Whistleblowers - Whose horn are they tooting?

Even if the truth behind UFOs has been hidden by a massive cover up, surely the secrecy chamber can't be completely air tight, and a leak is bound to spring up somewhere. 

At least that is what some whistleblower proponents like to believe. I think that it is important that we examine whistleblowing precedents that have occurred (or not) in other matters pertaining to national security. 

How about we start with the mother of all compartmentalized national security programs - the Manhattan Project. If you take the time, as I have, to study the (already declassified) comprehensive security methods put into place to protect this very important and secret WW2 project, you will find that: 

• The security of the project was delegated to a dedicated group of project security personnel that reported through the strictest of channels only to Manhattan Project managers. 
• The men and women who were part of this security operation were hand picked and only the creme de la creme were selected. 
• This security apparatus vetted and carefully watched all project personnel. Those deemed a security risk were moved to positions of less trust and their access to classified material terminated. 
• Any public release of information, intentional or not, was dealt with swiftly and decisively. 
• Only a select few project personnel knew the overall goal of the project, namely to build an atomic bomb, and many project personnel only learned what the real goal was AFTER the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. 

Why is this relevant to UFO secrecy? Well here we have a project of tremendous importance to the United States that had to be protected at all costs, but the tremendous size of the Manhattan project and the complex logistics that were required to pull it off, created security challenges on an unprecedented scale. 

Amazingly, the Manhattan Project security team did pull it off, so effectively, that even Vice President Truman did not know of the project's existence until he became President. Only a massive Soviet espionage effort managed to infiltrate the project. 

Manhattan Project documentation shows that project security personnel were worried about public whistleblowers who could expose project secrets to the American public and our enemies. The security team put into place failsafe mechanisms to effectively deal with such leaks. What they couldn't prevent however, as history shows, was the infiltration by Communist sympathizers who effectively hid their allegiances and maintained their positions of trust, so as to covertly provide project intelligence to their handlers. In other words, public release of information could be dealt with effectively but the same could not be said of covert release. 

Now let's apply this analogy to the UFO cover up which by most accounts was not instituted until after 1945. With the success of the Manhattan Project fresh in their minds, those security forces so tasked, would have adopted the same modus operandi in protecting the UFO secret. Again anticipating that someone on the inside could possibly divulge secret knowledge, safeguards would have been put into place to prevent this or squash it. 

So what are we to make of all of these UFO whistleblowers that have come forward and claim privileged insider knowledge? Can we believe their claims and their motives? Are they telling the truth? 

This is a complex question, so let's break the mechanics of whistleblowing into its essential components: - Whistleblower Identity - Whistleblower Scope of Knowledge - Whistleblower Motives 

Whistleblower Identity: UFO Whistleblowers that request anonymity out of fear of persecution DO have to be worried about their well being. They would not be "in the know" to begin with if they were not first carefully vetted and selected and then took a solemn oath to not divulge what they were made privy to. 

Normally taking a national security oath carries a tremendous penalty for violating it. If you are privy to and divulge classified information, the penalty usually entails time behind bars, but could involve the death penalty if serious enough. So anonymous whistleblowers are possible, but hiding behind anonymity will also leave their testimony suspect and unverifiable. 

How can you trust what a whistleblower is tooting their horn about if you can't verify that they were "in the know" to begin with? I also have to believe that the handpicked men and women who make up the UFO security apparatus are smart enough to track down leaks even if the whistleblower's identity is not divulged and that this mole hunting capability is repeatedly communicated to all involved personnel, to prevent it from happening in the first place. 

Even those whistleblowers who have not requested anonymity have difficulty getting their claims taken seriously. Bob Lazar and Colonel Corso did not hind behind anonymity but their claims are riddled with controversy. 

Whistleblower Scope of Knowledge: This is probably the part of UFO whistleblowing that I have the most trouble reconciling. If you were fortunate enough to have insider access to any part of the UFO puzzle, your piece of the puzzle would be so compartmentalized and so small that you would not be able to see the big picture of UFO secrecy. 

"Need to Know" is an essential component of any secret deep black project and is interwoven into the very fabric of the project. So the only really knowledgeable whistleblowers would be those at the very top of the hierarchy who are privy to enough pieces of the puzzle to know what the big picture is in the first place. Of course, they would also tend to be the ones who have the most to lose if the secret is let out. 

Whistleblower Motives: Ask anyone who has ever had a security clearance whether they ever willfully disclosed classified information outside of a need to know basis and the answer would most likely be No! One thing that always weighs heavily on your mind when you are put in a position of trust is the penalty for violating your national security oath. 

When I was in Army intelligence, I had access to material that is public information today, but I will still not talk about it. Oaths are taken seriously. So for a whistleblower to willfully violate their oath not only takes some big kahunas, but express knowledge that severe repercussions may follow. How many folks can truly say they are willing to take that risk? 

