A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth About Alien Contact (30 page)

Eventually, we may see a sub-specialty within aviation and space law. Particularly if there have not been treaties signed, this specialty may become known as “Extra-Legal,” the study of an extraterrestrial presence that operates not above or within the law as we know it, but simply outside of it altogether. Although the rest of the world may refer to these strange visitors as “The Others,” it is likely the legal profession will call them by a more specific name: “Extras.”

An Entirely New Court System

The court system will be able to stretch, within limits, to accommodate many of the issues that will arise among humans based on an acknowledgment of the Others. Under such circumstances, the Others are simply a factor in the criminal or civil issues that have created conflict between us.

It may seem like bad science-fiction to think that the Others will ever be a part of an official court system. It seems unlikely that they ever will be. Yet, there will be those who immediately push for such a result. They will focus on the need to get these beings to sign a treaty recognizing our courts and jurisdiction. After all, we currently attempt to deal with foreign nationals of countries with whom we have no treaties. It is not always easy, it usually takes time, and often yields less-than-perfect results.

Perhaps the Others would agree to contractual relationships but balk at a nationalistic country-by-country approach. We may have to create an entirely new court system to deal with criminal and civil relations between us and them on a global basis. If there are multiple groups of Others and one of them is responsible for abducting our citizens or mutilating them,
we may need a treaty with the “other” Others to police the situation. And if we are trading technology for, say, minerals, then we will need an agreement about how to enforce a contract. Again—assuming they are willing to deal formally with humanity.

The bottom line is that all issues will require discussion about what governing document will apply when trying to resolve disputes between a human and an Other. The term used between residents and companies of different states is “diversity jurisdiction.” These are cases that cannot necessarily be heard in one state or another, but have to be heard in the federal courts.

It seems pedestrian to discuss such things. But, depending on the relationship and how it evolves, something of the sort may already exist. If not, it may be created in the first years A.D.

Media

As we have noted elsewhere, A.D. will be the best of times and the worst of times for the major media establishments. It will instantly make reporters relevant again and will make news a commodity for which the public is willing to pay. At the same time, it will reveal the complicity and laziness that the journalistic institutions of the world have brought to this story, now proved to be authentic, The Greatest Story Never Told. To appreciate how badly the media has blown this story, here are three examples from thousands that illustrate its embarrassing lack of professionalism when it comes to this topic.

Example #1: Apollo Astronaut Edgar Mitchell

Edgar Mitchell was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, and the sixth man to walk on the moon. In February 1971, he spent a full nine hours walking on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region.

Mitchell also happened to grow up in Roswell, New Mexico. After his NASA missions, he returned there. During the 1970s, before the story leaked to UFO investigators, many people who had kept the story to themselves for years sought him out—seeing him as a national figure who could
help tell their story. They told him that what happened in 1947 was the crash and recovery of an extraterrestrial craft, complete with alien bodies.

In the 1990s, Mitchell began to test the waters with his beliefs that we were not alone in the universe. On July 23, 2008, however, he told presenter Nick Margerrison of the
Kerrang!
radio show, that he happened to be “privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real. It has been covered up by governments for some time now.
¹²

The statement was picked up around the world and, at the very least, did manage to surmount the first obstacle to UFO coverage by the media.

This qualified it to go to the second level, where it was ridiculed and marginalized. CNN coverage included the usual raised eyebrow from the anchor while introducing the material, the videotaped package included the musical theme from
The X-Files
and cartoon images of little green men. At the end, the anchorwoman smiled and went to commercial.

In another piece of coverage on the same network, Mitchell’s comments were played back, and a statement from NASA read, “NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover-up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.” The anchorwoman in this coverage also smiled in disbelief, shook her head, and passed off to Wolf Blitzer who managed to say, “Okay, we’ll watch this story with you.”

This kind of dismissive superiority was repeated by reporters regarding Mitchell’s testimony. What was it that made news producers slot this as a silly story? What cue did they receive that convinced them the best reaction was to smile and shake their heads in disbelief?

A man trusted to fly the first moon mission after the Apollo 13 disaster, handpicked from thousands of qualified pilots and engineers, came forward to explain that he believes UFOs are real, that Roswell was the crash of an alien spacecraft, and that the government is complicit in keeping this information covered up. The media’s reaction should have been to dispatch investigative teams to learn the truth. Instead, they gave it the kind of on-camera treatment that usually greets the birth of a baby panda at the local zoo.

Example #2: National Press Club News Conference

There is a long history of U.S. military encounters with UFOs, a fact that has been documented many times over. So when, on September 27, 2010, a news conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., featuring a half-dozen former U.S.A.F. officers speaking directly to this issue, one might think that the nation’s major media would be interested. Even more striking was that these retired officers described cases in which UFOs had been seen near U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. These were events witnessed by multiple soldiers in which nuclear missiles actually malfunctioned in the aftermath.

A few news outlets, including
Fox News
and
The Air Force Times
, covered the event competently. A small number of the major outlets provided neutral coverage in their online content. Yet, despite a great deal of advance publicity and private money expended to promote the event, the news conference was virtually shunned by the media heavyweights.

