Article/Document:
40 Questions for Scientists Who Care About Truth
Joe Firmage, November 22, 2001
original source | fair use notice
Summary: Having studied the UFO mystery for many years, I have many important questions. Most of them are focused on the long-term, transformational implications of the remarkable phenomena reported. Other questions relate to our understanding of 20th century history and the present circumstance human civilization. I share with you below some of these latter questions, with the hope that they may at least open your mind, and at most engage you in a shared quest to open what may be among the grandest future chapters in our ancient saga.
From time to time in the history of science, unexplained threads of evidence begin to reveal a tapestry clear enough for new patterns to be seen. I write today to tell you about one such tapestry – revealed in stunning detail in a new book likely to be ranked one day among the great works of investigative journalism.
One of the deepest mysteries to confront the discipline of science is the vast body of unexplained observations filed in the folder (or trash can, depending upon the biases of the student) labeled “unidentified flying objects”. Research into UFO phenomena has been a challenging process for all those professionals courageous enough to climb its slippery slope – a situation produced by a self-reinforcing cycle of inattentive science, intense secrecy, and a half-century of disinformation on the subject.
Yet drowned in a cacophony of books from amateur researchers are awesome implications of sober analyses from the handful of either very courageous or very private professionals studying this deep mystery. After decades of painstaking exploration by credentialed scientists and journalists, a consensus tapestry is slowly beginning to emerge, revealing an image of stunning significance to every human being on Earth.
While the pattern remains fuzzy, in some respects more than others, an illuminating tour de force has recently been published. The book is Richard Dolan’s “UFOs and the National Security State,” published in 2001 by Keyhole Publishing Company. It is a book that every student of science, government, philosophy and history must read. You may purchase it at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0967799503/qid=1006433900/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_7_1/102-4027922-9976161
Most books on UFOs have reported on one of two areas of research: first, the empirical data from observations of unusual aerospatial phenomena, and second, the government’s alleged undisclosed investigations of the phenomena. UFO’s and the National Security State presents an integration of these two threads of research, organized along the generally-known chronology of events of the Cold War era. Given the period Dolan examines (1947-1973), this volume focuses on after-the-fact reporting and analysis rather than primary discovery, and thus major credit is due the large number of works he references. The combined result is a phenomenal elucidation of the import and context of the modern UFO drama.
If you take the time to absorb Dolan’s exhaustive and ruggedly-balanced overview, you may find yourself seriously considering three conclusions I now hold: (1) we are not alone in the Cosmos, (2) an incredible chapter in the book of Nature is sealed from public view, and (3) the community of science may be the only force on Earth strong enough to unlock that seal… and wise enough to know how to do so.
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Having studied the UFO mystery for many years, I have many important questions. Most of them are focused on the long-term, transformational implications of the remarkable phenomena reported. Other questions relate to our understanding of 20th century history and the present circumstance human civilization. I share with you below some of these latter questions, with the hope that they may at least open your mind, and at most engage you in a shared quest to open what may be among the grandest future chapters in our ancient saga.
40 Questions for Scientists Who Care About Truth
1. What are the implications of physicists’ realization that "space-time" is not a void, but is rather an ocean-like medium of energy?
2. Are scientists and journalists aware of new, broadly-published, peer-reviewed theories of the nature of gravitation and inertia meeting every experimental test of general relativity, yet in principle allowing super-luminal motion of gravity-propelled spacecraft without time-dilation?
3. If scientific papers speculating on time travel, worm holes, and ‘many universes’ are greeted by the press with respectful wonder and awe, why are scientific papers speculating on notions far less exotic – propulsion systems not requiring that we shoot matter out of a nozzle – greeted with skeptical disdain, especially when no empirical data exist to support the former, while much exists to support the latter?
4. Are scientists and journalists aware that much of the research staff on a pivotal government-funded study of UFO evidence – the Condon Committee – resigned or were fired when they challenged its director’s intention to report a pre-ordained conclusion that all UFO sightings can be explained in mundane terms?
5. 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?
6. Are you aware that reports of these two government-funded, now-discredited studies – the Condon Committee and Project Blue Book – are the primary reasons why most scientists and journalists have dismissed UFO evidence as pseudoscience?
7. Are scientists and journalists aware that hundreds of thoroughly credentialed pilots and military officers have officially documented sightings of structured craft demonstrating motions possible only through gravitational propulsion, and that some of these sightings are accompanied by radar records?
8. Are scientists and journalists aware that hundreds of thousands of similar sightings have been made by people around the world, dating back thousands of years?
9. Why have U.S. intelligence agencies refused an official request by the Federation of American Scientists to release their budgets for the years 1947 through 1970?
