In his belief that the Sept. 11 tragedies could have been avoided, Ted Loder is not alone. The theory on which he hangs his claim, however, is not the kind you'll hear on World News Tonight or in the local barbershop.

The United States has access to zero-point energy technologies and anti-gravity propulsion, Loder told a gathering of about 25 people at the Unitarian Universalist Church last week. But a small government group is guarding them fiercely from the public.

And that's not all it's hiding . . .

They may not be little, they may not be green, they may not even be men. But extraterrestrial beings exist, and they are regular visitors to Earth, says Loder, a crisp-looking UNH science professor with none of the eccentricities one might associate with a person devoted to such topics.

After collecting and documenting evidence of aliens for four years, Loder knows all about the little-green-men stereotypes that accompany his work.

"You can't do a UFO story without colored lights on everybody . . . big black coats and fog," said Loder, who has helped gather testimony from more than 400 government witnesses for an initiative called the Disclosure Project.

"All the major religions are based on testimony," he said. "Our legal system is based on testimony . . . and yet, when a military captain says, 'I saw a UFO,' he's laughed at and made fun of."

No one in last week's audience, however, was laughing at Loder's claims. His presentation was part of a 10-week series called "Beyond UFOs: Alien Identities, New Age Spirituality and the Future of Humanity." Among series participants, alien life is, if not a unanimously accepted reality, at least a serious possibility.

"I already know that this phenomenon is real," said Bill Cain of Bow, who has attended all of the Beyond UFOs classes.

A professional photographer, Cain says he has personally sighted UFOs three times. Shooting a solar eclipse in Istanbul last year, he caught several strange floating objects in his images. Minutes later there was a major earthquake. Cain believes it may not have been a coincidence.

But Loder's ETs are a more benevolent breed. In fact, he believes aliens may ultimately save us from ourselves. Some of his witnesses for the Disclosure Project testified about a UFO sighting over a cluster of missile silos in Montana. As the strange crafts flew over, they said, the missiles inexplicably shut down.

"ETs are not going to let us blow up this planet," Loder said.

If they possess more maturity than humans, aliens are not as far ahead of us as we may think, Loder said. Multiple witnesses tell of inventors who have devised ways to access zero-energy technology, only to have their inventions stolen or bought out. Those who resist selling out have been threatened and harassed until they give in, he said.

Why keep these scientific breakthroughs secret? "Money, money, money, money, money," Loder said.

Zero-energy technologies have the potential to make power plants, dams, oil refineries, even roads obsolete. The world economy as we know it would be turned on its ear.

Nor would we be at war right now, Loder said. If we weren't dependent on oil to fuel our SUVs, we wouldn't have sent troops to Saudi Arabia a decade ago. And if we didn't have troops in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden might have spared us his terrorist attacks.

Of course, if the power to free ourselves from fossil fuels is such a secret, it follows that alien existence must be kept from the public eye, Loder said. If evidence leaks out, he said, "people are going to realize that they've been hoodwinked for 50 years."

This hoodwinking is no small project either, according to Loder. Witnesses to this great coverup include military and intelligence officers, airline pilots and NASA officials, he said. An air traffic controller reported seeing a UFO hovering at 80,000 feet one night. John Callahan, a former FAA division chief, testified last May about a 1986 incident involving a UFO and a Japanese airliner. He was instructed to cover up the evidence, he said. Donna Hare, a NASA design illustrator, testified that UFOs were routinely airbrushed out of high-altitude photos of the Earth. A military officer said he served on a retrieval team for 20 years, picking up dead ETs and helping live ETs escape.

Documenting these stories has been Loder's passion for the past four years. Intrigued by UFOs since childhood, he became a believer while in Virginia visiting his cousin, a lawyer and brigadier general in the Army reserves. His cousin explained the Disclosure Project, a research organization gathering evidence of alien visits since 1992.

After spending a week training and countless hours observing the night sky, Loder began helping to gather and compile witness testimony. In 1997 he persuaded Gov. Jeanne Shaheen to send him to represent New Hampshire at a special briefing for Congress. New Hampshire was one of just two states that sent representatives.

Congress was less than convinced. The majority of elected officials are not in on the great coverup, Loder said. But entertaining stories of aliens is hardly the politically expedient thing to do. The Disclosure Project is still pressing for a series of congressional hearings. In May the organizers held a conference for the National Press Club, sharing their theories with more than 200 reporters, who broadcast the event around the world.

Public response has run the gamut, said Loder. Even in last week's small but eclectic crowd, this range of belief and disbelief could be seen.

One woman interrupted Loder with claims that NASA officials would not allow such a ruse, that NASA's raison d'etre is the exploration of space and whatever it may hold.

Other audience members nodded agreement to Loder's theories, adding comments of their own.

Don Johnson, who helped organize the series along with Sophia Eastley, has been researching statistical evidence of UFOs for 40 years. It took him 35 years to become a believer. Collecting data from sightings, he started mapping them according to sidereal time. Amazing patterns began to emerge, he said.

"That was the end of my objective career," he said.

Scott Ormsbee, a Reiki master and energy mystic who attended the class with his wife, says he doesn't care whether something is out there. What concerns him is what's inside him. "The only way to get free is to go within yourself," he said. "Everything else is just a distraction."

• Story originally published by:
Concord Monitor / NH - Oct 16.01