OK, fine, but if buying into some of the
snake oil that’s on offer, it should at least come with a Health Warning.
Like the majority of the
American people, I believe in the reality of the UFO phenomenon and that a
significant proportion of the strange unidentified objects that are seen in the
skies over this country and in other parts of the world may be something of a
truly mysterious nature. That is,
possibly, of extraterrestrial or interdimensional origin, rather than all just
secret military aircraft, drones, misidentifications, natural phenomena,
hoaxes, etc. However, between this
initial cautious position of mine and the widespread belief that UFOs are
definitely extraterrestrial spacecraft piloted by small alien humanoids (with
either a hostile agenda, or maybe a benign one, depending on one’s belief
system), there’s one mighty leap of faith involved.
The UFO True Believers have
made that leap and many feel totally certain of the alien presence here. We should all look carefully at the evidence
on which their beliefs are based and whether the widespread alien myths of
today have any sound basis in fact. Some
people have rather vague ET beliefs which are based on the general concept of
creatures from other planets that has been presented to us in Hollywood
movies and in comic books and science fiction over the years. Others with a
more definite interest in the subject listen to Coast-to-Coast AM radio and TV
channels, read UFO magazines, visit certain well publicized websites dealing
with such matters, and attend UFO conferences that are held all over
America.
So far, so good, but here
comes a word of warning. A very
significant proportion of the material that has been presented via the above
media is without doubt fiction, fabrication, fantasy and falsehood. That would be all very well if these stories
of alien contact and the like were presented with some kind of warning but most
often they are not. Perhaps a health
warning, like that found on cigarette packs, along the following lines, would
be in order: Many claims of alien contact, UFO photographs, video footage and
stories that are presented here contain fiction, fantasy, and faked
material. Consumption of too much of
this and belief in it may lead in some cases to paranoia, gullibility,
loosening of one’s grip on reality, and irrational behavior.
Before howls of protest arise
at my suggestion, I should point out that there are also some honest, serious
researchers in the UFO field for whom I have nothing but admiration. The trouble, especially for those who are new
to the subject, is that it’s not always easy to distinguish between the honest
researchers and those people who should definitely not be believed. Just because a person making a fantastical
claim of alien contact is plausible, well-educated (sometimes with a science
degree, Ph.D., or similar), likable, and a polished presenter, that doesn’t
necessarily mean that he or she is telling the truth. As with con men and con
women, the reverse is often true.
There are quite a few UFO
celebrities who have come forward with claims of alien contact over the last
sixty odd years. During the 1950s and
1960s these were mostly “contactees” who told stories of their meetings with
extra-terrestrials in flying saucers and of their trips to other planets either
in our solar system or in other star systems.
There have been more than 50 of these and their extraordinary claims
were usually just fantasy and science fiction.
To improve on their claims of
alien contact some of the better known contactees, such as George Adamski,
Billy Meier, and others, produced dubious photographs purporting to show flying
saucers and sometimes blurred images of their extraterrestrial friends. These alleged ETs almost always had human
form since it’s easier to serve up a photo of an unknown person and then claim
it is an alien. Photos of “aliens” that
are totally unlike humans are much more difficult to make look convincing and I
know of none that is considered by any serious researcher to be genuine.
At this stage I believe that
it is useful to list some cases of alleged ET contact that serious UFO
researchers have firmly consigned to what I call the “7F Basket”. The “7F” signifies falsehood, fiction,
fantasy, fraud, fakery, folklore and flapdoodle.
Here are ten examples of well
known cases that can be firmly consigned to the 7F Basket of ufology:-
(1) Contactee George Adamski and his tales of
flying saucers in which he flew to Venus and round the moon. Likewise other
1950s/60s “contactees”.
(2) The Billy Meier megahoax featuring
“beamships”, contact with ETs from the Pleiades, hundreds of faked photos of
UFOs, Semjase, etc., etc.
(3) Bob Lazar’s 1989 claims of back-engineering
flying saucers acquired by the US military at “S-4” (Area 51) & aliens’ use
of Element 115 propulsion.
(4) Ray Santilli’s “Alien Autopsy” scam of
1995. Footage of an alleged autopsy
carried out on a dead alien was fraudulent and faked in the UK
(5) Robert Dean’s false claims re “The
Assessment” document at SHAPE (1964). This never existed. Also tales of an
alien battle with US forces, etc.
