Michael Salla

Michael Emin Salla (September 25, 1958) is an international politics scholar who in 2001 embarked on an effort to disseminate his views about the alleged contact between political leaders and extraterrestrials, which he dubbed "exopolitics", via the internet and media appearances. Salla's most recent academic position was in Washington at American University, Center for Global Peace. The Center did not sanction his ufological research, and emphasizes that it is personal. Controversy eventually led to Salla's dismissal from the university.
His views have made his work the subject of considerable controversy and criticism within both the ufological and mainstream academic communities. Much of the testimony he uses to support his position is controversial due to a lack of empirical evidence to substantiate many of the claims. While many of Salla's sources are considered to be credible by adherents of the UFO Disclosure movement who cite a variety of supporting documents and credentials, critics argue these sources have been discredited for a variety of reasons; among these the dissemination of patent falsehoods in the content of claims made, and the misrepresentation of credentials.
Biography
Education
In 1983, Salla received a BSc degree from the University of Melbourne. In 1984 he received a GradDipEd from Melbourne College of Advanced Education. In 1987 he received a BA degree from the University of Melbourne. In 1990 he received a MA degree in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. In 1993, he received a PhD degree in Government from the University of Queensland.
Career
In his early academic career in the 1990s Salla specialized in conflict resolution. He researched ethnic conflicts in Kosovo, East Timor, and Sri Lanka and worked to stop them occurring. He led a series of workshops bringing together East Timorese and Indonesian intellectuals to develop a power sharing document to resolve the East Timor conflict. The resulting document was incorporated into the 1999 U.N. supervised referendum voted upon by the East Timorese. On September 1998 in Boston, Salla was one of three panelists who took part in the first American Political Science Association (APSA) discussion on negotiation of global violence and conflict.
From 1996 to 2004, he was an Assistant Professor/Researcher in Residence at the School of International Service at American University. In 2003 he founded American University's Peace Ambassador Program, which, at that time, was described on American University's School of International Service website as a program that "combines study, meditative practices, and prayer ceremonies at selected Washington DC sites aimed at promoting individual self-empowerment and Divine Governance in Washington DC." In April 2004, he participated at the X-Conference which led to more public prominence and further threatened his university position. On May 13, 2004, Abdul Aziz Said, Director of American University's Center for Global Peace, sent a letter of dismissal to Salla, citing unauthorized changes Salla had made to the Peace Ambassador Program as the primary reason for Salla's dismissal. The letter also stated that Salla's formal affiliation with American University would not be rescinded, but neither would it be renewed upon its expiration in August 2004.
On April 7, 2005, Salla founded the Exopolitics Institute (ExoInst), a UFO research organization that is currently headquartered in Kealakekua, Hawaii. On June 4, 2006, Al Jazeera published an article discussing a letter Salla had sent them informing them about the possibility of alien intervention in order to prevent a nuclear attack on Iran by the United States of America. From June 9-11, 2006, he assembled and took part in the Hawaii Conference on World Peace and Extraterrestrial Civilizations.
Salla authored a book on exopolitics in which he claims that a 1954 dentist appointment by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a cover for a secret meeting with extraterrestrials. Salla claims that President Eisenhower "met with two ETs with white hair, pale blue eyes and colorless lips," referred to by alien enthusiasts as "Nordics." He told the Washington Post that "The 'Nordics' offered to share their superior technology and their spiritual wisdom with Ike if he would agree to eliminate America's nuclear weapons." Salla says the President declined the offer. Former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer joined three fringe groups in urging the Canadian parliament to hold public hearings on exopolitics in 2005.
The fifth X-Conference event was attended by 400 people at a hotel's banquet hall in suburban Maryland. Advocates of exopolitics want mankind to deal with "rule of law in outer space, the sharing of technology between civilisations, and the physics of one-on-one interaction with ETs". An exopolitics conference was also held in June 2009 in Leeds with the Starchild skull featured as its star attraction.

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