It's international day at the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure (CHD), in Washington, D.C., in which several individuals, including military personnel, will present testimony of UFO encounters in other countries.
At the National Press Club this week, 40 international researchers and military/agency witnesses are presenting testimony in front of a committee made up of six former members of Congress.
In the following highlight from yesterday's testimony, researcher Grant Cameron reads from a Top Secret Canadian government memo which declares UFOs to be "the most highly classified subject in the United States":
In this second highlight from yesterday, former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace executive Robert Wood talks about his efforts to authenticate important UFO documents:

LIVE BLOG

5:17 PM – Today
Cong. Kilpatrick (pictured below) appeared very moved by the testimony of the private, commercial and military pilots as well as previous panel witnesses during the week.
"[All this week], I've heard some of the most intelligent, scientific and universal knowledge on the topic that I didn't know I was going to witness. Yesterday, we heard from 12 different countries who have hundreds of years of scientific intelligent information on this subject.
"It behooves us, as human beings, in what is known as the greatest country in the world, to participate in that discussion. To not act like something exists and then to further act like it's a joke, we do a disservice to our ancestors, to God and to the people of the world.
"I want the world and the universe to continue. And if there is something out there -- and I'm not a scientist -- there's a whole lot we don't know. I think it's ignorant of any people not to seek out what we need to know to continue the universe.
"I was convinced before this morning's panel that there probably is something out there, and I'm willing to work the rest of my life to see that, if it is, how we can enhance the universe to see that we all have a better quality of life."
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4:17 PM – Today
On the fifth and final day of the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure in Washington, D.C., a group of pilots -- private, commercial and military -- and former FAA official John Callahan testified about a number of UFO encounters experienced by pilots, and how, in many cases, information about these incidents were deliberately kept from the public.
10:31 PM – 05/ 2/2013
Gravel says it only takes one country to make a stand and to get the United Nations to open the door again to possibly creating a new agency to look into UFOs.
"Another hearing like this one, or whether it's in the Congress, probably won't advance our goals all that much. But there's no reason why, with the various countries represented here -- with the various scholars and military officers -- that we wouldn't try to, within our own communities, to get them to endorse a very simple, straightforward resolution, calling upon the [U.N.] General Assembly.
"All we would need is one country, but I think that we have several countries from South America, and certainly, this group here might have enough influence to get their government to go on record, and to field a resolution creating an agency of the United Nations...specifically with the goal to organize a global conference -- not a hearing -- of the scholars and scientists that would come together and fund it -- both from public and private sources -- so that, within a couple of years, we could convene a conference that would command the attention of the world.
"I have no doubt that we could field that kind of a resolution and get it adopted. We can elevate it right to where it really belongs because it's a global issue -- We could elevate it right to the General Assembly of the United Nations."
9:34 PM – 05/ 2/2013
While these congressional-style hearings are going on in Washington, there's an ongoing influx of stories coming out in the media by writers who claim that this is just an exercise in futility among UFO buffs looking for instant publicity, and that the participants -- witness panels and the committee of former members of Congress -- are involved in nothing but a farce and an easy payday.
The New York Daily News today highlights a statement by U.S. Rep. Peter King of New York, in which he outright ridicules one of the military witnesses at the D.C. hearings, Ret. Air Force Capt. Robert Salas (pictured below).
Salas has a credible background as a weapons controller and launch officer of intercontinental ballistic missiles and has previously spoken about a 1967 incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana when signals went off indicating an intrusion at the missile site, followed by missiles "going into an unlaunchable, or no-go, mode," all during the appearance of a UFO over the base.
Salas says he sent documents about this case to King, the former House Homeland Security Chairman and believes King is ignoring him. According to the Daily News, when King was asked about Salas' claim, here's how he responded: "I have no idea what the guy is talking about. We are always getting crazy stuff in the mail by people whose brain has been taken over by aliens or something."
Really, Mr. King? As a representative of the people, is that the proper way to refer to one of many respected military men entrusted with the safety of our country -- to just shrug him off by referring to the evidence he sent you as "crazy stuff" and to further ridicule him by basically saying his brain was "taken over by aliens"?