(6) Linda Cortile’s ongoing alien abduction soap
opera in NYC (1990s) was concocted by her and fed bit-by-bit to abduction
researcher Budd Hopkins.
(7) Ed Walters’ 1987 UFO photos at Gulf Breeze,
FL, and his alleged alien contact story.
(This led to a UFO flap there where people did see UFOs)
(8) Whitley Strieber’s “Communion –A True Story”
(1987). This abduction tale is, without doubt, horror fiction that took place
solely in Whitley’s head.
(9) The “CARET drones” (from 2007) Internet hoax
created by “Isaac”. Supposed ET technology but actually bicycle parts and many
faked photos.
(10) “The Other Roswell”
story of a 1955 UFO crash near Del Rio ,
TX
That’s just ten cases for the
7F basket but it’s probably only the tip of the iceberg. OK, some of you will
say, we know that many of these are false cases but it doesn’t mean that there
aren’t any genuine cases of alien contact. No, it doesn’t, but my
complaint is that some researchers, magazine editors, MUFON writers and some
UFO conference organizers go on promoting these fraudulent cases as if they
were genuine. Again and again, as if nothing had changed, and without any
“health warning”. These are just UFO
myths.
clearly discern that the UFO base was constructed using a garbage can lid of a type which is common in
So strong is the almost
religious desire to believe among the UFO True Believers that sometimes they will
concede there is a bit of fakery involved but insist that the story as a whole
must be true. That’s been the case with
Adamski, with the Meier hoax, and for quite some time with Santilli’s “Alien
Autopsy” fraud. Even as these cases
start to unravel and the stories were being altered to counter any proof of fakery,
some true believers would hang on to their belief regardless. To my way of
thinking, once some part of an alien contact story, or its supposed photographic
evidence, is shown to involve deception, then the likely conclusion is that it
is all deception.
Another aspect of beliefs
held so fervently by UFO True Believers is that the same people may also tend
to embrace wild conspiracy theories. Of
course many of the alien contact stories are heavily bound up in conspiracy
theory and anyone (like me) who questions the truth of such claims has
sometimes been accused of being a government disinformation agent bent on
suppressing “the truth”. That ridiculous
idea is just about as crazy as the well known conspiracy theory which claims
that 9/11 was engineered by the “sinister Bush/Cheney/CIA/NSA clique” and that the
high-rise buildings in New York
If one pauses for a moment to
consider just how absurd some of these beliefs are, one could probably be justified
in saying that the paranoia so much in evidence here is potentially a mental
health problem. Conspiracy theories --whether
it be 9/11 or the JFK assassination, or the alleged murder of Princess Diana--
seem in recent times to supplement the beliefs of the more extreme UFO True
Believers. Some conspiracy theories like this are served up at UFO conferences just
as if they were a natural extension of the UFO subject.
And besides conspiracies, we
can include a number of other mysterious things that some people have tried to
link with the UFO phenomenon: cattle mutilations and crop circles, to name but
two. There are of course some persuasive arguments to link such phenomena to
UFOs but equally one should be aware that, in the case of crop circles, fakers
and hoaxers are aware of it and sometimes tailor their productions accordingly.
Many crop circle formations in Britain
The three makers of the Pi crop circle include a friend of mine,
‘Raven’, whom I’ve known well for about 20 years. One of his colleagues in making this formation
was ‘JayBird’ who has been one of the most prolific British circle-makers since
1990. I studied the crop circle phenomenon in the UK for several years and I
can categorically say that the Pi circle and the vast majority, if not all, crop
circles there in recent years are of human origin and are not made by ETs, UFOs, or
even “self-activating machines” built in a secret lab in Palo Alto, CA, using
ET technology (see F2 and F3 below).
To compound the CARET drones
hoax deception, the invisible Internet “Isaac”, who has never actually shown
himself in person, incorporated the ‘Pi’ crop circle design in one of his alleged
Top Secret CARET laboratory documents and supplied it via the Internet to Linda
Moulton Howe. She evidently believes
that all this CARET stuff is genuine ET technology. Once more the dangled
carrot was eagerly accepted. I should
point out that Raven and JayBird are not in collusion with Isaac and maybe the
latter should pay them some royalties for his imitation of their magnificent Pi
circle symbol.
