The Great Secret
The Great Secret
December 15, 2010
Imagine a suspense film. The story unfolds in a heavy atmosphere. A recurring question keeps coming back: "Are the armed forces and governments of the major developed countries aware of events involving UFOs, which they are concealing from the public? Isn't such a question simply a product of the prevailing conspiracy mentality?"
The UFO phenomenon has been in the news for over half a century. For decades, we've repeatedly asked this question, to which everyone responded with a firm "no." Could such things really have been hidden from public view for so long? How could anyone possibly imagine that such a secret could persist across successive governments? Surely, all those "ufologists" raising this issue are merely seeking attention and trying to sell their silly books.
Taking things much further, a screenwriter imagines a film in which not only high-ranking military personnel have witnessed the phenomenon, but even more astonishingly, that these same UFOs, approaching missile silos, have acted in a way that deprogrammed these weapons, rendering their launch impossible. How? No one knows. This could only happen by interfering with systems that are extremely protected, isolated, independent, buried twenty meters underground, next to a control post occupied by two missile officers.
It's easy to imagine scenes. In underground bunkers, these officers, responsible for monitoring these dangerous missiles—the candles of the Last Judgment—receive frantic calls from guards who remained on the surface, stationed twenty meters above them. These guards describe the arrival of luminous, disc-shaped objects emitting a "pulsating light."
On their consoles, the same officers notice that indicators are lighting up, signaling that, inexplicably, up to ten missile launch programs have been suddenly erased from the computers controlling the missiles.
In this film, worthy of Spielberg, other scenes unfold. Here, a young officer, accompanied by two assistants, is conducting nighttime geodetic measurements at missile sites, using star sightings to determine the missiles' positions to within a meter, so their targeting can be programmed with maximum precision. He's doing his routine work under a beautiful starry night. Suddenly, a luminous object catches his attention. Then, in a flash, it moves and positions itself directly above the group, no more than one hundred meters above the men. Alarmed, the three rush into their truck and flee.
- Shit, says the lieutenant at the wheel. Since the army recently widened the roads, reinforcing them with ballast so heavy trucks carrying missiles can pass, they've removed all the road signs!
And what had to happen, did happen. Speeding through a crossroads that is no longer marked, the lieutenant turns the wheel in the wrong direction and flips the vehicle. The three barely manage to extricate themselves, with no injuries. They take a quick circular look around. The UFO has stopped following them. They then walk for two hours to reach a nearby farm.
- This is just my luck, mutters the young lieutenant between his teeth. Besides, this truck is brand new. It has less than twenty-five kilometers on the odometer. Are they going to dock my pay for this?
The scenes pile up. At guard posts, there are phone calls describing situations that security personnel initially refuse to report or record in their logs. In response to anxious calls, they hear mocking voices saying: "We'll intervene when that thing has devoured the commando that went after it!"
Another scene: a communications and encryption specialist enters an operations room and notices that, on a wall panel indicating the status of the launch site, a large number of missiles in the upper-right corner have been deactivated.
At a guard post, a lieutenant, having heard the panicked calls from guards on the surface who saw UFOs moving from silo to silo, has vainly requested the intervention of the security service—a simple vehicle carrying a few soldiers. He then goes to the site's security center and asks a supervisor, who appears hunched over in a fetal position:
- So in the end, your men, those on duty during the events, never moved from their post. They stayed there with their vehicle, telling me lies for an hour and a half about having to go get batteries, having engine problems, or something else, that they couldn't drive faster than ten kilometers per hour. Then they said they were out of fuel...
- Let me tell you something, sir. My men will never, under any circumstances, take the road with that glowing object flying above them.
We shift continents. The scene now takes place in England. It's Christmas Eve. A captain is having dinner with his family. Suddenly, a sentry knocks on his door.
- Sir, it's back.
- What's back?
- The UFO from yesterday.
Grumbling, the captain abandons his family. He's been summoned, as deputy to the base commander, because the commander, busy celebrating with high-ranking officers, sent the sentry away.
- What's all this nonsense about a UFO? Those lights could be anything. But this is going to ruin my Christmas Eve!
And so here is our captain, on this cold English Christmas night, equipping himself, taking his radio and his pocket tape recorder, which he always carries on his rounds. The men lead him "where the object was seen," and he discovers deep marks in trees, broken branches. He comments on all this into his small tape recorder.
