Despite what many see as a fundamental flaw in the government Disclosure movement, many hopeful seekers hold on to the notion that world governments may someday release their knowledge of alien visitation, long-forgotten advanced civilizations hiding on Earth, or other high-strangeness. This hope is predicated entirely on the belief that world governments in fact have knowledge to hide, a belief that many in the ufological world suspect is misguided.

Still, we’ve entered an era where politicians and figures within the U.S. Department of Defense seem to be taking seriously the UFO phenomenon and other related phenomena. Seem to be, anyway. There remains much we don’t know about what has been said in closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill and the content of those briefings will likely remain unknown. 

Some perhaps small basis for the current ‘small-d’ disclosure in Washington stems from the run-up 2016 presidential election. During that hotly contested election, Wikileaks released a trove of emails between Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta and Tom Delonge discussing high-level government officials and topics ranging from the Roswell crash to what we now know is To the Stars Academy. That leak led to pressure on both Clinton and Trump to debate the UFO phenomenon on the 2016 campaign trail – although that debate never materialized.

Now, as the 2020 presidential election looms, candidates are already being asked about what has become one of the hottest topics of the day. This week, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a front runner in 2016 and again now in 2020, went on the Joe Rogan Experience to discuss his platform for president. During the interview, Rogan naturally asked Sanders about extraterrestrials and what Sanders would or would not disclose if elected:

Rogan: “If you got into the office and you found out something about aliens, if you found out something about UFOs, would you let us know?”

Sanders: “Well I tell you, my wife would demand I let you know.”

Rogan: “Is your wife a UFO nut?” 

Sanders: “No, she’s not a UFO nut. She goes, Bernie, ‘What is going on do you know? Do you have any access?’”

Rogan: “You don’t have any access? You’ll let us know though?”

Sanders: “Alright, we’ll announce it on the show. How’s that?”

Rogan’s show has in recent months hosted many of the most controversial figures in the UFO community including Tom Delonge and Bob Lazar, so it’s no surprise that Rogan asked Sanders about aliens. Sanders played the question off in characteristic nonchalance before moving on to more terrestrial topics.

Joe Rogan

As the UFO phenomenon continues to take center stage in Washington, D.C., could we actually soon see a president elected on a platform of disclosure?

Perhaps the bigger question remains: is there anything actually to disclose?

In the quest to storm Area 51 and free the aliens being held there – or at least free the truth about what exactly IS being held there – it appears the aliens are winning. Last week, a video appeared of what the uploader claimed was a UFO speeding across the desert sky near where on September 20th there will either be a storming, a concert, free beer, specially-designed roast beef sandwiches, all of the above or the largest mass jailing in U.S. history. This week, another YouTuber posted more videos of strange glowing objects in the night sky over what he claims is an area near Area 51. Is this a distraction by the military? A clever marketing ploy by the people trying to make a buck on the storming? Are aliens trying to cover up the cover-up? Is this fun or what?

“The UFO’s returned again tonight over Area 51, they were only visible for about 20 seconds. I am sorry for the poor quality, I have focused my camera and set it for low light so the video will be better. I know they will return.”

On July 30th, YouTuber Showdaam posted the second of two videos of what he described as UFOs over Area 51. The July 29th video (see it here) shows what looks like a bright and slow-moving round white light. The July 30th video (see it here) looks like two reddish lights close together. These are visible for a short period and then disappeared. In the audio, Showdaam indicates that there were actually a “few days” between the sightings. Kudos to The Hidden Underbelly 2.0, another YouTube site, which managed to contact Showdaam and find out the videos were actually taken in March 2019. If you’re keeping track, that’s a number of months BEFORE the whole Storm Area 51 hoax/event/extravaganza began.

