Bryce Zabel's Blog, page 22

People Get Ready

Estimate of the SituationHumanity’s survival in what may be a crowded universe requires rapid thinking and bold action. We need to level up fast.What’s Going Down

The B.C. (Before Confirmation) world is transitioning before our eyes into an A.D. (After Disclosure) world. This process will radically transform our ideas about the nature of reality during the 2020s and beyond.

For seventy years — from World War II, through wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, 9/11, thirteen presidents, nuclear showdowns, pandemics, social protest, and economic catastrophes — the cover-up of UFO reality has held stubbornly in place by the twin pillars of denial and ridicule.

We now stand at the edge of a new day.

A move toward open discussion of UAP reality among citizens, politicians, activists, soldiers, and mainstream media will now move forward throughout the decade in fits and starts, yes, but the process is on.

There’s just one problem. We have to multi-task this transition alongside a massive (and potentially related) issue. Namely:

The Earth, a once biologically thriving and abundant planet, and its dominant species, human beings, are each in existential trouble.

The planet and its people are involved in a mutual death spiral if things do not change. We all know it in our bones. As Leonard Cohen put it, “Everybody knows the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the Captain lied.”

The 2020s have started rough, to be sure. The coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice, and divisive leadership, in concert with species extinction, environmental degradation and climate change, have all pushed us to the brink. Agitated by an economy that feels like it may be in free-fall.

It’s bad, but this is the time when we have to meet the challenge head on, in as cohesive and unified way as human beings are capable of behaving. Granted, our past behavior has not been encouraging on this score, but we have to hope that the magnitude of the challenge will bring out our best selves.

At the same time, we have to deal with our place in the Universe, something that we’ve postponed doing for over seven decades.

Fasten your seatbelts. This may be a bumpy ride over rough terrain.

2020 is the Summer of the Saucers

The issue of UFO/UAP reality has become red hot. Here’s a snapshot of this moment in 2020, the Summer of the Saucers.

The Navy has released and the Department of Defense has confirmed the reality of three startling videos.The New York Times is leading a bold investigation into the issue of UFO/UAP reality and boldly daring to go where no mainstreamers have gone before — talking about crash wreckage of “off-world” craft.Other media, once derisive or uninterested, joins in regularly with interviews and coverage of the Times, and several outlets like Popular Mechanics and Politico are moving to advance the reporting under their own original efforts.The President of the United States has been asked about UFOs on multiple occasions, and has made cryptic comments about Roswell and declassification issues. These were all friendly softball interviews where he could have made it clear he did not wish to be asked about the topic. Instead, he took the questions.The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has reported out a bill asking for the nation’s intelligence agencies to get back to them with a report on UAP within 180 days. Senator Kamala Harris is on that committee and voted “aye” to report it out to the full Senate.The Office of Naval Intelligence runs an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, and has briefed multiple senators, congresspersons, and even high ups in private enterprise. And the Pentagon says it’s going to release the details of its UAP Task Force any day now.Turns Out UFOs are Real

The government has admitted openly in the last year what many millions have thought for many decades. There are incredible aircraft that we didn’t build flying about in our airspace doing impossible maneuvers.

Currently, the establishment says we are going to study UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, to see if they represent one of the nation’s adversaries leap-frogging our highly funded military establishment in aerial technology. Yet the open secret is that almost no one observing or investigating actually thinks they come from China or Russia.

Most of us know that 2020 is just the first act of the Big Show that we all bought tickets for.

Someone else is here. Or maybe multiple someones.

They may or may not be extraterrestrial. They may have been here sharing the Earth with us all along. They could, in fact, be us, from our future. Or they could share the multiverse with us.

Meanwhile, pilots and military men and women are coming forward in greater numbers, bravely confirming their experiences encountering exotic technology that performs maneuvers that are far beyond our current abilities. Like speeding far beyond what we can manage, instantly, then stopping just as fast, many miles away in bits of seconds, and hovering, then doing it again. Whoever builds these objects knows far more about physics than any of the world’s militaries.

Now imagine that these Others seem interested in our nuclear weapons.

You could argue that they come in peace and, more than that, they’re here to help us by making sure we don’t nuke ourselves into extinction and take the planet with us. Yes, that is a fine argument.You could also argue that they come for purposes that may not take into consideration our rights as people and as human society to exist, flaws and all, and are surveying our nuclear assets in order to defeat them at a time of their choosing. That, too, is a fine argument.

This is why we urgently need to share the facts we know and the data we have accumulated on this topic. We need to discern as rapidly as possible the source of these vehicles and the intent of their operators. If they’re here as enemies, this will not be easy. If they’re here as friends, it will still be deeply disorienting.

A Question of Balance

Are the rumors that the government has been heavily involved in this subterfuge since 1947 true? Is the reason for the secrecy because we know the true intent behind these incursions and it is terrifying beyond human comprehension? Or was the secrecy because we still know nothing at all about our visitors or how their vehicles work? Or should we blame a reason we might never guess?

The truth is simply that official denial and public ridicule of UFOs has been the reality during most people’s entire lives. If it’s going to end, we are going to have deeper questions than just getting the whole story about the Navy encounters. We are going to ask what was it all for? Why was this historical injury of keeping the entire world population in the dark done to us by our own kind? Could our leaders have been acting under orders from these visitors?

The reporting in The New York Times has said that the government has been investigating UFOs in more ways and for more years than they have ever admitted. More shocking, Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal quote what they say are reliable and highly classified sources who say outright that crash wreckage exists of off-world technology.

That’s how far we’ve come — “crash wreckage exists of off-world technology” — in less than three years since the Navy videos came out, exposed by Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy. It raises so many questions, not the least of which is why is a rock star the frontman for this Disclosure concert?

If this assessment of unearthly crash debris is true, why is it considered a violation of national security simply to state its truth? Saying that we have recovered other-worldly vehicles is not the same as having to share the details of any attempts we have made to reverse-engineer them. And what about bodies? If they existed, how did it enhance national security not to share them with the world’s medical and scientific communities for study? What has been learned by the managers of this long-held secret?

You see where this is going. Disclosure that we’re not alone inevitably leads to the realization that some of us (first in government, then in private enterprise) have known some portion of the truth for many years and lied about it. That’s a hard pill to swallow for the public.

Congressional Hearings

The Congress seems on an eventual path to multiple committee hearings in both the Senate and the House, under the guise of national security, the issue that’s unlocked support in high places.

Military pilots and radar operators will play a key role in these early ones. Scores more witnesses to sightings will come in. This stage of testimony will be focused on threat. Why do these objects buzz our Carrier Strike Forces, shut off our nuclear weapons, and show such an interest in our military capabilities?

These hearings, once they exhaust the possibility of US, Russian or Chinese technology, will then have to pivot to the obvious question. If these unidentified objects are not ours, then whose are they?

More questions then. What do they want with us? Are we safe? Do some of them actually live here on Earth?

The hearings will then expand. Fast. The public will be demanding answers.

They’ll add their own impertinent questions. Are these stories of alien abduction true? How widespread is it? Why are there so many different types ranging from classic saucers to Tic Tacs to giant triangles? What in the world is going on here?

We are, realistically, as little as a year from this kind of open debate and not much more than three under any scenario. This is on.

Sooner or later, these congressional hearings are going to get real teeth. Committee chairs will want subpoena power to bring in witnesses. And they’ll demand the power to grant immunity, as needed, to get to the larger truths.

Some of this will be conducted behind closed doors in classified meetings. Some of it will be for show, and what a show it will be.

The Whole World Is Watching

Some of these hearings are going to be televised. Americans of a certain age remember the Senate Watergate Hearings. They will seem small compared to what is to come. The new hearings — about UFOs — will go on months, then become nearly permanent, as billions of people worldwide watch them.

It won’t be just the U.S. Senate and House. The United Nations will get into the act and countries like Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and others will start their own investigations.

