“After being informed at Parkland Hospital that Kennedy was dead,” Gillon writes, “Johnson raced back to Air Force One, where he waited for Mrs. Kennedy and the body of the slain president, and made preparations to take the Oath of Office.” Meanwhile, the widowed first lady waited on board the plane, desperate to leave. Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh had been Kennedy’s military aide on the fateful Dallas trip, and interacted with Mrs. Kennedy on board the plane, and at her request, tried to find out why the plane couldn’t leave immediately. According to a newly declassified oral history McHugh has released, certain claims made about Lyndon Johnson’s behavior in the wake of the assassination are startling at best.

After being told “the President wanted to remain in the area,” McHugh says he went throughout the plane in search of Johnson, if he was indeed on board Air Force One at the time. “I walked in the toilet, in the powder room, and there he was hiding, with the curtain closed… hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing.” Johnson frantically warned McHugh “They’re going to get us all. It’s a plot. It’s a plot. It’s going to get us all.’”

Interestingly, McHugh had apparently discussed this incident at another time. Gillon recalls, “I soon discovered that McHugh had told a similar story when he spoke by phone with Mark Flanagan, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations.” In the interview with Flanagan—which took place only one week before he sat down with the Kennedy Library in May 1978—McHugh had then recounted his difficulty finding Johnson on the plane “but finally discovered him alone,” as written in Flanagan’s summary to the Committee. Flanagan’s notes go on to state that General McHugh had found Johnson “hiding in the toilet in the bedroom compartment and muttering, ‘Conspiracy, conspiracy, they’re after all of us.’”

Does this admission that McHugh speaks of lend weight to theories implicating LBJ in an assassination conspiracy? Is there enough evidence to support the claims, and if so, what could their implications be? Perhaps another piece of the mystery to what is arguably the greatest conspiracy to ever erupt in American politics will continue to capture the public imagination, just as it has for so many decades already.

The data gained from the satellite, which NASA plans to use to help determine if there is water on the moon, will not be immediately available for review by scientists. Nonetheless, Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission, told news sources today that “We have the data we need to actually address the questions we set out to address.”

Elsewhere, stranger questions are erupting with regard to a video depicting a recent controversial Iranian missile launch. According to sources, the video seems to have captured other, more inexplicable items of controversy. Having initially aired on Fox News, the clip is now being touted by UK tabloid The Sun as evidence of UFO craft in the vicinity, as evidenced by the strange severing of a cloud bank adjacent to the missile’s flight path (see video below):

British ufologist Nick Pope was interviewed for the Sun article, who suggested an alternative. “One theory is that it’s a secret American drone. At any time there are prototype aircraft and drones being operated that won’t be shown in public for years. Stealth aircraft flew for many years before their existence was acknowledged, but the speed and acceleration seems phenomenal. I’m not convinced we’ve got anything capable of such manoeuvres.”

Though Pope suggests the object filmed over Iranian airspace may have been man-made, a famous incident in 1976 involved a radar and visual sighting of a UFO over Tehran, the capital of Iran, during the early morning hours of September 19. Several electromagnetic interference anomalies were observed on aircraft in close proximity to the object, with one suffering temporary weapons systems failure while preparing to open fire. The incident is well-documented in an U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report submitted to the White House, Secretary of State, Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Agency, and CIA. In the years since the incident, a number of high-ranking Iranian military officers directly involved with the incident have also gone on public record stating their belief that the object was not terrestrial in origin.

Reports of UFOs intercepting missiles, as well as circumventing tests with nuclear weapons, are prolific, having even been reported by legendary news commentator Walter Cronkite. In his book UFOs and Nukes, author Robert Hastings has detailed a number of these incidents as verified by US intelligence officials. Having happened once before over Tehran, could the recent Iranian incident mark the appearance of yet another UFO craft prepared to “strike” if necessary?

