Politics and UFOs: A Growing Movement

Over the last several decades a global movement has formed where people of all stripes and colors are calling on the governments of the world to disclose what they know about the UFO subject. This initiative has evidently met with some success, as the U.S. has released over 129,000 pages of documentation;[0][1] the British government is unlocking the whole MoD archive for public consumption;[2] and many other governments are following suit.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

There is no one specific organization or person at the helm of the exopolitical movement. However three people, Steven M. Greer (a trauma room surgeon by training),[16] Stephen Bassett (a political lobbyist),[17] and Michael Salla (a PhD in government studies)[18] have made strides to promote themselves as the movement leaders. Their success and that of the exopolitical initiative, is largely due to the critical mass attained through the advent of online video publishing. In contrast, the FOIA material and testimony that the movement is built around is much older and has its roots in organizations from the 50's and 60's. In fact much of the FOIA documentation available today[19] is the hard-won work of early organizations like NICAP,[20] GSW, CAUS,[21] APRO, and CFI[22] petitioning for UFO-related government documents.

Beyond legal discovery of government records, more politically serious UFO advocates like journalist Leslie Kean (CFI) and Brad Sparks (previously of CAUS and now a MUFON consultant), work campaigning for secrecy-free congressional hearing with the hope of resuming a full-blown governmental investigation.[23][24] Realistically though Ms. Kean and Dr. Wickersham (a University of Missouri psychologist) recognize that this is unlikely to happen in the short-term due to the inability to get a dialogue started at the governmental level.[25]

The lack of political interaction and the years of stonewalling has led older researchers to conclude the U.S. intelligence community knows more than it cares to admit. These ruminations and suspicions have shaped the dialogue of younger UFO activists who now believe the world superpowers know the "truth" about the subject, but for some reason are unwilling to publicly admit that earth has been visited by off-world intelligence. Skeptical analysts disagree with the "grand conspiracy cover-up" hypothesis. They instead argue the government is as equally as in the dark as the rest of the public. Key amongst these more scientifically minded UFO researchers is late atmospheric physicist, Dr. James E. McDonald, who helped spearhead the 1968 congressional symposium on UFOs before the U.S. Committee on Science and Astronautics,

"I do not believe, let me stress, that this has been part of some top-secret cover-up of extensive investigations by Air Force or security agencies; I have found no substantial basis for accepting that theory of why the Air Force has so long failed to respond appropriately to the many significant and scientifically intriguing UFO reports coming from within its own ranks. Briefly, I see grand foul-up but not grand cover-up. Although numerous instances could be cited wherein Air Force spokesmen failed to release anything like complete details of UFO reports, and although this has had the regrettable consequence of denying scientists at large even a dim notion of the almost incredible nature of some of the more impressive Air Force-related UFO reports, I still feel that the most grievous fault of 22 years of Air Force handling of the UFO problem has consisted of their repeated public assertions that they had substantial scientific competence on the job."[26]

A similar yet less barbed position attacking the competence of the USAF, is that the U.S. intelligence community was fearful an open study would mislead the public into believing there was necessarily something to the topic. An internal CIA memo sent out August, 1 1952 echoes this,

"It is recommended that CIA surveillance of [the UFO] subject matter, in coordination with proper authorities of primary operational concern at ATIC, be continued. It is strongly urged, however, that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public, in view of their probable alarmist tendencies to accept such interest as "confirmatory" of the soundness of "unpublished facts" in the hands of the U.S. Government."[27]

Although many additional arguments and counter-argument have been put forward in an attempt to construct a cogent narrative.[28] Probably the only thing that can be said with any certainty is that understanding the motivations behind governmental secrecy is likely as inscrutable as the UFO phenomenon itself.[29] So the debate rages on, and continues to be a hot button topic.[30]

As for present day political lobbying, the most recent serious petition to build political traction for the UFO subject is the little known Rockfeller initiative.[31][32]

Laurance Rockefeller in 1993, along with his niece, Anne Bartley, the stepdaughter of Winthrop Rockefeller and the then-president of the Rockefeller Family Fund, established and presented the "UFO Disclosure Initiative" to the Clinton White House.[33] They requested all UFO information held by the government, including from the CIA and the US Air Force to be declassified and released to the public. Later in 1995 Rockefeller briefed Clinton on the results from the Rockefeller funded Stanford Sturrock Report.[34] Clinton did produce an Executive Order in late 1994 to declassify numerous documents in the National Archives, possibly at the insistence of his Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta,[35] but this did not specifically refer to UFO-related files.[36]

Looking to the future, political news commentators point out that the UFO subject is serious enough that the United Nations through the Office for Outer Space Affairs has appointed an Earth contact for alien communications.[37][38] Signaling to space enthusiasts, futurists, and politicians alike that exopolitics is an inevitable outgrowth of continued space exploration.

