed-minded, unfortunately. And it also, there was a time where some of this would touch upon the belief systems, people, you know, Judeo-Christian beliefs, this may have had some sort of conflict there personally for some people. We're not a situation where we have a new generation of young folks, young Americans who are far more open-minded. These folks have, you know, really the entire world at their fingertips. And the world now is all of a sudden much, much smaller. And so I think there's potentially a willingness of this generation to take this topic more seriously.

And for me, I think that's, you know, that's a good news story. There's all sorts of reasons why the Air Force may not want to have this conversation. And it may frankly be a combination of all these factors and even some that we haven't yet considered. I do have hope, faith and confidence that there are some people, brave men and women in uniform right now, who are actually in the Air Force, who are taking this topic seriously. I'll share with you very quickly something that's frustrating for Chris and I. There was, there was an individual, an officer, I won't say who, or the rank that was reporting information to the task force, and then was very quickly shut down by his chain of command, saying you will not report this

information. And he was admonished. And you will not report this information to the chain of command. Through the task force chain of command, you're going to keep this with an Air Force channels. And that's problematic because it really flies in the face of the intent of Congress. in my opinion. Chris can probably elaborate a little bit more on that, but that's not what Congress wants. Congress wants a single reporting belly button, so to speak, that all the information from all the services can get looked at and triaged and analyzed. When the services don't work together, things fail. This is why we had a 9-11 commission report, because certain elements in the intelligence community, simply we're not sharing information that they should have. One of probably my favorite

quotes that Chris has is talking about comparing the U.S. and Russia. We won the Cold War, not because we kept better secrets, but because we learned how to move information more efficiently. And think about that for a moment. This is probably a perfect case and point on this topic. If we can figure out a way to move information more efficiently and not keep this, you know, within the super, Uber, highly classified channels that it once was. we probably stand a better chance of figuring this out a lot quicker. I'm going to move into with the question too, then we move into leaks. Are we going to see less leaks now because we have to report them or it has to be reported now?

Are we going to see less of that? I'll jump in real quick. First of all, I don't condone leaks. And I think I can speak for my colleague, Chris, but I'll let them speak for himself. Leaks are damaging to national security. None of us want there to be leaks. However, what we also don't want is the overclassification of information. Avril Haynes, the Director of National Intelligence, just recently put out some information

that we are definitely hurting national security by overclassifying information. That's not helpful. Information that is kept classified and out of the hands and away from the eyes of people who need it is useless. You're not doing anything with it. You're wasting money. You're wasting time. You're wasting resources.

So I do. think more information will be forthcoming because what has happened is that Congress has now created a reporting mechanism, required it in law, in fact, that this information will report it to the right people. And then in turn, that information can be looked at and then provided to the American people in a consumable, unclassified manner. What makes information classified typically is something called sources and methods. And it's the way you collect information and who collects it and how they collected. Oftentimes it's not the information itself that's classified. And so therefore, what I would propose is that whoever leaves this effort moving forward really needs to remember

that. And there is a very easy way. We do it all the time with the United Nations. We do it all the time with the American people and state of union address, where you take highly classified data and you provide that information to the American people in an unclassified manner. I don't know. Chris, what do you think? The unfortunate thing is, part of one of the unfortunate things is that if the government, if a component of the government is not being forthcoming, it actually can encourage leaks because people want to see the right thing done. If information is being concealed and withheld from Congress, sometimes the only way some people feel they have to communicate it is to leak. it creates more pressure, increases the likelihood of that happening in some cases, which, as

Luce said, is unfortunate. But the Air Force, to some degree, is the master of their own fate here. And I think the more sort of responsive they are, the less likely there is to be unwanted leaks on this score. When the Defense Department protects many things very, very well, as does the intelligence community. The black programs that I was aware of when I was in the Pentagon, I don't recall a single one of them leaking. They were, the idea that the U.S. government can't keep secrets is nonsense. But when you get into controversial issues and bureaucratic power struggles and things that

aren't really a matter of sources and methods or national security, they're just people trying to protect information to prevent embarrassment, that sort of thing does lead to unauthorized discussions with the press. So you may continue depending how the Air Force plays that to see some of those kinds of leaks. Gotcha. I'd like to rewind for just a minute with you guys. Chrissy, that was a great question. This goes back to these Joint Airborne Navy and Air Force training exercises, Chris, that you