While much is unpredictable, it’s likely that Republicans and Democrats will figure out a way to be on different sides. The GOP seems likely to do a callback to Reagan’s famous “Trust, but Verify” policy. How will Democrats frame their response?

In the end, however, their grandstanding and arguing will still expose a central fact that changes everything.

They’re Already Here

We don’t have to listen for radio signals from space to have a conversation, despite what S.E.T.I. proponents would like us to believe. They’re here already, whoever they are. Hiding in plain sight for seven decades during which we convinced ourselves that they did not exist.

It will be obvious that only the tip of a cosmically large iceberg has been seen, but the glimpse offered will prove the off-world nature of what we are facing. Something strange has been going on and we are very late to the party in acknowledging it.

There’s no slowing it down. The global conversation will go straight to the non-human intelligence lane and hit the gas pedal.

Naturally, outside of those hearings rooms, the world is going to be freaking out. We might still be wearing masks and social distancing when this is picking up steam, the economy may be shaky, the Earth’s systems may be in greater spasm, but the cherry on top is going to be aliens.

The best choice for this country is to have an epiphany on a societal level, one that recognizes that things have changed and we need to change as well. We will need to see less red and blue, and more gray.

Some of us might be angry about the deceptions we’ll be learning about. There will be real protests, not cute Facebook parties outside Area 51, but ones full of content and passion. Some people involved in the architecture of the cover-up are going to jail. Others are going to be state’s witnesses and fess up to some uncomfortable truths before the entire world.

Our institutions will writhe with change. Education, health care, science, culture, law, the military, government. Everything and everybody, already shocked by pandemic and injustice, will be shocked again and profoundly so.

An even more chaotic path is that someone important just blurts out the truth in the days ahead and changes the entire conversation. It could be a former president on his death-bed, Putin angling for calculated gain, Trump trying to make himself the center of attention, or even the Pope wanting his Church to stay in the thick of the action. It could be anybody big enough to set off a chain reaction. Even Oprah could light that match. Michelle Obama could do it in a Tweet.

In that case, rather than official hearings slowly peeling the onion for us to see the layers that this secret has been hidden behind, we’ll get into it all at once. Official hearings will not lead the discussion then, but they’ll scramble to follow, and channel some of the public rage that might be building.

So, whatever the specifics, the B.C. (Before Confirmation) world will soon cease to be and we will then be in the A.D. (After Disclosure) world.

And that’s just the beginning of the beginning. We may find that the world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

What we do know is this. Whatever is interacting with us, it’s been intensifying for seven decades. We are now about to start this global conversation together. The decisions we make could literally be life and death.

Humanity’s survival in what may be a crowded universe requires less fighting with each other and bold action as a species.

It’s an important time to be alive.

People get ready.

Variations on a Theme | Image: Alicia Fernandez

People Get Ready was originally published in On the Trail of the Saucers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Biden/Harris Know All About the UAP Issue

Kamala Harris serves on the Senate Committee on Intelligence which just demanded a report about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in 180 days.

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Close Encounters of the Hollywood Kind

How I learned the truth about UFOs and ETs by writing fiction. Our world really is stranger than you imagine.

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In the summer of 1998, two films came out at the same time, both about a comet on an apocalyptic collision course with Earth.

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The End of the World (As We Know It)

In the summer of 1998, two films came out at the same time, both about a comet on an apocalyptic collision course with Earth.

Continue reading on On the Trail of the Saucers »

Joe Biden’s UFO Briefing Memo

The UFO bombshell just dropped into the 2020 election, Mr. Vice President. You’d best get up-to-speed, create a policy, and do it fast.

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I agree with this quote from (I think) J.S.

I agree with this quote from (I think) J.S. Haldane, the physicist: The Universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

NY Times Reporters Annoyed at “Frenzy”

Estimate of the SituationNew York Times Reporters Take Aim at Internet “Frenzy”Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean complain about activists not understanding their process and annoying them with speculation about their article on crash retrievals.Reporting on the Reporters

It’s not easy being an investigative reporter. I get that. At the beginning of my career, I spent a couple of years with that job description at PBS Los Angeles, won a few awards even. It’s hard work, usually the people you’re investigating don’t want to talk, and they try to stop you from doing your work.

