Claim

AATIP was an official Pentagon UAP program, and Luis Elizondo ran it

Also known as AATIP official, Elizondo led AATIP

Disputed. AARO's 2024 report says AAWSAP and AATIP were one DIA program, “AATIP was never an official DoD program”, and the name was later used by an informal group with no staff or budget; a Pentagon spokesperson said in 2019 that Elizondo had no responsibilities for AATIP. Elizondo, Stratton and Fravor describe him as part of it. (AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1)

The core of the December 2017 New York Times story: that the Pentagon ran a funded UAP program called AATIP and that Luis Elizondo led it until he resigned in 2017. The official record describes one DIA program, AAWSAP, also called AATIP, and denies both that AATIP was an official program and that Elizondo had responsibility for it.

Who has said it, in order

  1. 16 December 2017 — says so, relayed: On December 16, 2017, The New York Times published “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program” by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean. It revealed the Pentagon's secret UAP study, AATIP, funded at Senator Harry Reid's request, and published U.S. Navy cockpit video of an unidentified object. Source: nytimes.com (archived)
  2. 26 July 2023 David Fravor — says so, relayed: Fravor: no one contacted him until 2009, when Jay Stratton of the Pentagon's AATIP program, led by Lue Elizondo, asked to investigate. Source: House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video at 36:06
  3. Luis Elizondo — says so, first-hand: Says he led AATIP at the Pentagon until he resigned in October 2017. Source: nytimes.com (archived)
  4. Luis Elizondo — says so, first-hand: In a 2024 Newsweek essay he wrote that two members of an existing program approached him to join it: "the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a niche program under the umbrella of AWSAPP". He says he did not run it entirely on his own, but worked with James Lacatski, "who originally led AWSAPP", and "Jay Stratton, who took over after I resigned from AATIP in 2017". Source: newsweek.com (archived)
  5. — disputes it, documented: “Unlike AAWSAP, AATIP was never an official DoD program.” After AAWSAP was cancelled in 2012, some people used the AATIP name for “an informal, unofficial UAP community of interest” within DoD, researching military sightings as part of their other duties, with “no dedicated personnel or budget.” Source: doc-aaro-historical-record-report-v1.pdf
  6. — disputes it, documented: A Pentagon spokesperson told The Intercept in 2019 that AATIP “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena”, but that Elizondo “had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program”. Source: theintercept.com (archived)

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