The Secret Space Programs: Biggest Cover-Up Of All Time?

From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 12 No 2 (Apr 2018)

Do covert space programs utilising extra-terrestrial technology exist? Are we being subjected to a massive psychological operation? 

The following examines alleged cover-ups on a huge scale, two vastly different interpretations of unusual aerial phenomena – UFOs – connected to ‘secret space programs’. The so-called facts of these cover-ups are hard to fathom but if true constitute a conspiracy of mammoth proportions.

The first involves the earth-based elite and its military, intelligentsia, security and space operations apparatus. The second, the claims and disclosures of various individuals and ‘whistleblowers’ on ‘beyond top secret’ cooperation with extra-terrestrials.  

When the Pentagon’s X-37B space plane first was announced to the world – a deliberately engineered event – the public was fascinated by its appearance. 

‘The Pentagon’s mysterious X-37B space plane sets new orbit record’ by Nick Whigham reads an article appearing on News.com.au in March 2017. “For the past 678 record-breaking days, a large robotic plane owned by the US Air Force has been floating around space in low-earth orbit.”

“Despite the unique accomplishment, the space plane remains shrouded in secrecy and the goals and purpose of the mission are a mystery to the public – fuelling intense speculation and conspiracy theories, including concern that it is helping to usher in the weaponisation of space.”

The weaponisation of space has been a major issue for governments as far back as the 1950s. In 1957, US Air Force chief of staff Thomas White stated: “Whoever has the capability to control space will likewise possess the capability to exert control of the surface of Earth.” 

In the past few decades the space race has heated up with programs and special projects developed by Russia, India, Japan, South Korea and China (Asia’s largest). Also participating are private contractors. Much of the work is top secret. 

Of course, the largest player in this game of dominance is the United States government. It funds the multibillion-dollar development of experimental black aircraft at ‘Area 51’ (known as ‘Dreamland’ by the pilots who test aircraft in the restricted airspace over the base). The U-2 spy plane and the F-117 stealth fighter were developed at Area 51 under the tangled aegis of a host of secretive government departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Strategic Air Command, and private contractors. 

According to various whistleblowers and researchers, Area 51 is infamous for being the storage and examination point of crashed alien spacecraft (including material recovered at Roswell). It is here, they say, that military scientists have studied aliens and alien technology. Some even claim Area 51 is where meetings or joint undertakings with extra-terrestrials have taken place. More on this later.

America’s Secret Network of Space Planes & Satellites

The US Air Force’s X-37B space plane is only one of possibly dozens of secret military satellites and craft orbiting in space. Many are designed to spy on Earth. Almost certainly others are being tested for warfare purposes.

According to astrophysicist and astronomer Jonathan McDowell, “The secret space programs, or I should say more generally the military space programs, are as big as NASA,” adding that there are about 20 to 25 “full-fledged spy satellites or other really secret vehicles” travelling above the Earth.¹

The American artist, geographer and author Trevor Paglen managed to document some of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified ‘black’ budget programs. His 2010 book examined the ‘patches’ or emblems in the field of clandestine military activity. Speaking to the New York Times in 2008, Paglen remarked: “This stuff is a huge industry, I mean a huge industry. And it’s remarkable that you can develop these projects on an industrial scale, and we don’t know what they are. It’s an astounding feat of social engineering.”²

It is here, in these space programs, where we detect the signs of a massive cover-up that by definition extends way beyond the bounds of the perimeter fence at Area 51. 

Alongside the government-funded space research programs are the private contractors, many entangled with the military-industrial complex. The profit-driven competition between the various players drives the secrecy and deception. 

Many would be surprised to learn that Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos is getting into space, his company Blue Origin operating in extreme secrecy. Late last year [2017] Blue Origin sent its suborbital New Shepard rocket into space, its first test flight. He’s competing with Richard Branson’s spaceflight company Virgin Galactic in what they both predict will be the new frontier for tourism – space.

Other private US-based space companies are the well-known SpaceX owned by Elon Musk, as well as Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Orbital ATK. These companies are developing engine and rocket systems, capsules and spacecraft. Big profits are at stake. Where the secrecy breaks down is you can’t hide everything that flies in the sky or floats in space. 

Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a UFO!

It’s no secret that governments around the world have operated programs to study unidentified aerial phenomenon. Starting in 1952, Project Blue Book was one of a series of studies of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. These programs were officially ‘terminated’, but many observers posit that for obvious reasons the study of strange objects in the sky continued in a covert capacity, outsourced to unofficial non-government organisations, front groups for the Pentagon.

Howard Blum, in his book Out There: The Government’s Secret Quest for Extra-terrestrials, revealed from Freedom of Information Act requests that the US Air Force continued to catalogue and track UFO sightings, particularly a series of UFO encounters from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s that occurred at US military facilities with nuclear weapons. Blum writes that some of these official documents depart drastically from the normally dry and bureaucratic wording of government paperwork, making obvious the sense of “terror” that these UFO incidents sparked in many USAF personnel.

One of the major stories in the field of Ufology happened in 2017 – official admission there had been, in fact, a recent US government program that studied UFOs.

The Pentagon project, called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, was reportedly established in 2007 to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena that appeared to be using novel propulsive, hovering or otherwise advanced technologies.  

The unveiling of the Pentagon project was uncritically embraced and circulated by some UFO enthusiasts, which was perhaps the intention of those behind the report’s release.

We heard from the former head of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, Luis Elizondo. “My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” Elizondo told CNN.³

The program supposedly ran from 2008 to 2012. Elizondo, highlighting one particular episode caught on video that was publicly released, said that the aerial stunts of the UFOs – such as hovering without any sign of propulsion – were beyond the reach of human technology. 

He didn’t seem to be in any doubt the program had found evidence pointing to extra-terrestrials: “These aircraft – we’ll call them aircraft – are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of.”⁴

Is Elizondo’s admission indicative of indirect government disclosure of the existence of ETs? Or is it part of a sophisticated disinformation program designed to misdirect our attention from the experiments of the secret space program? It apparently has happened before. According to British journalist and filmmaker Mark Pilkington in Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs, a shadowy organisation he dubbed “mirage men” were behind a global double bluff.

His book lays out the controversial case that the fascination and study of UFOs was instigated or encouraged by the US government trying to conceal Cold War military projects. 

Pilkington says the Roswell case, when the US military recovered a “flying disc” from a ranch near the New Mexico town back in 1947, is one of the “most famous examples” of the work of the mirage men. He told online journal Sputnik: “In the early 1950s the US military was testing a lot of new technologies and it was convenient to disguise them as UFOs. It was a double bluff.”⁵

He declares the “UFO mythology served as a convenient cover” for classified tests. In this vein, the new admissions by Elizondo serve to restore the mystery around UFOs as alien spacecraft – not the manoeuvring of advanced technologies developed by humans.

In brief, that sums up part one of our examination of the cover-up surrounding the secret space programs. Military agencies around the world and private contractors prefer us to see UFOs instead of their experimental craft. 

That, in itself, is one massive cover-up involving thousands of operatives and ‘whistleblowers’ spreading carefully planned disinformation which eventually took on a life of its own in the mythology of UFOs and alien abductions etc. The existence of this huge disinformation conspiracy is, of course, hotly disputed by those in the UFO community who have their own takes on the phenomenon – and they’re certainly not at all in agreement.

The phrase “flying saucer” gained widespread attention from the year 1947. On 24 June, civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier in the US state of Washington. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of the discs to be over 1,900 km/h. He described the objects flying in a saucer-like fashion, leading to newspaper accounts of “flying saucers” and “flying discs.” 

Coincidentally, the unidentified flying object that crashed on a ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, happened during the first week of July 1947.

This was the magic moment in time that sparked the UFO craze. 

We know there was extensive interest in strange aerial phenomena and ‘aliens’ before that critical year, but it exploded in the following decades. Sighting of UFOs and reports of encounters with space beings exponentially increased, and not just in the United States. UFO organisations proliferated and documented thousands of cases. Could it all be the imagining of the gullible? All part of a massive disinformation campaign? If so, then it would be the most successful manipulation of the worldwide public imagination of all time. 

