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UFO Posers and the Mirage Men Myth

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Christopher O'Brien

Christopher O'Brien

Back in the Saddle Aginn
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Excellent article HERE by Anthony Bragalia that is a review of the subject matter of the new book Mirage Men by Mark Pilkington.

Richard Doty, Bills Moore & Cooper, Bobs Collins, Lazar & Dean, Johns Lear & Grace et al., are these characters truly insiders and disinfo agents--sinister agent provocateurs spinning webs of intrigue? Or are they simply poseur wannabe insiders who did not receive enough recognition as children? Good question, good analysis
 
I am not going to reply to Bragalia, as his sole reason for writing his articles is to stir up shit. When he investigates a case and writes more than a few thousand words on it that are based on a balanced examination of the subject rather than a desire to simply piss people off, he may be taken more seriously. Somehow I doubt that will happen.
 
spacebrother said:
I am not going to reply to Bragalia, as his sole reason for writing his articles is to stir up shit. When he investigates a case and writes more than a few thousand words on it that are based on a balanced examination of the subject rather than a desire to simply piss people off, he may be taken more seriously. Somehow I doubt that will happen.
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I agree, although I would add that Bragalia's "review" needs to be understood in the context of his die-hard support for the Roswell story, which obviously is called into question by works like Mirage Men.

However, reading Bragalia write about other people's naivety is absolutely hilarious.
 
Where do guys like me fall into this theory? (OK, Lance and the skeptics, no smartass responses here! :) )

I was an AFOSI agent who saw where letting people believe what they were seeing was an ET craft, though they were seeing our advanced platforms, could be very useful. I never purposely told anyone any USAF technology was an ET UFO as a course of my duties. I was not personally aware of any other member of AFOSI telling people that USAF tech were ET UFOS until I met Greg and learned more about the Bennewitz affair. What I have said is that I know the guys protecting the tech as their full-time duties were (and had something to be) proud of keeping certain platforms classified for many years. That was their jobs. I have suggested that letting people believe USAF classified tech was ET is a hell of an idea that serves protection programs, based upon casual conversations I had with guys in the biz. I have been misquoted on that in the past, the spin being that I said it was an official tactic and policy. Nope, never said that. But I haven't gotten too spun up, I just correct people even when they introduce me on air for the umpteenth time as having been an FBI agent, which I was not (I was a specialist, yes working under shallow cover and doing ops/street stuff)(Any SOB here who wants to challenge that can suck on the documentation I have to prove it... :) )

I came into the UFO world a few years after coming off active duty. My reason was because I've had a lifelong interest in the subject. The only conversation I've had with AFOSI in the past ten years has involved administrative contact related to filling out jobs apps and verifying my security clearance, most recently Oct 2009. I liaisoned with the AFOSI detachment in Iraq in 2003, and did a records check at the detachment at Edwards AFB in 2007 while a background investigator. At no time was I ever instructed, ordered, hired, contracted, etc, to infiltrate the UFO community, nor ever to spread disinfo. The only time I ever came close to the community while on active duty was to look at foreign nationals who might have been looking to get closer to US defense technology. Period.

But AB would lump me in with those whom he labels attention seekers. If anyone who has heard me on shows actually listens, you'll notice real quickly that I am BORED with the subject of UFOs. I often pee in the ETH bowl of corn flakes. I most often talk about ley lines and Disneyland and holes on Mars and experiences with high strangeness. 'Mirage Men' came to me through Greg, and hell yes I said yes. Wish I'd known what their agenda was at the time, but they were not forthcoming with that. I may be a nut, but I'm not a disinfo agent and I know for a fact I'm not one -- as does AFOSI HQ. They'd probably prefer I stop admitting I was one of them :) How's that for a disinfo agent???

Ask the guys who know me best in this community: Greg Bishop, Kevin Smith and now Don. They'll tell you I'm not much of a disinfo agent.

