Should U.S. Presidential Candidates Stake Out a Policy Position on UFOs?

November 08, 2007

In addition to the Iraq war, global warming and other important world issues, voters and the news media have been pressing 2008 presidential candidates for their positions on extraterrestrial matters as well. Here’s a video clip of former New York mayor and GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani at a town meeting in New Hampshire, being quizzed about how he would respond to an attack on the U.S. by space aliens. (“Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens," was Hizzoner’s response.) According to this Fort Worth Star-Telegram story, New Mexico Gov. and Democratic contender Bill Richardson revealed to a questioner at a Texas event that as a member of Congress, he had asked for access to U.S. Department of Defense files on the infamous Roswell UFO incident, but was rebuffed because the information was classified. (“That ticked me off,” he added.) And in the most recent Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich confirmed a published claim that he had once seen a gigantic triangular craft hovering silently for 10 minutes over the home of actress-turned-New Age maven Shirley MacLaine.  “I did," Kucinich admitted. "It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It's like, it's unidentified; I saw something."  As this article from Rawstory.com recounts, Kucinich subsequently contended — not quite correctly — that more Americans have seen UFOs  than approve of President Bush’s job performance. (According to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll, 34 percent of Americans believe in UFOs, roughly the same number who support Bush.)

The Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, is probably a bit too cautious to speak out about the possibility of alien spacecraft visiting Earth. Nevertheless, Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein reports that Stephen Bassett, chief lobbyist for the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee, is leaning toward supporting the former first lady, in part because Clinton adviser (and her husband’s former chief of staff) John Podesta has advocated declassification and release of Defense Department files on a purported UFO sighting in Kecksburg, Pa., in 1965. (“It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon," Podesta told CNN in 2002.)

Some might consider the UFO issue a bit too, well, wacky for a potential president to even bother thinking about. But others, such as Richardson, argue that it’s time for full disclosure of whatever the government knows about UFO incidents, if only in the interest of transparency and restoring trust that has been eroded by the Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy. Give us your opinion here.

Comments

[Daniel Klaisner]

I feel that ufos do exist but that isnt the matter at hand. If the government knows about ufos then the people should know. If aliens do visit us then thats a world matter they are visiting OUR planet so WE should know. Also if the government knows they are real than we shouldent be planning for defense. Wouldent it make sense that if they are so advanced they would have evolved past war...its such a primitave thing!

[Patrick]

You raise a provocative question. If extraterrestrials with advanced space-travel capabilities do indeed exist, would they pose a threat to humans, or is it more likely that they would have evolved past violence and war? Astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovsky hypothesized in 1966 that technological civilizations will either tend to destroy themselves within a century of developing interstellar communicative capability, or else master their self-destructive tendencies and survive for billion-year timescales. Just because an extraterrestrials no longer wage war against one another, however, doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't attempt to destroy what it sees as an alien species (i.e. humans). It could be that evolution functions on an interstellar level, and that an extraterrestrial species could function as the sort of super-predator that some scientists believe have triggered mass extinctions in Earth's past. (http://www.terradaily.com/news/life-05zzf.html

[Martin J. Smith]

Has anyone considered the true origins of Kucinich? Those ears...

[Mothra]

well, since the Weekly World News alien isn't going to be around this election, Presidential candidates will have to come up with something to get the extraterrestrial vote.

[Daniel Klaisner]

I agree with you patrick. I think that if aliens want anything with us though would be to study us and our ways of evolution, and how the world works in certain situations. But then again we could pose a threat somehow.

[James Carrion]

Well I guess it would depend on what is being protected. If UFOs are extraterrestrial/extra-dimensional in nature, then unequivocally the public has a right to know, and the information should be declassified. If UFOs prove to be our own exotic technology, cloaked in UFO mythology, for national security reasons, then the classification is appropriate. However, what happens if UFOs represent both explanations, some extraterrestrial/extra-dimensional and some of our own exotic creation? Then you have the dilemma of revealing one spoiling the convenient hiding of the other. A classic catch-22. It seems to me that those in the know have faced this dilemma for some time and have opted to keep whatever UFOs are secret to cover up their own technology experiments. So any presidential candidate, once elected is faced with the dilemma of either fulfilling campaign promises or protecting national security, assuming they are briefed on the UFO situation to begin with. It is a no-brainer which they will choose.

