FC: UFO enthusiasts gather in DC, demand Congress hold hearings

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43526,00.html

   Ooo-WEE-ooo Fans Come to D.C.
   By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
   2:00 a.m. May 10, 2001 PDT
   
   WASHINGTON -- UFO enthusiasts gathered on Wednesday to share dozens of
   eyewitness accounts and a thick sheaf of documents that they claim
   finally prove the existence of alien visitors.
   
   At a National Press Club event, the Disclosure Project said it has
   identified "several hundred witnesses throughout the world" who are
   eager to testify before Congress about their encounters with
   extraterrestrial spacecraft or beings.
   
   "There is a secret government -- a covert government -- operation that
   has dealt with this for at least 50 years," said Steven Greer, the
   group's founder.
   
   Greer said he wanted UFO files declassified, a ban on space weapons,
   and peaceful exploration "with all cultures on Earth and in space."
   
   Call it a close encounter with an X-Files spinoff. The three-hour
   event featured testimonials from all-too-earnest UFO buffs, warnings
   that the "adolescent phase of humanity" was nearly over, and vague
   descriptions of anti-gravity devices, free energy machines and
   faster-than-light spaceships that could end human suffering -- if only
   the feds would fess up and tell all.
   
   But it isn't merely the Defense Department, the CIA, the National
   Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and even more
   secretive agencies that are participating in the cover-up, says Greer,
   a physician who lives in Crozet, Virginia. He fingered Northrop,
   Lockheed Martin and SAIC as examples of government contractors who are
   surreptitiously developing aircraft and weapons based on technology
   snatched from UFOs.
   
   Carol Rosin, a self-described space defense consultant, went even
   further: "We can end the energy crisis," she said. "We can build cars
   that drive around off the road, on beams."

   Until UFO fanatics produce tangible evidence -- an alien body, an
   unknown metal, or a beam-mobile -- their claims should be dismissed
   with prejudice, says Kevin Christopher, a spokesman for the Committee
   for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

   [...]




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