== Notes/Refs ==

[0] www.footnote.com... ( more information can be found at: www.abovetopsecret.com... )
[1] "What is the Project Blue Book Archive?" -- www.bluebookarchive.org...
[2] UK MoD "UFO files" -- www.nationalarchives.gov.uk...
[3] "New Zealand Government Opens UFO Files" -- news.discovery.com... and "New Zealand releases UFO government files" -- www.bbc.co.uk...
[4] "Brazil Declassifies New UFO Secret Documents" -- www.ufodigest.com...
[5] "Canada's UFOs: The Search for the Unknown" -- www.collectionscanada.gc.ca...
[6] "Danish Airforce released materials about UFOs" -- www.cphpost.dk...
[7] "Declassified Russian Cold war UFO Files more Abyss than Close Encounters" -- gizmodo.com...
[8] "French space agency to publish UFO archive online" -- www.reuters.com/article/2006/12/29/us-france-ufo-idUSL2979618020061229
[9] "Ecuador has released all of its UFO files" -- www.abovetopsecret.com...

[10] Germany files retrieved after the end of WWII by the US -- www.foia.cia.gov... . Also see "Despite partial disclosure, Europe's UFO files remain mostly under wraps" -- www.dw-world.de...
[11] "Italian UFOs on the radar" -- devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com...
[12] "Poland UFO Disclosure -- www.avimoas.com...
[13] "Military UFO Records Released: The Spanish Experience" -- www.anomalia.org...
[14] "Air Force Declassified Uruguay Files, ET Hypothesis Not Dismissed" -- www.ufodigest.com...
[15] "Declassification of UFO documents" -- en.wikipedia.org...
[16] "The Disclosure Project, Two-hour Disclosure Witness Testimony" -- video.google.com...
[17] Bassett is a popular speaker who has been invited to speak on CNN (e.g. "CNN UFO National Press Club Stephen Bassett" -- www.youtube.com...=2m55s ). He's also been syndicated through the NY Times (e.g. "A climate solution that's out of this world" -- www.nytimes.com... ). Bassett is the founder and spokesman for Paradign Research Group ( www.paradigmresearchgroup.org... ). A historical overview of PRG was given by Mr. Bassett at the 2009 European Exopolitics Summit ( www.ustream.tv... ).
[18] Salla, author of "The Hero's Journey Toward a Second American Century," published his ETH theories in his new book, "Exopolitics: Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence" and in an article on his "Exopolitics" Web site (www.exopolitics.org). Also see the WashingtonPost article, "Ike and the Alien Ambassadors" -- www.washingtonpost.com...
[19] FOIA "UFO Phenomena" Documentation -- www.theblackvault.com.../category/UFO+Phenomena+
[20] "Freedom Of Information Act Documents Directory" -- www.nicap.org... and work with CUFON curator Jim Klotz
[21] "Freedom of Information Lawsuits (1978)" -- cohenufo.org... and "CAUS Initiative" -- www.v-j-enterprises.com...
[22] "Freedom of Information" -- freedomofinfo.org... , or if the website is down, wiki.razing.net... or use the WayBackMachine.
[23] "Best-selling author Leslie Kean will approach Congress, Obama on UFO disclosure" -- www.examiner.com...
[24] "Outing UFO Clues Good for Ratings" -- www.wired.com...
[25] "University Prof Calls for Congressional UFO Hearing" -- www.aolnews.com...
[26] "Grand foul-up vs. Conspiracy cover-up" -- www.abovetopsecret.com... . To see the full AAAS paper "Science in Default" visit -- puhep1.princeton.edu...
[27] L. Fawcett, B.J. Greenwood (1990). The UFO Cover-up. Simon and Schuster. p.123. ISBN 0671765558.
[28] A good overview of official governmental involvement studying UFOs and a list of possible motivations for secrecy can be reviewed in: Timothy Good (1987). Above Top Secret. Guild Publishing. ISBN 0788163183
[29] An extensive list of potential reasons for government secrecy were compiled by the Presidential UFO consortium -- www.presidentialufo.com... . Another good resource titled "Is There a Cover-up?" identifies an additional 27 possible explanations -- wiki.razing.net...
[30] A search of several heavily trafficked UFO websites shows "disclosure" is a fairly popular topic. Scanning through many of the online exchanges, it becomes apparent the biggest divide that exists in the UFO community is over advocates who think the movement should focus on demanding scientific and governmental investigation. Whereas the more vocal majority believes they can already confidently state UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin and therefore that the political initiative should be focused on demanding "disclosure." This disconnect has created a rift where the more skeptical UFO researchers are unwilling to support Bassett, Greer, and Salla due to their less creditable demands. A good example of this can be seen online in "Disclosure Countdown..." -- www.abovetopsecret.com...

