THE UFO CHRONICLES

“I Had All the Roswell [UFO] Papers Reviewed – Everything,” said Former President Bill Clinton on Jimmy Kimmel Live | VIDEO

Former President Bill Clinton Discusses Secret UFO Files, Aliens, Roswell & Area 51 on Jimmy Kimmel | VIDEO

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

"The Paper Trail on the Clinton Administration’s UFO Intrigues, Dates Back to ... First Term "

John who?

By Billy Cox
De Void
4-4-14

Wonder what Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta had to say about his old boss’s performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live Wednesday night? It wasn’t exactly “Meet The Press,” but jeez, #42 still knows how to shimmy around potholes and leave his guys in a lurch.

In case you missed it, Kimmel asked Clinton if he had tried to get his hands on classified UFO files, which brought a huge obligatory laugh from the studio audience. “Sort of,” Clinton replied, which elicited even more bellylaffs. “I think it was at the beginning of my second term,” he went on. Then came another vintage performance in which he shifted the conversation to the “Independence Day” sci-fi flick, Area 51 — “There were no aliens down there” (more laughter) — and the inevitability of discovering ET life in the “ever-expanding universe.” Bottom line: I was on top of things and there’s nothing there.

De Void hates to keep kicking a dead horse, but god almighty, isn’t there anyone in this country besides comedians who can bring themselves to discuss The Great Taboo with a former chief executive? Or, even better, confront him with the facts?

The fact is (sorry, it’s dead horse-kicking time again), the paper trail on the Clinton administration’s UFO intrigues dates back to the very first quarter of his first term — March 1993 — when UFO-hunting fat-cat philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller began making overtures to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Rocky prepared a briefing paper for the prez, “Lifting Secrecy on Information About Extraterrestrial Intelligence as Part of the Current Classification Review,” which apparently reached Hillary Clinton’s staff in 1995.

“I had all the Roswell papers reviewed — everything,” Clinton told Kimmel. Well, no, that first-term initiative was triggered by Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM) in response to constituents’ lingering suspicions about what happened in Roswell in 1947. Acting on Schiff’s request, the General Accounting Office reported in 1995 that the military had destroyed all outgoing messages and administrative records from Roswell Army Air Field from 1947 through 1949. To his credit, Clinton made his curiosity public in Belfast — same year, 1995 — after having dispatched associate AG Webster Hubbell on a UFO fishing expedition even earlier in his first term. Twenty years later, Hubbell still gets all hinky and weird about what he did or didn’t find out.

Then, of course, in 2012, there was the Chase Brandon kerfuffle. That’s when the veteran CIA officer went national about how, in mid 1990s, around the same time Hubbell was scrounging for documents, he found a stash of smoking-gun Roswell material in the Agency’s Historical Intelligence Collection archives. "I took the box down, lifted the lid up, rummaged around inside it, put the box back on the shelf,” Brandon told the Huffington Post, “and said, 'My god, it really happened!'" He didn't report it up the ladder, and not even his boss, retired CIA chief Robert Gates, attempted to question Brandon’s veracity.

All of which brings us back to John Podesta, who has famously and repeatedly called for the declassification of UFO data. As recently as last May, after listening to eyewitness testimony at the Citizen Hearing for Disclosure in Washington, Podesta told the New York Times, “They were interesting, credible people who had observed aerial phenomena that were unexplained and worthy of additional follow-up. Going back and looking at and declassifying whatever government documents exist is a smart thing to do.”

Clinton's Jimmy Kimmel laughtrax session this week made Podesta look like a conspiracy zealot who can't give it up. Now, as senior counselor to the Obama White House, Podesta has a choice to make. He could, for starters, get Hubbell, Chase, and any number of players in the same room and figure out where it went off the rails 20 years ago. Or, like his old boss, he could just walk away. Because it's easier. Same as it ever was.
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See Also:

Clinton Admits Investigating Area 51

Will Obama's New Advisor Persuade Him to Release UFO Files?

UFOs : What Does the President Know? (Pt 2)

Dick D'Amato Unveiled as The Government Offical Who Met with Jesse Marcel Jr; Verifies Roswell Event & Government Cover-Up!

