Showing posts with label Congressional Hearings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congressional Hearings. Show all posts

Thursday, August 15, 2019

'Congress was Aware Long Ago That UFOs Were Real and Worthy of Scientific Examination'




UFOs? You're Welcome

     Once the congressional fun starts with a UFO inquiry, we generally end up plodding down a well-worn path to the town of Nevermind, otherwise known in some circles as Politically Taboo Village.

Aside from former Sen. Harry Reid's kick-off of the newest UFO football game (taxpayer-funded in secrecy). Sen. Mark Warner (VA) was next to run with the ball and raise concerns about UFOs encountered by military pilots. Now it's Rep. Mark Walker (NC) demanding a sober answer from Navy secretary Richard
Robert Barrow
By Robert Barrow
The UFO Chronicles
8-13-19
Spencer about the possibility of UFOs representing, hmm, perhaps a Chinese military threat.

A Chinese threat bouncing about in our skies since the 1940s and even prior to that?

Pardon my skepticism, but we've seen it all before, every act of this pretentious Vaudeville-Era performance. It starts with congressional outrage or curiosity and ends with either no government action noted publicly and/or press releases assuring one and all that there is no threat to national security. And, oh, um, government folk can wash their hands clean by throwing a few dollars into a Colorado U-style "investigation" designed to make everybody feel enlightened and prone to just go away.

During the early years of this blog -- you know, before R. Barrow went insane and began concentrating more on political issues and little teeny-tiny concerns about government people dedicated to diminishing the established rights of every American? -- we dealt almost exclusively with the UFO issue and our small part in research and investigations. In those pages are scans of letters from a number of congressmen and senators responding to my queries (going back to the early sixties) about the importance of the UFO issue.

But my inquiries were not unique. Indeed, we now know that government agencies and personnel were taking UFO reports seriously in the forties and fifties. By the time the 1960s arrived, particularly after the 1964 Socorro UFO encounter and later on reports from Michigan, precipitating then-Congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan to demand an investigation, congressional offices were inundated with anxious constituent letters begging for answers.

The point is that Congress was aware long ago that UFOs were real and worthy of scientific examination -- a phenomenon so bizarre and apparently posing such an obvious danger to air travel that its very nature demanded a look. If you check out NICAP's 1964 document, The UFO Evidence, given to EVERY member of Congress (see link to NICAP and click on free books section), there's a section quoting numerous congressional members going back to the fifties, most of them expressing interest in the evidence. And -- so what?

Throughout the decades, it wasn't a congressional majority or scientific consensus keeping the UFO subject in the spotlight: Proponents familiar with evidence extending all over the world were instead the private research organizations and individuals who knew, despite the skeptics and debunkers, that, indeed, here was an enigma not to be ignored. Sad to say, even the crackpots and book authors who claimed visits to Venus and Mars accompanied by elegant extraterrestrial beings helped keep the issue alive, even as so-called members of the scientific community did little but ridicule UFO witnesses and throw up various roadblocks to serious investigations.

The names Dr. James McDonald, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe, Richard Hall, Jim and Coral Lorenzen and hundreds, probably thousands more, both living and dead performed the hard work resulting in extensively researched files long available to any serious congressional entity truly interested in exploring what seemingly constitutes the greatest scientific mystery of our times.

Yet, here we go again, and this time the nameplates read Senator Mark Warner and Congressman Mark Walker. Oh well, at least they share the same initials and each is named Mark, making it easier to remember their, perhaps, just momentary visitation to the land of sky conundrums. Deja vu, howdy do?

We hope Congress will someday thank all the fine and talented people (and maybe the crackpots, too, for their interesting lunatic efforts!) who sacrificed decades building an extensive science-based international library of UFO documentation which all may behold and from which all officials should have learned THE FIRST TIME.

Who knows, maybe someday a Ken Burns type will produce a multi-part TV documentary exploring the importance of specific individuals and organizations to the enormity of a mystery whose identity may or may not be right around the corner -- a "thank you" of sorts at last to a class of characteristically just-plain-folks whose echoing ghostly retort of You're welcome, we did our best blowing in the wind will be their only reward.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Congressmen, Senators Favor Hearing On UFOs | UFO CHRONICLE – 1973



Congressmen, Senators Favor Hearing On UFOs - USA News Report 1973

     A group of Senators and Congressmen have stated they will support an investigation of U.nidentified F.lying O.jects (UFOs), a private UFO study organization has announced.
By USA News Report
1973

The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP), which analyzes "Flying Saucer" reports, quoted several prominent members of Congress in current issue of its newsletter.

