New book on UFO's is ticking off both believers and skeptics

[LongTomH]

My last post on UFO'} was consigned to the 9/11 dungeon, so I decided I may as well post this one here: For those interested, there is a new book out on UFO's which is attracting almost as much attention as Leslie Kean's: UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record. The author is John Alexander, retired Army Colonel ,former Los Alamos National Lab project manager and intelligence community insider. His book: UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities is the result of his own efforts to get government to consider the subject of UFO's seriously.

Comments below are from Billy Cox's De Void blog, billed as: "The Mainstream Media's Lonely UFO Web Log."

A canny operator navigating federal bureaucracies bedeviled by endless public requests for UFO material, Alexander once convened an informal group of inquisitive scientists under the name “advanced theoretical physics,” the ATP acronym so neutral it would neither threaten those they wanted to approach nor clang word-search bells in UFO-related FOIA probes. Alexander discusses how his ATP was preparing the stage for congressional hearings in 1999, only to get blown off by Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, who then chaired the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He also reports a nibble of political interest in 2005, from Virginia Republican Tom Davis, who “allegedly had a sighting of his own.” (Davis ended his 14-year congressional career in 2008.) Alexander blames Steven Greer’s 2001 Disclosure Project press conference in Washington, in which shaky or fraudulent panelists contaminated the legitimacy of impeccable eyewitnesses, for making the issue radioactive again on Capitol Hill.

Despite the resistance he encountered in official circles, Mr. Alexander dismisses the idea of an organized government coverup.

He portrays hardcore UFO conspiracy proponents and doctrinaire skeptics as opposite sides of the same coin. What some readers may have trouble accepting is the contention that any form of UFO censorship is the arbitrary product of insecure, hand-wringing mid-level lieutenants, not from the edicts of some deep-black cabal.

As proof, he reminds readers how not a single government employee, military or civilian, has ever been prosecuted for spilling the beans about their on-the-job UFO encounters. The reason is simple — an organizational coverup is a myth. Alexander recounts first-person conversations with a number of perplexed authorities who should’ve been in the know about these things, from former SDI director Gen. James Abramson to H-bomb pioneer Edward Teller. He even appeals to a few WTF sources, like well-connected military-thriller novelist Tom Clancy: “He said he knew we did not have a craft ‘because somebody would have told me!’”

Billy Cox followed up that post with one remarking on the lack of comments on Alexander's book by skeptics:

What he didn’t expect was a total noise blackout from the so-called skeptics, whom he intentionally baited in UFOs. “There is an underlying primordial issue with most skeptics/debunkers. That is fear,” he wrote. “At risk are the foundations of their belief system. In attending their conventions, you will find that atheism is a quite common theme. The manifestation of those thoughts runs from a simple personal belief to overt hostility toward religion.”

“My goal was to elevate the discussion, to get people involved in this dialogue who are not traditionally involved,” Alexander says from his home in Las Vegas. “I knew the tinfoil hat crowd was going to be upset. But I’ve heard nothing whatsover from the skeptics, and I even mailed a copy of the book to Jim Oberg. What are you supposed to infer from silence?”

Check out the comments for the book on Amazon:

"You will learn a lot about UFOs from this book. You will learn even more valuable information about how your government works. And you will enjoy every minute of the experience.” -- Dr. Theodore Rockwell, former technical director of Admiral Rickover’s program for the nuclear navy and President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace (1949-64), and co-founder of the engineering firm MPR Associates

“Col. Alexander’s data-rich book is a must read by anyone with even a passing curiosity about UFOs and the government’s involvement and knowledge of this controversial subject. Authored by a well-connected government insider with decades of access to senior military and civilian leaders, and who convened a highly-classified, officially-sanctioned UFO study group, Col. Alexander provides a firsthand, behind-the-scenes look at the intricate government/intelligence/’military-industrial-complex’ structure that emerges from his careful study. With candor and meticulous attention to detail, Col. Alexander shares his personal odyssey to determine the ground truth reality concerning the UFO enigma and the government’s role in it. The verdict: On the one hand he finds that our nation’s best defense assets unequivocally confirm the existence of UFOs as physical objects of extraordinary performance capability, apparently intelligently controlled; on the other hand he also deconstructs many of the field’s most vaunted myths and conspiracies that have grown up around this controversial and contentious topic. Believers and skeptics alike will thus find much here to challenge a priori assumptions.” --Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin