“The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue. We have statements from the most credible sources – those in a position to know – about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined.”

The statement above comes from John Podesta (you can find the source for this quote, and more from Podesta on UFOs in this article), Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and Counsellor to Barack Obama. It’s a powerful statement, because it’s true. We now have witness testimony from hundreds upon hundreds of high ranking, very credible people from within politics and government, military, and intelligence agencies saying that the UFO and extraterrestrial phenomenon is indeed real and deserves serious attention.

To view some of these statements from just a few of these ‘credible’ people, you can click here.

We also have official, declassified documentation to back up these statements, you can view some of those here.

If you put two and two together, it’s clear that:

“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been contacting us for a very long time.” – Dr. Brian O’Leary, Former NASA astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)

But it’s not just the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon that seems to be gaining more transparency. Strange things have been observed in space. Perhaps this is why the Russian government recently called for an international investigation regarding the missing film footage of the U.S. moon landings, or why a U.S. Defence physicist and the Deputy Manager of the Clemintine Mission to the moon recently blew the whistle on what’s really up there.

Major General Albert Stubblebine can be added to the long list. Although he did not participate in theCitizens Hearing On UFO disclsoure (where a number of military, political, academic, and government personnel testified to several former congressional members), his credentials speak for themselves.

MARS

General Stubblebine is a retired United States Major General. He was also the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), and one of America’s most distinguished soldiers and chief of U.S. Army Intelligence, with 16,000 soldiers under his command.

He was a major proponent of “psychic” warfare and a key player in the “Stargate” project, which was a remote vewing program. Remote viewing can be defined in multiple ways. It’s the ability of individuals to describe a remote geographical location up to several hundred thousand kilometers away (sometimes even more) from their physical location.

The results of this project were declassified and published in the peer reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration. (source) In this program, individuals successfully described physical objects that were nowhere near their physical location.

These programs were the inspiration behind the movie “Men Who Stare At Goats.”

Here’s what General Stubblebine had to say about Mars, perhaps thanks to some intel from the Remote Viewing Program?

“There are structures on the surface of Mars. I will tell you for the record that there are structures underneath the surface of Mars that cannot be seen by the Voyager cameras that went by in 1976. I will also tell you that there are machines on the surface of Mars and there are machines under the surface of Mars that you can look at, you can find out in detail, you can see what they are, where they are, who they are and a lot of detail about them.” (Dolan, Richard. UFOs And The National Security State: New York: Richard Dolan Press)(source 2)

I’ll let you think about that for a moment. Is it really that farfetched? With all of the recent UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon disclosure happening within the past few years, is it really hard to fathom the existence of structures, bases, etc. on the Moon and on Mars?

For our latest articles on the UFO/extraterrestrial subject, please click HERE.

The young man, who refuses to give his name, says he and his friends have also planted bombs in Mosul to target IS vehicles. Because of the attacks, IS militants now drive unmarked cars so they are not so visible, he claims.

Resistance is not futile?

Armed anti-IS groups are not a new phenomenon in Mosul, according to RFE/RL's correspondent in the Iraqi city.

They sprang up almost as soon as the militants overran the city last summer. Their names -- the Brigades of Mosul, the Revenge of Nineveh, the Lions of Nineveh, the Brigades for the Liberation of Mosul -- are testament to their members' pride and intense desire to retaliate against IS.

Some of the groups are no longer operating. In some cases, IS tracked down and killed their fighters. Some say they had to disband when they got no support from the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

But neither IS nor a lack of resources has been able to stamp out resistance in Mosul, according to testimony from local residents, who say that armed vigilante groups are causing problems for the militants.

Covering up

IS tries to cover up the assassinations of its gunmen, witnesses in Mosul say, a sign that the militant group is embarrassed by the killings.

A worker in one of Mosul's morgues tells RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that he receives IS corpses from time to time, though he will not give a precise number.

"IS don't talk a lot about these dead bodies," the morgue worker says. "But if the group has to give some kind of explanation, they say the gunmen were killed in combat or in coalition air strikes."

But the corpses do not show injuries consistent with IS's explanations of their deaths.

They were shot with Kalashnikovs or guns with silencers, or they were strangled or stabbed to death, the morgue worker says.

IS tries to keep the deaths a secret, he adds. The militants only operate under cover of darkness. They bring the bodies to the mortuary and return them to their families only at night.

