Politics and UFOs: A Growing Movement

Originally posted by mirageman
There could be many other reasons why disclosure cannot or will not happen as in the referenced websites in point 29 of your post. However I am not sure what the motivations of those involved in exo-politics and their campaign for "disclosure" really are. They seem to be starting at a point where the truth (or at least proof) they seek may not actually exist.

Hmmm, a sample sentence from link 29 -

"Recent UFO research announcements have continued to show a phenomenon that is constantly changing and becoming more complex. In the U.K. for example a series of "crop circles" began in the 1980s. It was a completely new aspect to the point that some considered it a new phenomenon in itself. It has developed into a complex new dimension of the UFO mystery."

That link is opinion, each point is an opinion, where are the facts rather than what the poster thinks? On ATS crop circles divide opinion, that doesn't make anything a fact. I love as well how link #29 believes that (once again) it must be America that has facts but won't disclose. Is this a cultural thing? Will the next generation think Twilight is a hint from the government and vampires will soon be disclosed?

reply to post by something wicked


I think I have totally misinterpreted the points of this post to be honest. Serves me right for trying to read it whilst watching the Champions League.

Originally posted by mirageman
reply to post by something wicked

 

I think I have totally misinterpreted the points of this post to be honest. Serves me right for trying to read it whilst watching the Champions League.

lol, no worries, I'm keeping half an eye on what's happening at the Emirates myself so I know what you mean!

reply to post by FooScience
It's good to see a thread in this forum with so much content and so many links. S&F

I'm not sure that political ufology or disclosure advocates represent a 'growing movement.' From a historical perspective, it's possible their day has been and gone and the 'movement' is now more of a fractured collection of groups and proponents without any actual consensus.

Greer is more like a one-man-band who rarely supports others in the exopolitics arena and has little or no support amongst 'serious ufologists.'

The exos, specifically Salla, have carved out an eccentric niche that is largely unsupported by the rest of those in ufology. To a large degree, they are even contested for bringing the carnival factor to a subject others would like to see being taken seriously. For example, Salla has an attraction to sources that have almost entirely been found suspect or absurd. He tends to have a Hans Christian Anderson approach to his lengthy articles whereby he includes all manner of ET races and their motivations. One he published this year was a tour-de-force that ended with a composite image of Adamski's saucer, Orthon, a reptilian and (iirc) one of the Venusian cat-women. He's set the bar that low that only Alfred Lambremont Webre's support of dinosaurs on Mars was deemed a step too far.

CAUS, GSW and the Rockefeller initiative probably represent the high water mark for the spirit of disclosure and that was years ago.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I agree. I don't really see any growth to this movement. In fact, it's pretty stagnant. It's true that some governments have "released" (they say) their UFO documents. It's usually greeted with great fanfare that "Inner Mongolia has agreed to release ALL its documents dating back 50 years!" And what do we hear after that?

Crickets.

No smoking guns. No amazing revelations. Just more of the same 3 x 5 notecards with annotations that John Smith was driving south on Intertstate 5 at night when he saw a light in the sky travel at great speed to the southwest. Even so called scholars in the field like Richard Dolan resort to paraphrasing single sentence snippets at the beginning of "Mufon Journal" before proving their case via innuendo. See my Richard Dolan's Tinfoil Hat; a general systems theory of conspiracy for a complete accounting.

What we DO have on our hands here is a typical Cargo Cult that includes a "Free Energy Device" that will save us all from catastrophe. It has many similarities both to the Christian evangelical movement and the Melanesian messianic movements in the last century. In fact, with a few minor shifts to account for a more technological civilization we have today, the two types of cults are virtually indistinguishable.

The UFO Disclosure Movement has a set of beliefs that includes the following scenario. Since the end of World War Two the United States government has been collecting crashed flying saucers, a situation which it has kept secret from the world. The government has compartmentalized this information in as strict a manner as possible and has attempted to reverse-engineer the technology behind these discs. The government may also have captured alien beings in the process. The government has at least been somewhat successful in this attempt and has several secret weapons systems based on them.

Part of the technology available is a new form of energy that could solve the world’s energy needs with a clean source of unlimited power, but because of pressure from Big Oil the government has not released this energy source to the world, thus keeping much of the world’s population in poverty and in a constant state of turmoil for the sake of massive profits for defense contractors and others who stand to benefit from a lack of Disclosure.

In some scenarios the government has actually made a pact with any number of alien races, allowing them to kidnap citizens in return for technological help. This explains the many abduction stories which have surfaced. The government has also mounted a massive disinformation campaign designed to keep citizens from finding out the truth. This campaign of ridicule, helped along by the mainstream media, keeps UFOs a subject of laughter and scorn. The disinformation uses some truth, but makes sure that many of the people who come forward with their stories are discredited. His leads to a situation where no one can be believed.