Obama, UFOs, and the First 100 Days

Monday, September 03, 2012

UFO FOIA Flash! CIA Opts for Compliance over Resistance

By Larry W. Bryant
ufoview.posterous.com
6-21-12

Champions of the public's right to know what the U. S. intelligence community has been up to UFOlogically can take heart in something positive (for a change) exuding from the arcane records-management catacombs of the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency.

This heartening development of June 15, 2012, arrived in my USPS mailbox via a letter from CIA FOIA chief Michele Meeks, enclosing some 76 pages of "open source" documentation from the Agency's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. The "responsive" pages comprise nine documents created during the period May 1, 2011, through Aug. 12, 2011.

Ms. Meeks couldn't resist chiding me for daring to utilize a modern medium of communication, one supported by taxpayers' funds: e-mail. "With respect to your concern about not receiving a response to your original request and follow-up email dated 29 September 2011, we currently do not receive correspondence over the Internet," she pronounces. (Her statement has a disingenuous ring, indeed, inasmuch as certain CIA personnel have been known to exchange e-messages with certain staff members of the U. S. Congress. Does the Agency maintain any regulation prohibiting its FOIA workforce from answering e-mail queries from us lowly taxpayers?)

Anyhow, Meeks's letter does offer us another positive tidbit: "During our searches, we located additional material not originated by the CIA. This material appears to be relevant to your request, and has been referred to the originating agency for review and direct response to you."

As I begin to peruse the (sanitized) contents of this package, I intend to keep you updated. Please check back occasionally to see what gems I've managed to glean from the contents. But get not thy hopes up -- for a thumb-through so far reveals mostly mundane newspaper clips.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

VIDCAST | Larry King Now: Tom DeLonge, James Fox, Michael Shermer and Chase Brandon Discuss UFOs On Larry's New Show (Full Episode)

Friday, August 17, 2012

THE ROSWELL UFO INCIDENT | UPDATE: Other CIA Retirees Claim To Have Seen Roswell Evidence

It still doesn’t add up

By Billy Cox
De Void
8-16-12

"Since Going Public in June, He’s Received Emails From Other CIA Retirees Who Claimed to Have Seen the Roswell Box as Well"

Nearly two months after announcing on “Coast To Coast AM” radio that he’d seen proof of the Roswell UFO crash/recovery languishing in the CIA’s historical archives, retired prominent agent Chase Brandon continues to promote the story. He was at it again early Monday morning (EDT) on Don Ecker’s “Dark Matters” podcast.

In this latest update, we learn that Brandon has not been contacted or personally reprimanded by his former employer, despite the CIA having issued an official rebuke in July (“Our historians have found nothing in the Agency’s holdings to corroborate Mr. Brandon’s specific claims”). Brandon actually defended the Agency he so clearly loves by saying its position is entirely plausible. The last time he visited what had once been the CIA’s Historical Intelligence Collection, the facility had been completely overhauled since 1998-99, when he discovered the cardboard box marked “Roswell.” All those dusty antiquities and artifacts had been relocated to make room for 21st-century upgrades and digitization.

“I have no idea where it went,” said Brandon, who added the entire inventory back then was declassified to anyone who worked for the Agency. “Unless somebody knew where it went, I don’t see how anybody could check what was in there.”

Well yeah, no reasonable person should expect the CIA to know what it did with anything in its own archives. And the dolly-jockeys who physically relocated the material to wherever — they were probably minimum-wage Manpower winos for whom a box labeled “Roswell” would mean absolutely bupkis. They probably just tossed it out with the Coke bottles.

Brandon said he didn’t share his news about The Discovery of A Lifetime with colleagues because “we operate on a need-to-know basis.” Ecker responded, “You just said it wasn’t classified.” Brandon said, well, it was actually more like personal self-policing, since professing an interest in UFOs would mean “you’re looney as a $3 bill.”

On the other hand, Brandon said that since going public in June, he’s received emails from other CIA retirees who claimed to have seen the Roswell box as well. On the other hand (how many hands are we allowed?), Brandon maintains the Agency can’t be accused of covering up Roswell because Roswell occurred in July of ‘47 and the CIA wasn’t formed until September.

