Influence on Earth's development

An argument presenting a case for ETI influence

Out Of The Blue: Sighting [clip]
Astronaut Gordon Cooper's Sighting - In 1955, while stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, Mercury 7 Astronaut Gordon Cooper witnessed an event that has yet to be explained nearly 50 years later. He was supervising the filming of a precision landing facility for F-86 fighter jets. Suddenly, a saucer-like craft flew directly over the cameraman. Three landing gear apparatus opened, and the object landed on the dry lake bed.

"I think it’s time to open the books on questions that have remained in the dark; on the question of government investigations of UFOs. It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. We ought to do it because it’s right; we ought to do it because the American people quite frankly can handle the truth; and we ought to do it because it’s the law."
- John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff, Oct. 22, 2002 at the National Press Club

"It's funny how an alien race with technology so advanced as to allow manned (sic.) interstellar travel, technology which must be millennia ahead of our own, have yet to master the fine art of stealth flight through our skies, e.g. by turning off their lights so as not to be seen."
by: antiscience_is_mental_deficiency, 01/10/04

Yes, and I also find it funny that many of the same people who won’t consider the possibility that other intelligent beings may exist in the universe have convinced themselves that ‘they’ understand how an ETI thinks and what motivates them. Considering the apparent variety and duration of sightings why would you think they don’t want to be seen?

Silent Running: 'Black Triangle' Sightings on the Rise
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, Space.com
posted: 02 September 2004
They have become legendary in UFO circles. Huge, silent-running “Flying Triangles” have been seen by ground observers creeping through the sky low and slow near cities and quietly cruising over highways.

The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), has catalogued the Triangle sightings, sifting through and combining databases to take a hard look at the mystery craft. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, NIDS is a privately funded science institute with a strong research focusing on aerial phenomena.The results of their study have just been released and lead to some unnerving, still puzzling conclusions.

The study points out: “The United States is currently experiencing a wave of Flying Triangle sightings that may have intensified in the 1990s, especially towards the latter part of the 1990s. The wave continues. The Flying Triangles are being openly deployed over and near population centers, including in the vicinity of major Interstate Highways.”

Open, even brazen
According to Colm Kelleher, NIDS Administrator, the newly completed quasi “meta-analysis” of Flying Triangles melds three major U.S. databases: NIDS, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and data collected by independent researcher, Larry Hatch, the creator and owner of one of the largest and most comprehensive UFO databases in the world.

Kelleher said, the analysis indicates that deployment of Flying Triangles is open, not covert, and involves low-flying, brightly lit aircraft routinely deployed over populated areas including cities and Interstate highways.

UFOs: What to Do?
RAND DOCUMENT, For RAND Use Only
George Kocher, 27 November 1968
PART 1: UFOs -- HISTORICAL ASPECTS
Those familiar with the UFO literature are aware that reports of sightings did not begin with Arnold's sighting in 1947, but that phenomenology much the same as is reported today can be found in documents going back to the earliest times. Vallee (2) gives a sampling of this; B.L.P. Trench (3) has made a more thorough study and reports on the research of others able to study the original documents.

What was reported? Luminous discs, shields, globes and elongated objects in the sky, sometimes alone, sometimes in large numbers. Occasional descriptions of interactions with the observers are also mentioned, including landings, and seeing and communicating with occupants. The latter events especially were almost always interpreted in a religious context. A recent example is the repeated appearance of a typical UFO phenomenology at Fatima, Portugal on six successive months in 1917. The October 13 phenomenon was the best reported and was witnessed by a crowd of about 70,000 persons, including a number of scientists, reporters, atheists, and agnostics, as well as faithful Catholics. One of the scientifically curious was Dr. A Garrett of the University of Coimbra. Rain, which had been falling that day, ceased and the crowd looked up to see the "sun" now visible through the heavy clouds. Professor Garrett wrote,

