Bassett has spent the past 15 years as the executive director of the Paradigm Research Group, which seeks government openness about the presence of extraterrestrial life. A Bethesda resident, he is also the head of X-PPAC, or the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee. His forthcoming book is called “The Day After Disclosure.” Why did you start this project? For the last 60 years, the U.S. government has had a policy of embargoing the truth regarding an E.T. reality, an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. [These efforts are] all part of a grass-roots activist movement. It has one fundamental mission: The governments of the world, starting with probably the United States, have got to come forward and acknowledge the fact that there’s an extraterrestrial presence here.

What do you say to doubters? The evidence is overwhelming if you look for it. Several thousand books have been published on this, and huge numbers of websites. There have been photographs, videotapes, radar logs, sightings from the ground, pilot sightings. We have witnesses coming forward from the government, including astronauts. … The issue is not scientific. It’s political.