The panelists talked about U.F.O. wreckage and aliens fusing a human head on a cow. I looked at the audience, assuming they weren’t buying it until a woman asked, “Who here has had contact with U.F.O’s.” Like an army lifting their spears, everyone raised their arms. Faces shined with bright defiance. Near the back wall a man in a bright psychedelic shirt waved both hands and danced. I laid my head down, thinking: I’m in a room of crazy people.
I was in the Commons, a hall on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn on a cool mid-June night. The event was “Aliens Amongst Us” organized by the Evolver Movement, a neo-Hippie social network whose website promotes the “transformation of humanity” but those who came were not activists but devotees. They wore dreadlocks, hemp necklaces, “energy” channeling crystals and many had a faraway look as if they left some part of themselves in the last acid trip.
They were the New Lost Generation, folks who’d fallen through the cracks of our crumbling empire and found this mystery cult with its promises of secret knowledge and chemical salvation. At its top stood lanky, sandy-haired Daniel Pinchbeck who years ago, was a New York literati and editor of Open City. He felt empty but ignored it until his friend overdosed on heroin. Pinchbeck fled to the Amazon to drink potions from shamans to cure himself of nihilism before he died like his friend. Those dizzy vomit soaked trips became his book Breaking Open the Head which made him a counter-culture guru. Now he hosts Evolver events, circled by mostly white, well-off audiences who look to him for meaning. And he gives it to them; shaman drug rituals, Mayan prophecies and a suspicion of reality that adds up to escapism. Our world is a wreck but Pinchbeck has them look outside of it for a truth that can heal it and the crazier that truth the better.
But the Crazy was hidden until the woman asked who had contact with aliens. The hands-in-the-air-salute exposed the insanity and none of the panelists said a thing. Sitting on the couches were Bill Birnes a raspy wrinkled salesman of the otherworldly who headed History Channel’s U.F.O. Hunters, therapist William Gibbs a slow, bloated man who treated victims of “alien abduction” and dark suited U.F.O historian Richard Dolan who wore a confident smile.
Pinchbeck pointed to an older woman who talked of the life changing wounds left in the wake of star-ships. She screamed “people who have been abducted have increased paranormal abilities.” He called on a young Brit who yelled, “I’ve seen the labs,” her hands clenched into fists, “they are making human alien hybrids and people must be told!”
I’ve seen this defiance against reality years ago at Nation of Islam meetings. In the late 90’s my mom lived in Hartford and during my visits she showed me closed schools and corners where shootings stained the sidewalk red. The streets were filled with pain and people looking for answers. They packed the mosques to listen to dark-suited men preaching how the white man invented AIDS or Jews controlled the media or that every president is a Mason or that the Illuminati controlled us. Sitting there I sensed that proof wasn’t needed, what mattered was belief. If we could name evil, give it a face then we could fight it.
But when we left those halls we didn’t see Jews or Masons or the Illuminati. We saw the same people we always saw; the mother who slapped her child in the street, men fighting on the trash-strewn corner, the homeless guy lying on the sidewalk as dark urine trickled from his pants. We learned in the mosque, not to understand but to pity them as puppet-like victims, manipulated by mysterious powers only the Nation of Islam could see. Our job was to cut the strings, no alcohol, no pork, no Jesus, no “Jewish” media just submit to Allah and become purified. Some joined but most didn’t, held back by hopelessness or the shame of showing naked need in public or the sense that one could not survive the world by retreating from it.
The few who joined the mosque shouted with bright defiant faces. The world-government wasn’t going to keep the truth from them anymore because we had a Messenger. I remember Minister Farrakhan stepping to the podium to announce the Million Man March. We were Fallen he said but could be Saved if we submitted to the Word of Allah. We would gather in D.C. and show our strength. His call and our response got louder until we spoke as one man and in that sublime moment our power was revealed. Afterward, dizzy with adrenaline we bought tapes and newspapers and “cures” for ailments of the soul.
