This kind of dismissive superiority was repeated by reporters regarding Mitchell’s testimony. What was it that made news producers slot this as a silly story? What cue did they receive that convinced them the best reaction was to smile and shake their heads in disbelief?
A man trusted to fly the first moon mission after the Apollo 13 disaster, handpicked from thousands of qualified pilots and engineers, came forward to explain that he believes UFOs are real, that Roswell was the crash of an alien spacecraft, and that the government is complicit in keeping this information covered up. The media’s reaction should have been to dispatch investigative teams to learn the truth. Instead, they gave it the kind of on-camera treatment that usually greets the birth of a baby panda at the local zoo.
Example #2: National Press Club News Conference
There is a long history of U.S. military encounters with UFOs, a fact that has been documented many times over. So when, on September 27, 2010, a news conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., featuring a half-dozen former U.S.A.F. officers speaking directly to this issue, one might think that the nation’s major media would be interested. Even more striking was that these retired officers described cases in which UFOs had been seen near U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. These were events witnessed by multiple soldiers in which nuclear missiles actually malfunctioned in the aftermath.
A few news outlets, including Fox News and The Air Force Times, covered the event competently. A small number of the major outlets provided neutral coverage in their online content. Yet, despite a great deal of advance publicity and private money expended to promote the event, the news conference was virtually shunned by the media heavyweights.
CNN, the once-proud maverick news organization, allowed a pair of condescending and ill-informed on-air personalities (an anchorwoman and a weatherman) to ridicule these military men for coming forward. The openly skeptical anchorwoman actually laughed, invoked Fox Muldur, and even managed to work in “little green men.” One could only see the performance in order to believe it really happened. Most of the other coverage, such as it was, was equally shameful. Wired, for instance, titled its hit piece “Tinfoil Tuesdays,” while the Washington Post sent a lifestyle columnist, John Kelly, who opened his coverage by explaining he arrived late and only came because they offered cookies.13
One wonders what it would take to wipe the smirk off the faces of these individuals masking as journalists. Most likely, nothing short of Disclosure itself.
Example #3: Xiaoshan Airport, Hangzhou, China
Another example concerns the sighting of a UFO over China’s Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, China, which is the capital of East China’s Zhejiang province, on the night of July 9, 2010. According to the report of the municipal government there, an unidentified flying object disrupted air traffic over the airport, causing it to be shut down for an hour while authorities scrambled to figure out what it was.
As reported from several official and unofficial sources in China, the UFO showed up on the airport’s radar a little past 8:30 pm. Soon after, airport personnel saw a “shining light” in the air that was later confirmed by passengers who were flying at the time. They described it as a “twinkling spot” that “disappeared very soon” with a “comet-like tail.” A striking photo was taken that shows structure and four lighted windows.
Forcing the media. Finally the Greatest Story Never Covered will actually get the attention it deserves. Xaioshan Airport in China closed in July of 2010 because of a UFO. The photo was taken by an anonymous Chinese resident, and has been widely used in the media.
Service was suspended at the airport, which serves as a hub for Air Asia. An extensive aerial search began, leading to a total of 56 minutes of down time, the delay of 18 flights, and the stranding of about 2,000 passengers.
CNNGo reporter Jessica Beaton ascribed it to a publicity stunt. “There’s no better way to make headlines,” she wrote, “than to have a UFO sighting.” Her tone, always important, conveyed amusement. “We’re not saying we think little green men landed,” she said glibly, “why choose China when Thai beaches are so close by?” To her credit, she did not immediately accept the official explanation. “But really, a reflection from an airplane shut down an airport? They should come up with a better excuse than that.”14
But why the jokes? After all, one of those Chinese officials also said that the sighting had a “military connection.” Further details could not be divulged at the time, he added. Was this American technology? If so, why are Americans flying it in China? If it was Chinese technology, what do they have that looks like the object in the photo, which apparently hovers and then accelerates instantly?
The American media, nearly en masse, ignored the event. The “roundtable” on ABC’s This Week had time to discuss basketball star LeBron James. NBC’s Meet-the-Press dissected Sarah Palin’s YouTube video where she cast herself as a “Mama Grizzly.” No enterprising American journalist traveled to China to investigate what happened at Xiaoshan. That, apparently, would be nonsense.
These Are the People Who Will Tell Us About Disclosure
After Roswell, “deny and ridicule” became policy relating to all matters ufological. We have now reached a place where the mainstream news coverage has been wholly committed to protecting the status quo of the cover-up. One might dismiss this as simply lame behavior and lazy coverage, which it clearly is, but there is also the likelihood of deceit at the higher levels.
