from
Examiner Website
extraterrestrial
contact secretly developed in 1998 In honor of US Independence Day, Catherine Austin Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), released a document supporting her claims that the US Navy initiated a plan in 1998 to adjust its operations for a future where extraterrestrials exist and live among us.
She claims the plan was commissioned by the Undersecretary of the US Navy and was undertaken by the Arlington Institute, an NGO located near the Pentagon with many military clients, where Fitts served on the Board of Directors.
She was asked to assist with the plan and claims she was given an opportunity to meet a live alien, but declined.
When I contacted the Arlington Institute in 2008, two members of the Board of Directors repudiated Fitts claims. The document released on her website is the official minutes of a Board of Directors meeting held at the Arlington Institute in 2000.
The document confirms key elements in her version of events, especially that Arlington Institute was actively discussing plans for how to best prepare the general public for disclosing the existence of, and contact with, extraterrestrial life.
Catherine Fitts claims that in 1998 the Undersecretary of the U.S. Navy had commissioned a "high level strategic plan" to prepare the American public for an official announcement that extraterrestrials exist and live among us.
In March 2008 I was planning to write an article about Ms Fitts claims, and began my investigation by first contacting her to elaborate or clarify her earlier recollection.
Fitts said she had nothing to add to what had already been released to the public. I then contacted John Petersen, President of the Arlington Institute. He flatly denied Ms Fitts claims and offered to put me in communication with other members of the Board of Directors to get independent confirmation.
In subsequent email communications with Joe Firmage, another Board member, he also denied Ms Fitts version of events, and did not recall any meetings where she was also present where the issue of extraterrestrial life was discussed. I was unsuccessful in reaching Jerry MacArthur Hultin, who served as Undersecretary of the Navy during the period mentioned by Fitts.
To varying degrees, Petersen and Firmage both claimed there was no substance to Fitts story.
Petersen was especially insistent that Fitts had contrived the entire scenario. Given that two members of the Arlington Institute Board of Directors directly contradicted her version of events, and I was not able to find any other witnesses to support her claims, I decided to postpone writing an article on the incident until independent confirmation could be found.
Almost five years later, in my recently published book, Galactic Diplomacy - Getting to Yes with ET, I included the incident described by Catherine Fitts along with the denial by John Petersen and Joe Firmage.
I wrote:
In the footnote 414, I gave some details of my communications with Petersen and Firmage.
On July 4, 2013 I received a short email by Ms Fitts with a subject header referencing footnote 414 in my Galactic Diplomacy book where I elaborated on the repudiation of her claims by Arlington Institute Board members.
The content of her email directed me to a new page on her Solari website which was just uploaded.
With the publication of Galactic Diplomacy, the contradiction of her version of events by other Arlington Institute Board members was now part of the public record.
Consequently, Fitts felt free to release documentation supporting her version of events – Minutes of the March 26, 1999 Board of Directors meeting.
The Minutes of the meeting state:
While the study mentioned by Pickford and Lindemann is not identified, here is an online account of eight alien contact scenarios they developed for a workshop on extraterrestrial contact as recalled by one of the participants:
The minutes of the meeting confirm that the Arlington Institute was discussing extraterrestrial contact scenarios in at least one Board of Directors meeting as Fitts claimed.
Importantly, the minutes confirm that the Arlington Institute was doing work for clients that involved extraterrestrial contact as a wild card issue. According to Ms Fitts, one of these clients was the US Navy.
In private email communications, Petersen confirmed that Fitts did participate in a Navy Project conducted by the Arlington Institute, and that the extraterrestrial contact issue did come up as a “wild card” future scenario event.
However, he pointed out that there was no strategic plan commissioned by the US Navy to prepare the public for extraterrestrial contact as claimed by Fitts.
There remains substantial differences between Catherine Fitts and John Petersen over the extent to which the US Navy interest in extraterrestrial contact issues was part of a strategic study as Fitts claims, or simply part of ad hoc discussions as Petersen contends.
Nevertheless, the official Board minutes released by Fitts does lend support to her main claim that the US Navy commissioned a project with the Arlington Institute for its expertise on wild card future scenarios involving extraterrestrial contact.
It can therefore be concluded with some confidence that official efforts began in 1998 by the US Navy to prepare for a world where extraterrestrials exist and are living among the human population.
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