DATE OF UPLOAD: July 14, 1989ORIGIN OF UPLOAD: UnknownCONTRIBUTED BY: Unknown (C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information ServiceAll Rights Reserved.THIS FILE WAS PREPARED BY PARANET ALPHA -- PARANET INFORMATIONSERVICE1-303-431-1343 9600 BAUD DENVER, COLORADONOTE: THESE FILES ARE NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION OUTSIDEOF THE PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE NETWORK International UFO Reporter (IUR) - Jan/Feb/1989 - Editorial
Published by the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)2457 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60659 Editorial: Paranoia
by Jerome Clark The late Gray Barker, who trafficked in publicationschronicling contactee adventures, men in black and sinistercover-ups of various sorts, was fond of saying that nothingsells like paranoia. Every time he had a new product to move,he pitched it in language that spoke to the most elementalfears of his customers, many of them certain that theirknowledge of the world's deepest secrets (the hollowness ofthe earth, for example) would bring enforcers from the SilenceGroup to their doorstep any day. Barker himself wrote the all-time paranoid title, "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers." Its easy to laugh. Other people's paranoia is always funny.But what of our own? These days, paranoia - or anyway, deep suspicion; perhapsthere is a difference - seems in style. This time the inspirationis the ongoing, ever un-resolved MJ-12 dispute. The spectrum ofparanoia ranges from the mild (and probably defensible) to thepathological (as in see your psychiatrist). Fortunately the latterhas afflicted few on the sober side of ufology, but it is runningrampant on the wild side. Since the early 1950s contactee believershave maintained that ETs are here to serve man - that is, to offerto help us. Now a new school of unhinged types claims the ETs arehere to serve man, by which they mean offering us up as helpings,presumably in some cosmic McDonald's. Anyone who believes this (andto note the obvious - that not a shred of evidence supports thisstrange and sick reading of the UFO data - is to dignify it in a way it does not deserve) has, let's not mince words, cracks in hispot. In the sane world, where it is not generally held that the U.S.government is covering up knowledge of man-eating aliens, paranoiamanifests in speculation and rumour about the "true" nature of theMJ-12 briefing paper. The operating assumption is that it is notwhat it purports to be, a summary prepared for President-electEisenhower to inform him that the earth is being visited by extra-terrestrials, two of whose craft have crashed on North Americansoil. The questions being raised are these: Who wrote the document, if Adm. Hillenkoetter (the ostensibleauthor) didn't? Was it a well-informed nastily-clever ufologistputting one over on his gullible colleagues? Was it intelligence-agency personnel disseminating disinformation, either to hide realUFO secrets or to confuse the Soviets? Or - at the top of the paranoia hit parade - was it a ufologist consciously working in collusion with intelligence agents? If this last is true, justwhom can we trust? This week, as I write these words, I have heard serious chargesleveled against two prominent figures in ufology. These charges weremade by individuals who went to some length to list their reasons forentertaining suspicions that they acknowledge sound crazy. I am surethe ufologists at the receiving end of these accusations (which allege that they are collaborating with intelligence agenciesinvolved in the cover-up) will be able to defend themselves and toexplain the actions deemed suspicious. The mere fact that suchaccusations are being made by noncranks, however, illustrates howperilous UFO inquiry has become in the MJ-12 era. By "perilous" I do not mean, of course, that anybody need fearfor his life because he Knows Too Much About Flying Saucers (aconceit that, though widespread, has always done more to massageufologists' egos than to truly frighten them). I refer instead tothe problem of thinking through rationally what we may be up against,given the reality of a cover-up. (And there is a cover-up; if therewere not, the U.S. government would have told us by now what itrecovered in New Mexico in July 1947. We know that it was not aweather balloon and we know the recoverers knew that, too.) One need not be a textbook-case paranoid or a conspiracy nutto recognize that yes, governments, even democratic ones, havesecrets and ways of keeping them. They have intelligence agenciesand, among their other tasks, these agencies' personnel track thespread of sensitive information, including rumours of same. Theyhave established methods of dealing with leaks. In dictatorshipsleakers are easily dealt with: they're killed or sent off to remotegulags. In a democracy such as the United States, if outright treasonis not involved, its trickier. Generally the