UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities - Hardcover

Alexander, John B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312648340 ISBN 13: 9780312648343

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011

Synopsis

Foreword by Jacques F. Vallee

Introduction by Burt Rutan

Commentary by Tom Clancy

A never-before-heard firsthand account of a government insider's experience on the cutting edge of UFO exploration


While still on active duty in the U.S. Army during the 1980s, Colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D., created an interagency group to explore the controversial topic of UFOs. Participants came from the Army, Navy, Air Force, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the aerospace industry. All members held Top Secret clearance. What they discovered was not at all what was expected. UFOs covers the numerous cases they saw, and answers questions like:

· What was really in Hanger 18?

· Did a UFO land at Holloman Air Force Base?

· What happened at Roswell?

· What is Majestic 12?

· What is the Aviary?

· What does the government know about UFOs?

· What has happened with disclosure in other countries?

· Has the U.S. reverse engineered a UFO?

· Why don't presidents get access to UFO info?

UFOs is at once a complete account of Alexander's findings, and a call to action. There are no conspiracy theories here--only hard facts--but they are merely the beginning. Serious research is needed in order to understand and anticipate the workings of UFOs, and John Alexander is leading the charge.

About this title

About the Author:

Dr. John B. Alexander, a Green Beret combat veteran, was a colonel when he retired from the U.S. Army; a project manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory; a member of NATO, National Research Council, and Council on Foreign Relations, studies of non-lethal weapons; a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, CIA, US Special Operations Command, and the Army Science Board. He is widely published in several areas. Currently he is a senior fellow at a DoD university and lives with his wife, Victoria, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

1
 
ADVANCED THEORETICAL PHYSICS PROJECT DISCLOSED

Do or do not ... there is no try.
—MASTER YODA, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

