FBI Disclosure: Is that all there is... to a circus?

The recent online release of countless FBI files stretching back into the days of its formation to handle interstate prohibition and kidnapping issues, is both amazing and kind of, like all such releases, disappointing. The great and powerful Oz metaphor serves well here, especially when imagining what the FBI having a 'file on you' entailed. We imagine such files -- as the notorious ones on John Lennon or the Grateful Dead -- to be packed with surveillance tape transcripts, communist pamphlets, and incriminating sex photos. Instead, well, the files are kind of like what my files at work are for 'student problems' - maybe just a single letter or minor dispute report an agent sent back to Washington on, where was filed, and forgotten.

There's only one really galvanizing file, which is the above report from 1950 by FBI agent Guy Hottel. You can click on it yourself, or go visit the site, or a news report to get the full dirt. What at first seems like official confirmation, on a close reading is really just heresay, connected to old hoaxers to the point where no UFOlogists consider it anything but second-hand fraud. There's a date but no reference to the date of the crash or where exactly in 'New Mexico' the crash occurred.

Similarly, the "Roswell" file is something most UFO scholars recognize as a 'revision' of the general story with the word 'balloon' added. it's a flying disk, 'attached by cables to a balloon' and it's 'hexagonal' and so forth. Whatever.

The "Majestic 12" report is actually a case involving researching an alleged leaked government document on MAJ-12 which the agent labels 'bogus' - even writing it in big print over the text on every page. Whether that itself is a 'cover' or not is moot - as the whole excitement around the FBI site itself is the validity it lends. So in the MAJ-12 case, no validity, just some possible truth and disinformation cobbled together, or maybe just hoaxer fantasia. If this stuff was all hoaxes from the 1950s, why bother to scan it at all, if not to mislead and misdirect and try and get the public and their transparency advocates off the feds' backs?

I wouldn't even bring this up, but I learned about this new FBI file release via a friend of a very science-based debunker-type friend so its quite mainstream - it's made the rounds of Facebook and is being picked up by news sources all over the web. When that kind of news happens, the facts don't matter so much as the 'belief' and the validity that's associated with being released on the official FBI site. Only a few of us will read closely or know enough already to see that the documents say nothing whatsoever 'official' aside from indicating the overall lack of interest the FBI had overall in the UFO phenomenon. But when enough people latch onto something, it 'becomes' real. In other words the truth is coming out thanks to the public's inability to read into the evasive language of official cover-ups! Poetic! Ironic! Maybe even intended.

But of course, at the same time, people are still scared not just of having the curtain pulled back to see how puny we are in the face of the vast cosmos, but of looking stupid if it all--every last thing--turns out to be a hoax, such as the International Business Reports' version of the story:

Not only is the information not first-hand and far removed from New Mexico, it is connected to a 60-year-old hoax that resulted in a conviction for fraud. The memo was the end of a long chain of tale-telling. The Hottel memo repeats a story from the Wyandotte Echo, a legal newspaper in Kansas City, Kansas in January of 1950, which was repeated to Guy Hottel by an Air Force investigator who read the story (and pasted into a memo himself. Such practices were common in the days before scanning documents was possible and memos had to be typed out). That news story draws from the account of a Rudy Fick, a local used car dealer. Fick got the story from a two men, I. J. Van Horn and Jack Murphy, who said they got the story from a man named "Coulter" - actually a radio station advertising manager named George Koehler. Koehler got the story from Silas Newton.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/132868/20110411/fbi-hottel-memo-reveals-ufo-hoax.htm#ixzz1JK4f09XR

But the idea of what is what's not a hoax is far from important this late in the game. What is important is the 'viral' news aspect - the 'breaking story.' For there sources, like ZME Science who aren't satisfied with the above debunking:

...a surprising move that didn’t get quite a lot of attention, the FBI released an online document archive they’re calling the Vault, in which they openly address, among other things, the alleged aliens and flying saucers found at Roswell. Yes, it’s about little green men, like the ones who are usually portrayed in movies. The memo at the core of this documents, named ‘Flying saucers’, was written by an FBI agent named Guy Hottel, and if the actions and pictures depicted within are for real, then I have no idea why this isn’t all over the news. If they’re not for real, I have no idea why the FBI would release them; either way, there’s something strange about this.

The decades old memo states that “three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico’, citing an Air Force investigator. There is also a short description of the flying saucers: “They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter.” “Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall.”. What’s weird is that after the alleged UFO crash, the newspapers from all over America, and the world, were screaming about the incident/accident. The army issued that press release, but less than a day after that, changed its mind, claiming that in fact they were dealing with nothing more than a few weather balloons that crashed. Of course, nobody was satisfied with this explanation.