De Void has sent queries to Bill Clinton and former administration deputies Webb Hubbell and John Podesta to see how they’d handle this revelation were they still calling the shots in the White House. The Clintons went looking for exactly what Brandon claims to have found and struck out. It’s difficult to believe they wouldn’t want an audience with the discoverer of the elusive holy grail.

Btw, heads up — Ecker will make another pass at Brandon on tonight at “Dark Matters.”

Thursday, August 09, 2012

What Does the CIA Know and When Did It Know It about Roswell?

By Larry W. Bryant
ufoview.posterous.com
7-25-12

Text of Ad By Larry W Bryant as Seen at www.classifiedads.com

Some months ago, former U. S. astronaut Edgar Mitchell disclosed his "insider knowledge" (as confided in him by one or more confidential
sources) that the so-called "Roswell Incident" of July 1947 constitutes the military retrieval of a crash-landed alien spacecraft. Now, ex-executive from the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency Charles"Chase" Brandon (www.chasebrandon.com) has announced his own encounter with this, the Deepest Secret.

According to his recent revelation during the syndicated "Coast-to-Coast AM" radio show hosted by George Noory, Brandon had been inside a vaulted area of the Agency when he noticed a box of records titled "Roswell." His inspection of the contents revealed such detail as photographs and references to cadavers. Thus far, he has been limiting his public account to those details.

If you, or someone you know, possess documented, verifiable evidence corroborating Brandon's discovery, you might qualify for the Roswell Whistleblower Award of $1,000 now being offered by me as a public service in supporting our fellow citizens' stakeholdership in learning the entire contents of that CIA files box. Be assured that your submitted evidence would be shared with one or more pertinent congressional committees empowered to subpoena relevant testimony from such witnesses as Brandon and from other former/current CIA personnel.

No CIA official has the right to lie to the public about any Roswellian truth; such deception invites whistleblower intervention at the highest level of the CIA hierarchy. Now is the time to join Mitchell and Brandon in their historic journey to help set the record straight. You may begin by contacting me at:

Larry W. Bryant,
8415 Orcutt Avenue
Newport News, VA 23605-1415
Phone: 757-251-2310;
e-mail: overtci@cox.net

See full text of my freedom-of-information (FOIA) request to the Agency as regards the title of this ad below:

TO: Ms. Michele Meeks
FOIA Coordinator
U. S. Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, DC 20505

FROM: Larry W. Bryant
8415 Orcutt Avenue
Newport News, VA 23605-1415

DATE: July 26, 2012

1. Reference: My classified advertisement posted at www.classifiedads.com, the text of which is printed above.

2. This freedom-of-information request seeks a photocopy of all your agency's records comprising the content of the CIA files box, labeled "Roswell," as witnessed by former CIA executive Charles "Chase" Brandon during one of his official visits to a vaulted area of the Agency -- an area that, he says, houses the Agency's "historical intelligence collection." If the sought-for records have been destroyed or transferred to another agency's custody, please send me a photocopy of all CIA records documenting that disposition.

3. Please note that this FOIA request serves not as a generic UFO-info request but as an investigatory probe into the extraterrestrial nature of the retrieved Roswell materiel and into the aftermath of the incident's official analysis, exploitation, and subsequent cover-up.

4. I submit this request as a representative of the news media (principally as a columnist for the newsstand periodical UFO Magazine) -- a requester status that affords me preferential waiver of all records-search/review fees incident to your fulfillment of this request.

5. By USPS mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Subpoena the Roswell [UFO] ‘Whistle-Blower’

By Billy Cox
De Void
7-19-12

The ET theory behind UFOs has long been a default mechanism for lack of better explanations to account for the appearance of mysterious aerial phenomena with technological overtones that baffle eyewitnesses, leave behind radar tracks, and sometimes impact weapons, flight and communications systems. Still, De Void gets nervous when researchers attempt to dialogue with politicians about “extraterrestrials.” They’d stand a better chance making introductory connections with a racial epithet.

But loaded language is exactly why the latest quixotic “We The People” White House petition from UFO lobbyist Stephen Bassett is noteworthy. Bassett is calling for the Obama administration to investigate a retired senior CIA official’s recent claims that the Agency is, in fact, in possession of material confirming the “extraterrestrial nature” of the 1947 Roswell controversy. Man-in-question Chase Brandon wasn’t some obscure bit player; he was the CIA’s public face in Hollywood when it came to determining whether or not to cooperate with big-screen storylines. Last month he stepped into a massive pile of self-inflicted doo-doo when he volunteered on a national radio show he’d examined a “Roswell” box in the CIA archives containing smoking-gun photos and official records of an ET crash in the desert.