The answer may be closer to a simple fact about the human mind. Once a possibility is opened in the ‘group mind’ or the collective consciousness, it tends to often manifest across the whole population. Kenneth Arnold’s flying saucers sparked a belief in the possibility something otherworldly was haunting our skies. Once we started considering that possibility we began to see the saucers and other strange things. Maybe they’ve been coming and going all along, perhaps in different guises – we just didn’t ‘see’ them. 

Now that we ‘see’ them, we have to determine what they are, and more importantly, what they want. This takes us into the second aspect of the biggest cover-up of all time – how the secret space programs are connected to extra-terrestrials.

Since that fateful year of 1947, and the subsequent surge of UFO sightings and apparent alien abductions, the collective mind became inextricably focused on the idea of ETs and their possible interaction with humankind. 

Over the years, dozens of apparent insiders have come out of the woodwork with stories of free energy, reverse engineered UFOs, secret human-alien hybrid colonies, antigravity, and government collaboration with various species of alien. In short, these incredible stories about the secret space program represent the second interpretation of the “biggest cover-up of all time.” As in part one, it’s a conspiracy requiring the complicity of thousands of individuals and various programs designed to misdirect our attention away from a very different ‘truth’. 

Of the many figures in the UFO scene, Steven Greer has become one of the loudest and consistent voices demanding full disclosure of extra-terrestrial contact. Decades of petitioning prominent Washington lawmakers and power brokers, appearing before the US National Press Club, and producing UFO documentaries such as the recent ‘Unacknowledged’, pushed Greer firmly into the limelight as one of the main players exposing the alleged extra-terrestrial cover-up. 

Greer shares a platform on this subject with others including William Tompkins (1923–2017), Bob Dean, Richard Doty, Karl Wolfe, Edgar Mitchell (1930–2016, of Apollo 14 fame) and Corey Goode. The stories told by these men – some are former insiders – don’t always line up but they all appear to fervently believe what they say.

Greer claims to have met with dozens of supposed secret space program insiders and acquired thousands of documents to back up his thesis. Greer asserts the cover-up started in the 1950s when the US government reverse engineered recovered crashed extra-terrestrial craft. The first breakthrough, says Greer, was mastering “anti-gravity.” From that point on, in the 1950s, the work went “black and the reason it went black in that era is the financial cartels did not want people to understand that we have not needed oil or gas or jet engines or these things for decades.”⁶ The military-industrial complex has selfishly kept hidden these technological breakthroughs because it threatens the entire house of cards “built on fossil fuels and the petrodollar system.” 

Greer repeatedly urged high-ranking members of the US government to disclose what they knew about extra-terrestrials until he concluded that the pertinent information was being hidden even from the president of the United States. 

As for actual aliens, Greer claims the US government “have several dozen extra-terrestrial vehicles and dozens of deceased [ET] life-forms of various races. Some are stored in an underground facility near Fort Huachuca in Arizona.”⁷ 

From this point on we enter ‘Twilight Zone’ or ‘Star Trek’ territory in the literal sense due to the strange and outlandish scenarios described by some whistleblowers and disclosure activists. The following is a brief overview of these incredible claims which, if true, would indeed constitute the “biggest cover-up of all time.”

Alien Species & Alliances 

Again, in this particular arena, there are many players, some well-known and respected for their consistency and rigour, while others seem to have built their claims from the mesh of established theories and narratives.

All agree that world governments including those of the US, Russia, China, Japan and the EU have separate secret space program alliances with various alien species. The US, Russia and China are said to have entered into independent technology-transfer treaties with rival alien species who have enmeshed Earth into a sort of ‘Star Wars’ conflict that we are told has been ongoing between extra-terrestrial civilisations for thousands, possibly millions of years.

Michael Salla is an Australian academic turned UFO researcher who maintains the popular Exopolitics.org website. He is the author of the recent book The U.S. Navy’s Secret Space Program and Nordic Extra-terrestrial Alliance.