So before we label a whistleblower an all-American Hero for having the guts to come forward and put themselves in mortal danger for the common good of man and apple pie, we should first question their claims along these three lines: do they have the proper credentials, did they have a need to know and what is their motive for coming forward? If any of these three come up smelling funny, we should stop waving the American flag and wave a red flag instead, because something is awry.

MUFON Over Board - Save Our Ship

After listening to MUFON International Director Clifford Clift’s interview on the Jerry Pippin show titled “MUFON Under Siege”, I was floored by Cliff’s statement that MUFON has an ethics committee. Apparently this committee investigated one of the MUFON State Directors that was recently fired from their position. Seriously? MUFON has an ethics committee? 

After what I have witnessed as blatant unethical behavior on the part of the MUFON Board over the last two years, I am astounded by its hypocrisy! The MUFON Ethics Committee needs to turn its sights on its own Board of Directors whose actions during the MUFON-BAASS contract renewal periods were not only unethical but an outright derelict of duty by failing to properly represent the interests of MUFON’s members and the general public that MUFON serves as a non-profit organization. 

Imagine for a minute that you are hired by a company and in your employment contract you are guaranteed a certain salary. Now imagine that as a condition of your employment, you are asked by your employer to keep detailed records on how you spend that salary. After five months on the job, the employer calls you into their office and states that your salary is going to be cut in half because your monthly spending reports show you are banking half of your salary. Further the employer states that placing half of your salary in savings was not in the “spirit” of your employment contract. Sound outrageous? Absolutely! Yet, that is exactly what happened to the MUFON-BAASS contract. 

In a contract renewal letter dated June 25, 2009, Mr. Robert Bigelow stated that BAASS would cut MUFON’s monthly contract payment in half because “the accumulation of large sums of unspent money was not in the spirit of the BAASS-MUFON purchase agreement.” Incredibly, the majority of the Board of Directors sheepishly went along with Mr. Bigelow’s demands. Their comments justifying their positions were interesting. Tom Deuley, MUFON Board member said that in his experience doing business in China, change of contract terms was common. Clifford Clift agreed with Tom’s assessment claiming similar experience in real estate. 

What is wrong with these statements? First, this isn’t China and second MUFON already had a signed and legally binding straightforward purchase agreement. Yet, these Board members believed it was OK to change the contract terms five months after the deal was signed and sealed. When I mentioned this to an attorney friend of mine, her response echoed my assessment. “It doesn’t matter whether it was Robert Bigelow or Joe the Plumber signing the contract, BAASS had a legal contractual obligation to fulfill the terms of the contract or MUFON could have not only terminated the contract but sought damages.” 

Before MUFON entered in to a contractual relationship with BAASS, I had a one on one telephone conference call with Mr. Bigelow and I specifically asked him about money left over at the end of each contract month that had not been spent on project expenses for that month. Mr. Bigelow stated in no uncertain terms that the money belonged to MUFON. When June 2009 rolled around, Mr. Bigelow evidently had a change of heart and not only demanded a reduction in the monthly contract amount but then at the second renewal period in October 2009, simply stopped sending project checks altogether. Mr. Bigelow further demanded that MUFON pay for ongoing project expenses from the funds left over in the bank. The end result of all of MUFON’s efforts when the project was terminated in January 2010 was zero dollars in MUFON’s project bank account. 

Even before I resigned from MUFON, rumors were spreading around the organization and the Internet that I had embezzled money from MUFON and from BAASS funds. The truth is that I had not taken one dollar from either fund as confirmed by an independent CPA audit of the MUFON and BAASS books. Further, I had donated my $30,000.00 salary that I was authorized to draw from the BAASS project back to MUFON. BAASS suspected wrong doing before this independent audit, probably based upon the spreading rumors and demanded that MUFON Board member Jan Harzan turn over both sets of books to BAASS auditors. 

Now, let’s examine this second incredible lapse of ethical judgment on behalf of the MUFON Board. They secretly turned over the financial books of a non-profit organization to a for-profit organization which had no right to audit MUFON’s accounts. Conveniently BAASS subsequently found clerical mistakes that it used to justify reneging on its contractual obligations under the law. 

