Disclosure 2021

The Ticking Clock of Disclosure

UFO activists are amped up by both an imminent “60 Minutes” story and the upcoming UAP report being written for the Senate. Is Disclosure on?

The feeling in UFO circles these days is like hearing a billion cicadas on close approach and having to shout to be heard above the buzz. Things seem to be going public in bold, new ways.

And, no, we’re not talking about this week’s breaking news that Peacock (NBC’s streaming service) has just commissioned a new four-part series — “Unidentified with Demi Lovato,” that will feature Demi, a close friend, and her kid sister, trying to make contact with extraterrestrials.

While that might pass as real showbiz news in a slow week, it’s barely a blip on the radar of what’s happening this weekend on good old-fashioned broadcast television.

That journalistic behemoth “60 Minutes” has a report set to air covering the issue of UFO/UAP reality. It’s scheduled for Sunday, May 16th, 7 p.m.

NOTE: This article was written prior to the airing of the 60 Minutes segment, but has key background that makes it still relevant.

What We Know

Here are the details — the story is called “UAP” and will be reported by Bill Whitaker and produced by Graham Messick. It’s a single segment, regular length, and runs second in the line-up between stories called “Facial Recognition” and “Rafa” (about tennis player Rafael Nadal).

According to the official weekly show description from “60 Minutes,” this is what “UAP” is about —

“After years of documented sightings by U.S. service members, unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP — commonly known as UFOs — are being formally addressed by the U.S. government in an intelligence and defense report next month.”

This “UAP” report, from Whitaker/Messick, clearly appears to be tied to what the Department of Defense is doing these days on the subject.

It’s beginning to look like a big part of the story will focus on the Virginia Beach sightings that began in 2015, and that we’ll hear from former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves who flew an F/A-18 fighter back then.

“I am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue. But because it looks slightly different, we’re not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We’re happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day. I would say, you know, the highest probability is it’s a threat observation program.”

Here is what the show is saying publicly in the media release from “60 Minutes Overtime.” And here’s a clip from the story that’s over a minute long.

From the release and the clip you can see that they are avoiding drawing an ET conclusion, and sticking with the conjecture that they’re possible secret U.S. technology, or from Russia or China. Fortunately, the show will include Luis Elizondo, the former DoD official who investigated UAP for nearly a decade. In the show, he says these vehicles display technology far superior to anything in the nation’s inventory.

“Imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 G-forces, that can fly 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and can fly through air and water and possibly space, and oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion, no wings, no control surfaces and yet still can defy the natural effects of Earth’s gravity. That’s precisely what we’re seeing.”

At the very least, such talk is likely to get the attention of “60 Minutes” older skewing demographic that, generally speaking, doesn’t think much about the issue.

The Rubio Factor

News of the “60 Minutes” story first broke in Newsweek on Tuesday. Politicial reporter Adrian Carrasquillo stated in his reporting that one of the key interviews will be Senator Marco Rubio. The former presidential candidate gave Carrasquillo this juicy quote to go along with his scoop —

“Dozens of men and women we have entrusted with the defense of our country are telling us about encounters with unidentified aircraft with capabilities we do not fully understand. We cannot allow the stigma of UFOs to keep us from seriously investigating these encounters.”

Remember that Rubio is an ambitious politician and he has obviously made a political calculation. While UFOs derailed any chance Dennis Kucinich may have had four election cycles ago, Rubio is putting all his chips in the middle of the table, going all-in on the idea that the UAP issue is going to be big in 2024 and he needs to establish his credibility well in advance.

It could be that Rubio knows something that most Americans haven’t yet figured out. After all, it was the committee that Rubio chaired — the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — that late last year demanded a UAP report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 180 days from the time then-President Trump signed the Omnibus bill in which it was included. Keeping with the ticking clock metaphor, that means the due date is June 25, 2021, five weeks from now. Tick, tick, tick…

“60 Minutes” Extremely Short UFO History

Even though the UFO issue has been of continuing national interest for over seven decades and certainly over “60 Minutes” run since 1968, the show’s producers have, for the most part, acted like the issue never existed.

One of their producers, Ira Rosen, has written an insider book, Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes, in which he mentions his continuing interest in UFOs. Yet in his forty years with the show he never did the Big Story, although he talked to President Carter about the subject, and had a stash of the so-called Majestic-12 documents delivered to his desk (but believed them to be fake). He quotes himself saying this to Hustler publisher Larry Flynt:

“I think it is crazy that all those pictures out there of UFOs are faked. All you need is for one of them to be real and it’s the biggest story of our time.”

In 1996, Lesley Stahl reported “Area 51: Catch 22” that was, disappointingly, not about the famous U.S. base’s UFO connection but about employees complaining they were being made sick by toxic chemicals used and stored there. (Transparency: The piece was produced by Rich Bonin, a friend who years before that, shared a handful of investigative journalism awards with me for a PBS report we’d done for the LA newsmagazine “Newsbeat.”)