Sheep Range (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stan_Shebs)

Another thing you might have noticed in these videos is that they’re over houses. Area 51, as the Air Force and local law enforcement in Rachel, Nevada, are warning stormers, is out in the middle of the desert. Rachel has barely 50 residents and no buildings like these. Hidden Underbelly 2.0 found out that the video was taken near the Sheep Mountain Range, which is north of Las Vegas and close to 100 miles south of Rachel. While Showdaam says “I see these phenomena quite often so I will have my DSLR next time to capture a better quality video,” it would be nice if he saw them closer to Area 51 and closer to the time of the Storming.

All of the lights are on the ground in Las Vegas and no one ever looks up from the slots anyway

Still, UFOs are UFOs and “close” counts for something … right? It’s entirely possible that what Showdaam has been seeing are military aircraft – after all, Area 51 IS an Air Force base used for testing new and secret aircraft. He’s also promising live coverage of the Storm Area 51 event on September 20th. We already know he has a nose for UFOs. Maybe he’ll see something there too.

Keep that DSLR handy and pointed ABOVE the Stormers!

Between the nights of December 26 and 29, 1980, multiple, extraordinary events of the UFO kind occurred within Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England. They were events that involved military personnel from the nearby Royal Air Force stations of Bentwaters and Woodbridge. Since that now long gone period, countless U.S. Air Force personnel, who were stationed in the area at the time, have spoken out regarding their knowledge of a small, triangular-shaped object that was seen maneuvering in the forest. Others described seeing in the dark woods almost ghostly, extraterrestrial-type beings of short size and with eerie, feline-like eyes. Strange and unknown lights were seen dancing around the night skies, circling both the forest and the twin military facilities. There were stories that the amazing movements of the UFOs were caught on radar. And there was even hushed talk of those military personnel involved in the incident being silenced by ominous Men in Black-style characters.

As for the official story, many attempts have been made to suggest that the beam from a local lighthouse – situated at nearby Orford Ness – was the cause of all the fuss of the flying saucer variety! And here’s where we come to something decidedly strange and intriguing. It has nothing to do with the lighthouse per se, but everything to do with the 12th century town of Orford itself. Wondering what I mean by that? Well, read on…

It is truly weird that many of those who are skeptical of the Rendlesham Forest UFO case of December 1980 are so very often keen to suggest that the airmen who were involved merely mistook the illumination from the nearby Orford Lighthouse for something more exotic. Why? Well, Orford itself is a veritable hotbed of weirdness. And that has not just been the case for the last few years, or even since the events at Rendlesham occurred. Rather, Orford has been what the late John Keel would have termed a “window area” for no less than centuries.

Consider – as just one example of what actually amounts to far more than a few – the following account of the single-named Ralph, a monk and an abbot of Coggeshall, Essex, England. Recorded way back in the year 1200 in Chronicon Anglicanum, the story describes the remarkable capture in the area of nothing less than a definitive wild man of the woods-style creature: “In the time of King Henry II, when Bartholomew de Glanville was in charge of the castle at Orford, it happened that some fishermen fishing in the sea there caught in their nets a Wildman. He was naked and was like a man in all his members, covered with hair and with a long shaggy beard. He eagerly ate whatever was brought to him, but if it was raw he pressed it between his hands until all the juice was expelled.”

Ralph continued with his monster-themed account: “He would not talk, even when tortured and hung up by his feet, Brought into church, he showed no sign of reverence or belief. He sought his bed at sunset and always remained there until sunrise. He was allowed to go into the sea, strongly guarded with three lines of nets, but he dived under the nets and came up again and again. Eventually he came back of his own free will. But later on he escaped and was never seen again.”

Orford Castle

Or, maybe the beast-man – or, far more likely, given the large passage of time, one of its offspring – was seen again, albeit hundreds of years further down the line. At some point during the summer of 1968, one Morris Allen – who grew up in the vicinity of Orford – was walking along the coast near, of all places, the town of Orford itself when in the distance he saw someone squatting on the sand and leaning over something.

