Crash Retrieval Conference 2008
Dr./Col. John B. Alexander speaks at the Con.
I hadn’t really planned to attend Bob and Ryan Wood’s eighth annual Crash Retrieval Conference, since there were only a couple of people whose lectures I wanted to hear, but Mark Pilkington and Adam Gorightly were going, and Nick was speaking, so excuses evaporated.
With his partner John Lundberg, Mark is working on a documentary about the history of the U.S. Government’s involvement in the UFO subject, specifically efforts to disinform and direct the efforts of some UFO researchers. While in Las Vegas this past weekend, they interviewed Richard Dolan, John Alexander, Bill Ryan and Linda Moulton Howe to complete their shooting schedule. The finished product should be ready sometime around summer of 2009.
Adam was there with his wife to report on the event for UFO magazine, and we both attended a few of the lectures. Particularly interesting to me was Col. John Alexander’s talk which (apart from his reputation) drew me in with the teasing title: “UFOs: The Good News and the Bad News.”
Alexander’s name comes up in the files of fevered conspiracy writers in everything from remote viewing to non-lethal weaponry. There is little doubt that he was involved in classified projects for nearly 20 years, and continues to keep his hands in many pies, but he was in Las Vegas in a attempt to demystify the government’s involvement with UFOs, at least from his point of view.
Strangely (and perhaps worse to some people) I tend to agree with his main premise that the U.S. Government does not care about UFOs–at least on an official basis. Alexander maintained that the primary reason is that they were not determined to be a threat to national security. Although he contradicted this stance somewhat with remarks about the 1967 Malmstrom incident (when UFOs apparently shut down nuclear missiles in their silos) and another previously unreported instance in the USSR that involved a massive UFO and missiles that were instructed to launch without any input from the Russian military.
He also described his “UFO working group” which was convened in the late 1980s and included members such as Hal Puthoff, Ed Dames and even Bob Wood. I wrote about this group in the mid-1990s, drawing on the research of Melinda Leslie and Randy Koppang. It was also described (in more murky terms) in Howard Blum’s book Out There, published in 1990. Dubbed the “Theoretical Physics Working Group” it was apparently brought together by Alexander to study the UFO problem using the knowledge and contacts available to the members, who held sensitive positions in the government. As far as I can tell, they really didn’t find out anything important–”important” being what the government really knows about the UFO subject.
More tomorrow.
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Nov 10 2008 
November 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Thanks for mentioning I was there on the behalf of UFO Magazine. Now I guess I have to write an article.
I have a photo of Alexander, which is slightly better than yours, up now at my flickr page.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Adam,
Just trying to help.