When the New York Times published the piece titled “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program” on Dec. 16 2017 it was a paradigm shift in the way the public and mainstream press outlets presented stories on UFOs. Since that initial story by veteran journalists Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean a lot has happened in bringing this topic away from fringe. When the first Times article hit, we went behind the scenes of the story with Blumenthal when he discussed how they considered Luis Elizondo credible, and wanted to purse the story. Blumenthal was able to talk to Punk rock and UFOs again on the Times latest offering, and how editorial leadership sees these stories.

“The good news is the Times is receptive to this story,” Blumenthal said.” They have to be done in a New York Times way where everything is on the record. In this case we did, we were able to talk to several pilots without using names. Everyone else was on record. The Times takes the subject very seriously with its editing standards, which is why the stories have gotten such credible resonance. When people see it in the Times it’s not fake news, (and) it’s not speculation. We are very careful to stick to what we know, and lay out what we don’t know. The editing process is very rigorous, and it is not easy for reporters like us to get these stories through because we are held to a very high standard given the subject I would say properly so.”

The New York Times isn’t the only journalism giant taking this seriously all of a sudden. Politico, Washington Post, The Hill, New York Mag, and other large media companies are following suit with similar stories, which makes the journalists at the Times prideful from what started as the Pentagon UFO story to now.

“We love to see it lighting up the Internet,” Blumenthal said. “It is the most e-mailed , most watched and most everything’d story of the day. It is really dominating Times coverage, so it is a part of pride because we do think the subject is important, and we love to see people follow us since sometimes we need to follow other people, but in this case I think we have set the pace.”