10. Is there anything unusual about the fact that the National Security Council, the CIA, and the Air Force were all established in 1947?
11. Why were administrative and communications records from the Roswell Army Air Force Base covering the period 1945-1949 destroyed without explanation?
12. Why did defense contractors' ubiquitous predictions in the 1950s of the emergence of gravitational propulsion systems suddenly go quiet?
13. Why did the National Security Agency and partner organizations secretly begin tapping land-line phone conversations world-wide by the 1950s, expanding the capability in recent decades to include most satellite communications?
14. Why did President Eisenhower, in his nationally televised farewell address, bluntly warn his fellow citizens of the “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power”, sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex?
15. Are scientists and journalists aware that, on November 12, 1963, President Kennedy issued National Security Action Memorandum 271 directing NASA to begin preparations for a joint space program with the Soviet Union?
16. Are scientists and journalists aware that among thousands of pages of allegedly-authentic leaked classified documents relating to UFOs is a purported memorandum from President Kennedy, also dated November 12, 1963, directing the intelligence community to begin sharing classified UFO files with NASA in preparation for a joint US-USSR space program?
17. Are scientists and journalists aware that perhaps history’s most quoted and respected debunker of UFO sightings, Harvard astronomer Dr. Donald Menzel, was in fact a consultant with Top Secret Ultra clearance to the National Security Agency?
18. Why did President Reagan mention the hypothetical scenario of an extraterrestrial presence around Earth in several of his most important speeches, including to the United Nations?
19. May there be a deeper reason explaining why President Bush is so adamant about fielding a new defense shield against ‘21st century threats from rogue objects in the air and space’?
20. Why has President Bush ordered that presidential papers following the Carter administration may be concealed from our democracy forever?
21. When the vast majority of U.S. advanced physics research has been funded by the military-industrial complex, what discoveries may have been concealed long ago under the premise of National Security?
22. Are you aware that former leading officials of the French Air Force and Space Agency published a report in the summer of 2000 stating their appraisal that some UFOs are likely spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin, and that the U.S. probably has come into possession of extraterrestrial craft?
23. Are you aware that prominent U.S. physicists have begun to come out in support of the likelihood that some fraction of UFO sightings do indeed identify spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin?
24. Are you aware that the Aerospace Editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly – among the world’s most respected defense analysis journals – publicly released less than 90 days ago the following conclusion after ten years of research: the U.S. military has likely been experimenting with gravitational propulsion systems for many decades?
25. If the music industry can align all powers in its possession to obliterate Napster’s liberation of songs, what might vastly larger interests have done with energy and propulsion technology that would liberate electricity and transportation… and global politics?
26. How might human civilization have (d)evolved if Faraday’s discovery of the principle of induction was made not in the public domain, but in a secured facility, deemed a “national security threat” by virtue of its power to revolutionize steam locomotion and oil-based lighting infrastructure, and kept secret for half a century?
27. If there is a world-changing secret buried within our National Security State, which dynastic interests most likely govern it today?
28. If the massive National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance Office were kept entirely secret for decades, is it possible that other large, classified programs remain largely unknown to Congress and the public?
29. Are you aware of the lengths to which the military-industrial-intelligence community could go to prevent revelation of world-changing knowledge, if such knowledge would thoroughly challenge its power structure, and if there are indeed severe risks of misuse of resulting technology?
30. Do you believe that the revelation of past contact with extraterrestrial life forms could profoundly transform our world for the better, giving us all an inspiring, unifying perspective of the grandeur of the Cosmos from which we spring, and pointing to new technologies that could dramatically reduce humanity’s environmental footprint on Nature?
31. For how long will scientists and journalists continue to be happy with spoon-fed denials by officials of any significance to the following documented quotes?
”Before we could do any more, the Army, after conferring with [U.S.] officials, ordered the investigation stopped.”
- Renowned physicist Dr. Paul Santorini, on UFOs over Greece in 1946
”The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.”
– General Nathan Twining, September 23, 1947, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1955-1958
”Army intelligence has recently said that the matter of ‘Unidentified Aircraft’ or ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,’ otherwise known as ‘Flying Discs,’ ‘Flying Saucers,’ and “Balls of Fire,’ is considered top secret by intelligence officers of both the Army and Air Forces.”
- 1949 FBI memo on UFOs
”In view of the wide interest within the Agency … outside knowledge of Agency interest in Flying Saucers carries the risk of making the problem even more serious in the public mind than it already is.”
- CIA memo, 1952
”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
”Reliable reports indicate there are objects coming into our atmosphere at very high speeds and controlled by thinking intelligences.”
