UFOs: 50 Years of Denial….and then some

Recently we watched the documentary UFOs: 50 Years of Denial which explored the consistent, official UFO debunking process. We’re sure we watched it when it was first released in 1997 but sometimes it takes some years of hindsight before one can actually “get the point”. Part 1 starts here http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pbaEGiftX6A

(There are 5 parts in total)

Some comments stood out in our mind, one being that the authorities did not want the public to "get excited" by UFO reports. An interesting choice of words, don't you think? To achieve this goal and to overcome leaks from official sources about the reality of the subject, a vast network of ridicule and debunking had to be set in place - and it was, well and truly as this documentary so clearly pointed out. The last thing officials wanted was for public opinion to be mobilised into asking all the right questions of the authorities who weren't yet willing to answer, if ever. They didn't want to be herded down a path they were unwilling to travel which might allow vast opportunities provided by alien contact (one can only begin to imagine what they might be), slip through their fingers. Instead, they had to quickly curb that interest so they could retain control of their chosen direction, and one of the ways this was done was by sidelining all contactee accounts through the consistent installation of the debunking process.

Remember this a time when the UFO phenomenon was brimming with contactee reports that ignited public imagination, causing a deep questioning of the social issues of the time. From reports we've received over the years we know that alien abductions were taking place back then, but it was the contactees who fired public interest. They were the instigators of social unrest among the UFO interested public, not the nightmarish and deeply disturbing alien abductee reports which came with an in-built aversion process called fear. Frightening accounts of this type of ET contact weren’t going to get the public probing too deeply into the subject, naturally enough. That aspect of the UFO phenomenon, at least at that time, would not be the undoing of the cover-up.

To this day even the mere mention of the word contactee in UFO circles triggers this process whose tentacles have become so insidiously entrenched in the psyche of many in the field that it causes an immediate knee-jerk reaction switching off any further discussion. It has become too much of a time consuming effort for researchers to even bother raising contactee cases any more. The final result is the debunking process remains in tact, unchallenged, and the ultimate goal achieved - end of discussion.

Yet it could possibly be the accounts by people such as Ludwig Pallman, Dan Fry, Orfeo Angelucci and Elizabeth Klarer, among hundreds of others, that give us the greatest insights into those with whom we share the universe. To do so we must remain alert to the debunking process that exists within the UFO community and continue our investigation into the truth.

Alien Worlds Magazine

Stuart Miller, editor and publisher of Alien Worlds Magazine, kindly sent us a copy of the first issue of his latest project, a reincarnation of his previous eNewsletter UFO Review, now in hard copy under it’s new title Alien Worlds. Thanks Stuart. It contains an unorthodox content mix emerging from the convergence of three disciplines involved in the search for alien life; UFOs, astrobiology and SETI, the latter posing as the high priest of space exploration so we can understand why Stuart included SETI (well almost).

Initially you might wonder what these three have in common. Astrobiology searches for intelligent life holding that if it exists it is far, far away or only microbial in form; SETI which holds that if ET life does exist it is also far, far away, so far in fact that it’s not much use worrying about it; while Ufology claims alien life exists as sentient life forms that visit Earth for a variety of reasons right under our nose even though very few take any notice of it.

The quest then for the editor of Alien Worlds will be to weave this combination into something that will be of value for UFO research given that any ufologist worth their weight already remains abreast of SETI and astrobiology “discoveries”. He’ll also be charged with unearthing if this mix will appeal to anyone in the UFO field besides those that take the “scientific approach only” to Ufology, or miracles of miracles, if it will help birth what anxiously paces outside the UFO delivery room - a wholistic approach to the UFO subject. A challenging quest indeed.

If it is to be the latter then there seems that some other essential components might need to be added to this brew, that is, information from the behavioural sciences, neuroscience and consciousness research. One could also add a splash of the esoteric, since many ancient esoteric ideas now seem to harmonise with modern day quantum physics, string theory and super position hypothesis, just to name a few. In our opinion this would cover all the bases giving a true eclectic approach to the subject, if that were to be the ultimate goal.

Stuart has taken on a great challenge which causes us to wonder whether 2 years down the track he will remain true to the direction Alien Worlds set out to steer. After all, when one rubs shoulders with scientific conditioning for a while it is bound to rub off eventually leaving one akin to the subject in the boiled frog experiment. So the questions remain…. will Stuart remain wide-eyed, bushy-tailed and full of objective wonder? Will scientifically oriented UFO veterans find the magazine “dry” enough? More importantly will it be enough to keep the interest of UFO buffs, researchers, experiencers and the interested UFO public piqued, given they appear to be the magazines target market and that scientists probably won’t read this magazine? All good questions that only time will tell.

Good luck with the magazine Stuart, it’s going to be a fine balance indeed, but if anyone can do it we know you can.