UFOs, Walt Disney and "The Aviary"

Writer/researcher Gus Russo, the author of several books, including one dealing with the JFK assassination, Live By The Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK , has written a most interesting article The Real ‘X-Files’ about UFOs and some members of the US Intelligence community. A few excerpts:

The mystery seems to have its origins in 1956... and in the most unlikely of settings: the office of Ward Kimball, one of Walt Disney’s key animators. At a 1979 UFO symposium in San Francisco, Kimball told how the US Air Force had approached Disney to make a UFO documentary, the ostensible purpose being to help prepare the collective American psyche for planned revelations concerning the reality of extraterrestrials. If that wasn’t enough, the senior flyboys offered to supply actual UFO footage, which Disney would be allowed to use in his film. It must have seemed to Kimball that his character Jiminy Cricket’s “wish upon a star” had actually been answered. However, a few weeks later, the offer was withdrawn just as quickly as it had been made. Kimball said that an Air Force Colonel said brusquely, “There indeed was plenty of UFO footage, but that neither Ward, nor anyone else, was going to get access to it.”

“I believe there’s a ‘core story’,” Jim explained, “but I don’t know what it is. I have been told by people more senior than me that there is some truth to it, but they told me time and time again to stop pursuing it with CIA people and other intel types. Two very senior officials told me they saw briefing books, [however] the only ones who would be cleared to know the story are the most senior Pentagon career officers.” Jim refuses to divulge his sources, but when pressed, he reiterates what they told him: look to the Pentagon and the private sector’s aerospace and weapons labs, etc. US intelligence “doesn’t have labs capable of dealing with something this profound.” He also notes that over the years he has received thousands of UFO-related government documents in unmarked envelopes. Although some are obvious fakes, others, according to Jim, contain information that correlates with known, but still classified, scientific studies. In an intriguing footnote, Jim adds, “I have spoken to three former Presidents and the subject always comes up, not as a briefing, but they also want to know the truth. But apparently they aren’t cleared for it.”