People have always wondered whether Earth is being visited, or has been visited, by space aliens. This topic has been getting hotter over the past few years. Luis Elizondo became famous in 2017 through articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post about his work with AATIP – the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Now he has written Imminent, his own account of the UAP/UFO controversy. (UAP means Unidentified Aerial Phenomena; it’s the newer term for UFO – Unidentified Flying Object.) Elizondo also has his own website.
Elizondo’s book is an interesting story of his childhood and how entering service in the U.S. Army via Junior ROTC saved him from a chaotic household. He described how he gained experience in the Army and then how he was brought into the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP), which would later become the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). (Are acronyms the chief product of the federal government and the Department of Defense in particular?)
When I was an undergraduate and graduate student, citing sources was pounded into my head. I was therefore disappointed that Elizondo did not make a better effort to do so, especially considering that he is a trained counterintelligence officer addressing a controversial topic. For example, Elizondo describes (pp. 36-37) how he and a few others used “remote viewing” to telepathically terrify an unnamed terrorist in U.S. custody. Supposedly this terrorist complained to his attorney, and the story was described in a “mainstream newspaper article”. Which newspaper, and when was it published? It would also have helped had he cited (p. 58) the statement that Islam and Catholicism are “beginning to prepare the public”. Islam isn’t like Catholicism in the sense that there is no equivalent to the Pope in Islam. Islam is decentralized, like Protestant Christianity. On the other hand, Elizondo included an appendix of key emails and legislation and quotes from various people involved in the UAP controversy.
Elizondo speculates (pp.172-174) that the various UAP sightings are the spacecraft of advanced alien species – perhaps more than one species -- and that they might be carrying out reconnaissance (“intelligence preparation of the battlefield) for an invasion of Earth. This seems odd. Why should aliens invade Earth? Elizondo speculates (pp. 163-165) that alien starships come to Earth to harvest liquid water to obtain the hydrogen in the water for fuel. Is Elizondo unaware that aliens could harvest water (frozen, not liquid) from comets in the Oort Cloud without having to be concerned about human opposition or about crashing on Earth and revealing their technology to humans? (True, the water would have to be melted, but this should be easy for those who can travel the stars.) If aliens wanted rare earth elements or precious metals, aliens could mine them from the Asteroid Belt, again without human knowledge or opposition. Oh yes, one more thing: why should aliens go to the trouble of visiting Earth just to mutilate cattle? What exactly would they get out of that? It would be easy enough to discreetly collect blood samples.
Would aliens want to colonize Earth? First, this would require that the aliens be similar enough to us to be able to live on Earth. Second, even if aliens were similar enough to humans to colonize Earth, how could they do so in the face of eight billion humans, many of whom are heavily armed? Harry Turtledove explored this scenario in his Worldwar and Colonization series. Furthermore, why didn’t they colonize Earth before the Industrial Revolution, when humans would have been unable to resist?
And yet, despite legitimate grounds for skepticism about Elizondo’s book, it’s possible that there are other technological civilizations beyond our Solar System. If intelligent life evolved on Earth, why not elsewhere? Certainly, an alien starship or probe passing through our Solar System would instantly notice that there is a technological civilization on Earth. There’s the cacophony of radio emissions from Earth, as well as many, many satellites in Earth orbit. It’s worth considering that a starfaring civilization might be interested in what’s going on here. At a time when hostile foreign governments and corporations are becoming more serious about the military and commercial potential of space, does it not behoove the U.S. government to take the importance of space and the possibility of alien civilizations more seriously instead of evading the matter? Is it possible that the refusal to pay more attention to the importance of space (never mind the existence of aliens) is encouraged by those in the United States and abroad who want a world government, as Namrata Goswami and Peter Garretson suggested in Scramble for the Skies?
I have never had a close encounter of any kind, even though I live in New Mexico, where the most famous UAP/UFO incident took place. I have never seen anything that could possibly be construed as an alien spacecraft. I’m open to the possibility, but seeing is believing.
Elizondo’s book is a lively, detailed look at an important issue. It’s certainly a page-turner, and it uses themes that are popular: distrust of government and its penchant for secrecy, the possibility that someone else might be out there, and most of all, a hunger for something that’s greater than the daily grind that we’re all sick of. Elizondo’s advice toward the end of the book is to prod our leaders to do a better job of preparing for a spacefaring future and to keep undermining the taboo about serious discussion of the possibility of alien life. That’s excellent advice.