The memo not only states that they were in fact flying saucers, but goes even further, and states that there were three bodies only three feet tall inside them. He also describes their clothing ! An FBI memo explains that they thought they were dealing with flying saucers, and there were humanoid bodies inside them ! Something everybody has been trying to be silent about suddently just got very loud with this memo, and it’s absolutely strange, to say the least. Even though this memo doesn’t represent FBI’s opinion, it does represent that of an agent who was at the spot, and in the center of events, so this is absolutely huge; and I’m not talking about comics, sci fi movies and all that, I’m talking about figuring out the truth.

Read more: http://www.zmescience.com/space/alien-life-space/roswell-incident-memo-10042011/#ixzz1JK538WUQ

Yes, it's terrifying; the 'disclosure' has begun far to the left of the dial as I and many others have predicted. I'm betting we'll never see an official announcement bigger than the ones we've already received by generals, astronauts, The History Channel, Fox, and now the FBI. But like good sheepherders, the inner circle world leaders know you have to give the masses an out - a way they can avoid asking 'what do they want?' and 'can we stop them?' and 'are we their pets?' and just focus on the question - are they real? And that question blocks out all the others, like the wizard's curtain, and all they have to do to keep that curtain up is make every shred of evidence and disclosure at least on some level 'dubious.'Wrapping truth in lies is like putting peanut butter inside one of those rubber cones you give your dog to chew on. They know it's there, they can't get to it, but they kind of can, and so they are occupied for hours, distracted from their prison of existence.

Similarly, we have the perhaps intentionally clumsy Roswell cover-up: Just throw some cables and a deflated weather balloon on top of the shipment of real crashed disk remnants going to Washington. Toss a rubber alien corpse from a sci fi film near the actual crash site, or replace disc material with aluminum before presenting it to the press. Don't blame the government for this, it's actually heroic, even noble.  It's their job to protect and that means mentally as well as physically. Why incite panic if there's nothing anyone can do to stop the aliens from treating us like cattle, and our cattle like snack cakes of which they only eat the middle and throw the rest away? Why wake the sleeping prisoner? Let him keep dreaming he's not in jail. Otherwise his plaintive wailing is too heartbreaking. The government is being a good dad, telling us there's no such thing as monsters even as they're chomping on our psionic auras. If you can make the kids believe that souls don't exist, they won't know to complain when theirs is yanked away in the night by grey poachers.

Within all that subterfuge, the terrifying truth is clear as day - as much as you can handle, and as little as you can't. If and when this 'story' gets too big in the viral Facebook interweb news universe, there will be a follow-up report denouncing the 1950 memo as merely second hand news. But first, they'll let the interest brew up - it's no different than the old masters of ballyhoo who had to promise sex to sell tickets but couldn't show it due to strict censors - so it was all about the 'sizzle' not the steak. In this case, the sizzle is needed because the suckers need to acclimate, salivate and prepare... just like striptease films were needed to pave the way for hardcore pornography. As of now, America is still underage and can't get in to see the 'main attraction,' but that doesn't mean they can't take pictures of the tent, and listen outside for music, eager and alive for every scrap of info that might tell them how they got their father's eyes.

A bug-eyed look at UFO Disclosure

If you ever want to really understand why shadowy government agencies continue to hide the existence of alien life visiting earth, watch CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (1977) again, and really study the behavior of Roy (Richard Dreyfuss), the immature "everyman" who makes mountains out of his mashed potatoes and frightens his family half to death with his lunatic ravings about UFOs. He's the guy we're supposed to identify with, one of the "chosen" invited to the party. And yet he's unable to accept the "truth" of the aliens until he's right there seeing them and touching them, even then he's more a wide-eyed kid at Disneyland than an adult trying to grasp this vast importance of this cosmic event. By making himself a mere patron on a UFO ride, Roy once infantalizes himself as a glorified spectator, a fan.

By contrast, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS regularly switches to the "insiders" led by Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut). While Roy seeks answers from an authority figure, someone to tell him what he already knows to be true, Lacombe knows the truth and hides it from the Roys of the world, who "can't handle" it. In other words, Claude assumes the role of leader, parent, role model, Roy that of the child, citizen, follower. Roy demands the government explain and assure. The Lacombes of the world can only pretend to be hiding more than they know, as a favor to the panicked who can then presume the government really does know what's going on, and so all must be well. It's a classic distraction move, allaying all fear by switching the focus from "are they going to attack us" to "tell me what they are!"

There is a scene early in the film wherein a group of air traffic controllers are gathered around a radio listening to flying saucer reports from one of their planes. They ask him if he wants to report a UFO: "No. I wouldn't know what to report," the shaken but professional pilot answers.

