Thoughts on the U.S. Air Force UFO Press Conference
Michael Heiser
On September 27, 2010, a group of former Air Force officers held a
press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (The
proceedings were available to the public via video at UFO Mystic, but it
appears that it has been taken down; here are some smaller portions).
The seven officers who were present were all stationed at nuclear
bases around the country between 1947 and 1969. They related the details
of UFO incident at those bases, some of which involved apparent UFO
interest in our nuclear weapons, something that should apparently be
considered to be an issue of national security. To a man the officers
related how the incidents were deliberately covered up or dismissed by
official military chain of command personnel.
I’ve watched the entire conference, along with Q&A, and want to
share my impressions. First, though, I offer a few observations.
Observations
First, for anyone who has done any reading into the UFO problem (at
least the serious material), there wasn’t really anything new here in
terms of the kinds of incident related. There were new players, but
nothing really new. UFO incidents at nuclear bases have been noted for
many years. Robert Hastings, who spoke at this event, deserves credit for most of that exposure.
Second, none of the witnesses actually testified to seeing an alien
being or what they thought was an alien being. In some ways, though, it
wouldn’t have mattered had such been part of their stories. (See below).
Third, I heard no new explanations as to why a (presumed) ET would be
interested in our military / nuclear capabilities. The normal “they
want to warn us about nuclear power” theory took center stage. More on
the coherence of that, in my opinion, below.
Fourth, having attended a National Press Club conference before when I
was a speaker at the second (as memory serves) X-Conference, it looked
to me like the event was only moderately attended, despite publicity.
The room doesn’t actually hold that many people. The Q&A time also
gave me the distinct feeling that there were few people in the room who
were not already pre-disposed to belief in UFOs as evidence of an alien
reality. There may have been a few neutral or skeptical reporters, but
not many. That’s a shame, but not a surprise.
Impressions
First, I consider the testimony of the officers involved to be sober,
forthright, and honest. They each gave every impression of genuineness.
I don’t doubt any of them or anything that they said.
Second, the pubic testimony of these officers is important given the
tireless attempts of the military to obfuscate the UFO issue, ranging
from feigned apathy to duplicitous paranoia on the inside. That military
officials of a fairly high level would be willing to relate the details
of their sighting and the experience of military denial is courageous.
Third, I didn’t really feel that any of the officers was angry at the
military for the secrecy and misdirection. Rather, my impression was
something akin to “well, the fears about public response were once
credible, but they’re sort of outdated now; let’s tell the truth and
move on.” I appreciated this about the testimony. I’m very pro-U.S.
military. Frankly, there are some things the public does *not* have a
right to know. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution forbids state secrecy in
the national interest. But it seems many people today seem to sift all
of life through a hermeneutic of suspicion, as if they were the center
of reality, which owes to them all information deemed of personal
interest. Nonsense. On the other hand, I have to agree that the fear of
panic is outdated. As I’ve noted on this blog many times, even religious
conservatives can be cured of this with a good dose of looking
carefully at their Bibles and biblical theology (and for the
uninitiated, I’m not Catholic nor am I talking about Catholicism’s
opinions of ET life).
What this suggests to me is that perhaps the military needs a good
dose of biblical theology on this matter instead of paranoid criticism.
They might be persuaded that the time has come to be a bit more
forthright. But in this regard, I do see a potential wild card. I think
“ET life is real” is palatable to most people, regardless of religion.
But I do *not* think the other (in my mind more plausible explanations
for UFOs) are nearly as palatable. If either of those are the truth, the
military knows it can’t confess without creating even more distrust
with the public. (See below).
Opinions
Despite my belief in their veracity and my admiration for their
courage, what the officers said doesn’t amount to much. Why? Because,
when it comes to an explanation fo what was seen, nothing transcended
pure opinion. That is, there was no science reported or discovered as
part of the research into these incidents that could only point to an ET
explanation, despite that opinion being quite openly expressed. Let me
unpack this problem a bit.