It's high time that elected officials think twice before making pronouncements about things like UFOs, simply because they either have a personal bias against the subject OR they've been told to inflict that kind of attitude on the public.
Either way, a big reason why these people have come together in Washington this week is to try and open a serious look into a subject that doesn't deserve the kind of ridicule that people like King throw around.
captrobertsalas
8:33 PM – 05/ 2/2013
Chinese scientist Sun Shili is a retired foreign ministry official and president of the World Chinese UFO Federation.
"Our federation serves as a communication platform for the global Chinese on all aspects of UFOs, including those in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and abroad. Chinese people consider ourselves as the descendants of dragons, which are from outer space in the Chinese culture.
"We call our land as the land of deities or gods and we seek the harmony between people and heaven. [All of these things] are very relevant with the hearing that is taking place today."
Shili told the CHD committee that he was a government diplomat and university professor, but since the 1970s, he started looking into UFOs and the mysteries of the universe.
"Everyone on this planet is looking for our roots in the universe. We have the right to know and discover. Any attempt to cover-up is unacceptable. Also statistics of the China UFO groups [of which there are about 50,000 members] show that, out of 1.3 billion people, we have close to tens of millions of people who are UFO enthusiasts."
7:27 PM – 05/ 2/2013
The second panel consisting of international experts is offering testimony about UFOs. The individuals (being sworn-in in the image below) are (from left to right) Antonio Huneeus (Chile-U.S.), Nick Pope (U.K.), Grant Cameron (Canada), Sun Shili (People's Republic Of China) and Roberto Pinotti (Italy).
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5:58 PM – 05/ 2/2013
The committee of former members of Congress appeared to be moved and highly interested to hear the testimony of the first international panel of the day, especially the riveting close encounter aerial "dogfight" described by Peruvian fighter pilot, Col. Oscar Santa-Maria.
Cong. Darlene Hooley (Dem/Oregon) closed the morning session with praise for the panel:
"I want to thank our panel for being here today. This has been really interesting and your openness and what's happening in each of your countries has been a real eye-opener for the rest of us."
5:05 PM – 05/ 2/2013
Possibly the most intriguing testimony offered today so far came from a former 25-year Peruvian air force fighter pilot. Col. Oscar Santa-Maria (pictured below). In 1980, he was ordered to takeoff and shoot down a sphere-shaped UFO that was in restricted airspace near an air base. The encounter lasted more than 20 minutes.
"These were 22 minutes where we went up and down, it went around, and it was trying to avoid me while I was pursuing it and I was trying to fire. When I first fired, these were bursts of 30 millimeter shells -- a single one can destroy a truck. And I shot 64, a barrage of fire, and nothing happened at all, and that's what was so surprising.
"The possibility of NOT hitting my target was practically impossible. I've won awards for marksmanship, and that's why they sent me up there to chase this thing. The possibility of my missing it was zero."
The object Santa-Maria was chasing was about 30 feet in diameter with a dome on top, no visible engine, wings or windows. He told the committee he tried to figure out how to better attack the unknown craft.
"I tried different positions. When it went up, it had supersonic speed. When I moved to the side of the UFO at 1.3 Mach, it stopped, and then, in a matter of seconds, it achieved 1.2 Mach without any engines! This is something that nobody, no craft can do, to just go from zero to 1.2 Mach, vertically, to reach my same position -- it was able to anticipate my moves and then follow me.
"Once I landed, I met with intelligence officers, and we looked at all catalogues to see what possible spy object this might have been, but there was nothing similar to what I had observed, and we were unaware of any type of technology [like this] on Earth that existed."
santamariaufo
4:05 PM – 05/ 2/2013
In the first panel session of the day, former Brazilian chemistry teacher A.J. Gevaerd spoke on the many UFO cases in Brazil, specifically in the area of the Amazon. He described a committee in 1977 created by the Brazilian air force to investigate the cases. The committee was known as Operation Saucer. Gevaerd presented the committee with a 440-page report called "UFOs In The Amazon" (see below)
gevaerdamazon
3:47 PM – 05/ 2/2013
Today's testimony is being presented by several officials and military personnel from different countries, including Brazil, Uruguay, Peru and Argentina.
