George Knapp: The announcement this week, that senators are being briefed. Now you and I have heard about this for a while, there had been closed-door briefings of staff members and then elected officials, and there are a lot more of them that have got it. But for them to come out and, “Yes, yeah, I did get briefed. I’m not going to tell you what it is. It’s classified.” That itself would be the UFO story of the decade if it’s just by itself.

Richard Dolan: Absolutely. Yeah, five years ago, it would have been the story of the year. And I think what we’re seeing is that this is … I’m hesitant to call it an avalanche effect just yet, but I do think we’re seeing a very great increase of momentum. And I think it is encouraging a number of other players, in this case senators to admit that they were briefed on this. You know, it was only 10 to 11 years ago when Dennis Kucinich was essentially railroaded out of the Democratic primaries when he admitted to having seen a UFO. It was 2008. It wasn’t that long ago. And I just marvel at how far we’ve come in one decade, and in really just two years.


Richard Dolan

The Interview

  1. Historian ‘shocked’ at media’s new attitude toward UFOs
  2. UFO briefings, ‘Unidentified,’ and soft disclosure: Historian analyzes information flow
  3. ‘UFO leak of the century’ contained in 15-page document, historian says

Richard Dolan is the author of “UFOs and the National Security State,” a two volume book covering the UFO phenomenon from the 1940s to present day.


Knapp: You wonder also what is still to be revealed. Jacque Vallee has speculated someone’s got a pile of info. The government has the sensors, they’ve got the satellites, they’ve got, you know, all the personnel, if they’ve been able to keep all that stuff, that somewhere it exists. So, are you hopeful that someday it comes pouring out?

Richard Dolan books

Dolan: Well, I don’t like to hope.

Knapp: Yeah.

Dolan: But I do think that yes, I think there’s more that’s on the way. Official and unofficial leaks of information are absolutely happening. You know, with To The Stars you see, through the show “Unidentified,” what I would call a kind of controlled or soft disclosure. It’s a very carefully packaged presentation of the UFO phenomenon that is, in a sense …

Knapp: Managed?

Dolan: It’s managed. So certain things are being held back. It’s obvious. And honestly, I was critical at certain times of this, but I think I understand where they’re coming from. They’re trying to speak to a very skeptical world. Not everyone’s a UFO researcher, not everyone’s on board. So, they’re being very conservative, very careful with, in my view, this fiction of, “Well, we don’t know what they are.” I think they know darn well what they are, but it’s understandable that they say what they do for public consumption. But that’s having an effect. People are actually listening to this.


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