A Great Example of Real ‘Fake News’

by Arjun Walia                March 25, 2018                (collective-evolution.com)

• Internet censorship is on the rise. Platforms like Google and Facebook decide what is real and fake for the people. Public perception of global events is being manipulated through mainstream media and news publications. However, people are now waking up and seeing through many of these lies and manipulation tactics.

• Mainstream media basically labels everything outside of what they themselves report (such as UFOs) as “fake news”. This is quite ironic given that it appears that the majority of people consider mainstream media themselves to be the real “fake news.”

• “National security” is now an umbrella term used to justify concealing information, but who makes these decisions? Not only are countless documents classified every single year in North America, but false information and “fake news” are routinely dispersed, mainly by mainstream media.

• A declassified letter from a CIA task force addressed to the CIA Director details the close relationship that exists between the CIA and mainstream media and academia. The document states that the CIA task force “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation,” and that “this has helped us turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success” stories,’ and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others.” It explains how the CIA has “persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods.”

• Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, a prominent German journalist and editor for more than two decades, revealed that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agencies under his own name, and that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job. Well-known mainstream media reporters and journalists Sharyl Attkisson and Amber Lyon have also revealed that they are routinely paid by the U.S. government as well as foreign governments to selectively report and distort information on certain events.

• Comedian Jim Carrey said on Jimmy Kimmel Live that, “For years now, talk show hosts, people on television, people in sitcoms have been hired by the government to throw you off the tracks, to distract you, … to make you happy and docile so you don’t know what’s really going on.”

• Exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden thinks that censorship is not the answer to bad speech. “The answer to bad speech is more speech. We have to …spread the idea that critical thinking matters, now more than ever, given the fact that lies seem to be getting more popular.”

• When information is hidden from us and manipulated at the same time, it’s only going to spark more curiosity among the people. That is one aspect of the current shift in consciousness that’s happening on our planet. We’re beginning to see the human experience in a different light, and starting to recognize that the time for change is really here.

 

A declassified document from the CIA archives in the form of a letter from a CIA task force addressed to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency details the close relationship that exists between the CIA and mainstream media and academia.

The document states that the CIA task force “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation,” and that “this has helped us turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success” stories,’ and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others.” Furthermore, it explains how the agency has “persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods.”

Although it is a document outlining their desire to become more open and transparent, the deception outlined by various whistleblowers requires us to read between the lines and recognize that the relationships shared between intelligence agencies and our sources of information are not always warranted and pose inherent conflicts of interest.

Herein lies the problem: What is “national security,” and who determines that definition? JFK bravely told the world that the “dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it.” He also said that “there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.”

“National security” is now an umbrella term used to justify concealing information, but who makes these decisions? Not only are countless documents classified every single year in North America, but false information and “fake news” are routinely dispersed, mainly by mainstream media outlets — a reality that is clearly conveyed in this document and has been expressed by multiple mainstream media journalists themselves. And as with the NSA surveillance program that was exposed by Edward Snowden, it’s a global problem.

Internet censorship is on the rise, and platforms like Google and Facebook are now actually censoring information and deciding what is real and fake for the people, instead of letting people decide for themselves. For example, Google had to recently admit that their contractors suppress information, like the info provided by alternative media, not mainstream media.

“The problem of fake news isn’t solved by hoping for a referee, but rather because we as citizens, we as users of these services, help each other. We talk and we share and we point out what is fake. We point out what is true. The answer to bad speech is not censorship, the answer to bad speech is more speech. We have to exercise and spread the idea that critical thinking matters, now more than ever, given the fact that lies seem to be getting more popular.” –Edward Snowden

Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, a prominent German journalist and editor for more than two decades, is one example. He blew the whistle on public television, stating that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agencies under his own name and that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.

Sharyl Attkisson and Amber Lyon, both well-known mainstream media reporters and journalists, have also exposed funded movements by political, corporate, and other special interests, and have revealed that they are routinely paid by the U.S. government as well as foreign governments to selectively report and distort information on certain events.

Let’s not forget about Operation Mockingbird, a CIA-based initiative to control mainstream media. A document from 1984 shows how the agency had definite plans to infiltrate academia and change/influence the curriculum, specifically journalism.

As Emma Best from Muckrock reports, recently Tweeted by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, memos from the CIA Inspector General’s (IG) office reveal the agencies perspective on the press and how to handle them. It’s from 1984, approximately three decades prior to when the Agency declared Wikileaks a hostile non-state intelligence service. It shows how the CIA viewed the media the same way.

The document not only outlines the CIA’s role in media, but also the entire entertainment industry in general, lending further weight to revelations offered by celebrities like Jim Carrey. He appeared as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying that, “For years now, talk show hosts, people on television, people in sitcoms have been, hired by the government to throw you off the tracks, to distract you, to make you laugh and stuff like that, make you happy and docile so you don’t know what’s really going on.”

While some question whether he was merely joking, the facts still remain. Another celebrity, who was clearly serious, is Roseanne Barr, who referenced the CIA’s MK Ultra mind control program — a previously classified research program through the CIA’s scientific intelligence division that tested behavioural modification and perception manipulation on human beings.

What we seem to have here is an attempt to manipulate public perception of global events through mainstream media and news publications. But what’s perhaps most interesting is the fact that a lot of people are now waking up and seeing through many of these lies and manipulation tactics. Instead of just blindly believing what we hear on television, more people are starting to think critically, do independent research, and examine a wide array of sources and information.