Some technical glitches in the audio translation of several individuals made it difficult to understand what they were actually saying. Hopefully that will be fixed and not be a problem for the rest of the day.
11:21 PM – 05/ 1/2013
Day 4 of the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure will offer international testimony of the UFO subject. Committee member Sen. Mike Gravel (seen below) thinks that will be significant:
sengravel
"I think that the best effort we have for bringing visibility to the people of the world of this issue ... we could go to the United Nations. Now, I don't think we'd have a prayer in the Security Council, because it's controlled by us and that just wouldn't happen.
"But what would happen in the General Assembly if we were to introduce a resolution? I'll bet you it would pass. They would fund some part of it -- the rest of the funding could come from private sources, and we would have the most awe-inspiring world event on this subject within a couple or three years."
10:54 PM – 05/ 1/2013
French told the committee about an incident he witnessed in the late 1960s in Alamogordo, N.M., to complete his annual refresher course in an altitude chamber, which tested the effects of high altitude on humans.
"While there, I learned of an accident a few miles away in the direction of White Sands [missile range]. A short time later, I witnessed the takeoff of a prototype fighter aircraft that I neither recognized or knew what it was.
"The aircraft took off at a very high rate of speed and fired a rocket, five inches in diameter and about six feet long, about the same size as some of the modern air-to-air aerial rockets.
"Afterward [I was told] there was an unknown number of humanoids, either killed or injured. The parts of the casualties were taken to base operations at Holloman Air Force Base [in New Mexico]. The only parts of the craft that I was allowed to see had markings that appeared to be Arabic or some language I didn't understand.
"Later I learned the parts and the casualties were transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base [in Ohio] and turned over to the Foreign Technology Division."
This is not the first time that French has come forward to reveal intriguing UFO-related information.
Last year, he told The Huffington Post exclusively that there wasn't just one UFO that crashed near Roswell, N.M. in 1947 -- there were two!
8:11 PM – 05/ 1/2013
Several people make up the panel offering testimony about the events surrounding the 1947 crash of an alleged UFO outside the town of Roswell, N.M.
The panel consists of (from left in the image below) Denice Marcell, Jesse Marcel III, Col./Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., Ret. USAR Lt. Col. Kevin Randle, former nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman and researcher/author Donald Schmitt.
roswellpanel
Marcel Jr. has a distinguished career as both a Navy and National Guard officer as well as being a military flight surgeon. He told the Washington CHD committee about the night in 1947 (while he was 11 years old) when his father Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer from the Roswell Army Air Field, came home with debris of whatever the object was that crashed on a nearby ranch:
"I was awakened by my dad who was returning from an assignment to collect debris of unknown origin from a ranch out of Roswell. Knowing that he had seen something very special, he wanted my mother and myself to look at this also and said, 'You'll never see this again.'
"He brought us into the kitchen where there was this strange debris on the kitchen floor that he had pre-positioned. He said, 'Look at this -- I think this is what you call a flying saucer or remains thereof.'
"The debris consisted of three components: there was a very tough metallic foil; there was black plastic debris, like a broken phonograph record; but the strangest thing I saw was an I-beam in the wreckage. There were symbols written along the inside surface of it. They were of a purplish-violet hue, semi-reflective of light."
Marcel Jr. went on to recount how his father was subsequently ordered to fly the material to Gen. Roger Ramey's office in Fort Worth, Texas.
"When my dad got home, he sat my mother and myself down and said, 'You will never talk about this -- this is a non-event.' I never discussed this with my friends or anybody else until Stanton Friedman interviewed my dad in 1978."
5:28 PM – 05/ 1/2013
The second panel of the day, comprised of (from left in image below) Grant Cameron, Stanton Friedman, Linda Moulton Howe and Robert Wood present testimony on a series of documents, known as "Majestic," that reportedly reveal the story of presidential and military authorization and cover-up of UFOs and possible alien occupants.