“There is a black UFO program someplace. Let’s see if we can find it. If the rumors are right, THEY have a tiger by the tail and want help transitioning the information to the public. Somebody has got to be minding the store—who is it?”
It was with that premise that the Advanced Theoretical Physics Project (ATP) was born. I’d like to say it was in the bowels of the Pentagon; it has such a nice ring to it, but that would not be true. Rather, it was located in my unbelievably spacious office in Tysons Corner, Virginia, with views of the Shenandoah Mountains to the west.
With help from a few other researchers we initiated the ATP project specifically to examine issues regarding UFOs, and what role the Department of Defense (DoD) might be playing. Like most of the general public, we assumed somebody in DoD had responsibility for studying UFOs. This was a small internal group drawn from the government and aerospace industry, all of whom were interested in the topic. Admission was by invitation only, and those selected to participate had to have the right credentials. This chapter outlines what few people outside the membership of that group have ever heard about. In fact, very few of them know the full story. What we expected was not what we found.
Years later, sitting in front of Lieutenant General Jim Abrahamson, then the director of the highly acclaimed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), known more popularly as Star Wars, I began the briefing to him and explained that we were there to discuss UFOs. It took only a few minutes before he stopped me and asked, “Who are you guys really?” That spoke volumes about the subject and where UFOs were on the SDI priority list. This is the story of how we got there, and beyond.
To appreciate the importance of the research presented, background material is provided to allow better understanding of the depth of penetration that was accomplished. Of significance are the personal relationships that intertwine over time; always assisting when needed. Note that the interactions with most agencies were not simple onetime interviews, but ones that gave continuing support at various levels. Also of importance was the manner in which traditional military research and development functions were juxtaposed with UFO interests. Understanding how that unique fusion occurred is critical to knowing how this effort was accomplished. It was that aspect that separates this research from all others in the field.
Setting the Stage
The creation and execution of the Advanced Theoretical Physics group did not just happen. Rather, it took considerable coordination and effort. Often the direction I was moving in my career was not clear to me at the onset. In fact, at my retirement from the Army, I told the assembled group that it was as if some external force seemed to guide my actions. When I resisted various movements and failed to get my way; it was only later that the necessity for certain events to have occurred become apparent. Maybe it was synchronicity, but the eventual functions and outcomes that led to the observations in this book were far too complex to have been planned or orchestrated by me. While the emphasis here is on UFO studies, there were interactions in many other realms of phenomena that remain totally intertwined with destiny.
To understand the significance of this research effort, some fairly extensive background knowledge is required. In that way the reader will be able to discern how all of the pieces fit together. The ATP project was actually the result of substantial groundwork in establishing various credentials in the military that allowed me to function within acceptable limits while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of traditional credibility. It also required finding the right network of people who would be willing to participate in projects that could be perilous to one’s career, and establishing the set of senior officials who could fly cover for such an operation. In general, the military is fairly risk-aversive. To get promoted in the military the conventional wisdom was to assume assignments where the potential for failure was minimal. Venturing into studies of psi phenomena and UFOs was not seen as career enhancing. As a mustang (former enlisted noncommissioned officer who went to Officer Candidate School), and who had chosen Special Forces missions over straight infantry assignments, I knew my time was limited and further promotion beyond lieutenant colonel was out of the question—but that was wrong.
Enter the Voodoo Warriors
In the summer of 1980, recently promoted and fresh out of Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I was assigned to the Headquarters of the Department of the Army Inspector General’s office (DAIG). There we conducted inspections on systemic issues as selected by the Inspector General of the Army, Lieutenant General Richard Trefry.
While attending CGSC I had written and submitted a manuscript to Military Review, the staid journal of the college. The piece was called “The New Mental Battlefield.” This article described the potential use of remote viewing, psychokinesis, and similar psychic skills in military operations. In fact, this was the first time that these subjects had ever been broached in an official U.S. Army publication. The article was published in December 1980 and, strangely, became the cover story for that issue. In one of many synchronistic incidents, the editor of the magazine had previously had a near-death experience in which he found himself out of his body. He was therefore fascinated with the article, and the cover came complete with pictures of Kirlian photography. While they were not really germane to the story, this was quite a departure for a traditional professional military journal. The immediate impact was relatively muted within the Army and I continued with regular IG work. However, Ron McCrae, one of the staff writers for the noted Washington columnist Jack Anderson, spotted the article. McCrae drafted an editorial for Anderson which was then published in The Washington Post under the title “The Voodoo Warriors of the Pentagon.”
Obviously Jack Anderson’s article, which was picked up by the wire services, was not very supportive of the notion of military applications of psychic capabilities. Anderson was known for finding topics that would incense the public, and often dealt with government waste of taxpayer money. Certainly, the writers assumed, the concept of government funding psychic warfare would get a response from the public. Anderson and McCrae were right, but not as they had anticipated. Rather than being angry about sinking money into a possible psychic warfare program, the public wrote in to tell Anderson how much they appreciated knowing that this research was going on. Given the 1970 publication of Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder’s popular book, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, many civilians believed that the Soviets were seriously pursuing these topics and that the United States had fallen behind.
It was from Anderson’s article that I experienced blowback as well. One morning, while sitting at my desk in C-Ring on the first floor of the Pentagon, a red-faced lieutenant colonel accosted me. He was assigned to the Office of the Army’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General Ed Thompson, and they were furious about the Anderson exposé. He first asked if I had written the article, and then he wanted to know if I was aware of the clearance procedures for publications of any nature. Fortuitously, I happened to have the file with me that contained all of the administrative paperwork associated with the Military Review article. Once shown that his office had signed off approving the publication of the manuscript, he left in a huff. Of course what had upset them so much was that they had responsibility for the secret embryonic remote viewing program, then-called Grill Flame. After many years in the black world, this program was declassified in 1995, and became known to the public by its final designation, Star Gate.
Task Force Delta—Defining the Difference that Makes a Difference
Although officially working for the Inspector General of the Army I was already participating in a very unique organization called Task Force Delta. This is not to be confused with the more famous Delta Force, à la Colonel Charlie Beckwith, with a counterterrorist mission. (As a side note, “Charging” Charlie Beckwith and I were students in the same Ranger class [2-58] in the late summer and fall of 1958. He was a decidedly boisterous lieutenant, and I was a very junior enlisted soldier who was promoted to sergeant by graduating from that grueling course.)
In fact, this new Task Force Delta was an Army version of a think tank and was facilitated by some very enlightened senior leadership. That top echelon comprised three- and four-star generals who knew the Army needed dramatic revamping given the vicissitudes that followed Vietnam. There was a need, they thought, to have people available to address tough, multifarious problems in an unconstrained environment. Blue sky thinking was not only allowed, it was encouraged.
It was there that Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon brought out his First Earth Battalion, a notional unit with concepts easily three decades ahead of their time. Channon’s project would become better known to the public when Jeff Bridges played a distinctive character based exclusively on him in the 2009 movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats. A brilliant imagineer and craftsman, Channon was the artist of choice for many senior flag officers in the Army Headquarters. He had a unique ability to listen to generic...

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0312648340
• ISBN 13: 9780312648343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336