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The Shocking Truth About Aliens

by Dan Taylor            March 24, 2018             (morningticker.com)

Many scientists think it is not crazy to think that aliens exist somewhere in our universe, and for some very good reasons.

• In an online profile of a new National Geographic series entitled “One Strange Rock”, the website Mashable reached out to former American astronaut Jeff Hoffman, and former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. Hoffman told the site that he believes there is “life elsewhere in the universe.” Hadfield noted that virtually every star has planets, and there are countless stars in our universe. So it is highly likely that there are other intelligent beings in the galaxy.

• So why haven’t we met an alien? The Milky Way galaxy is tremendously vast. It would take an entire lifetime to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other at the speed of light. Also, like ours, civilizations come and go. Intelligent life on Earth has only existed for a mere blip in Earth’s existence. Whether we will ever encounter them, however, is tough to say.

• [Editors Note] Once again, the premise is that Extra-Terrestrials labor under the same galaxy-view and technology that the people do here on Earth. But what if ET technology isn’t limited to the speed of light? What if ET civilizations last for millions of years? What if ET are already here but reluctant to reveal themselves? The “shocking truth” about aliens is far beyond most people’s imagination.

 

Take a poll of scientists when it comes to the existence of aliens, and you may get a surprising answer. While we often think of aliens as the stuff of science fiction, the surprising truth is that many scientists think that it is not only possible that aliens exist somewhere, but likely.

Take a recent report by Mashable, which profiled an upcoming series called One Strange Rock on National Geographic that involved interviewing some astronauts on their thoughts about aliens. Jeff Hoffman told the publication that he believes there is “life elsewhere in the universe.” Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield noted that virtually every star has planets, and there are countless stars in our universe.

The idea that aliens exist, when you think about it, isn’t so crazy. After all, we somehow exist, so why is it insane to think that this could happen somewhere else in our universe?

Of course, many might point out the lack of alien encounters. But think about it: our universe is practically infinite for our purposes. The closest star to our solar system is more than four light years away. And if you got in a spaceship as a baby and traveled at the speed of light, you wouldn’t even reach the end of the Milky Way galaxy before you died of old age. And there are billions upon billions of other galaxies out there.

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Reasons to Believe

by David Wallace-Wells, James D. Walsh, Neel Patel, Clint Rainey,Katie Heaney, Eric Benson, and Tim Urban
March 20, 2018 (nymag.com)
How seriously should you take those recent reports of UFOs? Ask the Pentagon. Or read this primer for the SETI-curious.

• This is an essay in the New York Magazine suggesting “thirteen reasons” why people should take the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial beings seriously. It cites the revelations made in the New York Times about the secret Pentagon UFO program, the various UFO videos that have been released (or allowed) by the Department of Defense, and President Trump’s new “Space Force” branch of the military.

• The article includes an excerpt from an interview with the former US Senator, Harry Reid, on how he dared to look at the facts and became a central figure in the UFO disclosure effort. (This was followed the next day by a NYM article with the full Harry Reid interview.)

• Scientists are beginning to warm to the idea that this galaxy could very well be teaming with life – even on Mars: “Although [Mars] looks like a barren wasteland these days, there’s little reason to write off any chance we might find aliens residing in some cavern or crevice.”

• Prominent billionaires such as Robert Bigelow, Elon Musk, Paul Allen, and Jeff Bezos have been putting their money and reputations on the line to openly consider extraterrestrial life in our galaxy. Same for many prominent military and government folks such as former British Defence Minister Nick Pope, former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, former US Army Intelligence officer Philip Corso, former US Senator and Republican Party Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, former CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter, former US Congressman and current candidate for governor of Ohio Dennis Kucinich, and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

• Then there are the numerous UFO/ET encounters from WWII foo fighters and ‘the Battle of Los Angeles’ in 1942, to Betty and Barney Hill in the 1960’s, to the Ohio State “Wow” Signal, to the Phoenix lights in 1997.

• When pondering why we still have no ‘proof’ of an ET presence – ‘are they hiding?’ ‘are they all dead?’ – the possibility is raised that perhaps ‘the aliens are already here and we just haven’t figured it out yet. They might be taking some time to study us before unveiling themselves, or maybe they have already let themselves be known to certain groups.’

• [Editor’s Note] While the article’s writers are keen to discuss the wide spectrum of ufology from the plausible to the most implausible, this is nevertheless a positive step forward for the stubbornly jaundiced and myopic mainstream community. With seventy years of strong circumstantial and anecdotal evidence of the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors to the Earth, the mainstream is now beginning to open their minds and take notice.

 

In the good old days, the arrival of UFOs on the front page of America’s paper of record might have seemed like a loose-thread tear right through the fabric of reality — the closest that secular, space-race America could have gotten to a Second Coming. Two decades ago, or three, or six, we would’ve also felt we knew the script in advance, thanks to the endless variations pop culture had played for us already: civilizational conflicts to mirror the real-world ones Americans had been imagining in terror since the beginning of the Cold War.

