Month: February 2015

Obama White House denied access to UFO files

Obama Podesta in discussion - access deniedJohn Podesta’s candid admission on Feb 13, his last day as Counselor to President Obama, that his biggest failure was to secure disclosure of UFO files raises many questions. The dominant response by the mainstream media has been to ignore questions of who, what, why a senior White House advisor was denied access to UFO files, and focus instead on Podesta’s long history of a fascination with the X-Files TV series. The Washington Post, UPI, The Hill, etc., have all made Podesta’s admission on Twitter a personal issue about his X-Files fascination, rather a serious policy issue concerning information denied to the White House.

For those that missed it, here’s what Podesta said on Friday:

 my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files.

The Washington Post’s Al Kamen wrote in response:

Podesta was a major fan of the “X-Files” television show. Our colleague Karen Tumulty asked him in 2007 about the FOIA jam at the library, and Podesta, through a spokesman, replied: “The truth is out there.” That’s the show’s tag­ line.

Amy Connolly of UPI writes: “In a nod to the long-running television show The X-Files, Podesta, who has had a longtime fascination with all things extraterrestrial, tweeted using hashtag #thetruthisstilloutthere.”

The Hill’s Julian Hattem writes:

John Podesta’s biggest regret on leaving the White House is not proving Fox Mulder right… The humorous tweet about his time in office came in a list of his top 10 moments over the last year,

Here are just a few who, what, why questions the above writers didn’t bother asking.

Podesta’s admission came on his White House Twitter feed while he was discussing initiatives related to his official responsibility of overseeing climate change and energy policy for the White House. Did Podesta attempt to gain access to classified UFO files possessed by one or more government entities due to its relevance to his official duties?

His admission suggests that UFO information has relevance to climate change and/or energy policy. If so, does that mean that UFOs are indeed interplanetary spacecraft that use energy sources far more advanced than anything offered by the fossil fuel industry?

If UFO information has relevance to energy policy, then why wasn’t Podesta able to gain access despite having all the power of the White House behind him? What government entity can deny access to information requested by a senior advisor to a sitting President in the performance of his official duties?

Thankfully, there are some in mainstream media willing to explore such questions. CNET writer Chris Matyszczyk asks:

Is it possible that both the president and Podesta know more than they (are allowed to) let on? If your answer is yes, that leaves us to speculate on why they’re not revealing it. Is it because we’d be frightened? Or is it because our belief systems would become so displaced that what remains of our social cohesion would dissolve?

These are just a few of the more obvious who, what, why questions raised by Podesta’s admission. Unfortunately, much of the mainstream media isn’t asking them because it is treating his admission as wry X-Files humor. We are basically being told that the Twitter revelation of a senior White House advisor is not something to take seriously.

Podesta’s involvement in a number of earlier attempts to learn the truth about classified UFO files points to a different conclusion. He was very serious. As a counselor to President Obama, with all the power that position conveys, he was still unable to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding classified UFO files.

Podesta’s earlier involvement in a failed attempt by the Clinton administration to gain access to classified UFO files is well documented. FOIA documents gained by Canadian UFO researcher Grant Cameron detail a timeline involving President Clinton and Hillary Clinton seeking information from deceased billionaire Laurence Rockefeller on the topic. Strategies were developed for how the Clinton White House could gain access.

Podesta was involved in one of these strategies. The passage of Executive Order 12958 aimed at streamlining declassification of thousands of national security files, and involving the White House in the process. The goal was to shake loose some of the classified files hidden away in the national security archives of various U.S. government entities and corporate contractors and see if any could cast light on the UFO phenomenon. Podesta became Chief of Staff to Clinton, yet despite all the power available to him then, and to the President himself, access to UFO files was denied.

If a sitting President and his most senior advisors can’t access UFO related information relevant to policies being developed, then who is the real power behind the throne? Surely that’s a question worth a serious investigation by the Fourth Estate.

© Copyright 2015. Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Exopolitics.org

Declassified Project Blue Book Files Were Made Easily Available by The Black Vault but…

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With a honorable citizen’s effort the Black Vault’s John Greenwald had painstakingly placed in PDF format for the general public to read and to easily research previously USAF declassified Project Blue Book files held at the National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/foia/ufos.html  (I’m correcting my previous erroneous statement that what had just been released to the public were recently declassified files). It was a major effort and this was newsworthy as it would help anyone interested at how research had been conduceted take a good look at these files produced by an iconic UFO research project.

Unfortunately, in a letter by John Greenwald director of The Black Vault dated January 29, 2015 he announced that, due to a copyright claim (!!), he’s decided to take these files off the internet for now. Here’s the link: http://www.openminds.tv/usaf-ufo-blue-book-files-forced-taken/31946

“It is with great frustration to announce, that Ancestry.com, and their subsidiary Fold3, has laid down a claim to copyright on the Project Blue Book material – which has long been labeled as “public domain” by the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA).   Ancestry.com is claiming ownership to the digital version of this material – despite me having records that Fold3 doesn’t even have in their archive and I received under the FOIA starting back in 1996.  They simply claimed it was 100% theirs and I was forced to remove it.”

