Group Calls for Disclosure of UFO Info

May 10, 2001 -- -- They're out there — and the government knows.

That's according to a group of about 20 former government workers, many of them military and security officials, who stepped forward on Wednesday to say they had witnessed evidence of aliens and unidentified flying objects and called for congressional hearings about such sightings.

"These testimonies establish once and for all that we are not alone," said Steven Greer, director of the Disclosure Project, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to disclosing alleged alien sightings.

Greer, who organized the program at the National Press Club in Washington, argued that the United States and other governments have known about UFOs for at least 50 years and have been keeping the information secret.

Greer said there were some 400 witnesses who claim to have firsthand experience with UFO sightings or alien evidence, and are willing to testify before Congress.

Among them is Daniel Sheehan, a well-known Washington lawyer who is acting as counsel for members of Greer's group.

Sheehan told reporters that during the Carter administration he found out about government-held UFO information that then-CIA Director George Bush, father of the current president, would not release.

Sheehan said he was then led into the National Archives, where he was shown photographs of captured UFOs, complete with what appeared to be alien writing symbols, but he was only allowed to take notes on a yellow legal pad. He traced the photos onto the cardboard back of his pad, he said.

James Oberg, an ABCNEWS space consultant and retired NASA engineer, says Greer has long argued "there's this bizarre theory that there is a worldwide real X-file cabal that is using UFO technology."

But Oberg noted not every witness attending the conference necessarily subscribed to Greer's theory, and says those attending the press conference shouldn't be mocked.

"People see strange things they can't understand, and that can't be explained either then or in hindsight, and it's good to keep documenting these, because often the mysterious sightings are things of interest, to military intelligence or even to science."