"...I turned toward this (sun) which was attracting all eyes and I could see it like a disk with a clear cut edge, with a vivid rim, luminous and shining, but without hurting one. The comparison I have heard at Fatima with a disk of dull silver, does not seem to me exact. It was a clearer, more vivid, richer color and with shifting tints like the luster of a pearl. It was not at all like the moon on a clear transparent night, for one saw and felt it like a living star. Nor was it spherical like the moon, nor did it have the same quality of lighter and less light. It looked like a burnished wheel cut out of mother-of-pearl. Nor could it be confused with the sun seen through a fog -- there was no fog... This disc spun dizzily round. It was not the twinkling of a star: it whirled round upon itself with mad rapidity... The sun, preserving the celerity of its rotation, detached itself from the firmament and advanced, blood-red, towards the earth, threatening to crush us with the weight of its vast and fiery mass. These moments made a terrifying impression." (4)

The relationship of the old phenomenology to religion are discussed by Thomas. (5)

To accompany the textual accounts I refer you to the visual representations as compiled by Matthew Hurley in his Historical artwork and UFOs collection of images. From the A.D. section, I particularly find the following works intriguing, "The Annunciation" (1486) by Carlo Crivelli, "The Madonna with Saint Giovannino" 15th century [unknown artist, attributed to the Lippi school], and "The Baptism of Christ" 1710 by Aert De Gelder. For more biblical evidence read the book of Ezekiel and his flying "wheel" and my identification of other craft in the book of Revelation. (For a scientific explanation of the 'beams of light' in the paintings below please see the NearFuture page. The explanation provides a second possible explanation for these 'visions'.)

HISTORICAL ARTWORK & UFO’s
Matthew Hurley
For a number of years I have been intrigued by old artwork that appears to depict UFOs. The artwork in my collection consists of frescos, tapestries, illustrations, oil paintings and early photographs.
Although some of the artwork represents actual sightings, others feature UFOs in a religious context.

One can only guess at why these artists chose to insert UFOs into their artwork. Did they have UFO sightings in their day and decide to add them in ? Perhaps they had an inner urge to insert them. Maybe they had some arcane knowledge about the relationship between UFOs and certain religious events.

Whatever the truth is, there are UFOs in these pieces of artwork and one can ponder and reflect on this truth.

"In all my years looking at the sky I have never seen a so called flying saucer, cigar or any other unidentified craft. I belong to several astronomy clubs and communicate with astronomers across the country, and they too agree that they have never seen UFOs."
- marvdmartian2001

I think you understand after you wrote this that just because you haven’t found them doesn’t mean you have proven they don’t or can’t exist. Instead, based on your considerable data set you have no proof that they exist so the probability that they do is consequently very small. You may assume that the probability they do exist is zero but I argue that would be overextending the value of your data set. I can think of several ways and reasons why you and your associates have not found your conclusive proof yet. Remember that you are dealing with an ‘intelligence’ and not something like an asteroid or comet (many of which also avoid detection). I would also suggest that your data set is actually very small.

If one of your fellow astronomers said he did see a UFO but didn’t have a camera, how much credibility would you grant his testimony considering all of the science fiction in our culture? Now if you extend your data collection beyond our modern age and gather eye witness accounts from the past, aren't you compelled to consider other possibilities? If there were no such things as UFOs hundreds and thousands of years ago, and in their time the only things that flew were birds, bugs, bats, etc. why would people describe flying space craft in such detail and show them interacting with humanity? Can all of the testimonial evidence be dismissed for lack of physical evidence? Can it all be explained away by subjective desires and delusions, influenced perhaps by prior fictional accounts?

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
- Henri Bergson

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

UFOs in the Bible: The History Channel
Journey back through time into the mysterious world of UFOs as revealed through ancient biblical texts. Through intensive reinterpretation of early religious documents, researchers believe that they have found evidence of ancient UFO activity. From Elijah's flying "chariots of fire" to Ezekiel's "wheels within wheels in the sky", and even the enigmatic aerial phenomenon leading Moses during the Exodus, we put a modern perspective on the writings of the Bible in the context of UFOs.

