Sunday, May 18, 2008

UFOs and Conspiracies

The British Government has just started releasing batches of previously classified UFO files after a number of requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The files document reported sightings of UFOs by members of the public and the RAF. With Pluto about to make its final visit to Sagittarius, the timing is appropriate. Eight files have been released, part of almost 200 to be released over the next 4 years.

Here are some drawings made by members of the public. (From the BBC news website.)
They include this diagram, whose author believed alien craft used decoy methods to avoid detection, carrying not humans but "fallen angels".

This drawing of a UFO was made from a description given by a 78-year-old man, who claims he was taken on board an alien craft at Basingstoke Canal in Aldershot during 1983.

This reproduction of a UFO was made by a Metropolitan Police officer after three officers saw an object at Stanmore in Harrow in 1984.

A 1979 government briefing for the House of Lords dismissed the idea of political collusion with aliens:

d. There has been no approach to Governments, and no direct knowledge of UFOs by Governments. Lord Clancarty has an answer: there is a great inter-governmental conspiracy of silence, initiated by the CIA.

15. The idea of the inter-Governmental conspiracy of silence is at once the most astonishing and the most flattering claim of all. On so few things can the Governments of the world agree unanimously, but they have all supposedly agreed to conceal the evidence of UFOs from their peoples. Let me assure this House that her Majesty’s Government has never been approached by people from outer space.

Personally, I have no reason to doubt that these experiences were real. And I'm sure they weren't all just mistaking aircraft for UFOs. Beyond that, I don't know.

It's an excellent subject for conspiracy theorists. I like the point about how hard it is to get governments to agree on anything, so what chance a world-wide conspiracy of silence? Of course there are things we don't get told. But I'm continually disappointed by conspiracy theories, because I'd love it if some of them were true. What I keep finding is that the people who promote these theories make very shoddy use of any available evidence or theories that don't agree with their own theory, and 'facts' are presented which turn out to be anything but. These people clearly have a strong psychological need to believe their theories, quite possibly rooted in a sense of powerlessness.

If anyone knows of a conspiracy theory where the case is well-argued, and both sides presented, please let me know! With Pluto entering Capricorn, a time in which we can expect more government control and secrets, we may be about to enter a Golden Age of conspiracy theories!


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4 comments:

Melody Scott Zindell said...

Hi DR, as I'm sure you know the Catholic church recently announced that it's OK to believe in aliens and that's why I'm preparing for an alien invasion :)

A joke, but not a joke. Perhaps my thinking is just not clear enough, but I've read and listened to many many solid conspiracy pieces, and in the next few days when I have some spare moments I'll see what I can pull up for you.

My Saturn in Scorpio retrograde in the 9th house does not have to do with my sense of powerlessness :) but rather that I was born both in the height of CIA developing into what it's become with its concurrent corruption, and into a family who grew up overseas exposed to all manner of political nuances with a father who was a powerful and charismatic missionary world leader with a degree in political science but who was also a covert part time spy with the CIA...really! What I both know and have been through will have to wait until he dies when my siblings and I are planning a book....

Barry Goddard said...

Hi Melody, yes I blogged about that alien one. Apparently Father Funes of the Vatican Observatory also speculated that aliens might be free from Original Sin. Poor chap, I think he's getting other worlds and heaven confused.

I suppose it depends what is meant by conspiracy. Of course governments get up to all sorts that we don't know about, and I'm sure there's stuff that you know, it's a matter of being exposed to it, like anything else. It seems to me quite plausible, for example, that Kennedy's assassination could have been a conspiracy, it wouldn't be that hard, but it could still also have been a lone nutter.

It's these far-fetched ones that I have a problem with, that require hundreds of people in on them, like the moon landings one, where there have been no Nasa whistle blowers out of hundreds of employees; or these shadowy groups of financiers who 'really' rule the world and have done for centuries; or the incredibly convoluted plot, again requiring hundreds of people and no whistle-blowers, to make 9/11 look like a bunch of Arabs etc. It's these sorts of conspiracies that I have yet to see a well-balanced, non-dogmatic case for, where there isn't this idea of 'the Truth', but more like disinterested arguments for and against.

I am pretty convinced they are the product of pathologies, and that they then draw in a lot of people who aren't used to thinking critically, but I would love to be proved wrong!

Gill said...

Long before Kenneth Arnold initiated the modern age of the societal phenomenon known as UFO, there were already "flying saucers" that had little in common with spacecraft from other planets.

Any enthusiast of aviation history will have encountered sketches of "flying saucers" and discoidal aircraft more than once in aviation catalogues and publications. In his own day, Leonardo Da Vinci had already sketched the outlines of circular vehicles: war wagons, movable fortresses, and other artifacts which, had they been endowed with the power of flight, would be the perfect ancestors of our "flying saucers."

During the 1930's, a number of circular wing aircraft were built in the United States, some of which would eventually confuse ufologists, who took them as evidence of UFOs which had crashed on American soil. On one hand, H. Zimmerman conducted several tests in 1932 with a variety of circular wing aircraft inside a wind tunnel in order to prove the lesser degree of distension in their extremities. Visit:
http://members.tripod.com/uforeview/naziufo.html

Anonymous said...

When the idea that 9-11 might have been an inside job was presented to me, i was completely disinterested. It seemed preposterous. My friend who proposed the idea to me went on to give some of the evidence, and my interest was piqued. I started investigating the matter myself. Now, i'm completely sure that he was right.

I have found an excellent book on the topic: Painful Questions, by Eric Hufschmidt. There are things to criticise about Hufschmidt-- for example, some of what he says about the medical treatment JFKennedy received after being shot seem a little ignorant to me-- but he asks enough valid, moving questions, in many different directions, about 9-11, that i think he's worth listening to.

One of Hufschmidt's most compelling pieces of evidence, in my opinion, is that the US military has the power to have policing jets anywhere in US airspace in under 10 minutes. There are always servicepeople ready to "scramble" jets in this manner. They were available on that day, in fact. He gives the number of times jets were scrambled in a particular year, and it is over 150 times.

Oh, i am tempted to list fact after fact, but i encourage you to read the book. I'm convinced that if you read it, there will be some piece of the story that is sketchy enough to grab your attention and make you doubt what would be a lot more pleasant to believe.