Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/genufo2/alien8.txt

Text File | 1997-02-01 | 10.9 KB | 175 lines

By ROGER HILLIS
 As we approach the year 2000, the UFO phenomenon is beginning to
be taken more seriously than in previous decades. The Information
Age has yielded a new breed who are taking a "just the facts, ma╒am"
approach to the age old question "are we alone?"
Computer hackers now have a place to discuss their beliefs with
experts as well as novices on the internet.
Camcorder-wielding private citizens get to air their clips on nationally
popular television shows such as "Sightings" and "Unsolved Mysteries."
In fact, after a mass UFO sighting in Mexico City in 1991, the Mexican
version of "60 Minutes" invited viewers to send in their home videos
and was deluged with dozens, some taken by professional news
cameramen.
 Americans have wondered whether their government has a real life
"X-Files" ever since July of 1947, when the infamous "Roswell
Incident" took place. On July 8 of that year, the Associated Press aired
a U.S. Air Force press release stating that a "crashed flying disc had
been found and was in the possession of the military." The disc had
supposedly crashed near an airbase in Roswell, NM. Within minutes,
countries around the world were flooding the American military with
phone calls demanding to see the debris. The Air Force quickly
prepared a new press release explaining that it was all a big mistake,
that a "weather balloon had fallen."
In the years since, the story has gained mythological status among
UFOlogists and entire books have been written on the incident. Dozens
of witnesses have asserted that there were indeed extraterrestrial
occupants in this craft, that autopsies were performed, and that the
government undertook a massive coverup.
In 1993, Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM) entered the fray at the request of
his constituents. In trying to obtain records regarding the Roswell
incident, Schiff was given the runaround by the Dept. of Defense; he
called upon the General Accounting Office to "force their hand" so to
speak. On Sept. 8, 1994 the Air Force coincidentally issued a press
release that made the front page of the New York Times, admitting
that they had lied to the public in 1947. It wasn╒t a weather balloon
that had crashed in Roswell, it was a spy satellite balloon intended to
detect Soviet nuclear testing in the hemisphere. The G.A.O. continued
its investigation, requesting records from the FBI, CIA, Dept. of
Defense, Dept. of Energy, and White House Office of Science and
Technology. On July 28, 1995, the G.A.O.╒s final report was released,
with the findings that "all Roswell administrative records and outgoing
messages from the years 1946-1949 had been destroyed without
traceable authorization."
On Aug. 28, 1995 a television documentary debuted on Fox television
in America and various networks worldwide entitled "Alien Autopsy:
Fact or Fiction?" The program depicted a graphic autopsy on a being
supposedly yanked from the Roswell wreckage. The story goes that an
elderly retired Air Force photographer held onto several canisters of
the film after shooting it in 1947, and sold it to filmmaker Ray Santili,
who had been scouring the country looking for obscure Elvis Presley
footage for a documentary. Santili says he bought the footage for
$100,000, sold it to Fox for $250,000, and home videos are now
available for $60 a pop.
The grainy, gruesome autopsy footage has been the cause of debate
among many pathologists and anatomists, as well as Hollywood special
effects artists. Walter Andrus is the international director of the
Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the world╒s largest such research
organization with 5,300 members and chapters in each state. "I╒ve
been to screenings of the film in England and Mexico and seen it on
television, and I still have more questions than answers," says Andrus.
"In MUFON, we deal strictly with scientific evidence. There still isn╒t
definitive proof as to the age of the film stock. Nobody╒s been able to
track down the supposed cameraman. He╒s been identified as Jack
Barnett, but we don╒t believe that╒s his real name. I have a feeling the
film╒s not from Roswell."
One person who definitely believes that the film is not from Roswell is
Joe Nicol, senior research fellow at the ╥Skeptical Inquirer,╙ a
nationally distributed magazine published by the Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. "The autopsy
film? H-O-A-X. This whole affair has all the earmarks of a hoax," says
Nicol, who helped debunk the Jack the Ripper diaries in 1993. "The
surgeon isn╒t even holding the scissors the right way. I think we╒ll find
out eventually that the film isn╒t from 1947. I mean, there are people
who still believe in the shroud of Turin. Do you mean to tell me that
couldn╒t have been done by artists? Humbug." Nicol believes that the
entire Roswell incident has been a modern myth since the get-go.
"There are always going to be paranoid-conspiracy people who love to
say, A-HA! There are people in flying saucerdom who think there╒s a
secret government within the government that spreads
disinformation. I just wish people would get a life. Our government╒s
not competent enough to do all this."
While it is true that 90-percent of all UFO sightings turn out to have a
plausible earthly explanation, there is a remaining 10-percent that
baffles those who take the time to examine the evidence. The Freedom
of Information Act has uncovered many hitherto unpublicized cases.
Some well-documented ones have also eroded in public memory
with the passing of time. Debunkers who ask, "Why don╒t aliens land
on the White House lawn if they╒re real?" may be forgetting about the
night of July 26, 1952 when several UFOs buzzed the Oval Office. The
crafts were seen from the ground, from the air, photographed, and
caught on radar. Two flights of air force interceptors were dispatched
from New Castle, DE; the objects were chased away from the vicinity
but outran our fighters.

