Stephen Bassett, the charismatic political activist and one time candidate for Congress (Maryland) closed the weekend’s events with an inspiring and optimistic preamble. Here was a new tool in his campaign to end the “government enforced truth embargo on extraterrestrial related phenomena”.
The climax of the 2005 X-Conference was the Exopolitics Panel. A panel of twenty or so people – witnesses, researchers and others – gathered together to discuss various aspects of the extraterrestrial presence and the pending political implications. No one here proclaimed to be an expert – “In this field there are no experts” declared Bassett “we are all still learning”.
The X-Conference 2005 began three days earlier and consisted of 18 lectures, 8 workshops and various special events. Notably important was a post-banquet keynote speech from Monsignor Corrado Balducci from the Holy See. A close associate of the late Pope John Paul II – his comments regarded his own personal areas of research.
We arrived in Washington, District of Columbia, several days earlier and spent time on the tourist trail before heading to the north-western suburb of Gaithersburg – a 30 minute metro-train ride from Washington DC’s political centre. As we joined the queue for a ‘cab’ I recognised a guy I’d met at the conference the previous year. He re-introduced himself as Doug and we spoke at length about our experiences since the last X-Conference.
On Friday morning the conference was opened by Stephen Bassett and co-host Cheryll Jones. Bassett introduced the concept of exopolitics and explained the format of the conference. The main objectives of the conference were – i) an event to lobby the United States government into bringing an end to the culture of secrecy that surrounds the issue of extraterrestrial rated phenomena, and ii) to begin to address the political ramifications of the reality of an extraterrestrial presence on this planet. Clearly, a debate regarding the reality of the UFO phenomena was not going to be forthcoming – the debate had moved on.
The first lecture was by Dr Richard Sauder. In his introduction Bassett explained his reasoning for scheduling this lecture for the start of the conference. “His subject” Bassett explained “is critical to the concept of exopolitics.”
“At the core of this fifty seven year period has been an assumption – the assumption was that the government can’t possibly maintain a level of secrecy or activity on an issue of this magnitude… and we wouldn’t all know about it.” Sauder went on to present evidence to show why he thinks that we would not necessarily be aware of U.S Governments covert activities.
Sauder’s lecture was titled “What’s In The Basement of the Secret Empire: ‘DUCC’ The Nazis Are Already Here! And What Is That Secret Construction In North West D.C. (and down by the Potomac) Anyway?” At its centre was a trail of officially declassified and unclassified documents from the US Government and Military – presented as evidence that there are covert underground and possibly undersea facilities in the United States and around the world.
In summary, Sauder showed strong evidence for his assertion that key Nazi Scientists and Engineers – who are credited with the design and construction of underground factories for the Third Reich over sixty years ago – were recruited by the United States military soon after the war had ended. The recruitment of Nazi Rocket Scientists by the U.S. via Operation Paperclip is commonly known – but, what is less well known is that, while the US-ex-Nazi collaborations sent men to the moon in full view of the public, they also went underground and out of sight.
One memo uncovered by Sauder stated: “The Air Materiel Command has established a requirement for four German technicians to act as consultants on the underground plant program. The following four technicians presently working on this project for USAFE-A2 have been recommended by that command.” This memorandum, dating from at least June 16th 1947, raised a few eye-brows in the audience. It was signed by a senior intelligence officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base – the location where the Roswell debris was allegedly sent in early June that same year.
Dr Bruce Maccabee and Dr James Deardorff shared a lecture slot on the first day of the conference. These two speakers, along with fellow Astrophysicists Dr Hal Puthoff and Dr Bernie Haisch, had co- authored a paper that re-addressed the concept of extraterrestrial visitation in light of our current understanding of physics. As Bruce gleefully explained to the audience – they managed to get a scientific paper discussing UFOs published in a respected scientific journal.
The paper “Inflation-Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation, British Journal for Interplanetary Science, Vol. 58, pp. 43-50, 2005” was the basis for the presentation. Bruce began by explaining their reasons for publishing it. It was due to a confluence of knowledge – advances in many areas of academic research, such as exobiology and physics, have led to the insight that the common arguments against extraterrestrial visitation do not hold up. As if expressing his opinion about the history of non-disclosure of UFO information, Bruce also demonstrated how explanations such as “we are alone” and “even if they existed, they couldn’t get here” were unsound even with level of knowledge of fifty years ago.