At this point, everything seems explainable, he thinks, fitting into a certain rational framework. But suddenly, they catch sight of pulsating lights through the tree canopy, a thing that "looks like an eye, with a darker center." Then, suddenly, an object darts toward them and stabilizes just above them. From it emanates a beam of light, projecting a circular patch of light, thirty centimeters in diameter, onto the ground beneath them.
- What the hell is this thing? says the captain. A weapon? A communication device? A probe?
Suddenly, the object vanishes as quickly as it appeared, but another is then spotted by one of the men, farther away, patrolling above the military terrain in the British zone. Its beam of light sweeps across the ground.
- Sir, it's right above the bunker where the nuclear weapons are stored!
Debriefing. Our captain reports before the authorities of the U.S. Third Air Force.
- By the way, this craft inspecting the nuclear warhead storage site—it was outside the perimeter of our own base, wasn't it?
- Exactly, General.
- Over there, it's British territory. So this matter doesn't concern us and is the British government's responsibility. Write a report, send it to the liaison officer, and let those people deal with it.
We shift from scene to scene. Back in America. In response to these events, reactions are highly varied. Sometimes messages are received with astonishing calmness:
- Yes, we've had something like this at another site.
- But... when?
- Must have been about a week ago. It happened several times.
Some choose to remain silent.
- Say, if I understand correctly, you've also experienced something like this?
- Well, yes.
- And are you going to file a report?
- Think again! Never in a million years!
- Well, we're going to do it.
- Fine, then know this: if your report implicates us, we'll say we were never involved in this story!
Another scene, with the same officer who eventually testified to what he experienced. He's facing another officer in a room, who wears no insignia indicating any unit affiliation, and who says to him:
- Regarding the matters you claim to have been involved in, know this: it never happened. It's top secret.
- Top secret, or it never happened? asks the other.
The officer makes a gesture of denial, simply meaning "you won't tell anyone about this."
It feels like a Spielberg film. But it's simply reality, as testified to by seven retired U.S. Air Force officers on September 27, 2010. They made these statements before the press, accompanied by written texts signed by their own hands, attached to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, which they had used to request declassification from the Air Force. And Captain Robert Salas, who in a way serves as the spokesperson for this group, concludes by saying:
- What you've heard today is proof of the reality of this phenomenon. It seems fantastic, and it is fantastic. We've presented these proofs in the public interest of an open government. In the press package you've been given, our signatures, which appear at the end of our testimonies, attest to the truth of our statements. These proofs are now in the public domain. The real question now is: "What will the public do with this?" How will it react to these statements? The general media attitude has always been to mock such stories and treat these testimonies lightly. We simply ask you to take the time to consider all these things seriously, and to pay attention not only to our statements, but also to those of other witnesses who have reported similar events. There are also written documents that support what we've said. We hope you'll consult them and conduct some research. And if you do, we believe you'll reach the same conclusions as we have: that the UFO phenomenon is real, not imaginary. A climate of secrecy currently reigns within our government, which we find excessive.
In fact, a large number of unidentified objects have been seen near our bases housing nuclear weapons, as well as on other bases of the same type. In some cases, the appearance of such objects coincided with the deactivation of our installations. While everyone may have different opinions about the meaning and motivation behind these incidents, I believe we can all agree that the deactivation of our nuclear weapons represents a national security issue.
He shows a file:
- This is the official Air Force policy regarding UFOs. It's dated 2005, but I believe this statement remains valid. I'll read only part of it. It states that "no case of UFOs investigated by the Air Force has ever been a sign of any threat to national security." But this is false, if we take into account our testimonies.
This decision to halt all investigations into UFOs was based on the conclusions of the infamous 1969 Condon Report from the University of Colorado. There are numerous arguments showing that this study was superficial and biased. In particular, incidents related to the Echo and Oscar missile sites, which have been discussed here, were never investigated by the Condon Committee, even though the committee's head was fully aware of these incidents.
Clearly, today's testimonies contradict the Air Force's official position in a glaring way. We demand that our government respond to the total divergence between this policy and our own statements. In truth, we're demanding a response, in accordance with the foundations of our democracy, which says—and I want to quote President Franklin Roosevelt here—"Citizens should be strong enough and well-informed enough to maintain sovereign control over their government."
Finally, and I believe I speak for all of us, I say that I have the greatest respect for the men and women of the U.S. Air Force. I myself studied at an Air Force Academy. I deeply loved being part of the Air Force and felt honored to serve my country in this way. Our disagreement with the Air Force has nothing to do with the people who make up this force. It concerns the Air Force's official policy.