But when, in December, the New York Times published an undisputed account of what might once have sounded like crackpot conspiracy theory — that the Pentagon had spent five years investigating “unexplained aerial phenomena” — the response among the paper’s mostly liberal readers, exhausted and beaten down by “recent events,” was markedly different from the one in those movies. The news that aliens might actually be visiting us, regularly and recently, didn’t provoke terror about a coming space-opera conflict but something much more like the Evangelical dream of the Rapture the same liberals might have mocked as kooky right-wing escapism in the George W. Bush years. “The truth is out there,” former senator Harry Reid tweeted, with a link to the story. Thank God, came the response through the Twitter vent. “Could extraterrestrials help us save the Earth?” went one typical reaction.

Then, in March, a third video emerged, featuring a Navy encounter off the East Coast in 2015, with the group that released it hinting at an additional trove. “Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?” wondered a Washington Post op-ed — surely the first time the newspaper of Katharine Graham was raising a stink about aliens. The next week, President Trump seemed to announce he was creating an entirely new branch of the military: “We’ll call it the Space Force.” You could be forgiven for thinking you’d woken up in a science-fiction novel. At the very least, it is starting to seem non-crazy to believe. A recent study shows half the world already does.

Alien dreams have always been powered by the desire for human importance in a vast, forgetful cosmos: We want to be seen so we know we exist. What’s unusual about the alien fantasy is that, unlike religion, nationalism, or conspiracy theory, it doesn’t place humans at the center of a grand story. In fact, it displaces them: Humans become, briefly, major players in a drama of almost inconceivable scale, the lasting lesson of which is, unfortunately: We’re total nobodies. That’s the lesson, at least, of a visit from aliens, who got here long before we were able to get there, wherever there is; if humans are the ones making first contact, we’re the advanced ones and the aliens are probably more like productive pond scum, which may be one reason we fantasize about those kinds of encounters a lot less than visits to Earth. Of course, when the aliens are the explorers, we’re the pond scum.

But a lot of people in the modern world will take that bargain, which should probably not surprise us given how dizzying, secular, and, um, alienating that world objectively is. Most conspiracy theory is fueled by a desire to see the universe as ultimately intelligible — the bargain being that things can make sense, but only if you believe in pervasive totalitarian malice. Alien conspiracy theory keeps the malice (cover-ups at Roswell, the Men in Black). But rather than benzo comforts like order and intelligibility, it offers the psychedelic drama of total unintelligibility — awe, wonder, a knee-wobblingly deep, mystical experience of existential ignorance.

Which does mark a change. Beyond the mysticism, American stories of alien encounters have been (often anxious) meditations on the status of American power — meditations informed, surely, by both the memory of European settlers, for whom “first contact” was a story of triumphant genocide, and sympathy for those they trampled. Given the option, America will always prefer to play the cowboy, and through the post–Cold War 1990s, the dominant alien-encounter template was still the swaggering military strut of Independence Day. (The closest thing we got to a counterpoint was the cover-up paranoia of The X-Files, which just expressed a darker faith in the same American power.) By the time we got an alien epic for the War on Terror era, even Spielberg staged it as a story about armed conflict: The War of the Worlds. Of course, in that story, the winner was always going to be the humans — that is, the Americans. And then came the financial crisis, the recession, and Trump, and the new hope that E.T. may take pity on us.

Elsewhere in the world, where things are looking up, relatively speaking, you might expect a different perspective on aliens — and indeed, as The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen documented last fall, the Chinese have recently opened the world’s largest radar facility to listen for signs of aliens, wherever they are out there. But even our future Chinese overlords, projecting power for the first time into the ever-receding reaches of the universe, are a bit nervous about aliens; as Andersen points out, their popular science fiction bears the evidence. And why wouldn’t they be? They have their own memory of colonial contact — the Opium Wars, the end of that empire — to reckon with. And, besides, the unknown is just scary. Things have to get pretty bleak before you take a chance on the arrival of a total blank slate, just for the sake of change. —David Wallace-Wells

1. The Government Literally Just Admitted It’s Taking UFOs Seriously
And, according to researchers, it’s only pretended to end the program.

In 1952, a CIA group called the Psychological Strategy Board concluded that, when it came to UFOs, the American public was dangerously gullible and prone to “hysterical mass behavior.” The group recommended “debunking” campaigns to tamper the public’s interest in unexplained phenomena. But the government seems to have been interested, too: In December, the Pentagon confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Created in 2007 by senators Ted Stevens (who reported being chased by a mysterious object), Daniel Inouye, and then–Majority Leader Harry Reid, and funded with $22 million of “black money” from the Department of Defense’s budget, the program investigated and evaluated reports of UFO sightings, many of which came from American service members.

So much of what the program uncovered remains classified, but what little we know is tantalizing. Based on data it collected, the program identified five observations that showed mysterious objects displaying some level of “advanced physics,” also known as “stuff humans can’t do yet”: The objects would accelerate with g-forces too strong for the human body to withstand, or reach hypersonic speed with no heat trail or sonic boom, or they seemed to resist the effects of Earth’s gravity without any aerodynamic structures to provide thrust or lift. “No one has been able to figure out what these are,” said Luis Elizondo, who ran the program until last October, in a recent interview.

Elizondo has also talked about “metamaterials” that may have been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena and stored in buildings owned by a private aerospace contractor in Las Vegas; they apparently have material compositions that aren’t found naturally on Earth and would be exceptionally expensive to replicate. According to a 2009 Pentagon briefing summarized in the New York Times, “the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered.” This was a briefing by people trying to get more funding — but still.