The conclusion, coming midway in the lecture, was that we are highly likely to be surrounded by a galactic civilization. So then, why is there no evidence for that? Why don’t we see them? (This apparent contradiction is known as Fermi’s Paradox). Well, historically, science has disregarded the UFO evidence; it does not take a genius to fill in the rest.
The lecture went on to look at various schools of thought regarding possible extraterrestrial agendas; how they might consider us and other ET races, and ultimately how they might handle our presence in their universe. The speakers speculated briefly on the correlation of the UFO evidence (sightings, contacts and abductions) and stated that an apparent alien strategy based on this evidence suggests an ongoing partial exposure of our society to their presence – with the possible aim of gaining acceptance. I couldn’t help but think that this was a predominantly westernized view.
It was also suggested that sightings and experiences might be manipulated by extraterrestrials to provide a higher level of communication. An example photograph was displayed showing a ring shaped UFO over Fort Belvoir, Virginia (circa. 1957). This was explained by the debunking Condon Report as a cloud from an atom bomb simulation. A host of reasons why this is unlikely were given – is it possible that extraterrestrials could mimic an atom bomb simulation with the intention of sending us a message?
The beginning of the conference had offered evidence in support of two concepts – i) that the U.S Government is willing and able to keep infrastructure and organisations hidden from it’s citizens, and ii) that it is highly likely that there is a galactic community of extraterrestrial civilizations from which we are isolated. From here on in, these two concepts became fused into a grand conspiracy which has at its core Bassett’s “Government enforced truth embargo on extraterrestrial related phenomena”.
Melinda Leslie presented “Evidence for the Covert Military Harassment, Surveillance, Interrogation and Mind Control in the Extraterrestrial Abduction Experience”. Leslie has been driven to research this even more controversial aspect of the abduction phenomenon by her own personal experiences. There is a lack of documentary evidence with regards to these events, and it is a good thing to be sceptical. I am reminded however of a comment made at the Disclosure Project National Press Club Conference in 2001 – namely that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Leslie introduced her research by citing the conclusions of the 1991 Roper Poll which claimed that 3.7 million people in the United States (~ 1% of the current population) may have been abducted by aliens. Swiftly ignoring the hullabaloo that surrounds the report (e.g. claims of flawed experimental design) Leslie went on to suggest that the abduction phenomena would “have to be a matter of National Security”.
It is her thesis that the re-abduction of alien abductees by the US Military occurs soon after the original event for the following purposes – i) as a tool for learning about the ET races involved, ii) to identify abductees who, it is thought, may have enhanced psi [psychic] potential as a result of their experience, and iii) as a form of harassment in order to silence witnesses. Leslie suggested that the military had discovered how to interface with recovered ET technology, and that this was through psi processes. In order to learn and develop psi technology of their own the military would to need access to a large resource of people. Therefore, using abductees would – assuming the enhanced psi potential theory is correct – be beneficial to the advancement of their own technologies.
In-keeping with a scientific rationalistic approach to this I feel it can be reasoned that, while evidence of specific aspects may not be forthcoming, the strong evidence for other aspects of the UFO phenomenon (such as official documentation and whistleblower statements) means that we cannot rely on our old preconceptions when trying to determine the merits of this as a potential reality.
[Interesting footnote: At the 2004 X-Conference, Nick Pope of the British Government’s Ministry of Defence was taking questions – a girl with a British accent spoke. ‘I’m being abducted by aliens on a regular basis and I’d like to know what you, the Ministry of Defence, are going to do about it?’ Pope mused for a second before giving his reply: ‘Abduction is a civil offence and is therefore a matter for the police, not the MOD.’]
Paul Davis lightened the tone slightly with his presentation on “Hollywood and Exopolitics”. Davis was the executive producer and co-writer of the film “Roswell” starring Martin Sheen and Kyle MacLachlan which was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1994. He tracked the development of “the Human/Alien relationship in the movies” against “the new emerging reality.”
The evolution of the attitude towards non-human entities was traced beginning with a 1936 futurist film called “Things To Come” which depicted the future of humanity without the presence of aliens. The first aliens came with the publication of “Superman” by D.C. Comics and the Orson Well Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” in 1938. Through the history of Science Fiction in cinema, Davis showed the cultural reflections of the changing attitudes to extraterrestrials through the decades. He ended with recent films which include concepts of the past civilizations on Mars that stem from the NASA images of the Face on Mars and the work of writers and researchers such as Zecharia Sitchin.
