Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
In the years, I’ve spent commenting here at Professor Turley’s blog, I have presented myself as an honest person, sensible and with humane beliefs. Many regulars think of me as sort of a blog “elder statesman” and one who has a rational view of the world. There are of course others, fewer in number I assert, who think me a fool and a knave, which shows you can’t please everyone. Professor Turley himself has expressed fondness related to my tendency to be honest and open about myself personally.
Yet through all of these years here, I have harbored a secret belief that I’ve avoided mentioning for fear that the esteem in which I’m held, will disappear in an avalanche of ridicule and disappointment. I have to admit that to a retired old guy on the wrong side of sixty years, my place here has provided comfort to my self-esteem and certainly the feeling that I can still find things in life to accomplish. To those who haven’t realized the obvious yet from my writings, I have my vanities and indeed my insecurities, so being a guest blogger has stroked those needy aspects of my ego. Since I’ve received much gratification from this, I have been loath to be completely honest about one of my more deeply held beliefs. I came across an article that impels me to break my silence and reveal this belief here and now. While in the eyes of some reading this blog, it might lower their opinion of me and expose me to ridicule, I must finally admit to you my dirty little secret.
Ever since the first nationwide “Flying Saucer” sensation began with the first “official” UFO sighting on June 24, 1947 by pilot Kenneth Arnold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting#Skeptical_explanations Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s) have been a phenomenon lasting for the past 64 years, with most governments ridiculing the people making the reports and dismissing the entire idea. This is despite the fact that many pilots have made sightings and indeed many people in large communities, such as WashingtonD.C., have seen UFO’s in their skies over a period of nights. I personally believe that UFO’s are indeed alien spacecraft and that the possibility of this being the case is narrowed by the unfathomable size of the Universe, its age and the trillions of stars that exist. I further believe that the governments have covered this up to prevent what in their minds is public panic and to deny the truth that if UFO’s do indeed exist; our technological capacity could not deal with them if necessary.
This article in Huffpost on 6/17/11confirms my belief in governments covering up the details of these sightings and ridiculing anyone claiming to have made a sighting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/uk-releases-ufo-files_n_927351.html “The former Ministry of Defense (MoD) UFO Project chief [Nick Pope] is openly admitting to being part of what he claims was a U.K. policy of ridiculing UFO reports and the people who reported them.
“What’s abundantly clear from these files is that, while in public we were desperately pushing the line that this was of no defense interest,” Pope told The Huffington Post. “We couldn’t say ‘There’s something in our air space; pilots see them; they’re tracked on radar; sometimes we scramble jets to chase these things, but we can’t catch them.’ This would be an admission that we’d lost control of our own air space, and such a position would be untenable.”
My interest began in 1953, reading a book by Major Donald Keyhoe, USMC Pilot, Retired. In it he described the various documented incidents and the explanations given for them by the Department Of Defenses “Project Blue Book”, that was established seemingly to investigate the phenomenon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Keyhoe . Among others, Keyhoe had interviewed Air Force Captain Edward Ruppelt, who had been head of the Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_J._Ruppelt
What I found so compelling was that perhaps 20% of the incidents could not be adequately explained and that distinguished observers, such as veteran pilots, were supposed to have mistaken everyday phenomenon, like weather balloons and Venus, for UFO’s. As my interest grew, it became obvious that our government would respond to any new sighting by first ridicule of the person(s) making the report of the sighting and then responding with explanations that were not credible. In the D.C., sightings in 1953 a mass of objects were not only detected by eye, but by airport radar and yet dismissed without adequate explanation.
What added to the government’s ability to ridicule were the so-called direct contact cases, first made famous by George Adamski: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski and later by Betty and Barney Hill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Hill . Since the “contactees” in these cases seemed mainly to be self-serving individuals, they muddied the waters by being conflated with people who were seriously looking for explanations, or who had made direct sightings. Considering what the Huffpost article cited as details about the British Government’s policies, ridicule replaced research as a tool of institutional government investigation.
In further revealing my dirty little secret, I was for a time, in my teens, a dues paying member of The “National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (or NICAP). It was a civilian unidentified flying object research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NICAP
While I never lost interest in UFO’s, my interest waned as my puberty began to assert itself and other things in life became more important. However, I have read enough about the topic to be certain in my own mind that there is much more to it than merely misidentification of known objects, moneymaking schemes, and public hysteria. In fact, an article in yesterdays Huffpost shows that the amount of UFO sightings has increased in recent years: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/26/ufos-pilots-history-channel_n_935847.html
As someone interested in ancient history some of the writings of Sitchin, Velikovsy and Von Danniken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitchin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken
also, attract my interest and tie in with my feeling about UFO’s. I am keen on the possibility of Alien visits throughout human history and the possibility that they have affected our history and progress.