As he got closer, Morris said, he could see that the man was dressed in what looked like an animal skin and was savagely tearing into the flesh of a dead rabbit. The man was dirt-encrusted, with long, tangled hair and had wild, staring eyes. Morris could only watch with a mixture of fascination and horror. Suddenly the man held his head aloft and quickly looked – or, perhaps, glared would be a far better description – in Morris’ direction, as if he had picked up his scent. The wild man quickly scooped up the rabbit, bounded off into the grass and was forever lost from sight. For a highly traumatized Morris Allen, it was an event destined never to be forgotten.

Perhaps, the wild man of Orford, and its surrounding areas, continues to live on, taunting and tantalizing people with the occasional sighting of its bestial form. And, it can now be said with a high degree of accuracy, in the “weird stakes” there is far more to Orford than just its infamous lighthouse.

Are UFOs invading Wyoming? It wouldn’t be the worst place to touch down. Wyoming has some amazing scenery, lots of open space, not a lot of people, and the Yellowstone supervolcano. I don’t know why aliens would be interested in Yellowstone, and frankly I’m not too keen on finding out. If this latest footage from Casper, Wyoming does indeed show an armada of UFOs flying overhead, hopefully they’re only here as tourists.

A video taken on July 26, 2019, around 9:30 PM in Casper, Wyoming seems to show a very large group of glowing objects flying in formation just after sundown. The video was originally uploaded by YouTube user Downbound Empire, and later re-posted by popular UFO channel The Hidden Underbelly 2.0. You can watch the footage for yourself here.

There’s clearly a group of glowing objects flying through the sky. They seem to be flying in a pretty tight formation, with just a few moving independently of the group. The objects make no sound in the video and according to the witness the objects were completely silent. A few of the UFOs seem to change in brightness, becoming briefly more intense at a few points in the video.

According to The Hidden Underbelly 2.0, when the witness agreed to allow the use of their footage they gave a statement describing the encounter:

“They weren’t orbs they look like crafts, I thought drones [but] if they were drones they had a really long range because they flew clear over the horizon out of sight but they were completely silent and they were pretty close I figured if they were drones I would have heard the propellers but I have no idea what it was, it was a trip.”

Yeah, a group of drones that size would definitely be audible. One possibility is that they’re a group of sky lanterns. That would explain the lack of sound and the tight formation. The only problem with that is the light emitted from these UFOs looks pure white and completely unlike any candle flame I’ve ever seen. Of course, that could just be an illusion caused by the camera filming in low light, hypersensitive to any points of brightness against the night sky.  If they are sky lanterns, that raises another, perhaps more pressing question: what kind of idiot lets loose a bunch of flying fires over Wyoming in the middle of summer? Seriously, that’s a bad idea.

At least this kid is letting one loose over a lake instead of the great plains.

Also, although it’s hard to tell from the video, there doesn’t seem to be much wind in the area. The clouds aren’t moving and there aren’t any trees shaking. It’s hard to imagine that anything would be able to be carried as fast as these objects are moving in an environment that still.

Who knows what these objects actually are. It’s a pretty intriguing video, even if there’s a good possibility there’s a mundane explanation. Maybe next week some company will announce their new glowing, silent drone. To be perfectly honest, I’d rather it be aliens on their way to nuke Yellowstone.

You know that the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” event was started as a joke … right? And you know that it now has a life of its own, is proceeding as jokingly planned for September 20th and has inspired other storming events … right? And you’re not surprised that a beer company, a fast food chain, a music festival organizer and more are lining up to cash in on the event … right? What else could possibly happen? How about an actual UFO showing up to entice even more people to sign up? How about a local sheriff’s office panicking about how to handle a traffic jam on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere? Welcome to the latest edition of “Storm Area 51, What Next?”

2019 UFO sighting near Area 51

That’s the headline on a video uploaded to YouTube on July 23rd by “FilmGuy,” who has this to say about the “UFO” (you can watch the video here):

“Here in Rachel, Nevada. Got this footage on my motion sensor camera. Unbelievable, not sure if it’s a jet or some aircraft I haven’t seen before. Pretty cool nonetheless.”

