Stephen Bassett, an extraterrestrial issues activist, believes the time has come for Congress to open up about visitors from space.

While waiting, though, Bassett and his organizations, Paradigm Research Group and Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, are spending thousands of dollars for former members of Congress to hold a 30-hour “hearing” at the National Press Club from April 29 to May 3.

Bassett’s groups will pay $20,000 each to six former members — Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, and Reps. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore.;  Merrill Cook, R-Utah; Roscoe G. Bartlett, R-Md.; Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.; and Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. — to preside over the “citizen hearing” as if they were on the Hill.

“I don’t care what the ex-members actually think about [extraterrestrial] issues,” he told HOH. He only cares “that they served in Congress, that they know how it is done, that they are willing to run these hearings like an [actual] hearing in order to create a rather amazing and, I think, important event.”

Bassett wants to reveal what he says is the government’s policy of extraterrestrial information containment. He claims there have been too many craft sightings and too much contact between humans and extraterrestrials from 1947 to the present day to erase all knowledge. “The government should not be in the business of literally trying to define reality, or to withhold the nature of the world from us,” he told HOH. “This is not their business, and there are always bad consequences” when it tries to do that.