Elizondo on unfair corporate advantage
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Speaker | Luis "Lue" Elizondo |
|---|---|
| Date | October 2021 interview (YouTube video, about 28 minutes in) |
| Claim | A company holding alien technology would gain an unfair market advantage over competitors |
| Implication | Any such material sits with private contractors |
| Related | Harry Reid on Lockheed; David Grusch's 2023 testimony |
| Status | A hypothetical argument; no specifics given |
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Luis Elizondo, Harry Reid, David Grusch |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 203 |
| Year | 2021 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2021 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 8 |
In an October 2021 interview, Luis Elizondo said that a company holding alien technology would gain an unfair market advantage over its competitors.[7] The remark implied that such material, if it exists, sits with private contractors. It raised questions of fairness and competition as well as secrecy.[7] Elizondo gave no specifics, and the argument concerns the implications of a hypothetical situation, not evidence that the situation exists.[1][7]
The interview
The remark comes about 28 minutes into a YouTube interview. The video is no longer publicly viewable; YouTube's embed service now returns "Forbidden" for it. Elizondo's exact wording could not be checked for this article.[7]
The contractor question
The point echoes concerns raised by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid sponsored the Pentagon's UFO program with Robert Bigelow's backing, and said he had been told that Lockheed held UFO fragments.[1][2] It was raised again by the whistleblower David Grusch. In 2023 he said the government had transferred some crashed UFOs to a defense contractor.[1] Elizondo later developed the idea in his 2024 memoir Imminent. There he claimed that a crash-retrieval program had run in secret for decades under "a supersecret umbrella group made up of government officials working with defense and aerospace contractors".[1] Elizondo's argument adds a commercial angle. Secret technology held by a contractor would be a matter of oversight, and also of fairness to the rest of the industry.[7]
Debates about government favour to a single defense contractor have a real precedent.[8] The episode, in outline:[8]
- The request. In 1971 Lockheed, then the largest U.S. defense contractor, sought a $250 million federal loan guarantee to avoid insolvency over its L-1011 TriStar airliner, arguing that it mattered to national security.
- The objections. Competitors McDonnell Douglas and General Electric opposed the bill, fearing the government would steer contracts to Lockheed to secure repayment. Admiral Hyman Rickover called it "a new philosophy where we privatize profits and socialize losses".
- The vote. Vice President Spiro Agnew broke a Senate tie in its favour on 2 August 1971.
- The records. The board overseeing the loan then refused to let Congress's General Accounting Office examine its records.
That episode concerned public money, not secret technology. It shows the kind of competitive and accountability concerns Elizondo's argument invokes.[8]
Elizondo
Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon in late 2017, protesting what he called excessive secrecy, and has said he ran the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).[1][2] The Pentagon has disputed his role. A 2019 statement said he had "no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program", while Reid affirmed his leadership.[1] AATIP's predecessor, AAWSAP, was run through a contract with Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. The government secrecy expert Steven Aftergood remarked that the contract "sounds like it was a good deal for the contractor".[2] The program was later described in the book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, whose Pentagon review took more than a year and whose paranormal content drew a sceptical review.[2][3][4]
Assessment
Elizondo's remark is an argument about the implications of a hypothetical situation, not evidence that the situation exists.[7] In March 2024 the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reported no evidence of any hidden "UAP reverse-engineering programs" in the government "or in private industry". It attributed such claims largely to "circular reporting".[5][6]
People and topics
- Luis Elizondo — Former Army counterintelligence officer who says he ran AATIP.
- Harry Reid — Senate Majority Leader who arranged funding for AAWSAP.
- Lockheed Martin — The aerospace company whose Skunk Works built the U-2, SR-71 and F-117.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- David Grusch — Former intelligence officer who testified in 2023 that the U.S. has recovered non-human craft.
On the Timeline
- Energy Department labs as analysts claim (2 October 2021) — Eric Davis says Energy Department labs analyzed UAP materials for another owner.
- Daniel Sheehan on post-war control of UAP information (October 2021) — Elizondo's lawyer Daniel Sheehan describes how UAP information has been controlled since WWII.
See every 2021 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Luis Elizondo — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Documents on the vetting of 'Skinwalkers at the Pentagon' — The Black Vault · theblackvault.com · archived copy
- Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: book review — Bad UFOs (Robert Sheaffer) · badufos.blogspot.com · archived copy
- AARO historical report finds no evidence of alien technology (2024) — Space.com · space.com · archived copy
- AARO Report on the Historical Record, Volume I — The Black Vault · theblackvault.com · archived copy
- youtu.be · youtu.be · archived copy
- en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Luis Elizondo”, “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program”, “en.wikipedia.org”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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