On the other hand, if it were a US military drone, it may be in keeping with a variety of other operations taking place abroad. For instance, last month US President Barack Obama’s administration presented a plan to replace an older plan backed by his predecessor, George W. Bush, that would have placed missile defence facilities in eastern Europe. The news prompted outcry from Russian Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov, who stated “We would like to receive full clarification” regarding the plan.

One recent US report suggested that the United States might include Ukraine in its missile defense plan also. Defense News reported Thursday that Washington may possibly consider Ukraine as part of its new anti-missile program, adding the ex-Soviet country to its list of potential early warning sites. Lavrov called this move “rather unexpected.” Does activity throughout parts of eastern Europe lend to the possibility that US forces are monitoring missile activity in Iran also? Or, is the strange movement seen in the clouds in the video above evidence some kind of extraterrestrial craft?

For instance, today marks the day Dr. Stephen Greer will present a lecture to students and the general public at a University in Asheville, North Carolina, which is much anticipated here in my community. With all the whispers making the rounds about various political figures and their involvement with “911 Truth” websites, I find particular interest in the notion that Greer’s lecture happened to be scheduled for this weekend, and can’t help but wonder if he’ll have any insights regarding the most terrible American tragedy. According to some, UFO documents aren’t the only information being withheld by intelligence agencies, and regardless of one’s personal perspectives of the matter, the notion that some seek “disclosure” applies to a web of silence and misdirection that extends far beyond aliens and UFOs; if anything, they are only one piece of the puzzle.

Enough time seems to have passed by now… people have learned to breathe again. Nonetheless, a Post-911 America–as some call it–is certainly a different world from what it may have been had the terrorist attacks never occurred. This, we all wish, seems to be the general consensus: that it all could have been prevented. History, however, can’t be changed… it can only be re-written. In spite of the tragedy, are there still a few ways we are better for it? Does our heightened awareness of the dangers we face prevent us somewhat of becoming apathetic to legitimate concerns? It seems so; post 9-11 America has seen the publication of books like my pal Bill Forstchen’s One Second After, and although Bill’s book is fiction, it nonetheless serves as a grim reminder of what pure chaos might feel like.

For a few days back in 2001, I think most of us had a brief taste of it.

More synchronicity: today I received Nick Redfern’s new book Science Fiction Secrets from Patrick Huyghe at Anomalist Books. In a chapter simply titled 9-11, Redfern describes how an offshoot of the popular X-Files program called The Lone Gunmen featured in its first televised episode a strangely familiar scenario: a hacker managed to take control of a Boeing 727 from its departure point in Boston, directing it straight for one of the Twin Towers. The show outlined the reason for the attacks as being intended to increase the US military defense budget by blaming the attack on foreign dictators. Indeed, this does sound strange, right down to the similarities between conspiratorial views of the 9-11 disaster; strangely, The Lone Gunmen episode aired six months prior to the September 11 2001 attacks.

“I woke up on September 11 and saw it on TV and the first thing I thought of was The Lone Gunmen” said one of the show’s executive producers, Frank Spotnitz. Many others have drawn the same parallel, causing us to consider if this indeed was strange synchronicity, life imitating art, or something far more serious?

Fitting that brother Redfern’s book arrived today of all days; it serves as a fitting reminder, and readers might be able to discern that I’m a bit reflective now, especially from my apparent wrambling on the subject (”w” is intentional in this misspelling, as it denotes written rambling).

I can’t imagine a better time to be reminded of something we should never forget.

China and Russia have both spoken out in the past regarding the removal of the US dollar from its place as the international standard monetary unit. However, the report suggests proposals that would encourage such surplus nations to stimulate their economies and cut their own imbalances; the present system has deficit nations such as the UK and US taking the main burden of readjustment.

