www.thedaybeforedisclosure.com

TDG: In Mirage Men, you’ve done a wonderful job of presenting a very complex subject in a fun, readable manner – it must have been quite a job navigating the layers of deception and manipulation, the second-guessing as to intentions and the real truth, not to mention the liminal aspects of the UFO mystery itself. By the end of your journey, you must have felt as if every casual remark from Doty and others could be a ticking time-bomb. Given you are trying to ‘expose’ a story about the machinations of government agencies, did you fight any feelings of paranoia during the journey?

MP: Yes paranoia became something of an intermittent companion to John and I during our adventures, even once we got back home – we discovered that email can be a potent tool for psychological warfare!

We really did take a great leap into the unknown with Mirage Men and I think we got as deep into the UFO story as it’s possible to get without possessing a security clearance – or getting ourselves into hot water. As some of the strange hide-and-seek games we got involved in with the UFO ‘insiders’ became more complex and elaborate, there were certainly points when we wondered what we had got ourselves into – but in a situation like that you can’t start getting paranoid or else you’ll end up a nervous wreck. I do suspect that we were ‘checked out’, to make sure that we were harmless and not chasing black technologies or spying for an unfriendly nation. One thing we did discover is that some people in the intelligence community are even more paranoid than the rest of us – we took that to mean that they know what the Intelligence Agencies are capable of. Not a reassuring thought!

As I describe in the book, there was a point in our adventure when John became quite anxious and unsure of his own feelings about the UFO subject. He began to suspect that the great UFO Cover-Up was real after all, that the US government really does possess ET technology, just as the rumours state. It took a few hours and a few beers for UFO Mystic’s Greg Bishop and I to talk him down – not to a state of non-belief, but a state of un-belief. There’s a section about this in the book entitled ‘How to Believe Weird Things’ – it’s one of my favourite parts actually, and I think it might be interesting, even useful, reading for people who are actively engaged in the paranormal, the occult or any areas of unusual or esoteric activity.

Very excited about receiving this book.  More to come…

Yeah, I’m posting a lot about her as she does her author tour. But the release of her book feels like a major moment. Sort of the opposite of the mosque hysteria (which I also can’t stop posting about) – treating an important topic with sobriety, rather than reactionary extremism. I still contend that the two are related somehow – the reaction to UFO disclosure would be somewhat like the reaction to the mosque. Hysteria, anger, self-righteousness, protests, maybe even violence. So the mosque issue is instructive about how other volatile topics might be treated by the media.

Update: I’m becoming an internet proselytizer about this subject. I let criticism of the UFO issue get under my skin the same way self-publishing criticism gets under my skin. They both have a stigma for dubious reasons. So I can’t help arguing with people:

At Gather.
At a Facebook posting by Michio Kaku.

Also Michio Kaku discussing the book on MSNBC:

Pretty exciting time for this topic. Right when I’m diving back into it.

Perhaps the UFOers had the ability to defeat photographic detection. They would have to be damn technologically advanced to reach the Earth from wherever. Think of stealth technology on steroids. Then she paused for a moment and offered another theory: Maybe they’ve stopped visiting us precisely because there are now too many ways they could be caught on film (or in pixels), and they prefer not to be seen (for the obvious reasons).

First premise makes a bit more sense.  Cameras can’t make any better sense out of UFOs than our eyes.  I like the theory that the reason we see UFOs as technology is because it’s the only way our minds can interpret something that’s out of our frame of reference.  That, or it’s a projection of our own consciousness – somehow.

Also want to point out the argument that no government could keep such a vast conspiracy secret.  Well, UFOs aren’t exactly secret are they?  They’re a huge industry with many whistleblowers making many outrageous claims.  It’s just that no one takes the subject seriously and there’s no good way to weed out the true whistleblowers from the frauds.  So the conspiracy has been revealed, it’s just treated like a joke. The argument is that they knew there was no way to keep this secret, so they chose instead to discredit the information that’s out there. Basically, it’s worked – this issue is off the cultural radar.

