U.S. President Barack Obama walks on the Ellipse with White House counselor John Podesta near the White House in Washington May 21, 2014. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)
It looks like we won’t be seeing the real-life Mulder and Scully anytime soon, as least according to recently departed White House adviser John Podesta.
“Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere,”he tweeted on Friday, his last day in the White House.
Podesta’s love of the “X-Files” TV show, along with his fascination with all things extraterrestrial, is well documented. Back in 2002 Podesta even discussed the importance of disclosing government UFO records at a conference organized by the Coalition for Freedom of Information. “I think it’s time to open the book on questions that have remained in the dark, on the question of government investigations of UFOs,” he said. “We ought to do it, really, because it’s right, we ought to do it because the American people, quite frankly, can handle the truth, and we ought to do it because it’s a law.”
More recently, Podesta wrote the foreword to Leslie Kean’s 2010 book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.”
The public’s appetite for information on UFOs remains strong. Earlier this year, for example, a slew of UFO files hit the Web when UFO enthusiast John Greenewald posted declassified records from Project Blue Book -- the U.S. Air Force’s records on alleged UFO and extraterrestrial sightings -- on an online database. Greenwald had spent decades filing Freedom of Information Act requests on the topic.
However, scant reference is made to Roswell, New Mexico, in the database. The alleged 1947 Roswell incident continues to be a source of controversy, with conspiracy theorists claiming the U.S. military found and covered up evidence of an alien spaceship crash.
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