Richard Dolan Articles

Note from Richard Dolan:

These pieces span a full decade and cover a wide range of topics. Roughly speaking, they are in chronological order. I wrote no major articles for publication during 2006 and 2007, and hardly anything during 2008 and 2009. I needed those years to focus on completing the second volume of UFOs and the National Security State. From 2005 to 2009, however, I did do many public presentations on various topics relating to UFOs, and will eventually make those available to the extent possible.

John Alexander: Realities and Myths. March 6, 2011. I first met John Alexander in 2003. Of all the people associated with the topic of UFOs, he is undoubtedly among the most interesting. Indeed, he has become something of the official ufological boogeyman. Go to any UFO conference, and if John Alexander is there, he will inevitably be the subject of much private conversation and speculation.

Lessons From Egypt: The Inevitability of Sudden Change. February 11, 2011. An earthquake of the mind is coming. When it happens, it will be sudden. Like the events now unfolding in the Middle East, the tragic will accompany the glorious, and business-as-usual will tag along with the new. The process will be messy, and much of it will be unpleasant. But, also like the events of today, it will offer hope for genuine change, a chance to create a better world.   

JFK, Secrecy, and UFOs. January 20, 2011. It was fifty years ago on January 20 that John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States. While historians debate over the nature of his legacy -- whether as just another proponent for the military-industrial complex who actually got the U.S. further embroiled in Vietnam, or as a possible renegade with a vision of a different future, who was eliminated before matters got out of hand -- there is no question that there was something about the man that brings the world back to him, again and again. 

WikiLeaks and UFOs. December 2010. For some time now, a war has been intensifying. Not in Iraq, nor Afghanistan, nor the many other fields of death that darken our world, although all of them are affected by this particular war. I am talking about an epic struggle -- a war fully and truly -- between the two fundamental forces of our modern age. 

Why I Wrote A.D. November 2010. Our book is 321 pages long. Every page of it is an exploration, every idea within it is something fresh to our minds, every scenario and outcome we speculated on was something we discussed and struggled over. The book is something new. On a hot, stagnant summer afternoon, it is a fresh breeze, a cool rain.

Blue Beam Alert? Don't Bet On It. October 2010. If I have the time, I would love to go back over the last ten or twenty years and make a list of all the predictions that have littered the field of UFOs and alternative culture in general. An alien armada has passed Pluto and is headed for Earth. A major UFO display will occur on (fill in the date). President (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama) is going to disclose the reality of UFOs on (fill in the date). 

What Happened at Malmstrom AFB in 1967? September 2010. Over the last two years, a quiet controversy has been building in the field of UFO research. This concerns an attack on the truthfulness of what is one of the most discussed and important cases in current ufology: the 1967 Malmstrom Air Force Base UFO incident.

UFOs and Nuclear Technology: A Serious Issue. September 26, 2010. The issue of UFOs and Nukes is central not only to the history of the UFO phenomenon, but to our world today. This article discusses some of that long history. Future historians will undoubtedly be studying this issue with great care. We would do well to study it today. 

NBC's "The Event": A UFO Researcher's Perspective. September 18, 2010. Leading up to the release of the new television series, there was a great deal of buzz about it in the UFO research community. Did the Event have something to do with ETs or UFOs? Did it have anything to do with a possible disclosure by the President? After having just completed A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact, I thought I would give my own take on what the real "Event" would be like.

Twelve Government Documents That Take UFOs Seriously. December 15, 2009. I originally wrote this in 2003, but expanded and revised it in 2009. I have long wanted to prepare an easy to read yet sophisticated analysis of some of the leading government documents that take UFOs seriously. The twelve that I discuss in this article are a very good dozen, but frankly there are many others. I would like to continue expanding this as time goes by.

Orwellian America: 9/11 and the Road to Iran. May 9, 2008. This was written during the last throes of the Bush administration, when rumors of a war with Iran would simply not go away. Without a doubt, I was one of those concerned that a staged event might take place to create the necessary pretext. Fortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. The article also contains some of my thoughts about 9/11 as an "inside job."

