The Missing Times - News Media Complicity in the UFO
Cover-up
"When UFOs Appear,
National News Agencies Fall
Silent..." Terry Hansen
Very few if any books written about the mass media and the
UFO cover-up
display the insight and hard hitting critical analysis as that provided by Terry
Hansen in his book The Missing Times - NEWS MEDIA COMPLICITY IN THE UFO
COVER-UP.
Although it was published nearly 14 years ago Hansen's research has withstood
the test of time by sustaining and keeping relevant the incestuous relationship
that exists between the American intelligence agency infrastructure and the news
media.
Hansen describes it best when he quotes Joseph DeTrani, former CIA Director
of public affairs:
"In many cases, we (the CIA) have persuaded reporters to postpone, change,
hold or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security
interests..."
Hansen uses an enthralling assortment of examples to illustrate how the US
military and its co-terminus intelligence agencies have constructed a
well-orchestrated political strangle-hold on the news. He graphically depicts
how exquisite governmental manipulation of public perception is used to
under-mind democracy while at the same time deftly sustain the facade of a free
press. This theme flows consistently through his work.
President Kennedy - A Media Master
Hansen uses President Kennedy's interaction with the New York Times as a
classic exemplar of government and media complicity.
Little known to the public, President John Kennedy cleverly attempted to
utilize covert censorship when he contrived to restrain Times publisher
Orvil Dryfoos from publishing details of a controversial CIA program to recruit
and train Cuban exiles in Guatemala for what eventually became the disaster
known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. Kennedys glowing and almost saint-like
persona would have been severely tarnished had this kind of news been allowed to
seep into the public domain. Moreover, the political price Kennedy would have
had to pay had the Times not complied was reason enough to impose his will on
Dryfoos.
In another startling revelation Hansen also reveals that during the
development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s, government and military and
government officials contrived to have the media communicate to an unwitting
public that the horrendously huge first test of the A-bomb was a munitions dump
explosion that caused little or no damage and; that claims by some journalists
about radiation poisoning were nonsense - both as it turned out were blatant
government lies.
Somehow they got away with it. Eventually this kind of historical deception
in journalism has become an accepted way of doing business among those in the
media and between the government interests they are persuaded to protect.
Katherine Graham - A Media Mistress
In altering public opinion by manipulating facts and perceptions over the
decades, it has become almost impossible to distinguish the truth from
treachery. Regrettably this kind of complicity between the news media and the
American political system has continued unabated for decades. It leads any
inquiring mind to question the kind of 'democracy' we really have - or, even
more disturbingly - is there a democracy at all? Hansen provides more specific
clarity on this point with a poignant illustration that many may feel borders on
sedition.
The one-time matriarch of the American press industry Katherine Graham is
quoted as saying, before select members of the CIA, "There are some things
the general public does not need to know and shouldn't."
This kind of editorial philosophy by a leading American newspaper should be
of real concern to the American public.
Hansen goes on to quote Graham in the same address - "I believe democracy
flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and
when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." This unambiguous
statement by a media giant does more than imply complicity between government
and media it guarantees it!
Members of the press who may read Hansens work might need to pause to
re-assess their role as journalists when they hear one of their own describe how
those in the upper echelons of government and media contrive to control the news
and succeed at institutionalizing it. The question occurs to this author what
was Katherine Graham doing talking to the CIA in the first place?
Methods of Media Mendacity
As Hansen discusses later in his book, it is of little surprise that US
intelligence agency's propensity to feign disinterest in the UFO phenomenon
gives mainstream press carte-blanche to do exactly the same. Even though some
foreign news agencies do a fine job of exposing UFO related stories - the
powerful American mainstream media seems to be able to pulls its influential
trump card to manage UFO news thus keeping foreign press stories on UFOs from
reaching international wire services.
Hansen suggests several methods have been and are used to manage news about
UFOs: recruiting influential journalists, monitoring and intercepting
UFO-related news, instilling fear through the film industry about evil aliens,
surveillance of UFO organizations, propaganda, misleading information or
disinformation or, recruitment of influential people as media spokespersons to
name a few.
Hansen goes into great detail to illustrate how these strategies are
regularly used to pummel UFO news or evidence of it into oblivion so that no
reputable news agency will touch it.
The result is a woefully uniformed and indolent citizenry that ensures the
success of an institutionalized form of control through mendacity and
complicity.