Famously, just a couple of years ago, entrepreneur Bob Bigelow, portrayed as a UFO gadfly back then, told correspondent Lara Logan that aliens are already here on Earth, “right under people’s noses.”

That’s pretty much how the stopwatch ticked until this Sunday night. Now we get Bill Whitaker’s take on the subject. I have a confidential source (not from “60 Minutes”) who says that the correspondent was highly skeptical about the topic and worried how it might sully his reputation but was persuaded by the passion and commitment of producer Graham Messick.

As for Whitaker’s reputation, there’s this from the show’s own website:

Whitaker’s reporting includes some of 60 Minutes’ most memorable adventures and investigations. He chronicled the capture of Joaquin “el Chapo” Guzman, detailed the return of the wolves in Yellowstone National Park, and more recently reported on the development of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Interestingly, Whitaker is currently in the middle of a two-week run as the guest host of “Jeopardy,” something that probably still can’t erase his years of bona fides. He’s a solid citizen and, frankly, he can be as skeptical as he wants so long as he knows a fact when it hits him over the head (or flies over his head as these UAP are known to do at astounding speeds).

Still, no one should expect Bill Whitaker to come flat out and say, “Yep, they’re here,” but the show is likely to open the door to UFO respectability wider than it’s been for most of our lives.

Great Expectations

The truth that not everyone wants to hear these days is that the reporters and producers who are working on this report are not ideologues despite right-wing hazing aimed at their show, but are hard-nosed journalists. They know a great story when they see one. They know nonsense and obsfucation when they hear it, too. What they bring to this important issue should be compelling if they put stigma aside and concentrate on facts.

For some, the story’s placement as second of three in the lineup may suggest the relative importance the show assigns to the topic. In my view that’s not necessarily correct. It’s just as likely to reflect the stigma the UFO topic has historically been cloaked in, and the desire to semi-gently slide people into the subject matter, and to run promos during the opening segment.

Still, for as wild as the subject matter is, look for the CBS team to stick to terra firma, more or less. With thousands of cases of varying degrees of high strangeness, they’ll invoke the few that have some nuts and bolts to them, like radar returns and spooked pilots. Leavened with some politicians who are ready to demand answers.

At bare minimum, the piece can be counted on to clarify that we don’t call unknown objects UFOs anymore but UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), explain the Intel report that’s coming, talk about the UAP Task Force in the Pentagon, discuss the DoD Inspector General also looking into this, show those cool Navy videos and maybe some new ones, and, we hope, suppress that journalistic instinct to smirk when this subject comes up.

What “60 Minutes” shouldn’t do is play it down the middle. This is a type of journalism that wants to look controversial without actually being controversial; built around the structure of “some say yes, some say no, we say maybe.” It’s meant to provide “balance,” but what it means in this context is giving precious time to so-called skeptics rather than just unpacking the voluminous and growing fact trail. Fingers are appropriately crossed that celebrity naysayers like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye don’t make a cameo.

You can, however, see their conclusion coming. These things exist. They might be U.S. tech, or from Russia or China. ET, well, that’s too far out for now.

It’s a start. It’s not a finish.

Fluid Situation

There are significant media outlets in TV, magazine, newspapers and Internet, all with an eye on what CBS is about to spring on the world. Competitive as journalism is, it’s a safe bet that none of them want to be caught empty handed on Monday morning.

The month started with The New Yorker writing a powerful survey piece in its May 10 issue, “How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously.” It references the fact that there is now a UAP Task Force working in the Pentagon.

This week The New York Times just published an opinion piece by Ezra Klein that contains much of what may be in that upcoming “60 Minutes” story.

Only days before we got the news that the Investigator General for the Department of Defense was going to look into the UAP issue too, just to keep everyone honest.

This all comes on the heels of former Senator Reid saying recently that he tried to get a look at off-world crash wreckage, was denied over classification, but believes that Lockheed Martin has some of it. This is hardly something you hear every day in D.C.

Even director/producer James Fox, that irresistible force behind The Phenomenon, has just gone on record stating he expects, based on his sources, that a “powerful and conclusive” statement on the UAP reality issue is coming in June with that government report.

It’s all so much that even the wise soul known on YouTube as UFO Jesus (real name, Ryan Robbins) has taken to talking about all of this month as “Miraculous May.”

One thing is sure now. Joe Biden got through an entire presidential campaign without being asked about UFOs and never had to go on the record, not even a little bit. Those days are soon to be over.

Activists Crossing Fingers

Activists might be hoping for too much too soon. Or maybe a decision has already been made at the highest levels that it’s time to bring the public in on a secret that has been hushed up for years. The fear, of course, is that it’s just Charlie Brown getting the damn football pulled away one more time.

What we know is this: when Demi Lovato and “60 Minutes” are talking about the same thing on the same day, something may be shaking.

People get ready.

The links below touch on the topics raised in this article.