I can't speak for the others. My guess is that there is more to the Doty business than any of you will know. If he continued to be involved with AFOSI for many years after the Bennewitz issue, then I can tell you the truth must not be as horrendous as many think. AFOSI eats its own, believe me. All I ever heard while in AFOSI was to be cautious with the UFO community issues because Doty allegedly got into hot water with HQ over whatever his activity had been. I'd love to speak with the man myself -- and, no, I would not share the details of that conversation with anyone. Sorry, agents' privilege and courtesy :)

Personally, I don't ever want to discuss UFOs on any podcast ever again. It's f!@#$ing dead. I'd rather regale you guys who will listen with tales of my wacky experiences!!! :)

My positions on UFOs: 'ufology' is stuck in a mire, the community needs to get over Bill Moore, forget 'disclosure' cuz it ain't gonna happen, the ETH has become a religion in the bad sense of that word, enough about Roswell!, bring back stories of hot ET chicks who have sex with contactees!!!, Hollywood is not and has not been 'preparing the public' for the 'reality' of ET, and ultimately...So what?!

Now does that sound like a disinfo agent???? :)

---------- Post added at 03:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:27 AM ----------

I will discuss the issue of UFOs with friends in a private forum. I believe there are ET UFOs, and life on other planets, and they have always and continue to come here. Again...so what...
 
AdventureMan said:
My positions on UFOs: 'ufology' is stuck in a mire, the community needs to get over Bill Moore, forget 'disclosure' cuz it ain't gonna happen, the ETH has become a religion in the bad sense of that word, enough about Roswell!, bring back stories of hot ET chicks who have sex with contactees!!!, Hollywood is not and has not been 'preparing the public' for the 'reality' of ET, and ultimately...So what?!
Click to expand...

1. 'ufology' is stuck in a mire - "Ufology" doesn't exist, at least as a "field" of study. It's a made-up term in that respect, to make "ufologists" feel more important than they really are, and to give themselves a patina of scientific credibility (hence the "ology"). However, as a term that describes a sub-culture, it works, from a sociological perspective.

2. the community needs to get over Bill Moore - I agree, at least to a point. Moore needs to be remembered as the liar that he was, and for the damage that he did. However, beyond that, there is nothing to be gleaned from Moore's story, so I more or less agree.

3. forget 'disclosure' cuz it ain't gonna happen - Agreed, if you mean "discloure" of the "Big Secret", i.e. some sort of "Cosmic Watergate". However, government disclosure of UFO records and reports is a worthwhile objective, and one that has been going on for decades, starting with the Project Blue Book files.

4. the ETH has become a religion in the bad sense of that word - Amongst a small group of people, I agree that it has taken on the characteristics of a religion (or perhaps the more appropriate term would be "cult"), but the same could be said of the way some people talk about Jacques Vallee and his work (call it the "Cult of Vallee"). But just because some people have tried to turn the ETH into the ETF(act), that doesn't mean that the ETH is no longer a working hypothesis. Indeed, I still believe it is far more viable than any of the other non-prosaic answers on offer, from Tricksters to ultradimensionals to cryptoterrestrials.

5. enough about Roswell - Agreed, although I think the case is still useful for cultural anthropologists and historians of late 20th century conspiracy culture.

6. bring back stories of hot ET chicks who have sex with contactees - There is definitely something to be said for the kinder, gentler, sexier era of the Contactees!

7. Hollywood is not and has not been 'preparing the public' for the 'reality' of ET - I agree that this has not been done as part of some sort of orchestrated plan by MJ-12 (or whomever), but the effect has been the same - if we were to discover ET life, either here or out there, we are far more prepared for it now than we would have been 70 years ago, largely due to the influence of popular culture, and above all film and television.

8. and ultimately...So what?! - No comment. ;)
 
Paul Kimball said:
1. 'ufology' is stuck in a mire - "Ufology" doesn't exist, at least as a "field" of study. It's a made-up term in that respect, to make "ufologists" feel more important than they really are, and to give themselves a patina of scientific credibility (hence the "ology"). However, as a term that describes a sub-culture, it works, from a sociological perspective.

