Is It Just Me? : The Stanton Friedman-Sparks Explosion

Big news around the UFO realm lately on Friedman’s MJ-12, and Sparks, etc. who have announced with “proof” it’s all a big lie.

Those who have waited for years to dethrone Friedman are gleeful. Others who just love to topple for the fun of toppling are gleeful. Those with personal agendas, biases, etc. -- some with books, film, DVDs, video and so on to sell, some not -- are gleeful.

Others aren’t gleeful, but they’re writing away on the news. As am I.

A lot of people, gleeful or not, seem to be very serious about this whole thing. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the big whoop.

I mean, where has everybody been all this time? The UFO field, as with all of anomalous, paranormal, high strangeness Fortean things, has always been full of disinformation. Purposeful, intentional, creative, trollish, lying, at times downright immoral, disinfo. That’s fundamental within UFOlogy.

So it is, so it has been, all this time with Friedman and his “belief” (trust?) in MJ 12 as the real deal. There was always the question of “is it, could it be, are they. . .?” concerning their validity.

Now comes along revelations, news, scoops, bits of info and this and that, that MJ 12 was indeed bogus.

But why should we believe that any more than anything else? Or,not?

None of this proves anything about anything, to my mind. So I’m not taking any of it seriously and certainly not as any end all news that’s resolved the issue.

I suppose I should make it clear I’ve never believed the MJ !2 documents were exactly as presented by Friedman; too much taint, too much bad history/context. I mean, look at the people involved, and the whole scenario! That’s why I’m surprised so many are surprised.

And why some are willing to believe all this, now, when they didn’t “believe” that, then.

NOOOoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

(Beach Blanket Bingo,1965)

Not much UFO entries here lately, and it's partly due to the winding down of summer. I refuse to accept it; but a lot of good that'll do me. I go back to work Thursday. Well, at least I'll be going out of town for the long weekend.

It's good to take a break from the UFO arena for awhile, though it's never away from me. I just haven't been writing about it much on-line. Lots of funny weird stuff on Mating Hedgehogs however, one of my other blogs.

There's a lot I could say regarding UFOs concerning the nonsense some people seem to enjoy getting into; I don't know what it is, but otherwise intelligent, mature adults just go nuts every few months and start flinging cow poo all over the place. It's hard for me to take these people seriously or not call them things like "thugs" when they seem to take some kind of pleasure in jumping right in and throwing punches. But what's the point? Other than comment and say "er, yes, we all are aware of your fighting boys" and just let it alone.

MJ-12; some things going around about that on UFO Updates, UFO Mystic, Other Side of Truth, and elsewhere, and it is interesting. Maybe I'll comment later on that. For now, as much as I admire Stanton Friedman -- and I do -- I've always had the feeling he was the victim of an elaborate and planned disinfo campaign. That doesn't change things really -- I'll explain that later. Maybe. Shrug. Can't grow up my own damn self and "get" that summer is over, I will return to work, ... etc. But back to MJ 12, what is there about the new info that makes that any more true/real? Like everything else, grains of salt. . .

What else. Some UFO stuff going on here in Oregon; a woman by the name of "Cindy" has been in contact with me, I think I mentioned here a bit ago I'll get around to posting something on that.

And spending time with the esoteric, for sure, just not UFO -ish so much: drumming, writning (fiction, not fringe topics) and intent,cards, and things moving within on a personal level (all good) and all that New Age stuff. But it's all good, and as the saying goes, we can change our stories, since we're the authors. So my new story for end of summer and returning to work is still to be written, but it'll be new and positive. It'll be mine. And that's a good thing.

The Roswell Onion

Well, most everyone’s been writing on Roswell lately, due to the 60th anniversary of “the crash.” I’ve stayed away from saying anything because I have never delved deeply into Roswell, so therefore don’t have much to say. I don’t have anything of value to say about the particulars of the Roswell event itself. But I’ll go ahead and join everyone else and throw in my observations. Why not? That’s the perk of having your own blog.

Clearly, something huge and weird happened that’s continuing to be covered-up.