Pretty cool? We’ll give you cool. Unbelievable? It’s Area 51 (allegedly – there’s no sign or any other indicator, so we have to take his word for it) so not really. Motion sensor camera? That’s worth some pondering. If it’s activated by motion, why was it already recording for a few seconds BEFORE the UFO appeared on the right-hand side before quickly zipping left and disappearing? How wide of an angle and deep of a range do these motion-detectors have? And why did FilmGuy pick this particular spot to set it up? Was he expecting wildlife and got a UFO instead? Then there’s the object itself. It definitely looks like a disc of some sort, even under magnification. However, that roar in the background implies either a non-stealth jet or an old-technology flying saucer. Unbelievable or not believable? This one definitely needs more data … or an admission by a company that it’s a promo for their new “Storm Area 51 Drone.”

Storm Area 51 in your very own authentic steam locomotive!

“Someone is going to get hurt and people may go to jail. It’s not anything to joke about.”

With the only hotel in Rachel, the Little A’le’Inn, already booked to capacity, and the Alien Research Center, a gift shop along Extraterrestrial Highway about 40 miles outside Area 51, already full in its dry camping area, Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee is worried about how his tiny staff of 26 sworn officers, including the jailers, will handle even 500 people lookin’ for a stormin’ and either drunk or angry because the free beer ran out. Even out in the middle of the desert, Sheriff Lee told the Las Vegas Sun that there are parking concerns, traffic control issues and trespassing problems.

“I think this started out as a joke but there may be enough people taking it seriously and it could be a problem.”

If a mere 500 “could be a problem,” what if it’s 2 million? A million? A Woodstockish 500,000?

What if they all see a UFO?

For the past several months, I’ve been conducting interviews with leading UFO researchers from countries around the world in an effort to paint a clearer picture of global UFOlogy today.

This week, our global UFO trek takes us to South Africa, and to Gert Jordaan of UFORSA (UFO South Africa), an organisation specialising in data collection founded by Gert in September 2011 following an apparent increase in UFO sightings in his country and a heightened public interest in the phenomenon.

Gert Jordaan of UFO South Africa (UFORSA).

RG: Who have been the defining figures in South African UFOlogy over the past 70 years, and why?

GJ: One of the most notable figures concerning the UFO phenomena in South Africa is Elizabeth Klarer. She was a contactee and claimed to have been contacted by extraterrestrials between 1954 and 1963. She was also one of the first people on record to claim to have had a sexual encounter with an extraterrestrial. She also claimed to have visited a planet in the system of Alpha Centuri, where she believed she was impregnated and bore a son who remained on the alien planet. Klarer was even referenced in a 2008 song by South African singer Jim Neversink, called ‘Even Elizabeth Klarer.’

Photo of an alleged UFO taken by South African contactee Elizabeth Klarer in July 1956.

RG: What is the most compelling UFO case you have personally investigated?

GJ: A mass sighting on 12 December, 2012. We received numerous reports from different people that saw the same object in the Cape-Town area (between 11 and 12 December). It was seen as far as the Northern Cape and Namibia. We received approximately 100 reports of the same UFO.

RG: What is the South African government’s official stance on UFOs? When was the last time it issued a statement on the subject?

GJ: At this stage, we have no idea what the South African government’s stance is towards on UFOs. They have not indicated any interest in the UFO phenomenon.

The Union Buildings of the South African government.

RG: Does the South African Department of Defence have an official UFO investigations unit?

GJ: Not that we know of. And if the South African government does not have such a unit, we would gladly accept an invitation if they chose to work with us.

RG: Has the South African government shown more or less transparency on the UFO subject than the US government?

GJ: We believe the South African government would be more transparent with the UFO subject than the US government. At this time, we have not seen any indication from the South African government that implicates them with any UFO studies at all.

RG: Tell us a bit about your organisation, UFORSA. How many members do you have, and what kind of activities do you engage in? How many smaller South African UFO groups are you aware of, if any?

