Obama White House meeting interest (2008)
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Contents 8
White House meeting interest (2008)
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| Date | 24 December 2008 |
|---|---|
| Source | Jacques Vallée's journals, Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights (2000–2009) |
| Claim | Hal Puthoff told Vallée the White House was interested in a meeting about long-term interaction with the phenomenon |
| People | Harold Puthoff, Jacques Vallée, John Podesta |
| Outcome | No such meeting documented |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 169 |
| Topics | Congress & law (topic) |
| Year | 2008 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2008 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 14 |
The 2008 White House meeting interest is an entry in the published journals of Jacques Vallée. Under the date 24 December 2008, the physicist Hal Puthoff told Vallée that the White House was interested in a meeting to discuss long-term interaction with the UFO phenomenon. The anonymous UAP timeline in Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony lists the entry and cites Vallée's Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights, which covers 2000 to 2009.[9][1] No such meeting has been documented.
The journal entry
- The timeline sums up the entry in one line: Puthoff told Vallée "that the White House is interested in a meeting where long-term interaction with the phenomenon is discussed".[9]
- The earlier version of this article said the interest came from people around the incoming Obama administration. The timeline's summary just says "the White House" and names no administration.[9] On 24 December 2008 George W. Bush was still president. Barack Obama took office on 20 January 2009.[14] The entry falls in the transition period, when John Podesta was co-chairing Obama's transition team.[10] The full wording of Vallée's entry is not covered in the sources read here.
- The timeline dates another entry the same day. In it, an unnamed member of the BAASS project (part of the Pentagon-funded AAWSAP study) told Vallée he was "building a relationship" with an aerospace contractor that he believed held UAP hardware. He was trying to get in through the "back door". He feared that if he raised it in the context of AAWSAP, someone from Washington would force their way in "the front door" and the material would be moved.[9]
- Forbidden Science 5 was published on 2 January 2023 as the fifth of seven volumes of Vallée's journals.[1] Anomalist Books publishes the series. Reviewers praise how personal the journals are, and their inside view of UFO research.[5][6][8]
Context
- In the 1970s and 1980s Puthoff directed a programme at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) investigating claimed psychic abilities, part of what became the Stargate Project. In 1985 he founded the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin. He joined Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science in 1995. In 2008 he joined Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), which held contracts under the government UFO programme.[2] In December 2008 he was therefore part of the contractor team behind the Pentagon study.
- The best-known UFO advocate near the incoming administration was Podesta. He had been Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff from 1998 to 2001 and is described as "a longtime advocate for government disclosure of UFO files".[10] At a 2002 news conference organised by the Coalition for Freedom of Information, he said it was "time to open the book" on government UFO investigations, and that the American people "can handle the truth".[3] He also wrote the foreword to Leslie Kean's 2010 book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record.[3][10]
Podesta at the White House
- Podesta served as counselor to President Obama from 2014 to 2015.[10] On Friday 13 February 2015, his last day at the White House, he tweeted: "Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere".[3]
- He went on to chair Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.[10] In October 2016 WikiLeaks published his hacked emails, which included messages from the musician Tom DeLonge. In October 2015 DeLonge had tried to set up a meeting in Washington between Podesta and two people he described as "A-Level officials" in "Classified Science and DOD topics". A January 2016 email named one of them as General William McCasland, former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. A calendar notice suggested a meeting was scheduled, but it is unclear whether it took place.[12][4]
Obama
- In March 2015, about a month after Podesta's tweet, Jimmy Kimmel asked Obama whether he had looked into the "UFO files" on Area 51. "The aliens won't let it happen," Obama joked. When Kimmel said Bill Clinton had checked and found nothing, Obama replied, "That's what we're instructed to say." Reason noted that it was plainly a joke, though some conspiracy sites took it seriously.[11]
- On The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2021, Obama said that after taking office he had asked whether there was a secret lab holding aliens, and was told no. He also said there is footage of objects in the sky "that we don't know exactly what they are".[13]
- On Brian Tyler Cohen's podcast, Obama later said aliens are "real, but I haven't seen them". After the remark drew attention, he clarified that the odds of life elsewhere are good but the chance of a visit is low. "I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us," he wrote.[13]
- No public record shows that the meeting Puthoff described ever happened, or that any such interest led to a public step during Obama's presidency.
People and topics
- Harold Puthoff — Physicist who co-founded the SRI remote-viewing research and later worked on AAWSAP and To The Stars Academy.
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- John Podesta — Clinton campaign chairman with a long interest in UFO disclosure.
- Disclosure — The official release of government information about UFOs.
On the Timeline
- BAASS "back door" approach (24 December 2008) — A BAASS team member says he tried to get 'back door' access to an aerospace contractor.
- Project Grudge data and the artifact file (23 January 2009) — A BAASS team member is said to be retrieving old Project Grudge data from Area 51.
See every 2008 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Jacques Vallée, *Forbidden Science 5: Pacific Heights* (journals 2000–2009), Amazon · amazon.com · archived copy
- Harold E. Puthoff — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Former Obama aide Podesta regrets not disclosing UFO files", Fox News (Feb 2015) · foxnews.com · archived copy
- "Blink-182's Tom DeLonge emailed Clinton's campaign chairman about aliens", BuzzFeed News (Oct 2016) · buzzfeednews.com · archived copy
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- Michael Shellenberger, written testimony to the House Oversight Committee (13 November 2024), p. 169 · oversight.house.gov
- John Podesta — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- "Did President Obama Admit the US is Controlled by Space Aliens?", Reason (March 2015) · reason.com
- Daniel Kreps, "Tom DeLonge on Podesta Emails: 'Wikileaks Messed Some Important Stuff Up'", Rolling Stone (October 2016) · rollingstone.com
- Michael Sinkewicz, "Obama says aliens are real but 'I haven't seen them'", Fox News · foxnews.com
- Barack Obama — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Harold E. Puthoff”, “John Podesta”, “Barack Obama”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Categories: 2008 | Congress law | Disclosure | Harold puthoff | Jacques vallée | John podesta | Timeline event | Unidentified flying object
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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