Documents / FOIA release

UFOsandUAPs ADA034236

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 25 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a technical report by Thomas E. Bearden, a research scientist with an MS in nuclear engineering, dated January 3, 1977. Bearden submitted it to the Defense Documentation Center under a cover letter and it is approved for public release. The report divides the evolution of life into seven stages and argues that humanity must avoid self-destruction by technologically linking all human brains into a single superbeing. It claims UFO phenomena are consistent with a sixth-stage superbeing preparing humanity for that linkage.

Foreword
In 1976 several events occurred which may yet significantly influence the
progress of science, scientific procedure, and the content of science. First,
Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States --and so in 19/7 the
u.s. will have as its president a nuclear engineer/farmer who has personally seen
an umdentified flying object in the presence of multiple witnes~es, and who
accordingly can vouch for the fact that it is not kooks, fraudg, and charlatans who
are seeing unusual and paranormal phenomena in the skies, but ordinary, sober,
intelligent, levelheaded citizens of stable mind and mien. Further, he is himself
sufficiently qualified in scientific discipline to recognize that what he saw was beyond
the pale of ortiin..2ry phenomena and present-day scientific knowledge. And in an
interview with the National Enquirer prior to his election, Candidate Carter stated
that should he be elected he would order the release of all governmental information
on UFO' s. Serond, the slightly sanitized Project Bluebook files were released by
the u.s. Government. At this writing, leading UFO researchers-- such as Dr. Allen
Hynek --are poring through this mass of information, and digest articles of th6
pertinent features of Project Bluebook investigation and information can be expected
shortly. Even though the methodology used in the Project's invost1gations left a great
deal to be desired, the material does constitute a goldmine that will contain some
infonnation difficult to refute, Third, very quietly and without fanfare, much of the
restriction formerly placed on U.PO sightings has apparently been lifted. The North
American Air Defense Command, e,g,, confirmed for the first time publicly that its
radars had tracked UFO's for several hours and jet interceptors had bt1en scrambled to
attempt to intercept the objects themselves. Fourth, other prominent Americans
continued to reveal either their own sightings of UFO's or their direct personal
knowledge of sightings by NASA and the Ann '3d Forces; e.g., Walter Cronkite
reported in an interview by the National Enquirer that during his coverag,:! of NASA
space operations, the astronauts had sighted UFO' s and reported the sightings
in their communications which he, Walter Cronkite, waf: monitoring.
Thus it appears probable that those dogmatic critics who have unreasoningly
blocked scientilic investigation of UFO phenomena will at long lasi be mut0d --and
h0pefully even muzzled --during 1977. In any strange new area of scientific
endeavor, three stages are met: (1) the "snicker" stage, when guffaws and horselaughs
greet the awkward and faltering attempts to initially come to grips with the problem,
(2) the begrudging acceptance stage, when the evidence has become so overwhelming
that no s;.. le person can any longer ignore it, and (3) the nonchalant stage, when the
attitude communicated is "Of course we knew all about that all along!" So after
some thirty years of the snicker stage, there is finally hopC:l that we are at least
beginning to move toward the stage of begrudging acceptance.
And there is very real reason for excitement at this slow progress toward
lessening the implaccable opposition of scientific mane• ~mont ·· -, the study of UFO
phenomena. What is being exhibited in this worldwi'l. r' -- -~ ...:tton is something
totally beyond our present sci.entific knowledge. For tt •. nr:;t 25 years of study on
the phenomenon, most "respectable" UFO researchers ._,._., re either knowingly or
unknowing!~' engdged in an attempt to prove that the phenomeHa were due to contacts
with advanced extraterrestrial scientific cultures. And consciously or unconsciously,
i.

Cases discussed

About this file

FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 25 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.