Some people in the government want this information to be revealed to the people. They are working earnestly toward this end. However, some people in the know do not want Disclosure to happen. They fear a panic by the populace and a breakdown of social order. There have been many attempts to bring Disclosure about, but so far attempts at doing so have either been stifled, or conditions are not quite right.

One scenario has it that Disclosure was planned for George Bush, Sr.’s second term. He was, after all, an ex-CIA Director and well placed in the intelligence community. However, unfortunately he did not win a second term. Instead, Bill Clinton, whom the military and intelligence communities detested, meant Disclosure could not take place on his watch. Unfortunately, George W. Bush was not considered capable of handling such a momentous event, therefore Disclosure was withheld from him as well. Now that Obama is President, Disclosure may very well be just around the corner.

Now we have the evils of Global warming, a Recession, and global catastrophe looming as well, so we need that new energy source immediately so we can begin repairing the planet and providing peace and posterity for all. We need to prepare for these upcoming events right now.

That’s the basic idea behind Disclosure. Our Space brothers have the answers we seek. If only we could get the government to step out of the way, everything would be fine. The Second Coming would happen. We’d get all that cargo, and we would then enter a period of Earthly bliss for all to enjoy.

Great Post OP!
I can se you spent a lot of time and reaserch for your post! KUDOS!
I am try to research a couple of events that happened in Conneticut in the mid eighties where 1000s of people saw this Giant triangle, the size of 2 foot ballfields.
There was a lot of press on this...then all info stoped why? Talked to people defucting the goverments story on this and there stories crashed and burned... told by guys in suits STOP OR ELSE!

Originally posted by Kandinsky
I'm not sure that political ufology or disclosure advocates represent a 'growing movement.'

This

I dont see any movement I see sleeping and dying out ufology. But since dreams make you feel the way you would feel in reality, my dream of encounter with humanoid beings and greys that wanted to take something from me sure disturbed me enough. But it was just a dream unlike many others who fail to realize they were dreaming,.\


And so other than stories like that I see no progress

reply to post by Kandinsky

I'm not sure that political ufology or disclosure advocates represent a 'growing movement.'

When I chose the subject I was considering setting the title to:

Politics and UFOs: A Growing Movement?

What made me change my mind is the sheer number of people today (on online forums, youtube, and the growing number of blogs) that take an active interest in UFOs and the concomitant possibility of their being some sort of "otherness" involved in the sightings.

The name of this forum is after all "Aliens & UFOs."

However, granted, even though the growing number of new TV shows and the skyrocketing online visibility has propelled the UFO topic into the publics eye. The membership numbers for MUFON and other related organizations are down. So it seems like we have traded people who are semi-serious about trying to get to the bottom of the matter with a new group that prefers to upload sensationalistic videos to disclose.tv.

A sad state of affairs. I think we can all agree on that point.

As for the rest of what you wrote, everything you said is pretty much on the money.

Unfortunately most people reading this are going to to find it difficult to understand the purpose of this thread without all of the accompanying material that it's meant to be associated with.

My primary goal here is to get the draft vetted for inaccuracies and omissions. So far everyone has done a wonderful job providing feedback!

Beyond this, the purpose of the editorial is (1) to show how UFOs and politics have always gone together.

Also I'm interested in (2) the relationship between alien-visitation proponents and UFO advocates (people who are neutral about the overall aspect of the subject but are deeply concerned about the official non-interest in odd anomalistic observations like '67 Malstrom AFB incident); (3) how alien-visitation proponents use UFO related information as evidence for their world view; and (4) the conflict this creates between the two groups.

More importantly I'm interested in (5) how both groups attempt to interact with their government through political processes to bring resolution to the problem and how there has always been an undercurrent of SETI-related themes tied to UFO discussions.

In my mind, all five of the bullet-points taken together beg the question, how much of the UFO investigation process is dependent on government interaction and its official blessing?

It should be blatantly clear to anyone who has given the subject even a little thought; how utterly unrealistic is for a person to believe a lay-investigating body can setup a ranging system (say composed of a theodolite array and a radar network) to track odd aerial phenomena.

As much as I admire people who work to bring new raw instrumented data to the table. When I look at efforts like Robert M. Wood's 1967 'Lightning Van' or now in the present Douglas Trumbull's UFOTOG, I think to myself -- would a one off observation by either of these ever constitute proof of anything, if it is not officially recognized by some larger implicitly trusted organization? So if an instrumented observation can be questioned. The search (for who even knows what) is pointless.

