Now that Congress is seeking the truth about American collaboration with Nazi criminals after World War II, perhaps the American public can hope for an investigation into another matter that dates to the same era — the UFO cover-up.

Everyone’s heard about the infamous Roswell, N.M., UFO crash in 1947. Legend has it the Air Force recovered the craft and has been reverse-engineering the salvaged extraterrestrial technology ever since to generate advancements in lasers, fiber optics, microchips, anti-gravity energy and more. A cover-up was launched at a level above the presidency, and a massive disinformation campaign was put in place to confuse matters.

Retired Air Force Col. Philip Corso testified to exactly this in his 1997 memoir, “The Day After Roswell.” Many will remain skeptical until extraterrestrials land on the White House lawn — an unlikely event. But for those who can read between the lines, compelling evidence is abundant.

In 1969, the government terminated the Air Force’s own UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, declaring that there was no evidence of UFOs.

But attorney Peter Gersten, representing Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, filed multiple Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the Air Force and the National Security Agency seeking documents about UFOs. In the 1982 lawsuit of CAUS vs. The NSA, a U.S. District Court reviewed a top secret affidavit concerning NSA UFO files. It noted 239 UFO documents discovered by the NSA in their files.

After review, the court ruled that release of the documents, “could seriously jeopardize the work of the agency and the security of the United States,” and that, “public interest in disclosure is far outweighed by the sensitive nature of the materials.” The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

This was still a watershed moment for the study of UFOs as the case proved that the government does indeed possess files about UFOs, which inherently conflict with Uncle Sam’s official denial of the UFO phenomenon.

Then, there’s Steven Greer’s Disclosure Project. In 2001, Greer held court at the National Press Club to announce that a slew of retired military personnel had testified on video about hard evidence of extraterrestrial visitation they had witnessed during their careers.

Time after time, the participants testified that the reason for the continuation of the cover-up to this day is the suppression of the free energy technology our extraterrestrial visitors use to get here — technology that will render the fossil fuel monopolies obsolete and revolutionize the planet when it gets out!

Free energy is the tide that will truly lift all ships, as it will greatly re-balance the capitalist playing field. This is why is it imperative that the citizens of the United States demand a congressional investigation into these matters. (In fact, a political action committee devoted to this purpose already exists — www.x-pacc.org.)

The Big Oil dinosaurs will fight tooth and nail to maintain their power, while withholding the means to solving many of the planet’s problems.

But great change is blowing in the wind — there are many learned people who believe matters are coming to a head in 2012, at the conclusion of the Mayan calendar. More on that next week…

Greg Schwartz is a graduate student in journalism and a columnist for the Daily Kent