[31] FOIA documentation detailing the conversations between the Clinton's and Rockefeller is available at -- www.clintonlibrary.gov...
[32] A more extensive collection of the Rockefeller Initiative documents from the Clinton Library can be found on the PRG website -- www.paradigmresearchgroup.org...
[33] Clinton's (UFO) Speech in Hong Kong 14 Sep 2005 -- www.youtube.com...
[34] P.A. Sturrock (1999). The UFO Enigma. Warner Books. ISBN 0446677094. www.amazon.com...
[35] "Clinton White House Chief John Podesta on UFO disclosure" -- www.youtube.com... and "Clinton aide slams Pentagon's UFO secrecy" -- archives.cnn.com...
[36] "Records from the Clinton OSTP Related to UFOs, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Laurance Rockefeller Initiative" -- www.x-ppac.org...
[37] "United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs" -- www.oosa.unvienna.org...
[38] "UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens" -- www.news.com.au...

Are there any political initiatives, legal actions, and/or future lobbying efforts that people feel go unexpressed in the OP?

Do people feel the primary 'movement' surrounding UFOs is to press for disclosure? Is there even a movement at this point? Or do those of you on ATS, feel Stephen Bassett's Paradigm Research Group (PRG) and Greer's Disclosure initiative have finally been cut off at the knees?

What other sources talk about this topic in relation to space policy?

Basically I'm looking for any and all feedback on political related aspects of the UFO phenomena, both from a FOIA-perspective to mass-awareness political platforms that aim to bring about some change in society.

Thank you for your time!
FS

reply to post by FooScience


I've never doubted the existence of extra terrestrial life. I fully believe "they" exist. No question there, the real question is why would the worlds governments keep quiet about this?

If these ETs are here to kill us they would have done it long ago.
Must be those damn republicans and all their money......maybe the ETs will reveal themselves to us if the republicans like it or not.

reply to post by otie1


So in your opinion the goal of the UFO movement should be to push for disclosure rather than for further governmental studies (a la something like the DIA's 1980s UFO Working Group)? For you, as well others who believe like yourself, have you pushed for further governmental involvement? Written to any local council members? Contacted Senators? I am interested to find out how much involvement and activism people place into trying to get to the bottom of the subject, through a "boots on the ground" campaign to push for whatever end goal they feel should be the focus of the UFO movement. Thank you for the reply!

Originally posted by FooScience
Are there any political initiatives, legal actions, and/or future lobbying efforts that people feel go unexpressed in the OP?

Do people feel the primary 'movement' surrounding UFOs is to press for disclosure? Is there even a movement at this point? Or do those of you on ATS, feel Stephen Bassett's Paradigm Research Group (PRG) and Greer's Disclosure initiative have finally been cut off at the knees?

What other sources talk about this topic in relation to space policy?

Basically I'm looking for any and all feedback on political related aspects of the UFO phenomena, both from a FOIA-perspective to mass-awareness political platforms that aim to bring about some change in society.

Thank you for your time!
FS

I think while I appreciate the work you've put into this, your list is disengenuous. "United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs" is nothing to do with ET life. The UN is also not appointing an ambassador for aliens, That UN post is more about Near Earth Objects - space debris being an example and before any one says otherwise, it's Earth made space debris.

reply to post by something wicked


The Office for Outer Space Affairs usually deals with issues of space policy. This includes everything from the weaponization of space to possible resource conflicts. However I provided a link, citation [38], to show how they're expanding in a new and somewhat interesting direction.

For your convenience here is an inline version,

UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth's first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any “first contact”.

www.news.com.au...

If there is anything disingenuous here, please, by all means, feel free to take it up with news.com.au. Thank you for providing your thoughts!

Nice thread. I guess one thing that would be nice to see is an up-to-date, well-organized, complete list or table of which governments have come forward with what. I thnk one of the best sighting reports is from Peru and has the "blessing" of the Peruvian Air Force. It's the one from 1980 involving engagement by one of their Soviet-made fighters in full view of 1,800 of their soldiers standing in formmation at 7:30 A.M. (therefore a daylight event), marked "unknown" on the unclassified CIA report.