But years before the mosque, I felt that awe as a child. Dozing in my grandma’s home in Puerto Rico, I lay in a mosquito-net shrouded bed, reading a science-fiction book when her boyfriend Daniel yelled for me. I dashed to the balcony and saw a twisting line of smoke in the sky. “It was U.F.O.” he said. The book I’d been reading was the story of a young boy, planet hopping in a space ship through the star-speckled void of space being of course, chased by aliens. Grandma said it was the Devil’s Writing but when I jumped out of bed and ran to Daniel’s side, both of us pointing to the sky in wonder, I was also pointing to the images the book left in my mind. But what kind of space-ship leaves a trail of smoke? Does it run on diesel? More likely, it was a jet or meteor but Daniel’s wonder at seeing a “U.F.O.” was as real as our joy at Farrakhan’s vision of a redeemed Black People. Both were glimpses of a world beyond this one.
The wonder of transcendent visions comes from our need for wholeness. And it is an old story. In the ancient plays of Sophocles, King Oedipus is divided from his fate by his hubris. In the tragic vision of Modernity; we are divided from the expanse of eternity by the smallness of our bodies and from life by the language that describes it. And being divided means the need to be part of a larger reality is central to the human condition. Yet our need for transcendence is always defined by history.
As a boy in Catholic Church I was divided from my body by the concept of sin, transcendence was floating as a spirit in Heaven. As a teen, I was divided from myself by racism and transcendence was the Nation of Islam’s vision of a black-ruled world. Raised in an orphanage, I was divided from my family by class and transcendence was the Communist prophecy of an equal world. As a man divided by bitterness, transcendence was the euphoria of the Obama campaign.
Whether it’s one’s body, color or place in society; transcendence is reclaiming what was lost and faith is the first step. Whether it’s a messiah stepping down from Heaven in glory or a U.F.O. streaking through the sky or a media haloed politician saying “Yes we can!” we are trained to reach for lights in the sky.
And for the sake of that faith people close their eyes and reach for the dream. The more they’re told it’s not real the harder they hold it. And that’s what drove me to the Evolver event “Aliens Amongst Us?” I wanted to see how certain and how reckless they’d be in their persecuted truth. Ufology shares with the Nation of Islam a vision of hidden truths censored by invisible forces but at the mosque, it resonates with the real violence of our racist history. What did Ufologists lose that they search for it so fervently in the sky?
I arrived at the Commons and opened my notebook when a woman in the front row dropped her marbles on the floor. Wow she lost her marbles. That's a Good Sign. I chatted with the man next to me. He had a weathered face, kind and shy. “What do you think about this,” I asked. “Well, if aliens really came all this way for us,” he said. “I think they’d say Hi.” We laughed as Pinchbeck began, “I’m glad to see a packed room of people. My concern about this event was that Evolver is trying to build credibility and I was afraid we’d lose it. But it’s important to see Gnostic Theology, the Truth of native cultures, aliens and spirits as all part of the same continuum.”
He introduced Bill Birnes the host of History Channel’s U.F.O. Hunters. The wrinkled raspy man began his gothic tale, “There’s a veil of fear. If you dare mention U.F.O.’s you are marginalized. No one will deal with you.” But Birnes is brave and tells us that U.F.O. wreckage has been turned into modern technology like F-16 jets using “cloaking devices” to disappear. He just flows with Crazy, Pentagon conspiracies, men screaming in the mountain lab as aliens attacked or aliens fusing a human head on a cow’s body. “After we aired the photos there was major payback,” his voice was red-hot. “You’ll be protected they said but I hope you enjoyed your show because it’s cancelled.”
The air tingled. Wow. The Truth is Out There. Pinchbeck turned to a bloated man next to him, William Gibbs a therapist who treated “alien abductees”. He had a wisp of a smile, “I’ve always asked big questions and U.F.O.’s are an anomaly that defies scientific categories. I’ve been a psychologist for a group who were convinced they’d been abducted…”
His voice receded and I stared around at people held rapt, barely blinking. I wondered: What if they’re aliens? I imagined them pulling off their human skin, reptile faces glistening, long forked tongues flickering as they sipped their Starbucks chai-tea latte. After draining the last drop and still thirsty, they’d grab my arms and pull me apart. I’d be alive just long enough to see my hand being swallowed down an alien throat.