By the terrified citizen standard, not reporting the incident that pilot is "hiding" from possible peer ridicule, but the reasons are actually more muddled: If this unseen pilot had chosen to make a report he may be ostracized, not for "believing" in aliens but for reporting the encounter, for clinging to the lie of "real" authority, expecting that someone higher up will have an explanation for him. In other words, these men in the military are forced to grasp the notion of the ungraspable real, the other, the "stain" in Lacanian terminology. By choosing to not allow the UFO into their consensual reality in this way, the pilot and those gathered maintain their positions within the symbolic order. They know there are UFOs, and they know there is no explanation for them; but they can "handle" the truth, and the way they handle it is by realizing and accepting that there is no possible rational explanation and not letting it get them too rattled. There's still a job to do. Roy can't go to work or function in society once the 'truth' overtakes him, that's why he's not ready for it.

This split between these "grown ups" and "adult children" is further borne out in a scene in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS where panicked citizens meet with government officials in a press conference. The government officials basically acknowledge that the citizens saw something that no one has an answer for. If the townsfolk were to really "hear" this news, they would just sit there, pale and shaken, but they clamor. These citizens cannot recognize that the symbolic authority of the adult government has been removed by the presence of this advanced alien intelligence. The explanation they are looking for does not exist; but this is simply not good enough for them, so they throw a mass temper tantrum, which is in itself a sign they are not ready for the truth.

Another popular consciousness movie touchstone might be examined here to see how a person can move from one level to the other. (Roy never does, even when going off into space he remains dependent, merely "joining the children.") That movie is David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (1986). In this movie, Kyle Mclachlan plays Jeffrey, a young would-be detective out to solve the mystery of a severed ear he finds in the nearby park from his childhood home. He winds up embroiled in a scandal that includes a crooked cop; yet Jeffrey is also dating the daughter (Laura Dern) of the local police chief. He's already presented the chief with evidence against the crooked cop so when Jeffrey walks into the chief's home after dinner to pick up Audrey for a date, and finds the crooked cop in the living room with the chief, he's fairly startled - is the Dern's dad crooked also?

 
This is a key moment in Jeffrey's evolution as a male, and this psychic growth is something that's present in all of Lynch's films: Jeffrey doesn't panic, but rather greets the crooked cop with a smile and a handshake, as if he knows nothing of the matter. The chief is impressed and later when Jeffrey denies he knows who the cop is to Laura Dern, the chief says, "Good boy, Jeffrey." -- an acknowledgment of Jeffrey's newfound complicity within the social order. Jeffrey proves he can keep a secret, in this case the most important secret of all being the complete lack of 'truth' or solidity at the center of the social order, and this is the secret all true adults must guard. The 'dumb' citizens seldom realize that they need their politicians to lie - need to not believe in their leaders, so as to always presume there's more, rather than less, going on 'upstairs.'

We have a similar thing going on today in the world as we approach 2012: global warming, water and oil shortages; inflation, over-population, whatever you want to obsess on. We know something's up, but at the same time as long as the president doesn't come on national TV and proclaim any of this as officially doomsday, evacuate in a calm, orderly manner, say goodbye to your ass, etc., we're going to be all right. This is the trap we find ourselves in as we enter the age of total digital reality.

The infantilization of the masses by the ruling elite--both in film and in real life-- is no joke, and anyone with any authority knows that a large part of their job is simply to "embody" the "one who knows." By acting contemptuous and dismissive towards the citizenry's concerns at the aforementioned press conference scene in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, the government agents allow the citizenry to continue to live in the illusion that somewhere along the chain of command there is someone who has the situation well in hand. 

Now to bring this to our own current situation, which is the slow--presumably permitted--leak in information about the existence of aliens that's coming through on the internet, which manages to disperse information so rapidly that the shadowy government insiders would be hard pressed to stop it even if they wanted to, but one gets the impression they don't want it to. Rather, they want to continue to release the information with just enough disinformation to let them keep control. As long as there's debate about whether it's factual, we won't panic. People have an option not to believe if it scares them.

Again we turn to cinema for our example-- the censorship codes enforced by Joseph Breen from 1934 through to the early 1960s. The idea in these films wasn't that no one was allowed to have sex, but that there were simultaneously two different interpretations available: one that was "above board" and nonsexual (for the church matrons and children) and one sexual.... the did they or didn't they have sex during the 3 1/2 second dissolve from Rick and Ilsa kissing, to the watch tower at the Casablanca airport, for example as discussed by Richard Maltby and Slavoj Zizek:

To put it in the Lacanian terms: during the infamous 3 1/2 second, Ilsa and Rick did not do it for the big Other, the order of public appearance, but they did do it for our dirty fantasmatic imagination - this is the structure of inherent transgression at its purest, i.e. Hollywood needs BOTH levels in order to function.