I believe this non-disclosure of facts reflects a deliberate attitude. I'm not referring only to what has been discussed today, but to everything that has been continuously hidden since 1969. By acting this way, we prevent people in this country from participating in decisions concerning events that affect national security and all of us. We simply ask for the truth.
National Press Club, Washington, September 27
Here are three links. The first allows you to listen to the fifty minutes of this press conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ZiDEtVms8
The second leads to a PDF document where these statements are transcribed in text form.
The following link corresponds to the end of the press conference. You can hear the speakers, including Hastings, answer journalists' questions.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf9kgn_ovnis-sites-nucleaires-5-temoignage_news
Indeed, there is an eighth person present at this press conference, who has been ignored by major American media. This eighth person is investigator Robert Hastings. He delivers a brief introductory speech, being much more categorical in his conclusions. For him, the UFO phenomenon is above all a dramatic alarm cry, made in vain for over half a century. Let's listen to him:
Robert Hastings, UFOlogist, organizer of the press conference
Declassified documents from the U.S. military, along with testimonies from active or retired U.S. military personnel, confirm beyond any doubt the reality of UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites.
When I use the term "UFO," witnesses have described craft of circular, cylindrical, or spherical shape. These objects are capable of hovering or moving at extremely high speeds, moving completely silently.
Over the past 37 years, I have personally located and interviewed over 120 such active or retired military personnel, all of whom reported UFO incidents related to the following locations: missile sites with nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons storage sites, and nuclear weapons testing sites in Nevada, and in the Pacific, during the time when atmospheric testing was conducted.
I believe, and all these people believe, that our planet is visited by beings from another world, who, for whatever reason, have signaled their interest in the nuclear arms race, which accelerated at the end of World War II.
As for missile deactivation incidents, my opinion—and theirs—is that whoever is aboard these craft are sending a message to Washington, Moscow, and others, indicating that we're playing with fire, and that the possession and use of nuclear weapons pose a potential threat to humanity and the integrity of the planetary environment.
After reading these testimonies, you may think: "I never imagined it could go this far, that such important facts could be so thoroughly concealed from the public. For one thing, a clear message emerges from this speech: for every officer willing to testify, a hundred others must remain silent. It's more than likely that such incidents have occurred in all developed countries, including Russia above all.*
When the Condon Report team was approached, all of them were well aware of these facts. But at no point were these events analyzed as a message addressed to humanity. Reactions can be summarized as follows:
- Could these be Russian craft? No. Have these objects shown aggressive behavior? No. Have there been any deaths? No. Has any equipment been destroyed? No. Are people aware? No. So what's the problem? Let's maintain absolute secrecy about all these stories, and continue developing our "defense" arsenal more than ever, without changing anything. In passing, assign a trusted man, a renowned scientist (in this case, Professor Condon, who participated in the Manhattan Project),* the task of reassuring the public by publishing a report based on an investigation conducted at a major university in the country* (the University of Colorado). Something that appears serious, gives an impression of objectivity, and whose conclusions reduce to two points:
- This does not represent a threat to the country's citizens.
- This phenomenon does not merit any scientific community attention.
Meanwhile, find me a quiet place where selected scientists, whom we'll ensure will never speak, can discreetly reflect on the technology used by these damned craft, and discover how they manage to remotely erase targeting data from our weapons.
As my friend Christel Seval (author of the book "Contact and Impact," published by JMG, which I highly recommend) recently told me on the phone:
- These events have been known for quite some time, revolving around two of the three sites launching Minuteman missiles: Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, and Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming—the third being Minot. Here, Hastings, and credit to him, has succeeded in getting all seven Air Force officers to testify together, in the most official way possible.
Robert Hastings was sixteen in 1967. At the time, he was a high school student. Since his father worked at Malmstrom Base, he served as a guard at one of the base's surveillance towers three nights a week. One night, he observed five UFOs flying above missile sites. His father then conducted an investigation and discovered that indeed, the base's radar—one of the most powerful of its time—had been on alert for some time, with UFO incursions reported near missile silos. While pursuing his studies and beginning his professional career, Hastings decided at age twenty-two to dedicate himself to studying the UFO phenomenon. Very quickly, he discovered that regarding UFO incursions near missile silos, the subject was so sensitive that attempts to invoke the Freedom of Information Act were met with outright refusals from military authorities. He then began collecting testimonies from military personnel who had frequented these bases and were now retired. Thus, the emergence of these cases can be largely attributed to the efforts and investigations he conducted over more than thirty years.
