UFO Media Darling Lue Elizondo Still Works for the US Government
Elizondo is an active contractor for the US Government and is misleading the public by failing to disclose that fact in his engagements with the media
Author’s Note on responses to my November 2021 Medium post
Before getting to the main subject of this article, I thought I’d begin by addressing some surprisingly “high profile” commentary I received in response to my November 23, 2021, article: The UFO Information Operation, including responses I received from none other than the UFO-celebrity BFFs of the modern era themselves: Lue Elizondo and Chris Mellon, who, curiously, felt compelled to take time out of their busy schedules to respond to a blog post written by an anonymous author with a decidedly uninfluential base of followers.
For context, my November article attempted to outline the substantial evidence that “today’s UFO mania is the result of a coordinated defense or intelligence influence operation.” In response to those allegations, Elizondo and Mellon provided decidedly colorful feedback to my article — which I’ve excerpted below — via a Substack article published by Billy Cox on December 6, 2021.
Elizondo, not to be bothered by addressing literally anything specific, criticized my article as:
“Pure drivel. All the allegations are not only false, but a regurgitation of the ‘haters’ manufactured issues of our progress.”
Insightful thoughts, Lue. Thanks. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Mellon, for his part, strangely reserved critique of my article exclusively for, out of all things, the insignia I selected for my Medium account. Mellon bemoaned my use of the insignia from the US Army’s 1st Information Operations Command since that military unit is:
[charged with] “Land Information Warfare Activity.” “Nobody at DoD,” responded Mellon, “is that stupid.”
Perhaps in another universe, Mellon’s “insignia criticism” might be remotely relevant to the substance of my piece. I picked my profile picture because I think it looks cool not because I thought a logo would communicate my thinking on this subject.
Bryce Zabel, writer/producer and co-host of the UFO podcast Need to Know with Coulthart and Zabel, gets an honorable mention for commenting that my article was “critical and confrontational.” Zabel also took issue with my decision to post anonymously.
Like many who choose to preserve their privacy online by not using their full name on social media, I use a pen name on Medium for professional reasons. Suffice to say I am a government agency lawyer with several years of investigative and litigation experience. To those uncomfortable (Bryce, et al.) with the notion of reading an article written under a pseudonym, I ask only that you evaluate the documents referenced and to draw your own conclusions independently from mine. If that still doesn’t do it for you, I kindly invite you to stop reading here and wish you a great rest of your day. While I am happy, eager even, to engage with readers on the substance of these articles, ad hominem criticism solely for my personal choice to preserve my privacy is unproductive.
While on the subject of ad hominem arguments, I’d like to briefly mention Billy Cox’s curiously defensive Substack post: OK, fine, what’s for supper?, that Mr. Zabel must undoubtedly concede, was likewise a “critical and confrontational” retort to my November article. I take issue with so much of Mr. Cox’s many objectionable arguments that my response will be the subject of its own future article on this page.
I take well the fair criticism from John Greenewald, Jr., among others, that my November 2021 article lacked the necessary citations that would have enabled readers to independently verify claims it reached. I have worked diligently to include in this post supporting citations to the underlying documents I reference and hope it provides the means for readers to independently confirm or challenge my conclusions for themselves.
Lue Elizondo is an active contractor for the US Government and fails to disclose that fact to the media
In the course of researching the modern UFO craze, one of the more baffling questions I have struggled to answer, which at first seemed fairly straightforward, has proven to be a murky challenge: since resigning from the Pentagon, what does Lue Elizondo do for a living?
While we know that immediately following his departure from the Department of Defense, Elizondo served as Chief of Security and Special Programs with the Delaware-based “public benefit” corporation To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (“TTSA”), he left that position almost a year and a half ago. Buried in the middle of a one and a half hour YouTube interview (1:08:22 to 1:09:12) Elizondo conducted about a year ago, I found my answer: Lue Elizondo is an active contractor with the United States government.
I am a civilian…uh…I…a…you know there’s a difference between a government employee and a a government contractor…we’re all civilians, government employees too are civilians unless you’re wearing a uniform…a…I I am absolutely a civilian. I think you’re me am I…am I employed by the United States government…uh…and and ask that question very carefully and maybe I can give you a good answer. Are you asking me am I am I government employee or am I uh am I working in a as a contractor in that capacity . . . I am currently a government contractor and that’s all I’m prepared to say right now…but I am a government contractor.
Elizondo confirmed his status as a government contractor only one other time in connection with a GQ article he was featured in — a publication based in the UK.
“In addition to his role on the advisory board of the UAP think tank Skyfort, [Elizondo] retains high-level national security clearance and is employed as a government defence contractor, although he is not able to say what that work involves.”
Apart from the two, isolated admissions mentioned above (one of which was in a UK-publication), Elizondo routinely fails to disclose his active employment status with the United States government in virtually every major US media outlet interview he participates in. This includes interviews he’s conducted with The New York Times, CNN, POLITICO, The Hill, and NBC News. In each case, Elizondo describes himself merely as a former DoD official.
For example, Elizondo neglected to mention his status as a government contractor in connection with a September 2019 article for the New York Times that described Elizondo as a former “career intelligence officer with the Army, the Department of Defense, National Counterintelligence Executive and the Office of Director of National Intelligence.” It cannot be said with complete certainty whether the Times reporter failed to disclose to readers that Elizondo is indeed still under contract with the US government or whether that fact went unreported because Elizondo withheld that information during his interview. But even giving Elizondo the benefit of the doubt, it strains credulity to believe he informed journalists at the Times about his active contract with the government and that the Times would simply overlook its storied commitment to ethical journalism and decided against disclosing that potential conflict of interest to its readers. It’s also difficult to believe that numerous other newsrooms, across several media outlets coincidentally had identical lapses in journalistic ethics.
Not only do Elizondo’s own statements to the press fail to mention his active contractual relationship with the US government, through social media posts and during conference appearances, Elizondo actively misleads the public about who he works for by characterizing himself as a “former Government-type,” and a “private citizen” without qualifying those remarks with the fact that he is, albeit indirectly, still working for the government.
Hiding Behind an NDA?
Some might suggest Elizondo was prohibited for a time from disclosing the existence of his contract with the government by operation of agency regulation, statute, non-disclosure agreement, or other legal mechanism. This, however, is not a convincing explanation for why Elizondo endeavors to mislead and conceal from the American public his formal arrangement with the government.
Assuming Elizondo’s purported contract is with and managed by the Department of Defense, the procedure for disclosing information related to that contract would be governed by Section 252.204.700 of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (“DFARS”). Section 252.204.700 prohibits, among other things, the release of information pertaining to “any part of [the] contract or program related to [the] contract.” In other words, nothing under the applicable regulation prevents Elizondo from disclosing the existence of his contract (if it is indeed with the DoD). Elizondo just chooses not to.
Perhaps its time for the media and close observers of this topic to begin asking why.