I snapped out of my day-dream to U.F. O. historian Richard Dolan’s earnest monologue. He spoke in a soft velvety tone, “Jets chasing discs that out-flew them. We have more than 100 reports. Our military was asking, ‘Whose flying these things, the Soviets? But why are aliens contacting us? We are the greatest show in this quadrant. We changed our civilization in the blink of a cosmic eye. They are aliens living amongst us.”
“Are they benevolent,” asked Pinchbeck. “People think in terms of Good Aliens or Bad Aliens. Is that helpful? Are we being controlled?”
Dolan rubbed his hands, “All I can say is that we are part of a larger narrative.” I was numb at this point. My pen twitched but it felt like someone else was writing. Dolan talked of aliens creating a hybrid-race to take over the world and his words struck something in me. He was saying was that some people on this planet are less human than others. I reflexively snarled. So what should we do? Force people to get DNA testing? Wear arm-bands with a blue star? Force them to live in alien ghettos and maybe gas them?
Afterwards, I asked Dolan if his vision of “aliens amongst us” doesn’t parallel the language of racism in making a hierarchy of humanity. He said he doesn’t promote violence but that aliens are on earth manipulating us. Of course he’d never personally incite violence; it would be a career killer. But if people took his paranoid vision of the world seriously what else would they do but round-up aliens? His voice left the feeling of oil in my ears.
Dolan’s vision of a mongrel species threatening our purity is as old as the Civil War when racists stoked fears of black people mixing with whites. It’s as old as Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws. The terror of miscegenation rises when people lose their power, privilege and sense of invulnerability. If U.F.O.’s are not real but a blank screen to project cultural anxieties; is the paranoid imagery of invisible puppet-masters and species-mixing displaced white anxiety? As I left Dolan was telling people huddled around him, “when Obama met the Bilderberg Group, who is deeply involved in this cover-up.” What next I thought the New World Order, 9/11 Truth, the Masons, Illuminati or the Elders of Zion?
I confronted Pinchbeck, “I think what you’re doing here is dangerous.” He squinted for a second. I said U.F.O.’s were people’s projections onto explainable natural phenomena. He said that was a dualist was of thinking, reality was more inter-related. I said that was slippery Hegel.
We went outside, I borrowed a cigarette and we stood there blowing smoke.
“I think what you’re doing is dangerous,” I pointed at him. “You’re spreading false hope and escapism.”
“You keep using that word dangerous…”
“It is. We have real problems on the planet and telling people to do drugs or waste time searching for aliens is a distraction. I mean, look, I defend your freedom of speech but that doesn’t mean it’s worth saying. This isn’t real. Hunger is real. Poverty is real.”
He eyes searched for an escape, “These states of consciousness are real. I’ve experienced telekinesis, making things appear and disappear through alternate dimensions, telepathy…”
I studied his face. My lips squeezed like a zip-lock bag and I quietly shook my head. It felt cheap to bring in miracles to a debate. Sensing my frustration he told me to read The Structures of Consciousness by Jean Gebser. He talked about indigenous cultures and that our modern rationality is destroying the planet because we are disconnected from the larger holistic reality.
I looked away from him and remembered the wood-cut drawings of Tainos being hacked apart by Spanish soldiers. “If they had the power of telekinesis or talking to plants or being in touch with galactic intelligences then why couldn’t do some Avatar shit and defend themselves against the Conquistadores?”
“The European consciousness was something they never dealt with before it’s why one soldier could kill so many native warriors.”
“Daniel,” I spread my hands as if to let go of the conversation. “Maybe it was the small-pox and horses and armor and swords.” I paused. More smoke. We were both exhausted and he said, “Read my books and e-mail me.”
We shook hands and I left, head reeling, running my hands over my face as if wiping away his words. Crazy.
Comments
I don't know about all this gobbly gook has to do with the UFO debate, I just know when you see something in the air that you can not explain they call it a UFO. The last one I seen was unknown but definitely man made.
These things aren't "Crazy" Nicholas...You're being very small minded... YES we do have REAL problems here on earth, and obviously the way we are doing things isnt fixing them but making MORE problems. We need to go back to spiritiuality, meditation, and love. If you can't accept that then you're just as crazy as you say these people are.
And UFO's are a real phenomena, 90% of reports might be objects mistaken for extraterrestrial vehicles , but the rest are the real deal buddy. We are not the only ones in this NEVERENDING universe. i hope you take a step out of your skeptical little box and realize just how magickal and beautiful the universe is.
