further to take part in a dialogue addressing a dramatically transformed view of humans on this planet and their future place as part of a larger group of intelligent beings; 3. We recommend that the public write the President and ask that he issue an executive order permitting witnesses to safely come forward (see section on Presidential actions) and write their senators and representatives requesting that they sponsor open hearings where these witnesses may testify. 4. We recommend that former government, military or corporate persons with knowledge about this subject and willingness to be witnesses, contact the Disclosure Project to help make their knowledge public in an honorable and patriotic manner. We have protective measures in place, and the more witnesses we have, the stronger the case – and the greater the margin of safety for all concerned; 5. Ultimately, if the people will lead, the leaders will follow. Courage, vision and perseverance are needed to transform this situation, and create a time of openness and trust. If our leaders currently lack this courage and vision, then we must manifest it for them since ultimately the public will help drive the disclosure effort.
4.3
Recommended Congressional Actions
Considering the incredible importance and implications of this subject, Congress has played an almost negligible role over the past four to five decades. In fact only two formal hearings have been held during that time period. The first was held by the House Armed Services Committee on April 5, 1966 because of strong editorial and public criticism of the Air Force Project Blue Book UFO program. Then Representative Gerald Ford of Michigan was a strong supporter of the hearings, in part as a result of major sightings that had occurred during March of that year in his state and seen by hundreds of people and reported widely in the press. The result of the hearings was the recommendation for an independent scientific investigation of UFOs, which became the University of Colorado “Scientific Study of UFOs” directed by Dr. Edward Condon. Then in 1968, the House Science and Astronautics Committee held a “Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects” to review the scientific evidence for UFOs. Of the six scientists who testified, five opinioned that there was a valid scientific anomaly that should be studied further. In fact, one of the scientists33, Dr. James McDonald, a senior physicist and professor at the University of Arizona, concluded that, ”My own study of the UFO problem has convinced me that we must rapidly escalate serious scientific attention to this extra-ordinarily intriguing puzzle.” A year later the Condon Committee concluded that there was no convincing scientific evidence for UFOs and recommended that Project Blue Book be terminated, which happened later that year on December 17. This surprising conclusion was reached in spite of the fact that about 30% of the cases investigated by the committee had remained unexplained. In the 1990s, the refusal of the Air Force to even comment on the growing evidence of a crash near Roswell, NM lead then Representative Steven Schiff (R-NM) to request that the General Accounting Office conduct a search for related documents. In 1995 the GAO released a report stating that they could not find documents related to the crash as documents from Roswell Army Base from that time period had been improperly destroyed. Then in early April, 1997 the CSETI organization held a closed briefing for members of congress and civilian witnesses in the hopes that someone in Congress would have the courage to 33
See sections 32.1 and 6.3 (under Dr. Robert Wood for other comments by and about Dr. McDonald.
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