Back in 1984 (a pivotal year of dark significance for Orwellian scholars), Iowa statesman and American political activist Donald Kimball wrote in his book The Money and the Power that “The real money of mankind has come to have certain true qualities. Those are that any money that will have any lasting worth to man’s economic existence must have the three essential qualities that are a store of value, a standard of measure and a medium of exchange. When money does not have, or ceases to retain, those three qualities it will no longer serve its true purpose.” Kimball warned that, with time, “the pure purpose of money became distorted.” As opposed being a unit of currency with precious metals in reserve to back its actual worth, a flippant fiat system was put in place, allowing the mass production of currency as needed, with no actual worth behind it. Remaining a deficit nation, all the while shouldering the financial burden for so many countries that are fiscally considered “surplus nations”, has cause the US to take the brunt of the economic discourse that has led to the worst global economic crisis in ages… and it only seems to be getting worse.

Nonetheless, modern conspiracy theorists may read this headline and suppose that measures to shift global currency standards are another step toward the ultimate goal: establishment of a one-world-government. Is there a vast international conspiracy at work here, or is the faltering American dollar’s present state a product of its use (or misuse) over the last several decades? What do you think?

A complete transcript can also be viewed here.

In this piece, Hannity asserts that little evidence exists as proof of UFOs, save people’s own beliefs, which he says “are pretty much all the proof that they have”, and that most UFOs can be explained easily or are simply “random, unrepeatable occurrences.” Hannity also points out that “the government has not officially examined UFO sightings since 1969,” when the famous Project Blue Book ended. Established in the wake of the 1947 crash near Roswell, New Mexico, Hannity states that “the government says (the Roswell UFO) was a weather balloon, but conspiracy theorists, well, they still claim it was an alien spacecraft.”

True, Project Blue Book was the last officially recognized government program that publicly discussed and dealt with UFOs. However, during the 1980s there were many events that began to indicate that government involvement had hardly ended with Blue Book, thanks to the use of Freedom of Information requests filed with various agencies of the federal government. Although the Robertson Panel Review on UFOs (officially disclosed years later) ended in early 1953, evidence suggests that the CIA has maintained interest the subject, having published a secret monograph on the “Investigation of UFOs” in 1961.

This all appears to be in accordance with what Hannity points out: that the government hasn’t officially looked into UFOs since 1969. However, In 1956 retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe founded a civilian group called the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). By 1969 (which coincides with the end of Project Bluebook) Keyhoe had begun to focus on the CIA as being “the source of the UFO cover up”. NICAP’s board was headed by Colonel Jospeph Bryan III—incidentally, a former covert CIA agent who served as founder of the agency’s psychological warfare division—who also later forced Keyhoe to retire as NICAP chief. Taking over in place of Keyhoe, Bryan disbanded NICAP and its local and state affiliate groups. By 1973 it had been completely closed.

Although NICAP was a civilian agency, it is believed that CIA activities may have influenced the disbanding of the group. If indeed the CIA had felt that UFOs might be an issue of national security (thus legitimizing the cover-up many were discussing at the time), does this also indicate that the CIA had continued studying the phenomenon? Whatever the case, this may indicate that government involvement was indeed feasible around 1973, when NICAP was disbanded.

Later in 1983, Air Force Intelligence established a joint UFO research project with help from Army Intelligence and General Pfauz of the Defense Intelligence Agency. However, Pfauz failed in being selected as the next director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, prompting his retirement in 1985, and thus closing work on the joint UFO task force. The following year, the North American NORAD radar fence was triggered by something described as performing “impossible maneuvers”, spanning the entire United States as it traveled. Resulting from this, the UFO Working Group was convened under the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1987. This organization intended to review all previous government research into UFOs, as well as perform ongoing investigations. Interestingly, government intelligence agencies that included the CIA were brought in to assist with the group’s activities, but as independent UFO researcher Burt Webb points out, “nothing conclusive has been reported.” Could the involvement of such intelligence agencies have led to the suppression of information, or is it simply that there is so much to review that disclosing information about UFOs to the public, at present, just wouldn’t serve “the greater good” in the minds of government agencies?