Recall that only a few companies now control most of the media, particularly in the United States. These corporate structures have had a long history of collaboration with the U.S. intelligence community. The management of news by the CIA and other intelligence groups around the world is an open secret, and a lot of good analysis has been done on the topic. More than 30 years ago, Carl Bernstein wrote an excellent exposé on the CIA’s influence over mainstream U.S. media for an article in Rolling Stone, and much follow-up work has been done through the years.15
This does not mean that the CIA and its kind control every aspect of news coverage and spin; control is seldom complete. But the indications are that on the big issues, the right relationships have been made with major media. These relationships have continued and deepened through the years.
Disclosure will not change that situation. The national security community will not walk away from the table after having invested so much to control it. Coverage of the post-Disclosure world will continue to comport with the interests of the intelligence community. In the immediate aftermath, all the wrong people will continue to be quoted. As today, so tomorrow: people will need to be vigilant for the truth, and major media will need to be held accountable.
When the smiling anchors and dismissive experts are confronted with Disclosure, will they be honest enough to admit their own ignorance and lack of curiosity? It seems unlikely; about as unlikely as the public feeling good about getting information from these people after the truth is out.
Blowback will singe away whatever credibility remains of the Fourth Estate. They may not notice their hair is on fire, but most people will. The New York Times, and institutions like it, with all their resources, will suffer greatly because they willfully failed to give serious attention or investigation into the topic in the past.
It is against this backdrop of ham-handed coverage, at best naive and at worst disinformation, that the world of A.D. will emerge. The question is, how strong will the public reaction against the media be? Will there be a new version of Occupy Wall Street, but one directed at the tightly controlled corporate-intelligence-media complex? Rather, perhaps we should not ask “will it happen?” but “how strong will that reaction be?”
Some truth-tellers, such as Whitley Strieber, whose Communion deserves credit for bringing this issue to a wide audience, will gain a new status. What makes him unique today, though, is bravely speaking out against a wall of ridicule. Once authorities confirm his story and thousands of other abductees come forward, he may
fade back, like the grandfather who puts on his old military uniform every Memorial Day and marches in a parade. Or—and this is to be hoped—he will be respected as someone who has given more thought to what it all means than most people alive today. Much of the difference will most likely depend on how strong the public reaction is to media portrayal of Disclosure.
The news will spread like a firestorm, blowing everything else away for weeks and months. Everything from quarterly economic reports to local sporting events will be reported through the prism of this contact. Every assignment editor everywhere will be looking at reporting and asking, “Where’s the contact angle in this?” As the media transitions from its steady diet of the trivial into a 24/7 news cycle of contact, it will ignore its own culpability in allowing the cover-up to exist under a rock it chose not to see, let alone turn over.
With no apparent embarrassment, establishment journalists will point the finger of shame and skepticism at the government, the military, and the scientific establishment. Whistleblowers will come forward on a daily basis for quite some time, all now feeling unfettered by previously signed national security agreements, ready to feed the firestorm. Each new revelation will light the flame under a still newer one. Bloggers will have a field day, offering opinion and insight. Every photo released in the first wave of Disclosure will be endlessly circulated on the Internet.
For three decades, local TV reporter Mark Sanchez covered just about everything that came up on his general assignment beat. He sees a firestorm and serious public backlash against the press in the aftermath of Disclosure. Complicity in the cover-up will have eroded public confidence in all public institutions. “Experience tells me disbelief, cynicism and insufficient alarm will greet future proclamations made After Disclosure,” he said. “The truth is liberating, but serious social upheaval will erupt as the truth sinks in…. What follows could be the real legacy of denial the past six decades: public overreaction, intolerance and widespread instability across every level of society.”
Whether or not Sanchez’s pessimism about our ability to handle the truth is warranted, one can hardly argue that widespread instability is bad for the news business. Dislocation and social upheaval are the stuff of Pulitzers and Emmys.
Imagine the golden trophies awaiting reporters who get to cover these kinds of stories:
Sparks Fly Over Majestic’s Role at Commission Hearing
The Presidential Amnesty Order
Stock Market and Bank Closure
Man Kills 17 People Thinking They Were Aliens
Cover-Up Architect in Critical Condition After Mob Beating
Abductees File Class Action Lawsuit Against Others
Network News Reporter Fired for Bribe-Taking
Pope Welcomes “All God’s Children”
Presidential Candidates Clash Over Contact Policy
Central Park Rally Biggest Ever
As the days and months unfold, however, a legitimate question in the aftermath of Disclosure will be whether or not the media will have the ability or integrity to investigate why it failed so utterly and completely to see this story. Were media owners actually bought-off by those elites managing the cover-up? Will a single news executive actually be fired or held accountable?
We believe that the media institutions that survive Disclosure and thrive A.D. will be the ones that practice a form of “ultimate transparency.” By this, we mean that they devote substantial resources to shining the light on their own internal processes of story selection, investigation, and editing. This includes having live cameras in the newsroom streaming the debates and conferences onto the Internet 24/7, so that the people who missed this awesome story no longer have a place to run or hide in the aftermath of their failure.