Things need to change, a new way of thinking is coming around and you'll be kicking yourself for at the very least not recognizing that extraterrestrials are real and they have been visiting earth since before history...read some books, read some history ( REAL history, not the garbage we're taught in school) OR continue being a know it all prick. We DONT know it all , isnt that why we investigate? question? and explore? Once a person stops doing these things is when they've lost the meaning of life.
Hi Nick, I had the same thing happen to me when I covered a conference on psychedelics... the conference was legitimate, a lot of serious research, but the locos were out, talking 9-11 basura... I remember Pinchbeck going on about how the cycles of the planets predicted the cycles of human history--astrology by any other name is still nonsense.
I pissed off a lot of people when I wrote it up.
Uhhh... there's more to heaven and Earth, Horatio... crazy is continuing to support a dodgy "scientistic" status quo and expecting different results. I suspect it's time to try something from column "B,." you know, before it's too late.
alienview@roadrunner.com
> www.AlienView.net
>> AVG Blog -- http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/
>>> U F O M a g a z i n e -- www.ufomag.com
Mr. Powers,
What can one say about another's experiences? I find it difficult to denigrate what people tell me they have experienced, for who am I to say it was real or not? Didn't like the connection to Nation of Islam meetings; fervency of a different type, and I know of no hateful or exclusionary UFO group. These are people who want answers, and I believe Pinchbeck provides a great way for like-minded (read: open-minded) folks in 35 cities around the country to get together and share their beliefs, knowledge and experience. I also was annoyed at your critical attitude. If you find what Pinchbeck does dangerous, why don't you start your own movement and counterbalance it? Also, please fact check the names of the people you're talking about--it's Bill BIRNES.
Journalists who ridicule people who believe that we are being visited are appearing increasingly pathetic.
Do some research, Nick. There is so much slam dunk evidence to be found by anyone with the courage and integrity to challenge their smug preconceptions.
In particular, check out the radar evidence of the Stephensville incident. Be honest and brave. Then reconsider your judgments. The idiosyncrasies of certain people at a conference does not bear on the reality of the UFO phenomenon.
Wow. I guess the tinfoil-hat crowd picked up your transmission, Nick.
I like how borderline lunacy is translated as "open mindedness." The only thing this crowd is being visited by is mental delusions and hallucinations.
Of course there is a high probability that at this moment there is technologically advanced intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But that does not mean they can "visit" us. I think Stephen Hawking is right when it comes to how would a highly advanced alien civilization treat humans. It's probably a better chance than not that we would have long ago been exterminated for their need for water or minerals or to use our dried, ground-up pineal glands as an aphrodisiac.
The logical, skeptical and scientific conclusion is that faster-than-light travel by large masses (and by large I mean greater than a few molecules) is impossible in this universe.
By the scientific method is of little concern to this crowd, which make the 9-11 truthers look like Einstein by comparison.
Great article.
I just met with a mainstream media producer, who has interviewed presidents of the united states and was a non believer in UFOs until he did a documentary and interviewed scores of credible people. He told me some eye raising things about the real story of UFOs, instead of these propaganda pieces put out to maintain the structure. He told me that mainstream media is not about informing, but about holding the system together. In case this has to be said, there is a collaboration between big media and their governments. Surprise!
They don't have to cover anything up all that much. Just bury the real experiences and the real stories with crap like this one. If someone is trying to say something of serious value and a naked man walks up behind him with a clown mask on and starts dancing, nobody is going to listen to the man at the microphone.
I can instantly recognize a mainstream poop smear story about UFOs. It invariably will have a picture from Southpark, or a crazy loon wrapped in tinfoil.
The truth is, there are black triangles flying low over our residential areas all over the world. there are many testimonials from the same people such as astronauts and some who in some cases manage our nuclear weapons.
The number of sightings has increased geometrically in the last two years. Disclose, don't disclose. In the end, it's not up to us. That will soon become evidence.
Oh, another great BS poop smear is to apply simplistic logic to potential ET thinking. Like, "Why would they just hang there in Capri to be filmed at 3 PM every day? Or how could they get here? It would take millions of years.