Saturday, March 02, 2019

Fmr Senator Harry Reid Wants UFO Research Made Public | VIDEO



Fmr Senator Harry Reid Wants UFO Research Made Public

     Former Nevada Senator Harry Reid is continuing to make the case for renewed studies into the UFO mystery.

Back in 2007, Reid and a few senate colleagues sponsored a
By George Knapp
www.lasvegasnow.com
2-27-19
secret Pentagon program that investigated mystery aircraft and related phenomena.

The program was based in southern Nevada, but that effort ended six years ago, and very little from the study has been made public. Now, the senator not only hopes the X-Files get released but thinks there should be a renewed effort to get to the bottom of things.

"I'll bet you anything that China is spending money to check this out I'll bet you anything that KGB Putin is spending some money checking this out," said former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Sunday, February 03, 2019

Congressional Hearings into UFOs Called For, By Former Senator Harry Reid | VIDEO

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Congressional Hearings into UFOs Called For, By Former Senator Harry Reid

     Former Nevada Senator Harry Reid is calling for formal congressional hearings probing the enduring mystery of UFOs.

The longtime leader of Senate Democrats quietly sponsored a
By George Knapp
www.lasvegasnow.com
1-31-19
secret Pentagon study of UFOs and related mysteries. The program was based in Las Vegas but ended in 2012.

Now, in his first on-camera interview in more than a year, Reid says both Congress and the Pentagon should take a fresh look at the topic, and he intends to help make it happen.

Monday, January 12, 2015

"What, Realistically, Do You Hope To Accomplish?" | WHITE HOUSE UFO PETITION

"What, Realistically, Do You Hope To Accomplish?" |  WHITE HOUSE UFO PETITION

Road without end

By Billy Cox
De Void
1-12-15

     Talk about snakebit. The very day UFO activist Steve Bassett launches his latest petition to enlist White House support for UFO hearings on The Hill — boom — religious degenerates in France monopolize the headlines by slaughtering irreverent free thinkers. Not to suggest in any way that Bassett’s designs on dragging The Great Taboo into the sunlight was in any danger of getting MSM attention in the first place; after all, this is his seventh pass at it. Still. Given the patterns, it kinda makes you wonder about the mysterious ways in which the universe rewards this species of tenacity.

Let's go back a dozen years or so. As founder of the nation's only registered lobby dedicated to wresting the "UFO truth embargo" from government shadows, Bassett decides to run as an independent in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. If elected, the director of the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee will raise hell under the Dome to declassify federal UFO secrets. But in October, with the 2002 campaign rounding the home stretch, a couple of psycho car-trunk snipers turn the D.C. 'burbs into a shooting gallery. Voters are thinking more about exit routes and body armor than ET. Bassett gets maybe one percent of the vote.

In the ensuing years, he will hit if from other angles. At the beginning of the Obama administration, for instance, he urged kindred spirits to swamp the White House press corps with letters, emails, phone calls, etc., urging them to ask the new regime pointed UFO questions. He called that one the Million Fax on Washington.

He also staged a series of Washington-area "X-Conference" seminars in hopes of exposing the Beltway media to a range of perspectives on The Great Taboo. In 2007, Washington Post political columnist Dana Milbank shows up. Amid such a target-rich environment, Milbank naturally takes the freak-show angle, and furnishes an opening quote from a crackpot who says, "The truth amnesty project is reportedly recommended by the participating extraterrestrials themselves." The media momentum never materializes; financial woes follow. Yet, in 2013, thanks to a million-dollar wad dropped on the thing by Canadian philanthropist Tom Clearwater, Bassett rolls his biggest wager to date. He stages what he calls the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure. He pays half a dozen retired congresspersons, including a former senator, $20k apiece to preside over a week-long series of testimonials from UFO witnesses of wildly divergent pedigree and persuasions. It will be conducted with the formality of real hearings. Afterwards, Bassett will produce and forward DVDs to every member of Congress.

“We’ll create so much public interest, a lot of the editors are gonna say, Christ almighty, enough is enough, that’s it, let’s get some answers from these guys,” Bassett says before the big show at the National Press Club in Washington. “And if they ask the right questions, I predict the truth embargo will be over within 60 days."

Dot dot dot ...

