Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David

I have just finished digesting a post-Thanksgiving helping of Kennedy Assassination investigation output – including film director Rob Reiner’s new podcast, “Who Killed JFK,” a new deep dive into the history of what they call “America’s greatest murder mystery.”

Image credit: iHeartPodcasts

For myself, I went through that experience on November 22, 1963 in high school. I later visited and strolled up the grassy knoll of Dealey Plaza, a suspected spot tied to the slaying of President Kennedy. I was sure I’d stumble across the proverbial “smoking gun” but left the site empty handed, but with a mind filled with more questions.

Here we are 60 years later and I still await some undisclosed closure of some kind. There has been a long and protracted struggle to get documents released.

And six decades later I’m struck by some common threads to where we are in the current UFO/UAP melee.

Image credit: SCU

Cultural enigma

The term Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) has morphed into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). But whatever nomenclature you use, “unidentified” remains an up-front declaration of this weird and perplexing cultural enigma.

There’s the prospect of government cover-up, public belief that there are conspiratorial factors afoot, but also a sense we’ll never get the “truth” out and about. Once again, there has been a lengthy struggle to get documents publicly released.

For good measure, mix in a worrisome factor: Maybe we aren’t ready for reality and the attached sociological repercussions from revealing the truth?

Image credit: RAND

But perhaps there a purposeful, drip-by-drip doling out of evidence in preparation of “full disclosure,” be it what the JFK assassination facts are or what’s the bottom line on UFO/UAP?

Conspiracy theories

“The government’s persistent hiding and actions related to the UFO/UAP topic does nothing but fuel conspiracy theories,” says Robert Powell, an executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.

“Whatever the truth may be, we can be certain that it will be a long time before the public is made aware of the truth,” Powell adds. “Unfortunately, we cannot depend upon our government to tell us the truth,” he told Inside Outer Space.

Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA

Amen amendment

So what is the legitimacy of rumors that our government has extraterrestrial craft in its possession?

For Powell, the biggest persuader is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds-led amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2024. That amendment, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023, talks specifically about the government and the concealment of non-human intelligence.

“Why would Schumer have associated his name with such an amendment? One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that government politicians don’t risk their careers on some lark of a story. And a powerful senator is going to be extra careful with what they endorse,” Powell senses. “Senator Schumer knows something that makes him confident that he is not risking his career with that amendment.”

Image credit: Congressional Record/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Bombshells and whistleblowers

“The American public, and humanity as a whole, deserve to know what the U.S. government has secretly learned about the UFO/UAP phenomenon, if indeed there have been such clandestine studies,” says Mark Rodeghier, president and scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies.

“I have faith in our collective ability to handle such information, even if initially disconcerting,” Rodeghier told Inside Outer Space.

So it’s a world of smoking guns, grassy knolls, newly-released old documents, X-files mysteriously misfiled, here-say “evidence” and “I’ve been told” tattle-telling, along with alien corpses, “bombshell allegations” from whistleblowers that can’t carry a tune but will sing like a bird after they are in an Orwellian-sounding “sensitive compartmented information facility” – a SCIF.

No telling where all this is headed.

What’s your view?

For your own deep-diving into this topic, go to:

• Center for UFO Studies at https://cufos.org/
• Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies at https://www.explorescu.org/

Also, here is Schumer’s amendment, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023 at:

https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/uap_amendment.pdf