The following is a draft of a letter I'd like to send to a major UFO magazine. I'm posting it here to get your feedback. Basically, I'm trying to
say that the UFO community should start an 'alien acceptance' campaign of some sort. If you have any ideas on how to set-up a specific project,
please feel free to email me at
[email protected].
thanks in advance,
Jim
Here it goes:
The community of people who research the UFO phenomenon and dream about its implications must confront the reality that their area of study -- their
passion, in many cases -- is no further along in its quest for the �truth� about UFOs than it was decades ago. Though many bright thinkers have
approached old aspects of the phenomenon in new ways, often raising interesting questions, nothing has been truly �discovered� in the more than 50
years since the modern UFO era began. Today�s theories for what UFOs are tend to be the same as those offered decades ago, with as much proof behind
them as well. Ufology that is based on passive observation is, it would appear, at the absolute limits of what it can discover.
This makes me wonder whether or not it is necessary for the Ufology community to take a more active stance in bringing about the revelation (as it
could be called) as to what UFOs are. Right now, all major efforts by those interested in the UFO phenomena are, essentially, passive � they rely on
someone else to either hand over the �secret� on purpose or by accident. Even the best organized and funded freedom of information campaigns rely, in
the end, on the government to make all the important decisions. Essentially, until the day when a UFO either crashes or lands in a metropolitan area,
or when the government decides to discuss what it knows, theoretically, about UFOs, nothing really can be learned about the nature of UFOs. With that
in mind, perhaps the best way for Ufologists to actively bring about the revelation is to ask themselves what conditions would necessarily exist in
the world before the government would discuss what it, theoretically, knows about UFOs, and then make those conditions a reality.
Now, within the framework of the so-called Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, which posits that UFOs are the product of intelligent beings from beyond the
boundaries of the Earth, it has often been argued that the government (usually thought of as the U.S. government) would only, ever, acknowledge the
existence of such �alien spacecraft� if it was sure that the vast majority of the public would not panic or otherwise become psychologically
imbalanced upon hearing such news. Beyond that, it�s been argued that people would need to be totally �used to� the idea of extraterrestrial life and
comfortable with the idea that it could reach Earth and interact with humans before the government would acknowledge its existence. The problem here,
though, is that, if, for the sake of argument, it can be said that the government does have information about UFOs and ETIs, the public will never
learn the �truth� about them because their supposed fear of the unknown keeps what could be known, in fact, unknown � by never releasing any
information on UFOs and their theoretical occupants, the government could, either accidentally or on purpose, maintain an atmosphere, for an
indefinite period of time, wher it would be impossible to reveal what it, possibly, knows about the subject.
So, if the ET hypothesis is correct, and the government does posses some knowledge in regards to the true nature of UFOs, how can Ufologist force the
hand, so to speak, of the government in such a way that brings about the revelation? Well, the most apparent and glaring way for the community to do
this is to wage what could be called an �Extraterrestrial Awareness� campaign. Though a lot of people reading this may argue that this is what
they�ve been doing for years, through the publication of books, journals, or video documentaries, what I mean is that the very face of
�extraterrestrials� must be well-known and accepted by the public before any aforementioned revelation or overt and official �first contact� can
occur. To this end, I am suggesting that, if Ufologist really want to know the answer, as it were, before the end of their natural lives, they should
gear a sizeable amount of their resources towards conditioning the public for the possibility of contact with extraterrestrials. This means that,
along with publications like this one that catalogue and investigate UFO sightings, people with a serious and professional interest in UFOs � a
desire, if you will, to understand the ultimate truth � should also publish materials that have the sole goal of getting people familiar with the idea
that ETIs exist. The idea, here, is to remove any uninformed fear of ETIs from the public consciousness, as the government could no longer
justifiably withhold information on the topic of UFOs if such fears were no longer in existence.
So what if the government doesn�t, in fact, have any special insider knowledge in regards to UFOs? Well, in that case, a familiarity campaign can
still bring about, within the context of the ET Hypothesis, the revelation if, in fact, the presumed ETIs that operate the UFOs are themselves waiting
for the day when mankind will not panic upon hearing the confirmation of their existence.
Yes, I know that this sounds slightly cultish, and that veteran UFO researchers might shirk at the thought of having to �prepare� the public for the
possibility of contact with intelligent beings from other worlds (as such an activity would appear to emulate that of various cult leaders and
profiteers), but, if one accepts the ET Hypothesis and that facts about UFOs are being withheld by higher powers so as to prevent an incident of mass
panic, it may very well be true that the only way we will ever get to know the truth about UFOs is if, as a community, Ufologists set about creating
the social conditions that will ensure that the human race, upon meeting ETIs in the open for the first time, will not be afraid
Of course, if the ET Hypothesis is not correct, such a campaign will not shed any more light on the nature of UFOs (though it would add,
substantially, to world�s wealth of folklore). For this reason, I am not advocating the abandonment of observational and scientific Ufology, which,
if unexplained aerial phenomena are a result of unknown natural forces, is the only way to discover such. Rather, all that I am saying is, if you,
the reader, believe in the ET hypothesis, you will only get to learn the truth about UFOs at the time when your neighbor, sister, mother, or child is
no longer afraid to look at the face of an intelligent extraterrestrial being.