You mentioned some but not all of these: Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. France, Sweden, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Peru, Russian navy, Spain, Uruguay, Australia, Ukraine, Chile, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ecuador. (Germany appears to be resisting, unless that has changed.)

S&F

Originally posted by FooScience
reply to post by something wicked

 

The Office for Outer Space Affairs usually deals with issues of space policy. This includes everything from the weaponization of space to possible resource conflicts. However I provided a link, citation [38], to show how they're expanding in a new and somewhat interesting direction.

For your convenience here is an inline version,

UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth's first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any “first contact”.

www.news.com.au...

If there is anything disingenuous here, please, by all means, feel free to take it up with news.com.au. Thank you for providing your thoughts!

That citation though is completely wrong and was dreamt up by the press. Mazian Othman even said that at the time, in fact she found it laughable. She hasn't and never had any responsibility to act as Earth first contact.

The issue here is when people don't like what they read in the press, they call it lies. When it's an obviously hyped up story but which matches peoples beliefs, they call it the truth.

Edit to add: in the convention mentioned she mentioned nothing about being a first contact or indeed anything about extra terristrial life. Sorry, I don't thinks it's for me to take it up with news.com.au, I didn't quote it without checking if it was factual

reply to post by xpoq47

I think one of the best sighting reports is from Peru and has the "blessing" of the Peruvian Air Force. It's the one from 1980 involving engagement by one of their Soviet-made fighters in full view of 1,800 of their soldiers standing in formmation at 7:30 A.M. (therefore a daylight event), marked "unknown" on the unclassified CIA report.

...

You mentioned some but not all of these: Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. France, Sweden, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Peru, Russian navy, Spain, Uruguay, Australia, Ukraine, Chile, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ecuador. (Germany appears to be resisting, unless that has changed.)

Wonderful! This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. However, I haven't seen any official documentation showing that Swedish government has released UFO related documents. There was the editorial by "The Local," in 2009, titled "Swedish group opens 'world's largest' UFO archive." However after closer inspection, it seems it was a private UFO group with no governmental affiliations. Any information you can provide about Swedish, Spanish, and Finnish document releases would be most welcome! The more authoritative the source the better.

I guess one thing that would be nice to see is an up-to-date, well-organized, complete list or table of which governments have come forward with what.

When I was originally researching this topic. I had hoped the Wikipedia article "Declassfication of UFO documents" would be a bit more fleshed out. For future updates, that would probably be the best place to collate all of this information.

(Germany appears to be resisting, unless that has changed.)

Sadly, not that I know of!

Thank you for your insights xpoq,
FS

reply to post by something wicked

Mazian Othman even said that at the time,

Interesting! Can you provide a reference? The news.com.au article obviously has some rhetorical flare, but the conference reported did in fact happen, and the topic was in fact about a possible future contact (though more in the sense of radio SETI). Please, by all means share your sources! I am more than willing to consider more than one point of view. Also since you obviously feel passionately about this. You may wish to write in and have news.com.au edit the article to better reflect whatever facts you've uncovered.

reply to post by FooScience


something wicked is correct .

Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be talking about how the world deals with "near-Earth objects"
www.guardian.co.uk...

Mazlan Othman Not Earth's Alien Ambassador After All

Hi FooScience,

An interesting thread. Thank you for taking the time to pull this material, and the supporting references, together. Starred and Flagged.

I hope all the footnotes don't put people off reading such items. (Personally, I've found that that including hyperlinks in the main body rather than in footnotes/endnotes, and also embedding some relevant photos/videos to avoid the "wall of text" impression, has generally increased the number of responses and flags etc).

Originally posted by FooScience
Over the last several decades a global movement has formed where people of all stripes and colors are calling on the governments of the world to disclose what they know about the UFO subject. This initiative has evidently met with some success, ...
There is no one specific organization or person at the helm of the exopolitical movement.

I think your opening sentences risk equating the demands for disclosure of government documents with the exopolitical movement, something that you (quite rightly in my view) imply is wrong in the following sentences of your article.