At the end of the presentation he played a clip of the original ABC Radio News 1947 announcement of the crash of a flying saucer near Roswell. For three hours in June 1947, the aliens were officially here.
Richard Dolan’s first lecture was based on his Book “UFOs and The National Security State” published in 2000. “This book is the best primer of this topic ever written” declared Bassett “If there wasn’t a single photograph of an extraterrestrial or a UFO anywhere, the historical record as he describes it is confirming of an extraterrestrial presence”. In his second lecture “How UFO Secrecy Has Damaged American Society and Politics” he explored the effects that a nation built on secrecy has on its society. Dolan asked the question “who killed the American republic?” He gave an historical account of the divergence between the old political powers and those built on secrecy.
He suggests that the “permanent warfare state” that has endured since the Second World War shows us that the traditional values of America’s founders have been surrendered. He believes the holes in the work of the mainstream researchers in this field can be filled by taking into account the perspective of UFO secrecy in American history. Documentation exists proving the reality of the UFO phenomenon. However, a problem arises in a society were the media is not as free as it would first appear.
He displayed an official FBI memo dated from March 22, 1950 released under the Freedom of Information Act. Why on earth wouldn’t the news media be interested – “An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico… …they were described as being circular in shape with raised centers… …approximately 50 feet in diameter… …each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall…”
He maintained that there are many stories at this conference and a lot of which is likely to be true. However, if you are going to embrace a society which waits for official recognition then you need officially irrefutable evidence. “You have to remember what you know, and what you think you know”.
The Canadian researcher Grant Cameron presented his information at high speed. In his lecture titled “Clinton, Carter & Disclosure”, he reported on the political games that are played out in Washington regarding disclosure of the ET presence. The belief that the American people have a right to know about ET phenomena lies solely with the Democrats and not the Republicans it would seem. Cameron played an audio clip of a radio show where an acquaintance of his asked Dick Cheney “were you briefed on UFOs?” Cheney responded “If I had been that would be classified and I can’t talk about it.”
When Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 he was the first U.S. President on the public record as having witnessed a UFO. He had previously declared that, when in office, he would reveal the truth about UFO’s and the ET presence. However, when he became President he found his requests came to nothing. He personally requested the CIA’s classified information on UFOs and ET intelligence from the then CIA Director George Bush Sr. but his request was denied. President Bill Clinton, another Democrat, was also denied information on this subject by what Clinton described as a shadow government. In a 1995 address in Northern Ireland Clinton demonstrated his inability to get information on the ET presence.
“I got a letter from 13 year old Ryan from Belfast. Now Ryan, if you’re out in the crowd tonight, here’s the answer to your question. No, as far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.” [Laughter] “And, Ryan, if the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn’t tell me about it either and I want to know.” [Applause]
[Interesting footnote: By 1995 the official Roswell story put forward by the US Air Force had changed at least twice. The official press release from 1947 which stated that the United States Air Force had recovered a crashed flying disk was retracted in a matter of hours and was replaced by the crashed weather balloon story. During the early 1990’s New Mexico Congressman Steven Schiff had involved a federal auditing body, the General Accounting Office, to investigate. Prior to the publication of the GAO report, the US Air Force released their own independent report claiming that the weather balloon story was indeed a cover story – a cover for a crashed ‘Mogul Balloon’ from a classified project designed to detect distant explosions using equipment on a high altitude balloon. In this report they claimed that the stories of alien bodies recovered from the crash site were simply the invention of UFO researchers; intent on selling more books. Soon after Clinton’s speech in Belfast the Air Force added crash test dummies to their Project Mogul story, as the source of the ‘alien bodies’. Why didn’t they mention this before in the earlier report? And three foot tall crash test dummies? Who were they expecting to drop from the sky?]