It was also around this time that the MUFON Board of Directors entered into secret negotiations with BAASS for renewing the contract, promising BAASS “complete transparency” while hiding their actions from me while I was still acting International Director. In 2008, MUFON suffered a financial loss at its annual symposium in San Jose, California and I personally made up for the shortfall with $14,000.00 of my own funds. During the MUFON-BAASS project, the MUFON Board directed me to reimburse myself the $14,000.00 from BAASS project funds! I did not for two reasons. First this would have been a misuse of BAASS funds and secondly I had already paid income taxes on the $14,000.00 MUFON owed me and the only way to hide these payments from BAASS auditors was to show it as salaried income. Later on after I resigned from MUFON, Clifford Clift in an email to me alluded that failing to reimburse myself from BAASS funds was insubordinate behavior against the MUFON Board. In other words I was disobeying the Board by not using BAASS project funds to cover MUFON’s shortfall. 

Just months earlier Clifford Clift when responding to BAASS inquiries into the rumored financial improprieties told BAASS that the MUFON Board was sorry for providing poor oversight of how I administered the BAASS project. Clifford conveniently forgot to mention the Board’s directive to me to draw funds from the BAASS account to pay for non-project expenses. The hypocrisy of this Board appears to have no bounds. MUFON finally paid me the money I lent the organization but only after I had my attorney intervene and threaten legal action. All of these allegations of unethical behavior I make against the MUFON Board I can back up with detailed memos, MUFON Board meeting minutes, letters and emails. I dedicated ten years and thousands of hours to MUFON as an unpaid volunteer and almost four years as a salaried International Director. I worked hard to professionalize its investigative force and to fulfill its mission to the public.

The people within the ranks of MUFON are good people who also volunteer their time and own financial resources to meet MUFON's goals. I still believe that the mission statement of MUFON is sound if rigidly adhered to and not compromised for the almighty dollar. I don't wish MUFON to cease operation or to fade away, but an organization is only as sound as its ethical and moral compass. Once that compass is broken, it is a ship drifting aimlessly. 

The actions of this current MUFON Board are grossly negligent and unethical and if allowed to continue unchallenged will sink MUFON as an organization. The Board should be held accountable for its past actions. Setting an ethics committee on MUFON members while taking a blind eye to its own unethical behavior is what makes this MUFON Board destructive and toxic to MUFON. Perhaps the MUFON Board needs to be reminded of who it really serves as a non-profit. Hint, it is not a for-profit organization.

All Future Updates Will Be Made to My New Blog Only

You can find the new blog at: http://historydeceived.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/blog-post.html#more

Hunting the Skinwalker

It was after uncovering some disturbing information about the Skinwalker Ranch owned by Robert Bigelow that I began to have doubts about the real purpose behind the MUFON-BAASS project. Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) is an aerospace company allegedly involved in discovering novel and cutting edge space technologies and contracted MUFON in 2009 to perform UFO investigations on its behalf. In the following email to the MUFON Board of Directors, I summarized my research findings and my misgivings about any further relationship with BAASS.

Note that this email has been modified to remove identifying information about the confidential source here called Brad Newton who is still under a non-disclosure agreement from his work with the now defunct National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), also an organization founded by Robert Bigelow.

CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT FORWARD – FOR MUFON BOARD ONLY – HIGHLY SENSITIVE

Gentlemen,

Since taking on the MUFON International Director position, I have been in observation mode trying to understand the true nature of the UFO phenomenon. In 2007 I personally financed a “meeting of the minds” in Fort Collins to try and gain insight into what the status quo was in Ufology. I have personally investigated high level cases such as Kinross and the California Drones and have found myself on the receiving end of a constant flow of disinformation.  What I have observed over the last three years seriously disturbs me.

It is my belief that there are forces at work here that “manage” Ufology for their own purposes. When an organization like MUFON starts to operate outside of the box “they” intend to keep us in, then these controlling forces move in to tighten their grip. Case in point is MUFON’s relationship with BAASS. Although John (Schuessler) knows who BAASS’ sponsors are, I am no longer comfortable with the MUFON-BAASS relationship. Let me explain in detail.

Just last month, I financed my own trip to Utah with Dr. Frank Salisbury who was looking to republish his book “The Utah UFO Display” and was looking for new material to add. Since the book covered the Uintah Basin in North East Utah where the Bigelow Skinwalker Ranch is located, Salisbury sought and was denied access to the Ranch. I also asked and was denied access. Instead, we spent our time interviewing new witnesses around the Ranch. Our contact person was Brad Newton (real name withheld) who has researched the area for many years. What I learned from Brad is what has led to the doubts I now harbor.

Brad worked with NIDS on the ranch and mentioned that after an alleged sighting, metal rods were found on the ranch that were sent to NIDS for analysis. Brad was in contact with a NIDS scientist who informed him that the rods were made from Element 115 and did not originate on earth, and that he (the scientist) had worked at Area 51 on a reverse engineering project where they had accumulated 300 pounds of this material. This in a nutshell is the Bob Lazar story.

