Pentagon chief reveals high res photo of a UFO mothership: 'A huge mini city floating in the sky'

An ex-Pentagon official, who gained fame for blowing nan lid disconnected a $22-million, secretive authorities UFO program, has revealed an image of a UFO 'mothership.'

Luis Elizondo, a profession US Army counterintelligence specialist, antecedently ran the military's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

Monday nighttime in Philadelphia astatine a backstage UFO event, Elizondo dropped what he described arsenic a trade 'looking for illustration nan mothership from "Close Encounters of nan Third Kind,"' referring to nan 1977 Steven Spielberg film. 

'Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By nan way, nan US Embassy,' as Elizondo told attendees astatine nan paid event, gesturing to nan photo: 'That.'

He went connected to picture it arsenic a 'huge mini metropolis floating successful nan sky.' 

But nan UFO, which resembles a gleaming disc-shaped craft, has already drawn withering critiques from skeptics, believers and moreover subject UFO witnesses alike, who declare to person traced nan photograph to, not to nan US Embassy, but a Facebook page.

One suggested to DailyMail.com that Elizondo has been lax successful his vetting of specified images successful a bid to adhd sensational caller worldly to his 'paid speaking engagements.'

Veteran US Air Force Staff Sergeant, Jeremy McGowan, who witnessed a melodramatic UFO brushwood himself successful nan Middle East decades ago, told DailyMail.com that Elizondo's dubious 'mothership' UFO fits a shape pinch nan man's past claims. 

'This unfortunate business pinch Lue follows my experiences pinch him astir exactly,' McGowan said. 'I witnessed him exaggerate aliases outright fabricate accusation that simply wasn't true.'

Elizondo unveiled nan 2022 Romanian UFO photograph astatine an October 28, 2004 event held astatine The City Winery, a vino barroom successful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for $50-$30 per ticket.

'There's a full batch much present folks,' Elizondo told nan assemblage successful a leaked clip. 'I conscionable want to springiness you benignant of a mini sensation of what's going connected "behind nan scenes."'

'We're having pilots, subject pilots and civilian pilots successful Eastern Europe and successful nan Middle East, study what unimaginably seems impossible,' as Elizondo began to explicate his 'real photo' of a UFO.

'They described it virtually 'the mothership,'' Elizondo said.

But contempt reliable national reports of 'mothership' UFOs complete home US subject sites — investigated by nan Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), an FBI task force, nan Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and 16 section sheriff's offices — net sleuths quickly managed to flick holes successful Elizondo's 2022 Romanian UFO.

John Greenewald Jr, a longtime authorities transparency advocator who runs The Black Vault, quickly tracked nan photograph backmost to a September 13, 2023 station successful a Facebook group titled 'Mysterious Ancient Discoveries.'

'I reverse imaged searched it,' Greenewald posted connected X. 'It sewage much than 182,000 likes and much than 23,700 comments.'

The higher solution image of this evident 'mothership,' which looks astatine first glimpse to be piercing clouds pinch its beatific shafts of light, appears much apt to person originated arsenic nan reflection of an indoor chandelier lamp reflected successful model glass. 

The placement of Romania's coal-fired Arad Power Station indicates nan image was not taken from nan US Embassy, but a building adjacent the Mureș River a fewer miles away.

America's Embassy successful Romania is astir 400 miles to nan southeast of Arad, successful nan superior metropolis of Bucharest.

While dedicated UFO skeptics were eager to pounce connected Elizondo's inaccurate claims, UFO enthusiasts besides expressed vexation complete nan episode. 

'Lue is 100 percent utilizing america arsenic pawns to statement his pockets,' 1 contributor to nan Reddit forum r/UFOs lamented. 'His astir caller book was no.1 seller successful nan nation.'

'It's muddying nan waters and detracting from nan important convo,' another opined.

By midday Wednesday, Elizondo was publicly attributing nan error to 'a friend successful Government' who provided him pinch nan photograph 'a mates of years ago.'

Retired USAF Staff Sergeant McGowan, however, told DailyMail.com that Elizondo's correction was acold from a one-off mistake. 

'I've been connected nan receiving extremity wherever Lue has pulled retired his compartment telephone and shown maine what he described arsenic highly classified video,' McGowan told DailyMail.com.

'For him to deliberation I would judge he would simply transportation classified info connected an unsecure civilian compartment telephone is conscionable insulting,' he added. 'And it wasn't conscionable me, aggregate podcast hosts were shown video Lue attributed to things they were not.'

For nan past 2 years, McGowan has been notably nationalist astir this lawsuit successful which Elizondo showed him what he claimed was, successful McGowan's words, 'a highly concealed video smuggled retired of Russia' taken by a Soviet Union probe adjacent Mars.

The video, arsenic McGowan recollected to DailyMail.com, looked to beryllium a decades-old nationalist UFO video from nan Soviet's Phobos 2 probe, released by retired Soviet Air Force Colonel Marina Popovich successful 1991.

Elizondo had shown nan video to McGowan, successful hushed tones, successful January 2021.  

While Popovich, who wrote a book astir her ain UFO encounters arsenic a trial pilot, long maintained nan Phobos 2 video depicted a morganatic alien craft, nan overseas video had nevertheless been nationalist for astir 3 decades, successful different words.

'There is simply a striking similarity betwixt that nationalist video and what Lue showed maine connected his phone,' McGowan recollected. 

'Only saw it for a fewer seconds,' he said, 'so nan granular specifications didn't get absorbed.'

McGowan, whose duties successful nan Air Force included work successful Desert Storm attached to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and supplier enforcement missions successful Colombia, has been nationalist for years connected his ain UFO encounter. 

In nan mid-90s, while serving arsenic a personnel of nan JSOC J2 Security Team for 'Ellipse Foxtrot,' McGowan says he was a witnesser to different aerial lights appearing to study a highly classified cargo instrumentality he had been tasked pinch guarding successful nan desert.  

He said to nan History Channel astir this UFO sighting successful nan Mid East for nan 2020 docu-series 'Unidentified,' which had been hosted by Luis Elizondo.

As McGowan recollected astir his quality connected nan show successful a Medium blog post, he had agreed to this on-camera question and reply successful nan hopes of getting backmost successful touch pinch different witnesses to nan event, but felt 'used' by nan experience.  

'I was expected to beryllium introduced to investigators and researchers who could thief maine place nan personification pinch maine connected that dune and saw what I saw!' he wrote successful 2022. 

'I near pinch nary answers [...] I sent a fewer emails to accumulation that were ignored, and I was ne'er extended nan courtesy promised to me.'

Federal authorities interest astir 'mothership' UFOs harboring swarms of 'drones,' person spilled retired into nationalist position pursuing the merchandise of soul reports via nan US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in caller years. 

Weeks of reports of enigma 'drones' swept eastern Colorado and adjacent areas of Nebraska, Wyoming and Kansas complete nan wintertime holidays of 2019 into nan caller year.

The sightings worried citizens and section rule enforcement alike, but overseas trade and thier 'motherships' troubled nan US subject particularly for their proximity to immoderate of America's sensitive, nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

'They each look clustered successful an area that has rather a fewer Minuteman sites,' a redacted charismatic confessed successful 1 email released via FOIA by F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

F.E. Warren information unit said to section sheriff's deputies who ' reported seeing a 'mothership' six feet successful diameter flanked by 10 smaller drones (some fixed wing, immoderate not).'

'When deputies travel nan drones, they timepiece them astatine speeds of 60-70 mph,' nan redacted guidelines charismatic stated.