Up to mid-Saturday afternoon, the conference had demonstrated conclusively that the U.S. Government and Military have been involved with the UFO phenomenon going back nearly sixty years. It was also clear that the only rational explanation for the UFO phenomena itself was the presence of intelligent beings with technology far in advance than our own [at least officially]. The question of who these beings are is still unclear from this perspective. We can use the term “Aliens” but what does that mean? If it turned out that they originated on earth can we still call them aliens? Dr Maccabee and Dr Deardorff had given us hypothetical arguments to explain where they might come from, but how do we test that hypothesis? For the hypothesis to become a scientific theory predictions are required, based on the initial observations; if the predictions are shown to be correct then it becomes a scientific theory. How best do we find out where these beings come from? Do we set up and experiment and wait for them to trip the apparatus? Or do we just ask them?
There was ample opportunity to meet the speakers at this conference. I spoke to Richard Sauder straight after his opening lecture and he told me there was huge amount of underground tunnels in Britain. He also spoke about the implications of Nick Cook’s book “The Hunt For Zero Point” regarding underground facilities in Britain. I spoke to Richard Dolan a couple of times during the weekend too. I explained to him that I would be writing a review of the conference for UFO monthly when I returned and briefly explained the work of the Gary Heseltine’s PRUFOS Police Database – a subject he seemed interested in. He told me how much he’d enjoyed his time in England studying at Oxford, so I suggested he should come over again and speak at a British conference.
Jaime Mausen is a Mexican TV journalist who has acquired thousands of photos and videos of UFOs from his audience. In his Special Event lecture on Saturday he presented videos and photographs taken of UFOs in the Mexican skies over a fifteen year period. It was a movie presentation with Mausen talking about the cases as they came up. The musical accompaniment had a traditional Central American feel with a hint of Jean-Michel Jarre.
This example of a photograph he had been sent resulted from a 15 second exposure of a volcano erupting. Mausen claimed that the object only appeared in the last seconds of the exposure. He then showed several interesting videos showing a cigar-shaped object in the vicinity of another volcanic eruption. In one clip the object flew into a pyroclastic flow coming down the side of the erupting volcano. Mausen claimed that the local town near the volcano had been evacuated prior to the eruption, and one night a UFO flew into the volcano; the eruptions ceased and soon after the residents of the town were able to return home.
Many of his video and photographs show illuminated orbs flying in formation. In some events thousands of these objects were allegedly in formation. One UFO had a black helicopter in pursuit. It was a very exciting presentation and you could feel the exhilaration in the audience. Mausen did not claim to have any in depth knowledge of this subject – but what he does have is a vast archive of evidence that has only been made possible by the advancement of camera technology and its ubiquity in our everyday lives.
There were lots of photos of crop circles, and several frames of a video [that has since been lost] showing a pair of Greys in an English garden. This is entertainment. The wealth of Mausen’s evidence in not in the quality of the pictures or the videos; it is the patterns seen not in the images but outside them. Videos and photos depict events that may be real, but they may not be. In my opinion you shouldn’t judge photographs and videos as single events. It would be like looking a maths student’s exam paper and basing his or her grade on a single calculation. Mistakes happen. We can be right, we can be wrong, we can also be fooled.
He showed the video film of several UFO’s that was officially released by the Mexican Air Force in early 2004. He discussed the details of that case – UFO’s were recorded using an Infra-Red camera on board a military aircraft. The objects were not seen by the Air Force personnel through the aircraft windows. The UFO’s were invisible – stealth technology maybe? This led to supposition that UFO’s may actually be present in the skies more than we think, but we just don’t see them – without infrared glasses. [Does anyone remember John Carpenters “They Live”?] He went on to show a video recorded in both visible and infra-red wavelengths using parallel cameras – sure enough, there was a bright “object” seen by the infrared camera that wasn’t picked up by the visible wavelength camera.
It was speculated that the formations of lights maybe an aerial equivalent of crop circles – in that they may be a direct form of communication. It was also suggested that events similar to these may have been the source of the mythology of ancient civilisations. The presentation concluded with rhetoric about the Mayan prophecy about the coming to the end on an age. The year 2012 was mention several times I remember – should bother with that company pension when I get home I wondered?
Alfred L. Webre opened on Sunday. He is a futurist, a peace advocate and an environmental activist. He is also regarded as the father of exopolitics and he spoke at length about his history with the subject. He approached President Carter and received funding to research UFOs at the Stanford Research Institute although he was warned off by the Department of Defence – despite its Presidential backing. This work originated exopolitics. He finally left the country in 1977 after harassment by “Men in Black”.
