The war between the public that would like to see open, sensible examination by the government of the issue of unidentified phenomenon and those in the government who either do not know—or would rather not say what they know—escalated Thursday when not one but two well-crafted petitions were published at the White House's We The People website calling for investigation of the evidence.

Both are representative of a widespread indignant reaction to the dismissive and evasive reply from the White House to the Paradigm Research Group's (PRG) first petition calling for disclosure.

The White House has proven intractable in its denial of the obvious, but that strategy has backfired. Now the public has two petitions of merit to support, not just one. The two new petitions represent different philosophies and hence two prongs of attack on the besieged bastion of 'plausible deniability' that is the Obama administration's position on the unexplained phenomenon issue. Unfortunately, the deniability is implausible as this article will show.

One of the petitions, delivered as promised by PRG Executive Director Steven Bassett, is another step in a tightly focused political strategy Bassett sees as eventually leading to some form of disclosure. The other, a surprise development co-authored by historian Richard Dolan and producer Bryce Zabel, takes a broader, more generalized approach designed to circumvent the attempt by White House staffer Larson to misdirect the question while bring the issue to a wider audience.

The inciting incident in this developing melodrama was PRG's first petition, which said in part:

"We, the undersigned, strongly urge the President of the United States to formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and immediately release into the public domain all files from all agencies and military services relevant to this phenomenon." — PRG Petition I, 2011

This bold approach presupposes both the validity of the extraterrestrial hypothesis — which may have been its Achilles heel— and that the President of the United States is far enough in the loop to know what is going on on these matters — which is certainly debatable.

As discussed in a previous Phoenix UFO Examiner article, it is not clear to what extent the President of the United States has any idea what is really going on in regard to the unexplained phenomenon that has historically interacted with humanity and continues to be reported in ever increasing numbers to this day.

President Clinton, when discussing the results of his request for documents regarding the UFO issue said:

"If there were, they were concealed from me, too. I wouldnt be the first President that underlings have lied to or that career bureaucrats have waited out." — President Clinton, 2005

The response by White House Staffer Phil Larson deftly sidestepped the intent of Bassett's petition. The Official White House Response to PRG Petition I said in part:

"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye."— Phil Larson, OSTP staff, 2011

Larson went on to misdirect the issue to a discussion of SETI and reiterated the mainstream party line that as far as anyone knows we are alone on this little rock.

The petition was formally laid to rest with a single sentence:

"The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth." — Phil Larson, OSTP staff, 2011

No lack of credible evidence.

Larson's wrong.

The use of the magic adjective 'credible' attempts to discount all available evidence, which is in direct contradiction to the United States Air Force. Clearly the White House has not done its history homework, let alone paid attention to public opinion on the matter. They don't even seem to have read the literature. Leslie Kean published a landmark work in 2010 that laid out the best evidence of a phenomenon, based specifically upon credible witnesses, such as airline pilots, the FAA, military pilots, officers and airmen who have witnessed the phenomenon directly — and have the radar data and other evidence, radio traffic and other evidence to prove it.

The White House's uninformed response is in direct contradiction to Air Force Intelligence Chief, Major General John Samford, who told a 1952 press conference at the Pentagon in no uncertain terms that:

"There have been a certain percentage of this volume of reports that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things. It is this group of observations that we are attempting to resolve." — Major General John Samford, Chief of Air Force Intelligence, 1952

Credible witnesses offering credible evidence abound and the record is clear on this.

By its own admission, then, the White House is simply unware of trends in world events and history to an extent that is alarming in an executive branch charged with responsible governing and committed to transparency.

If the White House does not know that the United States Air Force is on record saying there are credible witnesses offering reports of a unidentified phenomenon, then perhaps it should take a closer look at the historical record. I might recommend that Mr. Larson read the first two parts of Richard Dolan's trilogy on UFO's and the National Security State, in addition to Ms. Kean's work. And pass them up the chain of command to his boss. The United States of America cannot afford to be run by the uninformed.

No lack of White House/OSTP awareness.