Still, the availability of these files at the National Archives should be a step in the right direction of transparency on an issue that cannot (and should not!) be hidden for ever. Other countries have already been open about much of their files as very few of them may be of direct security interest.  I would say in some Latin American countries an average of 2-3 out of 1000-1500 files may be of conventional security interest. In the U.S. part of the reason given for the debunking and  classification was fear of disruption of emergency channels that the Soviet Union could take advantage of.

Even reviewing these old Project Blue Book files related with what may be “average” types of sightings – as normally reported worldwide – would be of scientific interest today as conventional explanations could not be found to explain away a remarkable % of them. That in itself should make them of scientific interest. That percentage varied according to how much freedom the Blue Book researchers had or how much they were expected to debunk. A fair review of the UFO cases reported could still be helpful today when we have no access to any other investigations that might be secretely accruing somewhere else.

Optimistically, in spite of this hopefully temporary setback, more events pointing towards the reality of an intelligent extraterrestrial presence will keep coming en force to change the psychological discomfort, scorn, fear and shame felt by so many of our political and cultural leaders  who prefer to remain in their comfort zones without taking a serious look at an ever-increasing pile of “anomalies” that indicate that our classical concepts about “reality” are way our of phase with that reality.

Sources:
The Black Vault is a good source for these and other UFO-related declassified files  http://www.theblackvault.com/
and to http://www.openminds.tv/usaf-ufo-project-blue-book-files-go-online-free/31656 

Hawaii welcomes diplomatic relations with space aliens

Preparing to welcome space aliens to Earth is not as farfetched as it seems. In September 2014, NASA and the Library of Congress held a symposium titled “Preparing for Discovery”, where the likelihood of extraterrestrial life being discovered was widely regarded as inevitable. Last week, the Astrobiology Magazine released an article where the symposium convener, Professor Steven Dick, was interviewed in his official capacity of NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology. Dick shared his thoughts on his position, the symposium, and the implications of discovering alien life and making contact:

It’s very farsighted for NASA to fund a position like this…. They have all their programs in astrobiology, they fund the scientists, but here they fund somebody to think about what the implications might be. It’s a good idea to do this, to foresee what might happen before it occurs.

NASA and the Library of Congress have a rival in preparing for the discovery and making contact with extraterrestrial life. Lazo’s Wall Street Journal article covered the genesis of the Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary, and reactions to the idea of a creating a landing place for space aliens. Lazo interviewed Dr Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for the Center for SETI Research who was skeptical:

In terms of any of this making any sense, of course it doesn’t. If you had the technology to fly yourself to another planet, to visit another star system in our galaxy, I think the last of your concerns would be finding a flat, ready-made landing strip.

Shestak’s response misses the point. Space aliens seeking to land on Earth would certainly not have a shortage of landing options, but clearly would have a desire to be welcomed rather than shot at. Currently, no government on Earth has developed a clear policy where they would officially welcome alien visitors who peacefully appear in the skies.

The closest we have come was back on Dec 20, 2007, when Japan’s Defense Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, made a statement in response to a parliamentary question of how the Defense Force would respond to UFOs appearing in Japanese airspace. Ishiba said that official defense policy was that if no hostile intent was displayed, the Japanese Defense Force would not militarily engage with the space visitors. Ishiba’s statement is one of the few public policy statements released on possible responses to extraterrestrial visitors by a major nation. Unfortunately, his statement was widely ridiculed by the international media and did not result in an official policy being developed by Japan

In contrast, representatives of the Lawful Hawaiian Government took up the issue, and went ahead in issuing a declaration officially welcoming star visitors to sovereign land it controls. On June 27, 2014, land was officially dedicated by Lawful Hawaiian Government representatives including its Minister for the Interior, Naliko Markel. Later, a document setting out protocols for extraterrestrial contact was approved by Lawful Hawaiian Government representatives. At the Lawful Hawaiian Government’s annual congressional convention held in January 2015, both documents concerning the Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary were officially presented and included in the official parliamentary record. Both the Prime Minister, Henry Noa, and Foreign Minister, Nelson Armitage, subsequently gave interviews in which they expressed their support of the initiative by Big Island representatives to welcome star visitors to Hawaii.

What is going to happen now? No one knows for sure. As Lazo writes, “so far, curious Earthlings are the only outsiders who have turned up.” But that can quickly change if space aliens accept the welcome by the Lawful Hawaiian Government. Lazo is correct that if aliens do accept, that would give a boost to Hawaii’s sovereign independence movement, Not only would Hawaii become a major center for diplomacy at a galactic level, but humanity would get a giant boost to the stars!

© Copyright 2015. Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Exopolitics.org

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