Finally, here are some photos of the speakers:
Captain Robert Salas
On March 24, 1967, he was on duty at the "Oscar Flight" missile base, in the underground firing station, 20 meters below ground. He and his co-pilot received a frantic message from guards stationed on the surface. They said a ten-meter-diameter, glowing red object was hovering above the silo. At the same moment, Salas saw "NO-GO" messages appear on his firing consoles, indicating that the missile launch programs had been deactivated and erased from the computers controlling the weapons. Other indicators showed the same phenomenon had occurred at other firing stations. Then the guards said the object vanished at high speed, in complete silence.
Salas reported to his superior, Fred Meiwald, who, pale as a sheet, told him similar phenomena had occurred at many other points on this launch site. A blackout was declared, and Salas was asked to sign a document committing him to tell no one about this affair. He didn't speak about it again until 27 years later, in 1994.
Dwyne Arneson
Dwyne Arneson is a signals officer. He thus has access to communications at the highest level of secrecy, and confirms that in 1967 he was able to follow encrypted communications stating that a UFO had deactivated several missile silos in Montana. After leaving the Air Force, he became a collaborator of Robert Kaminski, working at Boeing, to whom the army asked to assess these missile deactivations, which, according to general opinion, could never have deactivated themselves.
He testifies that, inexplicably, in the middle of this work, the Air Force suddenly ordered the investigation to stop and buried the entire affair.
Robert Jamison
Responsible for missile targeting, he testifies that he was sent on a mission to restore all the missiles in the "Oscar Flight" group to operational status. He claims he had never heard of two missiles being deactivated simultaneously, but in this case, the number of missiles deactivated was ten.
He then testifies about a UFO chase in the nearby town of Belt, where an object had landed in a canyon. It quickly ascended and disappeared just as the investigating patrol arrived at dawn in the canyon where the object had landed.
Colonel Charles I. Halt
Assigned to a U.S. base equipped with nuclear weapons, located in England at Benwaters, he was the one called on Christmas Eve following the "return of the UFO." That night, he became a direct witness of highly strange phenomena.
Before a copy of the small tape recorder's recording circulated at cocktail parties due to a leak, Halt had resolved not to say a word about his experience. Above is his reaction after a phone call from a colleague telling him he had found a copy of his report about the incident.
His conclusions: "I don't know what we saw that night. But I think the object was controlled by intelligence, and I believe that intelligence was extraterrestrial or from another dimension."
Jerome Nelson
Also present in an underground missile launch post during anxious calls from the surface security team. He clarifies that despite the reports he sent regarding these events, the matter never received any follow-up.
Patrick Mac Donough
The young officer responsible for conducting geodetic surveys on operational missile silos or those about to receive their missile, measurements he performed at night, using stars for reference.
One night, while he and his two colleagues were working on a missile silo, they were visited by a UFO about fifteen meters in diameter, emitting a "pulsating light," which positioned itself above them for half a minute. Then the object vanished in an instant. Too concerned to stay in case it returned, the three men fled at full speed, and in their haste, flipped their truck. Nearly dead, they walked for two hours to reach a nearby farm.
Bruce Fenstermacher
Bruce Fenstermacher himself was not a direct witness. He remembers a message from a surface team: "You won't believe me, Captain, but right above us there's a huge, pulsating, cigar-shaped white object. The light is pulsating, and between the pulses, we see red and blue lights."
Fenstermacher's testimony is interesting in that it captures the reactions of others. Men responsible for guarding weapons capable of killing millions of people at thousands of kilometers away are terrified by things they don't understand. Some invent imaginary vehicle malfunctions to avoid going to the site where the phenomenon occurred. Others refuse to testify, seemingly ready to do anything to erase this memory from their minds, which they experience as a true trauma.
Finally, a military figure, but without any distinctive insignia, tells him: "This is top secret, and besides, none of this ever happened."
As I finalize this page, I'll simply note that on January 6, France2 will broadcast an episode by the Bogdanoff brothers on the UFO dossier.
Here is the announcement referring to it:
In the series "A Step from the Future": UFOs: Truths and Illusions — UFOs on the Table!
A prestigious institution, the CNES, the French Space Agency, has agreed to open its doors and documents to us.
What observations, even today, resist analysis? How can we distinguish truth from falsehood? If UFOs come from another world, how have they traversed the voids of space? And why do their "passengers" seem to be fleeing us?
