Musings on a Secret Space Program‏

The following guest article is by UFO historian Richard Dolan, author of the book UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 2: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991.

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Musings on a Secret Space Program‏
By Richard Dolan

Slowly, by degrees, I have come to the opinion that there is a secret space program. I recall, for instance, wondering about the alleged anomalies on Mars early on in my research. Back then, I was in correspondence with an individual who had impressive scientific and intelligence credentials. Attempting to feel him out on the topic, I wrote something a bit flippant about Mars, primarily to see what his reaction would be. Sure enough, he replied soberly that I should not dismiss these anomalies, that there were in fact many people within the classified world who took them seriously.

That’s when I realized, very concretely, that the notion of space anomalies was indeed a serious topic. I began to consider: if there is covert interest in the anomalies on Mars, would there be a covert space program to investigate? To this day, I don’t know the answer with certainty, but over the years I have encountered no shortage of quiet, serious-minded people who tell me of their knowledge that there is such a covert program. One component of this, it appears, has to do with the Moon. Are there bases on the far side of the Moon? Again, I do not know for sure, but I cannot rule it out. More than once, people I consider to be informed insiders have steered me in this direction.

There is another reason to suppose the existence of an advanced, clandestine space program. An enormous amount of video of space missions has been downloaded and is available for anyone to see. These include missions of NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia, and China. Much of this was downloaded and made available by a gentleman named Jeff Challender, who unfortunately died in 2007. Jeff spent an enormous part of his life downloading and reviewing – very carefully – video recordings of those missions. There can be no denying that there has been a great deal of activity in Earth’s orbit. Much of what was recorded undoubtedly has conventional explanations. But, frankly, many events do not offer easy explanations. I firmly believe there is something unusual going on in Earth’s orbit. Fortunately, after Jeff’s death, I was able to upload his entire site and attach it to my own. His site, known as Project Prove, now has a permanent home at http://keyholepublishing.com/.

Look at it this way. If you believe there are anomalies on Mars, and if you acknowledge strange activity in Earth’s orbit, you would have a very good reason to initiate a secret space program, would you not? You would want a way to investigate these things in a way that would not be seen by the prying eyes of the public.

I’ve also come to the opinion over the years that part of the classified world – the part that deals with the ET reality – has essentially “broken away” from our own conventional civilization. That is, utilizing the jumpstart they received by studying exotic, alien technology, they have very likely achieved scientific breakthroughs that they have not shared with the rest of us. I think that these breakthroughs have enabled them to employ technologies substantially beyond what we are using, and that in all likelihood this too has contributed to their secret space program.

It’s important to emphasize that the above is primarily conjecture on my part. I consider it my working hypothesis. Proving it will to take a great deal of effort and dedication. It also means not being sucked in by every new person who has claimed to have traveled to Mars. We need to remain clear headed.

Richard Dolan
Rochester, New York
June 3, 2010

Future History - The Next Hundred Years in Space? - Richard's Room 101

I've always had an interest in science fiction and the future of space travel. So this fortnight, I thought we might try something a little different...a possible timeline for the next hundred years or so in space. But first, some thoughts on why space is so vitally important to our future as a species in the first place. 

  

With the state of the world economy; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the fallout between the west and Russia; climate change (whatever its cause); food prices; and the cost of oil, gas and other natural resources climbing; many people are probably thinking we should leave space until we sort out our problems on Earth first. What these people fail to realise is, far from a strain on resources and an unnecessary distraction, space could be the solution to all of these problems. 

  

Most of the troubles of the world, from war to poverty and pollution, are largely down to too many people sharing (or fighting over) too few natural resources. Space colonies could, potentially at least, provide us with all the living space and natural resources mankind could ever need. Knocking both these key problems on the head for good. However, the longer we wait here on Earth, the worse our problems will probably get.

  

In the timeline I've tried to predict future events and breakthroughs as best I can. The first third is pretty much based on NASA's plans for the future, but after 2033 I've had to rely more on the writings of futurists and visionaries like Michio Kaku, Robert Zubrin and Ray Kurzweil, plus some old-fashioned guesswork. If any of these predictions seem too fantastic or impossible to achieve in the next hundred years, just think how far we've come over the last century or so. Back in 1903, many mainstream scientists still thought heavier-than-air flight was impossible...never mind travelling faster than sound or walking on the Moon! So, when it comes to the future, it's probably best to keep an open mind and wait and see.

