My vote for the craziest part of that new C2C interview would go for the continuation of that party balloon epic. What, you say, can't we just forget that stupid mistake already? Apparently they can't, and it just got worse, way worse.
First a quick recap for those who haven't followed this in detail. When TTSA was announced on October 11, Chris Mellon made an ass of himself and the TTSA at large by presenting a twisted version of the Nimitz story, featuring several incorrect details and that prominently displayed party balloon image. The video and link to the transcript can be found here:
Watch Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy UFO Press Conference Here | Openminds.tv
He was referring to the story as it was told in this article back in March 2015:
https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/
Note that:
- His version deviates from that article
- That party balloon image is the first illustration image of that article, without a caption, and the article doesn't claim that or any of the other images are connected to the event.
- Mellon's presentation doesn't use any other pictures from that article, but contains a number of their own images of boats and planes and such.
- Mellon doesn't show that web page, doesn't mention the source or the publication by name, neither the full title of that article, but gives some keywords with which people can google that article. It's already pretty weird he didn't give proper credit for the source.
- That party balloon was shown near the end of the presentation, after all those other images, and in the context when he was describing the object (calling it a secret machine at least once) and how the pilots failed to identify it.
It was exposed as an unrelated balloon pic 3 days after the announcement event:
Explained: Photo of "UFO" Used in Connection with Nimitz Incident [Balloon]
To which the TTSA didn't react in any way for more than 2 months, and they and the Nimitz case took serious hits on credibility as various outlets continued to report their blunder with headings like these (from January 18-19):
Bizarre story of the leaked Pentagon UFO pic that inspired a generation to believe in aliens… but turned out to be a hot air balloon in Manchester
The shock truth about UFO image that made world think aliens may exist
Then finally on January 23 they gave a rather lame response on their FB page:
On October 11, 2017, during a broadcast announcing the formation of To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, our creative team utilized a slide that was intended to be illustrative of the Nimitz case discussed in the presentation. We recognize that the use of this slide without proper clarification created confusion and, most importantly, did not meet our standard of accuracy. TTS Academy is committed to being a trusted leader in the exploration of exotic science and technologies, and we regret this oversight. It is important to note that the evidence presented by the speaker regarding the Nimitz case is derived from the testimony of multiple US military personnel and multiple sensors aboard multiple ships and aircraft operating in conditions of excellent visibility. Furthermore, the US Department of Defense has not denied the account provided by TTS Academy or the retired US military personnel involved in the incidents of November 14, 2004.
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science
So that took them more than 2 months, and they didn't even seem to admit their mistake properly, and the wording is strangely defensive that despite that there's still the other evidence and DoD hasn't denied it and so on. That's a pretty weird response as it would have been enough to just state that using the image was a mistake and it didn't have anything to do with the Nimitz event.
In any case, one would expect they would like to forget that shameful episode already, but no, Elizondo just continued that saga and made it even worse! Now around a month later (February 25) on that C2C interview, Elizondo tried to make the point that it wasn't a mistake! Here's my quick transcript of that part:
It wasn't a mistake no, it was deliberate because we were encouraging people to go online, we were quoting information from the web, and it would be disingenuous of us if we were to put any picture other than what was on the web. We knew inherently that picture, we weren't telling people that was the actual Tic Tac, we were simply saying look this is a photo that came along that was part of that article. We knew what the Tic Tac video was but we hadn't done the proper analysis yet to provide that and I think it's important that the audience understands, in order to keep preserve the information that we were trying to relay on that stage we wanted to basically keep to what was already available in the open press. We weren't telling people, hey this is a Tic Tac, what we were trying to do, and maybe we fell short a little bit of what we were trying to accomplish, but we were trying to encourage people to get online and read this story for themselves so they can start asking the hard questions themselves. This is a fundamental challenge that we continue to have and that I continue to have, people say, well, why should we believe you Lou. I don't want you to believe me, I want you to ask for the data so you can look at the data yourself and you then can formulate your own beliefs. I don't want people to say oh we should all believe what Lou Elizondo has to say. No, what I want you to do is go out, ask your leadership in office to request the information from the sources, provide that information whatever as they can at the unclassified level and let people make their decisions and the purpose of the Nimitz incident, that was the only story that was really out there and in the unclassified realm that we could have a collective discussion about and that could get people starting the conversation once and for all and I think we hit the mark with that. Unfortunately I think we got a little bit lost in translation when we drew up that picture. I think people probably thought that we were tying to say this is the actual Tic Tac when in fact we knew it wasn't.
Just wow! I don't know where to even begin. That's just plain stupid. Even if they honestly did something so stupid on purpose, that would show incredibly bad judgment. Secondly, as I mentioned above, they showed a number of other pictures that weren't in that article, and didn't show the rest that were there. And if they "were simply saying look this is a photo that came along that was part of that article", why didn't they actually say that then? Or even say what the article actually was, or even show it? How's that "preserving the information"? And why didn't they even tell the story correctly, if they so hoped people would go and see the article and notice it doesn't actually agree with what they said? None of that makes any sense.
And once again, if they want people to look at the data instead of believing their words, why aren't they providing even all the data they seem to already have? And what use is the TTSA anyway, if it is now our task to try to demand the data from the government?