CNES engineers and astronomers respond. If it's a myth, how can we explain its astonishing longevity, sixty years after its inception?
Participants, in order of appearance on screen:
Jacques ARNOULT, Ethics Mission Officer, CNES
Jacques PATENET, Retired, former head of the GEIPAN at CNES
Jack KRINE, Former fighter pilot
Stéphane CAPLIEZ, Head of New Technologies, City of Paris
Christian COMTESSE, from the Strasbourg Ufology Dinners
Egon KRAGEL and Yves COUPRIE, Authors of the book "UFOs" (2010)
Gildas BOURDAIS, Author of the book "UFOs: Toward the End of Secrecy"
Francine FOUÉRÉ, widow of René Fouéré, pioneer of ufology in France
Éric MAILLOT, UFO debunker, member of the Zététique Circle, author of the book "UFOs and the CNES"
Yvan BLANC, Head of GEIPAN, CNES, Toulouse
François LOUANGE, Image Analyst and Consultant. Collaborator with GEPAN-CNES for 33 years
Sergeant Érik VERFAILLIE, Gendarmerie of Saint-Alban (31)
Pascal BULTEL, Advanced Concepts Engineer, CNES
Jean-Claude RIBES, Polytechnician and UFO specialist writer, co-author of the Cometa report
Emmanuel DAVOUST, Astronomer, Midi-Pyrénées Observatory, Toulouse
Prepared by director Roland Portiche, in close collaboration with Nicolas Montigiani, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science and the Unexplained.
This program had been canceled in July 2010. It will therefore be broadcast in January 2011, six months later. It follows a phone call from the Bogdanoff brothers in spring 2010, who told me:
- It's France2 that wants us to make this program. We immediately suggested your name as a participant. But we were instantly told your presence wasn't desired on the set, the directive coming from France Télévision, which effectively controls the content of all major channels. As for the dossier, it was Portiche who produced it. We had nothing to do with it (...).
The same message came from Nicolas Montigiani, creator and editor-in-chief of the magazine Science and the Unexplained, who nevertheless agreed to collaborate on the project "given that it was an opportunity that might not come again." In response, I immediately informed him that my collaboration with his magazine ended at that moment.
Pilot-witness Daniel Michau and writer Christel Seval (Montigiani, acting as a recruiter, had contacted everyone who participated in Daniel Hamouchi's Direct8 program) refused to take part in a UFO-themed program where I would not be present.
As for the Bogdanoffs, their reputation for frivolity, opportunism, and lack of rigor in every respect—including scientific—needs no further explanation. They are the science version of "Bling-Bling."
True chameleons, ready to adopt any thesis, wear any banner, embrace any political color, they have fought for only one cause:
Their own
PS: I've been friends with the Bogdanoff brothers for many years. I even tried, as best I could, to help them—unsuccessfully. This final, disgraceful act brings an end to a relationship that had previously made me remain silent about them. I ask my readers to record the January 6, 2011 broadcast in a format that a friend can "cut up" and from which I can include excerpts on my website. This fraud will then be analyzed. The panel is... substantial. Under orders, they rush to defend the CNES service (Gepan - Sepra - Geipan), which for 33 years has accumulated empty files and displayed its incompetence. The Geipan, a "chronic abscess"... prestigious.
It's been a long time now that the Bogdanoff brothers, with their typically hysterical manner, have been ready to serve up their soup to anyone, blindly spreading the most deceitful misinformation—as long as they can once again appear on television, which has been their entire life, ending their careers in a pitiful way. The last time I saw them, it was on the set of France's L'Arène. Hair dyed, and this time blue contact lenses, well past sixty. Nonsense...
There, the host, Bern, had placed them "in the camp of the skeptics." But if he had put them "in the camp of the believers," they would have played the role just as well, mechanically spouting empty, cut-and-paste remarks.
They remind me of Alain Souchon's song:
It's up to you...
I believe that if, one day, these once-charming and witty performers—now reduced to mere magicians, aging, worn-out actors desperately clinging on, trying to resell the same tired act for the hundredth time, worn threadbare—disappeared from the audiovisual landscape, viewers wouldn't lose much. We all loved "Temps X." Personally, I participated in both the first and the last episode, and I still have fond memories of what was, at the time, an original adventure. But what once offered a touch of charm, an invitation to imagination, and sometimes even a bit of science, has now become a ridiculous and complacent pantomime, endlessly recycled in series that keep reviving themselves, surviving only thanks to dubious political backing.
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