How Should “Disclosure” Be Handled?
In light of the recent X-Conference, I was reminded of some ideas about so-called UFO “disclosure” by the U.S. Government, and how to achieve it.
Activists like Stephen Bassett believe that overt pressure on government officials though the use of star witnesses and diligent research will force the issue enough to make UFOs a priority agenda item in the halls of the legislature. Small blips on the media radar are counted as victories for the cause. The idea (I believe) is that a string of such revelations will coalesce into some sort of grassroots movement amongst people who have never had an interest in UFOs and/ or will force lawmakers to call for a release of official information. Unfortunately, some personalities in this movement also piggyback their belief in extraterrestrials on the Disclosure agenda, which does little to engender serious public debate.
Perhaps a good example of this in our history was the Vietnam War. It has been persuasively argued that a generation who took to the streets in protest of that episode was the reason for the U.S. withdrawal in 1973. This fails to take into account the increasing problems for the U.S. presence in the region, and other factors which made it a losing proposition, such as the ineffectiveness of the air war and the surprising resolve and inventiveness of the North Vietnamese.
If we consider the original efforts of Major Donald Keyhoe to force government openness on the UFO subject from the mid-1950s to the 1960s, and the almost complete failure of this tactic over the last 50 years, it seems unlikely that any UFO information will be forthcoming from officialdom in the near future. It’s not something that is a big problem for those who are keeping any secrets about UFOs and possible “aliens.” There are no extenuating circumstances to force their hand.
Nick and I have both argued our belief that the U.S. Government is hiding its ignorance of UFOs more than any so-called “truth” about the origin and purpose of any non-human presence. If this is the case, perhaps “disclosure” is almost impossible, since the power structure is not about to admit to anything that it doesn’t know enough about and can’t control.
Rumors of crashed vehicles and releases of questionable documents relating to aliens does little to convince the news media, academia, or most of the public, and it shouldn’t. Many current and former government officials and public office holders are interested in UFOs, and have tried to crack the shell of secrecy surrounding the subject, with no reported success. The relevant records might be out of the reach of officialdom because they may have been moved into the private sector, out of reach of popular redress and FOIA requests.
Perhaps the best way to go about an open release of official UFO files would be to treat it as a political game rather than a protest movement. A quorum of insiders must decide to play the game in the labyrinth of security, closed records, and officials who have made secrecy and paranoia a career choice. For all we know, this may have happened or is happening now. This scenario is of course mostly (or completely) out of the control of the public and those who call for “disclosure.”
Does this mean that those who study UFOs and call for an official examination of the phenomenon should give up? Of course not. The best private research on the UFO enigma (maybe even amongst Disclosure advocates!) may influence these “insiders.” Intelligent people in these ranks will look at the most convincing data. Media presentations on the best evidence (to borrow a phrase from Paul Kimball) may also be an important factor in convincing someone with access to personnel and information to start asking questions and requesting records. The ultimate step is to have this information released in a format that convinces the gatekeepers of science and information that it is genuine, which may be quite difficult.
Ultimately, we may be looking at a puzzle that has so many missing pieces that the human race has no real way to solve it at this point in history. The timetable on Disclosure may be up to the phenomenon itself. The problem is convincing someone with the proper clearances to find out what is known, and what is not. “Discolsure” may be an official admission that there is a mystery (not necessarily occasional visitations from ETs), and that it deserves serious attention from serious minds.
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Apr 29 2009 
April 29th, 2009 at 11:45 am
“There are no extenuating circumstances to force their hand.”
What kind of ‘extenuating forces’ can you imagine, Greg?
April 29th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
RPJ,
I’m not sure. Personal scandal as a threat? The fear that someone may reveal something convincing before they do?
Both of these are not likely, though. If you have been in on many official secrets for a long time, you’ve probably had a microscope pointed up your behind for many years–”vetted” as they say. As for the fear that someone may beat you to the punch, that would have happened already. I’m afraid that anything coming from insiders playing games with each other will need to rely on someone who takes a revelation of non-human intelligence more seriously than their secrecy oaths and personal image.
The phenomenon makes its own deniability by its very nature, and ours.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Well, Bassett claimed in the post X-Conference press conference that he had something to force their hand and it would all come down in May, that Obama’s hand would be forced and Disclosure will rock…of course, we’ve heard such proclamations before. Every decade has a new UFO disclosure champion, so I’m not holding my breath. Disclosure, as you note, will come not from the hand of man, but by some undeniable something right in our face…we have no idea what that something might be…
April 30th, 2009 at 1:27 am
…as long as its not a Vogon Constructor ship, Adam.
I tend to agree with Greg and Nick that
if the goverment is concealing anything,
its ignorance, not knowledge.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Greg,
We are in agreement - disclosure is NOT near.
Rick Phillips
Ufo Disclosure Countdown Clock
April 30th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Dont’ forget that this all presumes that there is something to disclose, and there is no evidence for that.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Disclosure is a straw-man argument to the extreme. Very similar to the Time Square preachers demanding that we all release Satan from our souls — but then Reagan and Bush are secretly hanging out with Jesus aka the alien-angel who will save AmeriKKKa.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:48 am
I agree on two points but not on one. I agree that the PRG Disclosure Project effort is (for many reasons)a seriously mis-guided approach. I also agree that government officials may not now have access to the information or a means to obtain it. I do not agree, however, that there is nothing to tell. If there was not some real knowledge of the phenomenon to hide, why did Blue Book make a concerted effort to do nothing to investigate many significant, viable incidents? Why was there such obvious collusion between the USAF and the Condon Committee to whitewash the whole subject? I do not believe the military is not deeply interested in following up on any and every unknown object flying in our skies and especially around military installations. They may not have a complete story and answers to every question, but you can bet that they have come to some conclusions and have and continue to have a back-engineering program. There is, I am convinced, a repositiory organization for the information (and hardware) they have gathered over the years. The two primary reasons for “disclosure” are still there. One - none of us want an exo-government secret cabal working with and taking advantage of this accumulated knowledge without oversight from the public. Two - none of us want secret negotiations with what is likely an ET presence without public input.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:05 am
rlsalas,
I agree that there is compelling evidence that the government (or private companies with contracts) have UFO information, and have done their best to stall and obfuscate. I also agree that they have their own ideas about what is going on.
What I don’t think they know is how to deal with the problem, and that is what is keeping the information locked up. This is what I meant by “ignorance.”
It is probable that they also believe that any release of their information would change so many things in our belief structure that it is not worth the trouble to admit that they believe that there is some sort of non-human presence. It would involve a major shift in religious, scientific, and political philosophy.
I will admit that my belief structure informs my opinions, which is that the ET Hypothesis is not proven, it is simply a theory. People in positions with the best information available may have come to this conclusion as well. If they aren’t exactly sure what is happening, or how to control it, what good reason is there (from their point of view) to admit this?
It is also a convenient subject to use as a counterintelligence tool.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
“Perhaps the best way to go about an open release of official UFO files would be to treat it as a political game rather than a protest movement.”
I wonder if this preposterous flu epidemic story is a dry run to see how people will react to a scary story, i.e. extra terrestrials about to reveal themselves. Maybe the game has begun and the ball is in our court.
My guess is that people will be interested for two days then go back to watching American Idol.