Alexander's no-secret-program conclusion
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 15 February 2011 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Government programs (topic), Bases & Area 51 (topic) |
| People | John B. Alexander, David Grusch |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 173 |
| Year | 2011 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2011 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
In his 2011 book UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, retired Army Col. John B. Alexander argued that UFOs are real but that the U.S. government had no secret program studying them, and that he would have known of one through the senior contacts he had built up over his career.[1][2]
Alexander
Alexander (born 1937) rose from private to colonel, commanding Special Forces teams in Thailand and Vietnam and heading the Army Laboratory Command's Advanced Systems Concepts office from 1985 to 1988, before managing non-lethal weapons work at Los Alamos. In 1985 he organised the Advanced Theoretical Physics working group, an informal interagency group whose members held top-secret clearances, to examine the UFO question; he later served on the science board of Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science.[1][3]
The book
The book, published by Thomas Dunne Books with a foreword by Jacques Vallée and an introduction by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, describes UFOs as real but "beyond current comprehension" and argues that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is too narrow. Alexander wrote that his group concluded "there was no program", and that information collection across agencies was "pretty much ad hoc". He doubted that congressional hearings or full disclosure would come, saying there was "nothing to actually disclose". He rejected the MJ-12 documents, doubted Philip Corso's account, which he had heard from Corso personally, and favoured the Project Mogul explanation for Roswell. At the 2011 MUFON symposium he also rejected claims of government conspiracies and of harassment of witnesses.[1][2][4]
Reception
Historian Kevin Randle agreed with much of the book but disputed Alexander's account of Project Mogul. Supporters of hidden programmes argue that Alexander simply was not read into the right compartment, and his view contrasts sharply with David Grusch's 2023 testimony about contractor-held programmes. It is, however, consistent with the March 2024 historical report of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which found no verifiable evidence that the government or companies had access to or were reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.[4][5]
In the testimony
The testimony cites: UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities, Alexander, p145..
People and topics
- John B. Alexander — Retired Army colonel who organized the 1985 Advanced Theoretical Physics group and wrote UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities.
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Department of Energy — The U.S. department that runs the nuclear weapons laboratories.
- Advanced Theoretical Physics group — Advanced Theoretical Physics group
- David Grusch — Former intelligence officer who testified in 2023 that the U.S. has recovered non-human craft.
- AARO — The Pentagon office set up in 2022 to investigate UAP.
On the Timeline
- Alexander on Edward Teller (15 February 2011) — Col. John Alexander says physicist Edward Teller would be among the few who knew the truth.
- Nick Redfern's Air Force contact (2011) (31 March 2011) — Nick Redfern says an Air Force investigator offered to meet him about UAP.
See every 2011 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- John B. Alexander — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities", Publishers Weekly · publishersweekly.com · archived copy
- "ATP aka Secret Onion", Anomaly Archives · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Kevin Randle, "John Alexander: UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities" (Oct 2012) · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
- "Pentagon UFO office finds 'no empirical evidence' for alien technology in new report", Space.com (Mar 2024) · space.com · archived copy
- John Alexander, 'UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities' (2011) — Internet Archive · archive.org · archived copy
Further reading
- Los Alamos National Laboratory — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
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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