Nothing to lose: a bounty for UFO data

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Nothing to lose: a bounty for UFO data
October 6, 2010
by Billy Cox
HeraldTribune.com

In 1998, porno czar Larry Flynt sucked the wind out of President Clinton’s impeachment proceedings by posting a $1 million bounty for verifiable insider tales of extramarital affairs among the sanctimonious inquisitors on The Hill. The biggest casualty was incoming Speaker of the House Robert Livingston who, faced with exposure, not only ‘fessed up but resigned from public office.

What if "Hustler's" Larry Flynt offered reward money for exposing UFOs as America's last great taboo?/CREDIT: blogs.creativeloafing.com

The mainstream press blanched at this lurid wedding of checkbook journalism and bedspread stains; though the concept wasn’t new, the political fallout — and its implications — was unprecedented. That’s why a guy like Larry Bryant makes no apologies for the post he made last week in ClassifiedAds.com.

“Look, money talks in this country — it’s what runs government and it’s the American way,” Bryant says from his home in Alexandria, Va. “If you want information and you can’t get it any other way, and it’s valid information, so what if it’s bought and paid for?”

Three days after the Washington, D.C., press conference in which seven Air Force veterans presented sworn testimonials to their encounters with UFOs at nuclear missile facilities, Bryant posted a $1,000 bounty for military whistleblower evidence strong enough to provoke a congressional investigation. He figures jet interceptor gun-cam footage of UFOs would be “the mother lode of UFO reality.”

“I’d like to appeal to their conscience and their sense of civic duty. But I’m not naive,” he says. “I know $1,000 isn’t gonna provide much incentive for anybody. But it’s an attention-grabber, and hopefully somebody with deeper pockets than me will pick up on it.”

More precisely, the old NICAP veteran would like someone along the lines of entrepreneur Robert Bigelow — who restated his interest in UFOs to the New York Times in June — to step up. After all, Bryant has been here before. He attempted to solicit UFO whistleblower evidence by taking out classifieds in the military trades during the Eighties. Their refusal to publish his ads resulted in ultimately unsuccessful First Amendment litigation in federal court.

So now, at age 72, with the mainstream press clearly incapable of applying sustained and persistent coverage to the story, Bryant hopes new media will prove there’s more than one way to skin this cat. “Look at WikiLeaks,” he says of the international online site that recently published the controversial Afghan War Diary papers. “What they’ve done is really interesting and gives a lot of issues the sort of cutting-edge exposure they wouldn’t get otherwise.”

So maybe all those years of writing classified ads for a fee will finally pay off with a decent nibble or two. “I think it helped my writing,” Bryant says. “When you’re getting charged by the word, you write tighter and hopefully better. But at this site, you can write as much as you want and it’s all free. I don’t know how they make money.”

Who cares? Maybe Larry Flynt will read Bryant’s pitch and fatten the reward kitty. It’d be the American way.