I hosted a roundtable this past April that consisted of four of some of the most recognizable personalities in UFO research. For the second time I had the pleasure of speaking with disclosure activist Stephen Bassett. More often than not, my thoughts on disclosure have been somewhat polarized. I believe whole-heartedly in letting the public decide for themselves what they should believe and how they should interpret the beliefs of others. It is this free will that defines our desire to be individuals and is part of the essence of being human. I agree that “national security” has been more of a security blanket used as a catch-all for anything that falls outside of the realm of definable and controllable phenomena. So do I agree with the idea that disclosure is needed? Yes, and I also agree that it is our right as Americans and citizens of the world to demand it. Do I think the world is ready for it? No. No, I do not, and this is where I will diverge from the research of many of my peers in saying that I have enormous faith in humanity, yet no faith in humanity’s ability to organize and implement governing systems, and this is where we constantly fall apart.
Disclosure represents many things, but at its core it is about the dissemination of truth. Truth is the seminal double-edged sword. The sigh of relief that accompanies truth is wrought with barbs that often tear, mangle and incapacitate in its release. With disclosure comes truth and I think the brand of truth that many UFOlogists seek often strips the emotion from the experience and looks at validation and confirmation, but not necessarily closure, and I’m talking about the kind of closure that comes from finally coming to terms with trauma. Trauma is a rarely used word in UFO culture. We are all prone to throw around terms like “advanced propulsion” and “aerial maneuvers” but trauma is a bird of a different feather. If I were inclined to use trauma in reference to the UFO phenomena, and more importantly the ET “problem” I might say. “ the way in which the subject was taken from their home, subjected to multiple tests that were both intrusive physically and of a sexual nature left the victim in a state of shock that led to long term psychiatric issues stemming from the initial trauma”. I think that could be an accurate way to use the word effectively. It might also be the same phrasing used in a police report to describe an assault, a rape, or a kidnapping. It is, however, a phrase you would also expect to hear in an account of an alien abduction, and it is the abduction phenomena that raises not only some serious questions for me about disclosure, but some very serious concerns as well.
How do you try another planet for their crimes? The legal issues alone surrounding disclosure are near insurmountable. Are we expected to wipe the slate clean once the smoke of cloak and dagger has dissipated? What about the victims of abductions that have lost their family, friends, jobs and their credibility over what they have experienced? Is it going to be easy for them to see a race absolved of guilt, while they are expected to still seek closure on their own as victims unavenged? Will there be any recompense for the lost time, the lost dollars on therapy, the lost sanity of the “experiencers” once the veil of conspiracy has lifted. Further more, who does take responsibility?
It is responsibility that possibly troubles me the most. How will the world’s governments look in the eyes of their people, regardless of how they try to spin it? What will their angle be or, more importantly, is there one that at all? To admit that they were unaware of the phenomena to a point or even unable to adequately control it points toward negligence worthy of a global outcry. If they admit involvement, they become the very enemies of the people they were sworn to protect. If the problem is so far out of their control they are admitting that their protection is, at best, a smokescreen; another lie to placate a public whose interests they haven’t fully served.
Let’s take the former and the implications that the situation is unable to be controlled by our world’s governments. If this is the case, we need to look not only at the criminal activities of the guilty party (Plaedians, greys, Taliban, etc) but the crimes against humanity that they are also responsible for:
- Violation of Restricted Air Space – If disclosure reveals that craft have been coming and going at their leisure, that means our national security has been violated innumerable times.
- Abduction, Restraint and Torture of Private Citizens – The abduction phenomena, complex and sometimes terrifying in all of its David Lynchesque facets, represents an intrusion and torture on a level reminiscent of waterboarding.
- Animal Cruelty and Terrorism - Cattle mutilations represent a level of detached indifference that startles and horrifies those who witness the end result. The tendency to leave the carcass could be seen as psychological intimidation as well (think this is a reach? If they really wanted to be discrete, I’m sure they could find a better disposal method rather than just throwing it out their car window into the ditch)
So what does all of this mean? What is means to me is that a party or parties hitherto unidentified have been committing acts of tyranny, violence and psychological intimidation worthy of a declaration of war. Once the parties responsible have been identified (in this case through disclosure) how are we to deal with them in a manner that holds them responsible for what they have done? How would we be able to combat their technologies to even hold them accountable?
I am still an advocate of disclosure, however. The truth, no matter how painful or difficult is still the truth. I think it is just going to be a bittersweet truth that could very possibly blow forth the winds of war.
