Hagelstein came to the lab when he was only twenty years of age. He did his doctoral dissertation while at the lab which he submitted to MIT in January 1981. His paper was a complex 451 page paper filled with equations and footnotes. It was entitled the "Physics of Short Wavelength Laser Design." It was "a primer on the theoretics of building a laboratory x-ray laser.
In one section of the paper Hagelstein broke from the complex physics of the paper to deal with what he termed to be "future applications." As a part of this part of the paper, Hagelstein pointed to three works of science fiction - Ringworld by Larry Niven, Mote in God’s Eye by Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Tom Swift and his Cosmotron Express by V. Appleton.
In one of the works Ringworld promoted there is a clear reference to the X-ray laser which Hagelstein was attempting to build, and would successfully complete as part of the Star Wars program. The reference refers to spaceship which is approaching a foreign world when suddenly it is attached by beam weapons. "We have been fired," cried the character in the book. "We are being fired upon, probably by x-ray lasers. This ship is now in a state of war. Were it not for our invulnerable hull, we would be dead."
Hagelstein had started his research into using the x-ray laser for medical purposes, but he ended up building a weapon. "By the time I got my thesis written," stated Hagelstein, "it was fairly clear to me that x-ray lasers wouldn’t be able to make much of a dent in terms of biological problem... writers off science fiction are supposed to look into the future. Since I started looking to see what they had in mind for the x-ray lasers. It turns out that all science fiction references are to blowing things up."
Dr. Steve Greer, as part of his Project Starlight, came across a top level former aerospace executive who claimed that the design of "Star Wars" was to fight aliens rather than Russians. Dr. Greer mentioned him, as one of the 100+ witnesses who would be testifying as part of his proposed disclosure video.
This international team working intensely on the disclosure process has been recently joined by a former senior aerospace executive - a person who has been aware since the 1970's that the Ballistic Missile Defense Program would be used to target extraterrestrial objects in space - even though there is no evidence of any credible threat from these craft.
There were other indicators that SDI and extraterrestrials might be connected. Keyworth, the key SDI person in the White House, had a very important tie-in to the world of UFOs.
Keyworth had been recommended as the President’s Science Advisor by Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, and also the father of the SDI concept. Dr. Teller led a one man crusade within the White House pushing for SDI. Dr. Edward Teller was also a scientist, who by the late 1980's, was being named by many researchers as a key figure in the world of UFOs. His connections to UFO stories goes back a long way.
Dr. Teller’s first encounter came in the early days of the UFO mystery during the Truman Administration. On February 16, 1948, Dr. Edward Teller, along with Dr. Lincoln La Paz, a University of New Mexico astronomer, was part of a secret 1948 "Conference on Aerial Phenomena" that was held at Los Alamos to discuss the UFO phenomena. The particular interest of the conference was the so-called 'green fireballs' which were then being widely reported in the area. This green fireball investigation was also known as "Project Twinkle." Dr. Teller had commented during the conference that he felt the phenomenon was an electro-optic phenomenon rather than a material phenomena due to the lack of noise.
In 1958 Teller expressed interest about possible life on Mars. In testimony before the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee on November 25, 1958 he stated that even though the moon and Mars were inhospitable places, Teller felt there would be a search for "any kinds of traces of life."
The most dramatic tie-in to the world of UFOs for Teller came in the mid to late 80's when a story began to surface that the United States government was test flying and back engineering flying saucers at an area in Nevada known as Area-51. The main person to advance the theory that Area-51 housed flying saucers was Robert Lazar, who claimed to be a physicist from Las Vegas.
Lazar claimed to have worked at a spot within area 51 known as S-4. There he claimed he had worked on captured flying saucers, and had seen one of the nine objects there during a test flight outside the underground hanger.
Many of the stories Lazar told could not be confirmed, and many items about Lazar’s background seemed to be shaky at best. One item, however, seemed to check out. This item was a June 28, 1982 meeting between Robert Lazar and Dr. Edward Teller, the same person who had recommended Keyworth as Reagan’s top science man.
On June 28th Dr. Teller had been in Los Alamos, where Robert Lazar worked. Teller was there to give a speech. In an interview with George Knapp from a Las Vegas television station Lazar explained what happened:
I had built a jet car, and they put it in the local newspaper on the front page. As I walked up to the lecture hall, I noticed Teller was outside sitting on a brick wall reading the front page. I said, ‘Hi, I’m the one you’re reading about there.’ He said, ‘That’s interesting.’ I sat down and had a little talk with him.
Then in 1988, when searching for a job, Bob Lazar stated that he sent a copy of his resume to Dr. Edward Teller. Dr. Teller, just as he had recommended Dr. Keyworth for Reagan’s science advisor, appeared to have recommended Lazar for a job inside Area-51. On November 29,88, Teller phoned and gave Lazar a name of someone at EG&G, a company believed to be involved in the flying saucer work. Lazar went to an interview, totally unaware of what the job would entail. Soon he was working at S-4.
When the Lazar story about working on flying saucers at Area-51 broke, Dr. Teller was confronted by a TV reporter asking if he had gotten the job for Lazar, and if he knew what was going on at Area-51. Dr. Teller responded to the reporter, "Look, I don’t know Bob Lazar. All this sounds fine. I probably met him. I might have said to somebody I met him and I liked him, after I met him, and if I liked him. But I don’t remember him... I mean you are trying to force questions on me that I simply won’t answer."
Of all the U.S. Presidents, Reagan more than any other President, has received notoriety for his obsession with the UFO phenomena. The obsession tag came from a series of UFO related utterances made by Reagan in various speeches and comments.
Billy Cox, a feature writer with the newspaper Florida Today, wrote a major story that was republished in USA Today about Reagan and the series of UFO comments. Cox described the situation as "Ronald Reagan’s abiding fascination with extraterrestrials."