worst that happens isthat the leaker, if his name is known, loses his job. Beyond that,the official agency involved will vigorously deny the accuracy ofthe information being leaked and hope that journalists coveringthe story will be gulled into believing the denial. Few ufologists are aware that in the United States it isillegal for official agencies or individuals to circulate dis-information for domestic consumption. We all know, of course,that officials, including Presidents, break the law. They usuallydon't bet by with it, as witness such episodes as Watergate andthe Iran-contra fiasco. The reason they don't get by with it isthat Congress, prosecutors and the press are watching them. That'swhy there was an uproar, a year or two ago, when the Wall StreetJournal fell victim to a disinformation scam that reported, falsely,that the U.S. government was about to bomb Libya again. The story was circulated for psychological purposes; the idea was to scarethe Libyan government. A 'Journal' foreign correspondent picked upthe story and made the mistake of taking it seriously. When thetruth came out, the Reagan administration was severely criticizedand forced to give assurances that nothing like this would happenagain. In the context of the UFO controversy, however, it isundeniably true that a different set of rules apply. It is anarticle of faith among this country's opinion-making elite (NewYork Times, CBS News, Time, Science, et al) that people whobelieve in UFOs are all screwballs, since UFOs do not exist. Nothing that happens among UFO believers could conceivably be ofany significance except to readers fo the "National Enquirer". That being the case, UFO "evidence" is of no interest whatever,regardless of the amount of documentation or quality of witnesses.Because there are no UFOs, there cannot be a cover-up of importantinformation about them. Therefore any testimony that claims thecontrary need not be heeded. In other words, the field is open to any government agency toplay any game it feels it need to play. The watchdogs aren't justsleeping on the job; they're not even on the job. "The New YorkTimes" and the "Washington Post" have never heard of the Roswellincident, much less dispatched investigative reporters to lookinto it. Supremely smug and blind, they will not know if laws arebeing broken by official persons keeping UFO secrets; anybody whosays they are need only be referred to "Skeptical Inquirer", or apsychiatrist, to get his head straightened. It is not true as a general principle, the cliche notwith-standing, that secrets can't be kept. But it has to be especiallyeasy to keep UFO secrets, since nobody except ufologists, who haveno influence and only limited resources, is looking for them. (Inthe 1970s famous investigative journalist Seymour Hersh made a pointof telling "Rolling Stone" that he doesn't do "flying saucer stories.") Nor, consequently, is anybody looking to see if federal laws arebeing violated by keepers of UFO secrets. Any ufologist who says hisphone is being tapped or that intelligence personnel are circulatingdomestic UFO disinformation is, well, just another paranoid, a harm-less version of the guy who tells police that space aliens orderedhim to shoot his mother. What is truth? a famous man asked. Two thousand years later weask, what is paranoia? Well, it's certainly no delusion, no purelysubjective phenomenon. A fear or suspicion that has no demonstrablyobjective basis is paranoia. That makes the fear that the CIAassassinates ufologists paranoia, but it does not do the same forthe suspicion that intelligence agencies are doing other things toufologists. We know that both active-duty and retired spook typeshave told ufologists hair-raising tales about EBEs in governmentcustody. There is no independent reason to believe these storiesare true, but what's important for the moment is that they're beingtold by the individuals who are telling them. We also know thatsome ufologists have interacted, sometimes in curious ways, withthese individuals. What is going on far away from the scrutiny of the usualestablishment watchdogs? And what is the reason for it? It mustsurely mean that ufologists are on to something, otherwise whythe attention? But where do reasonable questions end and crazyfantasies begin? Beyond the richly-documented Roswell incident,we have no real evidence of what the government may or may notknow, what it may or may not be concealing. That leaves us opento any credentialed liar who comes along - if we are foolishenough to take him at his word, that is. Under the circumstances, given the bewildering and bizarrenature of events in recent years, a certain degree of paranoia(provided that it be mild and containable) is inevitable. Anymore that a mild degree, however, need an antidote. I suggestlaughter. What's ahead of us, as we work our way through Roswelland beyond, is not going to be easy to get to, but lunatic fears,we can be sure, will take us only to never-neverland.
Published by the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)2457 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60659 Editorial: Paranoia
by Jerome Clark The late Gray Barker, who trafficked in publicationschronicling contactee adventures, men in black and sinistercover-ups of various sorts, was fond of saying that nothingsells like paranoia. Every time he had a new product to move,he pitched it in language that spoke to the most elementalfears of his customers, many of them certain that theirknowledge of the world's deepest secrets (the hollowness ofthe earth, for example) would bring enforcers from the SilenceGroup to their doorstep any day. Barker himself wrote the all-time paranoid title, "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers." Its easy to laugh. Other people's paranoia is always funny.But what of our own? These days, paranoia - or anyway, deep suspicion; perhapsthere is a difference - seems in style. This time the inspirationis the ongoing, ever un-resolved MJ-12 dispute. The spectrum ofparanoia ranges from the mild (and probably defensible) to thepathological (as in see your psychiatrist). Fortunately the latterhas afflicted few on the sober side of ufology, but it is runningrampant on the wild side. Since the early 1950s contactee believershave maintained that ETs are here to serve man - that is, to offerto help us. Now a new school of unhinged types claims the ETs arehere to serve man, by which they mean offering us up as helpings,presumably in some cosmic McDonald's. Anyone who believes this (andto note the obvious - that not a shred of evidence supports thisstrange and sick reading of the UFO data - is to dignify it in a way it does not deserve) has, let's not mince words, cracks in hispot. In the sane world, where it is not generally held that the U.S.government is covering up knowledge of man-eating aliens, paranoiamanifests in speculation and rumour about the "true" nature of theMJ-12 briefing paper. The operating assumption is that it is notwhat it purports to be, a summary prepared for President-electEisenhower to inform him that the earth is being visited by extra-terrestrials, two of whose craft have crashed on North Americansoil. The questions being raised are these: Who wrote the document, if Adm. Hillenkoetter (the ostensibleauthor) didn't? Was it a well-informed nastily-clever ufologistputting one over on his gullible colleagues? Was it intelligence-agency personnel disseminating disinformation, either to hide realUFO secrets or to confuse the Soviets? Or - at the top of the paranoia hit parade - was it a ufologist consciously working in collusion with intelligence agents? If this last is true, justwhom can we trust? This week, as I write these words, I have heard serious chargesleveled against two prominent figures in ufology. These charges weremade by individuals who went to some length to list their reasons forentertaining suspicions that they acknowledge sound crazy. I am surethe ufologists at the receiving end of these accusations (which allege that they are collaborating with intelligence agenciesinvolved in the cover-up) will be able to defend themselves and toexplain the actions deemed suspicious. The mere fact that suchaccusations are being made by noncranks, however, illustrates howperilous UFO inquiry has become in the MJ-12 era. By "perilous" I do not mean, of course, that anybody need fearfor his life because he Knows Too Much About Flying Saucers (aconceit that, though widespread, has always done more to massageufologists' egos than to truly frighten them). I refer instead tothe problem of thinking through rationally what we may be up against,given the reality of a cover-up. (And there is a cover-up; if therewere not, the U.S. government would have told us by now what itrecovered in New Mexico in July 1947. We know that it was not aweather balloon and we know the recoverers knew that, too.) One need not be a textbook-case paranoid or a conspiracy nutto recognize that yes, governments, even democratic ones, havesecrets and ways of keeping them. They have intelligence agenciesand, among their other tasks, these agencies' personnel track thespread of sensitive information, including rumours of same. Theyhave established methods of dealing with leaks. In dictatorshipsleakers are easily dealt with: they're killed or sent off to remotegulags. In a democracy such as the United States, if outright treasonis not involved, its trickier. Generally the worst that happens isthat the leaker, if his name is known, loses his job. Beyond that,the official agency involved will vigorously deny the accuracy ofthe information being leaked and hope that journalists coveringthe story will be gulled into believing the denial. Few ufologists