By S.T. Patrick
A recent New York Times headline read “No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s UFO Unit Will Make Some Findings Public.” Without reading the first word of the article, the headline informed us of four interesting facts: 1) The Pentagon is interested in UFOs, 2) the Pentagon is so interested in them that they have a UFO unit, 3) the Pentagon’s UFO unit operated covertly (“in shadows”), and 4) there will be documents the Pentagon has about UFOs that will not be made public (“some” means “not all”).
For a ufology community that has long waited for their oft-predicted “year of disclosure,” 2020 may just be that year. That is, if the presence of such an article in the totally unreliable Times doesn’t make you skeptical first.
There was some interesting information contained within the article, much of which came from scientists who had subcontracted through the Pentagon. Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who had been a part of the Pentagon’s UFO program since 2007, said that when they examined some materials, they could not conclusively determine an origin. “We couldn’t make it ourselves,” Davis said.
There was also a source named Mr. Davis, who had worked for the Aerospace Corporation, a defense contractor. As recently as this March, Davis had given a briefing to what’s vaguely termed a “Defense Department agency,” where he had discussed retrievals that were “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth.” The lack of a first name and the unnamed agency could be a lean towards a continuation of secrecy, the protecting of a source or a blatant falsification.
What makes the most ardent believers skeptical is when the story turns to national defense, as many UFO stories and “declassifications” do. Investigative Americans who follow such things are used to wild justifications for bloated national defense budgets. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) entered the fray to provide this predictable turn in the narrative.
Rubio had told a CBS affiliate in Miami that he was concerned about, as the Times put it, “unidentified aircraft over military bases.” Rubio, of course, went directly to China and Russia, speculating whether either could have made “some technological leap” that “allows them to conduct this sort of activity.” Just as the faux “missile gap” led to a massive post-JFK increase in defense spending on the nuclear arsenal, so, too, it is expected that the Pentagon and any subcontracted universities and corporations would need greater appropriations to combat the “technology gap,” if, indeed, it is decided that there is one. Would there be any reason to believe that it won’t be “confirmed” that there is one worth combatting with dollars? Independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone is increasingly cynical that the Times broke a big story. Johnstone believes it’s but one domino that will lead to a defense spending windfall.
“The U.S. military has for years been using the mass media to inflame public interest in alleged military information about UFOs,” Johnstone wrote. “And it’s entirely possible that it has been doing that for this purpose. It could also easily be a domestic ploy to get more Space Force funding.”
There are multiple possibilities as to why we have an increase in linkage between the U.S. government and UFOs, despite the fact that an increase in well-documented sightings has not coincided with the advancing recording technology now found on almost every cell phone. Maybe UFO activity hasn’t increased in recent years, but maybe the government is willing to finally be more transparent on the issue. That’s what idealistic ufologists would yearn to believe. However, maybe the embarrassing death of Russiagate and the Trump administration’s lukewarm relationship with China have not allowed Pentagon, Inc. to maintain an enemy strong enough worthy of begging Congress for more funding. Maybe “they” will become the unseen enemy. After all, if you can’t fully quantify the enemy’s strength due to “national security concerns,” then Congress has to just trust the Pentagon that the expenditures it requests are accurate and worthwhile. There are myriad problems with that hypothesis, as well.
Johnstone has her own conclusion.
“I find it a lot more likely that the U.S. war machine is lying to us once again to advance yet another pre-planned military agenda than that an extremely advanced species flew across the galaxy to stare at a bunch of terrestrial military bases,” Johnstone wrote. “The more the U.S. war machine and its media stenographers tell us we should pay attention to this UFO thing, the more skeptical we should become.”
Whatever the truth is, there will be dollars attached. There will be defense corporations paid. There will be congressional advocates of those corporations who will have their campaigns financed. There will be dirty money flying about the stars, silently and bearing sketchy origins. Maybe that’s really what’s out there to be gotten, to be had by those who manipulate the public’s interest in a legitimate issue and turn it into private gain.
S.T. Patrick holds degrees in both journalism and social studies education. He spent 10 years as an educator and now hosts the “Midnight Writer News Show.” His email is [email protected]. He is also an occasional contributor to TBR history magazine and the current managing editor of Deep Truth Journal (DTJ), a new conspiracy-focused publication available from the AFP Online Store.
What Happened to Art Bell?
By S.T. Patrick
From journalist Gary Webb to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, “cause of death” has been anything but a believable statement from a government official. This is now also in question concerning former talk show host Art Bell. Bell, the late-night paranormal radio show figure behind Coast to Coast AM, died on April 13, 2018 of an alleged accidental overdose from a cocktail of prescription drugs, according to Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg. An old friend of Bell’s, however, believes that he committed suicide.
On July 25, one-time friend of Bell, decorated pilot and “Godfather of Conspiracy” John Lear, took to Facebook and created a post alleging that Bell had committed suicide. Lear wrote, “A couple of days ago I got a call from a close friend who released me from my promise to keep everything I knew about Art Bell’s passing a secret.”
Lear went on to allege that he had information that Bell committed suicide with “an overdose of prescription pain killers which included oxycodone and hydrocodone, the sedative diazepam and the muscle-relaxant carisoprodol in his system.” The Clark County Coroner’s office had ruled it an accidental overdose and not a suicide. Lear disagrees, and he has even pinpointed a motive.
“You and I will never know the final thoughts that drove Art to take his own life,” Lear wrote. “But I suspect it had something to do with an affair he was having that someone was threatening to expose.” Lear went on to detail some of what he had gathered about what Bell had left behind. He said that the highly successful talk host had left a recording, in his own voice, that served as a will. According to Lear, over $10 million was left to Bell’s estate. If a recording was premeditated, it could mean that Bell was contemplating suicide.
Lear and Bell had a strange friendship. They were both entrants into the UFO communities of the 1990s, Lear years before Bell. Coast to Coast AM had at one time been a popular, national political talk show. Bell would delve into some of the Clinton conspiracies or Iran-Contra or even the JFK assassination, but the show’s main topics were the issues of the day. It was due to Bell’s friendship with Lear (and through Lear, UFO legend Bob Lazar) that Bell started to do a sporadic UFO-themed show. The popularity of those episodes convinced Bell to move full-time into the paranormal and conspiracy realms with Coast to Coast AM. It worked. At its peak in 1997, Bell’s program was on over 500 stations (more than Rush Limbaugh) and garnered over 15 million nightly listeners.
Lear described the history of his relationship and later falling out with Bell on two episodes of this writer’s Midnight Writer News Show.
Today, Lear still makes appearances on shows and at UFO conferences. The legacy of Art Bell has grown in death. Lear continues to be the king of controversy, even within the conspiracy community that holds him in high regard. He has always been someone who goes out on a limb, which appears to be what he has done once again.
S.T. Patrick holds degrees in both journalism and social studies education. He spent 10 years as an educator and now hosts the “Midnight Writer News Show.” His email is [email protected]. He is also an occasional contributor to TBR history magazine and the current managing editor of Deep Truth Journal (DTJ), a new conspiracy-focused publication available from the AFP Online Store.
