For some time now, a war has been intensifying. Not in Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor the many other fields of death that darken our world, although all of them are affected by this particular war.
I am talking about an epic struggle -- a war fully and truly -- between the two fundamental forces of our modern age.
For we live in a world of extremes. As amazing as it seems to some, it has been only about twenty years in which the Internet has transformed our world and brought us to a level of interconnectivity that was once undreamed of. Twenty years, one human generation.
Only in the last ten years has the Web become what it is today. Only in the last decade have software and websites risen to the challenge of the possibilities offered by the Web, altering the way we obtain information, and even the way that we interact with each other. For starters, just think of the changes wrought by Youtube and Facebook, each of which is only about five years old.
For a little while, in the early days of the Internet, we used to talk of the "Information Highway." Then that became the "Information Superhighway." But even that phrase is so old, so outdated, because we are now in an era of such instant interconnectedness that our language has yet to catch up. Today, anything in the world can be right there in front of us, instantly and completely.
Or so it might seem. For at the same time, government secrets have multiplied. It may well be that more than half of all U.S. government records are classified. This is the estimate put forth in the fine book by Trevor Paglen, Blank Spots on the Map, and which finds support in many other independent studies on government secrecy worldwide.
If more than half of U.S. government documents are classified, you might say that more than half of U.S. political history is classified. And clearly, this is also true for many other nations in the world. Government secrecy has become deeply entrenched, despite all protestations to the contrary by the world’s political leaders.
It isn’t that some things shouldn't be kept secret. Few people would deny that there are legitimate reasons for military and government groups to keep some secrets. The question is, where to draw the line? In the U.S., the secrecy apparatus has been growing steadily since the 1940s. Nearly seventy years of deep secrecy, enormous black budgets, and near-total immunity from the law has only encouraged the classified world to grow. And grow. And grow.
So what happens when the powerful global trend of openness, as expressed via the Internet, collides with an equally powerful secrecy apparatus?
This is the war I am speaking of. It is the one between Freedom of Information versus Secrecy. We are seeing it now. Whether we know it or not, we are also participants. And this war includes the saga of WikiLeaks.
There is something even more interesting about this great clash, the Battle Royale of the 21st Century. It is beginning to involve the most verboten topic of all:
UFOs.
My personal feeling is that the end of UFO secrecy will unleash the greatest changes in human history. This, too, it turns out, may be part of the WikiLeaks story. Indeed, it is one that Bryce Zabel and I predicted might happen in our new book, A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact. But more on that in a moment.
Bloodying the Nose of Secrecy
Wikileaks was born in December 2006, dedicated to receiving, reviewing, and publishing leaked documents from anonymous sources around the world. In those four years, it has made a deep and lasting impact on our world, taking the front line in the battle against secrecy. Here is a quick down-and-dirty of some of key documents it has released.
- An apparent Somali assassination order signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.
- Documents detailing corruption by the family of former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi.
- Documents concerning illegal activities by the Bank Julius Baer’s Cayman Islands branch (for which the Swiss bank sued Wikileaks and its domain registrar).
- A copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta,used by the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. It showed that the Army did hide some of its prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross, something it had repeatedly denied.
- A 612-page Scientology manual on the eight different Operating Thetan levels, considered secret by the Church of Scientology.
- The contents of Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account, after they were anonymously hacked (later found to be David Kernell, a college student and son of a Democratic state representative in Tennessee).
- The membership list of the far-right British National Party, which had been secret for years.
- Over 600 internal United Nations reports (60 of them marked "strictly confidential").
- The release of 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports.
- E-mail correspondence among climate scientists from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, sparking the controversy known as Climategate.
- A list of websites planned to be banned by the Australian government under its proposed laws on Internet censorship.
- Several reports by the Bilderberg Group, including meeting reports from the years 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1980.
- A report disclosing a "serious nuclear accident" at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in 2009.
- The Minton Report, an internal study commissioned by commodities giant Trafigura, which highlighted toxic dumping in Africa.
- An internal document from Kaupthing Bank, just prior to the collapse of Iceland's banking sector. It shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off.
- The Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440), a massive report from the British Ministry of Defense, containing instructions for how to avoiding leaks of sensitive information.
Certainly an amazing record of shedding light into the darkness. And certainly enough to get such an organization into trouble. Even so, most of the previous releases, while very interesting and important, were relatively safe for one major reason: most of them did not directly confront the U.S. government. All that changed in 2010, when, in rapid succession, one dramatic release followed another.
- A U.S. “Counterintelligence Analysis Report” which discussed dealing with potential whistleblowers by terminating their employment and prosecuting them. It also discussed ways of marginalizing Wikileaks itself.
