New insider memoir highlights urgency of UFO disclosure legislation

A new book by Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon official, doubles down on persistent allegations of secret government UFO activities. With several former senior officials and scientists making a series of alarming — and seemingly credible — corroborating claims, Congress must now act to separate fact from fiction.

Fortunately, a legislative remedy is currently working its way through the Senate.

Elizondo’s riveting memoir, “Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs,” underscores the urgency of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act. The bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), is arguably the most extraordinary ever introduced in Congress.

In “Imminent,” Elizondo claims to have learned of an ultra-secret government “Legacy Program” that possesses UFO "materials of nonhuman origin.” Notably, Elizondo’s terminology is an exact, word-for-word match with the language in the UAP Disclosure Act.

Among several eyebrow-raising provisions, the Disclosure Act defines “legacy program” and “non-human intelligence,” with the latter referenced no fewer than two dozen times throughout the 64-page legislation.

Astoundingly, the Senate majority leader sponsored legislation that would require the U.S. government to take possession of “any and all” recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of non-human intelligence” transferred to private defense contractors.

The identical language in the Disclosure Act and Elizondo’s memoir makes sense. As Elizondo recounts, he, along with other former government officials, scientists and fighter pilots, briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Services Committee on the UFO phenomenon.

Those briefings spurred a sweeping congressional investigation which, according to Schumer, “uncovered a vast web of individuals and groups” with relevant information.

Congress’s inquiry ultimately informed the Disclosure Act, which would mandate that “all” UFO-related records “carry a presumption of immediate disclosure.” Of equal importance, the legislation would establish a blue-ribbon review board to gradually and strategically release sensitive, long-withheld UFO-related records — and, perhaps, the existence of “non-human intelligence” — to the public via a “controlled disclosure campaign.”

Elizondo’s attention-grabbing allegations can’t be viewed in isolation. In a remarkable July 2023 congressional hearing, Air Force veteran and former intelligence official David Grusch testified under oath to the existence of a “multi-decade [UFO] crash retrieval and reverse engineering program.”

Importantly, Grusch filed a formal complaint with the intelligence community inspector general — the internal watchdog that oversees America’s spy agencies. The intelligence community’s first inspector general, nominated by then-President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate, signed Grusch’s complaint and serves as Grusch’s attorney, lending significant credibility to the underlying allegations. Grusch would be in significant legal jeopardy if he made false statements to an inspector general.

Moreover, the law firm that represented Grusch confirmed that the current inspector general found Grusch’s core allegation “that information was inappropriately concealed from Congress to be urgent and credible,” triggering legally mandated notifications to Congress. Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) corroborated this finding.

Although a similar inspector general complaint was closed in nine months, Grusch’s case remains open over two years after it was filed.

Karl Nell, a former high-ranking Army officer and defense and technology industry executive, has corroborated Grusch and Elizondo’s overarching allegations. In a remarkable exchange at a conference in May, Nell stated that there is “zero doubt” that “non-human intelligence exists [and] has been interacting with humanity. This interaction is not new...it’s been ongoing, and there are unelected people in the government who are aware of that.”

If Elizondo, Grusch and Nell are all fabulists, their behind-the-scenes efforts in Congress and unwavering support for the unprecedented transparency mandated by the Disclosure Act would be self-defeating, to say the least.

Moreover, spurred by the release of Elizondo’s book, Harald Malmgren — the 89-year-old distinguished statesman, former U.S. ambassador and advisor to multiple presidents — stated last week that one of the most significant figures in CIA history informed him of “otherworld technologies” possessed by the government over six decades ago.

Similarly, the former senior Defense Intelligence Agency scientist who ran the UFO analysis program that evolved into Elizondo’s investigative effort has stated that the government has retrieved at least one UFO.

And as Elizondo writes (described in a 2020 New York Times article), government-affiliated astrophysicist Eric Davis detailed “the Legacy Program’s long-running efforts involving” “off-world vehicles not made on this earth” to the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees.

Asked about the credibility of the whistleblowers who have spoken to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Rubio characterized them as “smart, educated people with high clearances and very important positions in our government.” Rubio asked rhetorically, “What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification — these are serious people — have to come forward and make something up?”

Last August, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, echoed Rubio’s comments, describing the UFO whistleblowers who informed congressional legislation as “very thoughtful, serious people.”

Critically, Rubio stated that multiple whistleblowers with “firsthand knowledge or firsthand claims” of UFO retrieval and reverse engineering activities have spoken to Congress. Similarly, Grusch testified that he “had the people with the firsthand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the [intelligence community] inspector general.”

Rubio also stated that some of the whistleblowers who have spoken to Congress are not known publicly. According to Rubio, these individuals “still work in the government,” are “fearful” of administrative reprisals and fear “harm coming to them.”

A source with knowledge of recent UFO legislation and whistleblower testimony added important context, telling me that “most [UFO whistleblowers] are completely unknown to the public.”

According to the source, “individuals known publicly had been advocating for years and wouldn’t have been enough to move the needle.” “Once public,” this individual told me, there are “lots of questions about motivations.”

In other words, according to this source, the former senior officials and scientist characterized above — Elizondo, Grusch, Nell and Davis — were not sufficient, by themselves, to catalyze the extraordinary language in the Disclosure Act. Given the deep stigma long associated with UFOs, one wonders what the tipping point for these lawmakers may have been.

When I asked my source how confident they are in the existence of “legacy” UFO programs, they responded, “Hovering around 100 percent.”

It should come as little surprise, then, that Schumer, in a remarkable exchange on the Senate floor, asserted that “multiple credible sources” have alleged that elements of the government have illegally withheld UFO-related information from Congress.

For its part, the Pentagon’s UFO analysis office strenuously denies allegations of secret, unreported UFO activities.

But following a series of astounding analytical failures, outright falsehoods and absurd “explanations” for perplexing, highly credible UFO incidents, key members of the Senate have signaled their lack of trust in the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

Perhaps most pointedly, Schumer and Rounds reintroduced the Disclosure Act shortly after that office released a deeply flawed report flatly denying the very allegations outlined in the legislation. Congress must pass this bill swiftly and decisively.

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense.