{"id":1975,"date":"2010-11-14T22:25:33","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T05:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2010-11-15T09:55:54","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T16:55:54","slug":"the-cia-ufos-fairies-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1975","title":{"rendered":"The CIA, UFOs, Fairies, etc."},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reading Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Pyschological Warfare, and UFOs<\/em><\/a>, by Mark Pilkington. (There is a related documentary film<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Small disclaimer: I met Mark Pilkington a few years ago in England. We did not talk about UFOs nor about the fact that he was one of the people making crop circles for “cereologists<\/a>” to get all cranked up about.<\/p>\n

I have not yet finished the book, but one of its these seems to be that a lot of the UFO material out there is deliberate disinformation by various intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

Why? Consider this scenario, which happened various times in the past: Military radar operators report suspicious “returns” over an airbase. Fighter aircraft are scrambled to intercept the intruders. Once airborne, however, the pilots cannot find the intruders. Must be technologically advanced UFOs!<\/p>\n

This means that (a) alien beings have crossed the galaxy in order to play games with our radar operators, or (b) someone here on Earth is working on ways to “spoof” radar signals in order to confuse potential enemies and cause them to fly around looking for intruders that are not there\u2014while, presumably, the real attacker sneaks in undetected.<\/p>\n

Occam’s Razor<\/a>: They sell them in 12-packs at Walgreens<\/a> and Boots the Chemist. <\/a><\/p>\n

Why would intelligence agencies feed deliberate misinformation to the public at large and to UFO “researchers” in particular? Some possible reasons:<\/p>\n

1. During the Cold War, to baffle the Soviet Union and divert their military from #2, below.<\/p>\n

2. To create a belief in “UFOs” that in turn camouflages actual experiments in spy planes, “stealth” technology, drone aircraft, and other secret research.<\/p>\n

Create an image and a predisposition, and people will see what they expect to see.<\/p>\n

3. To conduct experiments in disinformation in a controlled way: for example, how long does it take a particular piece of “disinformation” to become broadly accepted and by what channels is it disseminated? The whole “Majestic 12<\/a>” hoax might be an example. Or “cattle mutilations,” or what you will. A lot of Pilkington’s book is devoted to tracing some of these pathways of disinformation.<\/p>\n

What about Fairies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If alien races did arrive here, they probably would not step out of\u00a0 mechanical “flying saucers” wearing silver coveralls. Anyone who could conquer the whole issue of traveling faster than the speed of light would likely be so advanced that we not even perceive them.<\/p>\n

To use a metaphor from the book, do the goldfish in the bowl know that someone is watching them swim around?<\/p>\n

All talk of UFOs aside, I do tend to think that there are<\/em> other beings who share our space, in a manner of speaking.<\/p>\n

They have been here all along<\/a>. They appear in various forms. They are not necessarily our friends<\/a>. (Which is why the whole phenomenon of “fairy festivals” makes me feel a little queasy.) Lots of weirdness.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mix them<\/em> up with your favorite intelligence agency, and watch out!<\/p>\n

Another facet of Mirage Men<\/em> that I appreciate is that it shows how investigating forms of paranormal (or perceived paranormal) activity can have unsettling effects on the investigator. Rampant paranoia is just part of it.<\/p>\n

The classic work, to my mind, on this phenomenon is John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies<\/em><\/a>, published in 1975.\u00a0 (Ignore the 2002 movie, please, unless you have to watch everything that Richard Gere ever did.)<\/p>\n

What is interesting is not whether “Mothman” exists or not, but what happens to Keel and his associates when they begin to investigate it. Talk about having one foot on the Other Side! (Or are they victims of disinformation too? More paranoia …)<\/p>\n

It reminded me of the summer when a newspaper reporter friend, a lodge of wannabe ceremonial magicians, and I decided to investigate the so-called cattle mutilations<\/a>. Things went downhill into weirdness fairly quickly.<\/p>\n

I published the story in <\/a>Fate<\/a> <\/em> (\u201cMutilation Madness.\u201d Fate<\/em> June 1988: 60-70), but this was back in the pre-digital 1980s, so there is nothing to link to. Sorry.<\/p>\n

One last quote from <\/strong>Mirage Men<\/em> that more or less summarizes it:<\/p>\n

The UFO scene is overrun with whistleblowers who regale us with tales of underground bases and intergalactic pacts while waving impressive-looking documents around as evidence. To the believers these people are clearly on the side of ufology and are to be welcomes. That the role of [the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations] and other agencies in distributing this same material has been public knowledge for twenty years seems not to have sunk in. Meanwhile, those insiders who suggest that the UFO phenomenon is a complex brew of security, secrecy, psychology, sociology, politics, and folklore, perhaps driven by rare but genuinely anomalous events, are obviously part of the cover-up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Pyschological Warfare, and UFOs, by Mark Pilkington. (There is a related documentary film.) Small disclaimer: I met Mark Pilkington a few years ago in England. We did not talk about UFOs nor about the fact that he was one of the people making crop circles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[82],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fairies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-vR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11767,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11767","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":0},"title":"A Quick Video Introduction to Fairy Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"? Early in the twentieth century, the famous physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871\u20131937), \"the father of nuclear physics,\"\u00a0 is supposed to have remarked snarkily that all science was either physics or \"stamp-collecting.\" ((Variations on the saying include \"That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10448,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10448","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":1},"title":"Pixie Problems, or Working Things Out with the \u2018Cousins\u2019 (4)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 So what are fairies? How do you research them? Just as important, do you even want to have anything to do with them? Each of those is a book or article-length question, so I will paint with a very broad brush here. Nevertheless, fairies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fairies\"","block_context":{"text":"fairies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fairies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=1401000819","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":881,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=881","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":2},"title":"Paranoids and Podcasts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you spent the last five years missing The X Files?The technology of Internet broadcasting is not just for Pagan music shows. If, like me, you don't stay up for Coast to Coast AM to get your occasional paranoid conspiracy fix, try some of these:\u2022 Journeys with Rebecca offers such\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9681,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9681","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":3},"title":"UFOs, Bigfoot, and Economic Development in the Coal Camps","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Three little towns in Fremont County, Colo., are referred to collectively as \"the coal camps.\" Rockvale, Coal Creek, and Williamsburg all housed coal miners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I don't know when their populations originally peaked \u2014 maybe in the 1920s. They had a reputation for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/welcome-to-rockvale.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1628,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1628","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":4},"title":"Fate Magazine Headed for the Other Side","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am preparing myself for life without Fate magazine. Since 1948, the\u00a0 digest-sized monthly\u2014later a bi-monthly\u2014has been a reliable (at least in the publishing sense) source for ghost stories, UFO reports, speculative archaeology, Fortean news, and other manifestations of the weird and unexpected. All viewpoints were welcomed, so articles often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7093,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7093","url_meta":{"origin":1975,"position":5},"title":"Fairies Infest British Woodland, Control Measures Planned","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"From the BBC: Hundreds of fairy doors have been attached to the bases of trees in Wayford Woods, Crewkerne. It is claimed the doors have been installed by local people so children can \"leave messages for the fairies\". Can something be too twee? Yes, it can. And remember, fairies are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/81365000\/jpg\/_81365588_81365585.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1987,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}