There’s that very large rut that’s still there, and not often mentioned. That rut is proof something on the big side crashed there.

Nick Redfern’s book Body Snatchers in the Desert offers new, if not horrific, information on what might have happened. And curiously, like that rut, his theories don’t seem to be considered seriously; or rather, they don’t seem to stick. I’m not saying Redfern is correct, who knows at this point, but he’s offered something new, and something disturbing, and something that should be given consideration other than a cursory “yeah, well. . .” and everyone moves on.

The Roswell, er, “mythos” (excuse the cliché) is in itself highly interesting. Stories of sticky fingered aliens, magic foil, and all the rest. All those people aren’t lying. Maybe they didn’t see aliens, just thought they did, maybe some sort of mass delusion overtook the town. It’s too simplistic to dismiss it all as lying townsfolk. Sure, now there’s circus folk involved (so to speak) and layer upon layer of disinformation and misinformation and okay, sometimes just plain lying, but that’s all part of any UFO event. Roswell’s just bigger.

Oh yes, then there’s those alien ghosts Jim Marrs speaks about. That’s highly interesting as hell!

I agree with those who think we shouldn’t spend too much time on Roswell, while ignoring other cases, particularly current ones. Still , to try to bury it once and for all would be a disservice to UFOlogy as well as the more general world of the weird and anomalous: myths, motivations, deceits, belief, government manipulations and more.

Whether or not one believes ET crashed there, something happened, something so important that the government still believes it needs to cover it up. Obviously the Mogul balloon explanation doesn’t fly, and no one took the crash test dummies seriously. (I don’t think the government took that one seriously either.)


Personally, I don’t think aliens crashed there. I’m not sure why I don’t believe that. I “believe” (hate that word) extraterrestrials are about. Out there, down here, and have been for thousands of years. But that’s just me and my good old ancient astronaut theory.


The point isn’t, almost, whether ET crashed there or not. (Well, now of course it is a huge point, if it could be proven. . .) I mean that, aside from that point, there are other layers to the Roswell onion that can still reveal things about ourselves, each other, and “them.”

The Drone Meme

My latest for UFO Digest:The Drone Meme, on all this Chad drone business. This will make more sense after you read the article, but after I submitted it to Dirk at UFO Digest, I received this in my email box:Drones Unveiled. All about ET and drones and covert government operations. As I say in the article, reminds me of SERPO.

"Course in Miracles" Government Mind Control?

This is a juicy piece of psy op mind control business regarding the “Course in Miracles” books, popular New Age stuff awhile back.

According to Dr. Helen Schucman and the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP), Dr. Helen Schucman and Dr. William Thetford "scribed" the book by means of a process coming from a divine source through a form of channeling which Schucman referred to as "inner dictation". Schucman described the divine source of her channeling as none other than the person of Jesus Christ. Well.....Dr. William Thetford, headed the CIA's "Mind Control" MK-ULTRA SubProject 130: Personality Theory, while at Columbia University between 1971 - 1978.

Read the whole piece here:
A COURSE IN MIRACLES - A CIA Manipulation Device ?

Laura Knight-Jadczyk: The Most Dangerous Idea in the World

Okay, I acknowledge freely I am no intellectual, and certainly not knowledgeable -- not academically or scientifically knowledgeable that is -- about physics, hyper-dimensions, astrophysics, or parallel parking. On some subconscious intuitive Piscean level, I “get it” but that’s another story.

My approach to all this anomalous UFO weird realm usually originates from the personal, moving outward, usually on a mythic/folklore/symbol/narrative/comparative/juxtapositional perspective. Whatever that means.

I’m not sure exactly what Laura Knight-Jadczyk is talking about, but she is very very smart. She writes extremely well. I seem to have a vague memory of something I read on her site or blog that I liked, up to a point, but then rejected, due to what I perceived as anti-Semitism (all that Israel is the big bad guy stuff) but if I’m mistaken, I apologize.

There’s a lot -- a hell of a lot -- of stuff here, and I don’t understand much of it. There is so much material that one has to take time to go through it, and be familiar with her references, which I’m not.

