By Larry W. Bryant

Had I not known better, I could've sworn I'd been transported, via a time-travel machine, back to the late 1950s, there in the ballroom of Washington, D.C.'s National Press Club, patiently awaiting discussion from a UFOlogical panel of international experts -- some assembled as UFO-encounter witnesses, and others as ex-official investigators of such encounters.

The ambience of the scene had all the earmarks of a gathering that readily could've been orchestrated by the late, great, 1960's-era National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). Indeed, several former NICAPians were in the audience on this Monday morning of Nov. 12, 2007. They were surrounded by about 50 news-media representatives invited to attend the event by its sponsor -- the Coalition for Freedom of Information ( http://www.freedomofinfo.org ).

The prepared testimonials being read into the record by the 14 panelists were meant to persuade the U. S. government's executive branch (ideally either the Air Force or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to spearhead an international reinvestigation of the UFO problem from the perspective of national-security readiness and public safety.

Presumably, the panelists feel that the U. S. treasury remains healthy and flexible enough to allot the necessary funding for such a long-term enterprise. But remember, folks: wasn't it the late Sen. William Proxmire who had objected to having the taxpayer pay for NASA's SETI-research project? So, imagine how some of today's congresscritters may regard the proposed public refinancing of official UFOlogy. Besides, America's colossal debt from funding tribal warfare across Planet Earth remains on a fast track toward reducing our economy to that of a Third Word nation.

What's a beleaguered UFOlogist to do?

If you agree with me that we needn't institute a USAF Project Blue Book redux, then does that course of inaction mean that our government should continue to keep the public in the dark about UFO reality and continue to consign serious UFO research to the realm of crisis management? After all, we know that Blue Book had all the scientific prestige of a high-school physics course -- its main (but latent) objective being to defuse, via public-relations spin and propaganda, the public's alleged overreaction to early reports of UFO activity.

Folks, it all comes down to one element of human interaction: trust. Today, how many of us can trust ANY federal agency with the task of determining the source, intent, and scope of the worldwide UFO presence -- and of fully sharing that information with the public? I submit that one reason for the U. S. government's resistance to reentering the overt UFO-research arena lies in the fact that such agencies as the U. S. Navy and Coast Guard know all they need to know about the UFO presence, for the time being. In this regard, the innermost desires of the Air Force/NASA remain irrelevant to the topmost UFO policymakers. Back during a post-Blue Book presidential administration, NASA formally nixed the opportunity to pick up where Blue Book had left off. I bet that, even if, say, financier George Soros were to volunteer to fund a NASA-directed probe, they'd turn him down.

I have a possibly better, more cost-effective approach than that spinning/reinventing of bureaucratic wheels. Let's first cease groveling for a hand-out from our recalcitrant public servants. Instead, let's ask the SciFi Channel (which for a few years now has had a key role in trying to shift the paradigm of so-called UFO disclosure) to create a mega-bucks monetary-reward project to entice prospective UFO-coverup whistleblowers to come forward with hard-core evidence of UFO reality. Focus the project's spotlight on former/current/future U. S. Navy personnel. Run pro-disclosure advertisements in newspapers and radio stations near key naval bases. If the resultant whistleblowers can prove prove that certain UFO evidence to which they've been privy remains classified, then that fact should be relayed to Congress so as to invoke that body's oversight prerogative (i.e., conducting open hearings on why ANY official UFO information warrants permanent classification).

Sci-Fi's management could convene a panel of distinguished judges to assess the value of any whistleblower-derived evidence. They could hold an annual reward ceremony, duly televised across the globe, honoring both the emergence of valid information and the incremental inroads into the UFO coverup. And, of course, they could claim as a business expense the cost of funding the project. Who'd lose here? -- certainly not the taxpayer, nor the whistleblower, nor any investors in the SciFi Channel. The chief losers would be the top power-hungry, short-sighted, and unconstitutionally deceptive officials running the coverup.

Meantime, let me make an atavistic return to the glory days of NICAP influence, with this observation: amidst the attenders was abductionologist Budd Hopkins. Upon greeting him during the panel's dispersal, I remarked: "Did you notice that elephant sitting right at the center of the table, being ignored by all present -- that 'elephant' we call the abduction phenomenon?" Budd offered only a quasi-shrug of his shoulders.

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Larry W. Bryant, since the mid-1980s, has had more than enough experience in crafting various whistleblower-solicitation ads for publication in the classified-ad pages of selected U. S. military-base newspapers. With a minimal success rate in placing those ads, he eventually encountered censorial resistance from the Powers that Be, resulting in his multi-year-long First Amendment lawsuit against defense officials. For a summary of that litigation, which now has entered the appeals stage to contest the government's victory at the U. S. district-court level, visit his attorney's web site: http://markskatz.com/militarycases.htm . Undeterred -- and undetained -- Bryant remains reachable at his e-mail address: overtci@cavtel.net .

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LWB Update Note (7 Jul 08):

A friend of mine recently asked me how much success my UFO-disclosure ad campaign has achieved. Here's what I told him:

"No true whistleblower ever responded to any of the 40 or so published ads. [Name deleted] did track me down to my home when he first encountered one of the ads, he being a [government employee] and, later, a co-founder of the Invisible College Press [ http://www.invispress.com -- the Woodbridge, Va.-based print-on-demand publisher that brought out the first edition (2002) of my book 'UFO Politics at the White House: Citizens Rally 'round Jimmy Carter's Promise'].

"Otherwise, all that time, effort, and money went into the black hole of public disregard (sounds like the Perils of Freelancership, eh?). But I'm sure it all helped me become a better writer. Composing such ads helps the writer realize that he must strive to tighten his prose, since he's paying to have every word of it printed.

"As I once mentioned to you, I consider the ads to be a form of political poetry."