James Carrion
International Director, Mutual UFO Network, Inc.

[Patrick]

The Mutual UFO Network's web site, http://www.mufon.com/, is worth checking out. It includes a data-entry form for reporting UFO sightings in a consistent fashion. (http://www.mufon.com/reportufo.htm)

[Lynwood Thompson]

Despite the increasing number of highly credible witnesses to what the government knows and has been about for the last sixty years this subject is still taboo in so-called intellectual gatherings. To even mention it is to invite public ridicule as Dennis Kucinich found out recently. It is this very skillfully handled manipulation of the media and consequent public opinion that has fostered the political environment in which we now live. The Bush White House has lied to us with an air of impunity. We have entered into a totally unnecessary and costly war because of the lies that were told and sold to us wholesale. While Democracy and freedom were the reasons given for this invasion we all knew it was about the oil. Thousands of American lives lost or shattered to keep the oil flowing. Tens of thousands of Iraqi lives lost or shattered for the stated purpose of containing the spread of terrorism. The intelligence community pressured to produce evidence of weapons of mass destruction first in Iraq (none there) and now in Iran (none there either) and for what? So that we can continue polluting the environment with fossil fuels? So that the land of the free and the home of the brave can continue being the only country with the capacity to obliterate the entire planet with just a fraction of its 10,000 nuclear warheads?
In light of our foreign policy and the reasons our leaders give for taking us into war over and over, there does indeed need to be a re-examination of who we are and what we really stand for. To my way of thinking, that begins with loosening the military's hold on the technologies that are being examined and developed at great expense to the American taxpayer. Literally hundreds of witnesses have come forward with what they know about these technologies and how they could literally transform the world. Free and clean energy would not only give the planet the chance to heal itself, but the sharing of this great knowledge would be the greatest gift to the world and the clearest indication of our willingness to create peace and prosperity for all.
Should ferreting out those who would withhold it and keep the world in bondage be a political issue? Of course it should. Should we as a people work hard to eliminate poverty, war and the suffering that it brings? Of course we should. Are these achievable goals? They are when we stop allowing ourselves to be lied to and stop allowing our hard earned dollars to be used to create weapons of mass destruction instead of far reaching plans for peace and prosperity.
If all the other developed countries in the Western world can give free health care and free education up to the completion of a student's undergraduate studies, then we must ask ourselves why we lag behind. Look no further than the military-industrial complex and those who stand to profit from conflict.

[Patrick]

I like how you frame the UFO issue in a broader context.

[Patrick]

Time magazine's Karen Tumulty reports (http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1683666,00.html )that there are 300 Freedom of Information Act requests for Clinton Administration records in the queue at the National Archives, and the first ones on the list are requests for records concerning UFOs. Here's one intriguing request:

"2006-0492-F: All files on UFOs, Roswell, New Mexico, flying saucers, Area 51 or the TV show X-Files in the files of John Podesta..."

"Why John Podesta?" Tumulty writes. "The Clinton Library helpfully tells us of Clinton's White House Chief of Staff:

FOIA request 2006-0492-F consists of e-mails to and from John Podesta, containing the words either, X-Files or Area 51. John Podesta was a renowned fan of the "X-Files" television show.

Podesta, through a spokesperson, said of the FOIA requests, 'the truth is out there.' But like all FOIA requests, it may take a while before we get to see it. "

[Lynwood]

I'd like to add an addendum to my previous blog. It still seems incredible to me that more Americans are not connecting the dots. To help in that process I refer them to the info on The Disclosure Project.org. This is a wonderful compilation of what has been accomplished thus far and how we can move the cart forward. Dr. Steven Greer will someday be remembered as the great humanitarian that he is. George Filer should be Googled as well for weekly updates on what is happenig around the world concerning sightings and physical contact.

[Patrick]

fyi, the Disclosure Project's web site is at http://www.disclosureproject.org/

[Bernard Haisch]

I don't know whether or not there is any classified project that survived the end of Project Blue Book, but the SCI system (Sensitive Compartmented Information) certainly does have the structure and capability to keep a project secret for decades if it exists. A system consisting of special access programs with their own security apparatus is in place that could handle this level of secrecy. In 1997 there were at least 150 special access programs. Even congress and the president are not briefed on the so-called "waived unacknowledged" special access programs. This is discussed on my website www.ufoskeptic.org based largely on a 1995 U. S. Senate document on classified programs by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I also give an example of a nuclear weapons material program that exposed thousands of workers to dangerous radiation levels in the 1940s and 1950s that was not exposed until USA Today ran a story on it in 2000.

