Message posted by neonsky on April 06, 2010 at 13:13:23 PST:
1) From: George Knapp [mailto:gknapp@8newsnow.com] The newspaper story is interesting and well written--but it is curious on a couple of levels. First, it surely is not a 'bombshell disclosure'. (No offense to Victor.) Everything in this piece has been reported previously, much of it by yours truly. For the Seattle Times to suggest this is a new revelation is simply not true. which is why I'm surprised it has received so much attention. Also of interest is the report in the same paper (in the same edition, I believe) about the CIA "study" from a few years ago about the agency's historical involvement with the UFO issue. That article by a CIA historian is familiar to everyone on this list and was generally dismissive of the overall UFO question. Why is this a news story now? What's new? Maybe the next issue of the Seattle Times will report the big scoop that Project BlueBook has been shut down by the USAF. Stop the presses. Second, as the article implies, the former A-51 employees are talking about their work because CIA has finally given them the green light, but the permission has been incremental at best. CIA declassified SOME of the files and photos from back in the day and gave the okay for former employees to discuss--within limits--the secret planes they worked on FIFTY YEARS AGO. But they still can't tell everything about the work they did on the U-2, A-12, and SR-71 even though the whole world is familiar with those aircraft. As loyal Americans, the Roadrunners kept their mouths shut until they got permission to discuss SOME of what they did, but they admit they can't talk about everything, including the ultimate capabilities of planes that have been out of service for a very long time. They most certainly do not have the okay to talk about other stuff they saw at Groom Lake, so they don't. For the sake of argument, assume for a moment there really was something of unknown or alien origin out there. Would CIA give the green light for them to talk about it? Doubtful. Would the agency mind if some of them said there is nothing alien out there? I don't think so. After I aired the first stories about the UFO/Groom Lake allegations back in 1989, I remember the commander of Nellis (Gen. McCoy) joking about it, scoffing at it, during public events, even though--at the time--the govt. would not acknowledge there was even a base at Groom Lake. They couldn't admit there was a base but they sure as hell could deny the presence of aliens or saucers at the non-existent facility. To this day, the military still won't admit they ever used the Area 51 name, even though everyone who has ever worked there knows The fact that former employees are now free to say they did not see any ET's out there isn't something I would carve into a stone tablet. In the file cabinets here in my home office is an operations manual from Groom Lake. It surfaced years ago when Groom employees sued the AF because some of them contracted diseases out there. The manual has a section which spells out the necessity of cover stories, subterfuge, misinformation, misdirection, as methods for protecting secrets. Those of you who have worked in classified programs understand the value of such tools far better than I can. It comes with the territory, right, and has undoubtedly been used many times with great success in the protection of our country. The suggestion in this newspaper story that Groom Lake honchos are privately chortling over the UFO allegations because so many of us fell for their fairy tale is, I think, a disingenuous, self-serving, and revisionist account. Maybe I'm wrong, but if this was a planned disinfo project, a smokescreen to distract attention from something else that was being tested at A-51, it was a miserable failure. That CIA paper mentioned above made the argument that many, if not most, of the UFO sightings from the late 50's thru the 70's were misidentifications of the secret spy planes based at Groom. It is a preposterous assertion, for reasons I don't need to spell out for this email list. It looks like an fairly feeble attempt to rewrite history, but it worked---a long list of news organizations bought it and reported it with little or no critical analysis. And now we are being told that the UFO stories were most likely manufactured by disinfo experts, and that many of us took the bait. As a result of those original 1989 TV stories, Area 51 has become a brand name all over the world. Tens of thousands of people have traveled into the desert to get a peek at the base. My news media brethren raked me over the coals over those early stories, but since '89, every major news organization in the world has made the drive to cover the story--CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, Nippon, 60 Minutes, Larry King, Geraldo, N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, Wash. Post, Newsweek---movies, books, websites, chat groups---congressional investigators, members of Congress...video games, computer software, rock bands, a triple A baseball team, merchandise, tee shirts, ashtrays, posters, Christmas ornaments, bus tours....the place is a phenomenon. A lot of eyes are on it...every day. They're out there with cameras and binoculars, Was that the plan? Did some devious intell guy anticipate all of the fallout from such a devious charade and then agree it would be worth it? Was the plan to attract the maximum amount of attention