bring up in the article. And, you know, even covered on unidentified, we heard from several members that the bricks on a Navy ship were taken by allegedly some sort of body of the Air Force. And you do bring this up in the article as a major concern. Like, why were they able to just come down on a helicopter and, like, take these things, no questions asked? So, like, why are these things being reported by just the Navy? And then the Air Force is swooping in to take any of the data on it. I would love for you both to comment on that what your thoughts are, if they've evolved at all,

your thoughts on that issue that you guys brought up in your show very early on. And yeah, anything you want to comment on that? Well, let me start, if I may. I don't know for certain that that happened with the helicopter. I've heard disputes about that from different Navy personnel. But one thing we do know, I believe for certain, is that the Princeton radar data, regardless of whether it was that helicopter or something else was last seen in the hands of the U.S. Air Force, and it remains missing.

So there are people in the government who would like to get their hands on it, people at Navy who have been trying to get their hands on it, they want to analyze it, and somehow it doesn't seem to be available. And that is part of this larger pattern we talked about, of, for example, leaning on people who want to share information with the UAB Task Force, not being forthcoming with known incidents that have occurred, and so forth. So there is a bit of a pattern there that's a little concerning, frankly. And I think those are all questions that need to be pursued vigorously. Anything to add, Lou? Yeah, you know,

I'll tell you what's equally perplexing. The question is why. So the deck logs for the Princeton are available. In fact, deck logs for ships are available at the National Archives. And yet, the deck logs for the Princeton for that particular day during the Tick-Tac encounter are missing. They're gone. It's like they were never there. So someone is someone somewhere is not comfortable with this conversation occurring. So then one has to ask, who is it and why? What are the equities at stake that would get somebody to remove those deck logs?

A human being had to have been involved to do that. So it's not just the tapes missing or being taken by allegedly by a helicopter, but there's other bits and pieces of information that are just missing. And that's problematic because we have institutions and in a system for a reason because, you know, people need to have faith and confidence in that system. And transparency is one of those primary ways that we instill faith and confidence into a system or an organization. So for some reason, someone doesn't want to be.

very transparent about this topic or that particular event. So we're forced to scratch our heads and say, why? You know, the pilots have already come out. Chris will tell you, Chris was very helpful with this, but I took the pilots and the radar operators to actually brief the secretary's staff on this topic when I was running ATIP. And they were very, very compelling. This was the eyewitness testimony from the pilots themselves and radar operators who are literally, in essence, testifying, so to speak, in front of DOD senior staff that work directly for the secretary. And when you have, you know, organizations within that own system that are obfuscating, that that's a problem. That, to me, is even more dangerous than something flying in our

controlled U.S. airspace, it's elements within the bureaucracy that are not working with other elements or, frankly, that are just ignoring the will of either Congress or the Secretary of Defense. Christy, do you want to take the lead next? Do you have any burning questions for the guys before we move on? Well, I was just going to ask, where do we go from here? Like, you know, Chris and I in my interview, and he speaks a little bit in the article about solutions. Lou, I'd like to hear your solutions on this and, like, where you feel we can go through next to how we can make report. better and then working with the Air Force a little bit better as well. Well, Chrissy, you're doing it. You're doing exactly what the media should be doing,

and that is reporting relevant information to the people. There was a time not too long ago that the media would have run away from this topic, probably with her hands in the air, because of the stigma and taboo that has been historically associated with this topic. I think that's changing. You know, what can we do as an American people? I think we can encourage our elected officials to continue to pursue this topic and let them know we want this to be a national priority for us. I think we can encourage the media, mainstream media, to continue to pick up this topic and talk about this topic. Ultimately, this topic doesn't belong under the purview of any one organization or institution or government.

It really belongs to all of us, in my opinion. And therefore we should probably have a group conversation. So doing exactly what you're doing now is what's moving the needle. Said it earlier. You know, I get calls from D.C. Chris will tell you the same thing. He did already. We get calls and emails from D.C. all the time with articles and links to the debrief.