"Religion is a primitive form of philosophy, [the] attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality."
- Ayn Rand, (The Objectivist Feb 1966)

“An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.”
- Alfred North Whitehead

“Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
- Albert Einstein, November 9, 1930

Revelation 9: 4 (KJV)
And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

The Physiology of Jung’s Four Functions & Their Organization , By Katherine Benziger, Ph.D.
- Jung’s four Functions are rooted in four distinct areas of the cortex. Thinking is housed in the Left Frontal Lobe. Intuition is housed in the Right Frontal Lobe. Sensation is housed in the Left Posterior Convexity. Feeling is housed in the Right Posterior Convexity.
…
- The difference between the Feeling Function and Emotions can be understood more clearly. The Feeling Function is a cortical capacity to recognize the presence or absence of harmony – between colors, tones, or human beings. By contrast, emotions are a limbic capacity to experience delight, anger, fear, grief.

Remember that the search is the most time consuming portion of discovery. Once you have found what you are searching for and have enough evidence and understanding to be convinced of its validity, your journey is over, finished, no motivation to search further, the questions are answered. Without that ‘need to know’, how would you motivate yourself to sit at your telescope and observe, learn more, acquire more data? I think once you are convinced then you become board, resigned and unproductive much as I am now. That’s why I think ‘they’ give us clues to their existence and not conclusive evidence. It is to inspire us to search and by searching, we discover, and through discovery we grow.

"As Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The UFO acolytes & conspiracy theorists are delighted with the "evidence" they have, but in the scientific community such anecdotal evidence and blurry films carry all the weight of aerogel."
- by: antiscience_is_mental_deficiency, 01/10/04

aerogel: Dictionary - Yahoo! Reference
A highly porous solid formed from a gel, such as silica gel, in which the liquid is replaced with a gas.

I presume then that you believe the evidence is quite real, yet is not sufficiently substantive to convince both the close-minded naysayer as well as the objective scientist?

Skeptic: ufoskeptic.org
One who practices the method of suspended judgment, engages in rational and dispassionate reasoning as exemplified by the scientific method, shows willingness to consider alternative explanations without prejudice based on prior beliefs, and who seeks out evidence and carefully scrutinizes its validity.

ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood
By Leonard David, www.space.com
Senior Space Writer, 14 January 2005
Now a team of American scientists note that recent astrophysical discoveries suggest that we should find ourselves in the midst of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations. Moreover, they argue it is a mistake to reject all UFO reports since some evidence for the theoretically-predicted extraterrestrial visitors might just be found there.

Curious situation
Pick up any good science magazine and you’re sure to see the latest in head-scratching ideas about superstring theory, wormholes, or the stretching of spacetime itself. Meanwhile, extrasolar planetary detection is on the verge of becoming mundane.

"We are in the curious situation today that our best modern physics and astrophysics theories predict that we should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation, yet any possible evidence of such lurking in the UFO phenomenon is scoffed at within our scientific community," contends astrophysicist Bernard Haisch.

Teleportation: Express Lane Space Travel
By Leonard David, Senior Space Writer, posted: 08 July 2005
UFO connection?
If indeed we are to become a space teleporting civilization, what about other advanced civilizations circling distant stars? Perhaps they have already mastered mass transportation via teleportation?

One might even be drawn to consider that mode of travel in connection with purported UFO visitation of Earth.
...
"Extraterrestrial intelligence that is thousands or millions of years ahead of us will certainly be teleportation experts," Darling advised, "if the technology can be implemented at the macroscopic biological level."

What possible outcome, then, from ET successfully tinkering with teleportation?

"We might expect advanced aliens to be occasionally beaming in to check on our progress as a species," Darling concluded.

Still In Default
By Bruce S. Maccabee, Ph.D.
Copyright 1986 by Bruce S. Maccabee
ABSTRACT
For nearly 40 [more than 50] years, the science establishment has ignored the UFO problem, relegating it to the domain of "true believers and mental incompetents" (a.k.a. "kooks and nuts" [according to the former editor of Applied Optics magazine]). Scientists have participated in a "self-cover-up" by refusing to look at the credible and well reported data. Furthermore, some of those few scientists who have studied UFO data have published explanations which are unconvincing or just plain wrong and have "gotten away with it" because most of the rest of the scientific community has not cared enough to analyze these explanations. The general rejection of the scientific validity of UFO sightings has made it difficult to publish analyses of good sightings [in refereed journals of establishment science]. Examples are presented of the scientific-self-cover-up involving erroneous explanations, refusal to look at the data, and rejection of papers for publication. How long will this situation last? Forty [fifty] years is long [too long].

The Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFI)
Public Perception
For more than 50 years, people have observed, reported on, speculated about, investigated, and reviewed the widely recognized UFO phenomenon.

As recently as July 2002, The Washington Post reported that two F-16s from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled in the skies over Washington after radar detected an unknown aircraft. Military officials said they do not know what the jets were chasing because it quickly disappeared. Events like this reported in the press and media continue to raise questions about the source and nature of these unidentified aerial phenomena.

There is a consensus among most researchers that at least five to ten percent of these unidentified phenomena cannot be explained by natural or artificial causes. Furthermore, because there has been no ongoing independent, empirically based scientific research conducted on unidentified aerial phenomena, no one can explain with objectivity or authority what UFOs are.

"So why don't they land and shake "hands" or why don't they drop off a few crates of glass beads or something?"
- by: willingthrall, 01/12/04 07:05 pm

Some have claimed this has been done. Before reading the following excerpts, first consider if ‘you’ were in a position to visit a planet populated by beings thousands of years less technologically advanced than yours, and overwhelmingly more belligerent, how much time would you spend there shaking hands and helping them ‘get up to speed’?

SCIENTISTS FROM ANOTHER PLANET CREATED ALL LIFE ON EARTH USING D.N.A.
On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.
The extra-terrestrial was about four feet in height, had long dark hair, almond shaped eyes, olive skin and exuded harmony and humour. He told Rael that:

"we were the ones who made all life on earth"
"you mistook us for gods"
"we were at the origin of your main religions"
"Now that you are mature enough to understand this,
we would like to enter official contact through an embassy"

Testimony of Major George A. Filer III
November 2000
Major George Filer was an Air Force Intelligence Officer who not only had an extraordinary encounter with a massive UFO on radar over the United Kingdom but later, in the 1970s while he was at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, found out that an extraterrestrial biological entity had been shot at Fort Dix. The Extraterrestrial fled to adjacent McGuire Air Force Base, where it died on the tarmac. He testifies that this life form was then picked up and taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Afterwards, many of the key personnel on the base who had a connection with this event, were quickly transferred. Major Filer also points out that the ridicule factor has been very effective at silencing people who have seen ETs or UFOs, and has helped to maintain secrecy.

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
February 27, 2003
…The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

…Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has “oderint dum metuant” really become our motto?

oderint dum metuant: Let them hate so long as they fear. (A favorite saying of Caligula.)

Unfortunately our ‘leaders’ and our institutions whether they are political or religious are almost always the oppressors of humanity. By attempting to create stability and predictability they stifle innovation and attempt to place limits on progress. Those people who are personally insecure and desire the security of power usually acquire it, and are the ones least capable of wielding it wisely and humanely. Those people who are best fit to lead others justly and humanely are those who have no interest in controlling or manipulating people and throughout history have typically only accepted positions of power when it has been forced on them out of necessity. This is why modern or complex governments can only work for the benefit of a majority if managed by a system of checks and balances, pitting one group with power against another thus forcing thoughtful deliberation and compromise.

Scientist-Astronaut Edgar Mitchell Reaffirms ET Visits To Earth Are Real.
The People [London]
October 10, 1998
A highly-intelligent scientist, Edgar caused a sensation at a UFO conference in America this month when he claimed he has seen proof that aliens exist.

"I AM an American astronaut and a trained scientist. Because of my position people in high places confide in me. And, as a result, I have no doubt that aliens HAVE visited this planet.

The American government and governments throughout the world have thousands of files of UFO sightings which cannot be explained. As a scientist, it is logical to me that at least some of these will have been witness of alien craft.

As a former astronaut, the military people who have access to these files are more willing to talk to me than to people they regard as mere cranks.

