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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release May 14, 2021
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Remarks by The President on the Reality of Extraterrestrial Life
Friday, 5/14/21
4:15 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:
Thank you, everybody.
I’ll be making a brief announcement, followed by a statement from the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Commerce. After all of us have spoken, we’ll take your questions.
In cities across the world—a total of 103 countries, I believe—the same basic announcement is being made, some simultaneously, others later, depending on the time zone.
After consultation with key members of our defense and intelligence community, it has been made clear to me that there is persuasive evidence that Earth is currently interacting with one or more intelligent non-human species.
Despite the issues that disclosure of this fact now obviously raises, I do believe that the people of the United States and the people of Earth, have a right to know. In my consultations with our allies and with other countries around the world, a consensus was reached that, while some of us might have preferred to have more time, events have overtaken us, and we can wait no longer.
I want to emphasize two things immediately: First, there is virtually no evidence at this time that we are under attack. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. To say that we are under some kind of observation seems more accurate. The Secretary of Defense will speak in a moment and he can address directly the steps that are being taken as we speak to secure the nation—and the world. Second, I am—through a separate Executive Order—creating an Office of Contact Affairs, which will be staffed and funded as a part of our Department of Homeland Security. It has been given the mandate of reporting directly to me about the scope of this current visitation. I have, concurrently, directed the Attorney General to begin her own investigation into the nature and content of apparent secrecy with which some of these facts have long been held.
Because of the need for calm debate, I have taken the precautionary move of making the National Guard available to any state governor who feels that it is needed to keep the public order. Additionally, to protect our nation’s economic security, through my executive authority, I am closing the nation’s banks for a period of one week, and ordering the closure of the stock market until further notice.
Now, before I provide the details on this, let me speak directly to our nation’s children and young people. It is quite clear that the facts I have confirmed today are disturbing. Like your parents, I’m sure you have many, many questions and that some of you are scared. Throughout the weekend, we will be addressing as many of those questions as possible. But I want you to know that you are safe. Your homes are safe. Our nation is safe. We are entering a new era, that much is clear, but we do so with strength and confidence and an abiding belief that humanity has much to give to other life-forms that may exist in the vast universe we live in, and that we also can learn much from these visitors.
To the media, the press secretary assures me that you will find full information packets and hard drives with a selection of photos, videos, and reports that I have unclassified through presidential order. The Attorney General will begin a thorough review of other material, in consultation with Congress and the chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, as to what can be released in the future and in what time frame. I ask for your patience. The process will be difficult, yet today we begin it together.
So thank you all very much. The Secretary of Defense will speak now.
END
4:21 P.M. EDT
Chapter 2
Breakaway: How Secrets Created a World Within a World
Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of the State.
—Cardinal De Richelieu
In 1960, the U.S. government tasked the Brookings Institute with analyzing the implications of the fledgling U.S. space program. The report, completed in December 1960, included an examination of the possibility that the space program might find evidence of intelligent alien life, such as artifacts on the moon or Mars.
The implications were taken seriously by the authors who feared social disintegration if humanity came in contact with an extraterrestrial life form. “Anthropological files contain many examples of societies sure of their place in the universe,” stated the Brookings Institute writers, “which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies…espousing different ideas and different life ways.”1 The authors suggested that if the U.S. space program found evidence of alien life or technology, it might be advisable to withhold this information from the public.
The Brookings Report reinforced a longstanding U.S. government policy. No less an authority than the former Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter admitted to a cover-up in a letter to the New York Times in 1960, shortly before publication of the report. “Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs,” said Hillenkoetter. “But through official secrecy and ridicule, citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense. To hide the facts, the Air Force has silenced its personnel.”2
The World of 1947
In an ideal world, something as reality-shattering as the presence of another intelligent civilization interacting with our own would prompt the political system to act in a coherent manner. In such a world, governments everywhere would speak for the people, work on their behalf, and answer to them. But we have to live in the real world.
Despite the provocative nature of the phenomenon (or, more likely, because of it), the political structure of the United States immediately began debunking it. Other governments of the world followed suit. That policy has now evolved into the most successful cover-up of all time. Despite the continuous sightings, books, and statements by prominent public figures, it remains in place.
It is not hard to see why the world’s top power brokers would want to conceal the reality of something as monumental as UFOs.
The world of 1947 was in the midst of tremendous change. Fresh from the most destructive war of all time, millions of people in Europe, Africa, and Asia were homeless refugees. Millions more were rebuilding their nations from piles of rubble, and many others were on the brink of starvation. A new weapon of terrifying power had recently been unleashed on the world, and the United States was now engaged in a struggle with the Soviet Union for world dominance. President Harry S Truman signed the National Security Act, all at once creating the CIA, the National Security Council, an independent Air Force, and the Department of Defense.