So, I mean, there you have it, right? That's proof positive that people are paying attention to what you're doing and what you're saying and the material you're providing. So I guess my suggestion would be just, Just keep doing what you're doing and be, be courageous enough to challenge the system. I'm not saying do anything illegal, but we can do. There's a lot we can do under freedom of the press and freedom of speech and whatnot. That I think is very helpful here. I think we need to continue to have this conversation like we see with Abilow in the Galileo project,

where mainstream scientists and academics now can start having a conversation about this topic without fear of any type of professional retribution. I think that's hugely important. And last but not least, you know, I think we need to have this conversation openly and stop beating around the bush. I think transparency is going to be key here if we really want to try to figure this out. That's my two cents anyways. Hey, everyone.

Ryan Sprague here, host of Somewhere in the Skies. If you've ever thought about supporting us, we have great two easy options for you right now. If you listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, you can click the subscribe button at the top of your Apple feed. Or you can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Both of these options give you the same benefits, early access to the main show, bonus episodes and content, and priority to ask our guests. your listener questions. So to help support Somewhere in the Skies, click that subscribe button on Apple or visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you so much for your support and keep looking up. Has anyone, I know the article has only been out for a day and a half, but any Air Force reach out to you,

former, current, president, you know, future saying, thank you, thank you, or F you. What has been the reaction and response so far for you? Well, let me first address the prior question briefly. Just to add very briefly to what Lou said. And the ball is squarely in Congress's court. It's up to them. They have the constitutional responsibility. They're the only ones who can really compel the Defense Department to take action against their own will on this

or for the Air Force to be more forthcoming and demand answers. but the role of the citizenry and the role of the press in stimulating Congress is immense. The fact that this gets media coverage is largely responsible for the reason that Congress is interested and responsive. So as Lou said, we do all have a role to play in this, and your reporting and coverage and the engagement of other people is an important component of this. in terms of have I been contacted, I've received thus far very positive feedback from military personnel. And that's been a pleasure and also a relief. When you come out with an article like this and I'm making some pretty strong statements here,

you worry a little bit, you know, that I miss something. Am I getting something wrong? Am I going to offend some of our personnel, for example? And thankfully, that's not the case. I'm getting a lot of Bravo Zulus for Navy folks and generally very positive feedback to date. Good, yeah. And again, I think Lou said it so eloquently. Like, we in the public are causing ripple effects with all of this.

I mean, I'm sure once the preliminary assessment came out, they were not expecting so much response from independent scientific organizations, UAPX or Galileo project or even, you know, what the James Webb telescope, eventually could find. These are all ripple effects from the reaction of that transparency that hasn't been there for so long. And I think it's really exciting to see the future of this topic really heading in more of a scientific direction, more than just political or even, you know, even euphological, whatever you would define that word as. We're now looking at this topic as how can it benefit us if we were to understand the technology being displayed or how could it hurt us. I'm excited to see where the next couple years go with the Gillibrand Amendment and in this new Pentagon group coming out.

I do want to circle back to one thing, Chris, in the article as well that I love both your thoughts on. And that's when you bring up claims about USAF's possession of materials. That might definitely answer the question of whether non-human civilization has found Earth, end quote, by Christopher Mellon. Do you think this is the reason, one of the reasons maybe they're being so quiet? I mean, anyone who knows euphology goes back to Roswell in the possible recovery of a downcraft of some sort, or a top secret military project. We don't know. We probably will never know. But yeah, what do you make of the whole material discussion in all of this? Lou, do you want to start or do you want me to take that? You know, I've said what I could say.

So, you know, probably Chris, you may be more eloquent on that topic. I didn't know about that, but I would say that one of the points that I'm trying to make in the article in that regard is whether or not that is true, it shouldn't be the Air Force's decision whether civilian policymakers are informed or not at the top. level. To date, the Director of National Intelligence and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, it's not clear that they've gotten much more from the Air Force than the task force or Congress have. Perhaps they have, but that's not even clear. So if nothing else, I think we can all agree that if the Air Force is in possession of information that is that radical, that significant, that profound, at least in a minimum, the top civilians in the government need to be a winning of that and in a position to be making decisions. One of the reasons is because now we have the private sector

in the scientific community beginning to take it seriously. So the U.S. government is no longer going to be only or primary source of information on this. Increasingly, there's going to be credible information coming from the Galileo Project or the Scientific Coalition for Uphology or people like Jacques Valais, who just published the first peer-reviewed paper on materials associated with a UAP incident. So to the extent that there is information being concealed along these lines, there's competition now that the government didn't have before. And that's something they need to think about as well. Healthy competition is always a benefit, for sure. Christy, do you have anything? I've got one more from Louar producer, but yeah, hop in if you want.