The stories I have heard from these people, who are more highly qualified than me to talk about UFOs, leave me in no doubt that aliens have already visited Earth.

It isn't just the US government which has kept quiet about alien visits. It would be arrogant of an American like myself to assume that ETs would only choose to visit my country.

Indeed, I've heard convincing stories about governments all over the world that know of alien visits - including the British government.

Not all governments are anxious to keep their findings quiet. The Belgians have admitted that aliens may be out there and have released information about sightings that cannot be explained away as military planes, weather phenomena and so on.

There is a very simple reason why governments have been so secretive: fear.

Well that’s going off on a tangent a bit but it's relevant in understanding that there actually is lots of evidence of ETI influence that when considered individually may not amount to anything conclusive but when you consider the frequency and timing of events a distinct pattern emerges. This understanding of power and those types of people who rise to positions of control helps one understand why there were so many UFOs witnessed by military personnel after WWII. I contend it was to impress and frighten those wielding destructive power, causing them to reconsider more aggressive expansionist policies. Hence the quotes by General Douglas Macarthur, Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, and speeches by U.S. President Ronald Reagan such as the one given to the U.N. General assembly on his vision of how the peoples of the world could unite against a perceived threat from beings from other planets.

Commentary: UFOs and the National Security State - by Joe Firmage
"Because of the developments of science, all countries on Earth will have to unite to survive and to make a common front against attack by people from other planets. The politics of the future will be cosmic, or interplanetary." – General Douglas Macarthur, October 8, 1955, New York Times

"Unknown objects are operating under intelligent control... It is imperative that we learn where UFOs come from and what their purpose is... Behind the scenes high ranking military officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense." – Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, public statements in 1960

"I am convinced that these objects do exist and that they are not manufactured by any nation on Earth." – Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding, Commander-in-Chief, Royal Air Force Command, London Sunday Dispatch, July 11, 1954

Immediately after the war humane policies including those that helped rebuild Japan and Germany were common. However as UFO sightings diminished US foreign policy became increasingly violent and exploitative. (See Killing Hope – U.S. Military and CIA interventions since World War II by William Blum [Blum worked in the U.S. State Department].) Besides being freighted by something they had no control over, the last thing national leaders wanted was public awareness that they really weren’t in control, hence all of the secrecy and disinformation.

"...there is a serious possibility that we are being visited — and have been visited for many years — by people from outer space, from other civilizations; that it behooves us to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation, and not the subject of rubbishing by tabloid newspapers.”
- Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, five-star Admiral and the former Head of the British Ministry of Defense who was kept in the dark about the UFO subject during his official capacities, July 2000

The Disclosure Project
“The Disclosure Project is a nonprofit research project working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems. We have over 400 government, military, and intelligence community witnesses testifying to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and the cover-up that keeps this information secret.”

Out of the Blue
A New Feature-Length Documentary On The UFO Phenomenon
This award-winning documentary reveals, through exclusive interviews with high-ranking military and government personnel, that some Unidentified Flying Objects could be of extraterrestrial origin. The film, narrated by PETER COYOTE, brings to light how secrecy and ridicule are used to shroud the UFO issue.

Qualified Testimony —
MERCURY 7 ASTRONAUT GORDON COOPER recalls a UFO landing at Edwards Air Force Base. APOLLO ASTRONAUT EDGAR MITCHELL discloses his knowledge of the covert effort to keep the subject matter top secret. Military personnel testify to having witnessed UFOs disable nuclear missiles both in their silos and during test flights. PRESIDENTS GERALD FORD and JIMMY CARTER give accounts about their involvement with the UFO phenomenon.

