Dr. Steven Greer wasn’t much interested in seeing the much-anticipated X-files movie, Fight The Future, whose plot revolved around a deadly extraterrestrial virus and a secret international cabal trying to conceal the existence of aliens on this planet. Dr Greer feels films like this cloud the extraterrestrial issue.
"There’s a strong degree of fear-mongering that goes on in Hollywood that I think is wholly unwarranted," says Dr Greer, a 43-year-old doctor of medicine and founder and international director of the Centre for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) in Asheville, North Carolina. "I think the paranoiac spin that’s put on the extraterrestrial issue is regrettable and rather dangerous. That’s the stuff that sows the seeds of future conflict."
"I don’t go much for science fiction," says Dr Greer, although he does believe that extraterrestrials regularly visit our planet and that there is a plot to conceal their existence from us. Dr Greer wants to make friends with our alien visitors. He set up his non-profit-making institute in 1990.
Its twin declared aims are "to establish a diplomatic and research initiative to contact extraterrestrial civilizations, leading to a sustainable, peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship", and "to educate all sectors of human society about this subject in a credible and non-harmful manner."
In April 1997, together with former Apollo 14 astronaut Ed Michell, he briefed members of the US Congress, putting forwards the testimony of a number of witnesses regarding UFOs and extraterrestrials. These included a military pilot who claimed to have encountered a 300ft UFO off Newfoundland in 1951, a major who detailed a report of an alien being shot at the end of the runway at McGuire airforce base,, and a former sub-contractor in the photo lab a t Johnson Space Center in Houston, who said he saw a NASA technician airbrush a UFO out of space satellite photo and was told by him that this was routine procedure.
Dr Greer has also given a three-hour briefing to CIA Director James Woolsey, who was "mortified", he says , by what he told him. According to Dr Greer, even President Clinton is in the dark when it comes to the truth about UFOs. This is because shadowy figures in the military/industrial axis have conspired not only to cover up the facts but also to wage a campaign of disinformation. This includes the us of "advanced psychoelectronic technologies" which can, for instance, make someone believe they have been abducted by aliens. The purpose of this is apparently to discredit the testimony of those who really have been abducted by aliens. The truth is not just out there, but way out there, it seems.
"It’s my opinion that the implications of disclosing the subject are so vast and so profound that there are a number of people who would prefer to see the status quo remain." Says Dr Greer, who believes that the technology behind UFOs has already been "reverse engineered" behind closed doors and that many UFOs are not in fact of extraterrestrial origin, but were manufactured somewhere in the American desert.
These "alien reproduction vehicles" are apparently not quite as good as the real thing, being unable to move in and out of the speed of light quite so seamlessly, but Dr Greer nevertheless believes the technology behind them should be made available to the public. It’s is only vested interests, he says, that prevent this from happening.
"For example, the propulsion systems that these things are using do not rely on petrol from the North Sea, I can assure you," he says. "It’s our recommendation that the technology should be phased in rather quickly, but of course there are people who don’t want to see that happen. I suspect if you owned a trillion-dollar oilfield somewhere, you wouldn’t be real keen on this."
As part of its initiative to contact extraterrestrial civilizations, CSETI deploys what it calls Rapid Mobilization Investigating Teams to areas where there have been frequent recent sightings of UFOs, with the purpose of attempting to make contact with them and Dr Greer says that "on several occasions these objects had come at fairly close range signaling to us".
Six years ago, Dr Greer says he had just such an encounter with a UFO in Britain. He says it was around 100ftin diameter and only about 200ft away. Unfortunately there are no pictures of it, because Dr Greer’s cameraman had already gone to bed by the time it arrived. But that has left his enthusiasm to end secrecy undeterred. "The Earth and her people need these disclosures and need these technologies," he says.