2. the community needs to get over Bill Moore - I agree, at least to a point. Moore needs to be remembered as the liar that he was, and for the damage that he did. However, beyond that, there is nothing to be gleaned from Moore's story, so I more or less agree.

3. forget 'disclosure' cuz it ain't gonna happen - Agreed, if you mean "discloure" of the "Big Secret", i.e. some sort of "Cosmic Watergate". However, government disclosure of UFO records and reports is a worthwhile objective, and one that has been going on for decades, starting with the Project Blue Book files.

4. the ETH has become a religion in the bad sense of that word - Amongst a small group of people, I agree that it has taken on the characteristics of a religion (or perhaps the more appropriate term would be "cult"), but the same could be said of the way some people talk about Jacques Vallee and his work (call it the "Cult of Vallee"). But just because some people have tried to turn the ETH into the ETF(act), that doesn't mean that the ETH is no longer a working hypothesis. Indeed, I still believe it is far more viable than any of the other non-prosaic answers on offer, from Tricksters to ultradimensionals to cryptoterrestrials.

5. enough about Roswell - Agreed, although I think the case is still useful for cultural anthropologists and historians of late 20th century conspiracy culture.

6. bring back stories of hot ET chicks who have sex with contactees - There is definitely something to be said for the kinder, gentler, sexier era of the Contactees!

7. Hollywood is not and has not been 'preparing the public' for the 'reality' of ET - I agree that this has not been done as part of some sort of orchestrated plan by MJ-12 (or whomever), but the effect has been the same - if we were to discover ET life, either here or out there, we are far more prepared for it now than we would have been 70 years ago, largely due to the influence of popular culture, and above all film and television.

8. and ultimately...So what?! - No comment. ;)
Click to expand...

Seems a little strange to me that people consider the ETH to be fantastical in the first place. With billions of star systems in our own galaxy and billions of galaxies it seems more peculiar to me that we'd have nobody visiting here. If the latter is the case we must be considered pretty unappealing or life throughout the universe is uniformly uncreative. Wouldn't it be a trip if man one day did make it out to the stars only to discover that we are the only ones to have ever done it? That scenario seems like a one in a billion chance to me. Seems more prosaic to say that others have achieved interstellar travel already in which case their possibly coming here isn't as bizarre or extraordinary as many claim it is.
 
With respect to the ETH, I don't see any point in an argument with anyone over whether or not its happening. Its simply one of several ideas relating to UFO/UAP that is floating about out there. Personal experiences aside, public debate on the validity of the ETH is simply posturing and a waste of time. What is important is developing the data that will lead to a resolution of what UAP are...

I do agree with you, Eddie, that it is very interesting that ETV maybe occurring or may have occurred. We are getting pretty good at detecting exoplanets and one would have to expect that "the other guys" are probably better at it than we are. Have they resolved interstellar travel? Certain conditions have to be met. Michio Kaku defines one scenario with his application of the Kardeshev scale to interstellar travel... Charles Lineweaver and Milan Circovic have explored the idea of Galactic Habitability Zones, worth reading and understanding, IMO. It is interesting to note that if there are cultures out there, statistically they are older than we are, perhaps much older. We have about 600years of science in some form, imagine what 6000yrs, or 60,000yrs or 600,000yrs of science might be like. Those who state that interstellar travel is impossible and cite Special Relativity are not looking at the whole picture nor are they considering the power of the exception... like quantum entanglement and the entire spectrum of new science and new questions arising from that study that are leading to rethinks about the nature of time, history and the way events occur... Originally it was a curiosity - Einstein called it "Spooky action at a distance" and though it kept him up at night, science in general ignored it for 50years. Now there are some very, very important and foundational understandings arising that are forcing us to accept that quantum effects occur at the macro level...so what is believed to be impossible now may not be at all...

Heinlein's character, Lazarus Long said "An expert is a person who will tell you that a thing is impossible and then go ahead and do it anyway."
 