Some of the accounts Elizondo and his team analyzed supposedly occurred near nuclear facilities like power plants or battleships. In November 2004, the USS Princeton, a Navy cruiser escorting the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego, ordered two fighter jets to investigate mysterious aircraft the Navy had been tracking for weeks (meaning this was not just a trick of the eye or a momentary failure of perspective, the two things most often blamed for unexplained aerial phenomena). When the jets arrived at the location, one of the pilots, Commander David Fravor, saw a disturbance just below the ocean’s surface causing the water to roil around it. Then, suddenly, he saw a white, 40-foot Tic Tac–shaped craft moving like a Ping-Pong ball above the water. The vehicle began mirroring his plane’s movements, but when Fravor dove directly at the object, the Tic Tac zipped away.

The Pentagon has said funding for the program ran out in 2012 and wasn’t renewed. But Elizondo has claimed the project was alive and well when he resigned in October. —James D. Walsh

2. Harry Reid Says We’re Not Taking Them Seriously Enough
The former Senate majority leader is definitely a truther.

Eric Benson: I’m curious about just where your interest in this subject comes from.

Harry Reid: Bob Bigelow [the founder of Bigelow Aerospace and Budget Suites]. He’s a central figure in all this. When he was a young man, he heard a story from his grandparents about driving down from Mt. Charleston, near Las Vegas, where they saw a so-called flying saucer, for lack of a better description. Bob became a very wealthy man. He would pay for these conferences about UFOs, and he would bring in scientists, academics, and a few nutcases.

There were people trying to figure out what all this aerial phenomena was. Bob started sending me tons of stuff. Mainly what interested me is that so many people had seen these strange things in the air.
EB: So tell me how this program got started.

HR: I was in Washington in the Senate, and Bob called me and said, “I got the strangest letter here. Could I have a courier bring it to you?” I said sure. He didn’t want to send it to me over the lines, for obvious reasons.

The letter said, “I am a senior, longtime member of this security agency, and I have an interest in what you’ve been working on. I also want to go to your ranch in Utah.”

Bigelow had bought a great big ranch. All this crazy stuff goes on up there — you know, things in the air. Indians used to talk about it, part of their folklore.

So I called Bigelow back and said, “Hey, I’ll meet with the guy.” The program grew out of that, to study aerial phenomena.

We decided it would be [funded by] black money. I wanted to get something done. I didn’t want a debate where no one knew what the hell they were talking about on the Senate floor.

EB: I saw that you tweeted, “We don’t know the answers, but we have plenty of evidence to support asking the questions.” To you, what’s the most compelling evidence to support asking the questions?
HR: Read the reports. We have hundreds of — Eric, two, three weeks ago, maybe a month now, up in Montana, they had another strange deal at a missile base up there. It goes on all the time.

EB: Do you know things about this program that you can’t discuss publicly?

HR: Yeah.

3. Scientists Are Suddenly Much More Bullish About the Possibility of Life Out There
The universe is really big, people.

Just 30 years ago, we had not discovered a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know of more than 3,000 of them, and we know nearly every star in the night sky has at least one planet in its orbit. “Even people who are not terribly interested in science know that we’ve found that planets are as common as fire hydrants — they’re everywhere,” says Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. “One in five or one in six might be a planet similar to the Earth.”

That doesn’t mean we’ll ever find an exact replica of Earth, but maybe we don’t have to. Our study of other planets and moons in the solar system shows us many worlds possess the ingredients necessary for life — an atmosphere, organic compounds, liquid water, and other necessities. (The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, for example, feature whole subsurface oceans.)

And even though these places are extremely harsh environments, that doesn’t mean as much as we might once have thought it did; recent discoveries on Earth itself demonstrate that life is much tougher than we thought. We’ve found organisms in blisteringly hot geysers in Yellowstone National Park, in the darkest crevices under the most ungodly pressures in the deep ocean, in dry hellscapes like the Atacama Desert in Chile (an analogue for Mars). These “extremophiles” don’t need a warm and fuzzy paradise to call home — in fact, they have already evolved to live in environments as harsh as those on other planets. Some, like tardigrades, can even survive the bleak vacuum of space itself. If there’s life in most of those places, “it’s going to be pond scum,” says Shostak. “But it’s alien pond scum. It shows that biology is all over.”

And where there’s biology, there may well be intelligence, and our increasing understanding of evolution also tells us life can evolve faster than we ever anticipated. Millions of years is a long time for us, but it’s the blink of an eye on the cosmic scale. Blink too fast, and you’ll miss that pond scum turning into an intelligent civilization sending out messages every which way, looking for friends.

And we’re now at the point where we could one day find those messages and send a reply. New technology gives us a better chance to actually make contact with extraterrestrials. Our radio telescopes can scan more of the night sky for an intelligent message than ever before. Our optical telescopes and observatories can peer farther into space and look for new planets, moons, and perhaps even signs of something altogether artificial (see “Tabby’s Star”). Our ability to parse volumes of data in mere seconds means we could conceivably survey much of the galaxy in just a few decades. That’s why, in the past few years, Shostak has continually bet a cup of coffee with everyone he knows that humans will find aliens by around 2029. “We’d have to be dead above the neck if we weren’t interested in this,” says Penelope Boston, the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. —Neel Patel

4. They’re Especially Bullish About These Planets
Adventures in the “Goldilocks zone.”

Scientists now think every one in five or six planets might be habitable, based on two general criteria: They’re rocky, and they reside in a region of the star’s orbit called the “Goldilocks zone,” where it’s not too cold and not too hot, but just right to allow for liquid water to form on the surface. And where there’s water, there can be life. Extraterrestrial researchers and enthusiasts are most excited about these seven:

Proxima B: The closest exoplanet ever discovered is also a potentially habitable world in its own right, if the intense stellar winds don’t make it barren. It’s not totally inconceivable we might be able to actually send a probe and study it directly this century — even travel to it ourselves one day.

