EXCERPT FROM A REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP92B00478R000800340008-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: April 21, 1983
• Content Type: MISC

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/12/23: CIA-RDP92B00478R000800340008-9
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/12/23: CIA-RDP92B00478R000800340008-9
The federal government is surpressing UFO evidence
By Larry W. Bryant
Last fall, at a UFO research symposium
sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C., a vocal anti-UFO writer ex-
hbrte ,d the audience's pro-UFO contingent to
put up or shut up.
What he meant was that he's tired of hear-
ing that the UFO subject deserves serious at-
tention on the part of academia and govern-
ment. He feels that the intellectual noise
pollution on the part of UFO advocates who
refuse to bear the burden of proof is a disser-
vice to science and to sanity. He wants them to
submit their case to binding arbitration, as it
were.1 .
they can't produce convincing (to him)
6idence in a reasonable period of time ? say,
12 months from the date of the Smithsonian
event? then they ought to agree to abandon
their cause.
Aside from the simplistic slant of the critic's
proposal= it's impractical for the meager re-
sources of privately funded UFO research to
be focused on a single aspect of such a broad
issue ? the critic misses the point, for the ver-
dict is already in. Over the past several years
of its evolution, the verdict reached its high
point this July with the 12th annual sympo-
sium of the Mutual UFO Network, held at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
One of the featured speakers was New York
attorney Peter A. Gersten, active in pursuing
official UFO documentation via the U.S. Free-
dom of Information Act (FOIA). The sympo-
sium's theme ? "UFO's: The Hidden Evi-
dence" ? was .epitomized by Gersten's
presentation. Marching through a chronicle of
documentation thus far released through
FOIA litigation, Gersten left no doubt in the
audience's mind that this emerging body of
testimony reveals a systematic effort by the
federal government to suppress its hard-core
evidence of UFO reality.
Indeed, mused Gersten, if the testimony
were the substance of a criminal law case, the
defendant (i.e., the government) would be in
deep trouble. Proof to a lawyer need not be the
same as proof demanded by a physical
scientist.
Where goes Gersten from here?
Right now he's awaiting a federal appeals
court decision in an FOIA case involving the
UFO-related records of the U.S. Central Intel-
ligence Agency ? records whose very exis-
tence was denied by the agency before advent
of the act: The court's decision is important
not only to UFO-oriented citizens; if it favors
the agency, it will strengthen. CIA efforts to
achieve full exemption from provisions of the
act.
Another suit for vital UFO documentation is
also pending at the appeals level. The defen-
dant: none other than the supersecret Nation-
al Security Agency, which declines to release
some 135 documents on the grounds that to do
so would jeopardize national security. The
NSA position contradicts the earlier, formal
government pronouncement that the reported
UFO's pose no threat to the nation's security.
In the meantime, Gersten is asking all re-
luctant participants in the 34-year-old "UFO
coverup" to come forward with_the final facts
and figures. Of course, this isn't as easy as it
seems ? given the intelligence community's
hold on its members' past/present/future con-
duct, as guaranteed by their oaths of secrecy.
But here's one way to get around that hold, for
the purpose of the public's "right to know:"..
If you're a present or former principal in the
eoverup, merely write to President Reagan
with the request that he free you from your
secrecy oath as regards your hard-core UFO
knowledge. Specify in your letter that no reply
from him will.be taken as a go-ahead to tell all.
If the government means what it says about
the declassified status of official UFO-related
records, then you need fear no reprisal. Send a
copy of your letter to us (anonymously,.if ril.
prefer), along with whatever reply you re-
ceive, and we'll discreetly proceed- from-
there.
Help us let "the evidence speak for itself."
Larry W. Bryant is administrator for Citizens
Against IY0 Secrecy. He lives in Arlington. .
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/12/23: CIA-RDP92B00478ROOnFinmannnFLa