But wait -- just before that, in 2011, in a hideously tantalizing twist of fate, the White House announces it will officially address whatever grievance Joe Sixpack wants to bring to its attention. Seriously. Team Obama made the initiative sound populist by calling it We The People. And all Joe Sixpack's gotta do is convince 5,000 people to sign an online We The People petition. Five thousand names -- that's nothing.

Almost immediately, the geniuses who dreamed up that paltry threshold know they’ve screwed up when an avalanche of gripes, from the profound to the egregiously insipid, begin clogging the pipes. Within weeks, the We The People architects decide to raise the bar to 25,000 signatures. Still, it's too late to thwart Bassett’s demand that the administration “formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and immediately release into the public domain all files from all agencies and military services relevant to this phenomenon.” The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy responds with rote blurbs on SETI and Kepler and Mars Curiosity Rover, along with this:

“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. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.”

Six more We The People petitions will follow — e.g., please investigate UFO intrusions over U.S. nuclear missile fields, make official public inquiries into President Clinton’s murky intrigues with the so-called Rockefeller Initiative, etc. But none of those appeals will come close to reaching the 25,000 signature mark. And by 2013, after having to respond to a non-Bassett petition requesting America to build a Death Star as a jobs-creation stimulus, We The People has pretty much had it with Those People and raises the trigger response to 100,000 names. Which means Bassett, in this latest round, will need to gather more than 3,000 names a day by Feb. 6 to provoke the White House into to weighing in on his request for support of congressional UFO hearings. Should the sun rise in the west and he actually reaches six figures, here's De Void's crystal ball on We The People's response: “The executive branch does not set the legislative agenda, but we take your concerns seriously. Therefore, we have forwarded your request to the Hon. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Hon. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) for their thoughtful consideration.”

And finally, there’s this: After three notifications from the Federal Elections Commission that his Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee is five months derelict in reporting receipts and disbursements, Bassett now describes his one-man lobby as “in suspension.” And yet. When asked by De Void, "What, realistically, do you hope to accomplish?", Bassett's succinct email reply is stalwart: "Disclosure."

This story has a moral to it. Somewhere. It just has to.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Former President Ford's UFO Legacy: Unapproving of The Air Force's Explanation He Requests (a Real) Congressional Investigation (Redux)


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By Frank Warren
The UFO Chronicles
© 12-27-06/13

Gerald Ford (Sml)     The year 1966 was very active for UFOs in this country; in particular sightings were heavy in the state of Michigan, and understandably people wanted answers. The Air Force back then was still “officially” investigating the phenomenon and tasked “J. Allen Hynek” to “calm the waters” and offer an explanation; the answer he gave would haunt him the rest of his life. He attributed the bulk of the sightings to “swamp gas!”

Then Congressman “Gerald ‘Jerry’ Ford” being a diligent politician and in response to his constituents wrote:
"In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject.

I have taken special interest in these (UFO) accounts because many of the latest reported sightings have been made in my home state of Michigan...Because I think there may be substance to some of these reports and because I believe The American people are entitled to a more thorough explanation than has been given them by the Air force to date, I am proposing either the Science and Astronautics Committee or the Armed services Committee of the House, schedule hearings on the subject of UFOs and invite testimony from both the executive branch of the Government and some of the persons who claim to have seen UFOs...In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject."

That specific letter was received by the "House Armed Services committee" and the "House Science and Astronautics Committee" in order to instigate hearings on the matter; Ford’s efforts weren’t met with great enthusiasm; however, he did in fact get the ball rolling, and a “Congressional Symposium” did later take place, ironically chaired by then Congressman “Donald Rumsfeld.”

In a radio broadcast to his constituents on March 30, 1966 Ford stated:
"My friends of the fifth congressional district, this is your congressman, Jerry Ford, speaking to you from the nation’s capitol.

As you know, I have requested a congressional investigation of unidentified flying objects, UFO’s, as they are called.

I am most serious about this; this is the kind of subject that lens itself to some flak, a little criticism, and a shower of compliments.

One day this week, I felt an unidentified flying object whiz past my ear--my right ear naturally. Upon close inspection, I had no more trouble identifying this particular UFO than the Air Force did in telling the people of Michigan they have been seeing swamp gas.

The UFO I encountered was a brickbat tossed by an irate gentleman who believes Congress could use its time to much better advantage than in investigating what he calls "UFO hysteria."

But this is one of the few criticisms I encountered in the more than 50 letters that I received since first proposing that UFO’s be investigated by either the House Armed Services Committee or the House Science and Astronautics Committee.