Hitting back at shadows

Mosul residents tell RFE/RL that IS is trying to crush the armed resistance. As usual, the main weapons IS uses to try to force compliance are fear and brutality.

According to the Mosul morgue worker, when an IS militant is assassinated, IS gunmen arrest former security personnel and execute them in public to terrify others. The victims are accused of spying and cooperating with the Iraqi forces.

"[IS] goes crazy when one of theirs is killed," the morgue worker says.

Killing collaborators

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of the MAKS International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for unilateral air strikes against Islamic State in Syria if the United States rejects his proposal to join forces, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Russia has increased its military presence inside Syria and its arms supplies to the Syrian army as it steps up support of longtime ally President Bashar al-Assad, drawing warnings of further destabilization from Western countries that oppose Assad.

A Russian diplomatic source told Reuters on Wednesday that Moscow sees a growing chance to reach international agreement on fighting terrorism in Syria and end the crisis that has stretched into its fifth year.

Bloomberg reported that Putin's preferred course of action was for the U.S. government and its allies to agree to coordinate their campaign against Islamic State militants with Russia, Iran and the Syrian army. It cited a person close to the Kremlin and an adviser to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

Bloomberg cited a third person as saying Putin's proposal called for a "parallel track" of joint military action accompanied by a political transition away from Assad, a key U.S. demand. Russia has communicated the proposal to the United States, according to the news service.

But one source told Bloomberg that Putin was frustrated with U.S. reticence to respond and was ready to act alone in Syria if necessary.

(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Members of Saudi civil defense try to rescue pilgrims following a crush caused by large numbers of people pushing at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca in this handout picture published on Twitter account of the Directorate of the Saudi Civil Defense September 24, 2015. REUTERS/Directorate of the Saudi Civil Defense/Handout via Reuters

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

MINA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - At least 310 pilgrims were killed on Thursday in a crush at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual Haj pilgrimage, Saudi authorities said.

At least 450 others were injured in the stampede, which took place on Street 204 of the camp city at Mina, a few kilometers east of Mecca, where pilgrims stay for several days during the climax of the Haj.

The pilgrimage, the world's largest annual gathering of people, has been the scene of deadly disasters in the past, including stampedes, tent fires and riots.

Safety during Haj is a politically sensitive issue for the kingdom's ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself internationally as the guardians of orthodox Islam and custodians of its holiest places in Mecca and Medina.

The government has spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding Haj infrastructure and crowd control technology in recent years, and the last big deadly incident took place in 2006 when at least 346 pilgrims died in a stampede.

Street 204 is one of the two main arteries leading through the camp at Mina to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles at three large pillars. Jamarat was also the site of the 2006 disaster and several other past ones.

An Arab pilgrim who did not want to give his name said he had hoped to perform the stoning ritual later on Thursday afternoon but was now too frightened to risk doing so.

"I am very tired already and after this I can't go. I will wait for the night and if it not resolved, I will see if maybe somebody else can do it on my behalf," he said.

Reuters reporters in another part of Mina said they could hear police and ambulance sirens, but that roads leading to the site of the disaster had been blocked.

AMBULANCES

Photographs published on the Twitter feed of the Saudi civil defense showed pilgrims lying on stretchers while emergency workers in high-visibility jackets lifted them into an ambulance.

It said more than 220 ambulances and 4,000 rescue workers had been sent to the stampede's location to help the injured. Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television channel showed a convoy of ambulances driving through the Mina camp.

"Work is underway to separate large groups of people and direct pilgrims to alternative routes," the Saudi Civil Defense said on its Twitter account.

Efforts to improve safety at Jamarat have included enlarging the three pillars and constructing a triple-decker bridge around them to increase the area and number of entry and exit points for pilgrims to perform the ritual.

More than 100,000 police and thousands of video cameras are also deployed to allow groups to be dispersed before they reach dangerous levels of density.

"Please pilgrims do not push one another. Please leave from the exit and don't come back by the same route," an officer kept repeating through a loudspeaker at Jamarat.

Two weeks ago 110 people died in Mecca's Grand Mosque when a crane working on an expansion project collapsed during a storm and toppled off the roof into the main courtyard, crushing pilgrims underneath.

(Writing by Sami Aboudi and Angus McDowall; Editing by Dominic Evans and Raissa Kasolowsky)

NOTE: The number of dead pilgrims has been later said to be 717.