Applying that logic to a cockroach in a kitchen, how would the roach know it was in a kitchen or what a movie star was or how to turn on an ipod, or what an ipod is. It's awareness of travel is its own feet. How could it apply that sense of propulsion to, say a jet aircraft and understand it. Such simle logic always makes me chuckle.
The producer also told me that the truth of UFOs are humanity's last big story.
Thanks for your vivid and insightful personal impressions. I share your fascinations and your feeling that the culture tells us a lot about ourselves, if not about aliens.
As for UFO reports, over the last half century I've learned too much about the world and about our tenuous, easily miscued perception of it to be convinced that the stories tell us anything reliable beyond the limits of our own haphazard perceptual processes.
I discuss a lot more specifics at the 'space folklore' section of my home page www dot jamesoberg dot com. Drop on in and leave a note.
An open mind may seem a great thing to have, until your brain falls out. Hold on to some personally-verified realities, and your essay seems to indicate that you have.
Hiya Nick, all can say is you better wake up, UFO's are as real as the car you drive, and I know this for a FACT, not fiction, not fantasy, but absolute TRUTH...maybe its time to take your tin foil hat off....
Renowned astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan revealed to Dr. J. Allen Hynek that he believed UFOs were real but avoided any public statements to prevent the loss of academic research funding.
In an interview with research journalist and author Paola Leopizzi-Harris (http://www.paolaharris.com/home.htm) she told ZlandCommunications:
“My recollection is that Hynek said it was backstage of one of the many Johnny Carson Tonight shows Sagan did. He basically said (to Hynek) in 1984, ‘I know UFOs are real, but I would not risk my research (College) funding, as you do, to talk openly about them in public.’ ”
Arun,
Borderline lunacy?
Here are some non lunatic scientists on the question:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1744.htm
As for the speed of light limit, argument. Do some reading:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/speedoflight.htm
Its fun to be an arrogant prick, but it catches up with you.
I saw my first UFO and aliens in 1949 when I was three years old, living on a farm in the midwest with NO television, couldn't read yet, and we had a radio signal strong enough to get only the in-town local station. I've had sightings and interaction with aliens most of my life. I'm 64 now, and am a well-educated, socially integrated person who is neither delusional or crazy. I have taken hundreds of photos of strange sightings in the night sky, available to anyone who wants to see them. And I have NEVER felt the need to wear a tin-foil hat.
If you've never seen anything unusual, perhaps you're not looking in the right direction... UP!
Mr. Powers, true, there are many pressing issues in the world now...poverty, war, etc. so why are you writing about the UFO conferences then? Because it offers the ideal opportunity to trot out your best bits and tired sarcasm. This is a well- trodden path by journalists like yourself looking for a colorful story to tell in lieu of some actual journalism (see poverty, war, etc.).
Of course any social movement that takes on the status quo will attract the idosyncratic. I'm sure 20% of those at any of the anti-war protests could be marginalized and ridiculed in the same way. But the message at the heart of that movement - "no to war"- is still a valid one. Same thing with the UFO issue.
There are plenty of "normal" people in positions of power and responsibility all across our society who have compelling evidence and testimony about the UFOs. Consider speaking to some of them next time.
The Tinfoil hat crown apparently includes such famous folk as Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower as well as Dr Friedman, Dr Greer, John Podesta and so many others.
This practice of ignorant ridicule of good people who've seen UFOs has just about run its course. It used to be effective when communications were limited but now in the information age it doesn't work anymore. We've all seen the Youtube videos.
Got a news flash for all you peeps who still try to pass off UFOs and ET/EBE phenomena as "imaginary" and "delusional;" There is delusion here alright, but it isn't the "Tinfoil Hat" crowd that's deluded; its the so-called rational people who have bought the 60 year old disinformation campaign hook, line and sinker, and who now pontificate on their superior opinion that there is nothing to see. I wonder if these folks have seen the UFO files the UK released last week? I'm pretty sure they haven't.
They only have enough brains and energy to put stuff down that they don't understand, they don't have time to actually look at evidence.
Don't think UFO's exist? All you have to do is look at things said by previous heads of state and Astronauts or Military Officials and you'll know the answer.
