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The original was posted on /r/ufos by /u/Better-Waltz-2026 on 2026-05-16 22:27:06+00:00.

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I've been going down this rabbit hole for last 6 months and I keep running into the same frustration, failed disclosure attempts for at least 60 years. What changed after 2020? Why is different now?

What I want to lay out here is specifically the attempts to get political action, people who went directly to Congress, to presidents, to intelligence directors, on the record, with evidence, demanding answers. Actual named officials, scientists, and military personnel who put their reputations on the line and hit a wall.

TLDR at the bottom for those who want it

The first CIA Director in the New York Times (1960)

Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter was the first director of the CIA. He ran the agency from 1947 to 1950, which means he was sitting in that chair during Roswell, during the wave of sightings in 1947, during all of it.

In 1960, he broke his silence. In the New York Times. He wrote (Original NY Times Article):

"Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."

He then joined the board of NICAP specifically to pressure Congress into holding hearings. The first CIA director, people. Using a civilian organization to push Congress because internal channels had completely failed him.

What did Congress do? Nothing.

JFK ordered the CIA to declassify UFO files (1963)

This one I keep coming back to and it never stops being strange.

On November 12, 1963, President Kennedy sent a Top Secret memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence. The subject line was: "Classification review of all UFO intelligence files affecting National Security."

JFK wanted all high-threat UFO cases reviewed, specifically to separate genuine unknowns from classified CIA and USAF operations, because he was worried the Soviets might mistake US extended space cooperation as intelligence gathering. He also directed that data-sharing be set up with NASA where "Unknowns are a factor." He asked for an internal report by February 1, 1964.

JFK sent the memo on Nov 12. He was assassinated on Nov 22. The report was never completed. His successor had different priorities. The CIA files stayed classified.

NICAP handed Congress a 200,000-word report full of evidence (1964)

NICAP at its peak had 7,500 members including 300+ professional scientists and engineers, 200+ professional pilots, and active/retired military officers. The director was Major Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps officer.

Source: The UFO Evidence.pdf

In 1964 they submitted "The UFO Evidence" directly to every member of Congress. 200,000 words. The best 750 documented cases from over 5,000 in their files. 10,000+ copies distributed to universities, scientific organizations, government agencies, and military installations.

They straight up asked for a Congressional investigation.

Congress did nothing.

I always think about that when people say "well if there was really evidence someone would have brought it forward." Somebody did. A 200,000 word report. Sent to every single Congressman. Still nothing.

Website: https://www.nicap.org/

Gerald Ford demanded an investigation after police officers reported low-altitude craft (1966)

After the Exeter, New Hampshire sightings where multiple police officers reported structured craft at extremely close range, Congressman Gerald Ford wrote to the Secretary of the Air Force demanding a formal Congressional inquiry.

He got one, sort of. The House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on April 5, 1966. Air Force Secretary Harold Brown and Gen. McConnell testified. It was brief, it was a whitewash, and the main outcome was the Air Force agreeing to fund a "scientific" study which became the Condon Committee at University of Colorado.

That study was rigged from the start. A leaked internal memo from project coordinator Robert Low literally said: "The trick would be to describe the project so that to the public it looks like a totally objective study, but to the scientific community would still convey the message that there isn't really anything to it." That memo leaked in 1967. Even that didn't trigger serious congressional action.

The most credible congressional hearing that almost nobody talks about (1968)

On July 29, 1968, the House Committee on Science and Astronautics held a Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects. Actual credentialed scientists testified. This is important because it barely gets mentioned. (House Hearing, 90th Congress - Symposium on unidentified flying objects)

Dr. James McDonald, a senior atmospheric physicist from the University of Arizona, went in front of Congress and stated that UFOs represented "the greatest scientific problem of the modern era." He had personally investigated 41 high-quality cases and laid them out systematically. He specifically called the Condon Report inadequate and argued the Air Force investigation had been fraudulent from day one.

McDonald spent years lobbying Congress, testifying, filing formal complaints. He died in 1971 while still actively pushing for disclosure.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek also testified. Hynek had been the Air Force's own scientific consultant for Project Blue Book, hired specifically to debunk sightings. After years of doing that job, he switched sides, went public about the Air Force's dishonesty, and founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1973. When your own hired debunker quits and starts an institute to counter you, that says something.

Senator Barry Goldwater got personally shut down by Curtis LeMay (1970s)

This is one I love because Goldwater wasn't some lightweight. He was the 1964 Republican Presidential nominee, a Major General in the Air Force Reserve, and sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee for decades.

He tried to access the so-called Blue Room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where recovered material was reportedly stored. He called General Curtis LeMay personally. LeMay's response, in Goldwater's own words across multiple interviews: "He said, 'Hell no. And don't ever ask me again.'"

Goldwater went public about this multiple times before his death in 1998, stating clearly that he believed the government had recovered extraterrestrial craft and was hiding it. A former Presidential candidate, Air Force General, and senior Senator saying this on record. It got treated as a curiosity.

The Rockefeller Initiative tried to get Clinton to declassify everything (1993 - 1996)

This is where it gets weird. Rockefeller spent years and millions just trying to get the Clinton White House to come clean. And he couldn't. Which means by the 1990s, the secret had grown bigger than the presidency itself.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurance_Rockefeller

He met with Hillary Clinton directly. He got meetings with Clinton's Science Advisor John Gibbons. He had a 169-page briefing document sent to heads of state worldwide. He funded researchers and had Dr. Steven Greer brief CIA Director James Woolsey.

Hubbell wrote in his memoir that Clinton asked him to find out all he could about two things: who killed JFK and what the government knows about UFOs, and that "He was dead serious. I had looked into both, but wasn't satisfied with the answers I was getting.

Think about that. The President of the United States asked his own Justice Department to find out what was going on with UFOs. And the Justice Department couldn't find out.

Think about that for a second. The President couldn't find out. What that means is the secret had grown so deep, so compartmentalized, that the guy at the top can't access it. That's exactly what Grusch and Elizondo have been saying.

Source: https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36386Clinton himself later said on Jimmy Kimmel that he'd looked into it and found nothing. He did not seem to be lying. He seemed genuinely uncertain.

The Disclosure Project (2001), National Press Club, live webcast

May 9, 2001. Dr. Steven Greer assembled over 20 named military, intelligence, government, and corporate witnesses at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. 250,000 people tried to watch the webcast, the largest audience ever for an NPC event at that time.

Source: National Press Club Event: Unlocking Hidden Tech to Save Our Future | Dr. Steven Greer

They included:

• Former Air Force personnel describing direct encounters and being ordered to stay silent
• A Washington lawyer who had personally been shown photos of recovered craft with non-human writing at the National Archives during the Carter administration
• Intelligence officials with Top Secret/SCI clearances

Greer said he had 400+ witnesses ready to testify before Congress under oath. He formally requested Congressional hearings. Nine days later, 9/11 occurred and the news cycle shifted entirely.

Congress did not respond.

UFOs shut down our missiles (2010): 7 former USAF nuclear officers went to Congress on record.

September 27, 2010, National Press Club. This is...

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