Well, I was just going to say, is there any recent conversations that you've had with the DoD or the UAP Task Force about anything data or anything that's going to be coming forward in the next little bit that we can talk about? I don't have any indication that new information is going to be coming forward anytime soon. One of the great things about the Gillibrand Amendment, and this was not in the defense authorization bill in either house prior to the Gillibrand Amendment, is that there is now a continued requirement. for reporting to the public at the unclassified level. So not later than October 31st, we should receive another unclassified report available to everyone on what is going on here. So that's terribly, terribly important. And in fact, one of the most important components of that legislation.

And that will produce more information if we don't get anything before them. Yeah. And I mean, too, I think it's really interesting that, once these reports start coming out to the public, I know, Lou, I know your thoughts on leaks, and I completely understand. But do either of you personally think we're going to see what happened

right before that first assessment came out? We started getting quote-unquote leaked videos. I don't want to get into the debate of sources and stuff like that. We could debate that forever. But do you guys think we might see this reaction from within of some people being, like, I know they're not going to bring this up. So here you go. Is the debrief going to get that

triangle video finally? I think the beauty about Congress being involved is Congress can do a lot of things that we can't. They have a requirement to represent their constituency. It's an obligation. And so if they get a draft copy of a report and it's not answering, scratching their itch, so to speak, answering the questions that they want to answer, then there's a very good chance you're going to see them go public with their concern, as we've seen in the past, right? There's been some outspoken folks on the Hill, whether it's Marco Rubio or Timberchette or Gillibrand and Gallegos and Warner, everybody else, you know, they're not, they're not afraid to speak their mind and communicate with their constituents and say, hey, look, you know, this is what's going well and this is what's not

going well. And I think we can expect that. You know, they are, they seem to be committed to transparency on this topic, which should be applauded. And I congratulate them for doing that. As far as you're talking about triangle videos and other leaks, you know, Chris said it absolutely right. When people feel, and I think one of you, actually one of your audience kind of wrote this in a tweet as well, in a message that when people lose faith and confidence in the system and they feel like they've got nowhere to go, then that's when you start seeing the leads, when you start seeing people getting frustrated because the system isn't working.

And again, I don't necessarily condone that, but that seems to be kind of the trend. So if the Department of Defense, the intelligence community don't want any more leaks, then my suggestion would be for them to be more transparent, be as transparent as possible on this topic. That's fair. I'll echo that there's almost unprofessional.

unprecedented deficit of trust in the American government right now, generally writ large, on any topic. Then when we talk about the Air Force in this issue, if anything, it's only worse. The skepticism is pervasive. So it's an opportunity for the Air Force to try to set the record straight and turn things around. And thus far, unfortunately, they've been doing just the opposite. they've been circling the wagons, not sharing information, even with other components of the

Defense Department, even with the Deputy Secretary's own task force. So to me, that's outrageous, and that's what prompted me to write the article. If the Deputy Secretary himself cannot get straight answers after months and months, we live in an information age where you can ask Syria question and get an answer in seconds. We invested billions and billions. to try to integrate our information systems, to produce quick answers for decision makers, for policy makers. And here we have a whole team set up that is dispatched to go out and get information about this topic and put it together

for the top leaders of the Defense Department, and they're getting stonewall. I mean, to me, that is outrageous. I'm sorry, but that's why I felt needed to speak out and say something. So then what happens if this keeps going on? If they keep stonewalling and then other departments keep stonewalling too, what will be the outcome of it? What's the cause and effect? This really comes down to the Congress and what their temperature level is, what they're willing to put up with.

If they don't want to challenge this and no other than the seniors in the department want to challenge this, then it'll continue as is until something else develops. Something new happens that changes the mix. But I don't think that's going to prove to be the case. I think that there are enough members now who understand that they can talk about this publicly. It's not only okay. It's important. It's a flight safety issue. It's a national security issue and an urgent one.

