UFOs and the
The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review & Commentary
by Alfred Lehmberg
I can make no apologies for the huge admiration and respect
I have for Richard Dolan. Dolan, you see, is one leg of a stalwart "quadrature
of earnest consideration" I've nurtured regarding the UFO and its
ancillaries. This "quadrature," providing for a complete and rational
understanding of the ufological, is entirely
bulletproof. That's right. The other three supports of that
understanding, not in any particular order, are Stanton Friedman, Frank
Feschino, and Robert Hastings. Each of
these prosecutes a recent work pointing wholly to that same invulnerable
supposition: UFOs and the ineffable
"other," —howsoever that "other" manifests— quite simply, are.
That's right, too. Study
these entirely acceptable gentlemen, reader, and it becomes altogether, even
patently, obvious that it is time for an elected —and unelected— leadership,
corrupted culture, and irrelevant society to "utilize a progressive's faculties..."
or get off the freaking pot regarding
UFOs. I digress, but not far.
See, all the way back in 2002, when I reviewed Dolan's first
volume, it was plain that he was to be an incisive, cogent, and literate agent of
historical scholarship for the post modern age. Seven years later I can report —with
a tad too much pride I suppose— that he's disappointed me in no shape, way, manner, or form.
To wit: unceasingly in the ufological public eye for all the
aforementioned time he's maintained a solid integrity, has disgraced neither
the field nor himself, and has scaled back the lid to one of the most locked
down, uptight, and jealous secrets there can be, friends, in a manner
acceptable in every way. Indeed, what are UFOs, who has
information in their regard, how long
have they had this information, and what
can it mean to us — to you and me.
That future approaches looming large.
Yes yes yes... I hear the internal dialogue of some.
Shut up. You're wrong. You're wrong where you are not altogether conflicted,
fatuous where you are not imaginably facile, and neo-political where you are
not intellectually constipated.
Bring on your "fine tooth comb," Mr. Ecker. Bring a couple of them. Bring them just to see who the real patriot is! See, these persons of discursive internal —and
flatulently external— dialogue don't, won't, or can't realize that one must
approach the UFO, and the history of same, with a presupposing ego in decided
check... or come off writing tedious reductionist
irrelevancies as tendentious as they are forgettable!
Back to Volume II, having set the initial standard bar so
high himself with Volume I, Dolan would be his own hard act to follow. Indeed, as I reappraised both the first
volume and my review of it, I was filled with a certain dread that Dolan must
fail to re-achieve the scholarly success of his first volume, tediously repeat
himself in the second, or otherwise just fall short of the anticipation we've
all felt for same over the past seven years and change. Well, no, no, and triumphantly no.
Dolan has succeeded. Consecutively, this writer reports, he's once
again his own hard act to follow.
Consider:
"Across the Earth's skies and deep within the minds of humankind, UFOs are everywhere and nowhere."
Thus Dolan begins this literary true adventure, capturing
succinctly in one sentence an underlying
truth about the UFO, perhaps. What,
indeed, can be "everywhere" and nowhere," extant yet inexact, at
once existential and by turns ineffable?
What!?
As Dolan will very engagingly proceed to express the essence
of that ineffable, page after page, Linda
Moulton Howe foreshadows in the preface that even as the imponderable is
bravely pondered, Dolan still manages
to keep erudite feet on the ground of an academic
tradition — to sustain reasonable conjectures and extrapolations supported from
what even Donald Rumsfeld would have called the "known, known." She
writes:
[Richard Dolan] unfolds how fear of E.T. disclosure in a republican system of government posed such a serious problem that clever minds "found a way to keep the original system alive while creating another, increasingly separate system that would be empowered to deal with the extraordinary intrusion of 'others' into our world." That clever but unconstitutional answer is a "breakaway civilization."
Linda Moulton Howe?
More internal dialogue! Stifle.
Verily, a segment of the ufological community would errantly
propound a "problematic" LMH to dismiss Dolan, and may even be
justified to some discussible degree concerning method and process employed, perhaps. Though, it could be that a lot of the aforementioned
"angst precipitated" results, reader, as she will rush in, even ill winds
blown so to speak, where her detractors fear —or errantly sneer— to
tread. The woman has stone say what you
will. The debate's how much makes cold. Though, that's not remotely the issue,
really, eh?