At the same time, the problem of UFOs with extraordinary capabilities forced its way into the public consciousness. Reports of unusual, unknown aerial phenomena (“foo fighters”) had been made by military pilots during the war. Then, in 1946, so-called “ghost rockets” were reported over Europe. In 1947, Americans began seeing them. By late June, they had a name: “flying saucers.”
Then, in early July, if scores of witnesses are to be believed, one of these objects crashed near America’s only nuclear base in Roswell, New Mexico.3 Soon after, the news reached the desk of President Truman. On that very desk sat a draft copy of the National Security Act Truman was about to sign. On it was also the famous sign that said, “The Buck Stops Here.”
Creating the cover-up. Roswell witnesses testify strongly that the weather balloon was a staged lie. Major Jesse Marcel said a spacecraft and bodies were found.
Photo courtesy of The Fort Worth Star Telegram, photograph collection, special collections. The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas.
Truman’s instinct might have supported a public announcement that intelligent beings from elsewhere were here on Earth. Yet, there can be little doubt that, following his briefing from the military, he discounted such an action. After all, the United States was unwilling to sha
re its atomic technology with the Soviets, or even with the United Nations—a major political issue at the time. Telling the world about something as advanced as alien technology? Not in 1947.
Frankie Rowe
Consider the story of Frankie Rowe, one of many people connected to the Roswell event. A woman with impeccable credibility and decency, she spoke to the authors in 2010. In 1947, Frankie was 12 years old when her father, the town fire captain, led the first team to a wreckage site. He came home that night talking about bodies and saucers. The next day, the police officer who accompanied the firefighters showed up at the station where Frankie was recovering from tonsil surgery. He showed them a piece of the craft he had taken. Frankie played with it for 15 minutes and described it, as so many other witnesses have, as “memory metal.” It could not be burned, broken, or torn. It would unfold instantly into complete flatness.
She also described how, the following day, a military policeman from the base came to her house. In front of her mother, he told Frankie never to speak of what “didn’t happen.” If she did, she and her parents might end up in the Japanese internment camp south of town, or in a desert grave where “nobody will ever find your bones.”4
Something happened at Roswell that was so extreme, so strange, and so important that a man in uniform made a house call to threaten a 12-year-old with death.
A Nuclear “What If?”
Skeptics of Roswell as a UFO story say it would be impossible to hide something as significant as the crash of an alien craft. History says otherwise.
The Manhattan Project, in which the United States secretly developed and tested the atomic bomb, was the godfather of modern government secrecy. The project was so extraordinary, so revolutionary, that secrecy was paramount. Yet, it was so expensive and so vast that developing an appropriate structure of secrecy was no mean task.
“Compartmentation” became widely practiced. Each person involved in the project knew only what he or she “needed to know.” Very few had all the information, fewer still were in a position to tell anything to the public. Within Congress, just a handful of men had any idea.
The secrecy was so well executed that when, on July 16, 1945, at exactly 5:30 a.m., the United States detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in White Sands, New Mexico, no one else knew about it. The explosion was seen from 100 miles away, and many citizens contacted local police about it. Several days later, a news story stated that an ammunition dump had exploded.
It was one of the most momentous events in the history of science, and not a word of it was breathed to the rest of the world.
Now, consider a hypothetical scenario in which Japan might have surrendered before the atomic bomb had been used against its cities. Would President Truman have told the world of the incredible new weapon the United States had developed? Probably not. After all, once you inform the world of what you have, your allies would want you to share your research and your enemies would try to steal it.
If the United States had decided that the world must never know that an atomic bomb had ever been used, how long could the secret have been kept? If all the participants had been forced to a lifetime of secrecy, if all rumors were met by official denial, if the press and academic world became allies to squash rumors, and the cover story about an ammo dump explosion was supported by alleged witnesses, what would be left? Only the rumors themselves, forever unconfirmed, leaving widespread suspicion but little more.
There might be deathbed confessions from old soldiers, leaked documents dismissed as forgeries, desperate researchers trying to prove the existence of something like the “Manhattan Project,” and TV reporters chasing the story of the “White Sands Myth” in the desert.
Following the recovery of exotic technology at Roswell (technology not from our civilization), logic would dictate that the president organize an elite team, charging them with getting to the bottom of the matter. The responsibilities would be manifold: analyzing the technology and duplicating it if possible, forecasting the level of public panic in the wake of Disclosure, determining the level of vulnerability to industrial or financial interests, managing media and academia, ensuring secrecy from hostile nations, and certainly learning everything possible about these other beings.