Salla describes the existence of a Military Industrial Extra-terrestrial Complex (MIEC) and claims the world’s secret space programs are currently in touch with 17 extra-terrestrial civilisations. The growing geopolitical conflict between the US allied with the EU and the Eurasian alliance led by Russia and China is, in reality, due to these governments being subsumed into the ongoing warfare between extra-terrestrial civilisations. 

Salla says the creation of the ‘Star Trek’ sci-fi TV series by Gene Roddenberry was actually based on classified information leaked about the clandestine US Navy Space Fleet. This fleet, allegedly a space program run in alliance with technologically advanced alien races including the ‘Greys’, the ‘Reptilians’ and the ‘Tall Whites’, formed the basis of ‘Star Trek’. 

Some alien species apparently sought out alliances with humans because they needed certain mineral and natural resources which the Earth has in abundance. For example, the Tall White aliens are said to maintain a secret trade delegation at the Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas. They are desperately in need of aluminium and titanium to feed their advanced aerospace industries.

Most sinister of all, some ET species have done a deal with Earth governments to collect human DNA resources. This explains alien abductions. There’s also claims of an alien plot to take over the planet and rule it through a new alien-human hybrid elite.

Space does not permit me to mention in detail revelations such as how Nazi Germany established secret bases in Antarctica with the assistance of various extra-terrestrials (the first UFOs were made by Nazi scientists and the technology transferred to the USA after World War II) and the breakaway civilisations on the dark side of the Moon and Mars, operated by techno-elites, essentially the people who really rule the planet.

Further stories and narratives have been revealed (or invented) but they all extend from the premise of secret space programs. 

Deciphering the facts from the disinformation to discern if either side of the “biggest cover-up of all time” is true – even partially – seems an insurmountable challenge. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle – between attempts at misdirecting the general public away from clandestine aerospace experiments – and the phenomenon itself which won’t go away because too many of us keep experiencing its high strangeness.

For this article, the final word on the matter goes to the writer and researcher Micah Hanks who has studied the UFO phenomenon for many years:

“There are countless examples of military exercises and various experimental technologies being mistaken for things like extra-terrestrial vehicles and other more esoteric things. However, in recognising this fundamental truth, questions must be raised in relation to whether all reports of UFOs can merely be chalked up to mis-identification of known phenomenon (including military operations, etc), or if there are indeed foreign sources behind some reports of UFO craft…

“At the end of the day, what we’re left to try and discern is whether a majority of incidents involving unusual aerial objects can be explained by clandestine military activities (and often in the absence of reliable data, due to the secrecy surrounding such subjects).

“Thus, it becomes difficult at times for us to gauge what kinds of technology have been developed and tested over the years, versus the kinds of things that seem otherworldly, and are thus perceived as being ‘theirs’ (i.e. the aliens).

“I would nonetheless say that, if I had to guess, there is probably a lot going on behind the scenes right here on Earth, which can explain much of the weird stuff we’ve seen turn up during UFO incidents over the years. The question is, if not by virtue of the all-hallowed ‘disclosure’ idea, then how will we ever get to the bottom of what’s really going on?”⁸   

Footnotes

1. “Inside America’s Secret Network Of Space Planes, Satellites”, www.wbur.org/hereand
now/2015/06/03/secret-network-space-planes

2. “Inside the Black Budget” by William J. Broad, The New York Times, 1 April 2008

3. edition.cnn.com/2017/12/18/
politics/luis-elizondo-ufo-pentagon/index.html

4. Ibid.

5. “The Mirage Men: Did CIA Create UFO ‘Double Bluff’ to Mask New Technology?”, 4 Dec 2017, sputniknews.com/analysis/201712041059686874-ufos-cia-mirage-men/

6. “Secret govt space program, UFOs & Steven Greer”, 27 Jan 2018, www.rt.com/shows/the-world-according-to-jesse/417143-pentagon-ufo-secret-program/

7. www.disclosureproject.org/transcripts/JeanNoelBassior-Nov2005.htm

8. “UFOs of the Cold War Era, and Other Mystery Objects of Military Origin” by Micah Hanks, Mysterious Universe, 31 August 2017, mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/08/ufos-of-the-cold-war-era-and-other-mystery-objects-of-military-origin/

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