He is the director of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, along with Arthur C. Clarke (futurist) and Carl Rossen (NASA Astronaut), which aims to prevent the weaponisation of space and to support cooperation with life in the universe. He has worked extensively with the Canadian Senate (equivalent to the House of Lords) and tabled an Exopolitics Initiative with Paul Hellyer MP (the pioneer of the United Nations Blue Berets [who seek conflict resolution through non-violence] and who later became the deputy Prime Minister).
He went on to describe the work of the United Nations. In 1978 UN General Assembly put forward Resolution 33/426 which was to begin work researching UFOs. This came about from recommendations put forward by Grenada and U.S. President Carter and led to the United Nations facing pressure from what Webre described as “the financial, military warfare economy”. The United States also invaded and over-threw government in Grenada.
President Carter told Webre about of his UFO encounters when they met. Webre said he’d like to conduct a UFO investigation and Carter suggested he should do it as a futurist at the Stanford Research Institute – with a premise to study i) in-depth ET communication, and ii) the JFK assassination. At this time the Dr Russell Targ and Dr Hal Puthoff were developing Remote Viewing protocol at the Stanford Research Institute under contract to the Department of Defence and Central Intelligence Agency.
When Remote Viewing came into the public domain in the early 1990’s it began to be used for scientific purposes. Soon afterwards, communications between non-terrestrial intelligences from an ancient Martian civilization began. Information came forth about an advanced civilization living underground on Mars – having been brought forward in time by the Greys [who are considered to be similar to a UN Peace Keepers] from the cataclysm that destroyed the Martian environment ~ 64 million years ago; apparently for the benefit of both civilisations.
Historically, remote viewing was only a small part of the intelligence gathering apparatus and validation of information was required from other sources. Webre stated himself that this data is not yet validated. I wondered how you would possibly validate such data if it were true. The nature of the communication sounded more like channelling that remote viewing per se and there is always the possibility of erroneous data, poor interpretation and even disinformation; it is intriguing however when you consider the known anomalies photographed on Mars over the years, and NASA’s complicity regarding the suppression of information on this topic alone.
To paraphrase Richard Dolan – be certain of what you know, and be certain of what you don’t know. I was a little concerned that the weaponisation of space issue was so close in proximity to unsubstantiated data about Martian Civilisations. The relative strengths and weaknesses of information need to be clearly understood. It would be quiet easy for the media put a certain spin on this information if they so wished.
Paola Harris began by remembering the late John Mack [1929 – 2004]. She showed personal photos of him, mostly from his time in Paola’s native Italy. “[John] believed we need to change the way we think.” John Mack, M.D. was professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Centre for Psychology and Social Change. He explored how extraordinary experiences can affect personal, societal and global transformation. He was hit by a car in London on September 27th last year.
In Paola’s lecture she presented information that she believes is key to disclosure, and ultimately defining exopolitics. She stated that whistleblowers statements are expert witness testimonies. Harris began by showing a video clip of Steven Spielberg giving a talk to school children. It is widely believed that Spielberg is well versed in UFO lore – his films after all have include “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “ET: The Extraterrestrial”, and the TV series about the abduction phenomenon “Taken” – however he rarely speaks openly about it. In the video a young girl in the audience asked him a question and swiftly followed it with “…and do you believe in aliens?” Spielberg answered the first question and concluded softly “Yes, I do believe in aliens.”
The rest of Paola’s presentation gave brief insights into the stories of several whistleblowers. She has concentrated a considerable amount of her research recently on the testimony of Charles Hall. Charles was a weather observer for the United States Air Force during the nineteen sixties and was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and the Indian Springs gunnery ranges near Las Vegas, Nevada. Charles tells stories about his encounters with the “Tall White” extraterrestrials out in the Nevada desert while in the service of the government.
The late Colonel Philip J. Corso was a member of President Eisenhower’s National Security Council and former head of the Foreign Technology Desk at the U.S. Army’s Research & Development department. In his book “The Day After Roswell”, he told how he managed a reverse-engineering project for the United States Army based on fragments of wreckage that were recovered from the Roswell crash site. He claims that some of the technological advances from the mid twentieth century, such as integrated circuits and laser technologies were a direct result of that project.