That is not a worry, however. Is not like the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy can plausibly claim it is unaware of the evidence. Internal memos show that evidence to be a matter of political concern to the OSTP as early as July of 2009.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by John Greenwald of the Black Vault for all documents the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) had on the UFO issue, a series of emails between staffers were returned including one from James C. Kohlenberger, OSTP Chief of Staff at the time, to his staff, which began by asking:

"I'm trying to figure out who has point on this issue." — James C. Kohlenberger, OSTP Chief of Staff, 2009

Attached to the email was a copy of a Phoenix UFO Examiner article entitled: "Key to Obama health plan blocked by UFO truth embargo?"

The lead sentence in that article stated:

"Tiny fragments of a device of apparent extraterrestrial origin may hold an invaluable secret to advancing health care in the US, but open discussion of that fact may be subjected to information policing by the Obama administration." — Phoenix UFO Examiner, 2009

So the White House OSTP is well aware of the evidence and the Air Force is on record stating some of it is credible. The brush-off given the PRG Petition is therefore specious at best.

In the ensuing emails in the FOI request response, one can see the policy formulated to shift the discussion to NASA and SETI rather than answer a series of pointed questions at the end of the piece.

Loopholes in language?

Something is producing the mass of unidentified phenomenon reports that are lodged daily at places like the National UFO Reporting Center or the MUFON database. Whether or not it can be strictly considered extraterrestrial in nature is worth some debate and that may be the loop-hole Larson was counting on. There is sufficient reason to consider that the unknown phenomenon is an intrinsic part of Earth's history and may have played a part our evolution.

The latter concept was examined in some detail in the most recent episode of Ancient Aliens and the former was discussed in episode of the C-Realm podcast 'Another Tenant in the Building'.

PRG's first petition 'failed' in the sense that it only provoked a standard-issue, thoughtless and trivial response from a low-level staffer in lieu of a signal of willingness on the part of the White House to address an issue that is perceived as political suicide. However the PRG petition did not fail in its key objective. It garnered 12,078 signatures, sufficient to force a response and put the White House and its OSTP on record.

By going on record with a blatantly untruthful and evasive response, the political machine of the Obama Administration has made a political miscalculation.

The dismissive and uninformed response by the White House enraged the sensibilities of those who have done their homework and sounds about as plausible as Richard Nixon saying he had no idea how the 18 minutes of audiotape most likely damaging to his stonewall defense of no wrong-doing in the Watergate affair got erased.

Double Barrel Response

The twin petitions launched in recent days are highly complementary and reflect the fact that the White House official response was wrong in more ways than one.

The first to hit publication was the Dolan/Zabel petition, which reads:

"Searching for microbes on Mars and radio signals from space is not enough. We must explain Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, or UAP, right here on Earth.

For six decades worldwide, credible witnesses (including Presidents Carter and Reagan) have consistently described objects with flight capabilities beyond our technology. UAP are often verified by radar and even seen at nuclear sites by military officers.

Given the national security implications, the United States should conduct an independent investigation. This inquiry must transparently review the key unsolved UAP reports with access to classified documents. It must have the power to call witnesses and grant immunity.

The findings should be publicly presented." — Dolan/Zabel Petition

The Dolan/Zabel petition follows the train of thought laid down by Ms Kean and derives from both author's work in the field. There is certainly credible evidence of something phenomenally capable operating in our biosphere. Jumping to the conclusion that it is by definition extraterrestrial or that the White House knows much about it is unwarranted. Dolan and Zabel are offering the White House an exit strategy — they can appoint an independent investigator and empower him or her with the ability to dig the answers out of wherever they lie.

If you are not aware of credible evidence of an unknown phenomenon, Mr. President, Dolan and Zabel argue, you should be and you ought to hire someone capable of finding out what you don't know and making you aware.

When 'news' of information about the phenomenon is eventually uncovered by independent investigation — assuming a truly independent investigation can be undertaken — then the Obama Administration can say "Wow, who knew?", announce the results and take point on the issue by leading the media and the security apparatus out of the quagmire of denial.

Zabel had the following comments on the process behind the joint petition:

"The White House response to the October petition was pathetically inadequate with its breezy dismissal by an underling at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. If you visit the OTSP agency website you will see them asking school kids and average citizens to send its director Dr. John P. Holdren fun questions that he will answer. But when 12,000 people sign a petition in a thirty day period, well, that doesn't warrant the boss's attention. It boggles the mind.