Philip Klass Letter Found. October 18, 2005. A bit of fortuitous luck at the Canadian National Archives resulted in me coming into possession of a letter by the late UFO skeptic/debunker, Philip J. Klass. This was a rather nasty, underhanded attempt to ruin the reputation of UFO researcher Stanton Friedman at a time when Friedman was moving his residency to Canada. It is interesting in that it shows the "Klassic" behind-the-scenes machination in which Klass so frequently engaged to discredit his opponents.

UFO Secrecy and the Death of the American Republic. February 27, 2005. An extended analysis of the modern American Empire and how the UFO secret has played its part in the death of our traditional republican institutions. It is not that UFO secrecy is the only knife in the back of our great institutions, but analysts need to understand that it has played its part, and has largely been overlooked.

Government Lies and UFOs. 2005. A three part analysis of the reality of UFOs and the deception by the U.S. government in hiding this truth from the rest of us.

Peter Jennings and UFOs: Spinning and Deceiving. February 25, 2005. An analysis of the ABC special on UFOs, " Seeing is Believing." I am not always blessed with "second sight," but in this case, I predicted it perfectly. The show was certainly not a "disclosure" on UFOs in any way. Rather, it was like a balloon that was inflated during the first half, then deflated during the second. And of course, the dramatic political realities connected to the UFO phenomenon were ignored completely. Thus, a predictable piece of spin control on the subject.

UFOs are Real: So Now What? 2004. A short piece that explored the realization that UFOs -- and whatever beings are associated with them -- seem to have been with us for a long time. It is also a call for caution by all investigators before arriving at firm conclusions as to who these beings are.

The Real Wonderland. 2004. Expressing the "Matrix-like" truth of our upside-down reality, in which those things that are experienced by millions -- like UFO sightings -- are not part of our mainstream culture. Instead, a make-believe world of spin and B.S. is foisted upon a complacent public.

Understanding UFOs and the Media: Puncturing a Myth. 2004. A class-based analysis of American society and mainstream media, with implications for the topic of UFO "disclosure."

The Unveiling of the National Security State. 2004. A concise discussion of the transformations that have affected the American body politic during the previous half-century and the poisoned fruit they have bequethed us. It is noteworthy that as early as 2004, I knew clearly that the whole "weapons of mass destruction" argument in Iraq was a sham -- as did many other analysts. And yet it took two more years before the mainstream U.S. media was willing to concede that the Bush administration may have had "faulty intelligence" before invading Iraq. Good grief.

(Not) Knowing the Future. 2004. A short piece on the difficulties of prognostication, drawing on the examples of two great American writers of the past: Edgar Allen Poe and H. G. Wells.

We Hate Truth. 2004. What happens to a person who lives a life of denial, day after day, year after year? What happens to an entire society living in denial?

Of Astronauts and Aliens. 2004. An account of the Ellison Onizuka story, as told to me by Clark B. McClelland, former Spacecraft Operator of the NASA Space Shuttle Fleet. Lt. Col. Onizuka died abord the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, and had recently before told McClelland an amazing UFO-related story.

Mexican UFO Case Still Unsolved. 2004. In March 2004, the Mexican Air Force recorded what appeared to be multiple electronic readings of unknown aircraft -- except that the objects were invisible to the naked eye. Two months later, the government of Mexico made this admission public, and immediately the "explainers" came on the scene to tell us what really happened. Except that they didn't explain anything at all.

SETI Know-Nothings and the Teachable Moment. 2004. A jab at SETI, which was engaging in a bit of propaganda aimed at those of us who are crazy enough to believe in things like UFOs.

How to Marginalize an Astronaut. 2004. An article about Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who since 1997 has been making statements about the reality of deeply secret programs to study alien technology and bodies. My question was very simple: forgetting (for the moment) whether or not such a statement might be true, isn't there news value in this? After all, Dr. Mitchell walked on the Moon. Wouldn't it be newsworthy to bring resources to bear in an investigation of such a dramatic claim from one of America's most prominent citizens? Yet, the silence of the mainstream news media is deafening. Several years after this article was written, Dr. Mitchell did receive some belated coverage on this matter -- coverage which was predictably brief and superficial.

The X-Conference: Not Lights in the Sky, but Lies on the Ground. 2004. A description of the first X-Conference, organized by Steven Bassett, and held not far from the nation's Capitol.