However three people, Steven M. Greer (a trauma room surgeon by training),[16] Stephen Bassett (a political lobbyist),[17] and Michael Salla (a PhD in government studies)[18] have made strides to promote themselves as the movement leaders. Their success and that of the exopolitical initiative, is largely due to the critical mass attained through the advent of online video publishing. In contrast, the FOIA material and testimony that the movement is built around is much older and has its roots in organizations from the 50's and 60's. In fact much of the FOIA documentation available today[19] is the hard-won work of early organizations like NICAP,[20] GSW, CAUS,[21] APRO, and CFI[22] petitioning for UFO-related government documents.

Exactly - at least in relation to UFO documents in the USA.

In the UK, on the other hand, there are various private researchers that have been behind the push for greater openness in relation to UFO documentation - including Dr David Clarke.

I've never viewed the exopolitical movement as particularly interested in obtaining UFO documentation, unlike - say - CAUS. The exopolitical movement appears to be built upon the testimony of whistleblowers (almost regardless of their credibility) and be pushing for a governmental admission of alien visitation.

The lack of political interaction and the years of stonewalling has led older researchers to conclude the U.S. intelligence community knows more than it cares to admit.

Well, SOME older researchers...

Skeptical analysts disagree with the "grand conspiracy cover-up" hypothesis. They instead argue the government is as equally as in the dark as the rest of the public. Key amongst these more scientifically minded UFO researchers is late atmospheric physicist, Dr. James E. McDonald, who helped spearhead the 1968 congressional symposium on UFOs before the U.S. Committee on Science and Astronautics,

I wouldn't give McDonald as an example of "skeptical analysts", unless you make it clear that you aren't referring to UFO skeptics/"debunkers" but rather to some ufologists that think some UFOs have exotic causes (whether aliens, time travellers or interdimensional travellers etc) but are nonetheless skeptical of the government conspiracy theories - i.e. subscribers to the "cock-up" rather than "cover-up" explanation for what government agencies have said and done in relation to UFOs.

All the best,

Isaac

Originally posted by gortex
reply to post by FooScience

 

something wicked is correct .

Finally an email from Othman herself would have prompted our Martian to trudge back to his spaceship. "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it," she said of the story. She will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be talking about how the world deals with "near-Earth objects"
www.guardian.co.uk...

Mazlan Othman Not Earth's Alien Ambassador After All

edit on 3-10-2012 by gortex because: Edit to add

Thanks Gortex, was just about to do a search

Originally posted by FooScience
the U.S. has released over 129,000 pages of documentation;[0][1] the British government is unlocking the whole MoD archive for public consumption;[2] and many other governments are following suit.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

In relation to the "many other governments", I can recommend a thread (which you may have seen - I haven't checked all your footnotes) by Internos which refers to research by Spanish ufologist V-J Ballester-Olmos
The state-of-art in UFO disclosure worldwide.

Originally posted by FooScience
reply to post by something wicked

 

Mazian Othman even said that at the time,

Interesting! Can you provide a reference? The news.com.au article obviously has some rhetorical flare, but the conference reported did in fact happen, and the topic was in fact about a possible future contact (though more in the sense of radio SETI). Please, by all means share your sources! I am more than willing to consider more than one point of view.

Also since you obviously feel passionately about this. You may wish to write in and have news.com.au edit the article to better reflect whatever facts you've uncovered.

Hi FooScience, I don't feel passionately about what that news media decided to say, I may though feel passionate about people not checking sources before taking them as gospel, but frankly I don't, I was just pointing out some of those links don't actually measure up to the facts.

Originally posted by FooScience

For your convenience here is an inline version,

UN to appoint Earth contact for aliens

THE United Nations was set today to appoint an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist to act as Earth's first contact for any aliens that may come visiting.

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

The story about the UN appointing an ambassador in case of alien contact was denied by the relevant person (Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist). She said it sounded cool, but wasn't true:
www.guardian.co.uk...

Also, a UN spokesperson said the story was "nonsense":
newslite.tv...

There could be many other reasons why disclosure cannot or will not happen as in the referenced websites in point 29 of your post. However I am not sure what the motivations of those involved in exo-politics and their campaign for "disclosure" really are. They seem to be starting at a point where the truth (or at least proof) they seek may not actually exist.

Originally posted by mirageman
I am not sure what the motivations of those involved in exo-politics and their campaign for "disclosure" really are. They seem to be starting at a point where the truth (or at least proof) they seek may not actually exist.

Many of them seem to be starting from the point (and will often begin lectures or articles by expressly stating) that they are not seeking to PROVE anything as seeking to provide proof has been a deadend for traditional ufology and therefore they are moving beyond the old-fashioned approach to more important issues.

(You may know that even some of the more prominent pro-ETH ufologists refer to exopoliticians as "exo-cranials").