Whatever the real circumstances may be, one thing seems pretty obvious; though “official committees” may not have continued to probe the UFO enigma, government involvement has never really ended. That being the case, how much water is held by Mr. Hannity’s assertion that most UFOs “can easily be explained away and seem to be random, unrepeatable occurrences”? If this were the case, would so many individuals with histories working with government agencies put their reputations at stake by involving themselves with UFO research? Quite frankly, it seems that there is a good bit more going on here, Sean.

The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

Evidence used to support this survey included research by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which indicated

• A drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968
• Satellite photos indicating a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72 (observed by George Kukla of Columbia University)
• And a study released in March of 1975 by NOAA scientists, which noted that “the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972”

As ridiculous as many would assert claims of “global cooling” are in the world of today, there are nonetheless proponents of this, as well as those who think that factors outside of industrial emissions of CO2 gasses might be to blame for climate change on Earth; namely our sun.

On July 20, the New York Times reported “Among some global warming skeptics, there is speculation that the Sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that coincided with an extended chilly period.” In fact, many skeptics say it’s no coincidence that increases in sunspot activity and global temperatures on Earth are happening in accordance with one another. Some even warn that regulation of carbon emissions may have negative ramifications for our economy and energy infrastructure if proven wrong years from now, once dollars are poured into stopping a non-existent threat.

“Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity,” editors with E Magazine recently told The Christian Science Monitor. “And they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies to back up that claim.”

For instance, solar astronomer Peter Foukal has tracked sunspot activity dating back four centuries, and also concludes that such solar disturbances have little or no impact on global warming. “Nevertheless,” he adds, “most up-to-date climate models incorporate the effects of the sun’s variable degree of brightness into their overall calculations.” But does this indicate conclusively that the sun isn’t playing a key role in temperature changes? After all, NASA has observed an almost frighteningly “quiet” solar surface beginning in early 2009, which continues at present.

Though conclusive evidence that removes the sun from question regarding global warming has yet to be produced, elsewhere, other sources for potential warming have been examined. Such research may indicate that even if the sun isn’t the culprit, CO2 emissions may not be the key factor in climate change either, with fingers pointing at things like soot instead. Science reported earlier this month that satellite data shows the assumed cooling effect of aerosols in the atmosphere to be significantly less than previously estimated. “Unfortunately, the assumed greater cooling has been used in climate models for years. In such models, the global-mean warming is determined by the balance of the radiative forcings—warming by greenhouse gases balanced against cooling by aerosols. Since a greater cooling effect has been used in climate models, the result has been to credit CO2 with a larger warming effect than it really has,” Doug Hoffman writes at the website The Resilient Earth.

Whether or not CO2 is the culprit, we can’t ignore that fact that global climate changes of the same magnitude we are presently witnessing have occurred in the past. Nicholas Asheshov wrote in his article “Opportunity Knocks, Again, in the Andes” about a recent study titled Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context by Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an English paleo-biologist working for the French Institute of Andean Studies, in Lima. Chepstow-Lusty found evidence in core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere, which “have built up a history of the world’s climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.” Interestingly enough, he cites these global changes as conducive to the rise of the Inca Empire, whose rise to power in the region coincided with the temperature increases.

If one cares to look, it appears that a wealth of information exists which seems to indicate that global warming—and cooling—have occurred in Earth’s past. But does that mean that current preoccupation with CO2 emissions, greenhouse gases, and other causes for climate change are the result of too much bias in research, or even worse, the product of negligence? Could it even be that “powers that be” influence what research takes place in order to fuel political conspiracies, regardless as to what kinds of evidence more balanced studies might provide?

“There doesn’t necessarily need to be a conspiracy,” writes Joanne Nova in her article “Climate Money”. “It doesn’t require any centrally coordinated deceit or covert instructions to operate. Instead it’s the lack of funding for the alternatives that leaves a vacuum and creates a systemic failure. The force of monopolistic funding works like a ratchet mechanism on science. Results can move in both directions, but the funding means that only results from one side of the equation get traction.“ Perhaps the evidence is out there, but rather than being purposely ignored, we haven’t gotten a clear view of it due to such disproportional allocation of available funds.