As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite — central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue — are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.

What’s amazing is that if you go to David Icke’s site, you’ll find the exact same sentiment – except replace “invisible gods” with “reptilian overlords.”  Saw a conspiracy video recently where it said the “elite” hoard money because this is the closest thing we have right now to omnipotent power, which is an interesting concept.

I keep looking at media now through the lens of UFO disclosure.  If it were to happen, it would put op-eds like this is in a different light.  Basically, it would place everyone in the realm of bottom-dwelling conspiracy theory.  “What do we really know about our new visitors?” reasonable people might ask.  It would upend discourse, so that much of the media would revolve around how the economy/environment/war/etc. relates to disclosure.

Remember this, and how people thought this logo was another Muslim conspiracy?

If people can see connections where there are none, imagine how they’d react to literal evidence.  Aliens=Muslim invaders is not a far leap, when people are already making connections with dubious evidence.  People can twist evidence in any number of ways – see: the Global Warming debate.

Perhaps we’d adapt very quickly – there’d be hysteria, but then we’d all go on with our lives no differently than the death of Michael Jackson.  Everywhere in the news for two weeks, but now only followed by the devoutly faithful.  People can’t really afford to spend every waking moment thinking about this issue – they have jobs to go to.  Still, it would change everything in the media, and blow open everything for religion and science.  Both of which need to be blown open.

Would the apocalyptic change of UFO disclosure really be worse than the slow move towards the apocalypse that’s happening now? While the response to UFO visitation would be hysteria and over-reaction – a culture war that might turn into a literal war – it’s not like we live in paradise today. So I think I’ve amended my idea that UFO disclosure would be too large a wrench in the social fabric. That social fabric is fraying regardless, so disclosure might be the kick in the head society needs.

I don’t know, still working on this – hence, my work on Part II of The American Book of the Dead. I’m free to speculate in fiction without claiming to have the final answer about what UFOs are about.  That’s what gets many of the “non-fiction” books about UFOs into trouble.

“On the 23rd August, 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O.” This is John Lennon’s quote from the liner notes of Walls and Bridges, released January 31, 1975)

Thirty six years ago on the balmy evening of August 23, 1974, John Lennon stood naked on his deck overlooking the East River, smoking a cigarette, when suddenly he looked up to see what was obviously a UFO floating overhead. He screamed for his then-girlfriend, May Pang (author of Instamatic Karma) to come and see what he was seeing.

May Pang:

“What happened was, he was looking south. Our terrace overlooked the East River. He loved that terrace. He liked being by water, and used to sit out there a lot. (That’s where those pictures were taken by Bob Gruen. the famous NYC t-shirt pictures). He’s looking south and he’s seeing flashing lights behind him, and thinks it must be a billboard or something. Then he thinks, ‘wait a second, I’m in a residential area, what billboards?’ So he turns around to see this THING moving over his head, very slowly. So suddenly I hear John yell, ‘May!! Come here!” I didn’t respond right away because I’m looking for clothes, and then he yells, “MAY!! Get out here NOW!!”…

“It was shaped like a flattened cone, and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we’d see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft – these were also flashing on and off. During the time that it was almost directly overhead, May says that she didn’t hear any noise. We often had helicopters flying above us, but this was as silent as the night, seventeen stories up above street level.”

This book gives rationalists some red meat instead of speculation. But some still treat evidence as speculation, which is partly why this topic has so much trouble. The skeptics job isn’t to disbelieve all anomalous ideas, it’s to require evidence. And here’s an example of intriguing evidence, and still it’s dismissed.  That’s a fundamentalist position – something tangentially related to a far-out idea is impossible, no matter the evidence.

Someone there mentions how religion has been the obstructionist of disclosure:

If aliens exist, it undermines the very foundations of all the religions of the world. If aliens exist, then God did not create the universe with just us in mind. Maybe we are not created in His own image…

Aliens who were able to travel to the world would be a more advanced life-form than us, technology-wise at least, and if God created us in His own image, and created everything else in the world for our benefit, where did a superior race of aliens come from? Who created them? Did a superior God create the aliens? Did the superior god create our own god?