Respectfully, Dolan returns gravitas to Ms. Howe, perhaps, gravitas
unjustly lost as she pointedly does
what any of us attempt to do
regarding the pursuit of the outré: try to make sense of that which contrives to be nonsensical, "obstacles
in the way" be damned, along with their fatuous torpedoes! This is
no campaign for faint-hearts, reader, and even the grossly underrepresented women must wear a cup. Ms. Howe, true to herself, does, and it may
be that causing the greatest pique in her fulsome detractors.
At any rate and rather bravely for that, Dolan suspects that
the jury is —or should be— way out on Ms. Howe, and that time will show her to
be one of the major players of the ufological milieu.
That "hurdle" easily
cleared, we return to the book. What
does Dolan attempt to do with same, and how well does he succeed? In answer, the book aspires to three points
of, balanced, sincere, and cited, so therefore serious contact with the ufological.
In no particular order as the points of contact have equal reach
and grasp, Volume II is a cogent entry
point into the major and minor headlines in ufology, firstly, of the more factual
lore as it occurred chronologically between the years 1973 and 1991. If happenstance UFOs occurred in the
aforementioned time frame the interested can read about them —plus see how they
relate and each other— here. This writer
reports that Dolan's treatment of same sets the new higher standard for
historic reportage as it pertains to UFO accounts, with all the details and
considerations of these accounts clearly laid out in the most reasonable and understandable
fashion. If you can believe, reader, after reading Dolan's second volume you likely
will believe.
Second, Dolan chronicles the scurrilous affect obviously prosecuted by agency, bureau, institution,
government, society, and culture in its regard of UFOs and how that "corrosive
affect" likely manifests itself on the sensibilities,
motivations, and values of the individuals manipulated
by the, essentially closed, "leadership" entities just iterated. It's not good news remembering the one
consequence highlighted by LMH above regarding "breakaway civilizations. Though, the reader is much better for the knowing, this writer
suspects.
The third leg of ufological contact involves discussion on
how the ufological reportage, itself, has changed over those years. What
is reported by the media, how it is
reported, and perhaps why it is
reported... changes demonstrably over time, the reader discovers. Forgetting the web, curious that.
This is one of the numerous informing aspects of the volume. One wonders if the mere detection of this "evolution
of reportage" does not speak directly to Dolan's as yet underappreciated genius
in ferreting it out.
Changing course on our "Mr. Toad's" tour:
UFO research, in a word, was
reinventing itself at the same time that it sought to establish itself on a firm intellectual footing. This was difficult
enough, but researchers could not have foreseen just how intellectually active their field would become, nor how much more arduous the task of finding a common philosophical outlook and the scientific principles upon which to base their work.
UFOs, a deepening mystery, become only more embroiled in the overall enigma as a result of a widening consideration of same because traditional science only ever founders on its shoals! The preceding quote may have been said before, but if it had, this writer hadn't heard it. If it had, this writer's bet would be that it was not said as succinctly, as reasonably, or with as much intellectual penetration.
Penetration? How about this next gem: UFOs, somehow, as a
function of their altogether cloying actuality,
perhaps, provide only for the deepening
of disclosure interest in these conflicted individuals, who, to varying degrees,
had participated in the official cover-up of UFOs in the first place! In parallel and going to the heart of the
matter:
Responsible thinkers must ask why
this was so, and [sincere ufological science] has continually been countered by
official silence and dismissal. When
powerful groups dismiss something publicly, but take it seriously in private,
we can assume something important is being withheld.
Critics are irritated by Dolan articulating the "uncomfortable
obvious" above, this writer suspects, because Dolan is really one of them,
actually. He is one of them, a serious
academic, but one out of the expected box and off their "prescribed reservation." See, he is every bit as scholarly, believes this
summa cum laude college graduate, as the aforementioned critics; every bit the
subject matter expert, and then every bit —his personal library is truly gigantic—
as well read.
The difference is perhaps that he is not first bound over to
rigid anthropomorphism, avoids psychopathic politics secondly, and thirdly eschews
the usual errant "reflex" reductionism. He does this to perhaps behold that it just
may be that humanity does not necessarily represent
the best and the brightest in the galaxy, perhaps, eh?
Ouch! Sad but true
remembering a sign of intelligence is realizing when you're not the
sharpest knife in the drawer! No, he'll
attempt an "alien's view" of us, as does Stanton Friedman, et sig al,
and not the one —more forgiving and complimentary— we might have for ourselves.
Additionally, as a further example of
his always concise incision:
Why would major newspapers and
media players ignore something that, presumably, would be a major story and therefore bring in more money?
Why indeed in a print economy bemoaned as dieing on the societal
vine? Where is the profit in pursuit of the less profitable, unless...
accurate history and self-honesty were never
the issues at hand and the control and manipulation of the ever duped and
dumbed-down social masses... are? This does
seem a reasonable conclusion!