The reason that I don't have any interest in the ETH is that it's been the go-to theory for the last 60 years and hasn't brought us any closer to an explanation for UFOs and other strange encounters. Other theories, like Mac's Cryptos and Keel's Ultraterrestrials, don't have any more proof going for them than the ETH, but to me that means that the playing field should be level, not dominated by one idea.

In spite of his bombast, I think that's what Walter thinks as well. We're playing with ideas here. Why not fill the toybox with more chances to mix, match and combine?

Conversely, people far more intelligent than I am have proposed good reasons why the ETH might still be the best avenue for research and/or theorizing as described in this 2005 paper by Deardorff, Haisch, Maccabbee and Puthoff:

It has recently been argued that anthropic reasoning applied to inflation theory reinforces the prediction that we should find ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized civilization, thus strengthening Fermi’s paradox concerning “Where are they?” Furthermore, superstring and M-brane theory allow for the possibility of parallel universes, some of which in principle could be habitable.

In addition, discussion of such exotic transport concepts as “traversable wormholes” now appears in the rigorous physics literature. As a result, the “We are alone” solution to Fermi’s paradox, based on the constraints of earlier 20th century viewpoints, appears today to be inconsistent with new developments in our best current physics and astrophysics theories. Therefore we reexamine and reevaluate the present assumption that extraterrestrials or their probes are not in the vicinity of Earth, and argue instead that some evidence of their presence might be found in certain high-quality UFO reports.

Of course, this paper only looks at the origin of part of the phenomenon. It doesn't explain some of the weirder aspects of UFO experiences, like abductions, paranormal effects on witnesss, and connections with cryptozoological events.

We may be trying to separate UFOs from something that we can't dissect, or makes no sense if we try to dissect it.
 
I don't think anyone noticed my additional comment that I believe ETs exist and have been coming here, and that they still do. The reason I take the attitude I do is a.) to be honest about my position b.) what Greg said -- to change the discussion to other theories, if only for a moment.

But it wasn't a bombast, it's just straight talk. It's interesting to talk to some people (Greg, Kevin, Paul, Don, Richard, Chris and a few others) about UFOs because they will consider and discuss the alternative possibilities. The reason I was drawn to hanging out with these guys is because of their experience with the subject and the field. I learn more from them. Usually, our conversations leave me with learning more than they learn from me -- except when discussing the evils of Marxism with Paul because he just doesn't see the light :) . Greg always has some details I never knew before and further illumination results.

However, I just shut down when the classic ETH dogma is being invoked, because that's where I was over twenty-five years or more ago. It just personally doesn't interest me anymore. Again, I refer to my additional comment above, and identify that as my acknowledgment of the positions of Puthoff, et al, which Greg cites. I've never said ET does not exist, quite the contrary. I just don't find ET to be the big Roy Neary issue of my life and I'm not alone. The UFO community would serve the issue better by moving forward with considering other possibilities than the ETH. Sometimes it takes people yelling "Shut up!" to stop the cacophony and reboot the conversation.

I am a student of alternative theories of the likes of Vallee, Keel, Mott, Tonnies etc as advocates of the Crypto Ts. Personal preference.

I prefer baseball to football. I do not like vinegar on my poached eggs. Non-spooky costumes on Halloween aren't right and "harvest festivals" in lieu of this fine tradition irritate the hell out of me -- they are just as 'pagan' for that matter.
 
AdventureMan said:
except when discussing the evils of Marxism with Paul because he just doesn't see the light :)
Click to expand...

I feel exactly the samw way when I'm talking to you about the evils of capitalism, or how the United States has morphed into the new British Empire. ;)
 
@Greg - "We may be trying to separate UFOs from something that we can't dissect, or makes no sense if we try to dissect it."

