Some of this information came out during the 1970s, when the CIA admitted to having paid relationships with more than 400 mainstream American journalists.8 Consider the possibilities available to any person or group covertly employing 400 journalists. Although the CIA claimed it ended such relationships, it tacitly acknowledged the need to cultivate them in cases of national security. More recently, one inside military source told the authors that CIA influence among freelance journalists today is “pervasive.” Former CIA Chief William Colby, a cold man who made his mark during the murderous Project Phoenix, who rose to the top of the Agency during the 1970s, and whose life ended in a boating “accident” on the Potomac in 1995, once told a confident that every major media was covered by the long reach of the CIA.
But the CIA sought to manage more than the media. It also gained influence over the world of the intellectuals by funding all political flavors: those on the right, in order to promote American global interests; and those on the left, to wean socialist-leaning Americans away from Communism and toward an acceptance of “the American way.”9 This also happened in the world of academia, which several studies have amply exposed.10
The CIA’s management of information is deft. Naturally, one cannot control all journalists, professors, and independent researchers. However, one can create chokepoints of information guarded by leading figures. If some maverick publishes something dangerous, the appropriate CIA proxy at the Los Angeles Times or Harvard University makes sure to attack it, and if necessary ridicule it. It is always the nail that sticks out that gets hammered.
More typically, unwelcome stories were blocked from going national. Throughout the 20th century, the wire services, collaborating with the CIA, simply neglected to carry them. Today, in the 21st century, this happens to be one area in which there is potential to turn the tables. Now, local stories can be spread far and wide via the Web. In the future, this may prove to be a problem for the secret-keepers.
So far, however, a preponderance of power remains on the other side of the fence. In fact, the revolving doors connecting academia, journalism, and the national security community are openly acknowledged. An abundance of intellectuals actively court the national security world. Why not, when the connections, prestige, and paychecks are so compelling?
As it happens, most UFO debunkers have been connected with the national security community. In this regard, Donald Menzel has already been discussed, but during the 1960s, a successor to Menzel was in the wings: Philip J. Klass.11 Klass was no scientist like Menzel, but he was the Senior Avionics editor for the prestigious defense publication, Aviation Week and Space Technology. For more than three decades, Klass used any and all means to throw cold water over the idea of UFOs. Some explanations were astronomical, even to describe large objects that were tracked on radar. Some he quickly labeled as hoaxes, such as a 1964 landing case witnessed by a terrified police officer, in which ground traces were photographed and studied. Other explanations were more creative, such as “ball lightning” to describe an enormous structured craft hovering at treetop level. When these failed to impress, Klass plied the trade of the propagandist, often via ridicule, invective, and furious letter-writing campaigns to smear reputations.
Throughout his career, Klass was under widespread suspicion—not proven as of this writing—of being an intelligence community asset. That he lived in the Washington, D.C. area, had consistent and exceptional access to the mainstream U.S. media, and worked within the defense community made such suspicion understandable.
People such as Menzel, Klass, and their successors have been important as vocal, media-savvy debunkers who seem independent, but are actually tied to the defense and intelligence community. Their work sets the tone for the mainstream media, which generally follows along happily.
Denial and Ridicule in Service to the State
Today, most professors and journalists—who have nothing to do with the national security state—have internalized the sanctioned opinions. They have learned to discuss UFOs the way a weary parent chastises a child for reading too many comic books. These things are not real. If you speak about them too much or too openly, people may think there is something wrong with you.
That is one reason why the cover-up has stood for so long. Had we followed our own glasnost policy from the beginning, the UFO argument would be over. People would have discussed this problem in the editorial pages, on the nightly news, and over hot dogs at their children’s ball games. They would have concluded that something was there. Except that the architects of the cover-up stumbled upon the twin concepts that enabled them to hide the truth from the people they were sworn to protect. Two pillars, each one lending strength to the other in service of the common goal.
Denying the witnesses. People who saw “flying saucers” were often marginalized and ridiculed. One of the two famous McMinnville Photos from May 1950, strongly believed to be authentic. Photo by Paul Trent.
Denial and Ridicule
Official denial works. When a general or leading scientist explains there is no fire, that the smoke is an illusion, our natural instinct is to believe—despite what the crazy neighbor thinks, sometimes despite the evidence from our own eyes. We want to believe our authority figures.
Ridicule gives denial its power. When official statements are made, language is of the utmost importance. It is easier to smirk at a “flying saucer” than an “unidentified flying object” or “unknown aerial phenomenon.” It is easier to dismiss alien intelligence when it is characterized as “little green men” instead of “extraterrestrial biological entities.” Alien agendas can be dismissed when boiled down to science-fiction scenarios in which the occupants land on the White House lawn and declare “take me to your leader.” Even the apparent widespread abduction of innocents has become the subject of ridicule on comedy shows. Even today, questions about the subject are often presented simplistically, often with a derisive sneer: “Do you believe in flying saucers piloted by little green men?” Imagine saying yes to that question.