Clifford Stone is one of hundreds of Disclosure Project whistleblowers who have stated their willingness to testify to congressional hearings regarding the alleged cover-up of the extraterrestrial presence. Paola played a video clip of his testimony. While working for the United States Air Force he stated that he was involved in UFO crash retrievals; and that at the time of his departure in the late 1980’s the authorities had catalogued 57 extraterrestrial races. He spoke about how his contact with survivors affected him and how difficult is was not being able to discuss this with his family.
After the Saturday night banquet Bassett introduced Monsignor Corrado Balducci – a Catholic prelate who has been outspoken in the past about his belief in an extraterrestrial intelligences interacting with the humanity. Coming less than a week after Pope John Paul II funeral, Bassett thanked Monsignor Balducci for his attendance at such a demanding time in Rome. Monsignor Balducci, a senior Exorcist and Demonologist for the Vatican, spoke a length about his personal research into extraterrestrials. He spoke through an interpreter who, at times struggled to convey the fiery Italian’s remarks.
He began by looking at research from the mid 19th and early 20th centuries, such as that of the Society of Psychical Research who studied what we would today call UFO Abductions. They reasoned that the entities involved, whoever they were, we not “demons” although the possibility that they may have been “the souls of the dead” remained. With regards to modern day UFOs he observed that the public attitude towards them is that either it all has to be true, or it all has to be false. He believes that there has to be some truth in UFOs from ‘an affirmation emerging from good sense and consistent with the normal running of our lives including religion’. He went on to cite evidence for the extraterrestrial presence in the public domain.
From a theological perspective, an extraterrestrial presence engaging out planet does not conflict with “our religion” he explained. The Madonna has no need for UFOs – maternal affections are shown in other ways. He maintained that these beings cannot be angels, because angels do not require a physical body (or spaceships) to interact with humanity. Likewise, there is no need to think they are work of the devil. ‘When I speak of the activity of the devil I ordinarily think of what comes with temptation. The first people to tempt us are ourselves – we are more gifted to evil than to good.’ He went on to suggest that extraterrestrials would be more gifted, talented and good than we are.
In considering the testimonials of people who describe beings from worlds with conditions for life similar to our own, he said it is not possible that beings more evil than us exist on these worlds. ‘In this way we are the real witnesses for the real endless mercy of god’. ‘We have to think that the extraterrestrials are like us, or better than us – always with a spiritual part attached to a material part. Their spiritual/physical relationship differs from ours – for the soul to act it needs a body, therefore extraterrestrials have both parts – except we are more evil.’
He presented some theological affirmations of his thesis i) other inhabited planets are possible as a symbol of the power and reason of god – the infinite wisdom of god has no limits, ii) moreover, the existence of other inhabited planets is likely since the distance between ourselves and angels would be reduced with the presence of intermediate beings of body/spirit, iii) an exclusively theological consideration is that for the glory of god to be given to him we should consider it probable that far away other beings exist capable of knowing god and giving him his glory. To me this is the theological equivalent to the scientific inductive argument that states – ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ – is the universe devoid of life or teeming with it?
‘For us,’ Balducci continued ‘habitats on other planets are desirable from a perspective of providing protection and help to us on our spiritual journey – continuing divination of our spirituality – not just within Christianity’. ‘The beings must be interested in the ecological problems of our world, predicting more clearly than us the route we have taken; many years from now to the point of making it unliveable.’ ‘Since ET’s can foresee better than us, they pray for us’. Several contactee accounts including an example from an 86 year old Sicilian confirm these ideas.
How do we reconcile the redemption of Christ with UFO’s? Saint Paul said ‘Christ is centre in heaven and creator of the universe – there are no worlds not linked to him.’ Therefore Christ has an influence on all planets. ‘Various verses in both the Old and New Testament discuss inhabited planets.’ The word Universe appears 66 times in the bible and denotes reference to other planets – i.e. not exclusively the Earth. So what is the churches position? A month before Christmas is the “Festival of Christ King of the Universe” This is the feast of all the inhabited planets he said with a smile.
Monsignor Balducci said he had never spoken to a group about UFO’s before and he had prepared his speech especially for the X-Conference. He spoke more about case histories, metapsychic essays [old term for parapsychology] and Jesuit astronomy – Angelo Scepi 1886 stated: ‘it is absurd to consider all other worlds as uninhabitable deserts’.
