thank you
so the next gentleman I'd like to
introduce has become a a figure of great
support for us he's a Marine who in 2009
in Indonesia had a direct encounter with
one of the man-made operations and he is
Michael Herrera he is very courageously
come forward the first time he contacted
me because I know of these sort of
operations that he came across on his
mission
I told him that every single person I
knew who knew about what he had seen had
not lived to tell this story he is
enormously courageous
thank you and welcome to Michael Herrera
[Applause]
well thank you all for being here what
I'm about to tell you hasn't been
something that I've disclosed until
recently in the help of Dr Greer among
other people so I appreciate your help
with this
in 2009 we were my unit which was the
most decorated infantry battalion in the
entire Marine Corps which was second
Battalion fifth Marines was called in to
do humanitarian assistance operations
out in the Philippines which was
Operation kitsano
which we were attached to the 31st
Marine Expeditionary Unit which conducts
maritime operations all throughout
southeast Asia in conjunction with the
seventh naval fleet which houses one
Landing Hilo deck or lhd among lpds
which is what I was on called a USS
Denver ironically that's where I'm from
so kind of felt like home
now during that operation in quetzana in
the Philippines
they'd actually heard that a tsunami and
earthquake hit the western part of
Sumatra which is Western Indonesia
Padang City more specifically out of all
the ships in the seventh fleet the ship
I was on was the only one that was
routed to that location which was oddly
strange but then again this is my first
humanitarian operation so I don't know
the logistics of it but if the skipper
the ship would probably know that
information
so this happened September 30th we end
up getting called and dropped anchor
around October 8th we are briefed in the
ward room which is the officer's mess
where they eat like their cafeteria per
se
we're briefed that there is some of
President Obama's family members that
are present on either in the city or
somewhere near there they had a seal
platoon that was ready to go to retrieve
those people
um us knowing well that Indonesia is
also the second largest terrorist
Capital where they train these guys and
they'll send them up to whatever theater
of operation where anybody wants a piece
of United States they can they ship them
up to go handle it so we know that well
and we were then brief that we were
going to be armed during this operation
just to also provide security for the
transportation coming to basically drop
off medical supplies Sheltering items
food purified water things like that
so they ended up selecting certain
Marines to go ahead and do this we were
only in sticks of uh six six Marines so
it had ncos on top of other Marines to
help with that so
that we again boarded ch-53 Super
Stallions which are gigantic helicopters
that are roughly 100 feet long I love
the design of them it's my personal
favorite
um we'll end up boarding this on the
ship and we flew to the South Western
part of the city which is pedang looked
a lot different through satellite
imagery that I've recently seen back
then is a lot different especially
because most of it was decimated on fire
Rubble flooded you name it basically
worst kind of scenario you could ever
see
from then once we touched down on this
Landing Strip it took probably about two
minutes
um and then again the pilots got radio
confirmation to go ahead and drop us
into certain parts so we again dropped
to a hasty LZ which took probably about
six seven minutes to fly to from that
position
and we dropped to aclz we got off the
bird and what we're instructed to do at
that point through the briefing was to
push to a high ground at least to get
better observation as a marine the
Tactical advantage that you get from
having a
you know observation from a top point is
you see everything clearly you could
also you know coordinate from there at
that time we had did a tactical column
which we were able to get eyes on pretty
much everything especially with six
Marines so we have the effective uh
communication at that point if we need
to engage we can properly do it within
the amount of ammunition we've got as
well as the weapons that we got which
were only m16a4s
so at that point we decided to push
forward we tracked up about 300 meters
at this time I have a Panasonic camera
that has ability to take photographs it
has a you know ability to take videos
obviously
when we got to this high point I was
taking video camera and I had actually
turned to the north which just kind of
slopes down
and right there was something stuck out
like a sore thumb especially with jungle
terrain things like that junk you know
vegetation very green stuff was
something that stuck out so well it's
always going to be basically imprisoned
in my mind for the rest of my life and
it has been for 14 years was something
that was rotating
and it was transitioning between colors
like a light matte gray as well as a
dark matte black so in between that's
what it kept it was very smooth
we had all looked at each other as we
got online and we decided to investigate
the further thing I want to say is that
I actually took pictures and video of
this before we actually trucked down we
had a dump pouch where we basically if
we expend ammunition we want to retain
our magazine so we put those there
so I dropped my camera in there and we
decided to go down we didn't have any
Communications which was weird and that
was a very odd thing and it's something
that either could have been good that we
didn't or it could have been something
that could have been very bad
um and it just how however you want to
look at that once we got down this slope
we were approximately 150 meters away
from this craft when I got to the when
we all got to the point where we could
see it just like behind here again Mr
Shrek phenomenal job
you can see that the craft here actually
had uh roughly about 300 feet and the
reason why I know this is because you
