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== The Article ==

by Michael E. Salla, PhD

According to a credible military-diplomatic source, the UN has held four secret meetings discussing UFOs and extraterrestrial life in addition to the meeting(s) claimed to have occurred on February 12(& 13-14). Further details of the UN UFO discussions were announced in an update released by veteran UFO researcher Robert Morningstar, and Clay and Shawn Pickering on June 1 after their meeting with the anonymous military diplomatic source on May 19 ( http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0608/how-cover-works.html ). Their source initially released information about secret UN discussion on UFOs and extraterrestrial life on February 12 (see: http://exopolitics.org/Exo-Comment-65.htm ). Source A, as he has subsequently been known, claims to have been authorized to disclose the information by a secret UFO working group comprising several U.S Navy admirals. Though the working group was not officially part of the U.S. Department of the Navy, it apparently was intent on promoting U.S. Navy interests vis-à-vis management and control of information on extraterrestrial life. The most recent UN meeting on UFOs/extraterrestrial life was claimed to have occurred on May 19. It allegedly focused on the issue of the media's ridiculing of the UFO/ET phenomenon as an impediment to disclosure.

Attempts to confirm Source A's claims have not progressed beyond arranging several meetings with UFO researchers who were able to interview him and to physically examine his credentials. Source A's credentials as a senior military officer have been confirmed by a number of researchers including Robert Morningstar and Robert VanDerClock who have concluded Source A is very credible. Indeed VanDerClock views Source A as among the top three whistleblower sources to have publicly emerged along with Lt Col. Philip Corso (former U.S. Army) & former NASA engineer Clark McClelland to disclose information about extraterrestrial life (see: http://exopolitics.org/Exo-Comment-70.htm ). Source A has also met and shown his credentials to another two prominent UFO researchers, neither of which has yet come forward to make public statements about Source A’s credibility. In conclusion, Source A’s claim that he is a serving military officer currently assigned as a military liaison to the U.S. State Department has been confirmed based on what has been disclosed by researchers so far. 

Despite Source A’s willingness to meet with researchers and have his credentials examined to establish his credibility, there has been relatively little information released by Source A that is specific enough in nature to be confirmed by investigators who have been analyzing his disclosures. Consequently, the secret UN UFO meetings have not become an issue for the mainstream media. This suggests that while Source A is credible and his claims of secret UN UFO discussions is plausible, there has not yet been verification. While verification is still required for Source A’s initial claims, his reliability on what may have transpired at the four additional meetings disclosed to researchers on May 19 needs to be examined. This can be done by comparing his recent statements on the additional four meetings with the claims of another primary source on UN UFO meetings; examining circumstantial evidence relevant to the claims of secret UN UFO discussions; and analysis of the plausibility of Source A’s recent statements. 

The testimony of a second primary source, Gilles Lorant of France, concerning follow up meetings on February 13 & 14 became mired in controversy after it emerged that there were discrepancies in his stated credentials. This led to accusations of fraud and forced his resignation from a prominent French UFO organization (see: http://exopolitics.org/Exo-Comment-69.htm ). Despite the credentials controversy, Lorant's testimony was specific enough to allow investigators to pursue opportunities to confirm his testimony. In particular, Lorant claimed that the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN, Sir John Sawers, and the Papal Nuncio to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore attended meetings where UFO sightings were discussed. Significantly, Lorant claims that the 30 countries represented at the meetings agreed that an international policy of “openness” would be implemented towards reports of UFOs and extraterrestrial life. There has been circumstantial support for Lorant's testimony insofar as an official British governmental response to a Freedom of Information request confirmed that Sir John Sawers had participated in confidential bilateral meetings at the UN during February 13-14 (http://tinyurl.com/4estyo) . Also, a recent interview of the Vatican's chief astronomer, Gabriel Funes, on the possibility of extraterrestrial life signaled an official change in Vatican policy on extraterrestrial life (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm ). This lends further circumstantial support to Lorant's testimony that the February 13 & 14 discussions on UFOs/extraterrestrial life had resulted in a consensus over a new policy of 'openness' towards extraterrestrial life, and that the Vatican had participated. 

