[...] Scientific analysis will
undoubtedly provide part of the truth about UFOs; however, I no
longer believe it will lead to the whole truth. I owe this
realization to a man I shall call “Major Murphy,” although his
actual rank is much higher than that of Major. He taught me a
lesson I am not likely to forget.
Major Murphy, who retired from a U.S. Intelligence service quite
a few years ago, had seen action in World War II in Italy, and
also described vividly his investigations in the Caribbean,
where he organized efforts to intercept submarines and German
spies on their way to the United States.
I met him at a gathering of UFO
contactees and suggested a drink when it was over. I expressed
my surprise at his interest in the event, which I had regarded
as a complete waste of time. He asked me to clarify this
judgment, and I said that in my opinion none of the people in
attendance knew anything about science.
Then he posed a question
that, obvious as it seems, had not really occurred to me:
“What
makes you think that UFOs are a scientific problem?”
I replied with something to the effect that a problem was only
scientific in the way it was approached, but he would have none
of that, and he began lecturing me. First, he said, science had
certain rules. For example, it has to assume that the phenomenon
it is observing is natural in origin rather than artificial and
possibly biased.
Now, the UFO phenomenon could be controlled by
alien beings.
“If it is,” added the Major, “then the study of it
doesn’t belong in science. It belongs in Intelligence.”
MEANING
COUNTERESPIONAGE. And that, he pointed out, was his domain.
“Now, in the field of counterespionage, the rules are completely
different.” He drew a simple diagram in my notebook. “You are a
scientist. In science there is no concept of the ‘price’ of
information. Suppose I gave you 95 per cent of the data
concerning a phenomenon. You’re happy because you know 95 per
cent of the phenomenon. Not so in Intelligence.
If I get 95 per
cent of the data, I know this is the ‘cheap’ part of the
information. I still need the other 5 per cent, but I will have
to pay a much higher price to get it. You see, Hitler had 95 per
cent of the information about the landing in Normandy.
But he
had the WRONG 95 PER CENT!”
“Are you saying that the UFO data we
use to compile statistics and to find patterns with computers
are useless?” I asked. “Might we be spinning our magnetic tapes
endlessly discovering spurious laws?”
“It all depends on how the team on
the OTHER SIDE thinks. If they know what they’re doing, there
will be so many cutouts between you and them that you won’t have
the slightest chance of tracing your way to the truth. Not by
following up sightings and throwing them into a computer.
They
will keep feeding you the information they want you to process.
What is the only source of data about the UFO phenomenon? It is
the UFOs themselves!”
Some things were beginning to make a lot of sense.
“If you’re
right, what can I do? It seems that research on the phenomenon
is hopeless, then. I might as well dump my computer into a
river.”
“Not necessarily, but you should try a different approach. First
you should work entirely outside of the organized UFO groups;
they are infiltrated by the same official agencies they are
trying to influence, and they propagate any rumor anyone wants
to have circulated. In Intelligence circles, people like that
are historical necessities.
We call them ‘useful idiots.’ When
you’ve worked long enough for Uncle Sam, you know he is involved
in a lot of strange things. The data these groups get are biased
at the source, but they play a useful role.
“Second, you should look for the irrational, the bizarre, the
elements that do not fit: that’s what I have come to observe at
this meeting tonight. Have you ever felt that you were getting
close to something that didn’t seem to fit any rational pattern,
yet gave you a strong impression that it was significant?”
The absurdity of many UFO stories
and of many religious visions is not a superficial logical
mistake. It may be the key to their function. According to Major
Murphy, the confusion in the UFO mystery may have been put there
deliberately to achieve certain results.
One of these results
has been to keep scientists away. The other is to create the
conditions for a new form of social control, a change in Man’s
perception of his place in the universe. Are his theories
fantastic? Before we decide, let us review a few other facts. We
need to examine more closely the political connections.
Paris Flammonde, in his well-documented “Age of Flying Saucers,”
remarked that “a great many of the contactees purvey
philosophies which are tinged, if not tainted, with totalitarian
overtones.”
A catalogue of contactee themes, compiled from interviews I have
conducted, includes the following.
INTELLECTUAL ABDICATION
The widespread belief that human
beings are incapable of solving their own problems, and that
extraterrestrial intervention is imperative to save us “in spite
of ourselves.”
The danger in such a philosophy is that it makes
its believers dependent on outside forces and discourages
personal responsibility: why should we worry about the problems
around us, if the Gods from Outer Space are about to solve them?
RACIST PHILOSOPHY
The pernicious suggestion that some
of us on the Earth are of extraterrestrial descent and therefore
constitute a “higher race.”
The dangers inherent in this belief
should be obvious to anybody who hasn’t forgotten the genocides
of World War II, executed on the premise that some races were
somehow “purer” or better than others.
(Let us note in passing
that Adamski’s Venusian, the Stranger of the Canigou seen by
Bordas, and many other alleged extraterrestrials were all tall
Aryan types with long blond hair.)
TECHNICAL IMPOTENCE
The statement that the birth of
civilization on this planet resulted not from the genius and
ability of mankind, but from repeated assistance by higher
beings.
Archaeologists and anthropologists are constantly aware
of the marvelous skill with which the “Ancient Engineers” (to
use L. Sprague de Camp’s phrase) developed the tools of
civilization on all continents.
No appear to superior powers is
necessary to explain the achievements of early culture. The
belief expressed by the contactees reveals a tragic lack of
trust on their part in human ability.
SOCIAL UTOPIA
Fantastic economic theories,
including the belief that a “world economy” can be created
overnight, and that democracy should be abolished in favor of
utopian systems, usually dictatorial in their outlook.
Such ideas are present, in one form or another, in the
statements of organized UFO cults and sects that are described
here, and they deserve to be examined in some detail.