On another tack, one is given pause by this disingenuous mainstream to consider that
the powers being are only "pragmatic"
and "careful" given a ufological glasnost or perestroika, so as to appear sensitive to the sensibilities of
their "flock" of the "necessary" uninformed! They are,
these would suggest, mere stewards and protectorates in the benignly benevolent
"status quo of ignorance" and "uninformed consent" our America
The world will never be ready for disclosure of this truth, just as most couples are not ready for their first child. It will come just the same, however. Like any new parent, we will have to learn and adjust on the fly.
Excuse me? Does
anyone else hear the entirely
diplomatic reproach Dolan offers for human beings to... just grow
up with regard to UFOs? I do not
exaggerate when I say that these thoughtfully inspired and instructional bon
mots are liberally leavened in throughout
the almost 700 pages. Another?
Control over key components of the UFO secret have drifted further and further away from (theoretically responsible) government and military officials, and increasingly toward private entities.
The preceding begins a discussion moving the reader deftly into
some pretty unsettling territory, eh?
See, UFOs, their predicted technology, and a responsible regard of them at
all by an "accountable authority," is lost —entirely— when their
administration is surrendered to private
corporate interests as irresponsible as they are reptilian — as unethical as they are unaccountable! Given that the corporate entities described
are transnational abominations of toxic
self-interest —unrestricted brigands
of psychopathic wealth and power accumulation— and that they abuse and betray, gleefully,
the needs of trustingly hapless individuals for profit and pleasure, the reader may have some cause for alarm. Sincerely, I sugar-coat!
If powerful private groups can so
easily dominate national governments, how implausible is it that they could
assume control over the UFO secret? Subsequent events indicate this almost
certainly happened.
The hair on the back of the reader's neck should be driven
up to a degree, or will be.
No, everyone is at the whim of the aforementioned reptile or
"lizard king" that is the soulless transnational corporation, and
that is a fear that penetrates —considering just the American health industry
and its overweeningly huge pharmaceutical aggregate— deeply
into the citizen psyche like the brutal rape of the summative public mind. It's a continuing
and ongoing rape shocking all sensibility and perhaps provoking some
pathetic form of "Stockholm Syndrome" in we the abused and betrayed,
or why would the following be remotely true?
Setting aside the truth value of the UFO phenomenon, it is an interesting sociological reality that so many people are unwilling to discuss the most incredible - and at times traumatic - experience of their lives. What does it say about our society that this is so?
A study of Dolan may provoke some
kind of hoped for reconciliation to the rank and file from the psychopath preying
on them! This might be an attitude well encouraged as the time for such
approaches inexorably with deliberate speed.
When has bad news, reader, ever improved with age? Dolan writes:
[...] In other words, humanity is in the process of reinventing itself. Any observing intelligence must be well aware that we are poised, knowingly or not, to leap into their world. We have probably been there all along, only asleep. Now we are about to wake up.
Wake up to what
this reader wonders. Too, how much better served might we be as individuals if
we challenge present control structures based, as they are, on our own
zero-grade-and-flatulence-lighting civilization's reptilian mechanisms of wealth-extraction, reader, to share
technologies suggested by UFOs... all too
obviously here? These are the
questions for which Dolan provides more illuminating and informative questions. Yes, better questions! Questions have
always been more important than answers.
See, the inevitability of the preceding becomes more evident
where more and more quality people —from pauper to president— experience bona fide
UFOs. Sightings are, decidedly then, not generally restricted to conjectured
mouth-breathing trailer-parkers and their visiting alcoholic and meth-cooking friends.
Actually, the inverse is true, Dolan shows.
Additionally, persons very highly placed in institution,
government, and society —persons with some knowledge of which they speak—
ponder the imponderable, consider the unspeakable, and begin to utter the utterly
unutterable... to Richard Dolan.
Major General Albert Stubblebine [once a key player in the architecture of American military intelligence], who for years managed the Star Gate program, said "I will tell you for the record that there are structures underneath the surface of Mars .... I will also tell you that there are machines under the surface of Mars that you can look at."
What strange dark forces swim around us like coercive
sharks, reader, malignly manipulative and performing no service for the individual
paying the bill... but ice cold mendacity.
What smoke filled room or collection of same provides for:
[...]Watergate was in all
likelihood allowed to occur, and quite possibly made to occur.
