Haim Eshed's "Galactic Federation": what Israel's former space chief said, and what we know now

Haim Eshed is a retired brigadier general and one of the builders of Israel's space program. In 1981 he founded the space program directorate in the Defense Ministry's research and development arm (MAFAT) and led it until he retired in October 2011, after 30 years. According to Ynet, he was directly responsible for planning and developing Israel's satellite program and for the launch of its first satellite, Ofek-1, on a Shavit rocket in 1988. He won the Israel Defense Prize at least twice, three times according to most sources.

The title "professor" comes from visiting posts at Tel Aviv University and the Technion. He was born in Turkey and came to Israel as a child; Yedioth gave his age as 81 in 2020, while foreign outlets said 87. Isaac Ben-Israel, then chair of the Israel Space Agency, said of him: "If I would have to choose one person to be called the father of Israel's space capabilities, it would be Haim Eshed."

The interview, by journalist Raanan Shaked, ran on Friday, December 4, 2020, in Yedioth Ahronoth's 7 Days magazine and on Ynet, ahead of a book by the novelist Hagar Yanai, "The Universe Beyond the Horizon: Conversations with Professor Haim Eshed" (Yedioth Books). Its headline: "The aliens asked us not to publish that they are here; humanity is not ready yet." His main claims, translated from the Hebrew:

Eshed offered no document, image or witness. He said in the interview that he had never seen a UFO himself, and Shaked later told the outlet The Debrief that the information came from public material, not from anything Eshed learned in his official role. That makes the "Israel's space chief reveals" framing misleading: he spoke as a private citizen, almost a decade after retiring.

Some details he presented as fact are simply wrong. He said the UN had appointed an ambassador to the aliens, the astrophysicist Mazlan Othman; that 2010 story was false, and she denied it herself. He said aliens neutralized nuclear weapons "at the Bay of Pigs," apparently confusing it with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. And he credited the story of an alien treaty with Eisenhower to the president's "granddaughter," Laura Eisenhower, who is in fact his great-granddaughter.

Something also got lost on the way to the world. Foreign outlets dropped his caveat "I can't prove it," merged two separate answers into a single quote about Trump and "mass hysteria," and turned it all into "Trump knows."

Within days the story was everywhere, through The Jerusalem Post, NBC News, The Independent and others. According to NBC, the White House and Israeli officials did not immediately respond, and Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough declined to comment. NASA said that "although we have yet to find signs of extraterrestrial life," it is exploring the solar system and beyond to answer whether we are alone. We found no statement from Israel's Defense Ministry.

Isaac Ben-Israel told The Times of Israel that aliens may well exist, but "this doesn't mean there's a 'Galactic Federation' and they landed on earth, this is too much," adding, "I don't believe there were any physical encounters between us and aliens." Dan Blumberg of Ben-Gurion University called it "a viable and legitimate discussion" that the article had "taken to a completely bizarre place." Nick Pope, who once investigated UFO reports for Britain's Ministry of Defence, told NBC it was either "some sort of practical joke or publicity stunt to help sell his book," something "lost in translation," or "someone in the know is breaking ranks."

Shaked himself told The Debrief they "didn't really get into" the federation, and that he couldn't say what Eshed meant beyond its having nine members. Eshed, he said, seemed "very much convinced himself" and convinced he had the evidence, and one on one "appears to be very much sane." On late-night TV, Jimmy Kimmel joked that if it were true, Trump would already have tweeted about it.

The name long predates 2020. Star Trek has its United Federation of Planets, and galactic federations appear in Rick and Morty, the Metroid games and many other works. In New Age circles it was spread by Sheldan Nidle, who claimed in the 1980s and 1990s to receive messages from the "Galactic Federation" and predicted a mass landing of 15 million starships "no later than December 17, 1996." It did not happen.

The idea of a treaty between the US government and aliens is old too. It spread in the 1980s, and William "Bill" Cooper's book Behold a Pale Horse (1991) claimed that President Eisenhower met aliens at Edwards (formerly Muroc) Air Force Base in February 1954; Cooper also described an alien "confederation" of eight species. The Eisenhower Library and the president's son, John Eisenhower, denied any such meeting. According to Shaked, Eshed was essentially repeating this story.

Since the interview, UFOs have moved from the fringe to the center of US politics, yet no official document has backed his account. In June 2021 the US intelligence community published a preliminary UAP assessment that drew no conclusion about aliens. In March 2024 the Pentagon's AARO wrote in its historical report that it "found no evidence" that any sighting had been confirmed as extraterrestrial technology, and "no empirical evidence" for claims of reverse-engineering such technology. Since May 2026 the Department of War has been releasing UFO files, and none confirm that aliens exist. The latest is in our tracker.

No base has turned up on Mars either. What did turn up is a potential biosignature in a rock sampled by NASA's Perseverance rover, announced in September 2025, which still needs more study. Eshed has given almost no interviews since, and we found no retraction or elaboration. The federation lives on: in December 2025 Uri Geller told the Israeli site Walla that "the Galactic Federation is very real," tying it to the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, without mentioning Eshed or offering evidence.

If a government ever announces contact, Israelis will search "Haim Eshed was right." One thing to check that day: does the announcement confirm what he described, a treaty, a Mars base and nine species, or what scientists have been looking for all along, a signal, a biosignature or an artificial object? Those are very different things.

Our site has a section called the Galactic Family. It covers entirely different material: the messages of "Bashar," an entity that Darryl Anka says has spoken through him since the 1980s, about star peoples, an "Association of Worlds" and a gradual path to contact. It is channeled material and we present it as such, including how its dates have moved over the years, on the road to first contact.

Eshed described something else: a secret agreement between governments and aliens, supposedly known inside the defense world. The two stories share one thing: neither comes with evidence anyone can check. Who has predicted contact in 2027, and how earlier predictions fared, is in our predictions scoreboard.

Eshed's claim remains the closest thing to an Israeli "disclosure," but it didn't come from an institution. The IDF, the Defense Ministry and the government have never said they saw UFOs or aliens, as our review of every official statement shows. The head of the Israel Space Agency at the time, Ben-Israel, said in 2020 that aliens may exist but that he doesn't believe there have been physical encounters.

The leading Israeli voice in the search for alien technology today is the astrophysicist Avi Loeb, born in Beit Hanan, who has led Harvard's Galileo Project since 2021 and publicly asked whether the interstellar objects 'Oumuamua and 3I/ATLAS could be artificial; most astronomers reject his proposals. What would actually happen on a real contact day, who would announce it and whether we would reply, is in our first contact protocol guide.