What Are The Triangles? 2003. An analysis of the phenomenon of perfectly triangular craft being seen by many, many witnesses. Who is flying these objects? Are they "ours"? I have noticed this article on other websites, including the old site of the National Institute for Discovery Science, which came under some criticism in this article.

Walking a Tightrope. 2002. Before the explosion of oil prices, I was studying peak-oil theory and decided that it was very possible that we would soon be experiencing serious problems with availability of oil. This of course happened soon enough, although the peak-oil theory continues to be debated. (I think peak oil theory is fundamentally sound). Adding in my thoughts regarding UFOs and the possible future of artificial intelligence, and this article makes for an interesting brew.

What Are They? 2002. This is a hypothesis that I offered, after having read a few books on artificial intelligence, most notably Ray Kurzweil's fascinating book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. Essentially, I theorized that the beings we encounter in various UFO experiences could well be the products of a very, very advanced machine intelligence. I do not believe this theory was previously publicized by any other UFO researcher, but it seems to have gained ground since then. Whether the "aliens" are entirely or partly "artificial" may even be a moot point, but my sense then and now is that they are almost certainly "enhanced' beings in various technological and genetic ways.

What We Know About UFOs, and Whether It Matters. 2002. Knowing the truth is not the same as acting on the truth; and acting on it does not always lead to success. This was an early exploration in which I discuss the difficulties but necessities of ending UFO secrecy.

The Limits of Science in UFO Research, 2002. This was my presentation at the 2002 International MUFON UFO Symposium, held in my town of Rochester, New York. This was my own jab at MUFON's attempts to reach out to the academic and scientific communities, as well as its promotion at the time of the idea of "peer review" in Ufology. Such ideas sound laudable until you ask yourself who are the peers that will be reviewing your work, and study the hidebound nature of the scientists and scholars who refuse to look at a single piece of UFO evidence, much less speak publicly on the topic.

Getting Inside Your Head: Media, Mind Control, and Marginalization of UFOs. 2002. An article I wrote for UFO Magazine after a suggestion by publisher Bill Birnes. It describes the centralization of major media power and the resultant mind control over vast numbers of people. This centralization of corporate power shows strong connections to the global intelligence community, and part of its agenda is in marginalizing the UFO phenomenon.

Some Thoughts on J. Allen Hynek. 2002. A somewhat contrarian view of Ufology's most prominent scientist. This is essentially excerpted from the second edition of Volume 1 of UFOs and the National Security State.

The Lost Opportunity: 1966 in Retrospect. 2001. A look back at the year 1966, when it looked as though Congress might have open hearings on UFOs and thereby end the UFO secrecy. The national security community, however, successfully maintained the initiative by sponsoring a supposedly independent scientific study on UFOs that would decide matters once and for all. Except that the game was rigged from the beginning.

Everywhere, by Stealth. 2001. An early article of mine which originally appeared in UFO Magazine juxtaposing the amazing nature of many UFO sightings with the isolated atomization of most witnesses. I still like the opening statement of this piece: "Every day, spectacular events occur in the skies, in space, in the oceans, and on the ground. Astonished witnesses around the world see them. For many, the shock of something so extraordinary, so inexplicable, is a consciousness-shattering experience, never forgotten. Yet few people tell anyone what they saw, save perhaps a close friend or family member."

Steven Greer and the Disclosure Project. 2001. An early analysis of the strengths and failures of the now-legendary press conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on May 9, 2001.

The Death of James Forrestal. 2001. James Forrestal was America's first Secretary of Defense, whose life ended in a 16-floor fall from the Bethesda Naval Hospital in May 1949. I believe that a detached review of the circumstances of his death points to foul play -- an explosive fact that could not easily be admitted in the America of that era, or our own for that matter. I also believe there is a UFO connection to all this. With slight modifications, this article is adapted from the first volume of UFOs and the National Security State.

Science, Secrecy, and Ufology, 2000. One of my earliest articles, exploring the relationship between UFO secrecy and the modern scientific/academic community.

The CIA, Official History, and You. 2000. The first UFO-related article I ever wrote, I very nearly included this as an Appendix when I first published UFOs and the National Security State, except it wasn't quite ready. It's best that I didn't do so, as it doesn't really belong there, but it remains a relevant critique of an egregiously flawed propaganda piece on UFOs that was written by then-CIA Official Historian, Gerald K. Haines.