The existence of aliens opens a can of worms that would undermine the stranglehold that the Pat Robertsons of the world currently have on the whole of mankind.

But really it’s the strict rationalists who have given this issue so much trouble – people like Carl Sagan, willing to discount thousands of different accounts, a kind of absurdity.  Those are the scientists who need to take this issue on.  The pious will have to work out whatever it is the scientists discover.

Honestly, I think many skeptics like the little jolt of superiority in not believing in “magical thinking.”  The basic idea – they’re stupid, I’m smart. That sort of confidence-builder is attractive.  I’m also guilty of this.  It’s really not much different than some of the devoutly religious who look down on those who haven’t “seen the light.”  Two sides to the same coin – people holding tight to their worldview for how it makes them feel personally. Throw a wrench in that – tell a staunch skeptic that something he’s criticized might actually be valid – and they’re resistant.  People don’t like to be wrong.

I shouldn’t get too upset about 1 commenter out of 100+ comments, but the skeptic’s view is the mainstream one.  And as I wrote, skepticism is a form of fundamentalism, in danger of being as closed a circuit as any other.  As potentially dangerous as religious fundamentalism because it also halts scientific progress.  Anyone who looks at the sky and doesn’t think “What if?” isn’t just skeptical, they’re dreamless.

Leslie Kean’s going to be on Colbert tomorrow night, so this book is reaching the mainstream.

If a Republican president revealed the same thing, you’d get a similar reaction from the left-wing base, with people wondering what sort of nefarious plan might be on the horizon – like a false flag alien attack.  This is already talked about in conspiracy circles, and for such an insane idea as earth being visited by extraterrestrials, every lunatic idea would be given a voice in the mainstream, much as the media is legitimizing the voices of people who say things like Muslims are evil.  If we’re being tested for tolerance and how we might react to a radical idea like UFOs, we’re failing.

Nevermind first contact and an alien landing on the White House lawn.  Like every debate it would become a mess – some would say it’s CGI, psy-ops, survivalists would stockpile more guns and possibly turn to violence, the intensely religious would go more batshit – including Middle-Eastern terrorists who would find a new reason to hate us.  It would be an invitation to devolve into every paranoid fantasy. Every conspiracy theory would then be legitimized.  Even if the alien race appeared benevolent, you would have countless news reports beginning with, “Some say the aliens are here to eat us.  Experts weigh in.”

I’ve thought before – hey, people can handle this idea, they can adapt, but now I’m not so sure.  People’s reaction to the “War of the Worlds” broadcast wasn’t entirely absurd – after all, the radio show was purporting to be a report of an actual invasion.  But the media turns fiction into non-fiction by treating all points-of-view as carrying equal weight.  Witnessing the debate about the “mosque” in New York, I’m beginning to wonder if humans are a long way from being able to absorb this type of information.  The media turns normal things into hysteria – because it gives a louder bullhorn to the hysterical than the nuanced.  It would turn something abnormal like UFOs into something potentially apocalyptic.  Even if the media were smart and careful, large groups of people would do this all on their own.  Until we have a better media, and less reactionary people, I wonder if this issue can truly be made public.

___

Update: I cross-posted this at the Daily Grail to see what kind of response it would get – hoping it would be mainly about the UFO issue – and the response has been pretty depressing.  I’ve been surprised by the number of people who say “They should have known this would happen” about the Cordoba mosque.  Perhaps nine years later with a Democratic president they didn’t anticipate the shitstorm and thought this could happen peacefully.  They were wrong.

Change is going to make people unhappy, it’s going to make people resistant.  The resistance isn’t the pure feeling we should run with, it’s the change that’s more important.  And welcoming in moderate Islam and understanding the difference between Islam and jihad is necessary change.  In a country where 1 in 5 believe Obama is a Muslim that’s evidently not possible.

You could make the same argument about any sort of change – “They should have known this would happen” when people are resistant.  It’s blaming the messengers for the misinterpretation.

