It’s Well Past Time For The Mainstream Media To Get Into The UAP Reporting Game

Please note the following column appeared in the June 16th edition of the Roswell Daily Record and is republished with permission.

By Kevin Wright

Given all the information you’ve accumulated throughout your life, what would you say is the most significant story mainstream media failed to cover adequately? There are likely several good answers, but are any of them as good as the following? There is, quite possibly, a non-human intelligence, commonly referred to as the catch-all Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), interacting with us here on Earth, and some departments and agencies of the Executive branch of our government know about it but have kept it hidden from the world.

The non-coverage of UAP by the mainstream media (MSM) is even more perplexing when you consider the fact that for several years now, members and committees of Congress have been investigating the phenomenon and writing, proposing, and passing legislation containing terms like non-human intelligence, technologies of unknown origin, and “material retrieval, material analysis, and reverse engineering.” Lawmakers have also been holding hearings both behind closed doors and in public. To top it off, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” on June 25, 2021, which, for the first time, acknowledged the government recognizes UAP as a real issue.

Some skeptics and debunkers argue members of Congress conducting investigations and holding hearings have been duped into thinking there is a there-there on UAP by a small cadre of individuals obsessed with ghosts, the paranormal, and, yes, imaginary space alien brothers. But then you have people like former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, Christopher Mellon, who argue that Congressional action on UAP is “arguably the biggest story mainstream news organizations have ever failed to cover.”

There is also retired Army Colonel Karl Nell, who recently stated there is zero doubt that non-human intelligence has been interacting with us here on Earth. Retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet agreed, saying he knew Knell was “correct with complete certainty.” Numerous other high-ranking government officials have said similar things.

Suppose Knell, Gallaudet, Mellon, and others are right, and UAP are technologies made by non-human intelligence. Why has the mainstream media so far shirked their responsibility to cover such a paradigm-shifting story?

Stigma, manufactured from the outset by the government, is undoubtedly one compelling reason. Another, as award-winning Australian investigative journalist Ross Coulthart has explained, is the “drip.” Reporters get bits of inside information from anonymous government officials for their stories. The reporters then become dependent on their sources for the drips of information. So, when their sources later tell them not to report on UAP, fearful they may lose the drip, journalists consent and refrain from covering anything, like UAP, that might upset their government sources.

It’s worth pointing out that the Executive Branch’s approach to handling UAP has amounted to unlawful disinformation. Although forbidden by Executive Order 12333, which explicitly prohibits covert actions “intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media,” it would appear that Executive branch departments and agencies have intentionally dissembled the UAP subject.

You’ll likely recall that in December 2022, Congress established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), mandating that it investigate UAP. One of the AARO’s tasks was to compile a report detailing the historical record of the US Intelligence Community’s involvement in UAP dating back to 1945 (predating the infamous Roswell incident of 1947).

AARO’s Congressionally mandated report released a few months ago, is another attempt to obscure what some elements of government, and possibly private aerospace defense contractors, know about UAP. The AARO’s tissue-thin analysis fell woefully short of providing the comprehensive review Congress intended. After all, we are discussing a record of investigating UAP dating back 80 years. Did AARO carefully analyze and review that record in a paltry 63 pages? The short answer is no.

And the involvement of former AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick in writing opinion columns previewing the report’s findings, laying the groundwork for AARO’s narrative, was troublesome, as was the selective invitation of handpicked reporters to AARO’s press conference.

Of course, if you have a media already concerned about stigma and reporters addicted to the drip of information, disinformation campaigns become all too easy.

Social media platforms are filling the void left by MSM, but of course, social media lacks the gravitas of MSM. Questionable motives and fact-checking are par for the course on the Internet, so bloggers and vloggers are hardly an adequate replacement for MSM’s failure to deliver the facts about UAP.

So where do people who are seeking answers to unsolved riddles go? The 4th Estate — the nickname often attributed to the media as a lynchpin of our democracy — is coming up short on arguably the most significant story ever. Unfortunately, there are no formulas for repairing the problem other than our citizens’ vigilance.