Tuesday 15 May 2018

John Podesta on 'Ancient Aliens': Hillary Clinton would have declassified UFO information

By Washington Examiner
Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman was on cable television Friday night peddling conspiracy theories about extraterrestrial life forms, and nobody seems to have noticed.

In fairness, I didn’t really believe it until I saw it either. But there he was, John Podesta, speaking gravely over a foreboding soundtrack, lending his very earnest insights to “Ancient Aliens” on The History Channel. (Don’t tell Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa). 


Podesta has long been in avid pursuit of the truth about UFOs, memorably reassuring the public during Clinton’s 2016 campaign he’d “convinced her that we need an effort to kind of go look at that and declassify as much as we can, so that people have their legitimate questions answered.”



Tune in to The History Channel tonight at 9pm ET for the season premiere of Ancient Aliens


And so it came to be, this former White House chief of staff and counselor to the president sat before “Ancient Aliens” cameras and unloaded enigmatic observations like, “The government seems to be completely unaccountable to the American public,” and “I've had a number of members of Congress, members of the U.S. Senate say to me, ‘Keep going at this. I'm really interested in it, but I can't say anything about it.’"
Behold this surreal exchange, wherein Podesta very seriously reflects on the Clinton campaign’s pro-alien declassification platform. 
NARRATOR: Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, is well-known for his interest in UFO and extraterrestrial encounters, and according to him, so is she. 
PODESTA: Secretary Clinton, likewise, was also kind of interested in the topic, and during the course of the campaign said that, if elected, she would have ordered a more thorough declassification review …
NARRATOR: Many believe that had Clinton won, there would have been a seismic shift from the government's long-held policy of secrecy concerning UFO investigations to a new policy of full disclosure. 
PODESTA: The system of regulation that creates our secrecy system — what's top secret, what's confidential, these lower levels of classification — that's regulated and has been since the Truman administration by executive order of the president. The president sets forward the general rules of classification, and some presidents have been more forthcoming, wanted less secrecy, some have tightened the reins and wanted more secrecy. It makes a difference.
That provided an opening for another of the episode’s commentators to claim, “The CIA and the Pentagon, they were worried about Hillary Clinton, Secretary Clinton, all the statements she was making, winning the presidency, and going to the Pentagon and basically saying, ‘You are going to give me the information I need to disclose the extraterrestrial presence or I’m gonna fire every single one of you.’” 
Which, in turn, set up another expert nicely to insist with dramatic flair: “John Podesta was trying to get ready to open up that we're not alone in the universe. All of that crashed when a different person became president of the United States.”
“November 8, 2016: Donald Trump was elected as America's next president,” the History Channel’s narrator intones. “There would be no disclosure of the secret UFO files.”
So, was Trump’s election really secured by scheming puppetmasters in Russia? Or were those strings perhaps pulled from a little further out of this world by aliens hoping to shield their species from exposure to our planet at this strange moment in time? 

Reports of alleged UFO sightings to Devon and Cornwall Police

By Cornish Times
There have been 10 alleged UFO or alien sightings that have been reported to Devon and Cornwall Police in the last three years, a Freedom of Information request has revealed, writes Richard Whitehouse, local democracy reporter.
The police were asked how many 999 or 101 calls the force has received in relation to alleged UFO or alien sightings in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
The results revealed that there were 10 incidents when the caller to the police actually claimed to have seen an alien or a UFO.
But the response from the police said that all but two of the incidents involved individuals with mental health issues and are therefore not indicative of extra-terrestrial sightings.
The other two incidents – in Falmouth and Plymouth in 2016 – also both involve individuals who were recorded as sounding heavily intoxicated, the response said.

Trump hints of plans for the ‘Space Force’ ‘Disclosure’ advocates, meanwhile, wonder if the adminstration will acknowledge the ET factor

The White House is much attuned to the final frontier. Consider the new National Space Council, which counts Vice President Mike Pence as chairman and was introduced last year with a noble motto: “We will lead again, we will inspire again, we will hold the high ground again.”
Indeed, the esteemed group — which includes several Cabinet members, former astronauts, high-profile experts and industry heavyweights — has vowed to address national space enterprise, along with “civil space, commercial space, and national security space.”
But there’s more. President Trump hinted at what’s to come during a Rose Garden award ceremony with Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, and the Army’s Black Knights football team, which won the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.
“You will be part of the five proud branches of the United States Armed Forces — Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and the Coast Guard. And we’re actually thinking of a sixth, and that would be the Space Force,” Mr. Trump told the group. “Does that make sense? The Space Force, general. You probably haven’t even heard that. I’m just telling you now. This is perhaps because we’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons, and we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.”
Meanwhile, determined “disclosure” advocates continue to hope Mr. Trump and his administration will reveal — or “disclose” — what they know about extraterrestrial life, visits from unidentified flying objects or alien-based technology. It’s popular fare, and instant headline fodder. Declassified Defense Department footage of a Navy fighter jet encountering a UFO made international headlines in March; previous news accounts of UFO interest within the Clinton administration and revelations about a $22 million Pentagon project to investigate otherworldly crafts has also riveted both press and public.
Then there’s the movie. The Paradigm Research Group, founded by registered lobbyist and researcher Stephen Bassett, is currently crowdfunding in order to produce “Disclosure,” an “exopolitical documentary” meant to parse out the situation once and for all.