So there you have it. I’ve exposed one of the final embarrassing secrets about myself and opened up to your possible ridicule and/or opprobrium. Since we have so many people here who are qualified to comment, given their knowledge of science and other erudition, I would enjoy your comments. In any event, I feel much better having gotten this off my chest and while I’ve exposed myself further as someone with quirky sensibilities, I feel a certain lightness and freedom in making my confession.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Very quickly this site will be famous amid all blogging and site-building viewers,
due to it’s nice articles
Gene,
Thanks, especially because I love Michio Kaku.
Mike,
If you ever feel embarrassed about this again, just remember you are in good company.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alejandro-rojas/curious-about-ufos-youre-_b_951577.html
Basicly as humans got more established / abled to
catch the odd sabre toothed tiger and or dinosaur.
They began to have periods of relaxation / where
they would sit around the campfire’s telling stories
telling jokes // they then started to ask themselves
the question WHOM AM I // WHAT I MY DOING ON
THIS PLANET CONTINUING TO CIRCLE THE SUN.
At such a time there being no computers thus they
could not just look to the internet.So they looked to
the heavens /and considered the shooting stars as
a sign of other life out in space. Thus this the very
earliest of alien beliefs of UFO’s ////other life forms.
Later development / humans did not wish sharing
same cave. Some sought their own cave dwelling
much as todays housing with the first time buyers.
Shooting stars / the first alien distraction / nought
but shooting stars & much imagination as is today.
RE: Slartibartfast,
Extra-terrestrial phenomena isn’t something new to this planet. References to space ships, saucers, fire in the sky, gods, angels, have all been recorded since ancient times. (I highly recommend watching the History Channels Ancient Aliens.) Maybe the ancient sightings are being lost in translation with our modern thinking, but maybe there actually is intelligent life beyond our planet that is interested in our species (and cows – look at some of the strange cow mutilations on Google images. Dead cows in trees, all with the exact same surgery performed on them).
A personal belief of mine is that extra terrestrials manipulated our race to create what we have today. It’s strange to think that humans went from being animalistic hunter/gatherers, to Pharaos so quickly. I don’t think we decided that for ourselves. And there may be “evidence” of this in some Egyptian heiroglyphs. The stories of aliens abducting humans for genetic engineering corelate to our speedy advances in technology.
Of course, the question that sparks these whacky theories of mine is always “if.” Why not “if”? There may not be a lot of evidence to support the fact that extra terrestrials exist, but “if” they did and they WERE ancient Gods, then we could really start to explain some of the nonesense preached in ancient AND current religions.
The idea of “aliens” conjurs up little green men in silver space suits with laser guns. The truth is probably far from that. The government hasn’t disclosed aliens to us, and they probably never will. But there are many governments on Earth that are guilty of lying to their people, repeatedly too. You can’t base your opinions on what other people tell you. Period. You have to make your own decisions. Mine might seem crazy to you, but the best thing about them is that they are mine.
Much of the alien abduction fantasies arose via govt propaganda.
The cold war with Russia had to come to a end / western nations
in great need of Russia’s vast natural resources ……oil / gas / etc
however the problem RUSSIA for decades was used as an means
in the USA ever increasing its military forces / its nuclear stockpile
RUSSIA it claimed wished to DESTROY DEMOCRACY / TO TAKE
AWAY FREEDOM /INSTALLING A COMMUNIST GOVT in the USA.
Thus the USA had to replace RUSSIA as the enemy /thus continue
its growing military force / its growing stockpile of nuclear capability.
Alas poor muslims were the chosen victim // as media propaganda
put RUSSIA as being a friend of western nations the same western
proaganda machine made muslims islam enemy of western nations
much aided by the movie industry /whom in producing a production
line // a deluge of movies where muslim terrorists were / attempting
to blow up bridges / trains / planes / hot air ballons / etc etc movies
having no real plot but that of constnt violence // putting muslims as
the lowest of the low / whom intending bring /destruction of the USA.
Though taking time it worked // RUSSIA becoming the friend / while
muslims put as public enemy NUMBER 1 whom needed destroyed
thus allowing the USA to continue its military build up / unto its cost
so astronomical // rather aid a USA /it brought the nations collapse
the military cost in its upkeep / the cost of wars crippling the nation.
Back to the aliens // while the backroom boys were dreaming up the
most effective propaganda scams // as in justifying a USA’s growing
military might // they came up with a novel idea that the nation must
be prepared to defend itself from a alien attack // it then suggested
people the victims of alien kidnappings // where they being taken to
alien ships where experimented upon /alien devices planted in their
brains // thus they were being tracked / put fully under alien control.
Many americans / victims of the 24 / 7 brainwashing media agenda
believing the brainwashing & started reporting of their kidnappings
claiming took to enemy alien spaceships where experimented upon.
Thus the alien fiasco had its roots in the ending of the cold war with
RUSSIA & THE START OF THE RELIGIOUS WARS WITH MUSLIMS.
squelsch,
What do you see as clues that aliens have been directly involved (by which I assume you mean more than UFO sightings) with humans throughout history? Personally, I think that the world will truly believe in aliens when (and if – I don’t believe that aliens have visited the Earth as I’ve said above) the scientific evidence supports that conclusion – which I don’t believe it currently does.