X-Con I: Revving Up the Demand for Truth About ETs

By Rosemary Ellen Guiley

c. Visionary living, Inc.

Ufology has come a long way since the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigated eyewitness reports of contact with extraterrestrials and their space crafts. Of the 12,618 sightings reported between 1947 and 1969, the Project debunked all but 701 of them. Meanwhile, independent researchers amassed thousands of reports that, according to polls, have left a majority of the American public convinced of the reality of ET visitations. But still there is no concrete proof.

As the Rock would say, it doesn’t matter! Ufology has pushed into a bold new era where the ET presence is assumed, and pressure is mounting for the governments of the world to come clean about it. If the experts at the recent X-Conference are right, the truth about ETs is about to explode. “Exopolitics” will come into its own.

“Disclosure is probably the most important issue in the world today,” said Stephen Bassett, ET activist and conference organizer. “The truth has been embargoed by the government, and the American public has been denied the facts. The reason for holding the X-Conference was to send a strong message to the United States Congress and the White House to end the truth embargo. This is not about lights in the sky – this is about lies on the ground.”

The X-Con was staged in April 2004 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in the shadow of the Fog Zone of Washington, D.C. Twenty-five of the most prominent ufologists from five countries drew an audience of about 650 people, making X-Con the largest ET conference ever on the East Coast. It was also the first conference of its kind, focussing on politics and disclosure, not on phenomena. X-Con had a buzz of excitement that hasn’t been felt in ufology for some time.

“Disclosure is not contact,” Bassett said. “Disclosure is the formal announcement by the United States government of the extraterrestrial presence in the human race. We’re right at the cusp of a critical mass of public and media awareness. Once that happens, we’re going to have an explosion of investigation and Congressional attention.”

Disclosure advocates accept the premise that governments around the world have known for decades about ETs, have collected ETs (dead and living) and their crafts, have obtained alien technology, and have communicated with different groups of ETs. Furthermore, governments and the military have participated in an Earth/alien co-conspiracy to keep the full extent of the alien presence and agendas secret. The core of the conspiracy revolves around the knowledge of not only space travel but time travel as well.

Bassett, a physics major, became convinced of the ET presence in the 1970s. “The turning point for me to enter the field formally and make it my life’s work was in 1995 when I read the works of a number of individuals, most notably Richard Hoagland’s The Monuments of Mars, Whitley Strieber’s Communion and Dr. John Mack’s Abduction,” he said. In 1996 he formed the Paradigm Research Group “to support the work of research/activist organizations addressing the science and politics of extraterrestrial related phenomena.” Bassett’s activities include X-PPAC, the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee. Bassett has put himself on the cosmic map by becoming the first-ever lobbyist for ET interests and activism on the Hill.

Despite the X-Con’s billing, official Washington gave it the usual cold shoulder it gives most anything related to ETs. Bassett invited all members of Congress and the presidential candidates, or their staffers. There were no takers save a few staffers. But after the conference, Hoagland, X-Con’s celebrity draw, had meetings on the Hill concerning the evidence for life on Mars.

Bassett was not surprised and was not daunted by the absence of politicians, betting that sooner or later – probably sooner – the critical mass of public demand for the truth will prevail and will force the government’s hand.

That view also is shared by X-Con’s keynote speaker, Michael E. Salla, Ph.D., pioneer in the field of exopolitics and author of Exopolitics: Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence. Salla said that an international conspiracy against disclosure, controlled by a shadow government in cooperation with certain ETs, can no longer hold denial in place. “We need to start discussing all the implications of the presence of the ETs in our society,” Salla said, noting that otherwise serious consequences could occur to humanity. The earth is being visited by different races of ETs who have a wide range of agendas, some of them benign and some malign.

“While I believe that most ETs are benevolent, there are still a significant number who have a very dark agenda and look at us as resources,” Salla said. “We’re not going to have an explicit ET takeover. What will happen is that humans will respond to a perceived threat that is contrived by those ETs that don’t have humanity’s best interests at heart. They will get national security policy makers to make mistakes, to pass policies that will lead to confrontations that will threaten humanity’s sovereignty.”

Salla holds credentials as a scholar in international politics, conflict resolution and U.S. foreign policy to the new field of exopolitics. An Australian, he has a doctorate in government from the University of Queensland, Australia, and a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Melbourne. Since 2001, he has been a Researcher in Residence at the Center for Global Peace at the American University in Washington, D.C.

Salla’s involvement in exopolitics was the outgrowth of his disenchantment with traditional methodologies for international conflict resolution. In 2001, his attention was caught by a press conference organized by activist Steven M. Greer, M.D. and held at the National Press Club in Washington, to advocate Congressional hearings on ETs. Greer, the founder of CSETI (the Center for Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and the Disclosure Project, has collected and organized the testimony of hundreds of military and government witnesses to UFO events and projects. Twenty such witnesses appeared at the press conference with Greer. Despite the prestigious venue of the National Press Club, the mainstream media gave the event short shrift.