I think this is possibly why more serious UFO researchers spend their time digging through old FOIA records.

The hope is that if something can be found to show the person's host government was concerned at some point. That "UFO advocates" can rope the government back into the investigation.

In my opinion, this is what continues to spur on the legal aspect of the UFO hunt. Numerous lawsuits have been issued against the NSA, NASA, and other US departments to try to extract official documentation. In the instances where the prosecution won. Often the groups would come out afterwards and proclaim, for example, that they found documents showing the military has contingencies for a possible space invasion. Example: video.au.msn.com... . Alien-visitation proponents, like Michael Salla, see this as evidence to further confirm their viewpoint.

All of this again goes to show politics and UFOs are wrapped up in each other.

While I try not to take a position on either camp, because who knows really? I would like to point out my one bit of innuendo that I laid out in [30]

[30] A search of several heavily trafficked UFO websites shows "disclosure" is a fairly popular topic. Scanning through many of the online exchanges, it becomes apparent the biggest divide that exists in the UFO community is over advocates who think the movement should focus on demanding scientific and governmental investigation. Whereas the more vocal majority believes they can already confidently state UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin and therefore that the political initiative should be focused on demanding "disclosure." This disconnect has created a rift where the more skeptical UFO researchers are unwilling to support Bassett, Greer, and Salla due to their less creditable demands. A good example of this can be seen online in "Disclosure Countdown..." -- www.abovetopsecret.com...

And that's enough for now!

I'll try to come back tomorrow for more.

Thanks for all your input everybody and if anyone has further comments on the questions asked here, www.abovetopsecret.com...

I would love to hear them! Thanks folks!

Shalom!

Originally posted by otie1
reply to post by FooScience

 

I fully believe "they" exist. No question there, the real question is why would the worlds governments keep quiet about this?

Well imagine if the determination of whether they're here or not is the least of importance in a long list of questions that would follow. Who's going to be satisfied with "yep they're here alright, neat eh?" Wouldn't the questions then become why, who, what where, Really? No!! Really? Ensuing freaking out.

reply to post by FooScience


If there are aliens visiting Earth & they want to reveal themselves then Iran should be the Gov't that is the one who makes full disclosure

The USA will never make such a disclosure. The only they would is if they were forced to by the aliens & if aliens ever do such a thing I would assume they aren't hostile.

reply to post by FooScience

Originally posted by FooScience
Over the last several decades a global movement has formed where people of all stripes and colors are calling on the governments of the world to disclose what they know about the UFO subject. This initiative has evidently met with some success, as the U.S. has released over 129,000 pages of documentation;[0][1] the British government is unlocking the whole MoD archive for public consumption;[2] and many other governments are following suit.

I do not consider the release "...over 129,000 pages of documentation..." worth mentioning. I don't consider demands to world governments to "...disclose what they know about the UFO subject..." worth the effort. No one on earth has any information that isn't already known, with the exception of government methods for acquiring the data which is what you usually see blacked out of documents. Disclosure is just a poor bs effort and will never happen.

Let's be real - we have what is termed a UFO problem/mystery, etc., and some individuals think that someone has the answers and are demanding them and year in, year out, decades later nothing has been achieved.

I'm 74 and I'm fortunate to have had a few solid sightings so UFOs are real for me. Aliens, not. My earthly life's end is around the corner and what is not around the corner is anything new regarding what UFOs are and where they originate.

A lot of you youngsters will also grow old and pass away and before you go you'll say I was right.

reply to post by something wicked

That UN post is more about Near Earth Objects - space debris being an example and before any one says otherwise, it's Earth made space debris.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
...
In the convention mentioned she mentioned nothing about being a first contact or indeed anything about extra terristrial life.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
...
I don't feel passionately about what that news media decided to say, I may though feel passionate about people not checking sources before taking them as gospel
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The article in this thread was written nearly two years ago. Roughly at the time of the Royal Society Kalvi Conference. At the time the information presented was the best information available.

Also as I stated in my previous reply, "The conference reported did in fact happen, and the topic was in fact about a possible future contact (though more in the sense of radio SETI)."

The Sept. 27 2010 Guardian article that contradicts Sept. 26 2010 Sunday Times editorial by Jonathan Leake says and I quote,

"[Mazlan Othman] will be attending a conference next week, but she'll be talking about how the world deals with "near-Earth objects".
www.guardian.co.uk...

This is misleading.

http://web.archive.org/web/20100605030246/http://royalsociety.org/extra-terrestrial-life/

The conference was titled "Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life." The talk was given at 9AM Oct. 4 2010 and ended Oct. 5 at 6PM.

Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life
Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Start Time: 9.00am
Start Date: 04 October 2010
End Date: 05 October 2010
End Time: 6.00pm
Venue: Kavli Royal Society Centre

Organised by Dr Martin Dominik and Professor John Zarnecki

Should extra-terrestrial life exist, upcoming efforts will provide living generations with a realistic chance of its detection. Even more than the scientific agenda, a corresponding complementary societal agenda needs to be debated. With a mix of invited talks and panel debates, we particularly look into the detection of life, the communication with potential extra-terrestrial civilizations, the implications for the future of humanity, and the political processes that are required.

Four panel debates include:

* Calling ET, or not even answering the phone?
* Societal questions raised by the detection of extra-terrestrial life
* What could studies of extra-terrestrial life tell us about the future of humanity?
* Extra-terrestrial life and arising political issues for the UN agenda

Confirmed panelists

Ivan Almar, Stephen Baxter, James Benford, David Brin, Milan Cirkovic, Richard Crowther, Kathryn Denning, Steven Dick, Stephane Dumas, Frans von der Dunk, John Elliott, Lisa Kaltenegger, Claudio Maccone, Michael Michaud, Mazlan Othman, Ted Peters, Margaret Race, Seth Shostak, John Smart, Nicholas Tosca, Doug Vakoch, Clement Vidal, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Alexander Zaitsev

Registration: This satellite meeting is free to attend, however, participants will need to cover their accommodation and catering costs. If you are interested in participating at this event, please email [email protected]

The above is directly from the royal society's website.

Does that sound like the focus was on Near-Earth Objects?

The topic Dr. Mazlan Othman discussed, titled "Supra-Earth affairs," is freely available online at: rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org...

The abstract reads,

The United Nations briefly considered the issue of extra-terrestrial intelligence at the 32nd session of the General Assembly in 1977. As a result, the Office of Outer Space Affairs was tasked to prepare a document on issues related to ‘messages to extraterrestrial civilizations’, but this area has not been followed through in more recent times. This discussion paper describes the United Nations’ activities in the field of near-Earth objects in some detail, and suggests that this might be used as a model of how Member States could proceed with dealing with this issue in case the existence of extra-terrestrial life/intelligence is established.

A recording of the actual talk can be found below.



There are definitely some peculiarities with the reporting.

reply to post by The Shrike


I find this sentence intriguing.

No one on earth has any information that isn't already known, with the exception of government methods for acquiring the data which is what you usually see blacked out of documents. Disclosure is just a poor bs effort and will never happen.

So you believe no one has answers other than governmental sources? Yet you don't support FOIA watchdogs who want to track down further information? Is this just because you don't think they'll find anything? As far as I am concerned disclosure has already happened. The majority of documents are in the public domain. The main question in my mind is now what do we do?

I'm 74 and I'm fortunate to have had a few solid sightings so UFOs are real for me.

Sounds like a long life, well lived. Have you posted your story here on ATS? I would be curious to read it.

Thank you for sharing your experienced point of view,
FS

reply to post by FooScience

Beyond this, the purpose of the editorial is (1) to show how UFOs and politics have always gone together.

Definitely. From the first moment UFOs are reported, they become political. IsaacKoi mentioned Dr David Clarke in his post. In Clarke's UFO Files (sample here ), we see an English UFO report from the very early 20th Century that was investigated as a national security/ domestic politics issue.

Also I'm interested in (2) the relationship between alien-visitation proponents and UFO advocates (people who are neutral about the overall aspect of the subject but are deeply concerned about the official non-interest in odd anomalistic observations like '67 Malstrom AFB incident); (3) how alien-visitation proponents use UFO related information as evidence for their world view; and (4) the conflict this creates between the two groups.

It seems like this relationship was marked hostile from very early on. The ET proponents became useful tools to advance the ridicule factor and that made the UFO advocates shudder in embarrassment and annoyance. Although sincere in their, often crazy, beliefs, the ET proponents swiftly paved the way for most people to twirl a finger near their heads when a UFO advocate opens their mouth. For instance a 'serious' guy like Dick Hall and a Contactee are equally seen as (in quotation marks!) 'believers' despite one having evidence for their position.

More importantly I'm interested in (5) how both groups attempt to interact with their government through political processes to bring resolution to the problem and how there has always been an undercurrent of SETI-related themes tied to UFO discussions.

In my mind, all five of the bullet-points taken together beg the question, how much of the UFO investigation process is dependent on government interaction and its official blessing?