ALIEN ABDUCTIONS
Perhaps no aspect of the paranormal has gotten as much attention in
the '90s as the phenomenon of alien abduction. Stories of people being
spirited from their cars on deserted roads or from their bedrooms late
at night with accompanying missing time and memory loss had been
whispered about or scoffed at until well-known author Whitley
Streiber "came out of the closet" so to speak with the release of his
book "Communion" in 1987. Through hypnosis-regression therapy, he
began to retrieve shocking memories of encounters with grey-skinned,
large-eyed beings he referred to as "visitors." The book unexpectedly
went to the top of the New York Times best-seller list, selling millions
worldwide. After a sequel, "Transformation," in 1989 and attacks from
unbelieving critics, Streiber withdrew from the public arena until the
recent publication of his book "Breakthrough: the Next Step." In this
book, he chronicles experiences of his that he says have a dozen
different eyewitnesses that would "convince a court of law;" he╒s also
submitted to various polygraph tests and medical and mental
evaluations in trying to prove his stability. Streiber has reluctantly
become a spokesperson for the abductees, and claims to have received
over 140,000 letters from his readers, many wishing to share their
experiences with a sympathetic ear. Estimates as to the number of
American abductees vary from a few hundred thousand to three
million, while a Roper poll indicated that 15 million people have had
some type of UFO sighting or experience. Numbers like these have
drawn reputable researchers into the phenomenon, like Dr. David
Jacobs, Associate Professor of History at Temple University, and
the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dr. John Mack, a tenured professor of
psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. The latter has drawn
considerable press of late since the publication of his book "Abducted:
Human Encounters with Aliens." Some of Mack╒s colleagues at Harvard
were none too thrilled about his involvement in such a controversial
subject; a committee drew up a critical report to present to the dean of
the school. That decision divided the academic community; the final
report amounted to a slap on the wrist. MUFON╒s Walter Andrus says
"John is one of our members and this situation has cost him a lot of
time and money. But I think if the committee had forced him
out, they╒d have been criticized for being narrow-minded."
The ever-skeptical Joe Nicol says, "I╒ve met Mack. I think he╒s a
sincere but misguided person. I think these mass abduction claims are
a type of ╘social contagion╒ or ╘psychic contagion." And I think Streiber
is a classic case of waking dream syndrome."
Indeed, there are many alternative explanations being bandied about.
Mass dreams, mass hallucinations, temporal-lobe epilepsy -- the
theories are many. Only one thing is certain -- the consistency
between reports and descriptions from abductees around the country
is uncanny.Dr. Barbara Pomar is a certified hypnotherapist and
regression specialist with offices in Wilmington, DE and Salisbury, MD.
She has several patients who are abductees. "People say these are
fantasies? If they are, they╒re very vivid ones," said Dr. Pomar.
"Scientifically, the probability is that we╒re not alone. To me, the
contact experience is another event that happens on this planet. It╒s
scary that we have no control over it. I try to help people to overcome
the fear they have. During the process, I try to eliminate all other
possibilities. I have had patients who thought they were abducted who
were not... For people who have been abducted, I try to help them
understand that there╒s a lot of people going through this."
To this end, support groups have sprung up around the country,
whereby those who have had a close encounter can get together and
meet others like them. Locally, as many as 60 people come together on
the third Thursday of each month for the E.T. Contact Support Group
meetings held at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in
Newark, DE on 420 Willa Road.
Some groups gather at each other╒s homes. Forty-year-old Lee
Townsend of Cumberland, MD attends such smaller meetings in nearby
West Friendship. He had an experience at age 18 and now spends most
of his weekends studying the phenomenon.
Says Townsend, "Unquestionably there is something going on. Are
these beings extraterrestrial? Possibly. Are they from another
dimension or alternate reality? Possibly. I don╒t know. At some point
with this you have to take a leap of faith, like with the concept of God.
I think we╒ve been so conditioned over the last 400 years that we╒ve
become close-minded. We╒ve grown so quickly technologically, yet so
slowly mentally. As for the government, who knows? Maybe they
have a valid reason for keeping things quiet."
Barbara Pomar concurs. "I╒d be extremely surprised if the government
wasn╒t investigating this."Which brings us back to square one; the idea
that if there is "another intelligence" out there, the old Firesign
Theatre quote may have been on the money -- "everything you know
is wrong."