They Will Survive
Institutions, such as law, media, and government, do not just go away. That is why they are called institutions. They can change, reform, reorganize. They can adapt, incorporate, and morph. Disclosure will blow through them like a hot wind in a summer dry spell. It will seem that sheer accountability will demand that they be allowed to fail. Some will argue that this should happen.
But we are not talking about a single car company or an individual bank. Newspapers like The New York Times may fail. The Department of Energy may be organized out of existence. Old courts may be folded into new ones. The big picture, however, remains.
How we see and relate to the world around us is the issue. And even though there may well be higher planes of consciousness in store, as some have argued, people will still need to shape their world through familiar processes.
The Worst It Could Be
Whenever one discusses a situation spinning out of control, there is the danger that it will stay that way and get worse. It is certainly possible that all the “snap-back” inherent in human beings and institutions will only “snap” this time.
If the system breaks entirely as a result of Disclosure, this is what it might look like:
The economy could shatter into a global depression. The governments of the major financial powers could be so completely discredited on the issue that no one will want to grant them the power to intervene in a way that might fix things. Depression mixed with fear is a potent drink to swallow. It leads to repression, long-term military rule, and fascism.
Seeing the world come apart could also have a devastating psychological effect on humanity. Many pundits and psychologists throughout the years—in comments and reports—have speculated that the interaction of a superior and inferior civilization could lead to the collapse of the weaker one. If our natural human resiliency is suppressed by faltering economies and violent reaction, we could fall into a vicious downward spiral that simply cannot be stopped.
The bottom could be the unhinging of our world, the loss of the industrial base needed to run a technological society, and a descent into a kind of global madness. Our civilization could collapse as completely as did the Aztecs or Incas.
Writer and historian Will Durant said, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” Whether one thinks that humanity will recover and grow from the experience of Disclosure depends not just on what the Others are here for, which is an external consideration, but how strong one views the civilization that humankind has built.
We are not naive on that score. The world exists in a precarious place today, primarily as a result of our own choices. The pessimists have much evidence from which to argue their case.
Although we believe the immediate impact of Disclosure will be very difficult those first years and perhaps beyond, we do not believe—short of news that the Others actively mean us harm—that this collapse is a certainty. Instead, the world could easily see a re-birth. In the last century, we have adapted to so much fundamental change that widening our perspective to include the vast universe should ultimately be seen as a beginning and not an end.
Chapter 6
The [New] Age of Aquarius: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
If the masses started to accept UFOs, it would profoundly affect their attitudes towards life, politics, everything. It would threaten the status quo. Whenever people come to realize that there are larger considerations than their own petty little lives, they are ripe to make radical changes on a personal level, which would eventually lead to a political revolution in society as a whole.
—John Lennon, radio interview, 1975
Day One will unleash the same primal social forces triggered by the assassination of President Kennedy and the Vietnam War during the 1960s. Insecurity will rule. People will see, once again, that governments cannot be trusted and that powerful conspiracies really do exist.
The older generation will interpret Disclosure through establishment perceptions. They will see only how it challenges the world they knew. Younger people will embrace a new way of looking at our world and other worlds. Because of this split, the first decade After Disclosure will come closest in tone and texture to the 1960s as any
decade since. Whether you think that is good news or bad, be ready. The elements are already in place.
One big difference from the 1960s, of course, is that more technology will be in place. Ideas will spread faster, morph faster, disappear faster. All of this will contribute to a new generation gap, a new counter-culture. Protests will be common, as large, unhinged segments of the population turn away from the status quo and experiment with new ideas. Music will carry political messages. Social experimentation will take center stage. Although some will cling to the old trappings that brought them comfort, others will throw them aside and seek a brand new day.
Friend or foe, the presence of other intelligent beings will make people consider humanity’s place in the universe. Life may still consist of work, daily routine, and the final flickering out of our loved ones and then ourselves, but our days on Earth may also be elevated by wonder and awe. Possibly even a sense of destiny.
For others, it will create existential dread. Because fear and panic will probably predominate at the beginning, there may be a lingering, dampening effect on the human spirit for a time. Whether or not the Others pose a direct threat to humankind, their acknowledged presence will still precipitate an indirect negative effect on our institutions, particularly those dealing with wealth and power. That will make life hard for a while, and cheerful dispositions may be greatly in demand.
Naturally, what happens after Disclosure will depend greatly on what is actually disclosed. If the news is catastrophic, terrifying, or unfathomable, then all bets are off. Most of the following possibilities (but not all), deal with the type of Disclosure that can be intuited from our own research and observations. Namely, that we will learn a massive cover-up has been underway for years, that Others exist, and that we are still coming to terms with what it all means.
A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact Page 20