- The infamous Baghdad airstrike video, released in April 2010, which depicted a series of attacks in Baghdad on July 12, 2007 that killed 12, including two Reuters news staff. This release caused massive growth worldwide for the organization, and greatly aggravated the organization’s problems with the U.S. government.
- In late July 2010, WikiLeaks released over 92,000 documents to several newspapers, relating to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009. Julian Assange described the leak as comparable to that of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. Incidentally, about 15,000 of the documents have not yet been released on WikiLeaks, while the group reviews the documents to protect source identities.
- On October 21, 2010 WikiLeaks released about 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War.The Pentagon called it "the largest leak of classified documents in its history." It will take years to research and assess the data contained within them, but initial media coverage has focused on how the U.S. government ignored reports of torture by Iraqi authorities once the war began.
- Just a month later, on November 28, WikiLeaks released the U.S. State Department diplomatic cables, which it described as seven times the size of the Iraq War Logs. The effects of this leak continue to reverberate. Several red-faced diplomatic apologies ensued. Research into the cables will continue for many years.
Truth Becomes Treason
Think twice before stepping on the toes of the mighty, lest the mighty step on you.
Wikileaks, always under surveillance and pressure from the powerful, is now under a virtual state of seige. As if on cue, financial sources and Internet providers have dropped the organization. Its former address of wikileaks.org is gone due to political pressures and cyberattacks, causing hundreds of mirror sites to spring up, and its main site now to be here.
The organization Moneybookers, which had collected donations for WikiLeaks, broke off its relationship in October "to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities, agencies or commissions." On December 2, Amazon.com, after an intervention by the office of U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, severed ties with WikiLeaks. Two days later, PayPal, a major conduit for donations to the organization, did the same. Another two days later, the Swiss bank, PostFinance froze the assets of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a total of 31,000 euros. On the same day, MasterCard announced it was blocking WikiLeaks from accepting payments on its products, citing its rules that prohibit customers from engaging in or facilitating “any action that is illegal." Visa followed suit the next day.
Needless to say, most of the globe's political leadership has condemned Wikileaks. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the leak of State Department cables "not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests, [but] an attack on the international community."
Still, not everyone has agreed. Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, dismissed claims that WikiLeaks was endangering lives. Such claims, he stated, were "a script that they roll out every time there's a leak of any sort." U.S. Republican Congressman of Texas, Ron Paul, also supported Wikileaks. "In a free society,” Paul said recently on Fox News, “we're supposed to know the truth. In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble."
As I write this, Julian Assange is in custody in the United Kingdom, awaiting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault involving two women in events said to have occurred in Stockholm in August 2010. Assange says the charges are politically motivated. Apparently, we shall see. If nothing else, 2010 has been a year to remember for Mr. Assange.
Wikileaks and UFOs
In our new book, A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact, my co-author, Bryce Zabel, and I foresaw the possibility that WikiLeaks, or some similar organization in the future, might well unleash a firestorm by releasing sensitive UFO documents:
Another possible way to start the fire of Disclosure, however, may be the emerging phenomenon of WikiLeaks, the organization that encourages submissions of classified or otherwise hidden documents by allowing the sources who leak them to remain anonymous. In July 2010, WikiLeaks released the Afghan War Diary, more than 90,000 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available to the public. Given this kind of breadth and the promised anonymity, it is possible to imagine that certain key UFO related documents could come into their possession.
And now we hear that Julian Assange has announced that, yes indeed, WikiLeaks does have data pertaining to UFOs. “It is worth noting,” Assange told the Guardian newspaper, “that in yet-to-be-published parts of the [U.S. State Department] cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.”
A few days ago, Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, told the BBC that WikiLeaks had information that it considers to be a "thermo-nuclear device," which it would release if the organisation needs to defend itself. Could this be a reference to the reality and seriousness of the UFO phenomenon?
No doubt there are many analysts, knowing nothing of the history of UFO documentation, who may see this as a desperate, hollow ploy. But I don't think so.
I don't think so because I have studied the history of UFOs, and I know that this is a matter that is discussed with grave seriousness by responsible people in the classified world, far removed from television cameras and reporters.
Several nations in the world have enacted versions of a Freedom of Information Act, doing in a more controlled fashion what WikiLeaks has been doing for the past four years. In the U.S., the golden era of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was the late 1970s, when more than 10,000 pages of formerly classified documents relating to UFOs were released. I have written about many of these at length in my two volumes of history, and summarized my thoughts about some of them here.
Taken individually, none of the released documents via FOIA prove that UFOs are extraterrestrial. However, seen collectively, they do prove a few things.
