I can’t tell you how many people pinged me on social media over the past 24 hours regarding a story about supposed extraterrestrial revelations from an Israeli general. (Why? Because, for better or worse, I’m the “UFO guy” around here.) The story started with an article that appeared in Yediot Aharonot (“Seven Days”), one of Israel’s larger newspapers, roughly a week ago. It dealt with a new book that just came out from author Hagar Yani. The book is called “The Universe Beyond the Horizon – conversations with Professor Haim Eshed.” It features many of the thoughts and observations of Haim Eshed, a retired Israeli general who has held important government offices and is highly decorated.

Much of that information was left in the dust, however, when the newspaper featured a number of alleged quotes from Eshed, making spectacular claims about the presence of extraterrestrials engaging with the governments of the United States and Isreal as part of a “galactic federation.” The quotes go even further, making claims about President Trump’s interactions with the aliens. Breitbart has some of the high (or low) points from the interview.

Eshed claimed U.S. President Donald Trump was on the verge of revealing this secret before the “Galactic Federation” asked him to remain silent, as the aliens are worried that humanity is not ready to learn about their existence yet…

Eshed has a bit more stature than most of the people who say things like, “the UFOs have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet,” as he told Yediot Aharonot.

Eshed elaborated that President Trump was “on the verge of revealing” America and Israel’s years of interactions with “the aliens in the Galactic Federation,” but the aliens thought it would be better to “let people calm down first” because “they don’t want to start mass hysteria.”

The article goes on to claim that Eshed told them that there is a “signed contract” or “agreement” between the aliens and the United States government. We’re supposedly helping them with their exploration and scientific investigations. There’s also a secret base “in the depths of Mars” where both aliens and American astronauts work together. Oh, and we have a joint secret base with the aliens on the moon, too.

After getting hit with comments and questions about this report repeatedly, I did a bit more digging to see what’s really going on. There are a couple of different camps weighing in and we should look at them all.

One friend, Jeff Dunetz, has plenty of the right contacts inside the Israeli governments and other organizations over there and he pointed out that Eshed is being panned by some of his colleagues behind the scenes. He was described using a Hebrew phrase, HaSheten Alah Lo Larosh, that roughly translates as “the urine goes to his head.” In other words, his own perception of his power and influence may have affected his thinking or that at his advanced age, he may not be in the best control of his faculties.

But if we’re to accept that assumption, we would need to completely ignore the other side of the argument. The author of the aforementioned book, Hagar Yani, has taken to her Facebook page twice (here and here) to blast the newspaper over this article. She seems to come very close to claiming that the reporter who published the article lied about Eshed’s quotes, or at least distorted and sensationalized them to a great degree. This was done, she claims, just to sell more newspapers “which will be wrapped around fish tomorrow.” I had to rely on an English translation from a friend, but here’s part of her comments.

“Love Raanan Shaked’s humorous columns and his witty writing but this time I just take off my hat. How did he manage to turn Professor Haim Eshed, former head of the Israeli space program and a respectable, solid, restrained and humble man into some crazy alien prophet with delusional fire in his eyes? This creative journalistic wonder takes place in a 7-day article in which the professor talks about “The Universe Over the Horizon,” his new book I edited and I’m even a signatory to. None, beyond me. After years of literary toil Satan assures you that people will finally be interested in you for the small price of selling your soul/self-respect. What you forget to explain is that you will sell mostly the newspaper sheets and tomorrow they will be wrapped in fish and the greasy stains will remain solely on your reputation.

She goes on in a later post to proclaim that she’s sick of being asked about aliens and won’t be doing any interviews on the subject. Make of that what you will. The paper hasn’t issued a retraction and appears to be standing by the story.

So where does that leave us? We appear to have three possibilities to consider here and you can take your pick as to which is the most likely. The first is that a distinguished and highly respected Israeli general has sadly reached the stage of life where he’s no longer playing with a full deck of cards. Not knowing the man personally, I suppose we can’t rule that out, but many of his colleagues seem to believe that’s not the case.

The second is that he never said any of the most extraordinary things from the interview and a newspaper editor is just trying to fluff up their web hits and sell more copies of their publication. Again, can we ever eliminate that possibility entirely in the modern era? But Seven Days has a pretty good reputation and wide distribution. It would be an incredible editorial lapse for them.

And finally, there’s the third possibility. That Eshed is still in full control of his faculties and he did say all of those things because he knows (or at least believes) that they are true. Let’s just ponder that one for a moment.

As most of our regular readers know by now, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone around here who loves a good extraterrestrial hypothesis as much as me. But even with that disclaimer provided, let’s just say we should have some questions. If Eshed had simply said that he believes there are unidentified craft crossing our skies and they may not be of Earthly origin (and he’s directly quoted in the book’s blurb saying precisely that), I’m fine with that. I say the same thing myself on a regular basis.

If he went even further and claimed that an extraterrestrial species is present on our planet and may be interacting with human beings to some degree, well… as far as I’m concerned, we don’t have the evidence to say that yet. We might have that evidence in the future, but we’re just not there yet. (Or maybe everyone is wrong about this and it’s all just weather phenomena, drones, and seagulls.)

But when you get to the point where you’re saying that Donald Trump is taking regular meetings with aliens from the galactic federation and getting policy advice from them before scheduling our next set of astronauts for a flying saucer trip to our secret base on Mars, I’m afraid you’re going to be getting some side-eye even from me. Personally, at least for the time being, I’m going with a combination of possibilities one and two. Eshed may have had an inopportune moment of less than optimal lucidity and embellished some of his theories a bit and the reporter covering the story blew it up from there because they knew it would go viral instantly.

Just in case I’m wrong, however, and it turns out to be option number three, I’d like to assure the members of the High Council of the Galactic Federation that I meant no offense or disrespect by any of this and I would like to apply for a press pass and an invitation to your next meeting to cover it. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: The original article mentioned a source who did not with to be named because I hadn’t obtained permission to use their name. I was later given permission and edited the article to include his name.