Critics are charging, perhaps correctly, Brandon timed his announcement to coincide with the release of his sci-fi novel The Cryptos Conundrum. But what he’s done goes beyond shilling for a book; Chase Brandon’s allegation directly repudiates the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy’s contention that “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race.”

Bassett extracted that pronouncement from OSTP advisor Phil Larson last November in response to his first petition, shortly after the “We The People” website was launched. Back then, the signature threshhold for elicting a formal online response from the White House on any issue was 5,000 sign-ons collected within a 30-day window. Bassett’s petition more than doubled that, easily, as did many other solicitations. So the administration wised up by raising the bar to 25,000 names. The direct consequence has been a dramatic dropoff of interest in “We The People.” Hundreds of petitions flooded the site during its premiere last autumn. Only 32 are active today.

Bassett’s investigate-Brandon petition, filed July 10, has garnered only 332 signatures at last count, so it doesn’t stand a chance of getting the administration on record again. But should 25,000 names really be the motivational standard for plugging leaks these days? Brandon’s Roswell allegations reject not only the White House’s official position, but the CIA as well, which used diplomatic language to call him a liar last week. Skeptics are dismissing Brandon’s claims as bogus, but if they’re right, it raises bigger questions. Why did the CIA enlist such a loose cannon to protect its image in Hollywood? When is it OK for a high-ranking intelligence official to make up stories involving national security? Disinformation is obviously an age-old tactic to protect state secrets. Is it in play this time? Canadian investigator Grant Cameron is attempting to gauge the public pulse on Brandon’s gambit with an online poll.

The 35-year Agency veteran is not backing away from his claims that the military recovered “a craft that clearly did not come from this planet,” and has repeated the charges in multiple venues. Were this a more conventional security issue, Brandon would likely be telling his story under oath by now. And nobody would be waiting for 25,000 names to make it happen.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Herald Tribune Reporter, Billy Cox Queries CIA On Chase Brandon's Roswell UFO Claims

CIA smacks down former employee

By Billy Cox
De Void
7-10-12

Whether or not Chase Brandon’s Roswell UFO story has legs obviously depends on the MSM’s inclination to run with the ball. They’ve been warming up to it since June 23, when the retired CIA operative told Coast-To-Coast AM that the Agency had UFO material from the 1947 mystery stashed in its Historical Intelligence Collection files. But if the trend holds, they’ll lose all followup ardor soon enough and it’ll be a dead duck, as usual.

And that’s too bad, because someone here is clearly lying. Last week, De Void asked the CIA if a) its HIC was in possession of Roswell data, and b) would Brandon have had access to that material?Agency PIO Jennifer Youngblood responded Tuesday afternoon: “Our historians have found nothing in the Agency’s holdings to corroborate Mr. Brandon’s specific claims. The CIA has fielded numerous inquiries related to UFOs over the years, and the definitive account of the Agency’s role in UFO studies was published in 1997 and can be found — without redaction — on our website.

“The document can be found here and stands on its own: CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90

That’s a link to National Reconnaissance Organization historian Gerald Haines’ dubious 1997 assertion that most Cold War UFO sightings can be attributed to U.S. spyplane activity. It has no bearing on the Roswell controversy. And that’s pretty much all the CIA has to offer on Brandon’s claims which, if true, are pure dynamite.

Reached at home, HIC curator Hayden Peake declined to provide additional information. “My comments are all in that statement released today,” he said.

Although Brandon claimed last month he had no first-hand knowledge of the event, he told national audiences he took a peek inside a boxed file labeled “Roswell” during the mid-1990s. As a result: “I absolutely know … that there was a craft from beyond this world that crashed at Roswell, that the military picked up remains of not just the wreckage but cadavers and all of that was made public for a short while … One hundred percent guarantee, in my heart and soul I say — Roswell happened.”