UFOs and the National Security State - Richard M. Dolan
“This is a thorough and monumental undertaking. I applaud your effort.” - Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut

Commentary: UFOs and the National Security State - by Joe Firmage
“Are scientists and journalists aware that the chief scientific consultant in the Air Force’s Blue Book study of UFOs later characterized the project as a publicity maneuver to mollify the public, himself convinced by the evidence he saw that genuine, unexplained aerospatial phenomena are in our midst?” - Dr. J. Allen Hynek on camera shortly before his death in 1985

"The trick would be to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study, but to the scientific community would present the image of a group of nonbelievers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer." - Robert Low, University of Colorado senior administrator, former intelligence officer, and assistant director of the Condon Committee, in a confidential 1966 memo suggesting the approach of the Condon UFO study

"Congressional investigations … are still being held on the problem of unidentified flying objects and the problem is one in which there is quite a bit of interest… Since most of the material presented to the Committees is classified, the hearings are never printed." - Congressman William H. Ayres, 1958

Edgar Mitchell: US Covers Up Aliens For 50 Years.
by Tom Rhodes
The Sunday Times - (London)
October 11, 1998
NEW YORK -- There are no little green men on the moon. Edgar Mitchell knows this because in 1971 he became the sixth man to walk on it. He is positive, however, that aliens have landed on Earth.

Mitchell argues that life is almost certain to exist on any other planet with a supportive environment. Some physicists, he points out, now believe it is possible to travel faster than light, even if humble earthlings have yet to achieve it.

He is 90% certain that many of the thousands of UFOs recorded since the 1940s belonged to visitors from another planet. Although some have been delusions and others natural phenonema, too many remain unexplained, he said. "This suggests there are humanoids manning craft which have characteristics not in the arsenal of any nation on earth that we know of. That is very alarming," he said. It was a startling departure for a scientist who, up to now, has been wary of appearing with ufologists widely regarded as cranks. "Until recently I was very cautious about such conferences," Mitchell, 68, admitted before the opening of an annual convention entitled the UFO Experience. "But now I believe there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to warrant a scientific understanding in this area."

Mitchell, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, does not fit easily into the ranks of the UFO fanatics. Although he acts as a consultant to The X Files, the cult television series, he is scornful of "disinformation" about aliens and flying saucers that emanates from the Internet and marginal UFO organisations in America.

Mitchell says his research - including conversations with people who have worked in intelligence agencies and military groups - has convinced him that the American government has covered up the truth about UFOs for 50 years. He is trying to persuade Congress to grant his sources immunity to tell "the real story" of events such as the so-called Roswell incident - the alleged crash of a flying saucer in New Mexico in 1947.

"Many of these folks were under high-security clearances, they took oaths and they feel they cannot talk without some form of immunity," Mitchell said. "It takes a brave person to come out on something like this."

If you think that sounds just too fantastic and is the product of people who are delusional then consider the same types of political disinformation activities are going on right now with matters far less fantastic than UFOs. I’m referring specifically to the American Airlines flight 587 'disaster'. If an event that occurred in broad daylight by dozens of witnesses and with video evidence can be covered up don’t you think something far less easy to believe could be covered up with even greater ease?

American Airlines Flight 587 - Belle Harbor, New York - November 12, 2001 - DCA02MA001
"On November 12, 2001, at approximately 9:17 a.m., American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A-300-600, N14053, crashed into a neighborhood in Belle Harbor, New York, several minutes after taking off from Kennedy International Airport. The plane was on a scheduled flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. All 260 persons aboard the plane died, as did 5 on the ground. The following is an update of factual information developed during the Safety Board’s investigation..."
- NTSB Advisory, National Transportation Safety Board, Washington, DC 20594, November 20, 2001

Note that NewsMax has an overt Republican bias but they apparently have no trouble challenging a primarily Republican administration concerning the evidence and how the cases are handled. I myself watched the Flight 587 cover-up unfold as news broadcasters interviewed eyewitnesses on the ground report the plane exploding in the air. Thirty minutes later 'officials', who had seen nothing and examined no evidence, were available to be interviewed and they immediately began discounting even the possibility that there was an explosion and started spinning their official version of reality, "some form of massive mechanical failure".

Flight 587 Eyewitnesses Insist Explosion Came Before Tail Broke Off
Newsmax, Monday, Dec. 3, 2001 11:07 a.m. EST
"Two eyewitnesses to the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 said over the weekend that investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board are wrong to focus on potential structural defects as the cause of the disaster - insisting instead that the plane's tail came off over New York's Jamaica Bay only after it exploded in a fireball."

