One of the repeating themes we’ve run across in our coverage of the ongoing story of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and the search for information about UFOs/UAP is the disconnect between what the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) has said about Luis Elizondo and what the Pentagon has had to say about him. If you ask TTSA, Harry Reid (who requested the program initially) or Elizondo himself, he ran the program. If you run the question by the Pentagon, specifically spokesperson Susan Gough, Elizondo had “no assigned duties” in the Defense Intelligence Agency and was not involved with AATIP.

So what’s with that disconnect? It’s a question I asked early on when researching this subject and never found a convincing answer. And the fact that Elizondo himself never seemed to come forward to defend his statements made it seem all the more strange. But now he’s broken his silence. In an interview with John Greenewald at The Black Vault, Elizond tackles that question and many others. There’s no new documentation coming out of this interview (at least not yet) but at least we get to hear his side of the story. I’m going to include a couple of the more interesting snippets from the interview here, but if you have any interest in the subject I would suggest you click through and read the entire thing for yourself.

First of all, what does Elizondo say his role in AATIP was?

“As the senior ranking person in the AATIP program, I was ultimately responsible for ensuring the efficient and effective operations of the overall effort. However, in fairness, the lion’s work was performed by the outstanding men and women we had working in the program. My job was primarily to fend off the distractions so the rest of the team could do their job. In essence, my job was to catch the proverbial bullets so our folks could do their job without distraction. Not an unusual role for the senior person in any program to assume. This includes fighting for resources, support, and personnel.”

So if that’s the case, how does the Pentagon get the story so wrong? Why would Susan Gough keep insisting he wasn’t involved? Elizondo mentions that he’s kept quiet about this in the past primarily because he was threatened with having his security clearance taken away when he first came out with TTSA and he doesn’t want to lose it. But now he feels he needs to set the record straight.

“Emotionally it was very disappointing, but not surprising. There are elements in the Pentagon that are seriously upset with me for me ‘breaking rank’ in their eyes. However, efforts are underway to isolate and expose these individuals and hold them accountable. I am very optimistic that 2020 this will be resolved. I can’t go into great detail on our strategy only because it has not been finalized yet. I think it’s a vendetta by a few in the Pentagon, but I think we will all know the real reason this year.”

So this could have been a case of lost records and missing information, as Gough suggested in her recent “clarification.” Or it could be that the Pentagon was deliberately and knowingly lying about Elizondo. He’s going with the latter explanation, going so far as to describe these contradictory statements as potentially being “a deliberate attempt to confuse, hide, and conceal the truth.” And given the Pentagon’s rather casual relationship with the truth on this subject, as we’ve discussed here frequently, that’s not so tough to believe.

Near the end of the interview, Elizondo drops one fascinating hint for us regarding how much additional evidence the government has and if we’re ever going to see it. He refers to the recent admission from the Navy that there is at least one more, longer video of the tic-tac encounter (something the Pentagon has repeatedly denied) and mentions the following. Pay particular attention to the emphasized section.

“I am happy with the fact that recently some Navy former senior officials have come out and admitted there were more videos and greater length. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to elaborate but the fact that the Government finally acknowledged it makes me feel a little vindicated. Also, the Navy’s admission about the reality of UAPs (albeit could be Russian or adversarial) and the fact they are creating new policies so our brave male and female pilots can report these incidents is definitely a step in the right direction. I am not sure I can take credit for it but I like to think I played a small part in it.”

Elizondo is still under an NDA and doesn’t want to lose his clearance, so he can’t say more. But perhaps he’s let something important slip here, even if inadvertently. Earlier in the interview, he makes reference to “thousands of documents” related to the program that haven’t been cleared for release yet. And now, rather than talking about one more video, he says “videos”… plural.

When I wrote about the revelation of the existence of that longer video, I noted that the FOIA request leading to that information was very narrowly tailored to any evidence from a specific place (the Nimitz battle group training area) over a specific period of six days. As I said then, the military never gives you more than you specifically asked for when answering an FOIA request. So there probably are huge numbers of videos in their possession that they’re trying desperately to keep under wraps.

If Elizondo is who he says he is (and Harry Reid and many others back him up on this) then he would be in a position to know. And if he’s confident that the dam will break this year and more will be coming out, this could be the first semi-official indication that actual “big D” Disclosure is on the way. Cross your fingers, because I know a lot of us would seriously like some answers and some truth out of the Pentagon.