And so I think they're going to demand answers. And I think they will be forthcoming. And I think 2022 could be another transformative year, another year of great strides forward in better understanding what the, what's really happening out there. And, Chrissy, if I can jump in real quick, my concern right now with where we are in this conversation is that it's, there's a bit of a precariousness right now, urgency. And part of that is because as a nation, we're dealing with a lot of issues, right? We're still in the heels of COVID, which has been a huge social stress for our nation. There's financial uncertainty within the markets sometimes. There's issues that we're dealing, every

crisis de jure, whether there's a border issue, or there's issues in the Crimean Peninsula right now in Ukraine or South China Sea and Taiwan. I mean, there's, we're dealing with a lot as a people. We're dealing with a lot. And so is Congress. And we need to be understanding that that Congress only has so much bandwidth. And we're going to have to be patient with them. I remain very optimistic and hopeful that Congress will continue to take this topic very serious. and I'm hopeful that the executive branch will do what is supposed to do to the letter of the law in response to Congress. But ultimately, it's up to us to make sure that this topic remains a priority. We need to remind Congress that this is a topic that should be one of our priorities as we handle all these other issues.

We need to remind the media that they need to continue reporting on this topic. So we don't lose the bubble, right? We don't lose the site picture. And so that would be my recommendation. I agree wholeheartedly with Chris's assessment that FY22 and calendar year 22 could be a banner year for this discussion. But, you know, we can't just sit idly back and expect good things to happen without a little bit of encouragement. I mean, it still takes all of us, all of you to engage as you have been doing and keeping this topic front and center. So that would be my advice.

And you know what? I appreciate too, Chris in the article. You even used some of the research by civilian UFO researchers. I know with the NORAD stuff that you discovered and whatnot, these have been out there for years, but nobody's been paying attention. And I think it's really exciting to know that, yes, we do still have a place in this. And yes, you know, we do pay taxes in order to, you know, fund these sorts of things that should be, A, protecting us and B, being transparent with us about how they're protecting us and whatnot, to a certain extent, to an certain extent.

But I do want to ask both your thoughts on this. And a lot of people have asked this since, you know, even the first sort of murmurs of a task force came about is why 2004, why aren't we going back to other declassified sensory systems. I know in your article, I mean, you went back, man, to cases involving nuclear installations or ICBMs and whatnot. Why is it because they're trying to be proactive and start clean and move forward? Or why are they not using any of the data that could be out there from previous collections of these UAPs, if that's clear?

I'll speculate off a theory, and that is that they couldn't ignore the Nimitz incident in the Nimitz case. It had received so much press and so much discussion, and that was 2004. And so I think they chose that date and decided to work from that date forward to the present. That would be my guess. Prior to that time, there's a long interregnum there between the end of Project Blue Book and something that's really in the public domain that's well substantiated. but I don't know if we're certain. That's a guess on my part.

I think, you know, look, my background has been that of a special agent in counterintelligence. So we look at things in terms of, think of cases, right? And when you go back beyond 2004, they tend to be in terms of what we call a cold case, right? Cold cases are usually harder to solve because as time goes on, you lose fidelity of the information. And that's very true. When you're looking at historical events that are still very interesting and intriguing and important, you know, going back to the 50s and 60s, we did not have the collection capabilities that we have now. We just didn't have it. We had radar and we had things like that.

But we did not have the level of sophistication and fidelity that we have now and awareness. So that may be part of it. I also think maybe could be to some degree the attention span. you know, when I was briefing senior leaders in the Pentagon, you know, if I were to bring back something that happened in 1960s or 70s, they probably at that point would be like, Lou, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in now because this is my job now. I don't care what happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. I care about what's happening now and what's going to happen tomorrow. So from that perspective, you know, I think the Nimitz incident is recent enough where, and

there's enough information there, that provides a very compelling. case. And that would be, you know, perhaps a more from an operational perspective, why we don't go back too far in history as some of these cases. I personally think they're valuable. I think it's very helpful to look at because as we've seen with the Tick-Tac event and the Nimitz, in the 60s, they referred to them as a flying white throat lozenge about 40 feet. And in the 50s, they described them as a white flying butane tank. It seems like the same topic, you know, the same object to me, right, doing the same things. So, you know, there you have it.

