The Truth is Far Out There

Adventures in the UFO World.

Dear Hunt for Tom Clancy Reader:

What follows is the original draft of this story about the UFO world I was originally commissioned to write for Buzzfeed in 2016. The story, as they have a tendency to do, got spliced and diced, and I thought paid subscribers might appreciate reading the entire thing. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber: why not?

Best,

Matt Farwell

Luis Elizondo wanted me to believe. I'd spent the past few hours at a bar with the former head of the Pentagon's UFO program, an ex-DoD Counterintelligence officer, which meant he some sort of recently retired-special agent when he went on CNN to declare “We may not be alone” beside a split screen Navy infrared gun camera a “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon” flying saucer. Sure, we’d connected with the recommendation of a mutual friend I’d never met in real life after I helped another mutual friend in a rough spot, but I still found it strange that Elizondo acted like we’d known each other for years. An old intelligence officer trick, no doubt. That’s how the first time we met, no shit, there I was, flexing my right foot over the gas pedal of a tiny rental car on the South Coast Highway, trying to go faster than the Southern California Tesla & Lexus traffic around me.