TRAPPIST-1 System: The red dwarf at the center of this possesses a whopping seven planets in its orbit — three of which reside in the Goldilocks zone, but all of which seem to possess some degree of potential habitability — and they’re so close to one another that life on one planet could quickly spread to another.

LHS 1140b: This wouldn’t be a planet we could colonize. It’s almost seven times the mass of the Earth and 40 percent larger, making it a “super-Earth.” But its mass means that it would retain a thicker atmosphere capable of keeping it warmer and more comfortable for life than most other places.

Ross 128 b: One of the best chances we have so far at finding life on another planet. It orbits an inactive red-dwarf star, meaning it’s likely not being bludgeoned by solar radiation. And we’ve detected strange signals emanating from the nearby host star — signals that perhaps have intelligent origins?

Mars: Mars has water, as we’ve known since 2015. Although the planet looks like a barren wasteland these days, there’s little reason to write off any chance we might find aliens residing in some cavern or crevice.

The Ocean Worlds (Europa, Enceladus, Titan): Many of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons show signs of possessing a liquid ocean underneath the surface.

GJ 1214b: Nicknamed “waterworld” by scientists; signs of potential clouds give us some hope the planet has an atmosphere.
—N.P.

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The Reality Behind ‘Earth vs. The Flying Saucers’

by Robbie Graham              March 16, 2018                   (mysteriousuniverse.org)

• One of the most significant UFO movies of the 1950s is Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956). The film is loosely based on Donald Keyhoe’s 1953 non-fiction documentary book, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, which drew extensively from the U.S. Air Force’s own investigations. When the movie was released, however, Keyhoe was dismayed to find that that they had made it into a ‘schlock sci-fi B-movie’.

• Nevertheless, the film retains a considerable amount of UFO detail from Keyhoe’s source material. Special effects supervisor Ray Harryhausen received acclaim for his ‘realistic’ design of the alien saucer, with a stationary central dome, a rotating outer-rim, slotted vanes and a high-pitch whirring sound. These were based upon real-life descriptions by Keyhoe and George Adamski. (Watch 3:38 video clip of contemporary film director Joe Dante interviewing Ray Harryhausen with regard to Earth vs. the Flying Saucers below.)

• Another example of similarities to real life were the glowing balls of light that hovered over a house in the film and are casually explained as ‘foo lights’. This is a reference to the anomalous flying fireballs often reported by military personnel known as ‘foo fighters’. The Air Force conducted a two-year program at Holloman AFB known as Project Twinkle to study these types of anomalies.

• In the movie, a dying alien species arrives on Earth seeking a new home. Naturally, the Earthlings take this as an existential threat and use sonar pulses to disable and bring down the alien saucers. The movie’s sonar device closely resembles an invention by Wilhelm Reich that ostensibly would draw orgone energy from the atmosphere through 15-foot long aluminum pipes connected to a body of water by cables which he called the “cloudbuster”. Reich claimed to have used his cloudbuster device to successfully attack and ‘suck the energy’ from ‘hostile’ alien UFOs over Tucson AZ in 1955.

• Finally, when the protagonists remove the space-suit from one of the dead aliens, the being bears an uncanny likeness to the alleged Roswell beings as described by witnesses in 1947, although these testimonies would not come to light until more than twenty years after the release of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

 

One of the most significant UFO movies of the 1950s was Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), which was very loosely based on Donald Keyhoe’s 1953 non-fiction book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space. In the movie, the last of a dying species of aliens arrive on Earth seeking a new home. The aliens request a meeting with world leaders to discuss their plans for occupation, but the US military, assisted by one America’s top scientists (played by Hugh Marlowe), formulates a plan of attack involving the use of sonar canons mounted on trucks to be fired at the alien saucers—the sonar supposedly interfering with their propulsion and navigation systems, and disabling their force fields.

Conspiracy writer Kenn Thomas has noted that the fictional battle strategy in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers seems to have been directly inspired by real-life UFOlogical events which occurred just one year prior to the release of the movie when legendary scientist Wilhelm Reich claimed to have used his “cloudbuster” invention to attack UFOs (which he believed were hostile) by sucking the energy out of them. Reich’s cloudbuster was an atmospheric device constructed from two rows of 15-foot aluminium pipes mounted on trucks and connected to cables that were inserted into water. Its appearance and functionality were strikingly similar to that of the sonar cannons in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Reich believed that his cloudbusters served to unblock cosmic ‘orgone’ energy in the atmosphere, which he said would be beneficial to human health. Apparently, Reich also found them handy for shooting down alien spacecraft in what he described as a “full-scale interplanetary battle” in Tucson Arizona in 1955.