Hi Greg,
I agree with you on many of your points... The issue is nuance and UFOlogy doesn't go for that. No differentiation between lights and objects, no discrimination regarding basic research and speculative nonsense.
Add to that the confusion as well as the disinfo arising from nonsensical individuals and movements like Exopolitics and maybe darker areas and it is all a quagmire.
Further, science is a bit myopic in that it chooses to engage some theories without engaging the implications for a populated universe.
I discussed this with Dr. Haisch and co prior to publication of "Inflation Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitations" and am referenced in the paper itself. I think that the value of the paper is in the application of any cosmology to the idea of ETV. If you subscribe to inflation theory then its appropriate to consider the ET question in that context as well. In other words, you can't support Inflation Theory and deny ET existence and the possibility of it coming here.
I thought it was a very good point and they did a good job explaining it. I think it was finally published in the JBIS.. so it got some mainstream, sort of, exposure.

The ETH in UFOlogy is good for filling conference centers and selling ET figurines but the ability to prove it is all but impossible. You can see something hovering over your back yard that logically is not a known terrestrial device but you have no way of knowing where it came from, how it got here, who made it, etc... You need to see it arrive from space and eventually meet its occupants to prove that point. Then you have to document the heck out of it and instead of a fact you will have another theory.

I could have a whole trunk full of ET hubcaps and dead aliens and it wouldn't change a thing. Where would I take it and how would the info get out into the world? How would it survive the conflagration to become a dead-to-rights FACT? Even then the detective work would not necessarily lead straight to an ET explanation. It might be more like "This is an interesting anomaly, unusual artifacts and biomaterials to be added to the pile while the "debate" goes on."

Personally, its frustrating as hell because I have personal experience in this regard but there is a major difference between my story and "proof"... I am as tired of being uncomfortable with the info as you apparently are and there is no help forthcoming....
 
Ted,

I didn't include the reference to the JBIS paper because I disagreed with it, it was because I thought it was the most recent eloquent vote for the ETH, which I do not throw out at all. In fact, it looks like we essentially agree on most of this stuff!

My main arguments in this and the other thread in which you replied to my comments about the ETH is better summed up with a few points:

1) Most people may believe in the possibility of life elsewhere and UFOs here, but that doesn't mean it's that important to them (at least until this fact is confirmed to them by a trusted source.)

2) If it's not important then there is no real impetus for anyone with credentials from science, academia, or the media to tell them anything different. It would take a really dedicated person who had already made a major contribution in their area of expertise to make a concerted effort to look at the subject in a way that would start to change minds.

3) What they would be trying to prove is that there is something which is occasionally seen which is inexplicable with our present models of reality, at least the popular ones. This is not a recipe for success--essentially trying to prove a negative and that the minds that most people look to to explain the world are just plain wrong or at least partially blind.

I think I'm more interested in finding answers for myself and my friends and acquaintances who are as into this subject as I am. I don't really care if most people don't understand, or perhaps more importantly even agree with anything I think or any beliefs I currently hold. If the discussion is enriched by someone's contribution, so much the better.

For example, I am grateful and honored that you took the time to read what I wrote and react to it. I hope that this can continue in the future.
 
spacebrother said:
I think I'm more interested in finding answers for myself and my friends and acquaintances who are as into this subject as I am. I don't really care if most people don't understand, or perhaps more importantly even agree with anything I think or any beliefs I currently hold. If the discussion is enriched by someone's contribution, so much the better.
Click to expand...
Well stated and I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks :) Greg!
 
Going back to the subject of Bragalia's review- and I suppose this is a fairly pointless observation as Greg has pointed out he seems to be motivated by a desire to piss people off, but why review something you've quite clearly never read? I'm reading Mirage Men at the moment, and Pilkington does go into Doty's slippery nature in quite great detail, nor does he portray it as one great overarching government conspiracy, but rather as the work of various agencies and people within them, so kind of undoes the general thrust of that critique.
His review of The Cryptoterresterials smacked of the same knee jerk reponse. Not to say that there's not valid critcisms to be made of both books, but your opinion's not worth anything if you've not read them!
 
Wow, I just stumbled on this old thread while searching for information on the Mirage Men movie. I guess this stuff is going to get all stirred up once again!
 
Wow! Now I've gotta' see this documentary.

And thanks for tweaking up this old thread. It has flown under my ragged radar somehow, and is well worth reading at least once.
 
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