- On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, an international press conference
was held to announce the findings of a joint official and private effort
to investigate a UFO sighting. What is remarkable in the press conference
is that Department of Defense collaborated with a top Mexican UFO researcher,
Jaime Maussan, in the release of information concerning the appearance
of up to 11 UFO's in the vicinity of a Mexican Air force flight that was
on a drug surveillance mission on March 5, 2004. Using infrared cameras
and radar tracking, the eight-man crew of the Merlin C26/A flight was able
to monitor the UFOs, which at one point formed a circle around the flight.
In investigating the incident, the Air force contacted Jaime Maussan and
asked him to participate in the inquiry.
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- The release of data on the UFOs taken by a Mexican Air
force crew was certainly a coup for Maussan who released the information
in the popular television program 'Great Mysteries of the Third Millennium'
on May 9, 2004. Maussan was initially contacted on April 20, by the Department
of Defense and had a meeting the next day with General Clemente Vega Garcia,
Secretary of Defense and his senior officials. The Secretary of Defense
went further however than simply informing Maussan of the incident. General
Clemente released film and other data of the incident to Maussan that he
could investigate with his own independent research team. The Department
of Defense confirmed to international media outlets such as Reuters in
a May 11 Press Conference that it had handed over the film and data to
Maussan. This was certainly unprecedented and signaled a major new approach
to dealing with the UFO phenomenon by a major world government.
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- Up to the present time, there appears to have been a
well-coordinated international effort in managing UFO sightings and reports
of UFO crashes. These have typically been handled in a way suggesting a
sophisticated global system for dealing with UFO sightings, and even collecting
the remains of crashed UFOs, without witnesses having much credibility
before the mass media. This global management system has prevented governmental
releases of UFO information to the general public and international media.
Whatever releases did occur typically involved private civilians rather
than military personnel in their official capacities revealing UFO information.
In the US, military personnel have been legally proscribed from participating
in the release of information of UFO sightings according to military regulations
described in the Joint Army Navy Air Publication (JANAP) 146 released in
1953. Similar provisions are found in the British Ministry of Defense and
other major nations that have had to deal with the UFO phenomenon, and/or
cooperate closely with the US.
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- This official international system for repressing UFO
reports suffered a significant setback in 1999 with the release of a French
government supported study of the UFO phenomenon. The COMETA Report comprised
former top military officials and found credible evidence to support the
existence of UFOs as phenomenon that required serious political attention.
The COMETA report was not widely covered in the US but signaled that major
nations differed in how much information they should release to their general
publics. In December 2002, the British Ministry of Defense released a file
on the Rendlesham UFO incident of 1980 describing one of the most well
document UFO sightings in British history. Significantly, the US military
has not released its own files of the incident despite having played a
leading investigatory role at Rendlesham. The respective official positions
over the Rendlesham files suggests a clear difference of opinion between
the British and US military officials over the extent to which UFO information
will be released to the general public and the mass media.
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- The participation of the Mexican Department of Defense
in collaborating with Maussan in releasing information on a contemporary
UFO sighting is unprecedented. This is a significant development that goes
even further than the COMETA report in challenging the non-disclosure position
supported by the US government that apparently plays a major role in the
international management system in place for UFO sightings/crashes. The
Mexican Department of Defense effort in collaborating with Maussan simultaneously
achieves a number of things. First, it helps legitimate research into the
UFO phenomenon that now has official government support as a credible field
of study at least in Mexico. Second, it legitimates the investigatory skills
and experiences of private Mexican researchers such as Maussan. Third,
it comes at a time of great international friction over the war in Iraq
suggesting that this Mexican initiative marks a major rupture in the de
facto global management system for UFOs that echoes global dissent over
US policies in Iraq. If the COMETA report and the release of the Rendlesham
files are solid indicators of the European position towards UFO disclosure,
then it appears that the US is becoming increasingly isolated in its strict
non-disclosure policy.
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- If indeed there is a major rift in the global management
system over the rate and extent to which disclosure of UFOs sightings and/or
UFO evidence is made to the general public of major states, then it may
be predicted that further disclosures by other governments are likely.
It may be concluded that the Mexican Department of Defense collaboration
with private UFO researchers heralds a major new phase in the UFO phenomenon.
With a more integrated global media and Internet, it will be very difficult
if impossible for the mass media in the US to ignore UFO developments in
other countries. If major world governments begin disclosing information
concerning contemporary UFO sightings, then it may be predicted that the
non-disclosure policy in place for over 50 years may soon come to an end.
This would usher in the age of exopolitics where the political implications
of an extraterrestrial presence would predictably dominate global politics.
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- Michael E.Salla, PhD
- May 12, 2004
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