The production history of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is intriguing. In 1955, Donald Keyhoe, then a jagged thorn in the side of the US government’s UFO secret-keepers, was approached by a group of Hollywood producers seeking to buy the rights to his aforementioned non-fiction book. The producers told Keyhoe their film was to be a serious documentary about UFOs. Although initially suspicious, Keyhoe eventually went along with the deal. Big mistake. Upon its completion in 1956, the “documentary” turned out to be the schlock sci-fi B-movie of our discussion. Keyhoe was outraged and demanded that his name be removed from the film’s credits, to no avail. Someone, it seemed, had it in for this outspoken advocate for government transparency on UFOs (perhaps the same “someone” who, two years later, censored Keyhoe’s statement on live TV that flying saucers were “real machines under intelligent control”).

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Do We Unite Against Alien Threats or Ignore Them to Avoid Mockery?

by Chris Reed               March 21, 2018                 (sandiegouniontribune.com)

• In 1985, Ronald Reagan was so stirred by the notion that an extraterrestrial invasion would overshadow national differences that he brought it up in a meeting with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. In a 1987 speech to the United Nations, Reagan said, “I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” To his detractors, this was evidence of how out of touch Reagan was with reality.

• In December 2017, the New York Times detailed the experiences of U.S. military pilots who encountered a fleet of rotating aircraft traveling at high speed off the coast of San Diego in 2004. But according to former Senator Harry Reid, UFO sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized.

• In March 2018, the military released additional videos capturing advanced UFO technology. In a Washington Post op-ed, former defense intelligence analyst Christoper Mellon expressed bafflement that these stories did not trigger national security concerns. He called on authorities to “set aside taboos regarding ‘UFOs’ and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.”

• So far, the mainstream media had avoided any rational discussion of the UFO topic. Perhaps it’s unsurprising given how conditioned reporters are to disbelieve. Still, they are ignoring the the biggest scoop of the 21st century.

• Why are these UFOs keeping their distance from us, or remaining hidden altogether? Maybe it’s because they treat Earth like a giant zoo. Maybe they are actually extraterrestrial tourists and anthropologists who are fascinated with the exotic life, unique social systems, and the stunning natural beauty found on Earth. Perhaps untold numbers of aliens watch our planet’s adventures unfold on an intergalactic reality show. We don’t know.

• The fact is that the presence of advanced UFO craft in our skies has become our reality. It is time that we moved past the giggle factor and the institutionalized ridicule, take the existence of UFOs seriously, and begin to investigate their reasons for being here.

 

In 1987, in a unifying speech to the United Nations, President Ronald Reagan delivered an address without any precedent before or since. “Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize the common bond,” Reagan told diplomats from all over the planet. “I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

This was far from the first time Reagan made such a reference. As chronicled in The New York Times, Lou Cannon — perhaps Reagan’s most acclaimed biographer — had learned that the 40th president …
… was so stirred by the notion that extraterrestrial invasion would trump national differences that he floated the scenario upon meeting Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva in 1985. This departure from script flummoxed Reagan’s staff — not to mention the Soviet general secretary. Mr. Cannon writes that, well acquainted with what he called the president’s interest in “little green men,” Colin L. Powell, at the time the national security adviser, was convinced that the proposal had been inspired by “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Whether inspired by the 1951 science-fiction film or not, this triggered ridicule of Reagan that has endured for decades. In a 1991 review of one of Cannon’s Reagan biographies, Sidney Blumenthal — then still a journalist, not yet a cut-throat Clinton operative — cited this and other stories showing Reagan finding inspiration in movies as evidence of his ignorance and lack of intelligence. In 2013, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called Reagan’s U.N. comments “one of the truly weirdest things” he had ever said.

In December, Harvard’s Nathan J. Robinson — editor of Current Events magazine — offered a different take: Reagan’s U.N. speech is exactly correct. It’s a refreshing departure from the usual nationalist rhetoric to hear a president talking about the common bonds that unite humanity, and the cosmic insignificance of all our intraspecies conflicts.

One week after Robinson’s essay appeared, a staggering scoop appeared in The New York Times that indirectly offered another theory of how individuals might react to evidence of the existence of aliens — not with alacrity or with terror but with fear they’d be mocked if they shared the news with a skeptical world.

The scoop, citing hard evidence that had been declassified by the Pentagon — not the Weekly World News, InfoWars or one of the many other sources that traffic in wild conspiracy theories — detailed the experiences of U.S. military pilots who encountered what the Times reported as a fleet of rotating aircraft “surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed” off the coast of San Diego in 2004. Instead of treating this experience as an epochal close encounter, the pilots and their superiors didn’t much want to talk about it. Here’s why, according to the Times:
The sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command, [Nevada Sen. Harry] Reid said, because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized.

A March 9 commentary in the Washington Post by Christopher Mellon, deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, added to this hard-to-fathom big picture: The [San Diego] videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest.

A third declassified video … reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.

Mellon, who works for a research company that wants these reports thoroughly investigated, expressed bafflement that these stories could circulate in the upper reaches of the U.S. government without triggering national security concerns that such advanced technology might be a threat to the U.S. He called on authorities to “set aside taboos regarding ‘UFOs’ and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.”

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NBC News – Penn State astronomer asks – Should we be looking for space aliens a bit closer to home? 

Converging lines of evidence show the media, factions within the US Pentagon and mainstream science are taking UFOs seriously – while the White House remains silent.

A ZlandCommunications Editorial
 
 

In a report by NBC News, a Penn State astrophysicist contends that if spacefaring extraterrestrials ever did enter our solar system, perhaps these species might have produced artefacts or other technosignatures that have survived to the present day on any planet in our solar system.

As this dialogue expands, US and Canadian mainstream media have also taken the initiative to create headlines about the Pentagon’s high level of interest in UFOs.