for a once-obscure facility? Is it really a great thing to need so much security, to arrest interlopers, seize news cameras, install hidden sensors miles from the base, along with security cameras, motion detectors, microphones? Did they anticipate the necessity of seizing various vantage points on public land so that UFO nuts could no longer photograph the place? That was the plan? Really? I doubt it. All of the notoriety and media attention have been a major pain in the ass for the base. Ask any of the cammo dudes who have to deal with the waves of intruders, trespassers, newshounds, and maybe an actual spy or two. See what they say. One other note re the Roadrunners. I got to know the Roadrunners starting about 8 years ago. I showed up at one of their reunions. They were initially suspicious of me, mostly because of the UFO stories, but, in time, I got to know several of them. They came to trust me because things that were told to me in confidence never went any further. I really like these guys, especially T.D. Barnes, who is interviewed in the Seattle Times story. My first on-camera interview with TD and three other prominent Roadrunners was recorded 6 years ago. That's when we first reported that former Groom workers say they didn't see any UFOs out there. It was a news story back then but it is not exactly a bombshell now. Bob Collins says it is entirely possible that people like TD could work at Area 51 on classified projects and have no knowledge of other compartmentalized secrets. I tend to agree. Some of the Roadrunners told me years ago that they would see the same people in the lunch line 5 days a week for extended periods, but they had no idea what that other guy was working on, nor would they even think about asking. Programs and projects were compartmentalized...and still are. TD Barnes could not tell his own wife what he was working on. We can all respect that. Sorry about the length of the email. I have received that Seattle Times story 10 or more times in the past few days and still can't understand why it is a news story right now...GK http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011461015_area51vets28m.html My reaction to the Seattle Times story is not an argument in support of the "ETs at Groom Lake" allegation. I personally think there WAS something out there at one time that came from somewhere else. That personal belief is based on a lot more than just the tales told by Bob Lazar. In all, I have spoken with two dozen people who've told me bits and pieces of the story based on what they saw or heard during the years they worked at Groom or TTR or the Nevada Test site or Nellis AFB. None of these stories constitutes proof positive that ET technology was stored and tested out there, but taken together, they are more than enough info to warrant the release of news reports. As you know, the journalistic model is different from the scientific model. I don't need to be able to prove something beyond a shadow of doubt before I can write a story. One reason I aired various stories about A-51 over the years is to generate news leads and new sources, to encourage others to come forward with their own bits and pieces of info, and it has worked, though not as well as I would have liked. When former A-51 employees come forward and say they never saw evidence of any ET stuff at Groom Lake during the time they were out there, it is interesting stuff for the pubic to read, but hardly constitutes proof that the overall theory is untrue. I think the Roadrunner guys who told me the same thing years ago were being entirely truthful, but they are also being truthful when they admit something like that could have been stored/tested in the desert right under their noses but without their knowledge. That's all I meant to say in my way-too-long email. Frankly, I don't know for sure that anything "alien" was ever out there, and it seems more than likely that I will NEVER know. That drives me crazy in light of the more than 20 years I have worked on the story. But I wanted make the point nonetheless....BEFORE the Seattle newspaper story gets reported and recirculated over and over to the point where it eventually morphs into something akin to the final word on the Area 51 tale, namely, that it never true whatsoever, based on the statements of a few people who worked out there but didn't see anything. (Maybe we need a corollary to Stan Friedman's axiom about "the absence of evidence"..) I realize it sounds a bit conspiratorial to suggest this newest newspaper story is part of some sort of disinfo campaign directed by the forces of evil, but it struck me as odd that it came out of the blue, was widely circulated again and again on internet, even though there isn't anything in the body of the story that could be considered news. And the fact that the same newspaper handcuffed it to the other story about that goofy CIA "study" (which was thoroughly and appropriately ripped to shreds by Bruce M) and you can see why it grabbed my attention. From a journalistic point of view, it just seemed weird to me. Sorry to waste your time once again. Regards to all, GK
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 4:38 AM
Subject: RE: NO ETs! Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry but NO space ALIENSor
UFOs!
it well.
looking for UFOs but also for everything else that might be flying around.
2) 4/5/2010 5:24 PM: George Knapp wrote:
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