Call me pessimistic. I don't believe governments have the answers to many of the questions. If they do it's apparent that decades of omertà will not be defeated by some guys posting polls or sending endless FOIA requests. In some ways, it's like asking Billy if he thumped Jenny? Sure enough, Jenny has a mark on her face (evidence), but how do we know Billy did it? He says he didn't! Besides Jenny has been wrong in the past. Unless Billy admits it, all the questions in the world won't get us further than suspended judgement and maybe an element of suspicion to be aimed at Billy or Jenny according to our perspective.

The hope is that if something can be found to show the person's host government was concerned at some point. That "UFO advocates" can rope the government back into the investigation.

I have to say that my enthusiasm for the subject has ebbed considerably and this is influencing my comments. That said, I'm not sure how much of the phenomena are left to investigate? The fabled '5%' core of sighting reports has now diminished to a much smaller figure with the rest including more and more fictional accounts. With that in mind, if conclusions couldn't be drawn from the early waves it must be even more improbable that success will be achieved with what little passes for evidence in recent years.

Obviously this is just the opinion of nobody special and I salute those who see it differently and keep up the fight. More power to them.

reply to post by schuyler

Now we have the evils of Global warming, a Recession, and global catastrophe looming as well, so we need that new energy source immediately so we can begin repairing the planet and providing peace and posterity for all. We need to prepare for these upcoming events right now.

That’s the basic idea behind Disclosure. Our Space brothers have the answers we seek. If only we could get the government to step out of the way, everything would be fine. The Second Coming would happen. We’d get all that cargo, and we would then enter a period of Earthly bliss for all to enjoy.

That's the Greer we all know and love!

Only problem is someone forgot to give these kids the memo.

At 5:50,
JM = John Mack, LS = Lisa

LS: What I thought was, maybe the world's going to end. Maybe they're telling us the world's gonna end.

JM: Why do you think they might want us to be scared?

LS: Because maybe we don't look after the planet .. the air properly.

JM: This is ... Is this an idea that uh you have had before, that we don't look after the planet properly and the air or did this idea come to you, when you had this experience.

LS: When I had this experience.

JM: Mmhuh, And how did that idea come to you from this ... this is a little bit hard, but try to be with me here, ok ... when you ...how did this idea come to you when you had this experience.

LS: It just felt all horrible inside.

JM: You felt horrible. At what point did you feel that? When you saw the craft? Or when you got home at night?

LS: When I got home.

JM: You had that horrible feeling when you got home.

LS: Yes

JM: Say more about that horrible feeling Lisa. What was it like?

LS: It was like in the world, all the trees would go down and there would be no air and people'd be dying.

JM: And these thoughts came to you .. had you had these thoughts before this experience?

LS: No

JM: How did those thoughts come to you? Did they come to you from ... the craft? Or from ...

LS: From the man

JM: The man. Did the man say those things to you? How did he get that across to you?

LS: Well he never said anything. It's just that the face. His. The eyes.

JM: What was the sense you got from those eyes?

LS: He was interested.

In version 2.0 make sure to add something a bit more apocalyptic.

reply to post by FooScience


Wow nice write up. You have a very smooth professional style of writing. Great read.
I look forward to reading more from you in the future.

reply to post by FooScience


Hi FooScience - please note the following in the abstract you pasted - 'briefly considered', 'has not been followed through' 'suggests how this might be used'...... does that show that it is not actually a policy at all but was briefly considered?

The conference on ET life you mention at the top of your post was part of a week long series of talks/debates. There was a live stream on ATS at the time. It had nothing to do with the UN and was a philosophical debate - no assertions were made that ET life is known.

Please don't think this is criticism, it's not, I applaud your work, it's just the 'UN has a first contact ambassador' angle was a media invention and like so many others, it just clouds the facts.

reply to post by schuyler

It's usually greeted with great fanfare that "Inner Mongolia has agreed to release ALL its documents dating back 50 years!"

Realllllllyyyyyy!!! So the USA is now equated with Inner Mongolia? The British government too?! Does that mean all of the world's countries are now third world nations?

*stares on in doey-eyed wonder*

No smoking guns. No amazing revelations. Just more of the same 3 x 5 notecards with annotations that John Smith was driving south on Intertstate 5 at night when he saw a light in the sky travel at great speed to the southwest.

That is of course ignoring nuclear silos going offline, mass sightings by numerous officers on RB-47's, UFO reports by aeronautic super-legends like Kelly Johnson, and joint operations through NORAD that have tracked who-knows-what. But you know 80+ page studies by Blue Book amount to 3 x 5 notecards in the world of Michael "PhD" Schulyer.

I used to admire your posts. They were skeptical but even-handed.

Hell I even liked the whole last half of what you wrote. Save the fact that you never leave the possibility open that the believers might be right.

You can do better.