The group’s existence would have to be kept secret, even from Congress. For once the rest of the world learned of America’s possession of such awesome technology, they would jealously demand to be a part of its harvest.
The available evidence points exactly to this turn of events. During the mid-1980s, a seven-page document surfaced mysteriously—almost certainly leaked from within the U.S. intelligence community—which purported to be a briefing memo prepared in 1952 for President-elect Dwight Eisenhower. It described the recovery of crashed UFOs and alien bodies, and referred to “Majestic-12” or “MJ-12” as the group responsible for managing the secret.
Ufologists have argued over the authenticity of this document, as well as many similar documents subsequently leaked. Yet, following the event at Roswell, Truman would have been negligent had he not authorized some kind of group to respond.5
The documents list the names of the alleged members of MJ-12. They included: the director of the CIA, a man who helped organize the Manhattan Project, the head of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, the Air Force Chief of Staff, the Chairman of the National Research Council, the head of MIT’s engineering department and leading aircraft designer, the Executive Secretary of the new National Security Council, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory, the head of the CIA’s Psychological Strategy Board, the base commander of the Atomic Energy Commission installation at Sandia Base, and the Secretary of the Joint Research and Development Board. All of them together would be the group one would want to examine the reality of flying saucers, to examine what happened at Roswell, except for one person: Harvard astronomer Dr. Donald Menzel. While it may seem reasonable to include an astronomer on a team to study presumed extraterrestrials, Menzel’s inclusion baffled UFO researchers. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was the world’s leading debunker of UFOs. For years, he maintained that UFOs were simply misidentifications of prosaic phenomena: stars, clouds, airplanes, balloons, etc.6 This was surely true for some sightings of odd lights in the sky—people are fallible, after all. But many of Menzel’s so-called explanations of UFO phenomena were threadbare, even embarrassing. Yet, as a leading astronomer of his time, his presence in the debate prevented many other academicians from entering the field.
Menzel’s inclusion in the documents was odd. Were the forgers making a joke? His name raised doubts. The MJ-12 papers were volatile enough, and such doubts further undermined them. Then came the story’s twist.
UFO researcher Stanton Friedman—that dogged, inveterate burrower in government archives, that meticulously detail man—discovered that Donald Menzel had led a double life. Not even Menzel’s wife had known about it. It turned out that Menzel had been a prominent, classified consultant for the U.S. intelligence community.
Not just any part of the intelligence community, but the CIA and the code-making, code-breaking National Security Agency (NSA). This was when no one knew the NSA existed, despite its probably being the most powerful of the U.S. intelligence agencies. The spooks cared little about Menzel’s knowledge of the stars; they were more interested in another of his talents, for Menzel just happened to be a world-class cryptographer, an expert in codes and ciphers. In a 1960 letter to President-elect John F. Kennedy, he mentioned his Navy Top Secret Ultra Security Clearance, and his association with this activity for almost 30 years. He told Kennedy that he probably had “the longest continuous record of association of any person in the country.”7
When considering that it just might come in handy to have a smart fellow who knows how to crack difficult communications, Menzel’s inclusion makes a great deal of sense. His stature as a Harvard astronomer was a bonus, enabling him to slap would-be academic conspiracy theorists firmly into their place.
&nb
sp; If the MJ-12 documents really were faked, it would seem that whoever created them knew of Menzel’s intelligence activities and background. That would have been very rarified information. Or perhaps, as Friedman believed, the documents were real after all.
The term Majestic has been used occasionally in this book to describe the group charged with managing the many problems posed by these Others. This may be its actual name, or it may not. Either way, it is logical and reasonable that President Truman—not wanting to pass the buck—created it from the most trusted members of the U.S. military, political, and scientific establishment.
Once that decision was made and the group formed, a machinery was created and set in motion. Machinery that was so complex, so labyrinthian, and so powerful, that it became alive.
Choke Points
Threats and intimidation, such as those made on Frankie Rowe and others, are not the only ways to keep a secret. Management of the press is also critical.
By the early 1950s, the CIA had developed relationships with most major media executives in the United States. This does not mean something so crass as CIA agents telling executives what to print or broadcast. Rather, it means that some executives voluntarily killed stories that would damage perceived American interests. Sometimes, when necessary, the CIA would be consulted. Sometimes stronger medicine was prescribed, like planting disinformation or even stories that were flatly untrue.
Even a partial list of the participating organizations is breathtaking: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Herald-Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post, the Miami Herald, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, and Time-Life. Major news wire services, such as Reuters, the Associated Press, and United Press International, also cooperated. So, too, did television and radio broadcast concerns such as CBS News, the Mutual Broadcasting System, and others. In addition to these, the CIA owned many newspapers and publishing houses overseas.
A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact Page 5