The PRG Awards are for Political Courage, Journalistic Courage, Intellectual Courage, Lifetime Achievement (posthumous), Lifetime Achievement (living), Disclosure.  

The 2009 Awards are as follows:

• Political Courage: Center for American Progress founder and CEO John D. Podesta for his support of the Disclosure process during an era of extreme partisan politics.  He assisted President Clinton's limited efforts during the first term to respond to the Rockefeller Initiative.  In 2002 and 2003 he called for the release of all UFO related documents in government hands and supported the fledgling Coalition for Freedom of Information.  He has counseled the new administration in favor of open, transparent government and just released a statement in support of Dr. Edgar Mitchell's call for the new president to end the UFO/ET truth embargo.  [Past recipients include:  former Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer, Phoenix councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood, President Jimmy Carter, and the late New Mexico Congressman Steven Schiff.]

• Journalistic Courage:  television journalist George Knapp for two decades of coverage of the UFO/ET issue while anchoring the news desk at KLAS TV in Las Vegas.   [Past recipients include: Coast to Coast AM host George Noory, Antonio Huneeus (Chile), Sarasota Herald Tribune reporter Billy Cox, Jaime Maussan (Mexico), and White House correspondent Sarah McClendon.]

• Intellectual Courage: Exopolitics Institute founder Dr. Michael Salla for his refusal to abandon his work in developing the field of exopolitics in the face of losing his academic career standing (he did), his job (he did), and his work status in the United States (he did). [The past recipient is the author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens and founder of the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research the late Dr. John E. Mack.]

• Lifetime Achievement (posthumous): Mercury Astronaut Col. Gordon Cooper for his career as a space pioneer and two decade effort to raise the issue of an extraterrestrial presence with the American people, the media and the United Nations.  [Past recipients include: Laurance S. Rockefeller, Major Donald Keyhoe, Dr. James E. McDonald and Dr. J. Allen Hynek.]

• Lifetime Achievement (living): researcher Colin Andrews for 25 years of research into and writing about perhaps the most provocative phenomenon in the world today - crop circles.  [Past recipients include:  Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Alfred L. Webre, Walter Andrus, Jr., and Stanton J. Friedman.]

• Disclosure:  Former Ministry of Defence Senior Executive Officer Nick Pope for his open engagement of the UFO/ET issue while working for the British government and as a private citizen.  [Past recipients include: Dr. Jesse A. Marcel, Jr., Capt. Robert Salas (USAF ret.), the late Monsignor Corrado Balducci, and the late Lt. Col. Philip J. Corso.]

Full PRG Award information can be found at: www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/PRG_Awards.htm

Contact:  Stephen Bassett
                 Executive Director
                 202-215-8344
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