What if proponents of climate change, as we presently understand it, are wrong? If this were the case, will we be able to reconcile our present faults in understanding years on down the road… and perhaps more importantly, will we be able to afford to do so after pumping billions into research today; research that many in the scientific community still question?

For further reading, the link below provides a wealth of information that both support and challenge the debate over climate change:

Climate Debate Daily

Though these instances provided a bit of food for Fortean thought, they pale in comparison to the number of Ufological references made in the first film. For instance, the initial teaser trailer depicted the famous loss of the Beagle 2 probe, a British landing craft sent to Mars by the European Space Agency in 2003. In reality, whether the Beagle 2 ever made it to the red planet is uncertain, as it mysteriously lost contact with the European Mars Express, six days before its scheduled entry into Mars’ atmosphere. In Transformers the event was explained as being the result of an “exo-skeletal-type” robot (apparently the popular Autobot character Bumblebee) encountering it after it successfully landed. The trailer detailed classified footage which “…transmitted approximately 13 seconds”, before the rover is crushed by the robot, initiating a cover-up by the film’s “Sector 7” organization, which fabricated the story that the probe had crashed.

Though this early teaser trailer for the film seemed to foreshadow a host of anomalous references that would be made in Transformers, in their article The Deep Politics of Hollywood: Close Encounters with the Pentagon, authors Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford allude to the kinds of the hoops Michael Bay and his crew may have been made to jump through regarding use of such material:

The original film’s script is loaded with UFOlogical references and laboured rhetoric absolving the U.S. military of complicity in what turns out to be a massive cover-up of alien visitations. The finger is pointed instead at the quasi-governmental ‘Sector 7’ which has been concealing its ‘Top Secret’ alien research for decades within “special access projects” – and all without the knowledge and consent of a shocked and concerned Secretary of Defense.

“The United States Air Force (USAF) provided Transformers director Michael Bay with hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars worth of state-of-the-art hardware for use in the 2007 movie, including the F-117 stealth fighter and – in its first ever Silver Screen appearance – the F-22 Raptor fighter. The DoD’s support for the Transformers sequel (2009) was no less enthusiastic as Bay was granted every benefit of the Pentagon’s coveted ‘full co-operation.’

When I saw the first film, I recall wondering why there weren’t more popular motifs involving UFOs used, considering the unique extraterrestrial elements already incorporated into the story. True, many conspiracy theories involve ways in which Hollywood has allegedly been used in the past to disseminate information about extraterrestrials, or to “condition” the public to the reality of UFO visitations. However, considering an alternative perspective, could it instead be that a lack of cooperation from various organizations, due to intended use of sensitive subject matter, might have led to some of these elements being excluded from films like the Transformers franchise?

However, OpEd News writer Brock Novak argues that, based on analysis comparing the incident to an earlier capture of a US Navy P-3 anti-submarine warfare plane, this incident could be viewed as nothing but intentional:

The extraordinary real impact and jeopardization of national security of the P3 episode was masked by the media hoopla of simply getting the plane back, after the Chinese spent weeks “de-engineering” all its sensitive technology and secured the technical know-how they wanted. That is, the proverbial horse was already out of the barn when the plane parts were ultimately returned to the U.S.. The U.S. would get this towed array back too but only after it was thoroughly analyzed and de-engineered by Chinese defense and technology scientists. In relation to the P3 technology compromise incident, a huge parallel exists here with this new incident, disturbingly (and wrongly) being downplayed as a simple “inadvertent encounter”.

Now, in addition to China’s desire to replace the dollar making news, the Chinese Ministry of Health is now pressing for regulations that would allow “only government-sanctioned medical institutions” to provide sex-related content on the internet, “and that all such sites will have to be approved by provincial-level health authorities.” This is being proposed in the wake of charges that Google has been promoting pornography on the web, claiming that the search engine is responsible for spreading “large amounts of pornographic, lewd and vulgar content, which is in serious violation of Chinese laws and regulations.”