Truman climbs on board: "I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on earth"
--President Harry S. Truman
"The US Airforce assures me that UFO's pose no threat to National Security.."
--President John F Kennedy
Future President Gerald Ford recommends an official committee investigation of the UFO phenomenon.
"I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject"
--President Gerald Ford (1966)
On the campaign trail, soon-to-be President Jimmy Carter promises that upon election, he would make public all the government's information on UFO sightings.
"I don't laugh at people any more when they say they've seen UFOs. I've seen one myself!"
--President Jimmy Carter (1976)
"I think about how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And I ask you, does not this threat alread exsist?"
--President Ronald Reagen UN address
"The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously."
--Mikhail Gorbachev
"I'm not at liberty to discuss the governments knowledge of extraterrestrial UFO's at this time. I am still personally being briefed on the subject!"
--President Richard M. Nixon
"The evidence points to the fact that Roswell was a real incident and that indeed an alien craft did crash, and that material was recovered from that site. We all know that UFOs are real.All we need to ask is where do they come from, and what do they want?"
--Capt. Edgar Mitchell Apollo 14 Astronaut
"I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high." As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, gray and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn't look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk. About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me -- and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off. It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared."
--Mercury Astronaut Capt. Donald Slayton
"At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs."
--NASA's Scott Carpenter
When asked if he believed that UFO's were real;"Yes as a matter of fact I do." He was also asked if he had ever seen a UFO and he said he had, on his Gemini mission. He went on to say that he tried to take a picture of it, but it did not come out.
--Brigadier Gen. James Mc Divitt command pilot of the Gemini space craft. (This interview can be seen on a video tape called Beyond Belief, from United Entertainment, Inc. 1986.)
This is just the beginning. Do a little digging and you will find a mountain.
This debate sure is getting boring.
Same arguments, different url.
-nycjeff
http://yaufob.wordpress.com
Pretty fascinating that you link this with the Nation of Islam and the history of racism. Calling everybody capital-word "Crazy" as if they all fit the same description is prejudiced. No doubt, a lot of people who believe in UFOs are loopy, but there are smart, sober-minded people studying this enormously important phenomenon. It's not all wish-fulfillment and fantasy - if you do a little research. Fact is, no one knows what it is yet, and until we do, labeling it "Crazy" is closing a door on a phenomenon with important implications. If anything, your perspective is "dangerous."
Take a look at a book like this, written up in the L.A. Times with the same sort of sarcasm, which was met with the same sort of irritation in the comments - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/07/john-podesta-writes-p...
Are all those generals "Crazy." Any time anyone wields the term "tin-foil hat" I know they're going to be totally dismissive about a subject that needs intensive study, not ridicule.
I expanded on that comment here: http://www.theamericanbookofthedead.com/2010/08/10/the-pinchbeck-religion/
Look into Jacques Vallee's work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e
Podcast here:
http://binnallofamerica.com/boaa7.20.8.html
Look into John E. Mack's work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Mack
Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xTQ2-S1n-Q
Maybe even buy and read this book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record". Reviewed here:
http://www.dailygrail.com/blogs/Chris-Rutkowski/2010/8/Review-Leslie-Kea...
It's all easy to follow and understand.
You are one of the SHEEPLE Mr. Powers. Wake up dude.
Mr. Pinchbeck gets alot of criticism but he totally rocks!!! Ask Sting!!! He also is tries to address potential solutions in his new film, so fair play to him.
http://2012timeforchange.com/site/about.html
Look into Jacques Vallee's work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vall%C3%A9e
Podcast here:
http://binnallofamerica.com/boaa7.20.8.html
Look into John E. Mack's work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Mack
Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xTQ2-S1n-Q
Maybe even buy and read this book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record". Reviewed here:
http://www.dailygrail.com/blogs/Chris-Rutkowski/2010/8/Review-Leslie-Kea...
It's all easy to follow and understand.
You are one of the SHEEPLE Mr. Powers. Wake up dude.
Mr. Pinchbeck gets alot of criticism but he totally rocks!!! Ask Sting!!! He also is tries to address potential solutions in his new film, so fair play to him.
http://2012timeforchange.com/site/about.html
More stupid, lazy, self-absorbed, ignorant crap from the left wing gatekeeper press. A veritable smorgasbord of worn-out media tricks meant to discredit and ridicule. A complete lack of serious research and a worn-out old paradigm that's crumbling away. And who gives a damn about your childhood and your parade of delusions and broken heroes?
