Page 15 - May-June 2021 Edition of The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper

Pentagon Taking UFO’s Seriously? 15

How the Pentagon Started

Taking U.F.O.s Seriously

Continued From Page 14

On May 9, 2001, Steven M. Greer took the
lectern at the National Press Club, in
Washington, D.C., in pursuit of By 2017, Kean
was the author of a best-selling U.F.O. book and
was known for what she has termed, borrowing
from the political scientist Alexander Wendt, a
“militantly agnostic” approach to the
phenomenon. On December 16th of that year, in
a front-page story in the Times, Kean, together
with two Times journalists, revealed that the
Pentagon had been running a surreptitious
U.F.O. program for ten years. The article
included two videos, recorded by the Navy, of
what were being described in official channels
as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or U.A.P.
In blogs and on podcasts, ufologists began Leslie Kean is a self-possessed woman with a information.’ ” Her blunt, understated way of
referring to “December, 2017” as shorthand for sensible demeanor and a nimbus of curly talking about incomprehensible data gives her
the moment the taboo began to lift. Joe Rogan, graying hair. She lives alone in a light-filled an air of probity. During my visit, as she peered
the popular podcast host, has often mentioned corner apartment near the northern extreme of at her extensive library of canonical ufology
the article, praising Kean’s work as having Manhattan, where, on the wall behind her desk, texts—with such titles as “Extraterrestrial
precipitated a cultural shift. “It’s a dangerous there is a framed black-and-white image that Contact” and “Above Top Secret”—she sighed
subject for someone, because you’re open to looks like a sonogram of a Frisbee. The and said, “Unfortunately, most of these aren’t
ridicule,” he said, in an episode this spring. But photograph was given to her, along with chain- very good.”
now “you could say, ‘Listen, this is not of-custody documentation, by contacts in the
something to be mocked anymore—there’s Costa Rican government; in her estimation, it is In her best-selling book, “UFOs: Generals,
something to this.’ ” the finest image of a U.F.O. ever made public. Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the
The first time I visited, she wore a black blazer Record,” published in 2010 by an imprint of
Since then, high-level officials have publicly over a T-shirt advertising “The Phenomenon,” a Random House, Kean wrote that “the U.S.
conceded their bewilderment about U.A.P. documentary from 2020 with strikingly high government routinely ignores UFOs and, when
without shame or apology. Last July, Senator production values in a genre known for grainy pressed, issues false explanations. Its
Marco Rubio, the former acting chairman of the footage of dubious provenance. Kean is indifference and/or dismissals are irresponsible,
Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke on stubborn but unassuming, and she tends to disrespectful to credible, often expert witnesses,
CBS News about mysterious flying objects in speak of the impact of “the Times story,” and and potentially dangerous.” Her book is a
restricted airspace. “We don’t know what it is,” the new cycle of U.F.O. attention it has sweeping reminder that this was not always the
he said, “and it isn’t ours.” In December, in a inaugurated, as if she had not been its principal case. In the decades after the Second World
video interview with the economist Tyler instigator. She told me, “When the New York War, about half of all Americans, including
Cowen, the former C.I.A. director John Brennan Times story came out, there was this sense of many in power, accepted U.F.O.s as a matter of
admitted, somewhat tortuously, that he didn’t ‘This is what the U.F.O. people have wanted course. Kean sees herself as a custodian of this
quite know what to think: “Some of the forever.’ ” lost history. In her apartment, a tranquil space
phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues decorated with a Burmese Buddha and bowls of
to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some Kean is always assiduously polite toward the pearlescent seashells, Kean sat down on the
type of phenomenon that is the result of “U.F.O. people,” although she stands apart from floor, opened her file cabinets, and disappeared
something that we don’t yet understand and that the ufological mainstream. “It’s not necessarily into a drift of declassified memos, barely legible
could involve some type of activity that some that what Greer was saying was wrong—maybe teletypes, and yellowing copies of The Saturday
might say constitutes a different form of life.” there have been visits by extraterrestrials since Evening Post and the Times Magazine featuring
1947,” she said. “It’s that you have to be flying-saucer covers and long, serious
Last summer, David Norquist, the Deputy strategic about what you say to be taken treatments of the phenomenon.
Secretary of Defense, announced the formal seriously. You don’t put out someone talking
existence of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena about alien bodies, even if it might be true. Kean grew up in New York City, a descendant
Task Force. The 2021 Intelligence Nobody was ready for that; they didn’t even of one of the nation’s oldest political dynasties.
Authorization Act, signed this past December, know that U.F.O.s were real.” Kean is certain Her grandfather Robert Winthrop Kean served
stipulated that the government had a hundred that U.F.O.s are real. Everything else—what ten terms in Congress; he traced his ancestry, on
and eighty days to gather and analyze data from they are, why they’re here, why they never his father’s side, to John Kean, a South Carolina
disparate agencies. Its report is expected in alight on the White House lawn—is delegate to the Continental Congress, and, on
June. In a recent interview with Fox News, John speculation. his mother’s, to John Winthrop, one of the
Ratcliffe, the former director of National Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay
Intelligence, emphasized that the issue was no Kean feels most at home in the borderlands Colony. She speaks of her family’s legacy in
longer to be taken lightly. “When we talk about between the paranormal and the scientific; her rather abstract terms, except when discussing
sightings,” he said, “we are talking about latest project examines the controversial the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, her
objects that have been seen by Navy or Air scholarship on the possibility of consciousness grandfather’s great-grandfather, whom she
Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite after death. Until recently, she dreaded the regards as an inspiration. Her uncle is Thomas
imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are inevitable dinner-party moment when other Kean, who served two terms as New Jersey’s
difficult to explain, movements that are hard to guests asked about her line of work and she had governor and went on to chair the 9/11
replicate, that we don’t have the technology for, to mumble something about U.F.O.s. “Then Commission.
or are travelling at speeds that exceed the sound they’d sort of giggle,” she said, “and I would
barrier without a sonic boom.” have to say, ‘There’s actually a lot of serious (Continued on Page 16)