In December 2020, Brigadier General (ret.) Haim Eshed, the father of Israel’s space programme and former head of the Defence Ministry’s space directorate for nearly thirty years, told Yediot Aharonot that governments in Washington and Jerusalem had been in contact with a “Galactic Federation” of extraterrestrials. The aliens, he said, had signed agreements with both countries, maintained a joint base under the surface of Mars, and counselled against disclosure on the grounds that humanity was not ready.

The world laughed, mostly. Eshed, now in his nineties, retreated from public life. Then the world changed.

In May 2026, the Trump administration launched PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, and began declassifying nearly two hundred files on unidentified anomalous phenomena stretching back to 1944. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the goal was “maximum transparency.” A third batch followed in June. Congressional hearings had already forced whistleblowers into the open. The UAP Disclosure Act of 2025 was winding its way through committee. The laughter had stopped.

Two months later, on 7 July, Hollywood released Black Box, a horror film about Vero........

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