FORTEAN TIMES UNCONVENTION 1996
6. UFO’S & GOVERNMENT (Panel discussion)
The panel: Peter Brookesmith, freelance journalist, regular contributor to FORTEAN TIMES
Nick Pope, investigator of UFO’s for British Ministry of Defence, 1991-94
Kenn Thomas, editor of STEAMSHOVEL PRESS
Dennis Stacy, MUFON, co-editor of THE ANOMALIST
The media conspiracy theory: the rumour about Fox TV CEO’s and aliens:
Fox are trying to make aliens more real to people: from fiction to autopsy.
However, advertisers work on what people are already familiar with.
Do changes in the media serve the purposes of aliens? By people being “softened up”?
But the aliens are shown as malevolent. How can we be being “prepared” for their takeover
if we don’t like them? Or is it that we are being prepared for the bad news?
The MJ-12 document: Kenn Thomas brought up some interesting points: Wilhelm Reich claimed that his idea “atoms for peace” was taken off him by Eisenhower. Robert Cutler wrote that speech for Eisenhower, and Cutler’s name is on the MJ memo. Reich’s assistant had contacted Cutler about UFO’s. Then there’s the Cutler-Twining memo about Roswell. Is that memo real? Is its “declassification” real? Where’s Twining’s copy? Investigation needs to lead to the Eisenhower library.
The Santilli film: Nick Pope thought it is a hoax. Pope’s general view of photographs and videos was that there is no photo or video that cannot be either faked or constructed. The motive for the autopsy video? Commercial. UFOlogy = mass media. Pope thought the Santilli film is a modern fake. He disbelieved mainly the story about the cameraman and about the US government “forgetting” to pick up the film from him, considering that what is on the film is not what could be called “outtakes”. Also, the Santilli film is useless to medical trainees because it is all out of focus. For medical reasons, the phone should not be there. Furthermore, at least four still cameras would have been used. And those conducting the “autopsy” are not working from X-rays.
Uniformity of UFO phenomena: discs and cigars and amorphous lights, then there’s triangles and Valleé’s squares. Same goes for the alien: the Schwa or Strieber’s grey. However, the MUFON transcription project - interviews with or without hypnotism, to make a database - revealed a tremendous variety: preying mantises, little blue Strieber dwarves etc etc etc. Dennis Stacy joked: “Are we a gas station on an intergalactic freeway?” and went on to say “Variety is within people more than anywhere else.”
Peter Brookesmith added that there were many configurations in the “Belgian triangle” as well, and his attitude was “Look at the mind rather than material reality.” But Kenn Thomas was at Area 51 with a Las Vegas TV company and saw lights. He did not think it was a projection of his mind.
UFO investigation: Seeing as the Americans are spending millions, considering SETI and everything, why does Britain’s official investigation consist of just one man - Nick Pope? Is there more to it than that? In the Ministry of Defence, Pope has now left the UFO desk after a three year “tour of duty” and works in financial policy. What is Pope’s credibility? asked one member of the audience. The government do not support Pope in what he says about UFO’s. Also, he is bound by the official secrets act. Pope defended himself by saying the interpretation of the official secrets act has been relaxed a little. Since the Gulf War, books containing individual opinions have been published.
UFO cover-up [The American “black budget” is $35 billion!]: According to Peter Brookesmith, if Roswell was genuine and aliens “spilled out” there, the US government would have told everyone because they would not have known if aliens would have come demanding their bodies. And they would not have known if the aliens would have gone to the Russians about it. There would have to be an international conspiracy involving the Russians, Americans and Belgians. So it has not been surprizing that we have ended up with theorists like Bill Cooper involving Zionist bank plots with MJ-12 and JFK and all the rest of it. The logic of UFO cover up by government only works if it is internationalized. Therefore, there is a paranoid swamp. But, said Kenn Thomas, eager not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, with Bill Cooper, there is some truth among the absurdity, for example, JFK’s driver slowing down the car. In America there were radiation experiments on people in asylums... and on children. Governments do do bad things and cover up. The radiation experiments documents were released fifty years later. Brookesmith said “Yeah, the CIA would cover up MK ULTRA but it makes no sense to cover up intergalactic stuff. The aliens could blow the cover any time.” The latest official line on Roswell is that it was a mogul test to measure radioactivity in the air. A “listening channel”, listening for Soviet nuclear tests.
Gulf Breeze: the polaroids taken by Ed Walters in 1987. Were they fakes? Walters went on to have abduction experiences. Gulf Breeze sightings continued. He himself has taken more photos in different formats. Hot air balloons with candles? There was the model found in his house. Were the photos “double exposure party tricks for kids”? As for the AWOL soldiers turned up in Gulf Breeze in 1991... These were four (or six?) airmen who went AWOL from an encription station in Germany. They turned up in Florida with a medium, when they were arrested for a missing taillight. They were not prosecuted and given release. There’s a book coming out aobut them, but it involves channelling and ouija, and has nothing to do with UFO’s.
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