Brandon added his security oath prevented him from sharing more details. But what makes him worth listening to are his credentials. A 35-year CIA veteran, he was on the media radar screen — from Popular Mechanics to Mother Jones — for his foreign intrigues long before his decision to go Roswell. At about the same time Brandon claims to have seen the Roswell material, he became the CIA’s first-ever technical consultant to Hollywood, where he reviewed scripts for image and credibility issues before lending the Agency’s imprimatur to productions.

Several things are immediately suspicious about Brandon’s revelations. Foremost is the timing, which coincides with the release of his new novel, The Cryptos Conundrum, billed as a sci-fi conspiracy thriller. Then there’s the fact that nothing he discussed about Roswell goes above and beyond anything long since in the public domain.

“Chase’s claim that he saw a box of files marked ‘Roswell’ is ridiculous,” states Sarasota researcher Tony Bragalia, who has spent years investigating Roswell. “No doubt they use identifying code and project numbers [at the Archives] — not boxes marked ‘Roswell,’ ‘JFK,’ ‘Bigfoot,’ etc. And he’s got the perfect fallback because he says he can’t offer any other details due to national security. I don’t think it’s official disinformation. I think he’s kind of setting himself up for the book. And it’s too bad because there’s so much stuff about this case that’s real and interesting.”

Brandon has not responded to De Void’s query for comment.

UFO NEWS | CIA Responds to Ex-Official’s “Roswell Happened” Claim: Not True

By Matthew Alford, PhD
silverscreensaucers.blogspot.com
7-10-12

After a tense wait, the CIA has finally stated its position on the explosive “Roswell Happened” comments made by their former Entertainment Liaison Officer Chase Brandon. Jennifer Youngblood of the Agency's Office of Public Affairs said that official historians have checked their files but “found nothing in the Agency’s holdings to corroborate Mr. Brandon’s specific claims.”

Brandon ignited an ongoing media furore following his appearance on Coast to Coast AM on June 23 of this year when he announced that he had seen evidence in a box marked ‘Roswell’ at the CIA’s Historical Intelligence Collection (HIC) which confirmed “100%” his belief that the government had recovered an extraterrestrial craft and its occupants near Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947.

The CIA was responding by email to a detailed series of questions sent by a group of British and Canadian researchers: Robbie Graham, doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol and editor of silverscreensaucers.blogspot.com, Matthew Alford, Grant Cameron, and Victor Viggiani. The group’s email requested information about Brandon, specifically: his current relationship with the CIA; the possibility of researchers checking his claims; the vetting of his comments by the Publications Review Board, and whether his utterances disclosed classified information in any way. Robbie Graham commented:

“The CIA have done exactly what we expected they would do. They’ve refused to address our questions and they’ve brushed aside Brandon’s claims without directly calling him a liar.” He added: “It’s interesting that they say they actually checked their archives for the ‘Roswell box’ Brandon described -- that must have been a weird library trip.”

The purpose of Brandon's statements remains unclear, with some pointing to him promoting his new book, The Cryptos Conundrum, and others speculating it could be part of a more sophisticated UFO disinformation or disclosure strategy. Youngblood also pointed the researchers towards the Agency's 1997 supposedly definitive account of its role in UFO studies, which appears on its website:

CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90

Saturday, July 07, 2012

CIA Veteran Claims Knowledge of Roswell-Alien Cover-up

By Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford, PhD
silverscreensaucers.blogspot.com
7-6-12

On 23 June, 2012, in an interview for the popular American radio show, Coast to Coast AM, the CIA’s former liaison to the entertainment industry, Charles ‘Chase’ Brandon made extraordinary claims about the so-called “Roswell incident,” in which the US military is widely believed to have retrieved extraterrestrial materials and bodies after a mysterious object crashed in the deserts of New Mexico.

Brandon declared:

“I also absolutely know as I sit here talking to you that there was a craft from beyond this world that crashed at Roswell, that the military picked up remains of not just the wreckage, but cadavers.”

Most explosively, Brandon recounted an occasion when he saw direct proof of the alien nature of Roswell while conducting research at the CIA’s Historical Intelligence Collection (HIC) as part of his role as CIA Entertainment Liaison Officer (ELO). Brandon claimed he had the rare opportunity to look inside a box labelled “Roswell” containing “materials... papers... [and] other items” but stressed that he “cannot, will not, under any imaginable set of circumstances tell you what I saw in there specifically,” with the implication being that to reveal more specific details would be a breach of national security.

