Michael Rivero is best known amongst online researchers as the webmaster and writer for the excellent What Really Happened.com. However, this is by no means his only venture. Rivero also worked with NASA on the Viking mission to Mars, and has featured in animation and design on a number of blockbuster films and TV series, from Stargate to Star Trek.
 
Michael took some time out of his busy schedule to join us for a short chat.

The Red Flag: Please give our readers a brief synopsis of who Michael Rivero is and what factors motivated you to start What Really Happened.com

Michael Rivero: It all goes back to 1994. I had a small video effects shop working out of my home and had the cable TV hooked into one input on the switcher. I had the ABC news running, more to keep me company than any other reason. That day, ABC News ran a story about a photo showing the hand of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster and the gun he supposedly killed himself with.
Now, at the time, I didn't know who Vince Foster was or why he was dead. I was pretty oblivious to what was going on in the nation's capitol. But what I do know is whether a picture is real or fake. That's what I get paid for. The photo that ABC showed that day (pictured below), leaked to Reuters by the White House, screamed "fake" to me. There were numerous problems with it, such as the complete absence of any blood on the white sleeve of the shift, which made it obvious that the picture did not support the story of a suicide, and had to be staged.
I did a little digging and found the first Senate report on the  Whitewater Scandal, in which the FBI's report of the interview if Lisa Foster proved that she had been shown a silver gun and asked to identify it. As the ABC photo showed, the gun actually found with the body was dark blue steel, essentially black. This proved that the FBI was resorting to fraud to manufacture testimony in the case.
I put these facts up on a sub page of my business web site, and shared this info at lunch the next day with some co-workers, at a cafe where the Hollywood CNN people also hang out. Some of the CNN people were at the next table and were listening to what I was saying. That night, the phone harassment began, threats, warning to shut up, and so forth. That was when I realized I had stumbled into something pretty major. Since then the web page has moved to its own server, originally as "Rancho Runnamukka", and now as www.whatreallyhappened.com. While the Vince Foster material is still in there, the site has grown in scope. The philosophy of the site is simple. The US Government does not have the right to lie to the people. My goal is to make the cost of lies so far outweigh the benefits that government will discover that truth is indeed a virtue. But I will not tolerate a government that lies.

TRF: Michael, you have experience in both the NASA space program and the Hollywood movie industry. For several years I've been tracking how the media and Hollywood have been pushing the idea of a possible extraterrestrial/UFO invasion. It is my contention that a staged alien invasion will be the next manufactured enemy in the not too distant future. I have trouble reconciling the fact that Steven Spielberg, a movie director, is also a Bilderberg member (attended 99 Portugal meeting) when that organization is almost entirely exclusive to individuals drawn from politics and business. Why do you think Spielberg is consulted by the global elite and how is Hollywood manipulated by the New World Order gang?

MR: Hollywood, recognized for its ability to shape people's opinions on a vast scale, has always been subject to government efforts at control going back to J. Edgar Hoover's efforts to get Charlie Chaplin to stop making fun of authority figures. Spielberg, as major player in Hollywood, is in a position to shape much of what Hollywood is thinking and doing, and this is why he would be invited to meetings by those with designs to influence the whole world's population.

TRF: Your great website has come under attack both verbally and technically many times. Are your antagonists merely misguided people who think hate speech really exists, or is there an orchestrated agenda to silence sensitive information?

MR: Hate speech is not always a bad thing. There are some people and groups who are deserving of hate. I hate liars. Anyone care to tell me that is somehow wrong? The attacks are hard to trace, but the overall pattern of such attacks has been directed towards web sites which are not in accord with the war agenda of the United States or with Israel.

TRF: Was the anthrax story basically swept under the rug simply because all indicators led back to a US government source or is the issue more complicated than that?

MR: The anthrax story was big news when the letters included with the anthrax pointed at the officially designated target, Arab Muslims. However, genetic tests confirmed repeatedly that the strain of Anthrax came from a US bioweapons lab. That cooled the story a bit. Eventually two suspects surfaced, Steven Hatfill (pictured), fingered by Dr. Barbara Rosenberg, and Dr. Philip Zack, who was caught entering the Anthrax storage area without authorization.
But regardless of which one of these men committed the crime, the letters, written to appear to be from Arab Muslims, prove the existence of a plot to frame Arabs for terror attacks in the United States. This is an idea the US Government does not want the American people to think about. As a result, the media has completely dropped the story.

