10 supposed secret insiders have been whispering about covert space programs, alien tech, and government hush‑ups for decades. From the shadowy Vril Society in pre‑war Germany to the infamous Area 51, the notion that extraterrestrials are meddling in human affairs has never been more tantalising. This article walks you through the ten most talked‑about claimants who say they’ve seen the hidden side of space exploration.
10 Supposed Secret Overview
Below you’ll find a ranked rundown of each whistle‑blower, complete with their own startling claims, the evidence they present, and the controversies that swirl around them. Buckle up – the ride through the secret‑space‑program rabbit hole is about to get wild.
10 Bob Lazar
Though Bob Lazar never really wanted to be lumped in with the UFO crowd, he remains the man who ignited popular interest in the secretive Nevada military base known as Area 51. In 1993 Lazar emerged as one of the earliest alleged UFO insiders, driven by what he described as concerns about how the UFO subject was being handled. He claims to possess advanced degrees in electronics and physics from CalTech and MIT, yet both institutions say no records exist of his attendance. A vintage phone directory appears to back his claim that he once worked for Los Alamos, but any official employment records, as well as his hospital birth records, have vanished without a trace.
Lazar says he was part of a team of scientists assigned to the top‑secret base north of Las Vegas called S4. At this camouflaged facility built into the desert hillside he allegedly inspected captured extraterrestrial spacecraft for reverse‑engineering purposes. His schematics of the UFO he dubs the “sport model” resemble the classic saucer shape replicated in countless toys and films. During his research Lazar discovered that the sport model and other saucer‑shaped craft he examined seemed to be propelled by amplified gravity waves.
Bob doesn’t regret going public, but these days he focuses on his scientific‑supply company and consulting work rather than evangelising about extraterrestrials. He and his wife now live off the grid to avoid UFO fanatics and make no money off his wild claims. Interestingly, part of his 1993 disclosure involved the antimatter engines in the UFOs running on element 115 – a claim that seemed pure fiction until scientists successfully synthesized element 115 (Moscovium) in a lab in 2003.
9 William Tompkins
Some remembered the late William Tompkins as an avid model‑ship builder, while others noted his role as corporate director of North American Advanced Space Research and a member of the Red Team at General Dynamics. Yet many researchers focus less on his distinguished aerospace résumé and more on the extraordinary claims he made about his involvement in a secret space program.
According to Tompkins, who penned a book about his experiences on the hidden side of Naval Intelligence, he was recruited before finishing high school to back‑engineer extraterrestrial communications systems. He also claimed to have designed over sixteen spacecraft models for the Navy during his first think‑tank job, some of which allegedly remain in use today. Tompkins believed that extraterrestrials have meddled in human affairs for millennia, with some factions exploiting us for warfare while others attempted to accelerate our evolution. He died on August 21 2017, amid the first total solar eclipse visible in North America in 99 years.
8 Bob Dean
Bob Dean’s life took a dramatic turn when an Air Force colonel allegedly slapped a 20‑centimetre‑high (8‑inch) document onto his desk, saying, “Here, read this. This will wake you up.” Dean says this happened one sleepy night in NATO’s War Room during his service as a master sergeant from 1963 to 1967. Normally reserved for those with “Cosmic Top Secret” clearance and above, the document Dean claims to have seen detailed NATO’s three‑year investigation into the UFO phenomenon, which employed physicists, astronomers, sociologists, and theologians. According to Dean, the report concluded that extraterrestrials posed no threat to humanity and had been visiting Earth for centuries.
In his professional ufology career Dean has tried to corroborate these claims by pointing out saucer‑like depictions in ancient cave art and classical masterpieces. While his military service is verified, many have disputed Dean’s unsubstantiated claims about accessing the NATO report. These attacks on his credibility haven’t stopped Bob from touring UFO conventions and appearing in numerous interviews.
7 Steven Greer
Steven Greer has become one of the loudest voices demanding full disclosure of extraterrestrial contact, but this former trauma surgeon initially set out with a different agenda. Accepting early on that extraterrestrials were visiting Earth, he wanted to organise a diplomatic framework to interface with these mysterious visitors. Decades of petitioning high‑profile Washington lawmakers, appearing before the National Press Club, and serving as the main source for the recent UFO documentary Unacknowledged have thrust Greer into the spotlight as a dedicated antagonist of the alleged extraterrestrial cover‑up.
Over his career Greer has met dozens of supposed secret‑space‑program insiders, amassed thousands of documents to back his claims, and founded two organisations aimed at releasing secret technologies and disclosing ET contact. Greer alleges that among the technologies recovered from downed alien craft is the secret of free energy, which he says is being suppressed for the massive profits generated by oil, coal, and natural gas. He repeatedly petitioned senior US officials to disclose what they knew about extraterrestrials until he concluded that the information was being hidden even from the President.
Since then he has redoubled his efforts to popularise the ET phenomenon, appearing in documentary films Sirius and Unacknowledged. One of his most bizarre claims in the latter film is that Marilyn Monroe didn’t die of a drug overdose but was about to hold a press conference revealing everything she’d learned from the Kennedys about UFOs, only to be silenced before she could speak.
6 Luis Elizondo
On December 16 2017, The New York Times ran an article titled “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” centring on a declassified UFO video released by the Department of Defense and the testimony of Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
The brief video, shot from a Navy fighter jet, appears to show a saucer‑shaped object soaring above the clouds before rotating sideways in an instant. Since the UFO matched the jet’s speed, the G‑forces involved would have far exceeded what a human pilot could survive, leading Elizondo to suggest the pilot might not have been human.