Based on what he claims to have seen in the box, Brandon stated unequivocally: “100 percent, guaranteed... Roswell happened. There was a craft, absolutely cadavers,” but added, “Beyond that, I have no idea where anything else went.”

The “Roswell Incident” first came to public attention 65 years ago on 8 July, 1947, when the Roswell Army Air Force (RAAF) hastily announced to the press its “capture” of a downed “flying saucer” on an isolated ranch. A few hours later, the RAAF changed its story to the effect that what had been recovered, in fact, was a common weather balloon. The United States Air Force (USAF) was to change this story again in 1995 with the announcement that the “weather balloon” had been a Top Secret high-altitude spy balloon. This story was then officially re-written in 1997 to account for several apparently non-human bodies multiple eyewitnesses claimed were recovered from the crash. The bodies, the USAF equivocated, were human corpses, test dummies, or both.

To date, Brandon is the most senior CIA officer – former or serving – to have claimed direct knowledge of an extraterrestrial link to the Roswell incident. Brandon worked for the CIA for thirty-five years, twenty-five of which he spent in the Agency’s elite Clandestine Service as an undercover, covert operations officer. His foreign assignments involved international terrorism, counterinsurgency, global narcotics trafficking and weapons smuggling. He was also an Agency foreign political affairs analyst, Presidential briefer to Bill Clinton and an instructor in paramilitary and espionage tactics at secret CIA training camps. In 1996, Brandon began his ELO role in which he advised on numerous films and TV series – often uncredited – quietly shaping scripts, characters and concepts. In other words, he is an expert at working both the news and popular media. It fits, then, that Brandon was speaking in the context of a promotional interview for his new fictional UFO-themed book, The Cryptos Conundrum.

Judging from online chatter, the UFO community is wondering if Brandon’s Roswell comments may herald the much anticipated ‘Disclosure’ of alien reality. Brandon’s book passed through the Agency’s Publications Review Board (PRB), and his radio interview should, as standard procedure, have also been subject to prior approval by the PRB. If Brandon’s comments were subject to official approval, and if he was speaking the truth, then this might indicate that the CIA is using him to work what the Agency calls a ‘limited hangout,’ whereby previously hidden information is released to the public in order to prevent a greater exposure of more damaging details.

In this context, it is noteworthy that Brandon carefully absolved the CIA of any on-going complicity in an active cover-up of the Roswell incident. Brandon implied that all that now keeps this information from the public is 65 years’ worth of storage dust and the patchy institutional memory of the powers that be. As Brandon tells it, the Roswell incident is as dead as the alien cadavers he claims must be stored “somewhere.” Yes, Roswell was real and extraterrestrial, says Brandon, and yes, the evidence was “put in cold storage,” but today’s Agency should not be held accountable for the actions of a handful of panicked and perplexed Cold War-era agents who shuffled off their mortal coils decades ago and who took what little knowledge they had to their graves. And those Agency employees who do occasionally stumble across Roswell evidence today have no real understanding of what they’re looking at or what to do with it. In terms of a revelation about the existence of aliens, Brandon’s rendering is about as depoliticized as it gets.

Victor Marchetti

Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to Deputy CIA Director Richard Helms, once said that the government uses limited hangouts “when their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public.” In such instances, said Marchetti, “they resort to admitting – sometimes even volunteering – some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.”

Fittingly, in 1979, Marchetti himself raised eyebrows with his own public statements on the UFO issue. In an article for Second Look magazine, Marchetti wrote: “I do know that the CIA and the US government have been concerned over the UFO phenomenon for many years and that their attempts, both past and recent, to discount the significance of the phenomenon and to explain away the apparent lack of official interest in it have all the earmarks of a classic intelligence cover-up.” He added, “My theory is that we have, indeed, been contacted – perhaps even visited – by extraterrestrial beings, and that the U.S. Government, in collusion with other national powers of the Earth, is determined to keep this information from the general public.” However, Marchetti was merely voicing an opinion and does not claim to have seen proof of extraterrestrial contact with his own eyes, as Brandon does.