Similarly perhaps, Open Minds
TV, who now use the Pi crop circle symbol as a logo for their Open Minds
magazine?
For those who ask why
shouldn’t one believe the various claims made in the ten false cases which I
cited above, I would ask whether for instance they believe the Nigerian
gentleman who is always sending me and others e-mails promising to pay
$50,000,000 into one’s bank account –details of which he requests are sent to
him in advance. Or the wonderful e-mail
which arrives out of the blue telling you that you are the Winner of the UK
Lotto draw in Johannesburg, South Africa, and you are approved to collect
$2,500,000.00 if you apply for it (the catch, which becomes apparent later, is
that there is a processing fee of several thousand $ which must be paid in
advance). I suppose there are people who
believe these scams are genuine and there are also people who are determined to
believe in the great hoaxes of ufology.
But surely, I’m asked, what
possible reason would X or Y, say, have for making these false claims of alien
contact? Sadly, the motives for making a
false claim most often boil down to the simple business of making money. Billy
Meier had quite a business going selling lovely color photos and books of
photos of his alleged Pleiadean beamships hovering over the Swiss hills. He
also sold recordings of the strange noises these supposedly made. Not only was there money in it but he became the
prophet or leader of a group of disciples who believed in his tales of alien
contact and supposed Pleiadean philosophy.
Other UFO “contactees”, like Rael, have formed cults or sects and some
have published best-selling books that have netted considerable sums. Admittedly not all make money from their
claims of alien contact but that’s usually not for want of trying! And, of course, I must admit there may be some
who do genuinely believe in what they perceive happened to them.
When it comes to the 7F
basket and the many false tales of alien contact, we should distinguish between
the originators of the false claims and those who shamelessly promote them
despite knowing that evidence has been faked and the stories are largely
untrue. The latter are very much like
the snake oil salesmen of the American West a hundred years ago and more. The product has changed, of course, but tales
of alien contact, flights to other planets, ET crop circles, and
“self-activating machines” are just as marketable as snake oil once was. The new product finds a wide audience via TV
and radio, the internet, magazines, and websites that offer such fantasies
dressed up as fact.
I don’t really care what
people choose to believe as regards the “alien presence” and claims of alien
contact. It is for each individual to
decide what the truth is and which researchers are to be trusted. The broad church of American US
In the last
few years the one troubling thing with UFOs and UFO research has been the
incredible lack of critical thinking exhibited by researchers that should know
better and the public that doesn’t know better. For many years I’ve heard
people within the field grouse that the debunkers and skeptics are ruining
research but who are they kidding? Some
of the “cases” in recent years that people have touted make me cringe. Stories recently covered in UFO Magazine like Project Serpo that have not one iota
or shred of proof and read like the worst case of BAD science fiction … but
people WANT TO BELIEVE.
That brings us back to the X-Files
picture at the beginning of this article (which happens to feature one of
Billie Meier’s fake UFOs). Don Ecker is a good judge of character and he understands
the extent to which the UFO subject has been taken over by charlatans selling
snake oil. If you read his article you’ll find the names of quite a few of them
such as Bill Cooper, Marshall Applewhite, John Lear, Dr Courtney Brown, Lee
Shargel, Ed Dames, Mel Noel, etc., etc.
“Does it matter?” some of you
may ask. Yes, it does since, like Don
Ecker, I consider this is a genuine and legitimate subject of study and that
UFOs must come from somewhere. The falsehood,
fiction, fantasy, fraud, fakery, folklore and flapdoodle that have swamped the
subject for so long devalue the work of honest UFO researchers. More often than not the press treats the subject
with amusement or derision, and it is understandable why orthodox scientists
steer well clear. Continued belief in false cases of alien contact only impedes
the search for a true understanding of the UFO phenomenon.
George Wingfield, May 2012.
Footnotes: Internet Links to referenced material.
F1
Also see Revelations (1991) by Jacques Vallee. Especially read Introduction.
For Wingfield’s further article: Ten Myths of US Ufology see “theufobook” website and go to
webpage: http://theufobook.wordpress.com/2011/12/
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