Here is the timeline:

2010 - International Space Station (ISS) is completed. NASA's shuttle fleet is finally retired. 

2015 - Initial launch of the Orion/Ares-1 spacecraft the shuttle's replacement.

2018 - Man returns to the Moon and work begins on a permanent Lunar base. 

  

2021 - Early asteroid mining expedition is sent to 4660 Nereus. An Apollo and Mars-crosser asteroid, with an orbit that frequently takes it very close to Earth."

  

2025 - Work on the Moon base is completed.

  

2030 - Manned missions to Phobos and Deimos the moons of Mars.

  

2033 - First manned mission to Mars. Perhaps the last great accomplishment of the United States. Weakened by its many Terror Wars it is reduced to a second-rate power. China, India and to a lesser extent United Europe emerge as the big three superpowers of the 21st century but it is the large corporations that hold the real power. 

  

Many more Mars missions follow. Gradually small camps evolve into larger and larger bases. 

  

2045 - Technological Singularity occurs. Computers advance beyond the limits of human intelligence and become the new leading source of great invention and breakthroughs in the world. In the years leading up to and after this event, the definition of what it means to be human becomes more and more complicated.

  

(After this it becomes incredibly hard to make predictions if the Singularity does indeed occur things could progress much faster than we ever dare imagine.)

  

2050 - The first commercial fusion reactors are built. Large-scale industrial mining of Helium-3 (a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion) begins on the Moon, leading to a larger and larger human presence there. Larger-scale mining of near-Earth asteroids also commences. 

  

2053 - The bases established on Mars in the 2030s have grown into villages. Small-scale permanent settlement on Mars begins. 

  

2080 - The completion of the first space elevators allows larger-scale colonisation of Mars to begin. Small towns begin to develop on the red planet. In time these towns will grow into cities. 

  

2090 - Mining of the Asteroid Belt begins.

  

2100 - Serious terraforming attempts begin on Mars. Quantum leaps in technology allow the process to be completed within 100 years. This century-long wait will force many on an increasingly overpopulated and totalitarian Earth to migrate to the outer solar system and beyond. 

  

Also, by the turn of the century, antimatter becomes affordable enough to use as a propellant for some special robotic missions. Near-Light-Speed space travel is made possible and Von Neumann probes (small self-replicating robots with artificial intelligence) are sent beyond the solar system. Travelling just under the speed of light they are able to reach our nearest stars within a decade and via micro wormholes send data back to Earth instantaneously.

  

2101 - A sleeper ship is used for the first manned mission to Jupiter. The mission lays the foundation for future missions and the eventual colonisation of Jupiter's many moons (in particular the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) over the next 50 years. Other colonies are also established in this time period most notably on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. 

2108 - A century after the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva was completed we have a far greater understanding of the Multiverse. Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel is developed eventually taking mankind beyond the solar system.

 

No doubt many of these predictions will turn out to be vastly wrong but more often than not I think I might have underestimated what the future holds. As Michio Kaku writes in Hyperspace:  

  

"What makes futurology such a primitive science is that our brains think linearly, while knowledge progresses exponentially. For example, polls of futurologists have shown that they take known technology and simply double or triple it to predict the future. Polls taken in the 1920s showed that futurologists predicted that we would have, within a few decades, huge fleets of blimps taking passengers across the Atlantic. But science also develops in unexpected ways." 

  

One thing we can be sure of though is, ultimately, without a significant and long-term investment in space we have no future.

READ RICHARD'S ROOM 101 COLUMN FOR BINNALL OF AMERICA

Alternative 3 and the Secret Space Program - Richard's Room 101

In this edition of Room 101, we are venturing to a place where conspiracy theories, UFOs and cult sci-fi meet and merge into one. We are going to discuss Alternative 3, the controversial 1977 spoof documentary that caused uproar in the UK when it was first broadcast.

  

Originally shown as part of the Science Report documentary series, the spoof suggested an incredible link between Great Britain's "brain drain" of disappearing experts leaving the UK for the US, climate change and a secret space program. The Orson Welles, War of the Worlds, style hoax was so convincing that it actually managed to fool many of the millions that saw it originally into thinking that the world was about to end.

  

Perhaps the major reason why so many Bretons were fooled by the hoax was that it retained the Science Report format and even went as far as keeping the same presenter. However, as we will discuss later, perhaps there were other reasons why so many people were taken in by Alternative 3. 