I think historical knowledge is important. But at the same time, is it as relevant as recent information to a decision maker? Probably not. When Chris was at the Pentagon or when he was on the Hill, if my job was to brief him, I would probably focus more on the current events than some of the past stuff. because really that's his focus. He needs to make a decision and I need to give him information so he can make a well-informed decision. And it's hard to do that with some of the older cases.

Well, we're sort of wrapping things up here, guys. But I just kind of want to open it up to both of you in terms of, I guess, Chris, we'll start with you. Of what we've discussed today, is there anything in the article that you really want to get out there or you found most compelling that we haven't discussed yet. I loved the, you know, the little personal bit about you talking to someone in the Air Force about things they'd seen or had tried to report but couldn't. But yeah, is there anything we haven't discussed yet that you really want to get across to the reader and to the public at large? Well, thanks for providing that

opportunity and the opportunity today. I think the key points are this is very real. This is no longer just a matter of Hollywood movies or science fiction. Just the other day, the United Arab Emirates was hit by an attack from Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have, are very unsophisticated technologically, but they were able to inflict damage across the Arabian Peninsula. Earlier, they took 50% of Saudi oil refining capacity offline with drones. We're now having things swirming around Navy ships that we're not quite sure. what to do with or where they're from. That's happening at Air Force bases, for example, in Guam, around criticals, military systems

where the report identified, they said in most instances, the reports that came forth, 144 were because these objects were interrupting military training exercises or plans. Okay, and that's just the nub. That's just the ones that came forward. So this is a real issue. There's serious data. report mentions 11 near mid-air collisions, you know, another legitimate issue. And again, there are many reports that we're not in there. We know from Canada of another case. So I think the

main thing I'm trying to convey is very important, very significant, lots of important unasked questions. I listed a number of the questions there that I hope members of Congress will make some use of. And I think if they do, we can make some headway. And depending on the answers, there may be ultimately some very surprising answers. And although this can be sometimes a frightening subject, the answers that are produced could have a very positive effect, depending what they are. They could be very, very profound.

But I think we have to follow the trail wherever it leads. I think that's our destiny. That's what we have to do. Lou, anything to add to that? Should we be seeking positive answers? Or I know in the past you've said some of those answers might be pretty somber, might really make us reflect on who we are, where we've been, where we're going. Yeah, what did you pull or extrapolate from Chris's article that you think is prescient and really

needs to get out there right now? Truth be told of all of it. Everything he said needs to be out. And, you know, it's a very dense piece because this is a very complex issue we're dealing with. There's a lot of moving parts to this, a lot of interests and considerations. And, you know, Chris, his assessment on the on the sit on the current situation i couldn't agree more with i think he's absolutely right but i will also give one word of advice to anybody who is trying to to figure this this incredible enigma out um the greatest challenge i think we're going to face is going to be our own psyche um we look at everything um anthropomorphically uh where we um we tend to assign here

human attributes to everything, including our pets, right, at home, right? Such a good little boy, such a, you know, cute girl. That's how we kind of treat our animals and we look in terms of that way. But we have to also be prepared to look at things perhaps even more abstractly. Perhaps that our current understanding of the universe is really, in reality, the universe is far more complex. And it may not be in either-or scenario. My greatest fear is, you know, when push comes to shove, if contact were to happen tomorrow, will we stand there with a hand extended or point a machine gun?

And that's kind of the way we look at terms, very binary, right? It's either friend or foe. And nature in life is far more complicated than that. The chances are of it being just friendly or a foe may be minimal. It may be somewhere in the middle, right? And so we need to make sure that we provide relevant information to our senior leaders and decision makers and policy makers of our country. So they can make a well-informed decision. That's ultimately what needs to happen.

And they can't make a well-informed decision if information is being hidden from them. That, for me, is the greatest danger. Let the chips fall where they fall. Provide the information necessary so our leaders can make a good decision. decision. Whatever that decision winds up being, you know, if you keep information, this is my frustration with the Department of Defense because I wasn't being permitted to get the one guy who needed the information, the information was getting to. And that to me is problematic. So that would be, that would be my, that'd be my perspective anyways. I'd love to ask personal question, Lou,

if you don't mind before we, we wrap things up here. Where are you now with your, your, your, run-ins with the DoD and the Pentagon and everything that you had issues with, with them. Any developments on that that you can updates with, or are you just still fighting the good fight with them? You know, I'm going to let the Department of Defense speak for themselves. You know, there's a lot of good people in the department. There really are, and I think there's more good people than department than bad, a lot more, thank goodness. and I have full faith and confidence in their abilities to have this conversation. And it's happening right now, behind the scenes, every day.