could fit three of the helicopters that
we flew in on underneath this craft it
was rotating a clockwise motion the
panels here that you see the black ones
at least three of them was like avanta
black very dark I have no idea what that
was
on the very top there was like a pyramid
structure that you could see the
shadowing of it which would elicit that
was a pyramid structure
and it had an audible hump to it
um kind of like a guitar amp if you were
to unplug that or like a Transformer
it's very audible if I was to hear that
sound again I could tell you okay it's
probably this thing or something similar
to that it's very distinct and the way
that it was floating which was about 10
or you know 15 20 feet off the ground it
was kind of a very eerie thing to see
because I've never seen anything like
that in my life when we got up to that
point
we were then intercepted by a team of uh
soldiers or Rogue military force if you
will the most concerning thing about
this is they all had American dialects
they had American Gear they had otvs
black they had black camouflage they had
very similar setups to what we have but
more high speed something what you would
see special operation Operation groups
these days have they had no insignias on
they had no ranks they had nothing that
would signify who they were they had
black ball caps they had m4a4s that were
equipped with the acogs which was a step
up from what we were currently issued as
well as PEC 16 IR illumination devices
that you use for night vision and uh
night patrols things like that
so we were engaged we had eight of them
drop put the drop on us we could audibly
hear them for the safety selectors off
they basically started screaming at us
telling them what we were doing we were
not allowed to be there who were we with
what were we doing there threatened that
they could kill us right then and there
we could get lost in the jungle they
could throw us out of a helicopter if
they needed to it was very
nerve-wracking at that point especially
looking to my fellow Marines and seeing
their reactions on their faces too we
were all freaking scared to say
nonetheless
so with that being said each Marine was
then patted down along with myself we
were had our weapons taken from us they
were basically cleared in condition for
which means they had no round chamber no
magazine in they dumped our magazines
out of our Mac pouches as well into the
deck and then again because of Marine
Corps Order how things are with that we
were told to keep our military ID in our
left breast pocket so they knew that
they asked for our military
identification we gave it to them
obviously because they have guns in our
face so provided that to them they had
something that looked like modern day
smartphones but this is 2009 so it's not
really as high tech compared to
obviously today so they took some
pictures of our military idea and then
they had something to remind me of a bat
system which a Biometrics tracking
system that we have we would use this is
for insurgents or any things like that
that would take fingerprints it would
take retina skins it would take pictures
of them and document them so if there's
other militaries that were coming to
relieve our post they would actually
have this information too to know who
they are dealing with that's what it
reminded me of and had trouble scanning
the IDS
as this is going on we're going back
between these guys as well as what's
going on in the background at that time
there was four of these trucks which
were f-350s they were up armored they
were pretty beefy they had weapon cases
that I've seen before because of
something that we've actually loaded
weapons into they had two of them that
were in the back of each truck
they also had these containers that was
Illustrated right here which come to
find out through recent relevations from
yesterday from uh somebody who came
forward to Dr Greer I don't know who
they are but what they had told him and
what he has told me is that this
gentleman knows exactly what these were
used for because they had like a
cylinder on the front which is either
for oxygen or what I have hypothesized
was for vacuum sealing which believed me
to suspect that they were smuggling
narcotics or drugs come to find out it's
more disturbing than that this gentleman
has first-hand account with this and
says that it was for people
it's very disheartening especially
because that part of the world have
already gotten ravaged and is something
that is very hard to see right now
because of what I've witnessed and it's
very disheartening and this is why I'm
up here
so they loaded these onto this platform
that you can see right there
and as I got up there like I said I was
going back and forth these guys are
still searching our stuff they're still
you know pointing their weapons at us
and after the last two trucks that I saw
that actually got into that platform
unloaded they had four guys on each
truck that would unload everything
however they did it I can't tell you
because again I was focused on this as
well and these trucks drove off as that
happened this platform actually rose up
off the ground itself
the top part of the craft actually met
it down in the middle like this
and I formed into one solid piece
it floated right above the tree line as
soon as it was able to break that tree
line it actually had the on the corners
of each of these which was an octagonal
shape craft by the way on each corner it
emanated a light it was either red
yellow green or blue only those four
colors I can distinctly remember it
didn't make any additional high-pitched
sounds when it rose up once it got past
that tree line it shut over to the left
basically where the ocean was at uh so
fast I would estimate probably three
four five thousand miles an hour
instantaneous like that there was no
rotor wash no exhaust that would disturb
the trees vegetation the Coconuts that
were on these trees were not even
touched it produced no Sonic Boom this
thing was so fast
so as that happened they basically had
told us to turn around as we turned
