There was a time when the very name of Luis Elizondo was seldom mentioned within the corridors of power of the Pentagon. He was only mentioned as “L” in hushed tones by people in the know –at least according to the story shared by rockstar-turned-UFO entrepreneur Tom DeLonge during the launch of the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science in 2017. In that video DeLonge introduced Elizondo to the world with a promise that their joint venture would bring about a new era of UFO transparency and the development of space technologies –what is popularly known in the field as ‘Disclosure’.
Fast forward four years and a half later: Elizondo parted ways with DeLonge, TTS dropped the ‘Academy’ from their acronym and the closest they’ve come to outer space is their new line of apparel in a partnership with NASA (because apparently NASA engineers couldn’t figure out a way to sell hoodies to the American public all by their own). Meanwhile the former counterintelligence special agent and purported director of AATIP has become much more comfortable with making public appearances, and he regularly accepts invitations to all sorts of Youtube shows and podcasts.
In his latest (and rather long) online interview in the Theories of Everything channel with Curt Jaimungal, in which he was joined by former U.S. Navy Chief Master-at-Arms Sean Cahill –Cahill was involved in the famous USS Nimitz UFO encounters, and after making an appearance in the TTSA’s produced TV series Unidentified he is now partnering with Elizondo with a new company called Skyfort, which describes itself as a ‘strategic think tank’ intended to offer intelligence services related to UFOs– Elizondo was asked whether there was any evidence of ‘UAPs’ (the sanctioned acronym intended to sanitize the topic before mainstream media and the US Congress) interacting with each other –a way to enquire about whether there are signs of ‘conflict’ between different types of unidentified aerial objects.
Instead of alluding to any contemporary cases –like for instance the controversial space shuttle footage from the 1990’s, which is interpreted by some enthusiasts as signs of UFOs engaging in hostile maneuvers as some of them are entering Earth’s atmosphere– Elizondo took the opportunity to discuss the kind of historical narratives that have been over-exploited by Giorgio Tsoukalos in the long-lived Ancient Aliens series on the History channel: the fascinating Nuremberg woodcut of 1561 showing all sorts of unusual celestial manifestations –including what seems like spherical objects crashing down near a village– as well as the suggestive description of ‘vimanas‘ found in the Indian epic poems of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. And then he spends a couple of minutes discussing some “very interesting stones” he had the opportunity to view and photograph near the Air Force Intelligence Office in Lima, Peru (whether he was there before, during or after his involvement with the AATIP program is unclear), and these stones to which he seems to give a lot of credence allegedly depict all sorts of incredible things like modern telescopes and even flying vehicles(!).
Watch video of the segment in which Elizondo discusses the ‘stones’.
Even though he calls them “Inca stones” it is almost certain that what Elizondo was referring to in this interview are the infamous ‘Ica stones’, which became very popular in Hispanic and Latin American esoteric circles in the mid 1970’s after the publication of researcher Juan José Benítez’s book “Existió otra humanidad” (Another Humanity Existed) which popularized these OOPARTs (out of place artifacts) allegedly excavated out of the Ica desert in Peru and said to be ten to twelve thousand years old, which purportedly showed not only imaginative descriptions of extremely advanced technology –like for instance detailed open brain surgeries– but also (and this is something Elizondo strangely omitted in his interview) scenes with primitive men and dinosaurs.
Indeed, the kind of stuff any kid in the 1980s –such as myself– dreamed about when they watched Hasbro’s TV commercials (and subsequent cartoon series) promoting their line of Dinoriders toys.
Just as I confess that back in the 80s I was totally obsessed with the Dinorider toys (C’mon, prehistoric beasts coupled with advanced tech? what’s not to love!) I must also shamefully confess that in the 90s I still remained somewhat intrigued by the Ica stones, which seemed to throw a monkey-wrench (or rather, a dino-wrench) on our orthodox concepts of ancient history.
But as time went on and my naïve enthusiasm was eroded by the cold-hard facts that there is no conceivable way humans and dinosaurs could coexist on the same historic timeline –as a Mexican, it took me a while to realize the fundamentalist Christian agenda pushing the OOPARTs purported to show man and dinosaurs walked the Earth before the deluge– I eventually came by enough documented evidence that showed without a doubt the Ica stones are nothing more than a modern forgery: The imaginative work of the extravagant Dr. Javier Cabrera, a local physician who not only became the prime collector of the stones, but reportedly commissioned local artisans for many years to create them for his private museum –some of those artisans not only confessed to the forgery to Spanish journalists, but analysis of photographs taken with a microscope showed traces of the color pencils said artisans used to trace the designs on the stones, proving they had been crafted in recent years.
Spanish author and UFO researcher José Antonio Caravaca wrote an entire book about the subject, for those who are interested –sadly, it has only been printed in Spanish.
To be fair, in the interview Elizondo leaves himself enough leeway in case the stones turned out to be fake (which they are) —“Is that proof positive or evidence of anything? No. Could be someone’s wild imagination, y’know there’s lots of that out there. But y’know could be something else, too”– and supporters of his reading this article will be no doubt quick to point out ‘Big Lue’ is not expected to be 100% up-to-date with every single piece of research conducted with regards to UFOs or other mysteries.
And yet I cannot help but find ironic that it is those die-hard followers the same ones who continuously attack anyone who dares to vet or question Elizondo’s credentials and unsubstantiated claims, equating any sort of criticism as an obstacle in the golden road to the fabled Disclosure they long for. Meanwhile Elizondo is increasingly showing signs of frustration at his inability to be taken seriously by people outside the small UFOlogical circles who celebrate him, and keeps admonishing the people in those circles to study philosophy and exercise their own critical thinking tools in order to take any story they find on the Internet with a grain of salt.
But what does it say about his own critical thinking (or lack of curiosity) when he stills considers the old Ica stones of the 1970s important enough to be mentioned in a public interview, knowing fully well many nowadays take everything he says as having an official endorsement of veracity?
How will he succeed to convince the Mick Wests of the world who keep questioning the evidence he disclosed through To the Stars, and increase his circle influence outside the subculture of UFO aficionados who believe him unquestioningly, if he continuously keeps making mistakes such as showing an alleged image of the Washington UFO wave of 1952 as genuine photograph in front of an audience in Italy in 2018, when any UFO researcher out there fully knows there are no real photos of the anomalous lights that flew over the US capital that year? *
At the end of the day, I agree with Elizondo’s advice that advocates for Disclosure should do well in taking anything whistleblowers say with a healthy grain of salt, regardless of their past credentials. Lest they want to make their movement as passé as an 80’s line of dinosaur toys.
Special thanks to José Antonio Caravaca and to Aleix de la Torre.
(*) Elizondo later recognized his mistake and jokingly alluded it to acute jetlag and his inability to ‘find decent Cuban coffee’ in Italy –apparently he’s never heard of espresso.
