Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to indicate the implant was not necessarily in a human brain.
(NewsNation) — In an exclusive interview, former Pentagon insider Luis Elizondo says the Department of Defense has a spacecraft retrieval program and that doctors with Veterans Affairs have seen an alleged alien implant.
“I saw a technical device that had been removed, excised by the Department of Veterans Affairs by a surgeon, a trained physician, from a U.S. military service member who claimed to have a UAP encounter. The physician claimed that the object tried to run on him or evade being excised,” Elizondo told NewsNation.
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Elizondo says the physician he spoke to described the object as trying to avoid being captured by the doctor intelligently.
In response to the interview, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said, “As we have stated previously, Luis Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) while assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.”
“The department is fully committed to openness and accountability to Congress and the American people, which it must balance with its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods. As we have said many times before, the department and AARO will follow the data wherever it leads; however, to date, we have not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity,” Gough added.
Believers in UFO activity pushed back on the response from the DOD, contending that the Pentagon is running a disinformation campaign to discredit Elizondo.
Additionally, they believe Elizondo’s involvement in the UAP program at the Pentagon has been confirmed multiple times. Those include a letter from former Assistant Dep. Sec. of Defense Chris Mellon to Sen. Harry Reid that allegedly confirmed Elizondo’s specific role in AATIP. Also, internal DoD emails since made public allegedly indicate that Elizondo was running AATIP.