Hello, Vince...

Thank you for your post. 

It was badly needed to balance the negativism of most of the comments of "know-it-all" and "I-don't-believe-if-I didn't-find-it" UFO experts who have posted their comments on UFO Updates and other sites.

I can tell you now that I have been privy to these developments for many months now, having met Shawn and Clay Pickering in NYC on June 24th, 2007, the 60th Anniversary of Ken Arnold's sighting. 

Since that time, I have had the privilege of addressing their NYC Disclosure Group twice and have come to know these two gentlemen very well as friends and confidants.  They are honest, intelligent and sincere UFO investigators and have shared much important information with me.

The skepticism and, in some cases, the rancor with which their information has been received is typical of the wariness of many UFO researchers.  There have been many caustic comments (none of substance) from certain UFOlogists who jealousy guard their niches, purviews and "spheres of influence" in UFOlogy.  Their reactions, in many cases, have been identical to the mass media's typical reflex arcs for the past 6 decades, which include condemnation, sarcasm, derision and ridicule.

Many critics have objected to Clay and Shawn's "non-disclosure" of the identity of their source, which is the same criticism that was leveled many years ago at Leonard Stringfield.  Yet, as the decades have passed, many of Mr. Stringfield's revelations have been shown to be correct and the reliability of his "unnamed sources" has been validated.  Mr. Stringfield's need to protect his sources has also been acknowledged. 

It is obvious (but, perhaps, this requires a restatement) that once a researcher betrays the identity of a source (when anonymity has been requested), he will not be trusted again, the information flow is stopped, the source is compromised, in some cases, with dire consequences, and source will loose his/her position of access to the information).

I am writing to let you all know that I, along with Dr. Michael Salla, received the same information and have been kept abreast of developments in this disclosure process for many months now.  I have met and conversed by phone/email many times with Shawn and Clay Pickering and, although we don't agree 100% on UFO theory, we do hold many similar views in UFOlogy, one of which is in the field of mass psychology, which is the basis of the "non-disclosure" policy of most governments. 

This is something we all know since the revelations of The Robertson Panel and The Brookings Institution white paper written for NASA in the 1960s (On the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space).

I received word of the prospective UN UFO meeting a couple of days before the event and I too was surprised but I should not have been considering the magnitude of events that have transpired since the NPC UFO Conference in Washington, DC on November 12th and the Stephensville UFO flap (which continues even now).

Clay and Shawn first informed me of their contact's identity and source's background on June 24th at the UFO Culture of Contact Symposium here in NYC at which time they presented a second copy of the famous SOM-101 (UFO Crash Retrieval Manual), which they allowed me to inspect and which I recognized to be a nearly perfect Xerox copy of an original source document with perfectly aligned margins (no bent or folded pages, no fuzzy type as in the photographed copy which appeared about 10 years ago (when I first read it).  This copy appeared to be more detailed than the bare bones version that has been circulating during intervening years.

It was their copy of this document, SOM-101, and the coherent story that they told of how it was acquired by their source that drew me to follow the lead.  As stated above, we have had many meetings and exchanges of information (what I like to call "cross-pollination of information") during the past 8 months, which have given me confidence in the source and the document they presented at the symposium. 

On the night of the reported UN UFO meeting, I received a working copy of their SOM-101 (which is distinctly different from the original copied from photographs) and I was briefed on the UN meeting, given the same information that was revealed by Dr. Salla. 

Since Dr. Salla had done such an outstanding job in presenting a synopsis of the event, I did not write a report on it.  Instead, Dirk Vander Ploeg, the publisher of U.D.,  and I chose instead to have Dr. Salla's article republished on UFO Digest.Com.

The reactions of the UFO community came in "hot and heavy," with many ranting "Rumplestiltskin-types," jumping up and down into a hole in the ground (figuratively speaking).  Some of their comments excoriated Shawn and Clay and their "unnamed source."

I am writing to tell you all that I have great confidence in Shawn and Clay Pickering; in their honesty, the high quality of their information and the reliability of their source.

One week after the purported UN UFO meeting, I was introduced to and met their "source" in New York City.  We spent nearly 2 hours together over drinks and I was able to converse with him at length on his background and previous career as a high-ranking officer in one of the US armed forces and his current position as a diplomat.

His background story and his character (as "an officer and a gentleman") check out in my book.

The basic premise behind this "secret" UN UFO meeting was a "testing of the waters" in order to prepare for worldwide UFO disclosure through the United Nations.  The story was intentionally leaked through the Pickering Brothers in order to evaluate the reaction of the public and the UFO community. 

Basically, the US government wants to study the reaction of the public at large and UFOlogists, in particular, to the prospect of full UFO disclosure sometime within the next 8-9 years.

I must say that the reaction of the general public has been promising but that of most UFOlogists (responding in UFO Updates) has been somewhat disappointing although the comments of others, older - more experienced - and having known or lived through the Leonard Stringfield era have weighed in with open minds and more intelligent, less emotional comments. 

The UFO Disclosure operation is a very delicate matter, which will take quite a bit of time to achieve while exercising great caution on the part of governments all along the way.  The indoctrinated, misinformed or disinformed human mind (such as those of religious fanatics) is a very fragile entity and a very dangerous one when rattled.  The public mind must be protected while the work of untangling the lies and cover stories of 60 years is being done.  It is very much a "psychosurgical procedure," excising the lies that have been implanted in the public mind to be replaced by facts as they really are.

During this delicate period, both the public mind and the identity of the source(s) must be protected so that the work of Disclosure can be completed without peril to either the subject or the source(s).

Best regards to all,

Robert Morningstar