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Avi Loeb Challenges Jay Stratton to Show Proof of Recovered Alien Bodies

The Harvard astrophysicist says his science advisory council invited the former Pentagon UFO official to talk and got no reply, and I'm torn on how to read it

Down To Earth With Kristian Harloff (AI-assisted)22 October 2026 · Editor: Digital Fox Talent Editorial Team 1,290 words · 6 min read

Jay Stratton has been out talking about his latest book and the things he has done. Now Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb is publicly challenging Stratton's claims of recovered alien spacecraft and nonhuman bodies and demanding evidence. Given how much Stratton has seen and talked about, or at least alleges he has, I would have thought there would be far more coverage of all this.

Jay Stratton's claims aren't getting the attention I expected

Stratton has been on a couple of news programs. But it wasn't the major story I think it should have been, the way David Grusch or even Lue Elizondo was. If you read all the reports, you would assume Stratton would be the one out of the three with the most credibility and with stories that have been investigated.

Maybe the difference is that those two have testified before Congress about these things. I think Lue did that after his book. I don't know what it is, but Stratton isn't getting the coverage. He is getting some people to respond, though, and one of them is Avi Loeb, who I believe is now working with the DoD in some official capacity.

Avi Loeb is skeptical of Stratton's Roswell and crash retrieval claims

An article on the dispute lays out the challenge. It says a former Pentagon UFO investigator claims the US has recovered alien spacecraft and nonhuman bodies, and that Loeb is skeptical and wants evidence. The article calls this a curious development, because over the years Loeb, the head of Harvard's Galileo Project and former chairman of the university's astronomy department, has in its words made numerous bizarre claims of his own about UFOs and aliens.

The article describes Stratton as the former chief of air and space warfare at the Defense Intelligence Agency and the first director of the Pentagon's UAP task force. It says he claimed aliens were recovered alive from the Roswell, New Mexico crash in 1947 but later died after refusing food and human contact. According to the article, Stratton also said military contractors possess at least a dozen crashed spacecraft and recovered nonhuman remains.

In his memoir, Out of the Shadows, Stratton reportedly claims that encounters with nonhuman intelligence and its technology caused some of the people involved to resign, suffer mental breakdowns and, in some cases, take their own lives, because the truth was too difficult for them to process.

Elizondo, Grusch, Davis and Puthoff have made similar claims

The article notes that Stratton's claim echoes those of other former government officials. That includes Lue Elizondo, described as the director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, and David Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former official with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.

It also cites Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who worked with the Pentagon's UFO program for years. Davis has asserted that he personally saw classified images and documents from the US government that reportedly attest to crashed UFOs. Dr. Hal Puthoff, described as a former CIA funded researcher and adviser to the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, has claimed the United States recovered four separate types of alien species from crashed UFOs.

Loeb says his council invited Stratton and got no response

According to the article, Loeb was appointed to lead a new science advisory council, set up by the White House, to study UFOs, orbs and other military sightings. His argument is that if there were evidence of the US recovering alien spacecraft and nonhuman bodies, it would have been shown to the president. On his website, Loeb wrote that the board, with representation across the military and intelligence community, would be delighted to review any evidence for technologies of nonhuman origin.

Loeb also argued that any groundbreaking revelation about alien intelligence would be of great political benefit to the Trump administration. "Why can't anyone offer President Trump a guided tour to an alien spacecraft or at least some footage of alien bodies?" he wrote.

Loeb claims Stratton was invited to speak with the council and did not respond, even after the invitation was repeated by council member Dr. Tim Gallaudet. "Why is it a higher priority for Jay to speak with Brett than with a council that is dedicated to chasing the evidence and releasing it to the public?" Loeb wrote. In an interview with Fox 32 News, he also pointed out that although a legal waiver permits employees to exchange confidential UAP data, Stratton hasn't provided any tangible or digital proof.

Loeb's own 3I/ATLAS comments make his skepticism interesting

What stands out to me is that Loeb has talked about 3I/ATLAS potentially being an alien spacecraft, or whatever it could be, without ruling it out. He has also talked about potentially having alien materials. So you could look at this one way and ask whether he has been compromised.

Here's a guy who used to talk about all these different claims. He gets his job, and maybe he's now privy to information he wasn't before. Now he sings a new narrative. Maybe he understands why people acted the way they did before he was involved, and so he says show us the proof, the president can get a tour of this anytime he wants. That's despite knowing full well it has never really been the case, because people have been blocked from talking to presidents about this.

That's one way to look at it. The other way is to take him at his word and accept exactly what he's saying.

Tim Gallaudet's role makes me take the invitation seriously

What threw me off, to be completely honest, is Gallaudet's involvement, if this is indeed the case. I haven't seen his follow up. But I respect Tim Gallaudet and have had the opportunity to speak to him, and he comes across as a very genuine, by the books type of guy who wants to get to the bottom of this.

I asked him point blank if he believed this would come to light in our lifetime, and that we would get disclosure. He said yes, he believed it would. So I believe he's fighting for it, unless for some reason he had a turnaround, and it doesn't seem that way.

If he did reach out to Stratton to coordinate this, then the question should go to Stratton: why not speak to these guys? Is it potentially the same reason he's not testifying in front of Congress? Maybe he doesn't have whistleblower protection and could get in trouble for revealing anything in a particular way, while some legality allows him to talk about it when promoting his book. I don't know the answer.

I wonder whether Loeb is turning into another Sean Kirkpatrick

This is the same knock your head against the table scenario, because there are good points on both sides. On one side, this is a guy who said 3I/ATLAS could be an alien ship, and now he's doubting Stratton. On the other, his council says it has been trying to get Stratton in to have the conversation.

Or is Avi Loeb turning into another Sean Kirkpatrick type person? I don't know the answer to that, and he'll tell you no. I think there was an interview at one point with him and Puthoff, though I can't remember which, where it seemed like they were on the same page with the same talking points. It seemed coordinated to me, but I don't know if it was.

I'm trying to approach the topic now in a way where I don't blindly believe everybody and what they say, but I also don't blindly dismiss everything people say.

Roswell looks like a cover up to me, so why won't Stratton talk to the council

From what I've seen over the course of different documentaries and interviews I've heard over the years, I think anyone looking at that material and saying Roswell was a weather balloon or whatever it might be is pushing what seems to me like a pure cover up. I have no proof of that. But it seems like a cover up, and it seems like something Stratton could very well know about and be telling the truth about.

Then I go back and forth with the same thing: why not go in and tell the people who can really make things happen? The answer could be that Loeb is compromised and part of that same cover up. But then it starts getting very tin foil hat on that side of things. It's difficult, it's frustrating, and it's another one of those stories where you scratch your head and wonder what comes next. Who knows?

Watch the original

@downtoearthkh · YouTube

Adapted with AI from Down To Earth With Kristian Harloff's video of 20 October 2026 and checked against the video before publication. Editorial standards · Corrections

Avi LoebJay StrattonUFOUAPRoswellTim GallaudetDavid GruschLue Elizondo

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