TRF: The 9/11 cover-up can be seen from more than one perspective. Were the hijackers actually the 19 as named by the FBI or not? Were there any hijackers at all? What does your research suggest?

MR: FBI chief Robert Mueller has admitted that the identities of the hijackers are based on their IDs, which appear to have been well-executed fakes, using stolen identities of Arab men, some of whom have since turned up alive. The hard fact is that we do not know who was really on those planes, only who we are supposed to THINK they were.

TRF: From the many hundreds of 9/11 smoking guns indicating government prior knowledge and complicity, which do you consider to be the most damning above all the rest?

MR: The classification by the US Government of evidence linking arrested Israeli spies to 9-11, as reported by FOX News' Carl Cameron.

TRF: We are told daily that the next terror attack is imminent. What sort of time-scale do you think the New World Order is on? When do you expect them to launch an attack and what form will it take?

MR: Support for the conquest of Iraq is eroding rapidly. It is certain that the US cannot wait for Hans Blix (pictured) to complete his inspections in Iraq, which Blix himself states will take almost a year. I surmise that the US will attack Iraq immediately after the 8th. Lacking a real reason for the commencement of hostilities, I would not rule out a staged provocation.

TRF: How do you see the War on Terror developing? Will it simply fizzle out or are we to see more sovereign nations attacked ad infinitum?

MR: The war on terror is actually a war on Americans. Look at all the surveillance being directed at US citizens, down to our shopping lists. This pretty much proves that the US Government is not afraid of foreign terrorists but of the American people.
As for other invasions, I think the answer is, "as many as they can get away with." Certainly the immediate targets are Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, under which lies 80% of the Mideast's oil.

TRF: Michael, first we were told the invasion of Iraq would be Summer 2002, then Autumn 2002, now apparently it's set for February 2003. When is it likely to begin, if at all, and why do they keep putting it back?

MR: I think that the US Government expected that the American people would back this war because of 9-11. In that regard, the propaganda war has failed. The attack keeps getting pushed back while the US looks for some reason for the war that will have some traction in the minds of Americans. None of the ideas have worked so far, which is why I expect a manufactured provocation to kick off the conquest of Iraq.

TRF: There have been several news stories recently about how NASA are considering producing solid evidence to prove they went to the Moon in the face of Moon landing 'hoax' doubters. From your contacts, is the Apollo 11 film footage an accurate record of the 1969 moon landing? If we did go to the Moon are we at least to presume that some of the more flattering photographs (pictured) were faked in a professional studio?

MR: NASA didn't fake any photos. They didn't need to. The claims made by those who doubt the moon landings are based on a lack of education about the process of photography and science in general.
The bottom line is that if one has access to the necessary equipment, one can prove the landings actually happened for themselves. All the Apollo landings deployed a science package which included a LaserRanging Retro-Reflector, or LRRR. These were used to measure exact distances from Earth observatories to the different landing sites. Because the LRRR were durable units requiring no power, they can be used even today. Given the advances in technology since the 70s, even advance amateur astronomers should be able to use the LRRR.

TRF: Will the looming global economic crash come to pass in our lifetimes?

MR:Modern buildings have fire doors to prevent a fire in one room from engulfing the whole building. Modern ships have watertight bulkheads to prevent flooding in one compartment from sinking the whole ship. National boundaries serve the same purpose, confining economic troubles in one nation to prevent them from creating a global cascade.
Globalism, the erasure of national boundaries to commerce, is like jamming open the fire doors or watertight doors. Yes, you can move from room to room and from compartment to compartment with greater speed and ease, but a fire, flood, or depression is now able to wreck the entire building, ship, or global economy.

TRF: Perhaps the two biggest stories of October and November were the Washington Sniper and the Bali bombing. Were we told the truth about these events or was there a darker agenda at hand?

MR: It's hard to say in the case of the sniper. The Bali bombing has all the earmarks of a covert intelligence operation.

TRF: Solutions. How can we make government accountable again and how do we influence other people to join us in the freedom movement?

MR: I don't think this government can be saved. I think it will soon follow the USSR into history.

Our very best wishes and thanks go to Michael Rivero. Check out his website which is updated daily at www.WhatReallyHappened.com

This article featured in the November/December issue of The Red Flag - a full color monthly newsletter.
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