Friedman: Hard to judge. The Santilli stuff did cause a great deal of discussion worldwide which is probably good... even if the story was phony. I reached that conclusion years ago after meeting with Santilli, twice. I don't know what to make of the Romanek-Peckman stuff. Didn't look great on Larry King.
Billy: It is common knowledge that you are one of the foremost experts on the Roswell crash. Even though it is still being investigated, and the subject of new books, do you think it will be ever be solved? Or, has it already been solved?
Friedman: Although I am the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident, as described in "Crash at Corona," I have no idea if the full story will ever be released. It is clear that alien wreckage and bodies were recovered. We may never know what the government learned from them.
Billy: In your book, and in your public presentations, you have often said that an alien race "can get here from there." Do you believe that ultimately, science will discover a way for mankind to traverse these great distances to other galaxies?
Friedman: I try to avoid talking about other galaxies at all. I am interested in the local neighborhood of the Milky Way. Within 55 light years of here, there are about 2000 stars of which about 46 are very similar to the sun. The Galaxy is about 100,000 light years across and has perhaps 200 Billion stars. The next big galaxy over, Andromeda, is over 2 Million light years away.
I can't imagine any reason to be concerned about what is happening there. I am concerned about intra-galactic communication and travel, but not about inter-galactic visitations. Yes, of course, I believe trips to nearby solar systems will be feasible if we want to spend the money. Nuclear fusion would be a good starting process. I worked on that almost 50 years ago.
Billy: Some Ufologists, believing that space travel is beyond our capability, subscribe to the "alternate dimension" theory. Do you believe this idea has any value?
Friedman: I have no idea what people mean about such matters. Maybe we can warp space and time. We don't need to know how they get here to establish that there are visitors. The sun was a fusion factory for 4.5 billion years before we determined that is the energy producing process.
It was fusioning for a long time before we figured it out. Technological progress comes from doing things differently in an unpredictable way. It is humbling to realize how short our tech history has been compared to the age of the neighborhood.
Billy: Can you tell us what you consider to be some of the best documented cases of aliens visiting our planet?
Friedman: There are 10 outstanding cases in Paul Kimball's "Best Evidence" video including the RB 47 case, and the Iranian jet case.
There is the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire in 1961, as described in "Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience." There are the 41 outstanding cases described by Dr. James E. McDonald in his Congressional Testimony of 1968.
Billy: What are your thoughts on the O'Hare Airport sighting, and the recent sightings in Texas? Do you believe they were adequately investigated?
Friedman: The O'Hare case was an excellent case involving as it did testimony by a number of United Airlines employees. There is a detailed 150 page report by Dr. Richard Haines of NARCAP (National Aviation Reporting Center for Anomalous Phenomena) chock full of data. There has been some concern about the adequacy of the MUFON report on Stephenville. It seems too bad that the original reporter lost her job. There is always room for improvement.
Billy: One last question: What do you think it will take for us to solve the mystery of UFOs?
Friedman: A massive effort on the part of a media group putting as much into an investigation of the Cosmic Watergate as the Washington Post did into its investigation of the political Watergate. I won't hold my breath. It seems clear, as reported in my book, that aliens are visiting, that there has been a massive cover-up, and we are dealing with the biggest story of the millennium.
Billy: Thank you again for this opportunity. I know our readers will find your answers most enlightening.
Visit the Stanton T. Friedman web site.
