Post by Joanna on Jul 10, 2015 2:23:10 GMT -5
Court Orders Germany to Release UFO Files
Germany's parliament has been ordered to release confidential documents concerning UFOs after a lengthy legal battle. The existence of the files was disputed as recently as 2008, but a UFO enthusiast discovered evidence to the contrary and pushed for their release. News of the impending publication has been welcomed by UFO researchers, but some fear they may not be as exciting as hoped. The German Supreme Administrative Court in Leipzig ordered the Bundestag to make the UFO files available.
In 2008, Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's Minister of the Interior denied the German government had ever investigated UFOs, but in 2009, a UFO enthusiast named Robert Fleischer discovered a parliamentary department had been investigating extraterrestrial objects. A German blogger named Frank Reitemeyer took the Bundestag to court over the secret reports and the dispute has only just been resolved, The Express reported. No date for the release of information has yet been confirmed.
UFO enthusiasts are already looking forward to March, when the UK's Ministry of Defense will make 18 confidential UFO files available in the National Archive, although there's a chance they may not be accessible by the public.
Some paranormal investigators have greeted the forthcoming German release with enthusiasm, but Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigation Manual, said, “They won't reveal any secrets about hidden alien technology or alien bodies, but then again we can always hope!” Watson believes some governments hide UFO-related information to protect other secrets. “Sometimes governments hide information like this to protect operational procedures or protect non-UFO related secrets, like the capabilities of early warning systems or the names and details of witnesses,” he said. “In this case perhaps they don't want to show they have taken this subject seriously, or that they are as much in the dark as everyone else.”
It wasn’t until 2005 that the British government admitted conducting a thorough scientific study into UFOs, after years of denial. “It concluded that unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, do exist, but not flying saucers,” Watson indicated. “When, or if, the German files are released, it will be interesting to see if they come to similar conclusions. I doubt it [the information] will be anything related to the recovery of crashed saucers or clandestine meetings with aliens. It looks like much of their material is related to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) and the implications of alien contact and whether this relates to UFO sightings in Germany. Then again there might be some surprises!”
In 2011, Reitemeyer told the Berlin Court: “I want to know facts and it bothers me that in France, England, USA, Canada, the citizens can see the UFO files, and I am not informed as a German from my German government,” The Huffington Post reported.
Watson said the move “shows that public pressure, and the work of activists, does eventually work to get these UFO 'secrets' released by Governments. In Britain, it literally took decades for most of the UFO files to be released. The demand for UFO information is such that governments are forced to respond and the internet is the ideal medium for making this material available, taking pressure off civil servants who have to deal with requests on a daily basis.”
Source: Sarah Griffiths, The Daily Mail, July 9, 2015.