Supposedly closed in 2012, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was tasked with locating UFOs and reportedly involved in recovering downed craft. In a CNN interview Elizondo stated he had seen enough during his tenure to be convinced that humanity isn’t alone. After quitting the Pentagon in October 2016, he joined the ranks of Hal Puthoff, Steve Justice, Chris Mellon, and Tom DeLonge as a core member of the newly‑founded To The Stars Academy.
5 Tom DeLonge
It may be impossible to stop associating Tom DeLonge with the 1999 punk‑pop hit “All the Small Things” and albums like Take off Your Pants and Jacket, but this former Blink‑182 frontman has ambitions far larger than his musical legacy. Tom is the founder and CEO of To The Stars Academy, a unique venture that blends entertainment with alien disclosure into a single, tantalising package. He has attracted a roster of respectable contributors and has fascinating stories about his journey from world‑renowned rock star to aspiring NASA competitor.
According to DeLonge, his UFO fascination dates back to his Blink‑182 days, when he spent every spare moment scouring the Internet for evidence of intelligent extraterrestrials. This hobby somehow morphed into actual contact with government agencies, and soon DeLonge was visiting the Pentagon and being flown around the country to meet generals and private interests. It seemed the U.S. military‑industrial complex decided to start revealing UFO information and chose DeLonge as its public face.
Public reaction to DeLonge’s career shift has been mixed. Some think he’s at least partially truthful but worry his initiative might be a government disinformation campaign. Others dismiss him as fabricating everything, though those voices have quieted as more distinguished names join To The Stars and the recent UFO‑themed New York Times article, which he seemed to have predicted weeks earlier. According to DeLonge, the Navy video released with that article is “only the tip of the spear,” with many more disclosures on the horizon.
4 Richard Doty
The UFO research community has good reason to fear disinformation agents among its ranks. For years, Richard Doty cultivated a habit of reaching out to ufologists and alleged contactees, presenting himself as a government insider and offering the secrets of UFOs in exchange for cooperation. While the effects of this disinformation campaign appear largely harmless, one of Doty’s most famous victims was Paul Bennewitz, an electronics engineer living near the base where Doty was stationed. Over the years Doty and his team fed Bennewitz lie after lie until he suffered a complete mental breakdown.
It remains unknown whether Doty was spinning pure deception or whether some of his information was grounded in truth. His testimony in the documentary Unacknowledged suggests he was aware of real UFO crashes and reverse‑engineered technologies capable of propelling humans into deep space. Yet, coming from the mouth of a professional government con‑man, anything Doty says is viewed with deep suspicion.
3 Karl Wolfe
Although hard evidence of extraterrestrial visitation and secret government space missions is admittedly scarce, this dearth may stem more from governmental interference than an actual lack of documentation. According to Karl Wolfe, a former Air Force sergeant who worked for the National Security Administration, photographs taken from orbit before the 1969 lunar landing that showed a massive base on the Moon’s dark side were deliberately destroyed by elements within NASA, the NSA, and the US Air Force.
Wolfe says he was shown a single photograph of the base in confidence by a superior during his NSA tenure. While impressed by the implications, he was more concerned than excited, aware that the image was never meant for his eyes and that its existence endangered anyone who witnessed it.
2 Edgar Mitchell
Edgar Mitchell of Apollo 14 fame was the sixth man to walk on the Moon and always signed his correspondence accordingly. Yet Mitchell became something of an embarrassment to NASA later in life when his passions for meditation, spirituality, and alternative healing led him into the ufology community, and the classified information he supposedly guarded began spilling out. Before his death in 2016, Mitchell asserted that the Roswell incident was a genuine downed alien craft, and that the extraterrestrials involved had been observing military nuclear‑weapon tests.
Mitchell revealed to the world in a 2008 interview with Kerrang that the government cover‑up of extraterrestrial visitation and the space‑exploration technologies derived from recovered UFOs began with Roswell and continues to this day. He claimed to have been let in on this information due to his ranking position as an Apollo astronaut. NASA quickly debunked his assertions, but in doing so seemed to get ahead of its own narrative. Mitchell never said NASA was part of the UFO cover‑up, yet the agency felt compelled to state emphatically that it was not involved. He also never claimed NASA tracked UFOs, but NASA still felt the need to clarify that it did not.
Mitchell agreed with other insiders that the primary reason UFOs are being concealed isn’t to avoid panic but to suppress the technologies that power these craft. When confronted with the majesty of outer space during his Apollo mission, Mitchell experienced a profound spiritual awakening that likely fueled his urge to share what he knew with the public.
1 Corey Goode
If even ten percent of what Corey Goode claims ever proves true, humanity is in for a brutal wake‑up call. Goode has been touring the ufology convention circuit since 2015, sharing his unique message. Considered life‑changing to believers and endlessly entertaining to skeptics, Goode’s testimony includes assertions that he was recruited into a secret space program as a teenager and served for twenty years in a space‑faring branch of the US Navy. During his tenure he allegedly accessed sources of information that paint a picture of human history very different from the one we know.
He alleges that Antarctica is riddled with ancient ruins and that alien technology lies just beneath the ice. He goes on to claim that the icy continent once housed extraterrestrial refugees who bred with humans to create a master race that once ruled the planet. Those wondering whether any of these fanciful claims could bear a grain of truth won’t have to wait long for confirmation: Goode and esoteric researcher David Wilcock both assert that a full‑disclosure event is imminent, one that will utterly reframe our understanding of history and Earth’s role in the wider universe.