The New York Times Gaslights Readers Ahead of the Next UFO/UAP Report to Congress, Carl Bernstein's Most Shocking Work, And What Constitutes a True Disclosure

In the early ‘90s as I reentered the suborbital subculture that is UFOland, conjecture in that world usually won out, given that there were no “official government sources" to confirm or deny claims made by calm and collected UFO/ UAP researchers, pilots of all stripes, men and women on the street, and the occasional raver. One such echo chamber I entered held that there were at least two factions inside the units of government where they watch, manage and control how these strange flying machines are perceived publicly.

One group favored a full disclosure of the topic, that the coverup had gone on now far too long, that the public was ready, that pop culture had done the job of softening up the masses for the T-r-u-t-h. The other side, perhaps  marinated in the western Christian religious demagoguery that equated these “things” with  the demonic space force of Lucifer and company, were vehemently opposed. Ain’t gonna happen, Bubba. Ever.

If you ever read MAD magazine, you can appreciate the Spy vs. Spy connotations of this Beltway Battle. A surprisingly deep dive on this great divide, nonetheless, appeared recently in The Hill, by Marik von Rennenkampff who served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense. Recommended.

(CREDIT: UsMilitarypatchcom/ETSY)

Of late and on related notes, at least one elite  news organization– The New York Times  -- has been downplaying all “the data” that’s spewed into the news cycle showing those pesky tic tak videos,  reports of “drones” "swarming U.S. military ships” at sea, and the mild fallout generated last May from the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee during the first congressional hearings on “the phenomenon”  since 1966..

Gaslighting Much?!

Times reporter Julian Barnes, a national security reporter based in Washington, threw some dandy but outrageous Justin Verlander fastballs in his October 28, 2022, “story.” It dropped at the same time a second official report was due to Congress – and the American people – from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Secretary of Defense, two days before the report’s release date, Halloween. October Surprise, the report never appeared! These are the same Big Deal agencies that delivered the unclassified, whole 9 pages of its first legally required report on June 25, 2021. That empty calorie account said only that of the 144 thingys they looked at, 143 remained unidentifiable (insert Big whoop here). Be glad these guys don’t practice medicine!

Barnes’ piece, titled “Many Military U.F.O. Reports Are Just Foreign Spying or Airborne Trash: Forget space aliens or hypersonic technology; classified assessments show that many episodes have ordinary explanations,” seemed the perfect table setting to lower expectations for the ODNI report, and or to throw shade at whatever it will contain. Leslie Kean, who with two others wrote the front-page NYT story in December 2017 – a true “bombshell” about the Pentagon’s secret UFO study, now a decade or more old – wisely and quickly distanced herself from Barnes’ work on her Facebook feed.  Moreover, didn’t Barnes, or at least his editors, read her countervailing story for at least some necessary subtext? Maybe it’s just another occasion of The Empire swatting back with some schlocky gaslighting.

Meanwhile, the tabloid Sun paper of 6 November says the report is going to be yet another “whitewash” – a  term used by Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett, an outspoken critic of these hearings. He says they are nothing more than a continuance of the 70+ year coverup.  So, this is where you might place your Monopoly betting money.  

Of course the UFO Twitterverse – pre-Elon Musk takeover – exploded with angst and handwringing over the report’s delay (I’m looking at you #UFOTWITTER). Where was the gol dang report?! Why is it being held up? Is it too explosive to release at all?!  However – more conjecture -- is it possible that the classified report was delivered on time to the committee and the unclassified one is waiting in the ah, wings, coming right before Thanksgiving for release when a lot of folks, including bare bones media staffs everywhere,  will be distracted and reporting on holiday travel and the mellowing impacts of tryptophan?

If I worked inside the communication offices where all these alleged overlords of the UFO/UAP issues are and they needed a containment type, disinformation public relations strategy to let the air out of the tires on these ongoing reports to congress, a good PR play would be to feed such a story line as the one Julian Barnes delivered to readers, hook, line and stinker. Don’t think it doesn’t happen?  I keep hearing the words of Carl Bernstein from  the Washington Post Watergate era who said The CIA used more than 400 journalists from 1953 to 1977: “Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit,” Bernstein reported in 1977.  That reporting remains much more significant than the Nixon era work done by him and Bob Woodward.

Carl Bernstein: the former Washington Post Watergate reporter’s timeless expose on Journalists and Intel Agencies is more shocking than the Nixon-era scandal.

It would be naïve to think that these revolving door relationships between Intel agency personnel and media outlets have changed or just disappeared since that 45-year-old expose. But it would also be foolish to continue to believe that “Disclosure” (a one-time wholesale lowering of the boom) -- or even “disclosure” (done in micro dribs and drabs) -- is ever going to happen.

A true Revelation about whether ET and or its AI-robotic space force has been here, or is here, isn’t going to happen until they say so.