MEDIA
"I had started out as an outright "debunker," taking great joy in cracking what seemed at first to be puzzling cases. I was the arch enemy of those "flying saucer groups and enthusiasts" who very dearly wanted UFOs to be interplanetary. My own knowledge of those groups came almost entirely from what I heard from Blue Book personnel: they were all "crackpots and visionaries."
My transformation was gradual but by the late sixties it was complete. Today I would not spend one further moment on the subject of UFOs if I didn't seriously feel that the UFO phenomenon is real and that efforts to investigate and understand it, and eventually to solve it, could have a profound effect - perhaps even be the springboard to a revolution in mankind's outlook on the universe."
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, 1977
Professor of Astronomy at Northwestern University and technical consultant to the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book for two decades.
Background
According to science journalist Terry Hansen, elements of the U.S. government, using standard methods of censorship and propaganda, as well as covert ties to well-known news organizations, have attempted to hide the existence and activities of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) from the American public. Hansen explores the reasons for the sharp and persistent difference between regional and national news coverage of UFO incidents a full half-century after the controversy began. To shed light on the relationship between the elite news organizations and the U.S. government during the UFO crisis, he also leaves the subject of UFOs and reviews the history of media-government interaction over the course of the 20th century.
This analysis can be found in Hansen's 2000 book The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up. For summaries and excerpts, go to http://www.themissingtimes.com.
Incident at O'Hare Airport
Leslie Kean's detailed report published in June, 2007 by the International UFO Reporter (IUR), the journal of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, Volume 31, Number 2. This is an expanded version of her pieces published earlier by the Providence Jounal and the Sacramento Bee (see below). Reproduced with permission of IUR,www.cufos.org/index.html
Report of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and its Safety Implications at O'Hare International Airport on November 7, 2006
The definitive, scientific report on this event by Dr. Richard Haines and other NARCAP staff. See www.NARCAP.org.
News Stories
NOTE: Many more press articles specific to the work of CFi can be found in Campaign News. This is a collection of serious stories about the UFO issue in general.
Former Arizona Governor now admits seeing UFO
Fife Symington decides to set record straight ten years after famed "Phoenix Lights" incident
Full exclusive, news-breaking story by Leslie Kean, March 18, 2007; shorter version appeared in the Arizona Daily Courier
Symington confirms he saw UFO 10 years ago
The Daily Courier, March 18, 2007
by Leslie Kean
Former Arizona governor says he saw ‘Phoenix Lights’ UFO
American Chronicle, March 18, 2007
by Steve Hammons
CNN Transcript of interview with Governor Symington
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, March 21, 2007
Unsettling unidentified incursion at O'Hare NEW
Providence Journal, Feb. 25, 2007
by Leslie Kean
Just what was that object hovering overhead at O'Hare?
Scripps-Howard News Service, Feb. 26, 2007
by Leslie Kean
For many at O'Hare it was a UFO, for the FAA a 'hole-punch cloud'
Sacramento Bee, Feb. 25, 2007
by Leslie Kean
In the Sky! A bird? A plane? A...UFO?
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 1, 2007
by Jon Hilkevitch
Note: This front page story about the UFO incident at O'Hare Airport generated over a million hits on Chicagotribune.com - more than any other story in the newspaper's history.
"Fighting The Fear Factor"
Local scientists are quietly working to give UFO sightings a measured look and lend
legitimacy to those who spot them
San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 12, 2003
by Rick Del Vecchio
"A Trip as Far Away as Space-Time Will Allow"
Scientists contemplate ideas, impossibilities of interstellar transit
Washington Post, Nov. 18, 2002
by Guy Gugliotta
"A New View of Our Universe: Only One of Many"
New York Times, Oct. 29, 2002
by Dennis Overbye
"'Physicists' Antimatter Recipe is More Sci Than Fi"
New York Times, Sept. 19, 2002
by Dennis Overbye
"UFO Reported in Area Again, After 50 Years"
Washington Times, Aug. 7, 2002
by Stephanie Casle
"F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region"
Washington Post, July 26, 2002
by Steve Vogel
"Alien Armada!"
50 years ago, unidentified flying objects from way beyond the beltway seized the capital's
imagination
Washington Post, July 21, 2002
by Peter Carlson
"UFO Shuts Down Russian Airport"
Agence France Presse, Jan. 27, 2001
"UFO Theorists Gain Support Abroad, But Repression at Home"
Study by French officials, routine unexplained sightings, US military safety aspects
continue to boost believers
Boston Globe & New York Times Wire Service, May 21, 2000
by Leslie Kean
The above story in the Boston Globe included this 1971 photograph of an
unidentified, opaque, aerial object with no visible means of propulsion. The
photo also appeared on the cover of the French publication of the COMETA
report. The image was captured by a mapping aircraft of the government of
Costa Rica, flying above the object. The camera ran automatically under the
fuselage, shooting the terrain every 17 seconds. The disc only appeared in
one frame. Click on image for full picture and details
"Folks Know Truth Is Out There, but Flying Object Is Still Unidentified"
Los Angeles Times, Jan. 18, 2000
by Sstephanie Simon
"UFO Sighting Brings Media Attention, Investigative Team to Southern Illinois"
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan 12, 2000
by Heather Ratcliffe
"What were those lights in the Phoenix sky? Researchers still sorting out hundreds of witness accounts"
CNN, June 19, 1997
"Arizonans say the truth about UFO is out there"
USA Today, June 18, 1997
by Richard Price
Radio and TV
"WTOP Radio and Fox News Transcripts"
Reports of unidentified flying object over Washington DC area, July 26, 2002
Earlier Press Clippings
"UFO Files: The Untold Story"
by Patrick Huyghe
New York Times Magazine, October 14, 1979