Science, the media and government have traditionally shown disinterest, silence and even hostility towards the UFO/ET issue. This now appears to have changed dramatically.

These three terrestrial edifices of conventional wisdom, whether they realize it or not, have inadvertently and independently produced three converging lines of evidence that point in one direction: The imminent possibility of an extraterrestrial footprint in our star system. After decades of silence and resistance these three entities seem to be talking the same language.

THE CONVERGING LINES OF EVIDENCE

One line of inquiry points to an admission by the Pentagon that it authorized the release of now, three gun-camera videos, each obtained by Navy F/A-18 jets of multiple intercepts of UFOs. Each video has been authorized for release by Pentagon officials.

The second line of inquiry reveals the Pentagon admitted the existence of a $22 million program to investigate UFOs from 2007 to 2012. The retired head of that program Luis Elizondo is on record – stating he feels the program still operates.

A third line of inquiry is an academic statement by a tenured astronomer at Penn State University about the possible existence of intelligent off-world civilizations.

Upon analysis of these converging lines of evidence it becomes clear these evidentiary facts have much more in common than one might suspect.

THE MEDIA and GOVERNMENT
Thus far in Canada and the United States alone – six prominent mainstream media outlets in North America have assigned distinguished journalists and high-powered investigative news programs to cover the UFO/ET issue.

Each of these six prominent 21st century news organizations have decided to cover UFO/ET news in a fair and open manner – devoid of the ridicule and giggle factors that characterized their predecessors’ treatment of this matter:

  • CTV NEWS – Canada’s largest independent news outlet. CTV coverage,
  • America’s number one rated 60 Minutes – a CBS flagship of news and analysis interviewed billionaire entrepreneur Robert Bigelow on the UFO/ET matter,
  • MSNBC discussed the Pentagon’s UFO program,
  • ABC News coverage also engaged the UFO/ET matter.

This unexpected and revolutionary form of discourse among the mainstream media is gathering momentum – making more and more doubters feel that if conventional mainstream media is chatting up the ET factor in this way, perhaps it is time to take these matters more seriously.

Now science – the ever constant and established arbiter of conventional wisdom – is stepping forward to suggest – we may not be alone and may never have been. 
 
Early astronomers Ptolemy, Galileo and Copernicus shattered the mold of the long-held belief that the Earth was the centre of the solar system – might Dr. Wright, his colleagues and perhaps all of science be on the verge of a new paradigm of belief?
 

THE SCIENCE

In an abstract, a Penn State academic states: “The origins and possible locations for technosignatures of such a prior indigenous technological species, which might have arisen on ancient Earth or another body, such as a pre-greenhouse Venus or a wet Mars.”

Penn State astrophysicist Dr. Jason Wright told John Wenz of NBC News MACH: “We need experts in a variety of fields across astrobiology, geology, and anthropology to look at all the data to make concrete statements about whether there’s a chance that advanced space aliens once lived or visited here.”

This unprecedented statement by a leading astrophysicist indicating that an ET presence in our solar system is entirely plausible should, on its own merits, be explored. The contention by Wright is significant for two ardently existential reasons.

First – the UFO/ET issue has long-suffered the criticism that mainstream science and more specifically astronomers have always been reluctant to render any public and substantive statements on an ET presence. Traditional science has long held that it is not even remotely interested in discussing the proposition that intelligent off-world civilizations may have made their presence felt in our star system. Our Earth-bound modes of reasoning have never included this hypothesis.

Although slowly, these reservations seem to be evaporating. This new kind of proclamation out of Penn State is not only extremely unusual and a departure from the status quo – it certainly implies mainstream science is now preparing itself for a much more comprehensive conversation about the much maligned UFO/ET issue.

Why so? Quite simple actually… Any discussion about the existence of extraterrestrials – by default – leads journalists and scientists into the voluminous evidentiary documentation that the UFO phenomenon has been discussed, analyzed and sequestered at the highest levels of governance on the planet for decades. This mode of investigation has never been fully explored by media entities normally bent on celebrity adulation, the stock market or exposing the simplistic notion of government impropriety, waste or a president who appears unable to grasp the meaning and significance of the American Constitution. 

The human family is faced with much larger and more intuitive matters of existentialism – matters that recognize the individual as capable of understanding the significance of his or her own rights – not those donative rights given to them by the state which can be so arbitrarily taken away at any time – but those rights of natural law – the human right to freedom and control over his or her own destiny and development. This is where the UFO/ET issue resides in the human consciousness. It loiters but still operates within a dichotomous cosmos of spiritual simplicity but one of immensely incomprehensible complexity.

Given this unique and often unarticulated context – clear lines of converging evidence dramatically demonstrate that multiple levels of orchestrated government secrecy and lies are now in question. It is now obvious government has – in fact – remained audibly silent on and lied to its citizens about the UFO/ET matter for over 70 years. Does this mendacity conjure suggestions of a cover-up or dare we say – a conspiracy?

THE ULTIMATE TAKE AWAY
This tincture of science and news reporting may represent an emulsion and not an oil and water dichotomy. Considering the connectivity of ideas – add to this mix the governmental and geo-political implications of an ET presence and one is looking at a ready-made literary cocktail – capable of re-writing history. 

These seemingly mutually exclusive lines of inquiry now appear to have some common ground – a galactic intersection with Earthly and alien pedestrians crossing every which way to get to the other side.