. . . And I do think that the American people want a better explanation of UFO’s than they have been getting. If my mail is any indication, there are many, many people who find it extremely difficult to believe some of the stories put out by the government on this and other subjects.

This is your congressman, Jerry Ford, saying--so--long for now, and I’ll see you nest week at this same time, same station."
The Air Force, and in particular, Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla, the “Director of Project Blue Book” (The Air Force’s official investigation of the UFO Phenomenon) wasn’t happy with Ford’s statements, and obvious jab at the Air Force’s “lack of results” with “their” investigation of phenomenon.

He wrote:
"Congressman Gerald Ford got on the UFO bandwagon. It just so happens that Dexter was in Congressman Ford’s district. It was pure politics and he made the national news by demanding that either the Science and Astronautics Committee or the Armed Services Committee schedule hearings on the subject of UFOs....Congressman Ford did get his wish, a congressional hearing was imminent. Someone should ask Congressman Ford what it cost the American taxpayer to hold that hearing and ask him if he would like to reimburse for the expense; because that hearing was totally unnecessary."
On April 21st, 1966 Ford wrote:
"As I had expected, some persons have been ridiculed by the call for a congressional investigated of unidentified flying objects (UFO’s). These people are a fraction of those who have given their reaction to my proposal. The overwhelming majority of those expressing a view in letters to me believe a congressional investigation would be useful and is needed.

Those who scoff at the idea of a congressional investigation of UFO’s apparently are unaware that the House Armed services Committee has scheduled a closed- door hearing on the matter Tuesday with the Air Force and that rep. Joseph E. Karth, D-Minn., headed a three man sub-committee which held two days of hush-hush hearings five years ago on behalf of the Science and Astronautics Committee. Karth has confirmed in conversation with a member of my staff that he conducted these secret hearings.

The present Science and Astronautics Committee chairman, Rep. George P. Millar, D. Calif., has shied away from the UFO problem at this time, saying his committee does not have the jurisdiction over the Air Force. But the late Rep. Overton Brooks, D.La., obviously had different ideas because he tapped Karth to summon Air Force witnesses and question them after a flurry of sightings in 1961.

Karth has informed me that his subcommittee made an oral report to the full committee but never released anything to the public. According to Charles F. Ducander, the committee staff director, no record was made of the conversation between Karth subcommittee and the Air Force witnesses. The hearings, he said, took place in Karth’s congressional office.

I have never said that I believe any of the reported UFO sightings indicate visits to earth from another planet. Apart from the pranks and natural phenomena, some of these objects may well be products of experimentation by our own military. If this is so, why doesn’t the Air Force concede it and in this way reassure the American people/ there would be no need to go into detail on the nature of the experiments."

He further stated:
The Air Force has informed me it is arranging for a study by high-caliber scientists of some of the UFO sightings which have never been explained.

This study will be placed under contract soon after July 1, start of the new fiscal year. It will be carried out by a university which has no close ties with the Air Force so that the findings will be completely objective, Air Force officials tell me.

Those people engaged in the study will be high-caliber scientists who have never taken a position on UFO’s, the Air Force said. It will be made clear to them that they are not being hired to come up with findings in support of previous Air Force statements regarding UFO’s, I am informed.

The Air Force said there is too much effort involved to ask these scientists to make this study without pay.

The report will definitely be made public, The Air Force assured me. The whole purpose of the study is to make clear the air as far as the public is concerned.

This, of course, was my purpose in recently requesting that public hearings on the subject of UFO’s be conducted by either the Armed Services Committee or the House Science and Astronautics Committee.

It was as a result of my call for a congressional investigation that the Air Force now is arranging for a study of UFO’s by topflight scientists not connected in any way with the Air Force.

I would have preferred a congressional investigation with witnesses to include reliable persons from among those who say they have seen UFO’s. I still think this would be beneficial. But the UFO study by a panel of scientists, with the report to be made public, is a step in the right direction.
This of course did come to fruition and was the culmination of the Air Force's 20+ years of investigating the "UFO phenomenon," i.e., the "Condon Report."

Perhaps to no one's surprise, "after" Ford became president "it seemed" his "interest in UFOs" waned; years later he would comment:
"During my public career in Congress, as Vice President and President, I made various requests for information on UFOs. The official authorities always denied the UFO allegations."
As the nation mourns former President Gerald Ford, and remembers his many contributions, undoubtedly much will be attributed to him in regards to the healing of our country post Nixon & Watergate etc.; however, for those of us who pay attention to such matters, we will also herald his "lesser known" contributions made in the effort to unravel the "UFO enigma."