{"type":"people","slug":"steven-greer","title":"Steven Greer","url":"https://disclosdex.com/people/steven-greer","description":"Steven Greer built a disclosure advocacy network around witness testimony, CE-5 protocols, documentaries, and disputed evidence","date":"1955-06-28T00:00:00.000Z","tags":["Advocate"],"updated":"2026-05-04T17:00:00.000Z","disclosureRating":3,"connectionCount":3,"content":{"markdown":"Steven M. Greer is a physician-turned-UAP disclosure advocate whose own CSETI materials identify him as founder of the Disclosure Project, the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the Orion Project.[^1] His public importance comes less from a single verified artifact than from an unusually persistent advocacy system: witness collection, congressional-pressure campaigns, CE-5 contact training, films, apps, and claims about suppressed energy and propulsion technologies.[^1][^2][^6][^8]\n\n<Dither src=\"/blog/greer.jpg\" width={960} height={540} animate />\n\nGreer's central thesis is that governments and private contractors have hidden evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, crash retrievals, reverse engineering, and advanced energy systems from Congress and the public.[^2] The strongest caution is that the public record has not verified those extraordinary conclusions, and the 2024 AARO historical review reported no evidence that any official investigation had confirmed UAP as extraterrestrial technology or that government or private industry had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology.[^10]\n\n<Video url=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoDtV3GrWb8\" />\n\n## Career Snapshot\n\n| Period | Dossier note |\n| --- | --- |\n| 1990 | CSETI's working group manual says Greer founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence in 1990 as a scientific and diplomatic research organization focused on extraterrestrial intelligence.[^1] |\n| 1993 | Greer's Disclosure Project account says he began identifying firsthand military and government witnesses to UFO events and projects in 1993.[^2] |\n| 1997 | The same account says more than a dozen government and military witnesses were assembled in Washington, D.C., for briefings with members of Congress, Pentagon officials, and others in April 1997.[^2] |\n| 1998-2001 | Greer says the project moved toward privately recording witness testimony, producing more than 120 hours of raw digital video that he edited into smaller testimony sets for the April 2001 briefing materials.[^2] |\n| 9 May 2001 | ABC News reported that Greer organized a National Press Club event where about 20 former government workers, many of them military and security officials, called for congressional hearings on UFO information.[^3] |\n| 2013-2023 | Greer's official film pages list Sirius, Unacknowledged, Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, The Cosmic Hoax, and The Lost Century as major documentary vehicles for his disclosure message.[^8] |\n| 2024 | AARO's historical review found no empirical evidence for the U.S. government or private companies reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.[^10] |\n\n## Origin of the Disclosure Project\n\nGreer's own executive summary says the Disclosure Project was designed to find firsthand military and government witnesses, brief officials, and prepare public materials that could support open hearings on UFO and extraterrestrial claims.[^2] That account says Greer and collaborators briefed Clinton administration officials, CIA Director James Woolsey, senior Pentagon officials, and select members of Congress, although those assertions come from Greer's project rather than from independently released official minutes.[^2]\n\nThe April 2001 executive summary also shows the breadth of Greer's claims before the National Press Club event.[^2] It argued that extraterrestrial craft had been observed, recovered, and studied; that advanced energy and propulsion systems had been hidden; and that congressional hearings were needed to let witnesses testify under protection.[^2]\n\nThe same document is useful but not neutral.[^2] Greer wrote that transcripts and materials could contain errors because the project had been produced under severe time and funding constraints, and he described the executive summary as only a small portion of a larger witness archive.[^2]\n\n## National Press Club Event\n\nOn 9 May 2001, Greer convened the Disclosure Project at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.[^3][^4] ABC News reported that about 20 former government workers stepped forward to say they had witnessed evidence of aliens and unidentified flying objects, and Greer said about 400 witnesses claimed firsthand experience and were willing to testify before Congress.[^3]\n\nThe Washington Post described a crowded room, more than a dozen television cameras, and 20 witnesses seated at the front, most of them retired military personnel.[^4] The same report emphasized a key evidentiary limit: the event relied heavily on credentialed testimony and presented little physical evidence by scientific standards.[^4]\n\nThe 2001 event remains Greer's most durable public milestone because it packaged UFO claims as an oversight issue rather than as a private belief system.[^3][^4][^5] The New Yorker later treated the event as an early public attempt to move UAP allegations from fringe culture into official attention, while also noting that Greer's briefing document assumed extraterrestrial conclusions that the public evidence did not establish.[^5]\n\n## CSETI and CE-5\n\nCSETI's working group manual defines CE-5 as human-initiated contact or interaction with extraterrestrial intelligence or beings, and it presents the CE-5 Initiative as field activity by trained volunteers seeking contact with extraterrestrial spacecraft and occupants.