Dear Editor,

A SUBJECT that has been ridiculed and made fun off for decades is now being taken seriously: the UFO reality. We are closer to official acceptance and disclosure than we have ever been.

The phenomenon goes back centuries. There are religious paintings that clearly show what can only be alien craft. Interest in the modern era was sparked by the alleged crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The U.S. army initially announced that it had retrieved a “flying disc” and the news was carried on the front page of a local newspaper. The story was quickly changed — it is claimed under orders from ‘above’ — to “recovery of a high-altitude balloon”. Colonel Philip Corso’s book, “The day after Roswell” provides an interesting take on the incident, including the claim that alien bodies were also recovered.

For those new to this subject, the ‘Bible’ of ufology, “Above Top Secret” by Timothy Good is a good place to start. The very popular radio and Internet talk show “Coast to Coast AM” also covers the UFO subject. There are numerous videos on the topic on Youtube, featuring big names in the field; nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, Richard Dolan, Dr. Steven Greer and others. Dr. Greer is the founder of “The Disclosure Project”, which organised an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC in May 2001. Numerous important witnesses gave testimony. The video can be viewed here:

President Jimmy Carter saw a UFO and reported it. President Reagan also saw a UFO. Years later, he spoke at the UN, hinting at “an alien presence.” President Trump created a Space Force. Why? In May this year, on “The Late Late Show” with James Corden on CBS, President Obama said, “What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern. And so, you know, I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.”

The phenomenon is worldwide. UFOs have been sighted (some while landed!) in Russia, Iran, China, Zimbabwe, India and other countries. Today, the terminology used in U.S. government and military circles is UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon). In South America, UFOs are called OVNI (Objecto Voladar No Identificado). There have been numerous sightings, particularly in Peru. In Brazil, there was the famous Villas Boas case in 1957 that reportedly involved a civilian’s interaction with the occupants of a landed craft.

The 2004 “Tic Tac” UFO incident, involving fighter jets from the U.S. aircraft carrier “USS Nimitz,” was recently extensively covered in the mainstream media, including the “60 minutes” documentary show. The Nimitz incident set off a chain of events that culminated in a congressional investigation and report in June this year. Essentially, the report states that (1) The phenomenon is real (2) UAPs are not American technology and (3) There is no competing world power known to have such technology. It stops short of stating that the phenomenon is extraterrestrial, but what else can one conclude? Inter dimensional? Paranormal?
In the Quran, in sura Al-Shura (42:30) we find this astonishing verse:

“And of his signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and what he has spread forth in both of them of living beings. And he is All-powerful to gather them together, when he will.”
The Vatican has also signalled that it accepts that intelligent life may exist in the universe. As Jodie Foster’s character said in the movie “Contact”, “If we are alone, it would be an awful waste of space.”

The late great Paul Hellyer, former deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Canada, the man who unified the Canadian armed forces, is one of my heroes. He famously said, “UFO’s are as real as the airplanes flying overhead.” I treasure my autographed copies of his books “Light at the end of the tunnel” and “The money mafia.” His autobiography “Hope restored” is most edifying, and shows what a fine human being he was. If a letter can be ‘dedicated’, then I dedicate this one to the memory of The Honourable Paul Hellyer.

Yours faithfully,
Sieyf Shahabuddeen