around kind of a couple things that went
through my head at that point was that
we're done
they actually started loading our
magazines into our vet back into our
vest in a way that would be hard to get
them to put them into a weapon and to
actually you know charge a weapon
actually put it around in the chamber so
um they put those in they actually slung
our M16s on their back for us but when
they did it Marine Corps not really
issued the best gear especially at that
time so the slings back then where I
would say subpar quality cut my neck
pretty good and they you know kind of
went in that motion and made sure they
were secured so we couldn't really get
them as easy and they escorted us back
up this slope and they won they told us
they were not gonna we were not allowed
to look back
two that we were not able to talk about
this they were actually two of the guys
um we're actually talking about either
hey should we smoke these guys right now
you know that's what they kept saying it
was kind of feeding more into the fear
at that point because again I don't know
who these guys are I know they had
American Gear they had American sidearms
as well
um
if these guys have
actually taken oath like we have and
then why they're going against people
like us and even willing to kill um
servicemen who had used to even stumbled
onto this is just blows my mind and it's
very sick
so as we broke atop this hill we decided
to book him and we ran back to the LZ
there was a gunnery sergeant that was
attached to the ship I don't know this
gentleman personally but I know he's
very unhappy with seeing us because we
had actually had our weapons slung we
were not combat effective at that point
if we needed to be they asked uh he
asked specifically why we were we didn't
tell him exactly why we just came up an
excuse and then
um we waited for the next ch-53 to
approach and we got on board flew back
to the ship we turned our weapons in
Back to the Armory we took our gear off
back in our birthing and we went
upstairs fast tracked to a couple days
later which we end up in Subic Bay which
is like the Party Town in Philippines
so we had three days there of Liberty
the first night I come back because we
had a report back to the ship each night
we were not allowed to stay out of town
my rack was on my cam or my camera was
on my rack
and the memory card that was in it was
out and my battery was out of the camera
missing as well so all of that was
missing the only thing that was there
was the camera mind you I had my locker
secured I had other stuff that was
basically piled on top of that camera so
whoever did it knew what the hell
happened
so um after that
um the other thing that was also notable
with that was each of the Marines that
were with me also had their cell phones
taken that they brought even though they
didn't bring them on the admission all
their stuff was missing fast tracking
back when we returned back to Okinawa
one day I had got a call from the duty
that was in the barracks each Barracks
has like a duty of Marines they're you
know making sure they're still order uh
things like that he had been told that I
needed to go up to the CP so him for me
so I had hightailed it up there
and oddly enough there was nobody in the
building except for one gentleman who
was wearing Air Force dress blues that
was missing a name tag which I
understand an Air Force policy or
regulations that they were supposed to
wear on name tag and he did not have
that again the property of the day in
the salute he had pulled me into an
office and he has said you are not
allowed to tell anybody in your chain of
command I don't care if it's a general I
don't care if it's anybody you are not
allowed to talk about what happened you
can go to prison for this or you could
be killed
so he slid over a non-disclosure
agreement and it had two things that I
can recall to this day as I quickly
skimmed through it because again I had
thought we were going to forget about
this whole mess and uh one was said
tssci
and the other side of Indonesia there's
only two things I can recall out of that
so
I was forced to sign that I signed it
and I had um got the hell out of there
as quick as I could I before I did that
I tried to ask him who he was and he
would not tell me who he was so I
hightailed it back and I have not spoken
about it ever since I was able to
recently because what the law passed but
that is my account for you guys this is
also an urging for anybody in Washington
DC who's a political figure
please get this under control because
there are people who are either being
hurt or killed by this and it's
something that needs to be addressed
please
[Music]
thank you Mr Heckert I do want to share
that also when we reached out to him we
have the names of the other five people
in the platoon of course these will not
be disclosed because they have requested
their names not B but there's
corroboration one of them wrote to Mr
Herrera when we asked that Mr reach out
to the other uh folks involved in this
horrible incident which now is quite
clear from other sources involves a type
of human slave trade used in covert
programs very criminal operations he
said hey man this is asking too much and
it's not worth the risk my family a
military career far exceed anything you
are asking of me is not worth my life
or jeopardizing my family I know we go
back but this is asking too much you
need to get out of whatever you're in
and don't get me involved with this mess
my career isn't worth helping you
ever asked me to do this excuse my
language again
this is from a marine platoon member now
many of the people in the disclosure
project intelligence archive are folks
who have been had that response because
they need protection and their career
some are still in the military one I'm
dealing with still has a TS SEI
clearance who who contracts with one of
our agencies uh here in outside D.C so I
think that this has to be dealt with in
an orderly fashion immediately by the
Congress and by the president
[Music]
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