I also urge fellow scientists to read the paper "Inflation Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation" published in 2005 in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. We examine the current state of Fermi's paradox. The Abstract is below and a pdf of the paper is available at www.ufoskeptic.org.

ABSTRACT: It has recently been argued that anthropic reasoning applied to inflation theory reinforces the prediction that we should find ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized civilisation, thus strengthening Fermi’s paradox concerning “Where are they?” Furthermore, superstring and M-brane theory allow for the possibility of parallel universes, some of which in principle could be habitable. In addition, discussion of such exotic transport concepts as “traversable wormholes” now appears in the rigorous physics literature. As result, the “We are alone” solution to Fermi’s paradox, based on the constraints of earlier 20th century viewpoints, appears today to be inconsistent with new developments in our best current physics and astrophysics theories. Therefore we reexamine and reevaluate the present assumption that extraterrestrials or their probes are not in the vicinity of Earth, and argue instead that some evidence of their presence might be found in certain high quality UFO reports. This study follows up on previous arguments that (1) interstellar travel for advanced civilizations is not a priori ruled out by physical principles and therefore may be practicable, and (2) such advanced civilizations may value the search for knowledge from uncontaminated species more than direct, interspecies communication, thereby accounting for apparent covertness regarding their presence.

[Joe]

http://www.disclosureproject.org/

[JAMES]

We are in need of your dept's support to provide us with help in a class action law suit in a harassment case and other crimes against us.We have a state Rep that is standing with us in this suit requesting your dept in aiding usThrough out it.Please read this letter from the Rep Jim Guest it will explain the services we are requesting. As you can see from the Jim Guest's letter it's a serious matter going on here. It has his attention and The attention of 12 other congressmen. Jim Guest and other congressman have stood against this and other happings like this. Attached are the weapons sytem being used and other systems like these http://www.freedomfchs.com/repjimguestltr.pdf

Respectfully, (James Walbert 316-650-6976)

Here is the weapons system being used to harass people.Just as State Rep Jim Guest has spoke of below in a letter addressing the congressional members and law enforcement. http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13513-us-army-toyed-with-telepathic-ray-gun.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

October 10, 2007

Dear Member of the Legislature and Friends:

This letter is to ask for your help for the many constituents in our country who are being affected unjustly by electronic weapons torture and covert harassment groups. Serious privacy rights violations and physical injuries have been caused by the activities of these groups and their use of so-called non-lethal weapons on men, women, and even children.

I am asking you to play a role in helping these victims and also stopping the massive movement in the use of Verichip and RFID technologies in tracking Americans.

Long before Verichip was known we were testing these devices on Americans, many without their knowledge or consent. With the new revelations of the cancer risk besides the privacy and human rights problems with the use of Verichip and RF signals, I am asking for your help in stopping these abuses and aiding those already affected.

Sincerely,
Rep. Jim Guest
District Office: 660-535-6664
Capitol Office: 573-751-0246

________________________________

[Brent Plowright]

I do not believe it is beneficial for a presidential candidate to voice their opinions on ET or UFO disclosure for the very reason that it would only damage their campaign and their standing with, I believe, a majority of the voters.

In the case of Obama he is clearly taking a stance against lobbyists, singling out the oil industry, and it is these military-industrial groups that stand to lose out if certain energy technologies are made public. If this is true and he was briefed after the presidential elections once president he would then have the power (if he has the guts) to launch an investigation into black projects that contain information gleaned from the UFO black budget projects (if they do in fact exist) with the objective of utilising clean/free energy tech.

It would be a MASSIVE win for a president to not only make public and ET presence but also be able to provide the world with new energy tech that would not only solve the US dependence on oil but contribute massively to the solution of climate change. It is a win, win, win for a president that finally gains access to these projects. Can you imagine the popularity of a president that came clean on the ET presence, took down the oil industry and helped solve climate change? All with one thorough investigation in the right place.

A president that was to release such information, say right before a re-election campaign in 2012 would all but sure up another 4 years in office. I truly believe this is possible if Obama were to become president and was briefed about the situation buy people who had really investigated the issue (Dr Greer of the Disclosure Project).....