You have intelligence analysts on these specific enclaves, electronic enclaves, analyzing data and information. You have discussions occurring at the senior executive and flag officer level, and now at the political level. So the conversation's occurring. I hope that those elements in the Department of Defense that have said things that are accurate are held accountable. But at the end of the day, I'm less worried about that. And if the cost of someone coming out and apologizing to me is this topic, you know, loses any type of momentum, I'd rather choose the topic.

Chris and I are committed very much to this subject. more so than we are committed to our own self and self-preservation. It's important that this conversation occur. So I know I'm probably meeting around the book, but I'll leave it at that. Chris, I'd like to add something here in terms of lose situations, as you brought it up. I've never directed anyone on a podcast or anything to my website, but I did write something about lose situation. On my website that people might find a video is called, Why Hasn't DoD Offer? Lou his old job back. And I expressed a lot of concerted and frustration that somebody who is

following the advice were always given, you know, be independent, be willing to buck the crowd, think outside the box. So here's a guy who does that and is trying to warn the system, you know, there's barbarians inside the gate or somebody is. And it's trying to sound the alarm. and instead, you know, they kind of shun him because of alleged minor bureaucratic infractions or something when everything he said has been proven correct. And he did what they're always telling you to do. So I'm confident that ultimately this will be resolved favorably for Lou. And I have a few words about that on my website, chrisferlund.net,

if people who are interested in that topic might want to pursue, might want to take a look at. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Well, Chrissy, any last questions for the gentleman before we let them go and we debrief here? No, that's it on my end. I just want to say thank you guys. Great conversation.

Chris, can you tell us where we can, obviously, your website, but I know you're on Twitter as well. And yeah, what comes next, man? What are you working on? I know that's the first question. Once an article comes out, what's next? It just took me a year. to write this one. Yeah, what comes next for you, man?

And where can we find what you're up to you? Yeah, I don't have anything in the pipeline right now, but what I'm concentrated on is trying to collaborate with other parties who are interested in this, ranging from the Galileo project to friends at DOD or on the hill and elsewhere and try to be of assistance where I can. Awesome. Lou, how about you, man? I know you do a lot behind the scenes, too.

What comes next and where can we find what you're? up. You've got a lot of irons in the fire. You know, some of them are not quite yet to the point where I feel comfortable talking about them because, you know, they're a little bit sensitive and requires other people to do certain things as well. So I'll keep those right now close to my chest. But know that we are working very, very hard behind the scenes. I'll be in D.C. next week. You know, that's not a coincidence. We're working. You know, we don't just go and hang out at the local bars there on Capitol Hill. We spend a great deal of our time working this topic and only this topic. So, you know, there you have it. That's fair, man. I mean, if there's anything I've learned from

talking to you and Chris, it's, there are no coincidences. So I look forward to whatever comes next for both of you. I want to thank everyone for your questions and everything. Like I mentioned, we didn't have time today, but hopefully these guys will be able to answer some of them on Twitter for you, or maybe we'll have them back in the future to discuss some of those. But other than that, we're just going to have some deep brief time here, gentlemen. So I'm going to let Mr. Elizondo and Mr. Melling go, but I want to wish you both the best with everything moving forward. Chris, I can't wait to see the reactions from within and on the outside on this one. And we needed this because a lot of people in this field are pissed off that the one branch of the military that should be talking isn't.

And that comes on the cusp of another branch of the military just starting up now. That could become a big player in this as well. And that's the Space Force. So again, the future is uncertain, but it's bright with everything you guys have brought forward. So with that, I want to thank both of you today for coming on Somewhere in the Skies. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. My pleasure and honor. As always, guys, thank you so much for doing this. See you in D.C. next week, Lou.

Indeed. Oh, there you go. Told you, no coincidences. Thank you, guys. Appreciate your time. Have a good rest of your day. Good to see you both. The Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is part of the Lionsgate Sound Network.

Please take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever possible. Thank you for listening.