Not insignificantly, Brandon also claimed during his interview to have spoken to JFK’s coroner, who he says confirmed to him that the President had been shot from the front and was therefore most definitely the victim of a conspiracy. Of course, Brandon’s own personal ‘disclosures’ may prove an effective way to sell copies of his book, and also to whet appetites for his forthcoming sequel, The Hour Glass. This is certainly the more mainstream interpretation of what has transpired here. Still, such a deceitful and outlandish marketing strategy runs the risk of Brandon appearing to be, well, deceitful and outlandish. For a man currently employed as Senior Consultant to SpecTal, the intelligence division of defence giant BAE Systems, Brandon’s Roswell declarations are liable at least to raise difficult questions among colleagues. Furthermore, in the unlikely event that any costs result from Brandon’s statements, such as if they prompt someone to steal material from the HIC, he could at least be sued by the government.

A former high-level Reagan Administration official told us that “if” extraterrestrial material was in the possession of the US government, it would of course be classified, while another highly-respected ex-CIA Special Operations officer stressed to us that “All [CIA] employees sign a Secrecy Agreement. Violation of that agreement can bring severe repercussions.” When we made doubly clear to this CIA veteran that our enquiry related specifically to the UFO issue, he restated his position word-for-word, with the addendum “Have a nice day.” In theory, the penalties include life in jail or even a death sentence.

As yet, however, Brandon has fallen artfully through the cracks in the national security system. Even though in practice the government is clearly sensitive about the UFO phenomenon (with reams of declassified documentation from every branch of the government revealing high-level concern about UFO incidents worldwide into the post-Cold War era), it has maintained since the closure of the USAF’s Project Blue Book in 1969 that UFOs are definitely not a national security concern. Furthermore, the very concept of ‘national security’ is more slippery than is often suggested by the image of square-jawed, be-suited men with guns. Former Chairman of the PRB, John Hollister Hedley, commented recently that even the CIA’s own definition of national security was not “hard and fast” or “absolute or constant.” Consequently, whether there is any truth to Brandon’s statements or not, Washington would be hard-pressed to prosecute, even if it had the will to do so.

We asked Chase Brandon to elaborate on and justify his Roswell comments. He has yet to reply.

We also sent the CIA a list of questions and requested a formal response to Brandon’s allegations. The Agency has assured us they are looking into our enquiry and will get back to us “quickly.” We are still waiting.

About the Authors:

Robbie Graham is a doctoral candidate at the University of Bristol for a PhD examining Hollywood’s historical representations of UFOs and potential extraterrestrial life. He holds a Masters degree with Distinction in Cinema Studies from the University of Bristol and a First Class Honours degree in Film, Television and Radio Studies from Staffordshire University. He has broadcast on BBC Radio, Radio Ireland and Canal+ TV. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Filmfax, Fortean Times, Adbusters and the peer-reviewed journal of North American Studies, 49th Parallel.

Matthew Alford, PhD is the author of Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy (Pluto Press, 2010). His academic and journalistic work focuses on the relationship between entertainment, political power, and propaganda in the United States. His academic work has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Scope: An Online Journal of Film and TV Studies, Westminster Papers for Communication and Culture, and 49th Parallel. He has been interviewed as an expert on Hollywood propaganda for publications and broadcasters including Vanity Fair, Media Lens, Z-Net, Russia Today, Press TV and Al Jazeera, among others.

A note from the authors about this story:

We were unable to find a mainstream outlet for our report, despite its conspicuous newsworthiness in light of this week’s 65th anniversary of the Roswell incident. Our article was submitted to the following mainstream and alternative news outlets:

Huffington Post

Telegraph

Telegraph on Sunday

Roswell Daily Record

Albuquerque Journal

Sana Fe New Mexican

Guardian

Daily Mail

Los Angeles Times

National Post

Globe and Mail

Toronto Sun

Toronto Star

Raw Story

Mother Jones

Z-Net

Alternet

GregPalast.com

Regardless of the exact nature of the UFO phenomenon, it is a great shame for those of us interested in either UFOs or government propaganda that Chase Brandon's statements have been unchallenged and, indeed, unreported outside of the UFO community and that the CIA itself has yet to respond to them, despite our enquiries. Brandon’s statements beg explanation for several reasons, not least because they indicate that the concerns of the powerful are very distant from those of ordinary citizens in a participatory democracy.

. . . More