No one wants their reputation smeared. Such false and misleading framings of the question quickly convinced the world’s academic and journalistic institutions to run far and fast from the UFO subject. Indeed, in this dance of disinformation, it is sometimes hard to tell whether these institutions lead or follow. Craving public acceptance of their knowledge and authority, very few scientists, professors, or journalists can afford to show interest in the topic. As a result, the secret keeps itself, with only occasional government intervention.
We live in a world in which more than half of us believe that UFOs are real vehicles not of this Earth. Yet, official denial and ridicule continue to rule the day. This may be the greatest cognitive dissonance that any society has ever maintained about something so important.
On November 7, 2006, for 15 minutes during the afternoon rush hour at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, a disc-shaped object hovered silently near the United Airlines terminal, then cut a sharp circular pattern in the cloud bank while zooming off.
A pilot announced the sighting over radio for all grounded planes; a United taxi mechanic moving a Boeing 777 heard the radio chatter and looked up; pilots waiting to take off leaned out their windows and saw the object. There was a buzz inside the airport among United Airlines personnel. One management employee received a radio call about the hovering object, and ran outside to see it. He then called the United operations center, made sure the FAA was contacted, and drove out on the concourse to speak directly with witnesses.12
United Airlines took statements from the witnesses and instructed them not to discuss the matter further. But one did, and the account soon reached Chicago Tribune reporter John Hilkovitch. Soon, the O’Hare UFO story became the most widely read news item in the history of the Tribune’s website.
The FAA and United Airlines initially denied any knowledge of the incident. That is, until it became obvious that they knew all about it. Investigating the case was not easy. Journalist Leslie Kean f
ound that most of the witnesses chose to remain anonymous, citing fears of job security. When a recording was finally released of a supervisor’s call to the air traffic control tower, Kean listened. She heard the tower operator and a second man laughing at the witness on the other end. The operator asked the witness if she had been celebrating the holidays early. Such an attitude forced the witness to waste valuable time, stating to another operator in a later call, “I’m not high and I’m not drinking.”
The devastating effectiveness of denial and ridicule cannot be overstated. After years and generations, their effects have fully pervaded our culture. They have enabled intellectual bullies to roam free, to intimidate people who know what they have seen, and keep the truth covered.
Yet, there has always been a fight to end UFO secrecy. During each decade following the Second World War, there have been attempts to unlock the door. Each time, however, there were counter-measures that minimized any gains or defeated the attempt altogether.
In 1953, a classified CIA study known as the Robertson Panel recommended that the intelligence community tightly control UFO-related information reaching the public. This meant not only monitoring the newly formed civilian-based UFO research groups, but using its relationships with media giants (such as Walt Disney Corporation) to debunk UFOs.
Direct evidence has been found to show that, more than a decade later, the Panel’s directives were still being followed through. A 1966 letter by former Panel member Thornton Page addressed to the former Secretary, Frederick C. Durant, stated that Page had helped organize a recent “CBS TV show around the Robertson Panel conclusions.” This was a reference to the CBS television show UFOs: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy? narrated by Walter Cronkite, which had taken a stridently debunking tone toward UFOs.13
The debunking tactic worked up to a point, but never completely. One reason was simply because the UFO operators, whoever they were, did not seem to get the memo that they did not exist. UFO reports within the United States spiked upward during the mid-1960s, even receiving Congressional attention. Something had to be done.
In late 1966, the U.S. Air Force commissioned the University of Colorado to conduct an independent, scientific study of the phenomenon. This became known as the Condon Committee, after the project leader, Dr. Edward U. Condon. From the beginning, the project was plagued by dissension. It wasn’t because Condon was an arch-skeptic on the matter, but that his attitude toward investigating UFOs was anything but scientific. His statements were limited to jokes and obvious crackpot cases. Even skeptics who had taken the time to look into the matter knew there was much more than this.
It became evident to some members that the project was rigged. Condon even admitted as much privately to Dr. David Saunders, one of the project scientists. If he were to receive information confirming UFOs as extraterrestrial, Condon said, he would withhold it from the public and take it personally to the president.
What drove project scientists to mutiny, however, was the discovery of a hidden memo written by Condon’s number-two man, Robert Low. “The trick would be to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study,” wrote Low, “but to the scientific community would present the image of a group of nonbelievers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer.”14
When the project scientists discovered this memo, they complained en masse to Condon. He then summarily fired them. Incidentally, Robert Low had been a combat intelligence officer during the Second World War. He also appears to have been a CIA operative who performed clandestine missions for the Agency during the late 1940s. The pervasive relationship between the CIA and academia appears to have played an important role in this project.15
By the time the Condon Report was completed in late 1968, it had been cobbled together by a replacement team of scientists. Despite Condon’s and Low’s skeptical lead, the report failed to explain roughly 30 percent of its cases. Condon was barely interested, however. His conclusion, which is all the mainstream press cared about, stated that UFOs were of “no probative value.” In other words, further study of them was unlikely to lead to greater scientific knowledge. He recommended that the Air Force close Project Blue Book, its official investigative project regarding UFOs.