First, they prove that this topic has been taken very seriously at high levels, and has been subject to a great deal of secrecy. They also make very clear that someone is operating some sort of technology that, quite frankly, is not supposed to exist. Except that it does.
There are many good examples from the enormous cache of previously declassified and released UFO documents. One of my favorites is the famous case of a UFO over the city of Tehran on September 18, 1976. On that night, the Iranian Air Force was involved in one of the most dramatic UFO events in modern history. Not only was the case itself extraordinary, but so was the documentation: namely, a four-page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report.
This took place during the days of the Shah, when Iran was an important U.S. ally. What it comes down to is this. An intensely bright object was seen by many residents of the city, reported to the airport, and then to the Iranian Air Force. Two F-4 interceptor jets were scrambled in succession. Both times, the pilots of the jets saw the object they were pursuing (intensely bright), and both times tracked it on their airborne radar (large return). Both times, at a range of roughly 25 nautical miles, key electronics and avionics equipment of the F-4s went offline. In one instance, a pilot was preparing to fire a missile at the object.
Not only this, but when the second F-4 was attempting to engage the UFO, and as its electronics went offline, the mysterious object detached a smaller object from it. This smaller object then moved to intercept the F-4! The pilot of the F-4 turned sharply away, and the smaller object turned inside the arc of the F-4, then rejoined the mother craft for a "perfect rejoin."
How do we know of this astonishing incident? Through the release of an official Defense Intelligence Agency memo via the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Copies of that document landed on many desks, including CIA Director George H. W. Bush, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and President Gerald Ford. Not a bad distribution list.
It has been thirty five years since that incident. Yet, when we ask what kind of object could have been responsible for it, we continue to come up empty.
Back during the late 1970s, when FOIA was something very new in the American political landscape, some researchers wondered whether there would be a single document that would prove to be the proverbial smoking gun -- undeniable proof of the reality of UFOs and the cover-up concerning them. Despite the release of many good UFO documents at the time, the hoped-for breakthrough did not occur.
Yet time does not stand still. Although FOIA in the U.S. is a pale shadow of what it had been decades ago, other opportunities arise. In our world today, such things are inevitable. Now it is WikiLeaks.
Why should it be so hard to think that great truths are contained within those cables? Whether they provide proof of UFOs is one thing, but I would be surprised indeed if they did not at least indicate a level of seriousness in discussions by diplomats and intelligence specialists regarding them. In the first place, I have personally had some very serious discussions about UFOs with such people. I can tell you that they take the matter seriously. In the second place, we have more than enough documentation, already in the public domain, to show that there is a serious phenomenon occurring in the skies of Planet Earth. It is a phenomenon that demands an explanation by fearless and responsible members of our society.
The Power of the Sea. The Necessity of Truth.
So I look forward to the release of UFO-related data by WikiLeaks. I can assure you that, should the world get the opportunity to review them, we will in all likelihood be spending as much time picking through them as other analysts are currently going through the documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it is quite possible that the so-called "thermo-nuclear device" has everything to do with the most dramatic news story imaginable: the reality of UFOs and the existence of advanced, non-human intelligences, living here on Earth.
The keepers of secrecy have become rather like the little boy charged with plugging his finger into the dike to prevent water from leaking in. It is becoming evident that there are too many holes to fill, too many threats to issue, too many lies to tell.
On the other side of that wall is the sea. Every day it presses against the wall, ineluctably wearing down all resistance, of its very nature causing new cracks to appear. The day is coming when the sea will reclaim what has always belonged to it. In every generation, the keepers of secrets deny and hide the truth from the mass of humanity. In every generation, it is the responsibility of those who care to find and reveal truth.
If you doubt these words, ask yourself a question: at the end of our lives, when all our years living and loving and hating and striving on Earth are closing, how will we consider the value of a life that has been lived as if in a fantasy? What is the value of a life without truth?
Every day of our lives, we must choose between living in a world of fantasy, or facing what is real. Fantasies, no matter how seductive, are not life, but illusion only. What is real, on the other hand, may not be fun. It may be deeply painful at times. But embracing the real means embracing life itself. In the end, it is our only proper choice.
December 8 is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's murder. Here is the link to the post about his sighting of a UFO in New York City in 1974.
If you want to know a bit more about the book itself, here is the link to read the Introduction to A.D. After Disclosure. It is easily available through Amazon.com. Or you can order it through your local bookstore.
As always, we thank you for considering a purchase of the book through the button below at Keyhole Publishing. It will be shipped directly from the publisher signed by co-author Richard Dolan, and you will receive a free MP3 of "Need-to-Know: The UFO Disclosure Song," currently available on iTunes.