[^1] The manual says Greer's Contact Trilogy uses visual signals, specific tones, and Coherent Thought Sequencing, a consciousness or visualization technique, as the primary communication modes.[^1]\n\nThe manual also shows how CSETI organized CE-5 as a quasi-diplomatic field practice.[^1] It describes volunteer working groups, coordinators, documentation roles, equipment lists, confidential field sites, and rules against weapons, alcohol, and drugs during field work.[^1]\n\nGreer's current expedition guidance continues that approach by describing CE-5 as a peaceful and diplomatic program that uses light, sound, and consciousness to initiate contact.[^7] The CE5 Contact app extends the protocol into a consumer product by offering Greer-developed training materials, a CE5 guide and process, equipment lists, media libraries, and networking features for people seeking local contact groups.[^6]\n\n## Films and Media Platform\n\nGreer's documentaries are advocacy instruments rather than neutral investigations.[^8] His official film pages list Sirius from 2013, Unacknowledged from 2017, Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind from 2020, The Cosmic Hoax from 2021, and The Lost Century from 2023.[^8]\n\nThe films repeat several linked themes: extraterrestrial contact, alleged secrecy by military and intelligence organizations, suppressed energy technologies, and the idea that peaceful public contact can bypass official institutions.[^2][^7][^8] The official page for Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind presents CE-5 as human-initiated peaceful contact and frames the film as a way to bring Greer's contact thesis to a mass audience.[^8]\n\nOne important caution is the Atacama skeleton, often called Ata, which circulated through UFO media as an apparently anomalous body.[^9] A 2018 Genome Research study reported that Ata was female, human in origin, likely of Chilean descent, and carried genetic variants associated with skeletal dysplasia, which undercut extraterrestrial readings of the specimen.[^9]\n\n## Influence and Criticism\n\nGreer's influence comes from combining named witnesses, dramatic claims, and participatory contact practices into a repeatable disclosure ecosystem.[^1][^2][^3][^6] Supporters treat the witness archive and CE-5 network as evidence that ordinary citizens can pressure institutions and participate directly in contact efforts.[^2][^6][^7]\n\nCriticism centers on the gap between testimony and proof.[^4][^5][^10] The Washington Post noted in 2001 that the National Press Club event offered little scientific evidence beyond the authority of witnesses, and AARO later concluded that claims of hidden U.S. reverse-engineering programs were not supported by empirical evidence.[^4][^10]\n\nThe dossier reading is therefore careful but limited.[^5][^10] Greer is historically significant as a disclosure organizer and media entrepreneur, but his strongest claims remain allegations unless supported by independently verifiable records, materials, or sensor data that can survive adversarial review.[^4][^5][^10]\n\n## References\n\n[^1]: [CSETI, Working Group Training Manual, 1995-2011](https://drstevengreer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/WorkingGroupManual.pdf)\n[^2]: [The Disclosure Project, Executive Summary of the Disclosure Project Briefing Document, April 2001](https://drstevengreer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ExecutiveSummary-LRdocs.pdf)\n[^3]: [ABC News, \"Group Calls for Disclosure of UFO Info,\" May 9, 2001](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98572)\n[^4]: [Joel Achenbach, \"They're Out There,\" The Washington Post, May 8, 2001](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/technology/2001/05/09/theyre-out-there/531b5034-6a7e-464a-9d63-55bf78f759bd/)\n[^5]: [Gideon Lewis-Kraus, \"How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously,\" The New Yorker, April 30, 2021](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously)\n[^6]: [Sirius Disclosure Store, \"CE5 Contact - App for iPhone & Android\"](https://shop.siriusdisclosure.com/pages/ce5-contact-app)\n[^7]: [Dr. Steven Greer, \"Expedition - CE5 Introduction\"](https://drstevengreer.com/expedition-guidelines-copy/)\n[^8]: [Dr. Steven Greer, \"Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind - Contact Has Begun\"](https://drstevengreer.com/close-encounters-of-the-fifth-kind-contact-has-begun/)\n[^9]: [Sanchita Bhattacharya et al., \"Whole-genome sequencing of Atacama skeleton shows novel mutations linked with dysplasia,\" Genome Research, 2018](https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2018/03/21/gr.223693.117)\n[^10]: [All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, \"Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I,\" February 2024](https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF)","readingTime":"7 min read"},"relatedRecords":[{"ref":{"type":"organizations","slug":"disclosure-project","title":"The Disclosure Project","url":"https://disclosdex.com/organizations/disclosure-project"},"direction":"inbound","weight":2},{"ref":{"type":"organizations","slug":"cseti","title":"Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI)","url":"https://disclosdex.com/organizations/cseti"},"direction":"inbound","weight":1},{"ref":{"type":"people","slug":"danny-sheehan","title":"Danny Sheehan","url":"https://disclosdex.com/people/danny-sheehan"},"direction":"inbound","weight":1}],"citation":{"canonicalUrl":"https://disclosdex.com/people/steven-greer","title":"Steven Greer","publisher":"Disclosdex","retrievedFrom":"https://disclosdex.com/api/v1/people/steven-greer","license":"CC-BY-4.0"},"occupation":"Ufologist"}