Rich Dolan and I have tried to craft what we hope can become the precedent setting petition language that is needed to turn the national conversation on this subject of UAP in a more serious direction. The language we've chosen for "Need-to-Know: The Disclosure Petition" is meant to be accessible and mainstream. We believe it is entirely possible that a person who was an open-minded skeptic on the topic of UAP/UFO would still be able to sign it (NTK-TDP) because it is so damn reasonable.

Our petition says — bottom line — there's something that's been going on, we're not sure what, but a lot of really smart, honest, down-to-Earth folks have seen it — and we would like our government to take a stab at telling us the truth. That's basically something we should expect them to do." — Bryce Zabel

A day later, Steve Bassett published the PRG second round petition which reads:

"We petition the Obama Administration to demand a full congressional investigation of UFO/ET Disclosure efforts by the Clinton OSTP - the Rockefeller Initiative."

In response to the Disclosure Petition, the OSTP stated, "The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race."

If true, what was the OSTP investigating from March 1993 to October 1996 in concert with billionaire and Clinton friend, Laurance Rockefeller?

Those who knew of and have not spoken publicly of this initiative include: Bill Clinton, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, Obama transition co-chair John Podesta, Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, Dr. John Gibbons, Albert Gore and Governor Bill Richardson." — PRG Disclosure Petition II

Bassett laid out the rational for the second PRG Disclosure Petition as follows:

"The primary aim of Disclosure Petition I was to get the Executive Branch of the government, in this case the Obama Administration, on the record regarding the matter of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. That was accomplished. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) under the direction of Dr. John Holdren stated there is no evidence whatsoever for life outside the Earth or any non-human intelligence engaging the Earth - period.

The primary aim of Disclosure Petition II is to directly challenge that assertion by the OSTP and to do so in such a way as to attract the interest of the political media. PRG chose a specific focus on a well documented initiative involving the very same OSTP and some well known political officials." — Steve Bassett

Turns out Bassett was expecting the kind of flip, empty denial that duly emerged and has now sprung a trap. If you don't know anything, White House, what was going on when Bill and Hillary Clinton spent all that time talking to Laurence Rockefeller?

Again this presupposes that Bill and Hillary were discussing UFOs or advanced intelligence or whatever it is with Rockefeller. And he is asking the President to ask Congress to hold a full investigation, rather than take direct action and appoint an independent investigator — which, frankly, seems more like what is needed in this matter.

Which will win?

While it is enticing to debate the relative merits and limitations of both Petitions (and each have both) the larger issue is that both petitions have just cause. Both seek to address an unspoken cancer on modern society — the denial or deliberate hiding of something that is phenomenally capable and operates with impunity in our biosphere.

And the real story is that the response by OSTP has magnified, not quelled public need to know on the issue of unidentified phenomenon.

We cannot proceed sensibly through the difficult times we face and emerge a more measured, more capable and more responsible species unless we are willing as a society and as a civilization to openly acknowledge the phenomena around us that don't fit tidily between the covers of current high-school physics and history books.

One cannot help but wonder who benefits the most from continued denial and secrecy. Both of these petitions are a step toward unravelling that question.

The answer to the who has the better strategy question is that both of these petitions are worth the time it takes to go to the White House website and sign them.

Need to Know Petition

Disclosure Petition II

In round two, the White House has raised the bar to 25,000 signatures, so it remains for those with even passing interest in honesty in government to not only sign both petitions but to make a point to share the petition pages on Facebook, Tweet the Tiny URL's and otherwise utilize social networking to raise awareness on an issue the mainstream media thus far refuses to report.

It is a matter of time before one or another of these petitions comes to the attention of a MoveOn.org or catches the imagination of the Occupy movement. When you think about what is lost by not understanding the origin of a phenomeon around you — particularly one that implies profoundly advanced technology, it's hard to dismiss the need for social action on this issue.

And it is hard to imagine, given the obviously evasive nature of the official response and the magnitude of indignation it provoked, that social action will not be quick in coming and significant in scope.