Damascus (AFP) - Grapes from rebel territory, watermelons from land under jihadist control, potatoes from a regime-held area -- every morning the Syria torn apart by war is reunited at the Al-Hal Souk in Damascus.

More than four years of fighting between President Bashar al-Assad's regime and disparate rebel groups has left Syria a patchwork of fiefdoms.

Damascus and coastal areas remain under government control, the Islamic State group holds swathes of the east and the rest of the country is divided among other rebel factions, from Al-Qaeda-linked fighters to Kurdish militia.

But at the Al-Hal Souk wholesale food market in eastern Damascus, amidst the vendors hawking their goods and delivery trucks honking their horns, an echo of the old Syria survives.

"When it comes to food, everyone comes together. The stomach has no political opinions," said Fares, 32, who sells apples from a farm in Zabadani, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Damascus.

The region is famed for its apples but with regular clashes there between the army and rebels, deliveries are irregular.

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The violence in Syria means produce deliveries to Damascus markets are irregular (AFP Photo/Joseph E …

On one recent day at the market Fares was lucky. Thanks to a ceasefire the day before, boxes of apples were piled high in front of his stall.

"The delivery man arrived today, no problem," he said with a smile.

The souk -- founded when Syria was under French administration from 1920 to 1946 and named after Paris's famed Les Halles market -- holds more than 300 stalls in an area of less than a square kilometre.

In the surrounding streets, delivery trucks manouevre through narrow passages, jostling for space with cars and porters.

- 'All provinces of Syria' -

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Smoke billows following air strikes by regime forces in the restive Jobar area of eastern Damascus o …

The market sits on the edge of the Damascus suburb of Jobar, a frontline that has seen heavy clashes. Some 15 people were killed and dozens wounded as shells fell on the area in recent days, but the traffic at the market continues.

Between 6:00 am and noon every day, more than 400 tonnes of goods change hands, making their way from the market throughout Damascus and the rest of the country.

Truckers like 30-year-old Abu Abdo are the market's lifeblood, carrying produce on often-fraught journeys through territory in many different hands.

"It took me 17 hours to bring these 15 tonnes of red and green chilli peppers from Deir Hafer, in the countryside of Aleppo, passing through Raqa and Palmyra," both areas held by IS, Abu Abdo said.

"I'm going to sleep for one night and then bring tomatoes to Al-Bab," a city in Aleppo province also held by IS.

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A Syrian trader sits at a fruit and vegetable market in central Damascus on September 21, 2015 (AFP …

Abu Abdo's case is hardly unusual.

At Al-Hal, the grapes and tomatoes come from Deraa province in the south, which is mainly in the hands of rebel forces. The watermelons are from Jabal al-Sheikh, on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and under the control of Al-Nusra Front, the local branch of Al-Qaeda.

The courgettes are from Idlib province, recently conquered by a mainly Islamist rebel alliance. Citrus fruits are from Assad's coastal heartland, potatoes from regime-controlled Hama province and the onions come from northeastern Hasakeh, held by the Kurds.

"All the provinces of Syria are reunited at this market," said stall-owner Abu Mohammad, his face hidden behind a bushy grey beard.

"It would be a huge disaster if it closed," he said, watching the scales as his employees weighed hefty sacks of aubergines, green peppers and tomatoes.

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Syrian truckers face a perilous journey bringing goods to market (AFP Photo/Joseph Eid)

- A respite from war -

"I've been working here for 30 years. Never have I closed my shop, even in the worst moments of the war. I receive merchandise from all of Syria -- people need to eat."

The war has sparked an enormous humanitarian crisis in Syria, including food shortages. And most farmers cannot afford to ship their goods across the country.

"Those who come to Damascus only represent a small share of farmers, because the majority don't have the resources to deliver merchandise," said Eriko Hibi, the representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Syria.

"Many of them cannot because money from the sale may not even cover their costs."

But some can still afford the journey, making the Al-Hal Souk one of the few remaining places in Syria where the number plates of the country's different provinces still mingle.

Truck driver Maher has come from northeastern Hasakeh, under Kurdish control, bringing onions.

"Of course the 800 kilometres are dangerous. I have escaped a regime bombardment. IS wanted to cut my throat. The rebels took some of my merchandise," he said, standing in front his truck.

"I have 10 children and every load brings me 100,000 pounds ($300). Do you have another solution?"

After difficult journeys, Maher added, the market offers a kind of respite.

"Here it feels like Syria has not been torn apart, that people from each region can find each other and talk without hatred."