I never heard of the Indypendent before and I'll be sure to avoid it in the future.
Nicholas Powers' smarmy, pseudo-intellectual diatribe says far more about Nicholas Powers than anything else. One need only read the title, glimpse the cover pic and scan a few lines of the article to figure out exactly where Nicholas Powers is coming from ... the old boy network, the sneering, self appointed guardians of conventional wisdom, the arbiters of rational thought, those who would have the final say on what passes for permissible discourse in the 21st Century.
Bravo, Nicholas Powers, I'm very happy for you and glad you still have a pulpit from which to dispel your pearls of wisdom ... I'm sure that many avid believers are keen to read your sanctimonious posturing on issues you have no clue about.
Time to answer the critics.
1. Dan, I do meditate but meditation and spirituality and love are unfortunately not enough. One must also think and act. If aliens were visiting the planet they could have announced their presence to the world. They could "land a ship on the front lawn of the White House" as the cliche image goes. Since they're not and if you believe they are real then logically they must want to remain hidden. It seems then that the Ufologists are searching for beings who don't want to be found and not just governments that are trying to conceal them. Assuming, of course, they exist.
I don't assume that aliens have visited the planet. My theory is that U.F.O. sightings are projections on unexplained natural phenomena that say more about us than about the phenomena. Which is why I brought in the Nation of Islam. It seems to me the imagery of aliens inter-mixing with humans, controlling human civilization resembles the racist language of Anti-Semiticism.
2. Mr. Birnes, my apologies for miss-spelling your name. I corrected that in the text.
3. Timothy, we are not cockroaches. We do have an understanding of the Laws of Physics.
4. John Morgan, you question why I went to the event. I went because faith-based groups tend to create fantasies of persecution. I was curious as to who the enemy was for Ufology and what they hoped to get by searching the sky.
5. Carl and Anonymous, I don't assume just because someone is in Government that they know what they are talking about or what they are seeing. Presidents are politicians not scientists. They don't do the research themselves but get reports from others.
6. Henry, calling people "crazy" is not the same as racism. If you look up the definition, racism is the belief that "genetic factors constitute racial differences and that those differences lead to different capacities among people." Calling people "crazy" is criticizing their ideas not their genetics. I think in trying to make your counter-argument you lazily over-lapped terminology.
Is there intelligent life in the universe? Probably. Has it visited us? I doubt it but I really don't know. What I do know is that the imagery of Ufology at the Evolver event of dangerous alien-human hybrids or aliens controlling us resembles a racist language that is very, very terrestrial.
I love reading the comments on these idiotic UFO articles. Writers like Powers are like the last creationist holdouts railing against the theory of evolution: "I didn't evolve from a monkey!!!" hahahaha
I imagine these poor bastards reading the comments and thinking, "why doesn't anyone think I'm clever?"
Comments like the articulate, informed ones here will either convince these writers that there is no audience for this kind of garbage, or it will convince their editors that there is no job for them.
one thing the tin-foil hat crowd needs to learn while they rant on about being marginalized and made fun of: yes, you are being mocked, and you are being made fun of. if you are contributing anything to society with your buffoonery, it is your being here to be held up as an object of ridicule for amusement. because there is insufficient evidence to conclusively reveal the terrestrial or non-intelligent origin of each and every unidentified object does not mean that those left over are necessarily the product of ETs. but our comical "ufologists" go further. unconstrained by scientism (that is to say, actual evidence), they are free to construct an entire ET sociology based upon speculative literature and even their own psychedelic experiences. yes, conspiracy theories and escapist fantasies ARE dangerous. this is a point clearly demonstrated to me when i went to a conference that dealt in illuminati conspiracies, and satanic ritual abuse: http://www.process.org/discept/2009/08/25/report-from-the-s-m-a-r-t-ritu...
Soooo....
Did you read Pinchbeck's books? They're only two of them and they're pretty short. I think if you're going to ridicule his ideas, the least you can do is familiarize yourself with what those ideas actually are.
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