Dr. Bob Hieronimus, host of 21st Century Radio , the longest running radio program in the United States, is dedicated to investigating the paranormal. Learn more at www.21stCenturyRadio.com.

Almost three quarters of Americans believe our government is lying to us about perhaps the most important revelation of the millennium -- that we are not alone in the universe (according to a 1996 Gallup poll, when 71% of Americans said they do not believe the government is telling us all that it knows about UFOs). And yet that number would quickly go up to 100% if the American media would do an honest job of reporting the facts. Imagine if the front page editors of The New York Times did their homework and read just one book of documentation on the material released under the Freedom of Information Act. In particular, I always recommend The UFO Coverup (originally titled Clear Intent) by Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood published by Prentice-Hall in 1984. Fawcett and Greenwood provided the ultimate service of distilling into one very readable tome the 3,000 pages of previously classified documents pertaining to UFOs from the Department of State, Army, Navy, Air Force, FBI, CIA, NSA and DIA. This book should be the first given to any media personality you are trying to educate on the subject since their tendency is to accept without question the government's official releases in which they claim to be hiding nothing.

Among the exceptional sightings documented through the use of the Freedom of Information Act, we learn about visual and radar sightings over numerous military installations like the October 1965 encounter with UFOs over Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. The Edwards event is not unusual because it happened over an Air Force Base, but because it is so well documented. The FOIA petitions of Fawcett and Greenwood have also turned up documentation directly from government sources of visual and radar sightings of unidentified flying objects over Loring AFB, Maine; Malmstrom AFB, Montana; Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan; Minot AFB, North Dakota; Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota; Carson AFB, New Mexico; Elgin AFB, Florida; Fort Ritchie Army Base, Maryland; and an apparent UFO landing at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico, in 1980. The recordings of the Air Force's phone conversations during the 1965 Edwards encounter have been made commercially available from Independent-International Pictures Corporation, and the cassette series features the original recordings from phone patches, base-to-base communications and ground-to-air radio. Anybody can now listen to the personnel at Edwards Air Force Base as they react to 12 luminous unidentified flying objects which they tracked on radar for six hours, as the decisions are made to contact officers up the chain of command including one called the "UFO Officer," and ultimately to leave the encounter "unidentified."

Far from being a joke, the entire Western Air Defense Command was on the alert on the night of October 7, 1965, during the encounter at Edwards AFB. This included NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S./Canadian unit), ARADCOM (U.S. Army Air Defense Command) and five Air Force Bases in California: Edwards, Hamilton, Norton, George and March.

This formerly classified documentation of unidentifieds over our military bases was once said not to exist, and it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the American public has been consciously and deliberately misled by officials and a corporate media that unquestionably repeats what it is told.

Let's face it, the central goal of our corporate media is to keep us in the consumer mode, and we are at the mercy of the vested interests who control what we see and hear as "news." And until we effectively challenge them on their ignorance and complicity, no doubt UFO debunkers will continue to be given front page space to claim that Air Force personnel are not competent to report these encounters, or that Venus, the moon, asteroids, meteors or geese were responsible for putting the Western Air Defense Command on alert.

If UFO Coverup is not enough to convince you that our military or government considers unidentified flying objects very seriously, I suggest you next check out Dr. Bruce Maccabee's UFO/FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government's Cover-up (Llewellyn, 2000). One of Dr. Maccabee's FOIA targets has been uncovering the formerly classified documents of the FBI as they pertain to the UFO phenomena. As he summarizes in his introduction to the book:

"The X-Files show is very entertaining because it was well-written by people who are quite familiar with the phenomena they write about, but it does not accurately portray the FBI interest in UFOs. However, it does get two things right, although probably by accident: (1) FBI agents did investigate saucer sightings in the early years and (2) UFO sightings were often filed under the title "FLYING DISCS: SECURITY MATTER-X." These are the real "X" files. The FBI also collected and stored information provided by Air Force UFO investigators who had their own file of secret information which is revealed here for the first time. As you will see, some of the FBI and AF information proves top Air Force officials knew there were unexplainable sightings and seriously considered the possibility that some UFOs were extraterrestrial vehicles!"

But how can that be? It's all fiction, isn't it? After all, everybody knows that only "kooks and nuts" and people looking for publicity see UFOs, right?

WRONG! One wonders what skeptical Agent Scully would think if she were allowed to see the REAL X files. Would she reject sightings by responsible citizens of the United States, by Air Force officers, by pilots and by policemen? Would she reject a joint sighting by an employee of the National Security Agency and an employee of the FBI? Would she reject information which the FBI kept secret from the American people until it was finally released as a result of my request under the Freedom of Information Act?

The government records of these UFO events were not lost, they were merely unavailable to the American people until recent years. And now, thanks to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act and the efforts of many UFO investigators over the last twenty years, you are able to read what the Air Force and the FBI knew over forty years ago. The perpetrators of the UFO cover-up hope that you won't read this book and find out for yourself that UFOs are real and may well be interplanetary craft .

The Truth is not "out there," it's in here! Read on!"

There is no doubt that the government has not told us what it knows about UFOs. Some evidence suggests that the denial and coverup of their existence may have been perpetrated at first in consideration of national security. If so, that time has long since passed. Others suggest a deliberate concealment of the phenomena in order to siphon the technical information to favorites in the corporate sector. Whatever the reasoning, the documents released through the Freedom of Information Act prove conclusively that we have been lied to repeatedly by those who have held the public trust. In 1996, already 71% of Americans were mistrusting the official government line on UFOs. As the documentation presented by researchers such as Fawcett, Greenwood and Maccabee becomes more widely distributed and everyone realizes how long they have been lying, the government will automatically be accused of "crying wolf" no matter what it tries to tell us. Next thing you know, "they" will be telling us that the North and South polar ice caps are not really melting, and that shore line properties are still a great investment. Have you tried to insure yours for its maximum value lately? Fat chance!

I guess the moral of the story is to do your own research and never, ever stop Questioning Authority!