Also, although I don’t know Times reporters Ralph Blumenthal or Leslie Kean personally, I do know people who say they are absolutely terrific people. Professionally, I have tremendous respect for their skills, guts and tenacity.

So I was very interested in hearing what they had to say about their story that was published on July 23, 2020.

In an interview just posted on YouTube, Jay from Project Unity (based in the UK), landed the first interview with Blumenthal and Kean. It was a real coup getting both reporters the day after this piece broke, and it was great to hear the reporters speak at length about the topic and the process that allowed these articles to be written.

https://medium.com/media/67439572289950f2a0419072c76292d5/href

What shocks most in the interview is that the reporters reserve their deepest and harshest criticism not for the people who have allowed the truth to be suppressed for over seven decades now, but for a few folks on the internet who dared to talk about the story before it was published .

The story itself already has a flag on the play with Senator Harry Reid’s day-after-publication tweet that he never said what they said he said. On this interview, they fought back against that characterization, saying they changed only one quote out of three, but it is what it is.

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 — @SenatorReid

An entire column can probably be written about Reid’s about-face. Suffice it to say here, it’s an even-money bet that Reid said whatever Kean and Blumenthal wrote, but that he got blowback on it immediately and, for reasons unknown at this time, he felt a strategic retreat was in order. More to come…

In any case, given the need to get quotes right on a topic of such magnitude, it feels right to let the reporters — Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal — have their own words heard exactly as they said them.

Leslie Kean

“There was this frenzy that built up on the internet about the story. When is it coming out? When is it coming out?… So basically, we don’t even want competing media to even know we’re working on another story at all, period, let alone have people talk about what they think the story’s going to be about. The problem is there’s such a build-up of expectations that some people, when it comes out, express a disappointment. What? Is this all it is? The power of the story kind of gets lost in the frenzy of expectation that was building and I want to make a point that Ralph and I had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. This is a self-generated, self-created intense discussion, and rumor and all this stuff.. It would be a great help to us and to everybody to not do this in the future. It just doesn’t serve any purpose that I can see.”

Ralph Blumenthal

“It does not help if you’re out there as a Times reporter trying to put together a story to find this traffic back and forth about giving away snippets of your story that maybe sources were able to report from somewhere else. Little leaks of things that make it more difficult. For people who are supposedly concerned about getting the truth out, it really gets in the way. It annoyed us to no end to have to worry about not only nailing down the facts of the story but watching our back because people were sniping at our heels. They’re gonna do this, they’re gonna do that, often based on absolutely no information whatsoever. This is what they’re gonna talk about, this is what the Times is gonna do. It really is a very infantile environment to be working in for a serious subject. So I would urge people in this field who seem to, or say they have an interest in getting at the truth at heart to give reporters a little slack when they’re serious reporters and they’re looking into something. It definitely got in the way… It’s not policed. It’s the Wild West.”

UFO disclosure activists could be forgiven for reading or hearing these comments and feeling that they were being told that, basically, they should all just shut up and wait for the Times to tell them what’s what. Let’s break this down:

Summary of Kean/Blumenthal ObjectionsThe pre-publication buzz about their article was a “frenzy.”This frenzy allowed other newspapers to know what they were working on when they would prefer to do their jobs without them knowing anything.Leaks make their jobs more difficult.The buzz built up expectations to such a degree that it caused some readers to unfairly express disappointment at the final product.No purpose was served by this pre-publication interest.The internet discussion of what they were up to got in the way of them doing a good job.More than that, it annoyed them.They think people writing about their work before it’s published is infantile behavior.Another Way to See It

For starters, characterizing a few people on Twitter writing about what they think is an upcoming New York Times article as a frenzy is not what I observed. The word is used pejoratively here. There was keen interest. Most journalists would be thrilled if the public cared wildly about what they were working on.

