John Podesta, former senior advisor to Barack Obama, former Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton, and future chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is offering some reflections on his most recent stint in the White House.
Number one on the list — aliens.
Podesta was out of the big-time politics game briefly early in the Bush years, and lent his considerable prestige to a coalition pushing the oddball cause of greater disclosure of federal information about UFOs.
Soon afterwards, he founded the Center for American Progress which quickly emerged as a key pillar of center-left infrastructure in Washington. I worked for a while at CAP, and can testify that while there were a lot of in-house jokes about Podesta and UFOs (including an alien-themed holiday party one December) there was approximately zero institutional effort expended on the cause.
But in a personal capacity, Podesta continued to lend a hand. He participated in a couple of UFO-themed TV shows and wrote the forward to a book about UFOs that was published in 2010.
Then he went back to the White House where, once again, there was no progress on the UFO disclosure front. It’s genuinely too bad. As a former Chief of Staff, Podesta presumably has had access to highly classified information and knows what he’s talking about when he says the public deserves to know what’s in these files. I hope — though I don’t actually expect — that he’ll use his influence in the emerging Clinton campaign to push this in a more serious way.
I wouldn’t expect that either. There are more relevant questions to consider for a presidential election.
There have been a few straight-arrow pilots, military and otherwise, in my life’s experience who share Podesta’s views about UFOs. I have no reason to doubt them. But, current science is all I have to go on – and the Fermi Paradox among others convinces me these folks bumped into something other than extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Eideard 
For the file: http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/pics/foia05.jpg (click to enlarge) also
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20151213/NEWS02/151219670 also http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/stephenbassett.html
CIA: “Take a Peek Into Our “X-Files”” https://www.cia.gov/news-information/blog/2016/take-a-peek-into-our-x-files.html “The CIA declassified hundreds of documents in 1978 detailing the Agency’s investigations into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The documents date primarily from the late 1940s and 1950s. To help navigate the vast amount of data contained in our FOIA UFO collection { http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/ufos-fact-or-fiction }, we’ve decided to highlight a few documents both skeptics and believers will find interesting. Below you will find five documents we think X-Files character Agent Fox Mulder would love to use to try and persuade others of the existence of extraterrestrial activity. We also pulled five documents we think his skeptical partner, Agent Dana Scully, could use to prove there is a scientific explanation for UFO sightings. The truth is out there; click on the links to find it.”
“Why Haven’t We Met Aliens Yet? Because They’ve Evolved into AI” http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-havent-we-met-aliens-yet-because-theyve-evolved-into-ai
H G Wells: “The development of human technology might some day change the world situation. The Marxist concept would then become meaningless.”
Lenin: “You are right. I understood this myself when I read your novel The Time Machine. All human conceptions are on a scale of our planet. They are based on the pretention that the technical potential, although it will develop, will never exceed the `terrestrial limit’. If we succeed in establishing interplanetary communication, all our philosophical, moral and social views will have to be revised. In this case, the technical potential, becomes limitless, would impose the end of the role of violence as a means and method of progress.” Vladimir Lenin, H. G. Wells Interview (1920)
H.G. Wells & V.I. Lenin, from Alexandrov, V., L’Ours et la Baleine (Paris: Stock, 1958).
