Collins Elite
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
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| Date | 11 March 1998 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Nick Redfern, Luis Elizondo |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 133 |
| Year | 1998 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1998 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 3 |
The Collins Elite is a group described by British author Nick Redfern in his 2010 book Final Events as a circle of U.S. government and intelligence insiders who came to believe that UFOs and their occupants were demonic entities. No documents confirm that it existed.[1][2]
The book
Final Events: Demonic UFOs, Alien Abductions, the Government, and the Afterlife draws on anonymous and pseudonymous sources. It opens with an account that in 1991 Ray Boeche, an Anglican priest and UFO researcher, was approached by two Christian physicists from the Defense Department who described a government program to contact "nonhuman entities". Redfern was later contacted by a man in his eighties calling himself "Richard Duke", who claimed to be a former CIA employee and the last surviving member of the original Collins Elite. Redfern did not vouch for the account.[1][2]
The story
According to the book, the group's origins lay in investigations of rocket engineer and occultist Jack Parsons, who attributed the post-1947 saucer sightings to occult rituals he had performed; the investigators allegedly formed a group at the Pentagon to study whether flying saucers had "devil beginnings". They supposedly regarded contactee movements as occult rather than extraterrestrial. The name was said to come from a member from Collins, New York, though some have linked it to Robert Collins, a former Air Force officer involved in the Bennewitz affair.[1][2]
Reception
Christian scholar Michael Heiser criticised the book's credibility and "cartoonish demonology", suggesting that if the group existed its members might be dupes. Others compared it to 1990s writings on spiritual warfare.[1][3]
Later revival
The idea that some officials see UAP in religious or demonic terms resurfaced in the 2020s, when Luis Elizondo, formerly associated with the Pentagon's UAP work, said a "Collins Elite" group had opposed UFO research as demonic. Writer Jason Colavito noted that the claim first appeared in Redfern's book. The testimony includes it for that reason.[1][3]
People and topics
- Nick Redfern — British author of books on government UFO secrecy including Final Events.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Bennewitz affair — Bennewitz affair
- Luis Elizondo — Former Army counterintelligence officer who says he ran AATIP.
On the Timeline
- Edgar Fouché and the TR-3B (1998) — An Air Force sergeant claims a secret facility lies beneath Groom Lake.
- Former colonel's underground facilities claim (1998) (17 June 1998) — A researcher says a former colonel claims he worked in underground facilities.
See every 1998 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Final Events — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Final Events", Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- "Who are the Collins Elite?", Rod Dreher · roddreher.substack.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Hangar 18 (the legend and 1980 film) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- UFO documents — NSA · nsa.gov · archived copy
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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