Arguably, the story that Blumenthal and Kean are chasing here is going to be far more influential in the end than the one Woodward and Bernstein were chasing. Even so, it’s impossible to imagine the earlier reporters complaining if people were speculating about what they might write next and when. There was no Twitter back then but, if there had been, it would have been on fire with people criticizing their work and often getting it wrong.

Woodward and Bernstein also tried to control the integrity of their stories, and hated it when rumors circulated about their work when they had five seconds to think about it. And they were up against some real tough opposition in the Nixon White House, plus editors at the Washington Post who were just as tough as the ones at the New York Times. Remember also that once they broke the story other papers started joining in and trying to break their own stories.

The idea that other reporters at other papers were able to see people on Twitter speculating about the next New York Times article on UFOs is not something that can be considered a valid objection in a free society. Frankly, it will be a good thing when, any day now, several other major media organizations join the fray and start to compete with Blumenthal and Kean in breaking their own stories. That will be good for the truth.

The objections are also impractical. Telling someone with a Twitter feed, knowledge of the subject, contacts of their own, and time on their hands to wait patiently is just not in the cards. It will never happen. As for leaks making their jobs more difficult, we have to remember that people do not have an obligation to make their jobs easy by shutting up.

Blumenthal and Kean are acting like the people they’re complaining about were 100% wrong on all counts and were peddling lunacy-like fringe theories. They were not. Overall, they said the New York Times was working on a story about crash retrievals and that it was imminent. They were correct on both counts.

Should these activists be restrained from comment because they are not “serious journalists”? We can’t all be New York Times journalists.

Blumenthal and Kean feel that this pre-publication interest built expectations so high that the final article was a let-down and people felt disappointed. That seems to be an overstatement. The article stands as what it was. Most were thrilled to see it, but even so, some, like myself, felt that it buried the lead (lede), and read as if it had been written by a committee composed of editors who made every sentence a slog to get qualified for the final product. And, listening to them describe the “rigorous process” they had to go through, it wouldn’t be surprising if in an off-the-record moment they might agree.

Still, it is completely understandable why they felt this was irritating and frustrating for them. That, however, is not the issue. Almost everyone reading this gets irritated and frustrated every single day in our jobs. How the behavior makes reporters feel is not the issue. The White House doesn’t make it easy for reporters these days either. Still they have to cover the story and shut out the madness.

Most of the people having fingers wagged at them here are passionate, pretty damn smart, and connected. They certainly do not think what they are doing is “infantile” and neither do I. These people care deeply about truth. Good for them.

In cold hard print, these comments made by Blumenthal and Kean look elitist and entitled whether they intend that or not. We’re supposed to “give reporters a little slack” when they’re “serious and looking into something.”

No. We’re not. I went to the University of Oregon and got a BA in Journalism. Not once in four years did any professor of mine ever state that we should expect to be protected from people “sniping at our heels” and that the public should just keep it zipped while we did our jobs at our own pace by our own rules. Journalists must have thick skins. Period.

The Bottom Line

Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean have a secure place in the history books. Their work has paved the way for an astonishing global revelation that will be picking up in intensity every single day going foward. They need to be bigger than this. Instead of expressing their annoyance, they should be offering an apology.

Getting the truth out in a democracy, during a time when the truth is in short supply at high levels, is a wonderful calling. These two great reporters should keep their heads down and keep grinding away. At the end of the day, no one will remember a few inaccurate or bothersome tweets. The people will, however, remember this compelling story that is soon to break all around us.

New York Times Says Crashed UFOs May ExistYes, We Have UFO Crash Wreckage

NY Times Reporters Annoyed at “Frenzy” was originally published in On the Trail of the Saucers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NY Times Reporters Take Aim at Internet UFO “Frenzy”

Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean complain about people on the internet not understanding their process and annoying them with speculation.

Continue reading on On the Trail of the Saucers »

John, you've definitely cracked the code. Nice!

John, you've definitely cracked the code. Nice!