Now that the Condon Report had dismissed UFOs, there was ample scientific justification for ignoring the topic altogether, and ample reason for political and military authorities to deny any interest in it.
But the struggle against UFO secrecy did not end. During the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of pages of government documents relating to UFOs were released via the Freedom of Information Act. Many of these documents proved that the phenomenon was being monitored by military agencies, and that they were very concerned. Some of these documents were embarrassing to agencies which had long denied that they had anything to do with UFOs. Once again, it seemed as though that secrecy surrounding UFOs was in danger.
Then came the Roswell story, adding fuel to the fire. The story had been buried for more than three decades. But it was rediscovered during the late 1970s, and brought a new dimension to the idea of a government cover-up. After all, if an alien craft had been recovered by military authorities, this takes the cover-up to new levels. It would mean that the government could not merely be accused of incompetence in investigating the mystery of UFOs (which many had argued). Because now it would be in possession of alien technology and probably even bodies. For a few years, the momentum seemed to favor those seeking to end UFO secrecy. The Great Wall appeared to be cracking.
By the early 1980s, however, two things stopped this momentum. One was a 1982 Presidential Executive Order signed by President Ronald Reagan. No longer were federal agencies obligated to provide fast and affordable searches for citizens—a serious blow to the Freedom of Information Act. The process became slow and expensive. Certain agencies, such as North American Air Defense (NORAD), were exempted from FOIA. The NSA and CIA also became all-but-impervious to UFO-related requests.
The other development was the influence of military-intelligence elements within the UFO research field. In 1983, and again in late 1984, Air Force intelligence officers operating out of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, quietly leaked documents to researchers that described the recovery of crashed UFOs and alien bodies. This included the MJ-12 documents. Whatever the actual truth contained within them, researchers have been distracted by the debate over their authenticity. Are they genuine? A hoax? Some incarnation of both?16
But then came another attack against secrecy, one that remains important to this day. That is the development of the Internet from around 1990 onward. As late as the 1980s, very few people foresaw the dramatic changes that would soon come. From the beginning, the UFO subject was a prominent part of the Internet. Many researchers found their voice by speaking to thousands—and then millions—of people via cyberspace.
Taking its lead from the Internet, television programming soon offered more sophisticated portrayals of UFOs. Several shows during the 1990s, most notably Sightings, The X-Files, and Dark Skies suggested a darker, grittier side to the story than had been offered in previous television fare. In the process, UFOs and gray aliens entered popular culture. Although watching fictionalized stories is not a cover-up ending activity by itself, it does expand the dialogue about the topic and promotes a desire for the facts. The more that people discuss this, the more they realize that UFOs may actually be real.
Of course, pop culture immersion is a double-edged sword. Public awareness may be raised, but so is the threat of contamination. For instance, the very success of The X-Files in one sense worked against public acceptance of the UFO-ET reality. It became typical to dismiss UFO believers for watching too many episodes of Mulder and Scully. To this day, mocking news stories about UFOs lead with the ubiquitous X-Files musical theme.
There is a wide rift between popular belief and “official truth” on this matter. Major media corporations, which ha
ve drastically consolidated in recent decades, still control most newspapers, radio, and television. In these venues, with occasional exceptions, UFOs continue to be ignored or ridiculed.
But the Web is another matter. For the most part, it continues to serve as a true voice of the people. It contains a massive trove of UFO information. Some of it is unreliable or just plain wrong, but some of it is excellent and sophisticated. The battle over UFO secrecy, and over information in general, is now on the Web, where major media continues its efforts to increase its share of traffic, and governments continue their efforts to restrict websites in the interest of “national security” or “public safety.”
Such has been a short history of the struggle against UFO secrecy. Whether or not that secrecy was originally justified is a matter of debate. The answer can only come from what is known about the UFO reality and the intentions of the Others. Still, it is reasonable to concede the initial necessity. However, secrecy eventually became policy, buried deeper and deeper, boxes within boxes within boxes.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Ohio State University astronomer J. Allen Hynek served as the lead scientific consultant to the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. Hynek was a team player, publicly debunking many cases for his employer, even at the cost of his personal reputation. In 1966, he speculated that UFO sightings in the state of Michigan might only be marsh gas caused by decaying vegetable matter in the swampy areas. In other words, “swamp gas.” In his later years, Hynek took a more favorable public attitude toward the UFO mystery, and during the 1970s and 1980s was widely held to be the “Dean” of ufologists. Still, he maintained close relationships with the U.S. Air Force throughout his life.
A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact Page 6