But this has also been instructive, given the premise of the original post.  People are heated and headstrong about this topic.  And if people are resistant to the idea of an Islamic cultural center, they’d be 1000 times (or more) resistant to UFO disclosure, which would rip apart our current ideas of religion, faith and science.

Update 2: A commenter there adds -

Many business people would see this as a business opportunity. Many Chinese leaders would see this as a threat to the unity of China, others would see it as a new opportunity to acquire new technology. The Afghani Taliban would see the aliens as foreign invaders of Afghanistan and fight them. The Pakistani Taliban would see them as infidels and execute them.

Saudis would ask if they need oil, Greenpeace would protest the inconsiderate crossing of empty space without due respect for empty space. Nike would get them to sell shoes.

The world would change, people would be the same.

This is what I’m getting at.

The most-persuasive case I’ve read about the UFO phenomenon is Disclosure by Steven Greer. The trouble with Greer is that he mixes in cases like Bob Lazar that have too many questions, which casts a shadow on the other testimony included. Still, even if 1% is true, it’s incredible.  Also, reading his follow up book, Hidden Truth: Forbidden Knowledge, was disappointing because he makes so many outrageous claims – such as being able to levitate long distances.

By and large, the Disclosure Project is a good thing, but this phenomenon needs to be approached with much more sobriety if it’s going to be taken seriously by the mainstream. And this book appears to be an enormous step forward.

Excerpts from her introduction:

This was not an easy subject to take on, and I understand why other journalists haven’t done so.  At first, I felt burdened by what seemed to be almost insurmountable obstacles. The UFO story was journalistically elusive, contaminated by conspiracy theories, disinformation, and just plain sloppiness, all of which had to be carefully separated from the legitimate material.  The questions raised by the UFO phenomenon were deeply disturbing to our accustomed ways of thinking. The subject carried a terrible stigma and was therefore a professional risk for those publicly engaged with it.  But it also pointed to something possibly revolutionary, something that could challenge our entire worldview….The aggregate data, the accumulation of evidence over decades, was utterly compelling and completely mystifying.  Despite the problems, there was simply no way I could force myself to ignore it.

This is how I’ve felt.  I’ve read people say, “I used to be interested in UFOs, but I got over that.”  Because it’s basically unanswerable, people find it to be pointless.  Perhaps, but years down the line, I cannot shed my interest in this subject.  The implications are too astounding.

After publishing a piece about UFOs in the Boston Globe, she writes,

Amazingly, nothing happened.  I had been exposed to another aspect of this strange world. It was the beginning of a rude awakening, a rite of passage into the perplexing reality that UFOs cannot be acknowledged at all, even as simply the unidentified flying objects that they are.  It was as if everyone was pretending that they didn’t exist.

She also makes this vital point about UFOs that is often missed.  People say that they “believe in UFOs.”  This doesn’t make any more sense than saying – “I believe in religion.”  Religion exists, that’s not the issue – the question is if you believe in God.  Same goes for the UFO phenomenon – UFOs exist.  The question is if you believe that they’re alien spacecraft, interdimensional, prototypes, or something else.  Many people don’t seem to realize the distinction, and so don’t realize that many highly-credentialed people have seen and reported on UFOs.  The idea that they’re all reported by some trailer park hick is one of those pieces of disinformation that makes the phenomenon all the more mystifying.

Her mission here is to separate  the reliable reports from the crap.  She ends,

To approach UFOs rationally, we must maintain the agnostic position regarding their nature or origin, because we simply don’t know the answers yet.  By being agnostics, we are taking a giant step forward.  So often, the UFO debate fuels two polarities, both representing untenable positions.  One one side, the “believers” proclaim that extraterrestrials have arrived from outer space and that we already know that UFOs are alien vehicles, and on the other, the “debunkers” argue with aggressive defensiveness that UFOs don’t exist at all….Principled skepticism is the foundational premise of this book.

Clearly, she’s a very good spokesperson for this issue.  An interview:

Her organization: The Coalition for the Freedom of Information.