The UFO Disclosure Clock | Stephen Bassett’s Final Countdown

Cristina Gomez
May 16
3 min read

Updated: Jul 25

In an interview with host Cristina Gomez, UFO disclosure activist Stephen Bassett shares his thirty-year journey advocating for government transparency regarding non-human intelligence. As the first registered lobbyist for UFO disclosure, Bassett’s unique perspective offers valuable insights into what he calls the “truth embargo” — the government’s 78-year policy of secrecy regarding extraterrestrial contact.

Bassett’s passion for disclosure began in 1995 after reading John Mack’s book “Abduction.” This work by a Harvard-trained psychiatrist convinced him that non-human intelligence was real and that the issue wasn’t scientific proof but rather a classified national security matter requiring a political solution. This realization led him to Washington D.C., where on July 4, 1996, he became the first registered lobbyist for UFO disclosure.

Rather than directly lobbying Congress, which initially showed little interest, Bassett focused on “media lobbying.” He understood that reaching politicians required first changing the media narrative. Over nearly three decades, he has given approximately 2,000 interviews and been mentioned in about 600 articles. His organization, Paradigm Research Group, has compiled an archive of 16,000 media pieces dating back to 1947, with 7,000 articles added since 2017 alone.

What Bassett finds most remarkable isn’t the existence of extraterrestrials, which he had suspected since his teenage years, but rather how the U.S. government maintained secrecy for 78 years despite overwhelming evidence. This “truth embargo” persisted despite hundreds of thousands of sightings, tens of thousands of investigated reports, and extensive media coverage. He compares it to the fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where society was collectively convinced to ignore an obvious truth for decades.

Stephen Bassett in from the Capital Hill — Stephen Bassett

Bassett explains that stigmatization was a powerful tool in maintaining secrecy. By effectively “ghettoizing” the UFO topic intellectually, the government ensured that serious people avoided it. This stigmatization had practical effects, including cutting off funding. Bassett notes that the UFO activist movement is possibly “the least funded movement of its type in history,” with most participants working from their personal resources and making significant sacrifices.

A central concept in his analysis is his “Paradigm Clock,” created to mirror the famous Doomsday Clock that tracks nuclear war risk. While the Doomsday Clock currently sits at 89 seconds to midnight (nuclear catastrophe), Bassett places his Paradigm Clock (where midnight represents disclosure) at just 10 seconds to midnight. He explains this difference: while nuclear midnight represents destruction that faces resistance, disclosure midnight represents a positive transformation with diminishing resistance.

Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight — Doomsday Clock

Perhaps most provocatively, Bassett asserts that every U.S. president since the Roswell incident has been aware of the extraterrestrial presence. He points to Ronald Reagan’s famous UN speech about humanity uniting against an outside threat as evidence of this knowledge. However, he believes Donald Trump will be the “disclosure president” who finally ends the truth embargo, citing Trump’s independence from traditional political constraints and the substantial groundwork laid by recent Congressional hearings and legislation.

Bassett emphasizes that recent government investigations into UAPs aren’t about discovering what these phenomena are — the government has known for decades. Rather, these efforts are about creating the infrastructure needed for orderly disclosure. Without proper preparation, a foreign disclosure would create chaos, with reporters flooding Washington demanding answers and no framework to manage the revelation.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, according to him. With Earth’s population having grown from 2.3 billion at the time of Roswell to 8.3 billion today (with another 2 billion having lived and died during that period), humanity faces unprecedented resource strains, conflicts, and nuclear threats. Bassett believes disclosure may be our best hope for changing course from what he sees as a path to destruction.