   

Beginning as a documentary about Great Britain's then-contemporary "brain drain," Alternative 3 soon evolves into an investigation into the mysterious disappearances of a number of different space experts. The research presented over the course of the programme leads to the fantastic hypothesis that the missing experts have been taken off the world as part of some secret American/Soviet space program. Further, it is suggested that space travel is far more advanced and has been a reality for much longer than most people believe. The programme even featured a fictional Apollo astronaut, who claimed to have stumbled upon a mysterious Lunar base during his moonwalk. 

   

It is claimed on the programme that scientists had determined that the Earth's surface would soon become uninhabitable, due to pollution causing catastrophic climate change, and that three alternatives to this problem were suggested. The first two alternatives were considered too crazy to work and were quickly abandoned. Leaving only the third alternative, the "Alternative 3" of the title, to colonise Mars via a base on the Moon. 

  

Alternative 3 ends with a video of an alleged manned landing on Mars in 1962, seven years before Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon. The video even goes as far as showing something moving beneath the Martian soil, strongly suggesting the presence of life on the red planet. 

   

So how much of Alternative 3 is true and how much is fiction? Alternative 3 is clearly a fake documentary, the fictitious astronaut makes that obvious. However, the writers do seem to have stumbled upon something in Alternative 3. Themes such as climate change and even the possibility of space settlement have been getting a lot more attention in recent years.

  

In 2004, President Bush unveiled a new vision for the US space program. He proposed an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the Moon, like in Alternative 3, as a stepping stone for future manned missions to Mars and beyond. Then, in 2006 Nasa announced plans to build a solar-powered outpost at one of the Moon's poles, expected to be permanently staffed by 2024.

  

More recently, Stephen Hawking called for a massive investment in establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars in a lecture to mark NASA's 50th anniversary. Hawking argued that the world should devote about 10 times as much as NASA's current budget to space.

  

The renowned physicist had previously spoken in favour of colonising space, just like in Alternative 3, as an insurance policy against the possibility of humanity being wiped out by catastrophic climate change: "Life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming... I, therefore, want to encourage public interest in space." 

  

Also, in The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin made a strong case for his Mars Direct plan for a manned mission to Mars using only current technology. The ultimate goal is the eventual colonisation and even terraforming of Mars. 

  

It is clear then that Moon bases and Mars colonies, much like the ones alleged to secretly exist in Alternative 3, could well become a reality in the near future. However, what about now, is there any suggestion that there could be a secret space program of any kind?

The answer is an astonishing yes.

  

Most BoA: Audio listeners are probably already familiar with Gary McKinnon, the famous UFO computer hacker that was arrested for allegedly hacking into NASA and the US military computer networks. McKinnon claims that he spent two years looking for evidence of UFOs and suppressed free energy technology. During this, he says that he found a list of officers' names under the mysterious heading "Non-Terrestrial Officers," as well as a list of "fleet-to-fleet transfers" and ship names. 

  

Further, McKinnon claims he checked the ship names and discovered that they defiantly weren't US Navy ships. Leading him to suspect that the US have some kind of secret space program: "What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet."

  

Interestingly, McKinnon also says he saw pictures of what looked like cigar-shaped UFOs on a NASA computer. Perhaps these and other NASA UFOs could be part of such a secret space program. With the Pentagon missing $2.3 trillion in transactions (according to Donald Rumsfeld), almost anything becomes feasible.

   

However there is much harder evidence than this of a secret US space program. On August 7, 1989, a very interesting article called Pentagon Leaves the Shuttle Program appeared in The New York Times. Amazingly, the article openly discussed the existence of a secret US military astronaut program in the late 1970s and 1980s: "In 1979, the Air Force Space Division in Los Angeles founded the Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program, an elite corps of military astronauts that was to specialize in deploying top-secret payloads. Mr Cassutt said corps members were told they would fly in space at least once. The secret program, he added, eventually trained 32 engineers and had an annual budget of about $4 million." Admittedly this is nowhere near the scale of the scenario in Alternative 3, but it is real, a little glimpse into the secret space program.

   

Many people look at the night sky and wonder whether mankind will ever reach the stars, perhaps we're a lot closer than we might think.

 

READ RICHARD'S ROOM 101 COLUMN FOR BINNALL OF AMERICA