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When Luis Elizondo made the bold and life changing decision to leave his career within the U.S. military and intelligence community by resigning from his role spearheading AATIP - The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program - it wasn’t because he wanted a change in scenario or a change in direction. No, on the contrary, he has repeatedly stated that the decision to leave his position was the hardest one he’s ever made, one that he wouldn’t have made if he had seen any other legitimate way forward. Furthermore, he has repeatedly asserted that his decision to resign was brought about by his desire - first and foremost - to serve his country.

In the end it became apparent to Elizondo that the intelligence he was trying to deliver up his chain of command was being brickwalled before it could get to where it needed to. In short, there were people above him who not only had no interest in seeing the intelligence gathered being delivered to the top of the chain, where it could be - as Elizondo had hoped - acted upon - but there were individuals who had apparently decided that the investigation shouldn’t be happening at all; that to investigate the matter of these unidentified aerial phenomena - aka UFOs - was, in itself, a foolhardy and ill-advised endeavor.

Of course this begs the question: why? Why was there a contingent within the US military intelligence apparatus that not only wanted to halt someone like Elizondo from delivering intel to his superiors, but who had seemingly already decided - a priori - that an investigation into UFOs was not only ill advised, but - more significantly - actually a dangerous endeavor to even pursue?

In short, these individuals within Elizondo’s chain of command believed the intelligence behind UAPs/UFOs was actually demonic in nature. And not in some abstract - these are bad news - kind of way. No, these individuals seemed to believe that these intelligences were in fact the very demons they believed the Bible laid bare as the evil minions of Satan, dark and deceptive nefarious entities who’s only true aim was to corrupt and lead humanity away from a reliance on and relationship with the “one true God”.

Now, to be sure, a predetermined position rooted in religious fundamentalism was central to this group’s thinking. Had there been no Christian fundamentalists in positions of power, this notion likely wouldn’t have gotten off the ground to begin with. But, as it turns out, the conclusions this group of government and military insiders had come to was not solely based on pre-existing religious conviction. Rather, events that had taken place earlier in the 20th century, events such as those tied to the first ever modern sighting of UFOs by Kenneth Arnold, and of the purported crash of an alien craft along with the alleged recovery of alien life forms at Roswell, New Mexico, were central to this group’s conclusions.

Put succinctly, this group - who came to be known as the Collins Elite - believed that occultic practices foolishly pursued by human beings in the early to mid 20th century had opened a kind of portal to an alternate dimension; a netherworld that was home to these dark and deceptive intelligences. And that now these demonic forces were laying siege to humanity under the ruse of a visitation from extraterrestrials piloting sophisticated spacecraft.

But what were the actual, specific historical events that had led to the Collins Elite to these rather startling conclusions? And how was it that the personal convictions of these religious fundamentalists went so far as to influence, and some might even say, shape, much of the unofficial response of the U.S. government to the UFO Phenomenon? These are the very matters we’ll seek to understand in this, the 49th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.