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The Missing Times: News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up
Terry Hansen

An investigation into whether some of America’s most influential news organizations, many of which have maintained close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, have willingly suppressed full and accurate news coverage of the UFO phenomenon for a variety of national-security reasons.


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From the Publisher

The Missing Times is an investigation into whether some of America’s most influential news organizations, many of which have maintained close ties to the U.S. intelligence community, have willingly suppressed full and accurate news coverage of the UFO phenomenon for a variety of national-security reasons. After a “case study” of news coverage about UFO encounters at Montana nuclear-missile facilities, Hansen reveals the remarkable and persistent difference in UFO-related news coverage between local and national news organizations. The author then reviews the history of censorship and propaganda during the twentieth century. He explains how and why the elite news organizations work closely with government agencies during times of national crisis, and reviews the evidence for such media-government collusion over the course of the half-century-long UFO controversy.

Author Biography: Terry Hansen is an independent journalist with an interest in scientific controversies and the politics of mass media. He has followed the UFO controversy for decades and has written about it for various media. In addition, he has organized and moderated two symposiums about “The Science and Politics of the UFO Research” for the Science Museum of Minnesota. Hansen holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in science journalism, both from the University of Minnesota. He is a founding partner of KFH Publications, Inc., a Seattle computer-magazine publishing company. He is also an active private pilot with ratings for single-engine aircraft and gliders. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife and two parrots. Hansen can be reached via electronic mail at: twhansen@pscu.com Cover Design: Geoff Olson

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Other Reviews


Reviewer: jcgc1 from Big Rapids, MI USA

This is an excellent book on both media coverage of UFO's and media censorship in general. The author uses excellent research to show the overwhelming pattern of government interference in news reporting since World War I, and from there goes on to look at the way UFO reporting is managed by government influences. The book also includes excellent bibliographic references for those who want to read further. I always wondered why US media seldom reported UFO material without ridicule whereas the Belgium Air Force has seemingly been forthcoming with information and photographs regarding military contacts with UFO, and how the US media could ignore some of the persuasive evidence out there that something of importance is indeed going on. This book clarified things for me and, frankly, frightened me a little in the sense that it does appear public reality is heavily managed by the government and media. I guess I was more naive than I would have thought. I can't see the final picture yet, but this book is an important piece for those of us trying to assemble the UFO jigsaw puzzle. Buy this book!

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Reviewer: duncanives from Seattle, WA United States

In The Missing Times, Terry Hansen provides a clear, documented history of the relationships that exists between the national media and the United States Government, particularly on issues of national security. This aspect of the book alone is frightening to one's faith in the media as objective reporters of information. In fact, once you have read this book, you will never read a national daily, or watch a network newscast in quite the same way again. Hansen details how our military and intelligence communities are in the business of shaping public opinion and reaction through information management. How incompetent would they have to have been not to recognize the national media as an indispensable, efficient tool for their goals? Mr. Hansen details the exact mechanisms by which the government exercises their influence over the national media with chilling clarity, right down to CIA infiltration.

Local media, without strong connections to Washington D.C., corporate ties to defense contractors or heavy infiltration from intelligence agencies are shown to be less likely to present the government viewpoint, and may present more accurate information on any number of subjects, including UFOs.

A picture then evolves of the complicit relationship that exists between the government and the media. Through historical review, Mr. Hansen demonstrates how the press follows a government line when it comes to issues of secrecy and national security.

What happens when we insert UFOs into this equation? The answer is a perfect fit; the national media treats UFOs exactly as it does other subjects deemed to be of great national security importance and secrecy. This fact is skillfully demonstrated through an examination of UFO incursions over nuclear missile silos near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Unidentified objects could enter and leave restricted airspace with impunity. Such incidents have obvious national security implications. Widely reported in the local media, these astonishing and well-documented incidents were ignored by the national media until much later. Could the media have been influenced by a government that, despite their protests to the contrary, knows full well that UFOs are a national security issue?

Mr. Hansen goes out of his way to avoid speculation, and seems to be calling his fellow citizens not to believe in UFOs, but to be skeptical about what the national media, as a front for the government, tells us about them. It is a wise lesson that you won't forget.

The Missing Times is written with clarity and journalistic integrity. It is not a hastily written UFO book full of anecdotes and fuzzy pictures. It is objective reporting of the undeniable relationships between the government, the media, and you. It is also one of the most heavily footnoted books I have ever read, providing proof of the depth of research that went into it. If the Pulitzer Prize were given for merit, quality, insightful analysis and relevance, journalist Terry Hansen would have one on his bookshelf right now.