But I’m promoting her here for one reason: those “academics” and “scientists” who would otherwise welcome her views, as long as she gets rid of her UFO bent. Apparently Knight-Jadczyk annoys all sides: the New Age camp, the mystical camp, the political camp, etc.

All the scientific hyper dimensional physic stuff aside, the gist of Knight-Jadczyk core “belief” is that there is an “official culture” which I so far go along with. (Of course, her idea of who, and what, is responsible for that “official culture” may be very different. I don’t know.) And this fact, along with the fact that we’re all just pawns in a huge cosmic game, is what she calls “the most dangerous idea in the world.” I don’t think I gave this justice, but that seems to be the idea. I go along with that as well. It doesn’t sound too different than William Bramley, or even in some ways (good great goddess) David Icke (oy) -- not a new idea. And not sure why her ideas are rejected by all sides.

I’ll leave it to you. I just like subverting things, and so, in the spirit of that, here’s a link to Laura Knight-Jadczyk on her experiences and thoughts on her book, The Secret History of the World.

On The Brink Of Hysteria. Really. They Were.

Among Big UFO News is the admission by ex-Governor of Arizona Fife Symington, who now says he saw a UFO that night of ‘the Phoenix Lights” in March ten years ago. (Former Arizona Gov. Admits UFO Sighting On Night of Phoenix Lights
By Jon Shanks
Mar 18, 2007)

And in a touch of irony, in typical Trickster fashion, it was Symington who was responsible for the pedestrian and lame “alien in a costume” stunt. Symtington publicly made fun of the whole UFO event, and in one bit of bozo like behavior, introduced an extraterrestrial, as being responsible for the lights. Har har. (The costumed individual was Jay Heiker, an assistant in the governor’s camp.)

As I’ve written before, one of the aspects of the PHoenix Lights case that always intrigued me was the lack of response, and interest, from authorities.

In the interview Symington says that he called the commander at Luke Air Force Base, the general in charge of the National Guard, and the head of the Department of Public Safety to request an explanation. None of them had answers, and they, too, were "perplexed," he says.

Now, that’s the kind of response I want from our government agencies: weird things flying over our cities, and all they can offer us is that they’re “perplexed.”

When asked about his ridicule factor back then, Symington says:

He explains that Arizona was "on the brink of hysteria" about the UFO sighting at the time, and the frenzy was building. "I wanted people to lighten up and calm down, so I introduced a little levity. But I never felt that the overall situation was a matter of ridicule," he says.

Nice spin. But no cigar.

Of course, I wasn’t in Phoenix, Arizona during these sightings, and so I can’t say if the state was “on the brink of hysteria” or not. It does seem to me, from what I’ve seen and read from the media (I’ve been following this event closely ever since the first day) that people were more likely intensely curious, as well as frustrated with the non-response of those in authority. From their Governor, who publicly made a joke out of the whole thing, to the Air Force, etc. no one took the citizens seriously.

We can't be too hard on Symington. He is, was, a politician. Enough said right there. And look at the junk still flung around about Jimmy Carter's sighting, for example. He's come out now with it, that's something. According to him, he was seeking answers behind the scenes.

But as the author of The Heavy Stuff blog wrote, don't expect Anderson Cooper to come along and do a news story on this.

However, I've noticed that the Phoenix story, like its namesake, doesn't ever really die. There's hope yet.

Fewer Crop Circles These Days

It appears there are fewer circles lately. Nick Redfern on UFO Mystic has a thread on this news. I commented over there that my take on the circles is that they're man made; not by hoaxers, as in guerrilla artists, shills, or pranksters, but some sort of technological weapons testing, or something of that kind related to the good old military industrial complex. Nick mentions that, while the crop circles are fewer in number, there's been a rise in UFO sightings.

Marginalization of UFO "Buffs"

Two related blog entries by two blog authors on the marginalization of UFO "believers." Lesley, of the DebrisField blog, has good comments about this. In her essay Ufology: A Cult of Personality she writes:

Beyond that, for ufology to be a cult there would need to be a belief system that everyone followed. Anyone who is a member of ufo updates would quickly realize that ufologists agree on almost nothing. They all have their own theories and personalities and anyone who thinks they would all agree on anything, except that there are strange things in the sky, has never spent any quality time with a ufologist.”