From the archive: UFO sighted over Barry



THIS week the nostalgia section features a photograph taken on August 7, 1954 when a UFO was seen from Redbrink Crescent.
The houses on Redbrink Crescent, Barry Island, have always had a stunning view from the coast of Barry since they were built in 1898.
A member of staff at the lifeboat station reported a round silver transparent object hovering in the direction of St Athan.
The UFO shot off at great speed but not before two mess sergeants at St Athan also caught sight of a "flying saucer".
Further mystery objects were seen in the sky above Barry a week later a "bright red star" moving at great speed. Airport officials and RAF control tower staff also confirmed seeing unidentified objects around the same time. 
In the autumn of 1954 there was a great wave of UFO sightings across Europe especially in France and Italy.  The Barry & District News would like to thank Cllr Shirley Hodges for the photograph and information. 

FROM TIME TO THYME - The mysterious machine known as the Airship




If you thought stories in the old newspapers couldn’t get any stranger than some of the Twilight Club’s minutes, guess again. According to the May 25, 1897, Hamilton County Ledger, 121 years ago this month a UFO flew over Noblesville!

If the newspaper is to be believed, around 8 p.m. on May 24, Noblesville was visited by the “mysterious machine known as the airship.” It initially appeared as a faint light in the eastern sky, but rapidly moved west, accompanied by a strange noise.

Judge-elect John F. Neal and druggist Frank E. Ross were the first people to spot it. They immediately hotfooted it over to Charlie Pike’s photography studio and got Pike to set up his camera on the southeast corner of the square to capture the phenomenon as it went by.

Less than 10 minutes later, the airship flew over the courthouse and Pike supposedly got his shot, which he passed on to the Ledger. However, in those days photos hadn’t yet begun to appear in newspapers, so what actually ran on the Ledger’s front page was a drawing.

The sketch shows something that looks vaguely like an open boat with fins or wings passing to the left of the courthouse clock. The “boat” is suspended from a large cigar-shaped object with a propeller at one end and it appears to be carrying two people.

By the time the photo was taken, a substantial crowd of onlookers had gathered. Among them were several men whose observations and comments appeared in the Ledger article.

Deputy Sheriff Elihu Hawkins noted a colored light on the airship, while county school superintendent E. A. Hutchens saw large fans working and Judge Richard R. Stephenson was “confident the ship was manned by three men.”

Presbyterian minister Dr. John M. Davies thought the “the glorious ship of Zion was ‘coming around the bend’” and became so distracted he was a half hour late to his prayer meeting.

The Rev. William Karstedt of the United Brethren Church, believed it was an iceberg (!) and pulled on his “Canadian fur coat.” Reverend E. S. Conner of the Christian Church decided it was a delusion. Evangelist A. D. Buck considered it “the most ‘unholy’ sight he ever saw.”

Elbert Shirts, the cashier at the Citizens State Bank, was worried the “blasted thing” would get tangled in telephone wires.

George Griffin of Griffin Brothers hardware store exclaimed, “I’ll be dadbob if that don’t beat Ab Mounjoy’s boat!”

The following morning teacher and justice of the peace David Supple informed the newspaper that the ship had stopped at the Twilight Club’s headquarters and taken the club’s president, Ike Hiatt, onboard for a tour.
Did a UFO really visit? Well, the witnesses quoted in the Ledger article were prominent Noblesville citizens. However, most, if not all, appear to have been members of the Twilight Club. That’s enough to make me take the tale with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, a rash of mysterious airship sightings were reported in this country between November of 1896 and May of 1897. They began in California and later spread to the Midwest.

Some of these sightings were undoubtedly hoaxes or publicity stunts, but it’s possible some could have involved experimental aircraft. Although the Wright brothers didn’t fly at Kitty Hawk until 1903, balloons were used for spying during the Civil War, and attempts had been made to build airships like dirigibles for many years prior to 1896.

If the airships were indeed real, they must have been unsuccessful because no one ever took credit for them.

We may never know the truth. (But if we can believe Fox Mulder, the truth is out there).