Wood, retired from a 43-year career at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Corp., has spent more than 30 years investigating UFOs, including years of research to authenticate the Majestic Documents:
"The identification of one aspect of a questioned document as being anomalous often results in a skeptic accepting none of the rest of the document, even though it might be filled with accurate information. It seems to be accepted in the intelligence community that faked documents usually -- if not often -- contain much valid information to help get it accepted as genuine throughout.
"The conclusion I've come to is incredibly wild: that those in charge have been successful in keeping secret the greatest story of mankind while covertly spending staggering sums to create hidden underground resources and reverse-engineer the technology. Until we can quantify the alien threat, how can we know whether these actions are good or bad? Let us hope, maybe with the help of one race of good aliens, that God will maybe do the right thing...I think the American people deserve [the truth] -- we've paid for it."
majesticpanel
4:26 PM – 05/ 1/2013
Researcher Linda Moulton Howe discussed her many years investigating strange animal mutilations that have been linked to UFO sightings.
"The first global media report about this phenomena was in September of 1967 when a female horse named Lady was found dead on a ranch in southern Colorado. The horse's entire skull and long neck had been stripped of flesh and every organ in the chest of that horse had been surgically excised, according to a medical doctor. There was no blood anywhere -- not in the animal, not around the animal and nowhere nearby."
NOTE: Astute reader (and HuffPost blogger) Alejandro Rojas pointed out that this entry was originally titled as Day 2. It has been corrected so as not to confuse anyone!
11:05 PM – 04/30/2013
Winding up the second day of the CHD will be evening lectures from former nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, Canadian researcher Grant Cameron and UFO historian Richard Dolan.
Wednesday's plate includes UFO documents and the legendary 1947 UFO crash at Roswell, NM.
9:23 PM – 04/30/2013
Cong. Roscoe Bartlett gets a little testy about the press coverage so far about this week's Citizen Hearing On Disclosure:
"I've been looking at some of the press clippings from yesterday's session and the government has been quite successful in relegating this issue to the lunatic fringe. I'm going to comment on only one article. It says 'The mock Congress hearing on aliens is heavy on real-life Mulders and not Scullys. In the "X-Files," Agent Mulder believes in all things: little green men, Roswell, men-in-black, whatever, and Agent Dana Scully believes in science.
"'Scully forces Mulder to find hard evidence that there's a massive conspiracy to cover-up aliens' existence. The trouble with this week's alien panel (we're an alien panel now) at the National Press Club is that any of the participating members of Congress who might naturally be a Scully have been incentived to suspend their disbelief. Because the Citizen Hearing foundation is paying them $20,000 plus expenses to listen to the testimony.'"
"That's just insulting, that we can be bought for $20,000 -- that's ridiculous! It goes on to say that ...'former member Roscoe Bartlett, in an opening statement, Bartlett said he hadn't fulfilled his duty in office by failing to hold hearings on extraterresrtrials...' I NEVER SAID THAT! ... I never said that I believed in extraterrestrials. I believe that there are sightings out there that cannot be easily explained away."
"'Compounding the problem of eyebrow-raising testimony is that several of these politicians have reputations for being a little wacky.'"
7:46 PM – 04/30/2013
The afternoon session focuses on the numerous cases of UFOs seen in the vicinity of American nuclear missile sites. One of the witnesses, retired Air Force Capt. Bruce Fenstermacher described seeing a cigar-shaped UFO above a Wyoming nuclear base in 1976.
UFO historian Richard Dolan talked about how the Freedom of Information Act has yielded important documents related to military encounters with UFOs.
4:52 PM – 04/30/2013
Cong. Roscoe Bartlett engaged Sgt. James Penniston (see images below) re. the UFO he approached on the ground during the 1980 multiple witness encounter in England's Rendlesham Forest:
Bartlett: "You were there when the craft took off?" Penniston: "Yes, sir." Bartlett: "Was there any sound?"
Penniston: "The craft generated more lighting and that concerned me. I wasn't sure if it was going to explode, so I took a somewhat defensive position. It rose off the ground, went to tree level, momentary hovered, then took off in the blink of an eye. The things that it didn't do was stuf that it should've done. I was hoping for air displacement -- all aircraft do that. I was hoping for aircraft sound -- all aircraft do that."