With impending threats stemming from North Korea stating that they vow to launch a nuclear attack if provoked by the USA, is isn’t comforting to know that US technology is essentially being pilfered subversively by the Chinese every time we turn around, in addition to this bullying being pressed against web-based companies like Google. The old adage states, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” but in the case of our Eastern neighbors, it seems that what they can’t steal and capitalize on themselves, they simply attempt to shut down; whether it be currency, or search engines they blame for their recent mass-inaccessibility issues.

According to Michael Salla Ph.D., one of today’s leading exopolitical activists and a former faculty member at American University, a colleague of Angleton’s claiming to have been present at the burning sent it to Timothy Cooper, “a UFO researcher best known for his role in making public leaked MJ-12 documents” on June 23, 1999. Analysts are saying the burned document “is an original carbon with an Eagle watermark characteristic of government work, but so far forensic laboratories have been unable to trace it…. Although no (date) is given, its content directly suggests the month of September. The year is estimated to be in the early 1960s and is still under investigation.”

Salla writes that, “the burned document dates from the Kennedy era and has the characteristics of a government document. If its contents are accurate, it provides smoking gun evidence of a direct link between Kennedy’s efforts to gain access to UFO information and his assassination.” But what exactly was said in the document, and what does this suggest about Kennedy, UFOs, or secret organizations and committees like the infamous MJ-12? 

Before we get to the actual wording of the document, I should point out that it is already widely accepted, thanks to a variety of existing memorandums that have surfaced over the years, that Kennedy, as well as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, were both concerned that “various unknowns” (UFOs) might be mistaken for secret government craft employed by opposing nations, and could thus lead to nuclear war and jeopardize hopes of sharing a future joint space program. “Kennedy’s Memorandum to the Director of the CIA to share UFO files was relayed on to James Jesus Angleton,” Salla writes, who says that Angleton, at the time, controlled access to the nation’s most sensitive UFO files. In turn, Angleton responded to Kennedy’s memo by following a secret directive from CIA Director at the time, Allen W. Dulles, apparently designed with intent on ensuring “that under no circumstances would any U.S. President or his staff gain access to classified UFO files.”

Specifically, the document states, “As you must know, Lancer has made some inquiries regarding our activities which we cannot allow. Please submit your views no later than October. Your action to this matter is critical to the continuance of the group.” Today, “Lancer” is known to be a Secret Service code name Kennedy was given, and apparently Dulles (who authored the statement above) issued this memo to six other members of this “group”, believed to be MJ-12. Salla has noted that the document bears coding and other information indicating similarities to existing MJ-12 documentation.

This, of course, brings into the mix the infamous (and questionable) known Majestic-12 documents like the “Truman Letter” and “Cutler Memo”, purported to illustrate some of the activities of a above top-secret clearance organization involved in the study of extraterrestrials. These documents, which surfaced primarily during the 1980s, have long been regarded among Ufologists as proof that government programs were being used to try and obtain and disseminate information regarding UFOs to governing bodies. Therefore, could the new memo be an addition to the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding the Majestic 12 committee and secret UFO files stashed away by intelligence agencies?

The possibility always exists… but still, there also exists a wealth of evidence that purported MJ-12 documents are actually fakes. By following the link below, a complete listing of criticisms of both the Truman Letter and Cutler Memos can be viewed:

Briefing Document and the Truman Letter

Perhaps this new (well, new as of 1999, at least) document will provide more evidence to substantiate strange cover-ups that were occurring during the Kennedy years, and which presumably continue to this day. Whatever the circumstances, if indeed the present notion that the office of the President of the United States is not able to obtain clearance for information regarding UFOs, the document described here certainly supports that premise. Again, one must ask that if a world leader of Presidential stature can’t obtain such information, who can?