As Zizek points out, this two-sided reading is not only present but essential for control to exist. By a similar token, it is safe for us to believe in aliens because the government does deny their existence. Once the president comes out and tells the actual truth, civilization as we know it will instantaneously collapse, the way the Soviet Union instantaneously collapsed - when all the people decide, en masse, to abandon an ideology, this change is inevitable. Thus any social order must involve a sort of mass hypnotism to function. The truth is, even the movie itself doesn't know what happened in that 3 1/2 seconds, but in implying something went on, it creates room for pleasure to emerge, the pleasure of feeling protected from the truth.

The lesson to glean from all this is that we all need to learn to be adults, to fix ourselves first, so we can be ready for the changes that are coming. The question is, are you free? And if you are free, why are you waiting for some "authority figure" to tell you what you already know? You know if aliens are real or not, and if you don't there's no one who can tell you but yourself. There is so much information being released now, so many sworn testimonies from NASA and military officials that by any standard you could name, the alien question is on the table. Do you still need some sort of "official" statement? Or have you let the truth in -- to the point where you are in despair at the fact that evil runs our country, that we're soul food for the reptoids? That only love and an expanded soul can free you from the bondage of self?

To really begin to believe in the alien conspiracy is to invite a complete collapse of values into your psyche; there are myriad "truths" to believe in, but one of the more obvious ones is that most humans are alien-ape hybrids. One of the most depressing is that we are a "soul farm" and gray-reptoid aliens eat our pain and suffering as snacks before they devour our souls. (which explains the fearsome appearance of Tibetan Demonology), and this is the reason why overpopulation runs amok, and that governments doesn't want us experimenting with drugs that will show the man behind the curtain, why they want to burn and destroy anyone who shows the way clear of bondage. It may be depressing, may not even be true, but it's one of the more acceptable all-encompassing answers to life's mysteries (the alien gene splice is, then, Darwin's missing link). No wonder we'd prefer to think what the TV tells us as we chew our morning cud.... "All is well... all is well..all is a disaster so keep watching, but it's nothing we can't fix, eventually." And that if we're worried about global warming, we can avert the crisis by buying seventh generation paper towels on our next half-hour SUV-drive to Wal-Mart.

The challenge is not to wonder what in that preceding morass of horrible truth and CIA disinformation is real or not, but to realize that if even one shred of it is true, just how vast and incredible its implications are. If you're not completely freaked out by the idea of alien life on this planet then you're not thinking about it clearly. You're thinking about it in the same abstract way you might think about death if you're not enlightened. You're still on the fence, wondering if its all true, still denying your own death, your own mortality, still clinging to possessions and temporal space like a kid grabbing his mom's ankles to prevent his having to go to school. You may believe in Jesus, but aren't sure if he rose from the dead, maybe believe in Santa Clause but not the Easter Bunny, and maybe you don't really believe in anything 100% and that's probably the smartest tactic, but it leaves you awfully numb.

In Sogyal Rinpoche's THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING he tells of giving a lecture about impermanence and afterwards having a jaded, seen-it-all new student proclaim: "All this seems obvious, tell me something new."

To which Rinpoche replies:

"Have you actually realized the truth of impermanence? Have you so integrated it with your every thought, breath and movement that your life has been transformed? Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment I am dying and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence becomes so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the purpose of enlightenment? If you can answer yes to both of these then you have really understood impermanence." (p. 27)

to the concept of alien life on this planet. Have you truly grasped the implications of "the truth" of alien existence? Have you overcome the egoic blinders that make you run to snap judgments and ridicule, the same defense mechanisms so overworked to keep you from thinking about death? If so, wouldn't you be spending, as Rinpoche describes "every second to the purpose of enlightenment?"

The mechanisms that keep you from thinking about death all the time are important for your functionality and sanity, but when you listen to them exclusively, life loses its scent of danger and excitement, and the dour wardens of your inner asylum start slowly taking away privileges. They only let go of your throat when they hit the wall of cancer or a gun in the face or death row... or psychedelics or meditation or exhaustion obliterates them temporarily. Is it any wonder that mind-expanding drugs are illegal and meditation such a hard habit to integrate into your life?

Or even more understandable--and chilling-- is it any wonder that even those convinced of the alien presence prefer to focus on issues of disclosure and evidence gathering, rather than actually altering their world view to the point of nervous breakdown? For once you "let it in," the truth about aliens cements so many missing connections, answers so many questions, that you find yourself on a whole other level of consciousness. Now that you believe in greys, anti-gravity propulsion, inter-dimensional doorways and reptoids, you can begin to deal with issues like the Pleiadians, angels, God, reincarnation, and the  light to dark ratio of your own immortal soul. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," the man behind the curtain shouts. But he's doing you a favor; the man behind the curtain is you.