GJ: UFORSA began as a hobby for me. The official website came online sometime in 2011 to give people in South Africa a platform to submit sightings. Before UFORSA was SAUFOR, an independent person who operated a website. SAUFOR came to an end soon after we stepped in. We are only two people running the UFORSA website to this day. I am the founder of UFORSA and I have a website manager. We collect UFO data and provide commentary to the media if they enquire about a specific case. We manage the platform/website for people to engage socially and to submit sightings (which they can anonymously if they wish).

RG: What are the most active regions of South Africa for UFO sighting reports?

GJ: Three major areas in South Africa can be considered hotspots. First is the Western Cape. A huge open province scattered with small towns and great views of the stars. Secondly is Gauteng, a small province packed with towns and businesses and with many eyes on the skies. Lastly is KwaZulu-Natal, home to the famous Elizabeth Klarer, and a great place for a holiday for most South Africans (we receive a lot of sightings from this region during those holidays).

Drakensberg National Park in KwaZulu Natal Province, South Africa.

RG: Have you personally had any UFO sightings?

GJ: I have witnessed a few strange objects in the past, and one quite recently. It was just after the new year January 2019. It was almost midnight and I was watching some TV in the dark. I heard a noise outside and peeked through my sliding door (during the day, I can see the whole of False Bay from Table mountain to the Hottentots Holland mountains with an amazing sea view). I saw a flare-like object FAR in the distance. First I thought it could be a boat signalling for rescue. As the flare came down, it stopped just above the horizon and started moving towards the right and slowly disappeared.

RG: How long have you been involved in the UFO subject; roughly how many cases have you personally investigated; and what conclusions, if any, have you drawn about the underlying nature of UFO phenomena?

GJ: My interest in UFO phenomena started way before UFORSA in 2011. I had read so many books about astronomy, and I wanted to know what the UFO situation looked like in South Africa. So I founded UFORSA. I mainly collect UFO data. I cannot conduct many personal investigations due to funding issues. But it would be a dream come true to travel the country and the world to investigate the phenomena. The conclusion I have drawn through my personal experience and through my analysis of the data is that the rapid evolution in technology in our world can lead to fake reports and sightings. Not just by people playing pranks, but through misidentifications of top secret military craft that are being produced and tested. Most sightings can be explained. Almost all of them. But there are a microscopic amount that drive our curiosity. We cannot explain all things in the universe, but we often catch glimpses of the unexplained.

RG: How can South African UFOlogy, and UFOlogy in general, better itself?

GJ: The thing I want people to understand is that not every UFO sighting will be little green men in a saucer, visiting us from afar to enlighten us. UFOlogy needs to show people that any sighting can be diligently investigated and an acceptable conclusion can usually be reached. Many South Africans are still a bit close-minded. Although a small section of the populous do exhibit an interest in UFOs. I see UFOlogy as a base point from which branch out into different areas of scientific study, such as astrobiology or engineering, for example.

My new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin, is a study of how and why the Russians – for decades – sought to take control of the UFO scene and create hysteria and paranoia in the West. And we were doing the same to them, too. The Russians certainly deserved it. As they do too now, for their outrageous meddling over the last few years. But, does such manipulation of the UFO scene still go on? Yes, it does. Certainly, the vast majority of the programs designed to use the UFO subject as a tool of manipulation took place during the height of the Cold War; that much is abundantly clear. It should be noted, though, that while the available data is limited, we can say that UFOs – or, rather, the mystique and the legend that surrounds them – are still of interest to the intelligence services of several nations.

In a strange way, the evidence for this has a link to the saga of none other than the ultimate 21^st century whistle-blower, Edward Snowden. If, prior to 2013, someone were to ask you for your thoughts on Edward Snowden, you would almost certainly reply: “Who? Huh?” His family, friends, and work colleagues aside, Snowden was unknown. Just about completely. That all changed – and it changed radically – in the summer of 2013. That was when the shocking story of the National Security Agency’s top secret programs of widespread surveillance came tumbling out into the public domain. It created shock-waves that are still reverberating to this day.