A content analysis of the update released by Morningstar & the Pickerings shows several areas where Source A's testimony raises questions over inconsistencies with earlier revelations by him, with Gilles Lorant’s testimony, and objective analysis of the decades old secrecy policy. First, Source A reveals that the meeting on May 19 was focused on the lack of media objectivity concerning reports of UFOs and extraterrestrial life. According to Morningstar and the Pickerings: “This theme of this particular meeting was centered on the media's ridiculing of the UFO/ET phenomenon and the impediment that this presents as an obstacle to moving disclosure forward.” The “ridicule factor” would be a strange choice of official discussions since it appears to shift the onus of responsibility for a UFO cover-up to a mass media disposed to ridicule. This position ignores the public policy origins of the ridicule factor in the mass media. For example, in 1953 the CIA sponsored the Robertson Panel which issued recommendations to ridicule UFO reports as a matter of public policy. http://www.ufocasebook.com/robertsonpanel.html So the lack of media coverage of reports of UFOs/extraterrestrial life is not due to the prejudices of reporters disposing them to ridicule, but the legacy of an official public policy orchestrated by the CIA and other intelligence agencies since the 1950s. 

Investigations into media silence by researchers such as Terry Hansen confirms that the problem lies in those in control of the media where UFO investigations are stifled by senior executives and media owners (http://tinyurl.com/6h8hxk ). So in reality the media problem is not so much ridicule due to the prejudices of the mass media, but a result of a policy secretly facilitated by media elites where ridicule is used as a means of suppressing UFO investigations. Consequently, it may be asked why a secret UN meeting on May 19 would devote itself to discussing media prejudices that lead to ridicule of UFO reports, without pointing out the public policy in place that established the ridicule factor in the first place. A meeting of public policy and military professionals at the UN would surely address the underlying information processes at work, a systematic public policy program of deception, rather than an epiphenomenon such as media prejudices of UFO reports. This does bring into question Source A’s reliability in revealing the real topics discussed during the May 19 meeting. 

Second, when asked who attended the meetings, the response by Source A was "all the usual suspects." Further questions resulted in short responses confirming that China and Russia were represented among the 30 participants, but curiously not the Vatican. This is strange given Source A's initial releases pointed to the problem religion would play in upcoming disclosures of extraterrestrial life. Why would confidential discussions continue at the UN concerning UFOs and the media, without the sole UN member state that specializes in religious affairs, the Vatican? Furthermore, there is a discrepancy with Lorant's testimony wherein he claimed that the Vatican was represented at the February 13 & 14 meetings by Archbishop Migliore. Furthermore, the recent policy change by the Vatican on extraterrestrial life adds circumstantial support for the Vatican's participation in any subsequent secret UN meetings as alleged by Source A. 

Finally, Source A avoids giving his own statements of what he has experienced, and/or has been instructed to disclose, and primarily relies on intermediaries to relay information. This adds an unnecessary filter in accurately interpreting his information on substantive issues such as the content of the meetings and those authorizing his disclosures. What emerges is confusion over whether his views are accurately being relayed, and who precisely is authorizing the disclosures. While the Pickerings and Morningstar have gone to a great efforts to faithfully represents Source A's views, there have been a number of times where this has not been satisfactory and corrections have been required. This could easily be avoided by Source A testifying in his own words and having this forwarded in ways that don’t compromise his anonymity. 

Overall, while Source is credible as a serving military officer currently assigned as a liaison to the State Department, this does not make his claims reliable. Given the difficulty of verifying Source A’s claims, more emphasis needs to be placed on examining the internal consistency of his views and how they match with ongoing global events that signal the kind of policy shifts that might emerge from coordinated UN discussions on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Consequently, while Source A’s testimony is helpful insofar as it reveals more secret meetings are underway at the UN, the reliability of what he claims to have been discussed at the meetings can be questioned. Source A’s lack of specificity over people who attended and efforts to direct attention away to epiphenomena such as media prejudice suggest he is introducing red herrings in his revelations. I conclude that there likely have been further meetings at the UN discussing UFOs and extraterrestrial life as Source A claims, but the actual topics addressed and list of participants may differ considerably from what Source A has revealed so far. 



== Credits ==

Special thanks to [[Dr. Michael Salla]] and [[UFO Digest]]



== External Links ==

* [http://www.exopolitics.org/ Dr. Michael Salla's website]
* [http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0608/whistleblower.html Original UFO Digest Article]


[[Category:UFO_Articles]]