- On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, an international press
conference was held to announce the findings of a joint official and
private effort to investigate a UFO sighting. What is remarkable in
the press conference is that Department of Defense collaborated with a
top Mexican UFO researcher, Jaime Maussan, in the release of
information concerning the appearance of up to 11 UFO's in the
vicinity of a Mexican Air force flight that was on a drug surveillance
mission on March 5, 2004. Using infrared cameras and radar tracking,
the eight-man crew of the Merlin C26/A flight was able to monitor the
UFOs, which at one point formed a circle around the flight. In
investigating the incident, the Air force contacted Jaime Maussan and
asked him to participate in the inquiry.
-
- The release of data on the UFOs taken by a Mexican
Air force crew was certainly a coup for Maussan who released the
information in the popular television program 'Great Mysteries of the
Third Millennium' on May 9, 2004. Maussan was initially contacted on
April 20, by the Department of Defense and had a meeting the next day
with General Clemente Vega Garcia, Secretary of Defense and his senior
officials. The Secretary of Defense went further however than simply
informing Maussan of the incident. General Clemente released film and
other data of the incident to Maussan that he could investigate with
his own independent research team. The Department of Defense confirmed
to international media outlets such as Reuters in a May 11 Press
Conference that it had handed over the film and data to Maussan. This
was certainly unprecedented and signaled a major new approach to
dealing with the UFO phenomenon by a major world government.
-
- Up to the present time, there appears to have been a
well-coordinated international effort in managing UFO sightings and
reports of UFO crashes. These have typically been handled in a way
suggesting a sophisticated global system for dealing with UFO
sightings, and even collecting the remains of crashed UFOs, without
witnesses having much credibility before the mass media. This global
management system has prevented governmental releases of UFO
information to the general public and international media. Whatever
releases did occur typically involved private civilians rather than
military personnel in their official capacities revealing UFO
information. In the US, military personnel have been legally
proscribed from participating in the release of information of UFO
sightings according to military regulations described in the Joint
Army Navy Air Publication (JANAP) 146 released in 1953. Similar
provisions are found in the British Ministry of Defense and other
major nations that have had to deal with the UFO phenomenon, and/or
cooperate closely with the US.
-
- This official international system for repressing
UFO reports suffered a significant setback in 1999 with the release of
a French government supported study of the UFO phenomenon. The COMETA
Report comprised former top military officials and found credible
evidence to support the existence of UFOs as phenomenon that required
serious political attention. The COMETA report was not widely covered
in the US but signaled that major nations differed in how much
information they should release to their general publics. In December
2002, the British Ministry of Defense released a file on the
Rendlesham UFO incident of 1980 describing one of the most well
document UFO sightings in British history. Significantly, the US
military has not released its own files of the incident despite having
played a leading investigatory role at Rendlesham. The respective
official positions over the Rendlesham files suggests a clear
difference of opinion between the British and US military officials
over the extent to which UFO information will be released to the
general public and the mass media.
-
- The participation of the Mexican Department of
Defense in collaborating with Maussan in releasing information on a
contemporary UFO sighting is unprecedented. This is a significant
development that goes even further than the COMETA report in
challenging the non-disclosure position supported by the US government
that apparently plays a major role in the international management
system in place for UFO sightings/crashes. The Mexican Department of
Defense effort in collaborating with Maussan simultaneously achieves a
number of things. First, it helps legitimate research into the UFO
phenomenon that now has official government support as a credible
field of study at least in Mexico. Second, it legitimates the
investigatory skills and experiences of private Mexican researchers
such as Maussan. Third, it comes at a time of great international
friction over the war in Iraq suggesting that this Mexican initiative
marks a major rupture in the de facto global management system for
UFOs that echoes global dissent over US policies in Iraq. If the
COMETA report and the release of the Rendlesham files are solid
indicators of the European position towards UFO disclosure, then it
appears that the US is becoming increasingly isolated in its strict
non-disclosure policy.
-
- If indeed there is a major rift in the global
management system over the rate and extent to which disclosure of UFOs
sightings and/or UFO evidence is made to the general public of major
states, then it may be predicted that further disclosures by other
governments are likely. It may be concluded that the Mexican
Department of Defense collaboration with private UFO researchers
heralds a major new phase in the UFO phenomenon. With a more
integrated global media and Internet, it will be very difficult if
impossible for the mass media in the US to ignore UFO developments in
other countries. If major world governments begin disclosing
information concerning contemporary UFO sightings, then it may be
predicted that the non-disclosure policy in place for over 50 years
may soon come to an end. This would usher in the age of exopolitics
where the political implications of an extraterrestrial presence would
predictably dominate global politics.
-
- Michael E.Salla, PhD
- May 12, 2004
|