Hansen also goes to great lengths in pointing out that some of the historical
media-control strategies used to manipulate public opinion during the second
world war, the war in Vietnam and the Gulf war were re-cycled to tackle the new
media-menace called UFOs and extraterrestrials. The fact that the UFO issue has
never become the massive mainstream story of the century is a testament to the
success and over-all effectiveness of these strategies.
Monster Media-Machine
Ultimately what we learn from Hansens research is that this mendacity has
created a two headed monster media-machine; one funded by tax dollars and one
funded by billions in commercial advertising revenues.
We also learn how large corporate-media interests are permitted, in an
unrestrained manner, to flood or dilute the essence of the political and
national security implications of the UFO matter with fantasy, delusion and,
what many call - the giggle-factor. Fundamentally the UFO issue is the most
openly talked-about government secret in history yet few in the public domain
take it seriously.
Under these nearly perfect set of circumstances Hansen depicts why there is
little wonder the authentic nature of the UFO phenomenon has virtually no chance
of ever being fully disclosed in American mass media.
[Ed. Note: This feature of UFO secrecy has changed significantly since
Hansen first published his book. Today - global efforts by many activists and
groups to bring UFO/ET Disclosure into the political arena for the public have
met with good success but continue to fall short of full government
disclosure.]
Hansen goes on to suggest news stories about UFOs circulate with vigour
within American intelligence channels. Hansens assertion is clearly
corroborated by many UFO analysts who have often written about how validated
information about UFOs is routinely supplanted by stories on terrorist bombings,
war in the Middle-East or the waist size of Jennifer Aniston.
Routinely, the general public satiates itself on a feast of celebrity trivia,
the banality of local news and the tireless on-slot of an expensive war economy.
With little or no resistance, this news media-monster has come to life. It
tramples on the US constitution by employing obfuscation, diversion and
censorship as key tools in the dumbing-down of public awareness.
This is the world of the American news consumer - and quite frankly - they
seem to gleefully accept it all as a way of life.
The Hansen Alternative
In The Missing Times Terry Hansen reminds us that all information -
regardless of how unpalatable or uncomfortable it may be, must be accessible by
the public. This is especially true when the source and holder of this
information is the elected body known as the government of the people and by
the people. Any other standard for or use of information that restricts the
publics right-to-know is an abrogation of authority and an illegitimate use of
power.
Most if not all of Hansens book is quite familiar territory to UFO
researchers and analysts. However to those unfamiliar with the UFO issue or with
the historical techniques used by military and intelligence agencies to control
public perceptions about everything from weapons of mass destruction to
Monsantos influence within the American pharmaceutical industry, what Terry
Hansen has to say about government/media complicity may appear quite
unbelievable even mind-boggling to the average consumer of news who accepts at
face value what the media spews out on a daily basis.
Hansen offers a thoroughly different worldview.
For those who may wish to venture beyond the edge of the worldview of Nightly
News, Dancing with the Stars, Kate and Williams baby and who might win the
World Series, Terry Hansen has drawn a picture of an alternative, uncomfortable
yet very authentic new worldview about our place in the universe - among
off-world civilizations who are knocking at our door and, more importantly - why
the US government and media refuse to answer the door. The adventure of reading
this powerful and professionally researched work by an accredited journalist is
as energizing as it is painless for those who wish to know more than whats on
TV or Facebook.
As one reads Hansens entire work, the complicity of the diversionary brand
journalism he describes so articulately becomes readily apparent in the very
first chapter. The careful reader will discover two essential ideas from
Hansens analysis. First, the UFO cover-up is real and second - the truth is
free - not open to negotiation, attack or control by elite factions that seek to
define reality for their own purposes.
In its infancy, the press served to protect such attacks on the truth. As the
watch-dog for the people the press at one time exposed and challenged attempts
by government to control news.
According to Terry Hansen - it appears this is no longer the case.
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NOTES: For those who are interested in gaining a full appreciation of how the
media has become an unofficial arm of government propaganda with respect to the
UFO issue - The Missing Times by Terry Hansen is a must
read.
Sample Topics in The Missing Times:
- Sources of Silence
- A brief History of Lies
- Editing History
- Perception Management
Web site: http://www.themissingtimes.com/
For a CHAPTER SYNOPSIS go to: http://www.themissingtimes.com/synopsis.xhtml
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Victor Viggiani is the news director of ZNN - the
ZlandCommunications NewsNetwork
https://sites.google.com/site/zlandcommunications/
ZNN Press Room - http://zlandcommunications.blogspot.ca/