ORGANIZATION / WITNESSES / PUBLIC RECORD
The 2001 press conference that brought former military and government witnesses to a Washington stage, and the claims that still need to be separated from the record.
On May 9, 2001, physician and disclosure activist Steven M. Greer organized a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Roughly twenty former military, government, aviation and technical witnesses spoke about UFO encounters, secrecy and alleged hidden programs.
The Disclosure Project, organized by Steven Greer, said it had identified hundreds of potential witnesses, recorded more than one hundred interviews and assembled a roughly 500-page briefing package. Those are organizer-reported figures for a wider archive, not the number of people who appeared live. Contemporary reporting described about twenty speakers at the event.
The event called for congressional hearings, witness protections and declassification. It was a privately organized press conference, not a congressional hearing, government investigation or National Press Club endorsement. Participants offered to repeat accounts under oath if Congress convened hearings; that offer is not the same as having testified under oath at this event.
Reading the file: The conference and its speakers are documented. Individual testimony varies in specificity and corroboration. A real witness, real government record or unexplained observation does not by itself verify an extraterrestrial explanation.
01 / THE PROJECT'S CASE
The Disclosure Project linked witness testimony to a broad campaign about secrecy, recovered craft, advanced technology and public policy. These are separate propositions and require separate evidence.
Greer told reporters the project had identified roughly 400 people who said they had firsthand knowledge. Project material described more than 100 recorded interviews and around 70 transcribed accounts. Contemporary coverage described roughly twenty people speaking at the May 9 event. The larger counts are project estimates, not an independently audited roster of eyewitnesses.
ORGANIZER-REPORTED SCALESpeakers described observations made in aviation, radar, military and government settings. Greer argued that the U.S. government and contractors held information about non-human craft and had concealed it from the public. The press conference made the allegation publicly; it did not independently establish the alleged chain of command, concealment program or extraterrestrial origin.
TESTIMONY & INTERPRETATIONSome speakers described alleged crash retrievals, non-human occupants, or secret work on advanced vehicles. Other speakers focused on encounters they could not identify and did not necessarily endorse Greer's full theory. The event placed accounts of very different evidentiary weight side by side; a witness's job title or access claim does not independently authenticate every conclusion in the briefing.
EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS / NOT VERIFIEDThe campaign sought open congressional hearings, protection or immunity for people concerned about secrecy obligations, release of UFO-related records, and restrictions on weapons in space. Greer also connected disclosure to claims about advanced energy and propulsion. These were policy objectives and advocacy arguments; the press conference did not demonstrate a usable alternative energy system.
ADVOCACY PROGRAM
A prestigious room gives a claim a platform. It does not turn a press conference into an official hearing or validate the testimony presented.
VENUE / NOT GOVERNMENT ENDORSEMENT02 / CASE THREADS
The speakers were not all making the same claim. These examples show why each account should be checked on its own terms.
Callahan, a former FAA official, discussed the Japan Airlines cargo flight whose crew reported unusual objects over Alaska. The flight and FAA investigation are documented, and the National Archives lists a record series for the incident. Callahan's further account of an intelligence briefing and an effort to suppress the story is a separate claim; the FAA record does not establish that alleged meeting or prove the objects were extraterrestrial.
DOCUMENTED INCIDENT / DISPUTED INTERPRETATIONSalas, a former missile launch officer, described reports of a glowing object and missile disruptions. Air Force history records a serious outage involving all ten missiles in Echo Flight on March 16, 1967. That establishes an operational incident; it does not establish that a UFO caused it. Salas's later account and the official narrative differ, and the causal link remains contested.
DOCUMENTED OUTAGE / CAUSE CONTESTEDStone, a retired Army sergeant, said he had been involved in recovery operations involving crashed craft and non-human entities. This is among the event's most extraordinary claims. The public presentation did not include an independently authenticated recovery order, chain-of-custody record, biological evidence or physical artifact that establishes it.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY / NO PUBLIC FORENSIC PROOFRosin said von Braun warned her that successive threat narratives, including an extraterrestrial threat, could be used to justify weapons in space. Her statement is evidence of what she recalls him saying. No contemporaneous recording or written statement from von Braun was presented to independently verify the conversation or its wording.
RECOLLECTION / SECONDHAND ATTRIBUTION03 / PUBLIC RECORD
A timeline of the campaign and the later hearing context. Dates mark public activity, not validation of the claims.