- Navy Admiral Delmar Fahrney, public statement, 1957
”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
”My study of past official Air Force investigations (Project Blue Book) leads me to describe them as completely superficial… Officially released ‘explanations’ of important UFO sightings have been almost absurdly erroneous.”
– Dr. James McDonald, speech to American Meteorological Society, 1966
”When the team was ten miles from the landing site, static disrupted radio contact with them. Five to eight minutes later the glow diminished, and the UFO took off. Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed by radar.”
- Classified report by an Air Force Strike Team at Minot AFB, 1966
”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 had the evidence that a crash did happen… I ask [you] this, were you there with me? Did you have the clearances? They can’t answer these questions. They simply criticize with no evidence.”
– Colonel Philip Corso, former head of the Foreign Technology Desk, United States Army Research and Development and National Security Advisor, Eisenhower Administration, on video in 1998 shortly before his death
”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
”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
”I've talked with people of stature – of military and government credentials and position – and heard their stories, and their desire to tell their stories openly to the public. And that got my attention very, very rapidly... the first hand experiences of these credible witnesses, now in advanced years and anxious to tell their story. We can't deny that, and the evidence points to the fact that Roswell was a real incident, and that indeed an alien craft did crash, and that material was recovered from that crash site.”
-Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, from a taped interview in 1998.
”[I am] disturbed by the way in which the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment… [It has] become a government all of its own and all secret. They don’t have to account to anybody.”
- President Harry S. Truman, Washington Post, December 22, 1963
”Maximum security exists concerning the subject of UFOs.”
– Allen Dulles, 1955, Director of Central Intelligence and later member of the Warren Commission
32. Will the community of scientists – stewards of humanity’s wisdom, knowledge, history and future – look away in denial of overwhelming evidence that the Cold War’s capitalist-military-intelligence complex has managed the epochal process of CONTACT for at least a half-century under cover?
33. How properly could such a singular process have been conducted, deprived for at least five decades of the diverse wisdom, knowledge and perspective of millions of philosophers, cosmologists, physicists, chemists, biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, engineers, ethicists, historians, journalists, artists and scholars of religion?
34. If a vital truth of our very Nature has been concealed from us, may that in part explain humanity’s continuing struggles with religious, political, economic, technological, and psychological adolescence – consequences of the lingering imposition of a flat-earth worldview?
35. If governments were to grant relief of security oaths relating to information on UFOs, call for witnesses to step forward and see no witnesses forthcoming, then wouldn’t the question of government cover-up be put to rest succinctly?
36. If, on the other hand, governments were to refuse to offer relief of security oaths relating to information on UFOs or refuse to call for witnesses to step forward, then what may we conclude?
37. When will we band together, demanding relief of security oaths for those with first-hand knowledge to testify in open hearings before the United States Congress and the people of Earth?
38. Do we or do we not have both the right and need to learn the truth of our Nature?
Many people – mainly those who’ve not studied the UFO mystery deeply – have asked me, “Joe, you’re a smart guy. You can live a great life doing whatever you want. Why are you complicating it by raising such controversies?”
The social paradigm of the second millennium is hurtling us into what scientists now call the Sixth Great Extinction of life on Earth. Forests are disappearing. Fisheries are becoming depleted. Oceans and lakes are being flooded with wastes. Aquifers are emptying. Weather patterns are shifting. Human numbers continue to climb. Earth’s biosphere cannot sustain the existing footprint of civilization, with billions still in abject poverty. And as of 2001, capitalism is programmed to lift the developing world into U.S.-style patterns of consumption using the 20th century’s platform of technologies, and more than one billion people in China have just officially joined this program.
Yet human beings everywhere are asking, “Is this what life is supposed to be about?”
Our worst challenges require our best solutions. I do not believe that most people are aware of the relevance of the UFO question to the solutions humanity needs in order to survive and thrive upon our precious, blue-green, Cosmic coral reef.
This leads me to ask two final questions.
Leaders, scientists and journalists, I ask you:
Is “Know Thyself” to be limited by the rule of secret councils of the capitalist-military-intelligence complex?
Have you read Rich Dolan’s masterpiece of journalism: UFOs and the National Security State?
A renewal of life on Earth and an inspiring future for all the world’s children await minds and hearts of science to stir from a long slumber.
Joseph P. Firmage
November 22, 2001
”I believe no other problem within your jurisdiction is of comparable scientific and national importance. These are strong words, and I intend them to be…
”I now regard the [extraterrestrial hypothesis] as the one most likely to prove correct.”
- Dr. James McDonald, testimony to the United States Congress, 1968; this brilliant, courageous, world-renowned scientist apparently committed suicide three years later.
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