Documents / Official release
This Clinton Presidential Library file (NSC Records Management, record 9506127) holds 1995 correspondence from Steven M. Greer and his Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) asking President Clinton to meet with them and to issue an executive order declassifying UFO materials and releasing witnesses from their security oaths. It includes the Project Starlight Coalition letter of June 4, 1995, a list of 35 enclosed documents, CSETI strategy papers and biographies, and a White House reply of August 3, 1995 that forwarded the meeting request.
“Cooper”15 pages
7 However, for argument sake, let us state that all of the evidence available to us in the civilian domain constitutes only a 10% probability of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Does this not constitute adequate evidence to initiate a serious scientific and diplomatic mission? Certainly in medicine a 10% probability of finding a cure for cancer would warrant an all out effort in the cancer research community. For it is generally true that when the stakes _.are_yery high, the probability of success need not be, prior to initiating a research project. Without question, the stakes are so high in this area that even a 10% probability is adequate to mount one of the most extensive worldwide research initiatives in history. This question, however, is not limited to the realm of science alone, for as soon as one makes the assessment, however tentative, that we are being visited by advanced extraterrestrial life forms, the larger question of interplanetary (and inter-species) relations becomes preeminent. This is, then, the ultimate diplomatic challenge. And to find our common ground with intelligent life forms which are not even human may prove to be the most extraordinary task humanity has ever faced. For witness how difficult it has been for humanity to come together in peace among the diverse peoples of the world. Notwithstanding the fact that we are all human, living on the one homeland called earth, yet wars, prejudices and enmity have repeatedly submerged the world into chaos and destruction. As the world moves, in fits and starts, towards a true world civilization, and the people of the world increasingly realize their essential unity as humans, the potential for increasingly open contact between humans and other intelligent life-forms is likely to increase exponentially. However, before we can entertain this concept, we must first ask ourselves some basic questions: ■ What global developments must occur before full open contact can take place? ■ How will communication occur, and what should be communicated? ■ Prior to full, open contact, what form of contact and communication is possible, in a pioneering or preliminary framework? ■ And most importantly, what are the fundamental points of unity between humans and other intelligent life forms in the universe? What is our universal common ground? Regarding this last question, we cannot assume that extraterrestrial life forms who are thinking, sentient beings, and who by definition have evolved under conditions different from those on earth, are likely to be much like humans, at least superficially. Their level of intelligence, fund of knowledge, emotional nature, social and political structures, ethical, moral and religious systems-and more-are likely to be quite different from that of humans. We must therefore find a deeper point of unity, what I call our highest common denominator. This consideration, however abstract it may seem to some, is really central to establishing a sense of common ground between intelligent species And without common ground, we can have no relationship.
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 105 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.