Greer founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI), a related organization focused on alleged contact and field protocols. CSETI and the Disclosure Project are associated through Greer but are not the same initiative.
RELATED ORGANIZATIONLater project materials date the witness-gathering initiative to this period. Organizers said they were recording interviews and assembling testimony from people with military, government, aviation and technical backgrounds. The reported size of that archive is an organizer claim.
PROJECT HISTORY / ORGANIZER ACCOUNTGreer and oceanography professor Theodore C. Loder III compiled a large briefing document for journalists, government and scientific audiences. Contemporary reports described it as about 500 pages; the surviving package mixes witness material, historical cases, selected records and the organizers' interpretations.
ADVOCACY BRIEFINGRoughly twenty speakers presented accounts in Washington, D.C. Greer asked Congress to hold hearings and said the wider project had identified hundreds of potential witnesses. The event was recorded and covered by ABC News, UPI, The Washington Post, Wired and other outlets.
PRIVATE PRESS CONFERENCE / NOT A CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGNo Disclosure Project congressional hearing followed directly from the event. A 2013 Citizens Hearing on Disclosure was a privately organized simulation, not a congressional committee proceeding. Congress later held formal public UAP hearings beginning in 2022; those proceedings have their own witnesses and records and do not retroactively confirm the 2001 allegations.
SEPARATE EVENTS / SEPARATE RECORDS04 / CLAIM VS. CHECK
A useful assessment separates the event record, a witness's experience, the underlying incident, and the explanation offered for it.
The project presented witnesses at the National Press Club on May 9, 2001.
Yes. Contemporary ABC and UPI reports, the video recording and archived project material document the event.
Greer said the project had identified about 400 people with firsthand knowledge and described a wider recorded archive.
Contemporary coverage reported roughly twenty people speaking live. The larger number refers to people the project said it had identified, not a verified count of live speakers or independently audited witnesses.
Speakers said they were willing to repeat their accounts under oath before Congress.
No. This was a private press conference, not a congressional committee hearing. The National Press Club hosted the event; that did not make it a government proceeding or an endorsement of its claims.
Speakers pointed to government records, radar observations and historical cases as context for their conclusions.
Some underlying events and records can be independently checked. For example, NARA lists FAA records for JAL Flight 1628. The existence of a record about an unexplained event does not by itself validate a cover-up, recovered craft or extraterrestrial cause.
Greer argued the accumulated accounts showed recovered craft, reverse engineering and advanced energy or propulsion.
The public event did not present independently authenticated physical material or reproducible engineering evidence establishing those conclusions. The claims remain allegations, with evidence quality varying by case.
IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONCredentials can make a person relevant to a question; they do not settle what caused an event. Testimony is evidence to evaluate, not a substitute for corroboration.
05 / THE SIGNIFICANCE
The conference made named witnesses and their allegations visible to a national press audience. It challenged stigma around reporting unusual aerial observations and pressed for congressional oversight. Those are historically significant outcomes even though the event did not resolve the underlying claims.
The project also bundled narrower observations together with stronger conclusions about recovered non-human craft, a coordinated cover-up and advanced energy systems. Those propositions need independent support of their own. The strongest historical account preserves both facts: the event was real and influential; its most extraordinary conclusions were not established by the event itself.
06 / WATCH THE RECORD
These recordings show what organizers and speakers said. A video record documents testimony; it does not independently prove the testimony.
Each thumbnail opens its matching recording in a new tab.
READING THE FILE
PRIMARY VIDEOThe Disclosure Project / National Press Club 2001↗
CONTEMPORARY REPORTUPI / “Private project pushes for UFO hearings” / 10 May 2001↗
CONTEMPORARY REPORTABC News / “Group Calls for Disclosure of UFO Info” / 10 May 2001↗
CONTEMPORARY ANALYSISWired / “Ooo-WEE-ooo Fans Come to D.C.” / 10 May 2001↗
GOVERNMENT ARCHIVENational Archives / UFO and UAP textual records, including FAA JAL 1628 files↗
CASE ANALYSISUAPRAD / 2001 Disclosure Project Press Conference: Claims and evidentiary limits↗
PROJECT ARCHIVEDisclosure Project Archive / National Press Club video record and metadata↗
The Disclosure Project Archive and its briefing materials document the organizers' position. Contemporary reporting and government archives provide independent context. Inclusion here is not endorsement.
KEEP THE TESTIMONY.
TEST THE CONCLUSION.