Through Dr. Salisbury, we were able to interview the brother of the original owner of the ranch who sold it to the Shermans who subsequently sold it to Bigelow. The ranch owner’s brother was adamant that there was no UFO or strange activity on the ranch prior to the Sherman’s purchase, contrary to what was discussed in the Skinwalker Book and that he (the owner’s brother) had personally received a call from Bigelow trying to convince him otherwise. I found this to be extremely odd and disturbing. I also subsequently learned of a business relationship between Lazar and Bigelow (documented in the MUFON archives).

What I see in the MUFON-BAASS relationship is active management of MUFON’s work, despite assurances from BAASS otherwise. By carefully controlling the purse strings with each contract evaluation period, they are ensuring they receive a constant flow of information from MUFON while also making sure that MUFON does not end up with operational funding to stabilize its long term financial well being. Who’s on the receiving end of this information? Since that will not be disclosed to MUFON, I cannot state for sure, but I don’t feel confident that the information is being used for what MUFON was originally informed.

If you were able to listen to my speech at the Symposium or read my paper in the Proceedings or read my blog, then you know where I stand on the active management and control of information on the part of governmental or quasi governmental forces in our work. Conspiracy theory? Yes. Plausible? Yes.

MUFON has an obligation to the public to fulfill its mission. I for one believe that we cannot adequately do so as long as we are actively managed, nor can I in good faith stand by while this is happening. Those are my personal feeling however and as such I don’t want to speak for the organization when making the decision to renew or terminate our contract with BAASS. I leave it to the Board for a decision on this.

I have already stated my decision to step down as the International Director, and in large part my decision has been based on my research. I will continue to work within MUFON and for MUFON’s long term viability, but I will not stand by and be managed. My time will be better spent actively uncovering the trail left by the forces of disinformation and my efforts focused on uncovering the truth. In the end that is all that is important.

Sincerely,

James

John Schuessler responded with the following email:

James,

I am concerned for you if you are basing decisions on what Brad has said.  It is not my intent to argue the point, but the whole Element 115 thing is pure bunk.  Don't take my word for it, just ask any scientist. Both CSICOP scientists and MUFON scientists like Stanton Friedman have thoroughly debunked Lazar's Element 115 story.  If you could get Element 115 (or Elements 114 and 116) to be stable enough to make them into rods, they would make extremely heavy rods.  I can find no one except Bob Lazar and now Brad that believes there are Element 115 rods anywhere, let alone dumping them out on the ground in an uncontrolled environment on a ranch in Utah.

As for the rods found on the Skinwalker Ranch, I was on the NIDS Scientific Advisory Board back in those days and can verify that rods were found.  They were not heavy Element 115 rods.  Instead, they were thin carbon rods that are used in arc lamps to make very bright lights in field operations.  I have personally used this type of rods in arc lamp operations many years ago.

John

My email response to John follows:

Hi John,

That is my point exactly. Lazar and element 115 are bunk but it appears to me that the NIDS scientist was promoting it to Brad. Why? I found Brad to be honest in his demeanor and he is held in high esteem by everyone we came into contact with including many of the witnesses we interviewed. Brad has no motive for promoting the Bob Lazar story but it was communicated to him nonetheless.

Actually, it was the former ranch owner’s brother’s assertions that cemented for me that something is amiss. The Skinwalker ranch story did not play out as described in the book and that coupled with us being denied access does not add up for me.

I can only conclude that BAASS is at someone else’s beck and call. The Board does not need to agree with me on this, which is why I am leaving the contract renewal response to the Board.

Best wishes,

James

It was after this email exchange that the MUFON Board bypassed me as acting MUFON International Director and secretly engaged BAASS in renegotiating the MUFON-BAASS contract while purposely keeping me out of the loop. As you can see from the email exchange, this secretive communication was altogether unnecessary because I deferred to the majority decision of the MUFON Board.

Unethical behavior on the part of the MUFON Board aside, the following questions still beg for answers: What is really happening at the Skinwalker Ranch and why are serious investigators being denied access? Why was a NIDS scientist pushing the Bob Lazar story which is a known farce? Why does the book “Hunt for the Skinwalker” describe paranormal activity present on the ranch prior to the Shermans purchasing it when a close surviving relative of the former owner denies such activity? Why is the truth about activities on the ranch being censored through non-disclosure agreements?

It appears that once again in Ufology there are more questions than answers; common fare for a field where the waters are muddied but never cleared. If you consider yourself a truth seeker then perhaps it is time to take a stand against these forces of ambiguity that seek only to obscure the truth rather than bring it to light. It is time to promote truth and not mystery in a field that has too many mysteries already. It is time to reveal the truth by not compromising ethics or principles or by allowing truth to be censored. It is time to stop falling prey to fear and lies but instead to hunt the Skinwalker forces of deception in their own territory. Who is up for a hunting trip?