io9: jeff peckman

UFO Lobbyist Offers to Brief Obama on Extraterrestrials

Lauren Davis — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:00:40 PDT

Jeff Peckman, who came to national attention earlier this year when he launched a ballot initiative to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver and later announced that he possessed actual footage of a live ET, continues his campaign to thrust alien life into the political limelight. This week, he invited Barack Obama to hear a briefing on UFOs and extraterrestrial life from a private citizen's perspective. Adjust your tin foil hat and find out what Peckman has to say to the presidential candidate and why he wants to say it before the election.

Peckman hopes to chat with Obama before he’s elected, when the CIA - gatekeeper of all shadowy information - hands the senator its own version of the extraterrestrial truth. At least one former president did get the full Facts of Intergalactic Life, according to Peckman:

President Reagan’s UFO/ET briefing at Camp David March 6-8, 1981 is described in a twenty-one page alleged transcript that was declassified from “Top Secret” last October 2007. The document suggests that CIA Director William Casey and several other unnamed advisors revealed facts about UFOs and ETs that clearly astonished Reagan.

But Democrats have apparently not have been afforded the same courtesy:

The day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter requested information on the UFO/ET issue but was denied the material by CIA Director George Bush Sr. Key Republicans like Bush Sr. are reported to have a big role in keeping information about UFOs from the public.

President Clinton was also not allowed a briefing from high level government officials. Instead he had to rely in large part on credible witness testimony from former high-ranking military, intelligence agency, and government contractor personnel organized by Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project.

So does Peckman think he’ll actually win Obama's ear? Probably not. He says the offer “is just a courtesy.” But ultimately, he wants the Democratic Party to force the issue on extraterrestrial disclosure by adding four objectives to its platform:

· To hold open, secrecy-free hearings on the UFO/Extraterrestrial presence on and around Earth.
· To hold open hearings on advanced energy and propulsion systems that, when publicly released, will provide solutions to global environmental challenges.
· To enact legislation which will ban all space-based weapons.
· To enact comprehensive legislation to research, develop and explore space peacefully and cooperatively with all cultures on Earth and in space.

There is no indication that Peckman plans to make a similar offer to Senator McCain. Perhaps McCain is one of those “key Republicans” keeping aliens and their technology under wraps.

[The Extra Campaign]

Denver Alien Video — For Reals!

Annalee Newitz — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:35:09 PDT

As many of our commenters have noted, the video we showed below was some fake footage created for about $90 by somebody wanting to make fun of poor Jeff Peckman, the Denver man who sponsored a ballot initiative to create an "Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission" in his city. Now the Rocky Mountain News gang has seen Peckman's actual video, and liveblogged the whole affair. The video has not yet leaked online, but we do have a picture from it here, and the Rocky Mountain News' Bill Scanlon says it's basically two minutes of an alien head appearing and disappearing in front of a window in the middle of the night. [Rocky Mountain News]

What's Up With the Mysterious Denver UFO Video?

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:00:00 PDT

UFO fiends were abuzz with the news: Jeff Peckman, who has proposed a ballot initiative to create an "Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission" in the city of Denver, will be promoting his cause tomorrow by showing a video of what he calls an "actual living breathing alien." But the story behind this tape is as mysterious as the purported alien itself. Our sources at the Rocky Mountain News, who first broke the story, say that Peckman has a lot of peculiar rules about how the video will be shown and reported on.

Peckman refuses to let anyone save a select list of local reporters see the video. Not only that, but he won't be releasing it online, or allowing anyone to rebroadcast it. The people who get to see it (including the Rocky Mountain News folks) are only allowed to write about it — they can't even snap photos. So how will Denver voters make a good decision on the ballot measure if they have no direct access to the evidence? If Peckman is serious, he should release his video on YouTube so we can all judge for ourselves.

I want to believe, but how can I when Peckman won't let me?

Close Encounters Of A Rocky Mountain Kind

Graeme McMillan — Thu, 08 May 2008 07:30:00 PDT

In a world filled with naysayers and disbelievers, you have to thank the gods for Jeff Peckman. The Colorado man's previous forays into civic duty found him attempting to legally enforce stress-reduction techniques on the entire city of Denver. Now he's asking the good people of the Mile High City to vote "Yes" on the creation of a commission to deal with the arrival of aliens from outer space.

To hear his explanation as to why such a commission is necessary, it almost makes sense:

It is important because if you're driving down the highway and you saw a crash of a small spaceship and a car or a bus full of kids, you really wouldn't know what to do... Do you wait for the hazardous materials experts to show up because of potential contaminants from another solar system? What do you do? People really don't know.

His response to this dilemma is to call for the creation of an 18-member panel of citizens to create an official strategy for dealing with close encounters of all three kinds. His proposal only requires 4000 signatures to get on a November ballot, and if there is any justice in the world, at least three thousand and ninety-nine of those people will have signed just to be able to say that democracy helped them to make Denver the most alien-friendly city in all of the 50 states. Karl Rove and Jan-Michael Vincent would be proud.

Man pushes creation of panel to prepare city for space aliens [The Rocky Mountain News]