See, the recently televised You-Tube admission to Sarah McClendon
by former President Bill Clinton gives further pause. His answer to a question pertaining to UFOs
posited a "government" within a government of the United
States
A question is begged.
Who or what does oversee the greatest story of this or any other
century so loath to be told? Dolan is a definite aid in forming better questions
to ask about that singular question
and satisfies the reader in a manner seeing forest for trees on these
disturbing issues. Forewarned is
forearmed. Consider the following, again.
If powerful private groups can so easily dominate national governments, how implausible is it that they could assume control over the UFO secret? Subsequent events indicate this almost certainly happened.
As to how the paucity of "official" regard for
UFOs has provided for the demonstration of that
officiality's irrelevance, only, and may have even facilitated at least one
failed Presidency, Carter's, Dolan provides for the notion that official
disclosure is ever a "bait and switch" affair complicated by broken
promises, unending misdirection, outright obfuscation, and that effortless
mendaciousness forever denied by that same officialdom at the behest of unaccountable private interests! Nothing else could be true, it would seem.
Carter wanted to know about
[UFOs] “as President.” According to what Smith told Sheehan, [CIA
Director G.H.W] Bush rejected this request, and said “this was information that
existed on a need to know basis only. Simple curiosity on the part of the
President wasn’t adequate.”
Too, even Presidents aspiring to honesty can be hamstrung by
shadowy private interests:
[Subsequent events provided for]
a lost [presidential disclosure] opportunity, for in January 1977 came the
release of a study on UFO sightings and beliefs of professional American
astronomers by Peter Sturrock of Stanford University
So much for Astronomers never seeing UFOs, right Doctor
Plait? More proof of contrived and facilitated official impotence:
[...meanwhile, Jodie Powell,
Carter's press secretary], was the source of a surprising statement carried in
the April U.S. News and World Report:
"Before the year is out, the
Government - perhaps the President - is expected to make what are described as
‘unsettling disclosures’ about UFOs unidentified flying objects. Such
revelations, based on information from the CIA ,
would be a reversal of official policy that in the past has downgraded UFO
incidents."
Reader? What or who
provides for the unjust destructions of good men and women? ...More
internal dialogue? Push a sock in
it.
Yes, Dolan has been falsely maligned regarding his preceding
volume, to wit: that he wrote without regard to "fact" and "fiction"
in as much as he did not clearly identify which was which in the narrative. That's bat-squeeze.
This, reader, is the bogus charge setting the tone for all subsequent bogus charges, this writer
can show —apart from blatant politically
motivated ones facilitated by belligerent right-wing whack jobs— and it is a
charge resented bitterly by Dolan, and this writer, as without foundation,
ultimately a result of hurt feelings of the instigator and so subjectively canted, but, at the wire,
completely unacceptable.
See, especially with regard to UFOs and their ancillaries,
one can take confirmed facts and lay out a frame of what seems to have happened
convincingly enough, even with obligatory gaps.
Unconfirmed reportage, balanced
conjecture, and even second and third hand accounts continue to have enormous
value; however, where they are blind to one another, internally consistent, and
serve to bear out the factually based initial frame. Remaining to be seen,
of course, but still an indictor of
where the truth might more likely lie. A
best place to look!
Dolan shows "which," as which, clearly. He takes pains to accomplish same:
The reader is reminded that these
are not confirmed accounts [about a UFO case under discussion], and the last [account]
involves some information which is third-hand. They are offered here as
provisional stories which are consistent with the confirmed
events related previously.
Given the slippery-when-wet-taboo subject matter, how much
better would one want it?
Closing, I remind the reader that a history regarding UFOs
is not all you get with Dolan in Volume I or II. The reader is served a richly cited panoply
of powerful players outside, but surrounding, the UFO question. These are
individuals clearly manipulating information while practicing the
mendaciousness alluded to above. This is
to say that associations and activities of these A-list characters outline the
effects they have on known events, events a mere step away from that which we
are precluded from knowing regarding UFOs. This lack of forthcomingness is, traditionally,
not in our best interest.
Verily, Vol II proves to be one-stop-shopping on a seemingly
endless succession of revisitable ufological nine course meals and superior in
every regard! A new gold standard has
been set, sincerely, as Dolan has once again credited the ufological standard
as no others yet have. He's eclipsed
even himself, actually, as I said before. Others will be short of the bar
Dolan has set for years, I'm betting.
Suffice to say, the expectation of II has not exceeded
the event
of II forgetting "opinions" will vary, I'm sure, eh? ...Even if
I can't see how. It remains; I am most
gratified by the book... and another one coming,
reader! Yow!
Read on.
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