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penniston
3:46 PM – 04/30/2013
As day two of the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure unfolds, the committee of former members of Congress are listening to the testimony of eyewitnesses to the famous 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident in England that involved many military personnel.
Later in the day, the committee will hear testimony of more military eyewitnesses to UFO activity over American nuclear missile sites.
9:51 PM – 04/29/2013
Many points of view from committee members and witnesses were offered on this first day of the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure.
With four days of testimony still to come, it would be interesting to see if any type of skepticism will rear its head and to see how the folks involved handle or approach a skeptical point of view about UFOs and a possible ET presence on Earth.
Check back on Tuesday to see...
9:14 PM – 04/29/2013
Dr. Steven Greer: “Everything about what extraterrestrials show of themselves would look like magic to us…if you’re dealing with civilizations that have actually arrived here from somewhere else, they’re probably doing it faster than the speed of light…possibly at the speed of thought…consciousness and mind are the real final frontier – not space. We are not alone in the universe and we need to have a peaceful interplanetary, interstellar initiative. We need to figure out how we’re going to advance.”
Political Activist Stephen Bassett talked about how the media hasn’t properly reported important UFO news. “If some very tough reporters can get out there and ask the right questions, it’s going to get really interesting.”
The following image shows Greer (L) and Bassett (R)
greerbassett
8:40 PM – 04/29/2013
Grant Cameron’s testimony on Clinton administration unsuccessful attempt to find out UFO information…
Linda Moulton Howe on reported UFO abductions and the possible manipulation of the human mind. She tells a story about a military person who told her he was on a team that, in 1978, was assigned to investigate a town that was allegedly flooded by extraterrestrials.
7:24 PM – 04/29/2013
Researcher Grant Cameron discusses 1,000 documents he received via the Freedom of Information Act about how Rockefeller tried to get the Clinton administration to look into UFOs, especially the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, N.M., and how President Clinton issued a challenge, saying if there was a UFO at Roswell, he was never told about it.
Cameron talks about how Bill and Hillary Clinton met with Rockefeller at his ranch to discuss UFOs.
“There are key documents from 1995 that point out how Hillary and her staff helped draft a UFO disclosure letter that would be sent to the president.”
7:10 PM – 04/29/2013
Dr. Steven Greer began the afternoon session describing how he went from being an emergency room doctor to a leading advocate for UFO-ET disclosure. Greer is also executive producer of a new documentary, “Sirius,” which focuses on his claims of alleged existing technologies that might change the world.
“Sirius” is also about the unveiling of DNA analysis of a 6-inch-tall humanoiddiscovered 10 years ago in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Dubbed Ata, there is ongoing controversy as to its origin and what, exactly the DNA reveals, according to a new report by Greer.
5:57 PM – 04/29/2013
Cong. Bartlett: “Whether there are UFOs or extraterrestrials is not the issue -- it’s a constitutional issue more than anything else. In his final public speech as he left office, Eisenhower warned the public against the military industrial complex, but his original speech called it the military industrial congressional complex, but he took out the world congressional. I think Congress owes the American people a hearing on this subject. There may be nothing to UFOs, but you have the right to petition the government about it.”
5:45 PM – 04/29/2013
Cong. Kilpatrick: ”I don’t know if the answer is to have another congressional hearing. I agree that coming together to acknowledge this problem is urgent. Will the Air Force ever come to this point, and what can this issue do to help all of us.”
French: “Something’s got to be done.”
Sheehan: “The altering of consciousness about UFOs will have to come through religious institutions.”
Dolan: “If there’s an energy paradigm solution to UFOs, that’s worth everything we can do to get it all out in the open.”
Sen. Gravel: “Could all of you draft a new U.N.-type proposal by the end of this week that can help us become globalists vs. nationalists?”
5:07 PM – 04/29/2013
Cong. Roscoe Bartlett: ”It’s arrogant and presumptuous of us to believe we’re the only really intelligent species in the universe.”
French: “My primary job early on for Project Blue Book was to debunk UFOs as far as the public was concerned…I was one of those guys who said it was swamp gas! We need an organization to contact these ‘people’ from another place and say hello
to them instead of trying to shoot their tails off.”