UFO Statement from a Senior Manager of BAASS


BAASS broke new ground in professionalism by hiring, training and deploying 50 full-time staff comprising retired military intelligence and law enforcement officers, PhD level scientists, engineers, technicians, analysts, translators, and project managers to create the largest multi-disciplinary full-time team in history to investigate the UFO topic.
The investigations by BAASS provided new lines of evidence showing that the UFO phenomenon was a lot more than nuts and bolts machines that interacted with military aircraft. The phenomenon also involved a whole panoply of diverse activity that included bizarre creatures, poltergeist activity, invisible entities, orbs of light, animal and human injuries and much more. The exclusive focus on nuts and bolts machines could be considered myopic and unproductive in solving the larger mystery of UFOs.
One of the major successes of BAASS was in adopting the novel approach of utilizing the human body as a readout system for dissecting interactions with the UFO phenomenon. This novel approach aimed to circumvent the increasing evidence of deception and subterfuge by the UFO phenomenon in that multiple eyewitnesses co-located in the same vicinity frequently reported seeing widely different events. The evidence was multiplying that the UFO phenomenon was capable of manipulating and distorting human perception and therefore eyewitness testimony of UFO activity was becoming increasingly untrustworthy.
The BAASS approach was to view the human body as a readout system for UFO effects by utilizing forensic technology, the tools of immunology, cell biology, genomics and neuroanatomy for in depth study of the effects of UFOs on humans. This approach marked a dramatic shift away from the traditional norms of relying on eyewitness testimony as the central evidentiary arm in UFO investigations. The approach aimed to bypass UFO deception and manipulation of human perception by utilizing molecular forensics to decipher the biological consequences of the phenomenon.
The result of applying this new approach was a revolution in delineating the threat level of UFOs.

Documents prove secret UFO study based in Nevada

LAS VEGAS - UFO investigators are hoping to obtain a treasure trove of Pentagon documents that were generated by a once-secret military study of flying saucers and other weird aircraft.
The government confirms there was a UFO program. It supposedly ended in 2012, but the Pentagon has not yet released any reports or files.
The I-Team gives the first look at documents which prove the UFO study was real and was based in southern Nevada. 

Last October, former intelligence officer Luis Elizondo revealed he'd been in charge of a secret Pentagon project that studied UFOs. The story picked up steam two months later when the New York Times reported the name of the program AATIP or Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. At the same time, two once-classified videos were released.



One of them a 2004 encounter between warplanes from the USS Nimitz carrier group and a vastly superior UFO dubbed the Tic Tac.
(Luis Elizondo explains the Department of Defense's UFO video releases)


"I received communication from a man who worked for one of the defense agencies, a PHD in physics and math. He said 'I know everything about rockets but I don't know what these things are,'" said Sen. Harry Reid.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid started a dialogue with a senior scientist working for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Alarmed that no one was paying attention to dramatic intrusions by unknown aircraft, Reid and colleagues secured  funding for an ongoing study, but it wasn't called AATIP. The original acronym was AAWSAP or Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program.

In Aug. 2008, DIA posted a solicitation for bids. Weeks later, the contract was awarded to Bigelow Aerospace, the initial amount was $10 million. It required Bigelow to provide a facility that qualified for top secret work. Harry Reid did not influence the selection process.
"There was no direct contract vehicle for Senator Reid to take care of a buddy over here in a stake for a contract. That's complete nonsense," Elizondo said.
Space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow's interest in exotic subjects was as obvious as his company logo. He'd spent years -- and millions of dollars -- on his own scientific study of UFOs and related topics. For the DIA contract, he created BAASS, a seperate entity housed within his aerospace plant. He hired a team of 46 scientists and investigators, along with dozens of other support personnel.
The agreement with DIA did not mention UFOs at all. It used more generic terms such as future threats and breakthrough technologies, and specified 12 focal points including, lift, propulsion, materials, versions of stealth as well as human interface and human effects, meaning Bigelow's team would study people who reported unusual experiences beyond seeing UFOs.
A ranch in Utah, known for decades as the site of bizarre encounters, became a living lab for the study.
The study produced volumes of highly technical scientific reports including projections about warp drives and antigravity propulsion. 
"These studies are so loaded with information," Sen. Reid said. "One thing we learned is over the decades a lot of things happen there's no explanation for. Well there are now."
But at the Pentagon, there was pushback. Some worried the study would become an embarrassment if the word got out. Others opposed it on religious grounds. Bigelow funded it himself for a year but AAWSAP came to an end after 2011. Elizondo, who had interacted with the study from the Pentagon, was assigned to continue the work, but he chose a smaller focus, limited to military encounters with unknown aircraft. his effort, dubbed AATIP, survived by keeping a low profile. Elizondo relied on an informal network of colleagues to investigate cases that came in.
"There were other folks related to our effort," Elizondo said. "It is a confederated approach so you had folks in the Navy, in DIA, in pockets here and there. We worked collectively."