Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs

Los Alamos, New Mexico, is home to the test range where the Manhattan Project developed the atomic bomb. In 2013, during a test for another unspecified weapon, “several mysterious and luminous orbs” were spotted (116). Details from the incident have been redacted from the book by the DoD, but Elizondo cites “an almost obvious display of out-of-this-world performance characteristics” (118), though the reports quickly became lost in the administrative quagmire that, in Elizondo’s view, defines government operations.

At this time, Elizondo felt as though his career had plateaued. He was in charge of parts of Guantanamo Bay and had access to almost any classified information he could want. He was even eligible for many perks, though he declined them because he believed that chauffeured cars and private jets were demonstrative of government waste. He felt as though he had more in common with the enlisted soldiers than the Pentagon office workers. He flew regularly to Guantanamo Bay, though by 2013, the site had become an epicenter of controversy. In court, one inmate referred to Elizondo as the “US Czar of Torture” (120). Elizondo consoled himself that he was protecting his country and that his morally questionable actions were part of this duty. Jennifer urged her husband to take more time for his family and relax, but he craved “answers to the mystery of UAP” (122).

Elizondo and his team identified five distinct performance characteristics of UAP, which they labeled “the observables.” The five observables are hypersonic velocity, instantaneous acceleration, low observability, trans-medium travel, and anti-gravity. UAP, Elizondo suggests, stand out because “they can achieve all five of these observables” (126). There is also a sixth observable, he claims, which has not yet been revealed by the government. This sixth observable consists of biological effects, such as time distortion and medical issues. Using this list of observables, Elizondo and his team began categorizing historic and current UAP events. Noting the UAP propensity to appear near nuclear-related materials and large bodies of water, they related these propensities to the observables.

Elizondo and his team were told about a defense contractor associated with the Legacy Program that was in possession of nonhuman-made UAP materials. The contractor even confirmed this to the team, but before the team could retrieve the materials for study, they had to go through the bureaucratic process of obtaining permissions and clearance. The case is emblematic, Elizondo suggests, of many private contractors who have obtained such samples, which are then used to reverse engineer technology for mass market consumption. Now that the contractor had done everything they could with the material, the material could be sent back to the Pentagon. However, the Air Force refused to grant clearance to Elizondo and the team. Elizondo grew increasingly angry at the idea that his own government was hiding important evidence. He claims that this was part of a “deep conspiracy within the US government to keep the truth from US citizens” (131). In spite of his hard work, Elizondo could not obtain the materials.

Puthoff, who has written many papers on subjects such as interstellar travel, attempted to explain the observables with physics. He is not alone, as many other physicists have been inspired by science fiction to such a degree that fictions like Star Trek and Star Wars lend their names to scientific endeavors. Technology such as warp drives may have their roots in science fiction, but these names are deployed by actual scientists in relation to actual technology and research. Puthoff began to investigate anti-gravity technology as an explanation for how UAP achieve the observables. Garry Nolan, meanwhile, investigated biological phenomena related to the brains of witnesses, many of whom experience swelling in the dorsal striatum of the brain. These swollen brains may explain the relationship between UAP and phenomena like second sight/remote viewing. Many of the people with remote viewing, Elizondo claims, have “Cherokee blood” (138), including Elizondo himself.

In 2015, Stratton received emails concerning UAP sightings near the USS Roosevelt. This case reminded the team of the 2004 Nimitz case, both of which involved nuclear-powered vessels near large bodies of water. Elizondo details the witness accounts of formation flying, near collisions, and strange environmental effects. The Navy officers were concerned, so they had reached out to AATIP for further information. In spite of their best efforts, no conventional explanation for the UAP could be found, and the incidents were so numerous that they could not be ignored. When the Navy officers spoke to the AATIP team, however, Elizondo grew frustrated over the officers’ demands for simple answers. The AATIP team developed a plan to study the phenomena, using these incidents as an opportunity. Using carefully coded language and avoiding mention of their real point of interest, they wanted to use the Roosevelt as bait. They hoped that more UAP would be spotted and that they could focus their measuring devices on the area surrounding the ship.

At the same time, a staff reshuffle in the senior positions made Elizondo more fearful that someone would interfere with the AATIP. To convince the senior management to proceed with the plan, Elizondo presented a series of videos obtained from the Roosevelt incidents. These three videos—GoFast, GIMBAL, and FLIR—would become famous as the clearest evidence yet of UAP that demonstrate the observables. Increasingly, however, Elizondo suspected that they may need to go directly to the Secretary of Defense to obtain permission and to cut through the bureaucratic red tape that had hindered them so far. Elizondo showed the GIMBAL video to important staff at the Pentagon, hoping that they would see that this is “not conventional technology and not ours” (149). After their “herculean” mental gymnastics in search of an explanation (150), the staff seemed to accept that the UAP was real.