FBI Sitting on Flight 587 Videotape
Newsmax, Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 11:07 a.m. EST
"A videotape that could show exactly what happened to American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed three minutes after taking off from New York's JFK airport on Monday, is in the hands of the FBI - but the bureau has thus far declined to release it."

Flight 587 Witnesses Charge Cover-Up
Newsmax, Monday, Jan. 7, 2002 11:03 a.m. EST
"Dozens of eyewitnesses to the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 now say the government is ignoring their claims that the Airbus 300 exploded in midair before breaking up minutes after takeoff at New York's JFK airport."

Second Video of Flight 587 Casts Doubt on Crash Probe
Newsmax, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2002 3:01 p.m. EST
"News that a second tollbooth video camera captured doomed American Airlines Flight 587's breakup moments after its Nov. 12 takeoff from New York's JFK airport raises new questions about the candor and thoroughness of investigators conducting the probe into the disaster."

Time.com reported Sunday that National Transportation Safety Board investigators "last week got their first look at a remarkable videotape of the deadly accident."

Time adds, "This is the second video record the board has obtained of the crash, but the first one was virtually useless because the plane could be seen only as a tiny speck."

"In reality, both traffic surveillance videotapes - shot from toll-booths on causeways that cross New York's Jamaica Bay (adjacent to JFK) - were reportedly turned over to crash probers within four days of the disaster."

So why would the US government and corporate media be interested in deceiving the public? Not only are there considerable financial implications involved in more dramatic decreases in airline travel but it demonstrates that if flight 587 was brought down by a bomb as it appears to have been, the bomb was placed on board at the height of airport security. This demonstrates to the public that they, the 'officials' cannot protect them which leads to greater individual independence and scrutiny of government policy.

TERRORISM DEFINED
U.S. Army, Field Manual 100-20, Stability and Support Opperations, (Final Draft), "Chapter 8: Combatting Terrorism."
The development of bureaucratic states led to a profound change in terrorism. Modern governments have a continuity that older, personalistic governments did not. Terrorists found that the death of a single individual, even a monarch, did not necessarily produce the policy changes they sought. Terrorists reacted by turning to an indirect method of attack. By the early twentieth century, terrorists began to attack people previously considered innocents to generate political pressure. These indirect attacks create a public atmosphere of anxiety and undermine confidence in government. Their unpredictability and apparent randomness make it virtually impossible for governments to protect all potential victims. The public demands protection that the state cannot give. Frustrated and fearful, the people then demand that the government make concessions to stop the attacks.

"And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten -- indeed the word "terrorized" is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."
- DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, Surprise Trip for Donald Rumsfeld; Interview With Brigadier General James Marks; Christian in Iraq, Aired December 24, 2004 - 12:00 ET

Nevertheless, months later in an announcement where they hoped people would not associate the as yet unproven cause of the flight 587 disaster with their admission that security at the airports was so horrible in the months after 9/11 that the Federal government has sufficient reasons to nationalize airport security.

Knives, guns, fake bombs elude airport security
CNN, March 26, 2002 Posted: 9:54 AM EST (1454 GMT)
In hundreds of undercover tests conducted between November and February, security screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 60 percent of simulated explosive devices, and 30 percent of guns. Overall, screeners failed 48 percent of the time.

When you say I don’t have conclusive evidence that UFOs exist then you are right, ‘I’ don’t and I don’t suspect I will until they arrive in force on one particular day. I have however identified enough physical evidence and credible testimony that makes the probability that they exist very high. I’ve also found significant evidence and reasoning that explains why the most credible evidence to be found would be in the possession of organizations with the greatest ability and reasons for concealing it. When you factor in our accelerating understanding of the various applications inherent in utilization of string theory, quantum theory, and a quasi-steady state cosmology you can see how space travel over vast distances is highly probable. And finally when you understand the features and fundamental nature of consciousness, human history and the truths that underlie all of the worlds belief systems you become aware of the importance of self-awareness in understanding all of it.

Excelsior!