Several individuals including Terry Blanton, Harvey Norris, Jones Beene, and even the esteemed Mr. Malloy have recently expressed thoughtful opinions on the Extraterrestrial conundrum over this Memorial Day weekend. I've enjoyed reading all of them. I myself must confess to having gone on incessantly concerning my own personal opinions for which I will not bother to reiterate here.
Well... except for one or two additional points I hope some will find interesting if not entertaining. ITEM ONE: Years ago I carried on a brief but revealing conversation via email with a military officer who had been assigned the job of handling PR with the civilian sector on numerous military affairs including, peripherally, UFO reports. This brief conversation occurred during the mid 1990s. The individual, in fact, had contacted me because he felt I had misquoted him in one of the UFO related discussion groups I used to hang out in. I believe it was in the ALT.PARENET.UFO discussion group. Apparently, the officer occasionally lurked in this group as well. In our brief follow-up private exchanges I tried to clear up any misunderstandings pertaining to what he felt were "misquotes" I had laid at his front door concerning the military's constantly evolving definitive conclusions on the Roswell incident. IOW, don't shoot the messenger! I could sympathize with his situation since I suspect it was likely that he had not volunteered for this particular "PR" assignment. Never the ! less, during our brief conversations it soon became obvious to me that he was not versed in the historical aspects of the UFO phenomenon nor the military's frequent involvement in the subject. I suspect he had little interest in the subject. He told me innocently, and with some candor I might add, that he found the entire topic concerning UFOs a bit overwhelming. He also admitted that he found it difficult to believe in the possibility that our planet may have been visited by extraterrestrials. Certainly not a unique or controversial opinion! What I found interesting was one of the reasons he gave me as to why he believed it was not likely we had been visited. He wondered why they simply didn't land on the white house lawn and announce themselves to the world. THEN he would believe in ETs. I tried suggest the concept (and to a military officer I might add) that any foreign power initiating such a sudden and unexpected "self-introduction" would not likely be taken as a frien! dly gesture by those in charge with maintaining the safety of our nati on's security. I tried to use this as a starting point to get him to ask himself the vexing question as to what might be a more rational way contact might be initiated. Unfortunately, or perhaps conveniently from his point of view, he terminated our conversations as he had been signed up to take a two week training course in some other military skill. That was the end of our communications. Here we had an individual who was given the assignment of dispensing the military's official opinion on numerous UFO matters to the public; an innocent individual who probably didn't volunteer for this assignment, nor did he have any particular interest in it in the first place. Had he been intentionally given this PR assignment because of his lack of experience and interest, or was it simply an innocent choice made by superiors who for the most part cared little about the subject themselves. I suspect it was the latter. Close enough for government work. ITEM TWO: Personally I see little evidence that the majority of the inhabitants on our planet are prepared, psychologically speaking, for contact with whatever groups or organizations might be darting about up there in the vast "Final Frontier." I realize it has often been stated that fear and mayhem would rein over the planet if they were to announce themselves. Such a premise, in fact, has been discussed ad-nausea by numerous groups and organizations including their great aunt. As to what I've been able to ascertain it seems that raging arguments for or against the belief that physical evidence exists strongly suggested to me that we would literally have to be hit over the head with an extraterrestrial sledge hammer before most of the population would sit up and take notice. IOW, I suspect it will take far more than puzzling evidence such as a mysterious lizard scale left at the scene of the crime to make the case. I would suggest we not take most of the Science Fiction stories and films that have come out in the last century as evidence of how educated and/or prepared we might be for overt contact. If anything, it seems to suggest to me the exact opposite. As a society we LOVE to be entertained, to be titillated by stories of mythical creatures wearing both white and black hats. Help them phone home - otherwise blast their acidic guts against the bulkhead before they turn you into food for their own hungry offspring. The point is we love to be ENTERTAINED. It is a harmless, safe and to a certain extent a remote experience. At the conclusion of the story we can turn the TV off - close the book. We could no longer do that if one of those pesky UFOs came down and deliberately got itself filmed with someone peaking and waving through one of the portholes on prime time news. "Game over! Game over! What will we do now!" - Quote from a highly successful sequel film: Aliens Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
