The civilian UFO community often known as "ufology" exists as a multitude of individuals and groups who all share a common interest in the subject of unidentified flying objects. Since 1991 I have shared this passion with other so called "ufologists."

For several years I was closely associated with Dr. Steven Greer's Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, CSETI. In the course of my activities with that group I had a number of limited interactive encounters with what appeared to be Extraterrestrial spacecraft.

For a number of reasons, personal as well as professional, I have curtailed much of my UFO oriented activities. At this point I would like to offer my observations concerning what I perceive is the fundamental problem in this field and call for a dramatic solution to the crisis in ufology.

It is my assessment that ufology has failed to recognize the importance of how an Extra-terrestrial presence profoundly threatens all terrestrial elites. This includes the international corporate, military, political and religious leaders of our planet. Without recognizing and thoroughly analyzing this challenge to terrestrial power, those interested in understanding the phenomenon of Extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting our planet, will in my opinion be hopelessly confused. More importantly, UFO enthusiasts may have unrealistic expectations and may be wasting important energy in projects that can not bear fruit given the depths of the power structure's opposition to acknowledging an Et presence.

Currently a number of prominent UFO groups are advocating that Congress hold open hearings on the issue of government secrecy concerning Extra-terrestrial spacecraft visiting our planet. Retired military and intelligence officers who have had direct personal experiences with Extra-terrestrial intelligence during their official work have been identified. There is now an opportunity to inform the public, if these official witnesses can be induced to testify. As might be expected the push for public hearings on the topic of the ET presence has encountered resistance. It has been the not too secret hope of many UFO activists that some kind of official disclosure might be underfoot. It is my assessment however that no disclosure will take place without tremendous pressure on the terrestrial power structure, more pressure that can be applied to Congress at the current time. Frustrated by years of official denial, how can UFO enthusiasts work to remedy this predicament? A broad based coalition employing coordinated political action will be an essential part of the disclosure process. This will probably require dozens of organizations and thousands of activists. Such a campaign will probably take the form of the grassroots movements for social change. Models of such efforts include the union organizing drives of the 1930s and the peace and the civil rights movements of the 1960s . To develop such a coalition of individuals and groups, an analysis of the Et challenge to all terrestrial power is required.

Our planet's population is divided into over 100 nation states. National political leaders are able to exercise their power on the basis of nationalism. As the prominent ufologist Stanton Friedman has said, "Nationalism is the name of the game." Once the people of the planet are permitted to acknowledge the ET presence, the masses will tend to see themselves as "terrestrial" or simply "human." Faced with what will likely turn out to be an incredible diversity of ET cultures, people on our planet will likely start to identify with the Earth as a whole rather than with their particular nation state. Thus the power of national politicians would be threatened by admitting that some UFOs represent Extra-terrestrial spacecraft built by non- humans from the stars.

From the point of view of ordinary citizens, an end to nationalism and the realization of the slogan "One planet, one people", might not be tragic at all. Given the sad record of this century, with over 100 million killed in wars resulting from national rivalry, it might make very good sense to place nationalism in the dust bin of history. Of course national political leaders who derive their power from "the people", i.e. their nation's people, would understandably be threatened by an outside presence which undermines their ideological power base.

The Extra-terrestrial presence challenges military leaders of every nation. Advanced civilizations visiting our planet appear to be quite capable of producing craft which can fly circles around the military's high performance jets. Military leaders are thus unable to secure our planet's airspace from ET intrusion. This provides one rationale for the military-intelligence community's role in maintaining the secrecy regimen concerning UFOs.

The Extra-terrestrials appear to have access to incredibly powerful energy systems in order to propel their spacecraft. Speculation within ufology has suggested that their craft use non-polluting so called "free energy systems." If the authorities acknowledged the Et presence and over a period of time our culture were allowed to download such efficient energy technologies, many of our economic as well as environmental problems might be solved. From the point of view of the multinational oil corporations, this would not be a favorable development. The downloading of ET energy systems would likely threaten their worldwide monopoly which has been the source of much wealth and influence for important sectors of the corporate elite. Considering that the Gulf War and other military actions in the Middle East are driven by a hunger for cheap oil, we see the strategic importance of what has been called the "empire of oil." Thus the Et presence threatens important sectors of the economic elite of our planet.

An important pillar of our planet's belief systems is organized religion. The true history of our planet may reveal that the flying saucer phenomenon is really an ancient process rather than a modern one. Renaissance religious painting depicting flying saucers certainly suggest this possibility. The myths of ancient civilizations declaring that their knowledge and technology were obtained from so called "star people", provides additional support for ancient astronaut theories. What if the holy men and prophets of biblical times were in reality contactees? Their religious experiences may have reflected encounters with non-human intelligence, some of which might have been Extra-terrestrial in nature. If this theory were indeed true or even merely probable, then acknowledging the Et presence would threaten all organized religion. Thus the spiritual elite of our planet is threatened by the Et presence.

If this analysis accurately reflects the perceived self interest of our planet's elites, then the Extra-terrestrials visiting our planet must threaten all terrestrial power. The world wide secrecy campaign concerning UFOs can now be seen as the logical consequence of ruling classes which appropriately take action in self defense. This need not be seen as a conspiracy. Efforts to deny the Et visitations, to resist public disclosure is the natural response of any social system attempting to preserve the status quo.