b736d01c   
   XPost: alt.alien.visitors, alt.alien.research, alt.paranet.abduct   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy   
   From: garymatalucci@gmail.com   
      
   UFO Debunkers: A Dangerous "Cult" or Super Patriots?/ The History of   
   UFO Debunking!   
      
        The standing joke among UFO circles is for every 200 UFO   
   sightings, the Air Force can explain away 201.  The possibility that   
   our Government might withhold or distort information about UFOs might   
   seem farfetched, until you read the mountains of evidence compiled   
   from the Government's own files.  Evidence that strongly suggests a   
   cover-up.  The U.S. Military first started seeing UFOs in World War   
   II, pilots called them "Foo Fighters."  We thought they were a German   
   secret weapon, the German's thought they were ours.  An explosion of   
   civilian sightings in 1947 caught the military by surprise.  Top   
   secret investigations were begun.  A joint study by the FBI and Army   
   concluded, "The flying saucer situation is not all imaginary,   
   something is really flying around."  That report was kept secret until   
   1976.   
      
        Most early UFO sightings were made by eyewitnesses and not   
   radar.  In New Mexico, over a two year period, dozens of people   
   reported seeing green fire-balls over sensitive military   
   installations.  But when radar and cameras were dispatched to those   
   installations, the fire-balls mysteriously shifted someplace else.  A   
   1949 study by scientists at Los Alamos Lab stated, "The fireballs   
   deserve serious consideration.".   
      
        Some have suggested that the saucer craze of the 1940's and   
   1950's was a by-product of Cold War tensions and fears.  Both the U.S.   
   and the U.S.S.R. conducted secret studies to find out if the other   
   side was behind the UFOs, and both concluded early on that the   
   capabilities of the flying discs seemed beyond human technology.  This   
   secret report done in 1948 by the Air Force and Naval Intelligence is   
   among the most fascinating of the UFO documents ever to surface   
   because it wasn't suppose to exist.  A confidential memo at the end of   
   the report ordered that all copies should be destroyed.  But one copy   
   survived and was finally pried out of the Pentagon in 1985.  It's a   
   study of more than 200 of the earliest UFO sightings, including one   
   that occurred on June, 1947, near Lake Mead. The report notes that an   
   Air Force pilot saw a formation of six UFOs, and the UFOs were some   
   type of flying craft, not weather balloons or hallucinations.  The   
   report made note of the fact that more than a few sighting reports   
   were made by experienced personnel, and that the origin of flying   
   saucers was not ascertainable.   
      
   The Cold War with the Soviets and Communist countries was heating up.   
   Strange craft were reported all over our skies, and the news media was   
   critical of government's explanations. Many people thought the craft   
   belonged to the Soviet Union or perhaps aliens bent on invasion. There   
   was fear the Soviets could use UFO propaganda to discredit the US   
   government. There was genuine concern that a national panic could   
   occur. Whether UFOs were real or not, the situation made the president   
   nervous and made the military and the various intelligence agencies   
   look bad. Plenty of good reports were trickling out that a substantial   
   number of military aircraft were crashing. Stories started to leak out   
   that these aircraft were crashing while chasing UFOs. The crashes were   
   explained as training accidents and mechanical failures, but the news   
   media was starting to tie the two types of reports together.   
      
        The over-all effort to study saucers was called "Project Sign,"   
   and the headquarters was located at Wright Field in Ohio.  In 1949,   
   Sign personnel wrote a top-secret report, which concluded that, "UFOs   
   were extra-terrestrial craft."  When the report made it to the desk of   
   the Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandeberg, he rejected it and ordered   
   all copies burned.  This rejection from the top was in the view of   
   many, the death knell for any objective study of UFOs.  A few weeks   
   later Project Sign produced another final report stating that it's   
   findings were "inconclusive."  That report was accepted and soon after   
   Project Sign became Project Grudge.  Grudge evaluated reports on the   
   premise that UFOs could not exist.  According to a later report by the   
   Library of Congress, it was the job of Grudge to explain them all.   
   Despite this slant, 23% of Grudge cases remained a mystery.  Grudge   
   staffers decided these cases were physiologically motivated, the first   
   official declaration that people who see UFOs are crazy.   
      
   In 1952, there were more sightings than the five previous years   
   combined, including the two infamous Washington D.C. incidents.  Yet   
   another study was launched, Project Bluebook.  Bluebook today is   
   notorious in UFO circles as a whitewash.  There is considerable   
   evidence the project was far from objective.  The man appointed to   
   head Bluebook, Captain Edward Ruppelt, said he was told in the very   
   beginning that the 'powers that be' were anti-flying-saucer and to   
   stay in favor, "it behooves one to follow suit."  Ruppelt later   
   resigned from the military and wrote a book about what he says was the   
   Bluebook cover-up and the reality of flying saucers.  The continued   
   increase of UFO sightings was a source of great concern for the CIA   
   and a new strategy was born: "UFO DEBUNKING."   
      
   A group of CIA-connected scientists was assembled in secret to   
   evaluate UFOs. CIA documents reveal that five members of the   
   Scientific Advisory Panel, who were all well-known skeptics, were   
   given several poor UFO cases to examine and came to the conclusion   
   that "there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in   
   the objects sighted. Flying saucer reports were overloading emergency   
   reporting channels with false information, clogging up communication   
   lines, causing alarm, and realistically even if they were real there   
   was little we could do about them."  Furthermore, the government was   
   losing the confidence of the people. Our science and aircraft seemed   
   to be confronted by far superior technology.   
      
   The  "Robertson Panel" spent all of twelve hours in a round-table   
   discussion, analyzing only about a handful of UFO cases.  The Panel   
   concluded that, "UFOs are not a threat to national security...but   
   continued reporting of UFOs is a threat."  Their recommendation: The   
   Government should take immediate steps to strip UFOs of their "aura of   
   mystery," through a program of public education.  The final report   
   even used the term, "DEBUNKING."   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)