There are a limited number of ways to coherently parse these sorts of
incidents (and, in general, if we divorce the “demonic” view from UFOs
as craft, these are the three possibilities):
1. These craft, demonstrative of exotic technology and intelligent control, are extraterrestrial.
2. These craft, demonstrative of exotic technology and intelligent
control, are attributable to advanced human (Nazi) technological
achievement during the 1940s and since that time. This view breaks into
two categorizations:
A. The major postwar powers who recovered
the scientists behind this Nazi technology are behind UFO sightings
since WWII (i.e., The US [also involving Canada] and Russia).
This is basically the view put forth recently by Joseph Farrell in a series of books: Reich Of The Black Sun: Nazi Secret Weapons & The Cold War Allied Legend, The SS Brotherhood of the Bell: Nasa’s Nazis, JFK, And Majic-12, Secrets of the Unified Field: The Philadelphia Experiment, The Nazi Bell, and the Discarded Theory, and Roswell and the Reich: The Nazi Connection.
B. There is a rogue element (initially
Nazis themselves) who inherited at least some of the Nazi technology,
and who have shepherded the technology along through the heretofore
undetected (or unassailed) Nazi financial largess stored away and
invested during the WWII years.
Farrell allows for this view, but it is more in line with W.A. Harbinson’s thinking (more so in his fiction than his Projekt Saucer book).
Let me frame the Air Force press conference in light of these
possibilities succinctly: there was nothing said by any of these
officers in the press conference that could not fit very well into Views
2-A or 2-B. If either of those views was correct, everything these
officers said would make sense in light of that. Period. That’s the
frustrating reality.
The issue, of course, is that we don’t know if 2-A or 2-B is the truth.
Farrell and Harbinson (and others) have, in my mind, made a strong
circumstantial case for the man-made view of UFOs. No, there isn’t an
unbroken document string for it, but there are very real pieces of
evidence for that view on record. The case can be coherently made, which
begs a question: which view seems more plausible:
1. That human beings, which we know to exist in abundance, and which
will operate in their own self-interest, even to the point of the
subjugation of their fellow humankind, have secretly obtained and
developed advanced technology, which we know as UFOs.
2. That intelligent beings from another world, for whose existence science can offer us nothing, and whose existence is postulated by an equation derived on the basis of a series of presumptions without actual data, possess advanced technology and have come to earth with that technology, which we know as UFOs.
It seems to me that the second option requires much more faith. It’s
in some ways a vote from the heart, not the head. But it can’t be ruled
out by the honest mind, either. This is why it’s so silly for
UFO-religionists to belittle Christianity or any other religion as
though the belief in aliens was more rational or scientific. It’s simply
not the case. What’s at issue there is whether which belief is more
rational (and both can be rational). So please let’s stop defending a
belief in UFOs from the “superiority” of atheism; it makes atheists
sound very stupid.
Naturally, actual biological evidence of an intelligent ET would make
#2 exponentially more plausible. But we lack that. Leaked memos for
that (which themselves don’t exactly tell a unified story) aren’t
biological evidence even if they are genuine. They themselves could be
part of a psychological warfare purpose. Anyone who thinks psychological
warfare stops at a neatly marked level of government is under-exposed
to both psychological warfare and government secrecy (you might be
interested in The Mirage Men or Project Beta
in this regard). Testimonies of seeing dead alien bodies are also
deficient as hard evidence. Such biological remains must be put forth
and affirmed by peer-review to be genuine (as opposed to manufactured
for psychological warfare purposes). And one would not need to create a
fake specimen back in the day that would stand up to biological testing —
one only needed something that would be glimpsed for a few scant
seconds. What’s needed is a body or mostly complete specimen that is
subjected to peer examination (or of course a living specimen — but in
some ways, a dead one is better for verification).
So where are we in the wake of the Air Force press conference? Pretty
much where we were before, if we’re talking about the citizenry and
sincere UFO researchers. But if we’re talking about people who are in a
position to pull off an Edward Bernays,
where you’re moving global thinking toward a disclosure event of your
own manufacture for your own [or your client's] purposes, things are
chugging along just fine (and the United Nations’ recent announcement of
an appointment of an ambassador to ET helps, too).
This is the sort of stuff that will make the sequel to The Facade even more fascinating fun to write.
http://michaelsheiser.com/UFOReligions/
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