are aware that in the United States it isillegal for official agencies or individuals to circulate dis-information for domestic consumption. We all know, of course,that officials, including Presidents, break the law. They usuallydon't bet by with it, as witness such episodes as Watergate andthe Iran-contra fiasco. The reason they don't get by with it isthat Congress, prosecutors and the press are watching them. That'swhy there was an uproar, a year or two ago, when the Wall StreetJournal fell victim to a disinformation scam that reported, falsely,that the U.S. government was about to bomb Libya again. The story was circulated for psychological purposes; the idea was to scarethe Libyan government. A 'Journal' foreign correspondent picked upthe story and made the mistake of taking it seriously. When thetruth came out, the Reagan administration was severely criticizedand forced to give assurances that nothing like this would happenagain. In the context of the UFO controversy, however, it isundeniably true that a different set of rules apply. It is anarticle of faith among this country's opinion-making elite (NewYork Times, CBS News, Time, Science, et al) that people whobelieve in UFOs are all screwballs, since UFOs do not exist. Nothing that happens among UFO believers could conceivably be ofany significance except to readers fo the "National Enquirer". That being the case, UFO "evidence" is of no interest whatever,regardless of the amount of documentation or quality of witnesses.Because there are no UFOs, there cannot be a cover-up of importantinformation about them. Therefore any testimony that claims thecontrary need not be heeded. In other words, the field is open to any government agency toplay any game it feels it need to play. The watchdogs aren't justsleeping on the job; they're not even on the job. "The New YorkTimes" and the "Washington Post" have never heard of the Roswellincident, much less dispatched investigative reporters to lookinto it. Supremely smug and blind, they will not know if laws arebeing broken by official persons keeping UFO secrets; anybody whosays they are need only be referred to "Skeptical Inquirer", or apsychiatrist, to get his head straightened. It is not true as a general principle, the cliche notwith-standing, that secrets can't be kept. But it has to be especiallyeasy to keep UFO secrets, since nobody except ufologists, who haveno influence and only limited resources, is looking for them. (Inthe 1970s famous investigative journalist Seymour Hersh made a pointof telling "Rolling Stone" that he doesn't do "flying saucer stories.") Nor, consequently, is anybody looking to see if federal laws arebeing violated by keepers of UFO secrets. Any ufologist who says hisphone is being tapped or that intelligence personnel are circulatingdomestic UFO disinformation is, well, just another paranoid, a harm-less version of the guy who tells police that space aliens orderedhim to shoot his mother. What is truth? a famous man asked. Two thousand years later weask, what is paranoia? Well, it's certainly no delusion, no purelysubjective phenomenon. A fear or suspicion that has no demonstrablyobjective basis is paranoia. That makes the fear that the CIAassassinates ufologists paranoia, but it does not do the same forthe suspicion that intelligence agencies are doing other things toufologists. We know that both active-duty and retired spook typeshave told ufologists hair-raising tales about EBEs in governmentcustody. There is no independent reason to believe these storiesare true, but what's important for the moment is that they're beingtold by the individuals who are telling them. We also know thatsome ufologists have interacted, sometimes in curious ways, withthese individuals. What is going on far away from the scrutiny of the usualestablishment watchdogs? And what is the reason for it? It mustsurely mean that ufologists are on to something, otherwise whythe attention? But where do reasonable questions end and crazyfantasies begin? Beyond the richly-documented Roswell incident,we have no real evidence of what the government may or may notknow, what it may or may not be concealing. That leaves us opento any credentialed liar who comes along - if we are foolishenough to take him at his word, that is. Under the circumstances, given the bewildering and bizarrenature of events in recent years, a certain degree of paranoia(provided that it be mild and containable) is inevitable. Anymore that a mild degree, however, need an antidote. I suggestlaughter. What's ahead of us, as we work our way through Roswelland beyond, is not going to be easy to get to, but lunatic fears,we can be sure, will take us only to never-neverland.
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