Page 9 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

Truth Embargo and UFOs 9

'Truth embargo': UFOs

are suddenly all the talk in

Washington

Continued from Page 9

"We don't know if it's extraterrestrial. We don't
know if it's an enemy. We don't know if it's an
optical phenomenon," said new NASA
Administrator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut
and Florida senator, in a recent CNN interview.
“And so the bottom line is, we want to know."

Two former CIA directors — John Brennan,
who served under Obama, and James Woolsey,
who served under Clinton — recently said in
separate podcast interviews that they’ve seen
Scientists didn’t believe meteorites really came A New Generation
evidence of aerial phenomena they can’t from space until the early 1800s, for instance.
explain. John Ratcliffe, who was the director of
In recent years, though, a newer generation of
national intelligence under then-President Government secrecy can lead to confusion and activists has been at center of recent high-profile
Donald Trump, told Fox News in March there
misunderstanding that might be cleared up with disclosures thanks to a more professional,
were “a lot more sightings than have been made
the help of a wider circle of experts and careful and credible approach. They include
public.” investigators. people with serious national security credentials
like Christopher Mellon, the former deputy
Cold War and Fish Farts Sweden spent years futilely chasing what it assistant secretary of defense for intelligence,
thought were Russian submarines off its coast. and Luis Elizondo, the former Army
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican But when the navy let civilian researchers listen counterintelligence special agent who led an
on the Senate Intelligence Committee, pushed to a recording of the alleged submarine, they earlier Pentagon team to investigate UFOs.
the government to conduct the UFO report. For figured out it was actually the sound of schools
him, it’s a question of national security and of fish farting. The budget for Elizondo’s team — a modest $22
understanding whether rivals like China or
million in the scheme of defense spending —
Russia have developed advanced technology we Important people have had an interest in UFOs was secured by former Senate Majority Leader
don’t know about. for a long time; they just didn’t really talk about Harry Reid of Nevada, a powerful ally who has
it. helped drive the resurgence of interest in UFOs.
“I want us to take it seriously and have a process
to take it seriously,” Rubio told “60 Minutes.” Former President Jimmy Carter claimed to have The newer activists have worked with
seen a UFO while he was governor of Georgia mainstream news outlets to deliver evidence and
For others, like Ravi Kopparapu, a planetary and even filed two formal reports of his eye witnesses that meet their high editorial
scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight observations. Former President Ronald Reagan standards and are careful when speaking to
Center, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, a research allegedly told people he saw one too while general audiences to avoid talking about aliens
scientist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of riding in a small plane, according to the pilot, — though Mellon and Elizondo have appeared
Science, it’s about discovery. who was quoted in a book by John Alexander, on controversial podcaster Joe Rogan’s show as
the former Army colonel whose paranormal well as "Coast to Coast A.M.," a long-running
"For too long, the scientific study of unidentified investigations were featured in the book and radio program devoted to conspiracies and the
flying objects and aerial phenomena — UFOs movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” paranormal.
and UAPs, in the shorthand — has been taboo,"
they wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. "If we As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, U.S. Both the skeptics and the believers don’t expect
want to understand what UAP are, then we need officials worried the Soviet Union would use a the Pentagon report to settle anything. Instead,
to engage the mainstream scientific community UFO hoax to drum up fear in the American they hope it will start something new.
in a concerted effort to study them." public. Civilians started seeing what they
believed were UFOs but were actually secret spy “The idea of some super powerful aliens coming
Scharf looks for life on other planets and is a bit planes, like the U-2, so the government settled to visit us is a very compelling story,” West said.
tired of people asking him if alien life has visited on a policy of silence and denial. “So if you get even a tiny little taste of
us on ours, but he said looking more at the skies something like that, it really spices up the story.”
could yield information about how our own ''Over half of all U.F.O. reports from the late []
world works. 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by
manned reconnaissance flights,” according to a FACT*oids:
“Stuff like this has a scientific interest not secret CIA study that was declassified in the late
because we're necessarily thinking we're going 1990s, The New York Times reported then. Are you a pluviophile? That’s someone who
to find aliens, but maybe there's an unknown ''This led the Air Force to make misleading and enjoys rainy days.
phenomenon or a collection of phenomena that deceptive statements to the public in order to
are giving rise to some of these sightings,” he allay public fears and to protect an A newborn koala is about the size of a jelly
said. “There's never been a systematic effort to extraordinarily sensitive national security bean.
categorize and catalog stuff that people see, and project.''
from the past, we know that some of this stuff
When stored in large quantities, pistachios
sometimes turns out to be interesting.” The very real government stonewalling fed can spontaneously combust.
bogus conspiracy theories, which came to
The history of science is filled with accidental dominate the study of UFOs and made the topic It took the telephone 75 years to reach 50
discoveries and incidents where the hubris of even more off-putting to serious scholars. million users/ It took the game Pokemon Go
religious or scientific authorities dismissed
19 days.
something as ridiculous that later proved true.