As Snowden revealed, and unbeknownst to just about everyone (the National Security Agency aside, of course), the NSA had the potential to not just spy on foreign nations but on U.S. citizens too. Landlines, cell-phones, email, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype: they had all been penetrated, very often with the witting help of some of those same companies. The data collection process was so mind-boggling and huge that it would likely have had even George Orwell himself shaking his head in disbelief; except for just one thing: Orwell’s 1984 was fiction. This was all too real.

The responses to Snowden’s revelations were interesting and thought-provoking. For some people, Snowden is the definitive American hero. For others, however, he is a man who has massively jeopardized U.S. national security, and placed our troops and agents in deep danger. There were even calls not for just his lifelong incarceration, but for his execution too, as the ultimate traitor. For many people, however, Snowden falls somewhere between both camps. And then there’s the matter of UFOs. Or, at least, the lore surrounding it. The story of Edward Snowden would never have soared to the levels that it did had it not been for the research of investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Having secured Snowden’s trust, Greenwald was able to secure an astonishing amount of highly classified material on the NSA’s surveillance programs. One of Snowden’s lesser-known revelations revolved around a PowerPoint presentation produced by the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters, which is the nation’s equivalent of its, ahem, big brother, the United States’ NSA. The presentation was titled“How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive and Destroy Reputations.” Interestingly, the PowerPoint production – which, in part, provides ways and means to shatter the characters of people under surveillance – contained three photographs of alleged UFOs.

Mark Pilkington, a writer on, and an investigator of, the UFO subject has a particular interest in how government agencies have used the UFO controversy to their advantages. His 2010 book, Mirage Men, is subtitled: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs. That will give you a very good idea as to where Pilkington is coming from in relation to UFOs. Journalist David Clarke asked Pilkington what he thought of all this. Pilkington said to Clarke: “We don’t know why there are UFOs in this [PowerPoint] presentation. But the fact that the saucer photos appear within the context of influencing and manipulating online communities is highly suggestive.” You can see the full story of this in Clarke’s book, How UFOs Conquered the World.

With the “Storm Area 51” craze, local businesses near the base are profiting from the extra publicity. One business in particular, the Little A’Le’Inn motel is definitely cashing in on the “storm”. According to their booking calendar (which can be seen here), all thirteen rooms at the UFO-themed motel are booked solid on September 19^th and 20^th when millions of people plan to storm the secretive military base.

The motel is located in the small village of Rachel which is the nearest residential area to Area 51, and it’s a popular spot for tourists interested in aliens and UFOs. The “Storm Area 51” event is scheduled to take place on September 20^th with millions of people planning on attending the event – almost 2 million people claim to be going and 1.4 million people are interested in attending according to the event’s Facebook page.

Little A’Le’Inn

The motel’s website reads, “Come and sit back and watch the fun”. And it will certain be something to see with millions of people pledging to storm the highly secured military base in order to hopefully find evidence of aliens and UFOs.

And it’s not just the Little A’Le’Inn that’s seeing a boost in business as other local motels are also getting busier. One of those businesses is the Sunset View Inn, located 45 minutes from Area 51, and it’s completely booked solid on the dates of the “storm”. “It’s really booming some small little towns in this area,” Pamela Broxson, who is the general manager of the inn, told CTV News.

Area 51 has long been associated with extraterrestrials as many people believe that the US military is hiding evidence of alien technology and maybe even extraterrestrials themselves. The military did, however, issue a very stern warning for those planning on storming the base. They indicated that they are authorized to use deadly force against anyone who attempts to get into the highly secured area.

And even though Broxson is welcoming the guests into the inn, she doesn’t believe that they’ll be successful in getting into the base. “I’ve had guests try to go out there and they’ve come back looking like ghosts because they’ve been drawed upon,” she said, adding, “Guns pulled on them for going past the barrier.”

With the “storm” a little less than two months away, we’ll have to wait and see what exactly will happen on September 20^thand if anyone will actually get past the gates. For those who still plan to go despite the stern warnings – storm with caution.