But it marked a turning point for Salla. “It really got my attention,” he said. “I realized it was an important event and political development. I was surprised that few of the mainstream media picked up on it – that in itself was revealing. There seemed to be something going on.”

Salla embarked on a journey of research which led him to conclude that a strong connection exists between the hidden ET presence and world events, politics and conflict. In fact, the ET presence actually drives modern international conflict, from World War II right up to the present war in Iraq, he maintains. “The future of the planet is not going to hinge on control of oil resources,” he said, referring to Iraq. “It will hinge on control of ET resources.”

The general public knows little of this because the mainstream media still treats ufology as fringe territory. “Journalists who really want to write about this find that some editors put a stop to it,” Salla said. “I believe there is a system that does manipulate or control the mainstream media.” The conspiracy “put in place a set of national security laws that severely penalize potential whistle-blowers,” he said. “When you silence the official sources of information, it becomes very difficult for the civilians who come forward to be taken seriously, especially in the national media. The system has worked quite well – up until now.”

In 2003, Salla went public with his findings and theories, joining others pushing for full disclosure. (For a discussion of the contents of Exopolitics, see my book review on page__.) He believes his public stance has cost him his job. His position at the Center for Global Peace ends in August this year and will not be renewed.

Despite the attitude of mainstream media, Salla was featured in the Washington Post in February this year, concerning his theory that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a secret meeting with ETs in 1954. While on vacation in Palm Springs, California, Ike made an unscheduled nocturnal trip, allegedly to see a dentist. Salla holds that Ike went to Edwards Air Force base to meet with two “Nordic” ETs. Communicating via telepathy, the aliens told Ike they would share their technology and spiritual wisdom if America abandoned its nuclear weapons. Ike refused. Later, the president struck a deal with the Greys granting them permission to take cattle and humans for medical experiments – a deal that has since expanded far beyond what was initially envisioned.

After the article appeared on February 19, Salla said Exopolitics mysteriously disappeared for a while from databases used by bookstores for ordering.

Like Bassett, Salla sees encouraging signs of a breakthrough for full disclosure. One more recent sign is the May 11 disclosure of the Mexican Department of Defense of a UFO incident in March this year. The government released video footage and information concerning a Mexican air force encounter with mysterious flying objects.

The internet is proving to be perhaps the most powerful tool in favor of disclosure: it is simply too big to be controlled. “More credible sources are coming forward,” Salla said. “At critical mass the government will decide there’s no point in secrecy any longer.”

Presenters at X-Con covered a wide range of territory, discussing old and new cases and the need for individuals to get involved in disclosure. “What can you do to be an agent of change?” Greer challenged his audience. His years of CSETI work for pro-active, cooperative contact experiences convinced him that ETs are “very eager to have a positive, open relationship with humans,” but they have been thwarted by the government. “We have more in common with them than not – they are not hostile to us,” he said. The shadow government is not well organized as some might think, and it “has no lock on communication,” he said.

Hoagland, making his first public appearance in years, discussed evidence for present life on Mars. America’s space program was put on hold because our Apollo missions to the moon found “something” in a scenario like Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, he said. President George W. Bush’s desire to resurrect space exploration has to do with the need to colonize space. Hoagland said that without colonization, “we are doomed to a slow death on this planet.”

What’s ahead

Bassett has numerous irons in the fire. He is busy planning a second X-Con for next spring in the Washington, D.C. area. It will be bigger and longer, he said. He continues to manage X-PPAC. His Citizen Hearing, a proposal for a bipartisan public forum on disclosure to be conducted by former members of Congress, is on hold pending sufficient funding, to the tune of about $200,000.

In 2003, Bassett ran for a Congressional seat in his Maryland district, but lost. At press time for this column, he was in the running for a new reality show, American Candidate, scheduled to air in late summer on Showtime. The show will feature 12 people who “run” for president on the show. Finalists were to be announced in June. You can stay abreast of this and all of Bassett’s activities at www.paradigmclock.com.

Salla’s website is www.exopolitics.org. There you can find his petition for a Senate inquiry into the Eisehower matter. Salla’s goal is to collect 10,000 signatures.

What to do

Activists recommend that people become educated about ETs and disclosure. Both aforementioned sites have extensive archives and links. For a huge cache of articles and documents, visit John Greenwald’s The Black Vault at www.blackvault.com. Greer’s Disclosure Project is at www.disclosureproject.org.

Besides Exopolitics, two books recommended by Bassett are UFOs and the National security State by Richard Dolan, and Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up by Terry Hansen. Both Dolan and Hansen presented at X-Con.

Salla urges people to develop their own consciousness via lifestyle changes in order to establish their own contact; details are given in Exopolitics. “Once people get ready, they will find that they are contacted,” he said.

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First published in FATE magazine, July 2004. For more information on FATE, visit http://www.fatemag.com.