Sheehan: “It’s a world view issue…a view that must be addressed by everyone, once we acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence.”
Huneeus: “This is the next frontier, and we’ve already been conditioned by the media, but young people are very accepting of the idea that we’re being visited.”
Dolan: “Our society is going through a technological revolution, and I think something will happen that will force the UFO issue to come out. Maybe there are already controlled leaks today, but it will lead to a geo-political revolution. There needs to be a TRUE United Nations.”
“French: ”The dumbest thing we could do would be to weaponize space.”
4:45 PM – 04/29/2013
Huneeus tells the committee about the milestone 1978 United Nations presentation on UFOs.
The following image shows a 1978 meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim discussing the upcoming UFO presentation that was produced by NBC Radio’s Lee Speigel, now a writer for The Huffington Post. This image includes, clockwise, left to right: astronaut Gordon Cooper, astronomer Jacques Vallee, astronomer Claude Poher, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, Grenada Prime Minister Eric Gairy, Waldheim, Morton Gleisner of the Special Political Committee, Speigel, researcher Leonard Stringfield and psychologist David Saunders.
speigelun
4:21 PM – 04/29/2013
Second panel of historian Richard Dolan, researcher/writer Antonio Huneeus, Constitutional attorney Daniel Sheehan and USAF Ret. Lt. Col. Richard French has just been sworn in and expected to offer testimony on historical UFO records.
3:52 PM – 04/29/2013
Cong. Darlene Hooley: “Why aren’t we hearing more about sightings around the world?”
Stanton Friedman: “It’s not about how much is going on – it’s more about how much do we hear about the sightings…how many UFO reporters do you know?”
3:47 PM – 04/29/2013
Cong. Merrill Cook talks with panel about the possibility that some UFO sightings might involve a form of artificial intelligence vs. living beings piloting them.
3:31 PM – 04/29/2013
“I am honored today to take on this assignment, and to have one of the leaders here on this topic. I’m honored to introduce Minister Louis Farrakhan.” To which, stood up to mild applause.
3:12 PM – 04/29/2013
Tells committee about her documentary that focused on the numerous unexplained animal mutilations that have plagued the U.S. for many years...”Ranchers told me they had seen beams of light pick up their cattle, which would explain why there were no tracks found near the animals that had many organs removed, with no blood near the animals.”
She talked about being shown an alleged presidential briefing paper at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico in 1983 that described several real UFO cases that involved small humanoid bodies.
“My greatest challenge as a journalist is to get on the record things I’m told by military personnel.”
3:01 PM – 04/29/2013
“I was the youngest contributor to the original 1968 congressional UFO hearings…an example of bias and ignorance about UFOs appears in this month’s issue of Astronomy…Progress comes from doing things differently…Another false myth is that the government can’t keep secrets.”
“Government cover-up isn’t just an idle concept…it’s past time for the press and scientific community to do their homework.”
2:46 PM – 04/29/2013
Cameron, creator of The Presidents UFO website, is giving specific examples of past presidents or presidential candidates who have talked positively about UFOs and the ET situation.
2:36 PM – 04/29/2013
UFO Historian Richard Dolan offers details of recent UFO cases.
“There are well over 10,000 reports every year. But not all are unexplained. The combination of astonishing performance and a lack of official acknowledgement of the phenomenon require more action.”
2:34 PM – 04/29/2013
hearing on disclusure
2:18 PM – 04/29/2013
"We're not alone in the universe. They have been coming here a long, long time it seems. The evidence suggests it ... Let's go forward with understanding this phenomenon."
2:12 PM – 04/29/2013
"The very idea of listening to the participants who will speak this week has caused quite a stir in my district … because there's a newspaper that has covered me for 20 years that hardly ever paid attention. Well I made front page … just last week. Finally, I'm retired and they're gonna put me at the top of the fold.
We're gonna be sitting like we're in committee ... It's our commitment to listen through objective ears and to ask the kinds of questions that we think the American people would like us to ask so that they can be better informed ... We'd like to make the public more aware. We're hoping that this will possibly lead to legislation ... I think we're going to have a very interesting week."