Exactly.

As Lesley points out, sure, there are the “cults” within UFOlogy; the Raelians, etc. To consistently use those groups as an accurate representation of UFOlogy is dishonest, as those who rabidly attack UFO studies know full well.

On the Sanity for Sale blog, there is a good piece:

UFOs: To Believe Or Not To Believe.
The author writes:

”You may have noticed that, in the media, UFO believers are usually referred to as buffs, a term used to diminish and marginalize them by relegating them to the ranks of hobbyists and mere enthusiasts. They are made to seem like kooks and quaint dingbats who have the nerve to believe that, in an observable universe of trillions upon trillions of stars, and most likely many hundreds of billions of potentially inhabitable planets, some of those planets may have produced life-forms capable of doing things that we can’t do.”

In contrast, those who believe in Jesus, God, other forms of mainstream religions are not only acceptable, but considered honorable, trustworthy people. A recent poll (I forget where I read about this) revealed that the majority of voters would not trust an atheists as president. The tension between Upstanding Religious Person and UFO “Believer” is hypocritical, one could say, but it’s a given oppositional juxtaposition in the realm of the Trickster.

As both articles point out, many mega-skeptics and anti-UFOists refer to a “belief” in UFOs, which automatically calls up the memes of: faith, blind faith, miracles, religion, cults, craziness, delusions, and hallucinations. With such labeling, the UFO witness, writer, researcher and investigator are dismissed. People who study UFOs are “buffs” as the author of the Sanity blog says, or they’re “enthusiasts” which some anti UFO skeptics insists on calling those of us who are involved in UFO research (meaning, from a non chronic skeptic perspective) “enthusiasts,” as if we’re all fanatical NASCAR fans. Both terms further trivialize the subject, and more to the point, those who are involved in its study. By consistently using these terms and phrases: buffs, enthusiasts, fans, believers, etc. the topic of UFOs, and those involved with UFOs in whatever way, are presented to the culture as goofy, eccentric, unintelligent, uneducated. Certainly not a topic to be taken seriously, nor the humans involved with the topic. (Unless it’s to debunk, deny, and discredit the topic. Then those people count of course.)

Our culture -- our infrastructure -- has many ways it perpetuates anti-UFOism, along with anything outside of the mainstream. Misdirection, disinformation, appropriation, trivialization, marginalization, outright lying and dishonesty, questioing the patriotism, morality, sanity, intelligence and or honesty of UFO "believers," are among the dozens of ways this populates throughout our culture.

Look, It's Crash Test Dummies! No, er, Balloons! I Mean, Flares! Yeah, Flares!

Lights over Phoenix, again. Nothing new, it's been going on for ten years, and more. Previous to what we call "The Phoenix Lights," UFOs, strange lights, have been seen in the area for a very long time.

But with the classic UFO Phoenix Lights event of ten years ago, as we know, the official explanation -- when they finally got around to releasing one, as silly as it was -- was "flares."

And so, once again, the official explantion is: yes, flares.

Speaking of Global Warming

No, this doesn't have anything to do with UFOs. Or, does it? It could. Make your own connections. I suppose we could say there's a connection in the sense of Pelicanist behavior; the leaders that be continue to ignore, cover-up and disseminate disinfo about both UFOs and global warming.

Alfred Lehmberg, on his blog Alien Views, has a recent piece about this: Slow Death.

Dustin, on his Odd Things blog, has a recent piece on global warming.

If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth yet, why not, and, see it.

The war, er, occupation, is horrific, and so are dozens of other issues; poverty, child abuse, animal abuse, etc. And while global warming may seem boring, daunting, overwhelming, and not sexy enough, the reality is this: if we don't focus on this and fix it (and being as how we're the biggest contributor to the problem, with the least amount of responsibility) we won't be around to worry about the other issues.