If a renowned Penn State astrophysicist like Dr. Jason Wright is making these kinds of statements – might we not want to pay a little closer attention. Much in the same way we would if he had proclaimed, “We have found a cure for cancer…” Both are stunning propositions – maybe we can believe both if ET technologies are as advanced as the experts say they may appear to be. 

If the UFOs being seen by pilots are indeed of non-Earth origin as many believe, then we can only assume that these off-world civilizations possess the capacity to conquer the vast interstellar distances of space using unimaginable energy sources, technologies and exotic propulsion systems that make possible light speed travel – might they also have eliminated disease as well as their own extinction behaviours? Advancing these kinds of discussions can only enlighten and allow for possibilities – rejecting them is done at our peril.

The second reason why this matter is significant is that NBC and CBS News are credited with being two of, if not the highest rated US mainstream news media outlets. This departure from traditional mainstream news ridicule of the ET issue creates what appears to be a contemporaneous and reformative rise in the level of interest in the possible existence of off-world intelligences that may have made their presence felt in our star system. Might then other mainstream news outlets, government officials and other segments of society want to pay closer attention?

These growing and concurrent shifts in consciousness and ideology from both the academic/scientific community and American mainstream journalism illustrates a revised attitude toward a conversation about ET life and the truth that has been sequestered behind walls of secrecy for so very long. 

Dr. Wright’s statement and one by Harvard professor Dr. Avi Loeb has upset the traditional apple-cart among astronomers who hold tight to the view that there is no evidence of an ET presence anywhere in the known cosmos – a world-view that espouses there is no logical sense in pursuing this matter. 

Loeb stated in the same NBC article, “There could have been a visit by another alien civilization…” from another solar system. The aliens might have visited us in person, he said, or via some form of space probe. [Should We Be Looking for Space Aliens a Bit Closer to Home? – NBC MACH Aug.29.2017]

MORE QUESTIONS ARISE
Now that Dr. Wright and some of his colleagues are asking these kinds of questions – is it not now time to talk more seriously about extraterrestrials, UFOs and a cosmos that may be teeming with life? 

Does the next stage in evolution of this matter foresee the media and science sustain their lines of inquiry to pressure and openly challenge the White House and other indolent levels of governance to come clean? Why is this level of discourse so important?

First, this quality of mainstream coverage would have been unheard of even 5 years ago. Second, this level of coverage by the media reaches far beyond the ‘UFO choir-of-the-converted’ and into the living rooms, kitchens, libraries, government offices, news rooms and professional institutions where those who inhabit these places go about their business – blissfully unaware of and oblivious to the facts rooted in this matter. It is in these places where the cosmically impaired reside. It is here where what the late Dr. John Mack called – the ‘battle over world views’ – will be won.

Given that Ptolemy, Galileo and Copernicus began putting major cracks in the outmoded scientific and religious slate of beliefs of the day by imprinting a new paradigm onto reality, it turns out Dr. Wright and his colleagues in addition to the media and the Pentagon might all be on the verge of cracking a few more tablets themselves.
 
At the vanishing point of these converging lines of evidence we are left with two conclusions:
  • Science – government and media are now – for the first time in history – on the same page. It’s taken 70 years – but the wait has been worth it, and, 
  • We are not alone and never have been.
It’s finally time to talk seriously about UFOs and Extraterrestrial life.
 
Review the NBC article: HERE
[ZNN invites your comments.]

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“Britain’s Roswell” to Receive Full Hollywood Makeover

by Robbie Graham       November 28, 2017       (mysteriousuniverse.org)

• Those who are clued-in to the UFO tapestry well know the account of the U.S. military personnel who witnessed the baffling UFO/ET events just outside of RAF Woodbridge near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England on the nights of December 26 and 28, 1980. It has been the subject of numerous books, articles and documentaries, but has never quite made it into the pop-cultural landscape to the level of Roswell.

• Sony Pictures Television intends to change all of that by teaming up with award-winning writer/director Joe Ahearne (Doctor Who) and UK-based Eleventh Hour Films to produce a major new TV drama based on the UFO incident called Rendlesham.

• [Editor’s Note] Or will the deep state-compromised Sony Corporation choose to do a dis-info hatchet job to bury the Rendelsham incident for good?

 

During the past three-and-a-half decades, Britain’s most famous/notorious UFO case has been the subject of numerous books, articles and documentaries. It has also generated some of the most fierce and downright nasty feuds the UFO field has ever known. We are, of course, referring to the Rendlesham Forest incident, in which US military personnel bore witness to baffling events just outside of RAF Woodbridge near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, on the nights of December 26 and 28, 1980.

Despite having embedded itself firmly into UFO lore and having made the occasional dent in official culture as tabloid fodder, those Rendlesham UFOs—whatever they were—never managed to plant their landing gear fully into our pop-cultural landscape. That may be about to change, however.

Director, Joe Ahearne

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Television has teamed up with UK-based Eleventh Hour Films for Rendlesham, a major new TV drama based on the UFO incident(s).

The show is to be helmed by award-winning writer/director Joe Ahearne (Doctor Who). Co-producer Eve Gutierrez told the Hollywood Reporter: “Joe is a master story-teller with a long-standing fascination for science-fiction so we were totally thrilled when the Rendlesham story sparked for him… Now, working with Sony Pictures Television, we are looking forward to bringing this timely, other-worldly story to the global market.”

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