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Breaking the Silence on UFOS: Why Now?

Irvine, CA -- It all started with an article on the front page of the Sunday New York Times.

A $22 million allotted to a secret UFO agency loses its long-time manager for a private day job. His new company goes  public with three official videos of military pilots confronting unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). The pilots gasp as they see multiple tic-tac shaped objects zooming around them. The videos go viral.

Ralph Blumenthal spent three months researching “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program” for December 16, 2017. He collaborated with Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper and author-UFO researcher Leslie Kean.

“Our readers are plenty interested in unidentified flying objects. We know that from the huge response ...revealing a secret Pentagon program to investigate U.F.O.s. The piece has dominated the most emailed and most viewed lists since.”

It seems like ‘I told you so,’ when several government, military, and UFO researchers heard about the story. They went on the record in mainstream publications, a phenomenon in itself. The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Newsweek, fashion-oriented goop.com, player.one (gaming news), and the New York Times weighed in   

Robert Wood, Ph.D., retired aeronautical engineer, and co-author of Alien Viruses: Crashed UFOs, MJ-12 and Biowarfare, comments: "I believe the Government is merely disclosing what the vast majority of people already know: They have crashed, we have been studying the topic secretly for nearly eight decades, some are alien, and that avoiding public panic when the details come out is a dominant principle. I also think that most of those involved in releasing information do not grasp the full reality of what we have learned."

Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Nevada) has always been fascinated with UFOs. In May 2018, Eric Benson of NewYork Magazine asked him:

 Do you know things about this program that you can’t discuss publicly?
“Yeah, but there’s plenty that can be discussed publicly, and I’ve tried to do that. I’m interested only in research. I’m interested in science, and in helping the American public understand what the hell is going on. You know at this stage in the reports, we have thousands of people who have seen this stuff. Not hundreds — thousands.”

“You know, people just don’t talk about them. They’re all afraid of the issue just like the pilots who won’t report these strange things. They’re afraid somebody will think they’re some kind of a wacko.”

The topic is still taboo, according to Leslie Kean, author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. “Ridicule has been generated towards this topic since the 1950’s in order to make it go away, and the “giggle factor” has become ingrained in our culture. Some may feel that if these crafts have an extraterrestrial origin, they are way more advanced than us, that they could have complete power over us if they wanted to, and that we have no control over them or what they do. This is frightening, so the reaction is to avoid dealing with UFOs altogether. And, our government’s attitude does not help either.” (Goop.com -September 2017)

Unabashed by the public’s thinking him a wacko, in 2007 Senator Reid had secured $11 million in a defense appropriation bill to investigate aerial phenomena. Called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, (AATIP) the agency was tasked to investigate and report unidentified aerial phenomena, a potential threat to the U.S. Its manager was a 22-year veteran of the Department of Defense, Luis Elizondo. Ten years later, he left-- citing its disregard of “overwhelming evidence” that unexplained phenomena have been interfering with the U.S. military.

“We trust the American people to know that Kim Jong Un has thermonuclear weapons pointed at L.A.,” he says. “We trust the American people to know there’s a potential Ebola pandemic that could come out of Africa. And yet we don’t trust the American people with information that there are unidentified phenomena in our airspace, and that we don’t know how it works?”

Elizondo joined Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy, whose members had been “operating under the shadows of top-secrecy for decades” before joining DeLonge. TTS announced its intention to serve the public by researching and releasing reports on aerial phenomena.

“I think they really do want us to know. I do, at this point, feel like it’s going to be a tough thing to swallow for people and I think there are elements about it that people are not ready for,” DeLonge told George Knapp, the chief investigative reporter for KLAS TV in Las Vegas and weekend host of Coast to Coast AM.

“Basically, it made UFOs go mainstream,” Jan Harzan, executive director of the Mutual UFO Network says. “UFOs are real. And it represents advanced technology in our skies. If we want to advance as a civilization, this is something we have to focus on.”  His organization accepts eyewitness accounts from all over the world. Over 600 field investigators in every state in the U.S. scrutinize, vet and then report their findings online at MUFON.com. “That’s the strength of MUFON as an organization, and as really being the-truth seekers of the UFO field.”

After a drought in media coverage for eight decades, is the public ready to learn the truth? And has the Pentagon eased up on the secrecy?

Leslie Kean believes that there are advantages for having the private sector tackle the issue. She says the government priorities are different, that there’s a lack of funding, and the topic it too hot. She suggests that religious fundamentalism and personal ideology may lead to ridicule and suppression of government investigations.

Chris Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (now at TTS) cites a lack of awareness of a major problem and a need for change. “This is another case in which the system will not repair itself and people outside of government need to take action for breakthroughs to occur.” He trusts his new team has the skill set to analyze and disseminate information that will benefit all.

Luis Elizondo can speak out. “Now is the time to move forward and try to answer some of life’s deepest mysteries.” He is the keynote speaker at the 49^th MUFON Symposium, open to UFO enthusiasts, experts and the public. The theme is just right for him: “UFOs, Extraterrestrials and the Future of Humanity.”

For the full schedule of weekend events, visit MUFONSymposium.com