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recommend to define a policy about what the populace may be told about these
phenomena.’
In the words of Major Kehoe this meant ‘ a cunning and ruthless censorship to stamp out
public belief in UFOs’.
To this end the CIA arranged a meeting of Air Force personnel and
scientists at the Pentagon to secretly analyze the material proving the UFOs.
This meeting
took place on January 14 to 18, 1953, headed by Dr. H.P. Robertson from the University of
California, after whom it has been named the ROBERTSON PANEL.
The time was well
chosen.
In the previous November a new, Republican President had been elected, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower. At the end of January, Eisenhower was going to be sworn in. Until
then they had to recommend to the President a new successful policy. On November 18,
1952, already CIA director Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter had declared in an instruction
paper for the President-elect about the subject of UFOs:
“Implications for national security are mainly given by the fact that motive and final intentions
of the visitors are still completely unknown. This is compounded by the marked rise of
reconnaissance flights by these ships in the time between May and autumn of this year
which have led to the concern that something new might be afoot. For these reasons, but
also for obviously international and technological reasons and the utmost necessity to
prevent panic at all cost, the Majestic-12 commission univocally maintains that severe
security measures will also have to be implemented without interruption by the new
administration.
“…On the last day the panel adopted a ‘ public education program’ supported by all
government agencies concerned with two main objectives: Educate and trivialize. The aim
of trivialization was to reduce public interest in ‘ flying saucers’ and could be accomplished
via the mass media like television, movies and artlcles. The basis would be actual cases
that would first cause confusion, but would then be explained. And as with magic tricks,
there is scant interest once the trick has been revealed. The national security council was to
start immediately the necessary action to strip the unidentified flying objects of the special
status, the aura of the mysterious, they enjoy.
“We have been ordered to collaborate in a country-wide disclaiming campaign,’ Air Force
’We have been ordered to collaborate in a country-wide disclaiming campaign,’ Air Force
speaker Albert M. Chop said, ‘ o publish articles in newspapers and to give interviews to
to publish articles in newspapers and to give interviews to
ridicule UFO reports.’
Captain Ruppelt adds: ‘ And that was not the worse. We were
ordered to keep sightings secret, if at all possible, or, if a story had got out prematurely, to
explain it away (weather balloon, meteorite, cloud, forgery…the author)
–
in any case to do
everything possible to remove it.
If we could not find a plausible explanation, we were just
to ridicule the witnesses.’
During the following months both Chop and Ruppelt resigned
from the Air Force.
“The CIA policy of trivializing or ridiculing was only too successful.
Just how successful we
learn from an open letter by the initiative ‘ Justice for Military Personnel’ (J.M.P.) of
September 4, 1987 to then President Reagan: ‘ The national UFO trivialization campaign
ordered by the CIA in 1953 fabricated books and infiltrated the press with hundreds of
articles to surround the subject of UFOs with an aura of ridicule through false contacts and
obvious UFO swindles. This ongoing campaign had CIA agents infiltrate civil UFO research
groups to ridicule them by certain manipulations or to guide their efforts towards ‘ other
explanations’. This cover-up policy was more successful than the CIA ever expected,
thanks to the brilliant manipulation of the press with the strategy of ridicule. The established
press, for fear of ridicule, proved to be only too gullible towards ‘ official statements’.”
NATO Major Hans C. Peterson writes about the reasons for this massive policy of secrecy:
The monetary system would collapse – no power group would allow that.
All religions would have to ‘ rethink’, for truth is much simpler than the churches have taught
us. This would mean the loss of power and influence by the churches and their religious
leaders. No church wants that.