Police are hunting thieves who stole a ‘flying saucer’ from a museum in the UFO capital of the world. The fiberglass silver coloured disc has been on display at the International UFO Museum and Research Centre, in Roswell, New Mexico, for 24 years. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/weird-news/ufo-thieves-hunted-cops-after-7611684#Q6ix1VelobZHDlGa.97
“The recent WikiLeaks of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta’s, emails have upset and embarrassed her campaign. It has also brought media focus on Podesta’s interest in UFOs, and one of the most intriguing string of emails reveals a Google Hangout meeting that took place between rocker Tom DeLonge, a couple of USAF generals, and an executive of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division. Skunk Works is the group that worked with the CIA to build Area 51, and still develops advance, top-secret, air craft there to this day.” http://www.openminds.tv/hillary-campaign-manager-held-ufo-meeting-with-usaf-generals-rock-star-and-top-secret-aircraft-developer/38698 Includes some of the emails. More about the Podesta WikiLeaks regarding UFOs @ http://www.openminds.tv/hillarys-campaign-managers-leaked-ufo-emails/38643 (“Hillary’s campaign manager’s leaked UFO emails”)
In other news: “Why alien abductions are down dramatically” (Boston Globe, June 2016)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/06/11/why-alien-abductions-are-down-dramatically/qQ3zdBIc2tLAf3LVms8GLP/story.html
“Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public” (WAPO Dec 16. 2017) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-pentagons-secret-ufo-office-sought-to-make-evidence-public/2017/12/16/90bcb7cc-e2b2-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html
“Gimbal: first of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and has been approved for public release.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0
“FLIR1 is the second of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and approved for public release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY
Re: Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod display information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ASQ-228_ATFLIR
To The Stars Academy @ https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com/
(March 12, 2018): “Newly-released DoD video purportedly shows Navy pilot’s encounter with UFO” http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/newly-released-dod-video-purportedly-shows-navy-pilots/story?id=53671546 The footage was released Friday by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), a private scientific research and media group. It is led by Dr. Hal Puthoff, a NASA and U.S. Department of Defense adviser and James Semivan, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency service member. Chris Mellon, a TTSA advisor and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, slammed what he said was the lack of research into what could be behind these videos in an op-ed published Friday in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.ce94c99e6d37
“The Truth about Those “Alien Alloys” in The New York Times UFO Story” (Scientific American 12/22/17) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-those-alien-alloys-in-the-new-york-times-ufo-story/
“Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Where is Everybody?” By John Ball (MIT Haystack Observatory, December 14, 2004) https://www.haystack.mit.edu/hay/staff/jball/etiy.pdf Recently the ‘zoo theory’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis reappeared in the mainstream – for instance “Where Are All the Aliens? Zoo Theory Has Creepy Explanation for Why We Haven’t Made Contact Yet” (Newsweek 12/29/17) http://www.newsweek.com/alien-life-ufos-zoo-theory-764759
The Haystack Observatory is an interdisciplinary research center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) https://www.haystack.mit.edu/edu/undergrad/materials/Presentations.html See also notes and pointers to preprints and other documents by Dr. Ball on Haystack’s pages (Aug 2008) https://www.haystack.mit.edu/hay/staff/jball/JohnBall.html
“Sorry, Believers — Many UFOs Are Just Military Aircraft” (War Is Boring 12/27/17) http://warisboring.com/sorry-believers-many-ufos-are-just-military-aircraft/ “…More recently, the Air Force has been working on a bigger and ever stealthier spy drone called the RQ-180, along with the new radar-evading B-21 bomber. In 2014, a mysterious, wedge-shaped aircraft—possibly an early technology demonstrator for the B-21 program—was photographed flying over Kansas. …Others, such as Lockheed Martin’s self-funded SR-72 hypersonic spy plane, remain cloaked in secrecy.” (see links)
“Is Humanity Ready for the Discovery of Alien Life?” (Scientific American 2/16/18) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-humanity-ready-for-the-discovery-of-alien-life/
“Most Americans would probably be thrilled to learn extraterrestrials (intelligent or not) exist. Other nationalities beg to differ”
In a Reddit AMA last Thursday, esteemed physicist Michio Kaku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku stated that he personally believes that an alien contact could happen within this century by radio communications. However, there are the constraints of language, level of technology, and perhaps their intentions. Furthermore, there is also the question of whether they are Type I, II, or even III in the Kardashev Scale. Generally, he believes that the aliens might be peaceful if they have had more years of resolving fundamental questions. However, he believes that if they don’t care much for the human race, humans could be harmed simply because we are in their way, in the same way that forest animals are threatened by a developer because they are “in the way.” http://www.techtimes.com/articles/221784/20180224/what-will-happen-when-humans-make-contact-with-aliens-physicist-michio-kaku-says-it-depends.htm See also https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization/
“Harry Reid on What the Government Knows About UFOs” (NY Magazine 3/21/18) http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/03/harry-reid-on-what-the-government-knows-about-ufos.html
“UFOs are suddenly a serious news story — you can thank the guy from Blink-182 for that” (Chicago Tribune 5/30/18) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-ufos-blink-182-20180530-story.html
“US aircraft carrier was ‘stalked for days by a UFO’, leaked Pentagon report reveals” (New Zealand Herald 6/1/18) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12059839
2009 military report uncovered by KLAS, a CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, describing multiple autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) spotted by the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group between November 10-16, 2004. https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document_dev/2018/05/18/TIC%20TAC%20UFO%20EXECUTIVE%20REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf (reportedly the news station obtained the unclassified report while visiting Washington, DC for a debriefing arranged by former Senator Harry Reid).
“The great saucer invasion: The day six ‘spaceships’ landed in England” (BBC News 11/3/17) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-41110193