Leslie Kean - UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record

For Paul

Foreword
John Podesta

Part 1:

2: The UAP Wave over Belgium
Major General Wilfried De Brouwer (Ret.)

4: Circled by a UFO
Captain Jlio Miguel Guerra

5: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Aviation Safety
Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.

7: Gigantic UFOs over the English Channel, 2007
Captain Ray Bowyer

9: Dogfight over Tehran
General Parviz Jafari (Ret.)

10: Close Combat with a UFO
Comandante Oscar Santa Mara Huertas (Ret.)

13: The Birth of COMETA
Major General Denis Letty (Ret.)

14: France and the UFO Question
Jean-Jacques Velasco

17: The Real X-Files
Nick Pope

18: The Extraordinary Incident at Rendlesham Forest
Sergeant James Penniston (Ret.)
Colonel Charles I. Halt (Ret.)

19: Chile: Aeronautics Cases and the Official Response
General Ricardo Bermdez Sanhueza (Ret.)
Captain Rodrigo Bravo Garrido

20: UFOs in Brazil
Brigadier General Jos Carlos Pereira (Ret.)

22: The FAA Investigates a UFO Event That Never Happened
John J. Callahan

25: Setting the Record Straight
Governor Fife Symington III

27: Militant Agnosticism and the UFO Taboo
Dr. Alexander Wendt and Dr. Raymond Duvall

As someone interested in the question of UFOs, I think I have always understood the difference between fact and fiction. I guess you could call me a curious skeptic. But Im skeptical about many things, including the notion that government always knows best, and that the people cant be trusted with the truth. Thats why Ive dedicated three decades of my life, in private practice, as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, at the White House under President Clinton, and now with the Center for American Progress, to the fundamental principle of protecting openness in government.

Because of this commitment, I have supported the work of investigative journalist Leslie Kean and her organization, the Coalition for Freedom of Information, in their initiative, launched in 2001, to obtain documents about UFOs through the Freedom of Information Act. In the spirit of inquiry, Kean successfully sought an injunction in federal court on one important case, as was her right under the law.

The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record involves just such an effort, and it appeals to open-minded people such as myself. Presenting the facts, the book includes statements from only the most credible sourcesthose in a position to knowabout a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined. Kean and her impressive team of contributors make no untoward claims, but provide a rational analysis of the most pertinent information, much of it presented here firsthand in riveting detail, stating that further investigations are needed. Kean has more than done her homework as a dogged investigative reporter, diligently contending with this perplexing subject for ten years while having to face attitudes of ridicule and denial within government. Yet she persevered, and her book clearly leaves the taboo against taking UFOs seriously with no leg to stand on.

Kean and her distinguished co-writers call for the establishment of a small U.S. government agency to cooperate with other countries that are already formally investigating, reviewing, and releasing information relevant to UFOs. This new agency would handle release of documents and any future investigations with openness and efficiency. Its an idea worth considering, and it is definitely time for government, scientists, and aviation experts to work together in unraveling the questions about UFOs that have so far remained in the dark. Its time to find out what the truth really is thats out there. The American peopleand people around the worldwant to know, and they can handle the truth. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record represents a pivotal step in that direction, laying the groundwork for a new way forward.

T en years ago, as an investigative reporter working for a California public radio station, I was suddenly confronted with a seemingly impossible reality. A colleague in Paris sent me an extraordinary new study by former high-ranking French officials documenting the existence of unidentified flying objects and exploring their potential impact on national security. Now known as the COMETA Report, this unprecedented white paper marked the first time in any country that a group of this size and stature had declared that UFOssolid but as yet unexplained objects in the skyconstitute a real phenomenon warranting immediate international attention.

The distinguished COMETA authorsthirteen retired generals, scientists, and space experts working independently of the French governmenthad spent three years analyzing military and pilot encounters with UFOs. In the cases they present, all conventional explanations of something natural or man-made had been eliminated by the authors and their associated teams of experts, and yet these objects were observed at close range by pilots, tracked on radar, and officially photographed. They achieved tremendous speeds and accelerations, made sharp, right-angle turns in a flash, and could stop and stand still in midair, seeming to defy the laws of physics. What could this mean? Since some of the military officers on the COMETA panel were serving with the French Institute of Higher Studies for National Defense, a government-financed strategic planning agency, their characterization of UFOs as a phenomenon with possible national security implications assumed a grave importance.

In their ninety-page report, written with objectivity, clarity, and logic, the authors explained that about 5 percent of sightingsthose for which there is enough solid documentation to eliminate other possibilitiescannot be easily attributed to earthly sources, such as secret military exercises or natural phenomena. This 5 percent seem to be completely unknown flying machines with exceptional performances that are guided by a natural or artificial intelligence. In its is the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

This did not mean that they accepted this conclusion as fact or had any particular beliefs about it one way or the other. They made very clear that the nature and origin of the objects remain unknown. By hypothesis, the authors simply meant an unproved theory, a possible, plausible explanation that needed to be tested before it could be decided, but remained only a thesis until that happened. However, the conviction with which they put forth this theory as the most likely solution to the puzzle, since others had been ruled out in so many cases, was provocative. Official data about UFOs from around the world was accessible to the members of the group, and they were determined to respond rationally, avoiding prejudice. They did so without reserve.

Who were the people making these statements? Among them, all retired, were a four-star general, a three-star admiral, a Major General, and the former head of the French equivalent of NASA. It was their credentials that made the report worthy of serious consideration. Other military officers, engineers, scientists, a national chief of police, and the head of a government agency studying the phenomenon completed the impressive contributing group. The study was not a government-sanctioned one, but was undertaken independently, and then presented to the highest levels of government in France.