It was now the early hours of Sunday morning. Bassett apologised for earlier audio problems that had delayed the speech – although the length of the keynote speech was out of his hands. The Annual PRG Awards Ceremony followed swiftly after which Bassett announced that the David Sereda movie ‘Dan Aykroyd Unplugged’ will be playing throughout the night in the Grand Ballroom.
The Paradigm Research Group Awards 2005 were:
- Political Courage: James Earl Carter, Jr. (2004: New Mexico Congressman Steven Schiff)
- Courage in Journalism: Jaime Maussan & Billy Cox (2004: Sarah McClendon)
- Hall of Fame (living): Walter H. “Walt” Andrus, Jr. (2004: Stanton T. Friedman)
- Hall of Fame (deceased): Dr. James E. McDonald (2004: Dr. J. Allen Hynek)
- Disclosure: Monsignor Corrado Balducci (2004: Lt. Col. Philip J. Corso)
Although attendance was down on the previous year [~450 cp. with 650 in 2004] it had been another exhilarating event with improved organisation. I personally enjoyed it more simply because I did not try to attend all the events. This event however, I didn’t want to miss – it was the event I think Stephen Bassett had high hopes for. In the Exopolitics Panel twenty or so of the conference speakers and guests were ready to discuss and debate the issues. An extensive amount of information had already been presented throughout weekend and this was an opportunity to spread the word beyond the walls of the conference.
Ted St. Rain called out for the last time the conference “one minute to go” before the cameras began to roll. Stephen Bassett explained that the recording of this panel event will be sent to key political players in Washington. For me, this was an opportunity to hear a summary of key information relating to disclosure and the ensuing social and political considerations. Since it was not possible to attend every lecture and event this weekend I was looking forward to hearing what the other speakers had to say.
Bassett began his re-introduction to the X-Conference 2005 Exopolitics Panel. He asked the panel questions tailored to individuals’ key experience and knowledge. Bassett asked an interesting question to Alfred Webre – How does the exopolitical movement overcome the “high strangeness” to minimise the “ghettoisation” of the movement due to the “giggle factor”? This is a difficult one to deal with and I’m not sure if I understood Webre’s response. My view is that in a post-disclosure world it wouldn’t be an issue. However, it may well be another reason why disclosure is unlikely.
Something that stands out at these conferences is the divide between ideas of what disclosure is. Does the President appear on TV and announce “Howdy folks! The ETs are here.” then it’s back to business, or does something else happen?
While Stephen Bassett waits for the Presidents announcement others are not so convinced. Richard Hoagland who was a speaker at the 2004 X-Conference told the audience that disclosure is already happening – information has been coming out for years and will continue to until everyone just accepts it.
Richard Dolan’s view is not as optimistic. He maintains that because of the changes to Government over the years, disclosure is not possible coming from the top – no one in a position of power is willing to relinquish control. Therefore the only way disclosure can happen is through the efforts of the people, revolution no less. If you take into account information from mainstream political commentators then I’d think I’d have to agree with Richard Dolan. TV movie producer David Sereda talked about the authorities’ fear of losing its grip on their advanced technologies. “If people had access to this stuff they could go anywhere and do anything unhindered by federal or state laws or by energy requirements – for those in charge that is the fear.” Others during the weekend had suggested that the main thing being hidden at Area 51 was money.
It wasn’t all so disheartening. Don Daniels, a commercial pilot who has worked extensively with Dr Steven Greer’s Disclosure Project, talked about his experiences with CSETI. “[paraphrased] We were out in the field and could see the lights… We would flash our lights then they would flash theirs… Later, the four of us could see in the darkness some figures coming towards us. They came up and stood about 4 feet away from each of us face to face… I thought, well, they’re supposed to be telepathic so I tried to mentally project a greeting towards them – I expected them to talk in my head or something but what happened was unexpected – I just felt the most intense feeling of unconditional love – I felt they were surprised to find people who didn’t want to harm them.”
The panel debate concluded with Charles Hall who spoke about his encounters with the “Tall Whites” on an U.S. Military base in Nevada. “[paraphrased] I’d seen them many times before I talked to them. They where living in the buildings on the base – in a small community. A female with a small child came over to me. She spoke to me… she was wearing a floral dress… I struck me as wrong – we should have spoken about science or space or something… but she asked me if I liked her dress…”
Anthony M Beckett © 2005
First Published in UFO Data magazine produced by Gary Heseltine in 2005.
