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11.12.7

The Big Moment

Ex-governor of Arizona Fife Symington and his assistant Jay Heiler dressed as an alien during a news conference in Phoenix during the Phoenix Lights event in July of 1997.

Tim here at Binnall of America suggested I write about my "thoughts on the latest round of quasi disclosure in the mainstream media." Because I have the greatest admiration and respect for Tim, I'll go along with the suggestion. But I hadn't planned on saying anything, because, as I told Tim, "I'm bored, baby!"

In other words, what "disclosure?" It's the same thing that comes around every six months or so, or annually; a tizzy over disclosure. And then the thing happens; The Big News. But the big news turns out to not be so big. Even if it is very interesting and pretty big it gets lost among silliness and debate. The various skeptic life forms have a field day, UFO researchers fight amongst themselves, the media just gets silly, and the few honest ones out there get lost in the fray.

When it's all over, the "thing" is forgotten, except for those of us obsessed with this stuff, and no one listens to us anyway. It ends up not mattering if it's true or not, or how heavy the "disclosure thing" is, because most everyone stopped listening and moved on to something else.

This is assuming that disclosure will ever happen. Real disclosure that is. I have no doubt some big announcement or event will happen, that some government bigwigs from somewhere will announce the "truth" about Roswell, or Shag Harbor, or aliens, or . . . take your pick. It will be astounding. It will be a global moment of AWE. But will it be the truth? I don't think so. It will be what they want us to know, what they want us to learn, what they want us to think and how they want us to respond to such things. There might be some truth in there, but it will be so tangled up with disinformation that it doesn't matter.

Dennis Kucinich was brave and has handled the stupid but expected jokes about UFOs (by the way, just why the hell do people laugh when they hear the word "UFO?") with grace; he was straightforward about the fact he saw a UFO. Larry King had a panel of UFO witnesses on recently (again) but had to dilute the impact by having on a skeptic of the pathological variety. Sorry, having a skeptic on in this context is not "being balanced" and I'm not going there. Don't bother. Shirley MacLaine makes the rounds because of her new book and her relationship with Kucinich, and Fife Symington reiterates the Big News he saw UFOs in Phoenix during the Phoenix Lights event ten years ago.

That latter is big as well as good but it's not enough.

I trust the individual stories of people who take a risk and go public with their UFO stories. Anything outside of that, anything coming from official agencies, from government, academic institutions, science -- in other words, the infrastructure, I immediately distrust.

The individuals from that infrastructure may try, like Kucinich (see Lesley's current Grey Matters column here on BoA; I agree with her about Kucinich "sending a message") but they are only one person immersed in a huge messy web that will never let them succeed.

I know I sound cynical. I prefer to call it realistic. I suppose, though, some revelations are better than none. Each little eking out of UFO news sends one more ripple of understanding about the phenomena out there in the culture, the world. Slow as molasses, but it's something I guess.

Being a flying saucer junkie I of course will stay tuned. But I'm not expecting much. And if more disclosure big time news comes our way, I'd be very wary, rather than amazed, depending on the source.

But one of the things that I love about being a participant-observer of the esoteric is that I could be wrong, and end up being very surprised.

Notes

Photo credit: AP source/Scott Troyanos from UFOs Northwest website

http://www.ufosnw.com/news_items/govsymington03182007/govsymington03182007.htm


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