CNN, the once-proud maverick news organization, allowed a pair of condescending and ill-informed on-air personalities (an anchorwoman and a weatherman) to ridicule these military men for coming forward. The openly skeptical anchorwoman actually laughed, invoked Fox Muldur, and even managed to work in “little green men.” One could only see the performance in order to believe it really happened. Most of the other coverage, such as it was, was equally shameful.
Wired
, for instance, titled its hit piece “Tinfoil Tuesdays,” while the
Washington Post
sent a lifestyle columnist, John Kelly, who opened his coverage by explaining he arrived late and only came because they offered cookies.
¹³

One wonders what it would take to wipe the smirk off the faces of these individuals masking as journalists. Most likely, nothing short of Disclosure itself.

Example #3: Xiaoshan Airport, Hangzhou, China

Another example concerns the sighting of a UFO over China’s Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou, China, which is the capital of East China’s Zhejiang province, on the night of July 9, 2010. According to the report of the municipal government there, an unidentified flying object disrupted
air traffic over the airport, causing it to be shut down for an hour while authorities scrambled to figure out what it was.

As reported from several official and unofficial sources in China, the UFO showed up on the airport’s radar a little past 8:30 pm. Soon after, airport personnel saw a “shining light” in the air that was later confirmed by passengers who were flying at the time. They described it as a “twinkling spot” that “disappeared very soon” with a “comet-like tail.” A striking photo was taken that shows structure and four lighted windows.

Forcing the media. Finally the Greatest Story Never Covered will actually get the attention it deserves. Xaioshan Airport in China closed in July of 2010 because of a UFO
. The photo was taken by an anonymous Chinese resident, and has been widely used in the media.

Service was suspended at the airport, which serves as a hub for Air Asia. An extensive aerial search began, leading to a total of 56 minutes of down time, the delay of 18 flights, and the stranding of about 2,000 passengers.

CNNGo reporter Jessica Beaton ascribed it to a publicity stunt. “There’s no better way to make headlines,” she wrote, “than to have a UFO sighting.” Her tone, always important, conveyed amusement. “We’re
not saying we think little green men landed,” she said glibly, “why choose China when Thai beaches are so close by?” To her credit, she did not immediately accept the official explanation. “But really, a reflection from an airplane shut down an airport? They should come up with a better excuse than that.”
¹⁴

But why the jokes? After all, one of those Chinese officials also said that the sighting had a “military connection.” Further details could not be divulged at the time, he added. Was this American technology? If so, why are Americans flying it in China? If it was Chinese technology, what do they have that looks like the object in the photo, which apparently hovers and then accelerates instantly?

The American media, nearly
en masse
, ignored the event. The “roundtable” on ABC’s
This Week
had time to discuss basketball star LeBron James. NBC’s
Meet-the-Press
dissected Sarah Palin’s YouTube video where she cast herself as a “Mama Grizzly.” No enterprising American journalist traveled to China to investigate what happened at Xiaoshan. That, apparently, would be nonsense.

These Are the People Who Will Tell Us About Disclosure

After Roswell, “deny and ridicule” became policy relating to all matters ufological. We have now reached a place where the mainstream news coverage has been wholly committed to protecting the status quo of the cover-up. One might dismiss this as simply lame behavior and lazy coverage, which it clearly is, but there is also the likelihood of deceit at the higher levels.

Recall that only a few companies now control most of the media, particularly in the United States. These corporate structures have had a long history of collaboration with the U.S. intelligence community. The management of news by the CIA and other intelligence groups around the world is an open secret, and a lot of good analysis has been done on the topic. More than 30 years ago, Carl Bernstein wrote an excellent exposé on the CIA’s influence over mainstream U.S. media for an article in
Rolling Stone
, and much follow-up work has been done through the years.
¹⁵

This does not mean that the CIA and its kind control every aspect of news coverage and spin; control is seldom complete. But the indications are that on the big issues, the right relationships have been made with major media. These relationships have continued and deepened through the years.

Disclosure will not change that situation. The national security community will not walk away from the table after having invested so much to control it. Coverage of the post-Disclosure world will continue to comport with the interests of the intelligence community. In the immediate aftermath, all the wrong people will continue to be quoted. As today, so tomorrow: people will need to be vigilant for the truth, and major media will need to be held accountable.

When the smiling anchors and dismissive experts are confronted with Disclosure, will they be honest enough to admit their own ignorance and lack of curiosity? It seems unlikely; about as unlikely as the public feeling good about getting information from these people after the truth is out.

Blowback will singe away whatever credibility remains of the Fourth Estate. They may not notice their hair is on fire, but most people will. The
New York Times
, and institutions like it, with all their resources, will suffer greatly because they willfully failed to give serious attention or investigation into the topic in the past.

It is against this backdrop of ham-handed coverage, at best naive and at worst disinformation, that the world of A.D. will emerge. The question is, how strong will the public reaction against the media be? Will there be a new version of Occupy Wall Street, but one directed at the tightly controlled corporate-intelligence-media complex? Rather, perhaps we should not ask “will it happen?” but “how strong will that reaction be?”