Haim Eshed

Haim Eshed (born 1933) is a retired Israeli brigadier general, professor, and the founding director of Israel's space program security apparatus: for nearly 30 years he headed space activities in the Defense Ministry's Directorate of Defense R&D, overseeing the Ofek satellite launches. In December 2020 he became, overnight, the highest-ranking former official anywhere to publicly assert an active human-alien relationship.

Eshed's mainstream record is substantial and undisputed: a three-time recipient of the Israel Security Award, an aeronautics professor at the Technion, and the acknowledged father of Israel's reconnaissance satellite capability.

In a December 2020 interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, promoting a book, Eshed stated that extraterrestrials from a "Galactic Federation" are real and in contact with the U.S. and Israel; that agreements keep the matter secret because "humanity is not ready"; that an underground base on Mars hosts American and alien cooperation; and that President Trump had been aware and "on the verge" of disclosure before being asked to hold. The interview made global headlines within days. NASA responded that no evidence of extraterrestrial life has been found; no Israeli or American official supported the claims; and Eshed offered no documentation then or since, saying only that academia would have committed him had he spoken five years earlier.

His claims mirror existing channeling-era lore (the Federation, the Mars base) point for point, which is either absorption or confirmation depending on the reader. His contribution to the record is rank: a documented 30-year insider saying the words, on the record, under his own name, at 87.

Skeptics read the interview as an elderly, accomplished man voicing late-life beliefs shaped by the literature, noting the claims' provenance in channeled material predating him and the total absence of evidence or follow-through. Believers count him beside Hellyer and Eshed's own security pedigree as the credential ceiling of disclosure testimony. Both camps agree on what exists: one interview, no evidence, permanent quotability.

Eshed, in his 90s as of 2026, has largely declined to expand on the statements, which circulate undiminished through the PURSUE-era debate.