Alien fixation a cult in the making

Unidentified flying object – UFO. Science Fiction image concept of ufology and life out of planet Earth. Clipping Path Included.

Extraterrestrials are lurking about. If not in the actual, then at least as a point of fervent discussion.

Where once UFOs were the stuff of fantasy films and the crazed babble of those claiming to have been abducted, politicians and journalists are now openly conferring on ETs and alien spacecraft in earnest without so much as an eyebrow raised.

In Washington DC, the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee has been conducting often public, sometimes private hearings. The Chief Scientist in Canada has also entered the fray. The US space agency, NASA will report its findings analysing a bunch of sightings with the usual grainy footage to a panel of experts. The report is due later this month.

The hunt for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, a casual rebranding of UFOs, is on. In terms of governance in the US, UAPs are arguably garnering more attention than human beings.

The first question for any serious investigator should be why are there so many UAP sightings in North America?

Hard data is difficult to come by because those who keep records of sightings aren’t government agencies. One of the not-for-profits, the Ohio-based Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), claims to receive 500-1000 UAP sightings a month from around the world but the reports show most have been made in North America. Unexplained sightings in France in 2023 amount to 12, with ten in Italy and none in Germany. On their own maths, MUFON would have us believe there are 1000 times more UAP sightings in North America than in continental Europe.

Offered the chance of a romantic weekend in Paris, partying hard in Berlin or possibly catching up with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on the Amalfi Coast, extra-terrestrials opt instead for northern Idaho, southern Michigan or the mountain peaks of Alberta.

A UFO an incident the Pentagon said occurred over South Asia on Jan. 15, 2023.

And what of Australia? Well, just last year, a UAP was sighted in broad daylight with a witness taking video footage from the Manly ferry. A silver balloon-like object, possibly a balloon, was seen soaring the skies above the Opera House.

Why didn’t the ETs set up camp in the bountiful beauty of Sydney Harbour? Maybe, they couldn’t afford the mortgage repayments.

Talk of the arrival of alien life forms from distant solar systems has often been actively encouraged in the academic world, funded by private donations. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology lent its prestigious name to a conference on alien abductions in 1992. For years Duke and Harvard have funded the pseudo-scientific pursuit of parapsychology. Ghostbusting, clairvoyance, psychokinetics – all of this junk science has eventually found its way into the mainstream to be discussed candidly, almost unquestioningly by the media. The academic world has given an air of illegitimacy to this nonsense.

David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Officer, testifies during a House Oversight Committee. Picture: AFP

Then the government steps in with the chequebook and before you know it, millions of taxpayers dollars are being spent on idiotic searches. A decade ago, the US Department of Defence funded the search for an alien spacecraft reportedly several football fields in length on a remote Utah farm which was said to be teeming with ETs who two locals described as looking a bit like werewolves. Unsurprisingly, not a skerrick of physical evidence emerged. Not a long of bang for the taxpayer’s buck for an estimated $20 million study.

Hmm. All of this money for what appears to be little more than a hunt for the bunyip.

Yet here we are again with the House Oversight Committee being regaled with stories of alien bodies, spacecraft replete with “non-human technology” that apparently has been purloined by what President Dwight Eisenhower described as the US military-industrial complex.

One whistleblower to have appeared before the Committee is David Grusch.

Grusch served as a representative on two Pentagon task forces investigating UAPs until earlier this year. He told the Committee he was informed of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program”.

He requested access to these programs and accused the military of secretly securing funds to keep this information away from congress and the White House. He claimed to have interviewed Pentagon officials from these programs who provided knowledge of aircraft with “non-human” origins, and that “biologics” were recovered from some craft.

A court would find that information hearsay. Indeed what is missing is physical evidence. A clear photo, perhaps some still shot footage of the craft. Some tissue samples. Anything. Alas, there is none.

A first-ever NASA UFO public meeting reveals up to 5 per cent of sightings have never been explained.

The old Lou Reed line of believing none of what you hear and only half of what you see applies. With that in mind, let’s put Grusch’s evidence aside for a moment and wonder who would be the beneficiaries of what was until a few years ago, the stuff of lurid chat on the internet or bored late night radio jocks.

There are many — media itself from network news coverage all the way to podcasters looking for clout and a few bucks of donated money. But much bigger wads of cash await scientists willing to neglect basic scientific principles for the largesse coming their way.

But the alien babble has much wider implications. This is a conspiracy theory which has attracted millions of followers all who now have formed a belief that within the shadows of the Pentagon a vast decades-long treachery has been perpetrated. Like other conspiracy theories attracting cult followings like QAnon, the overall effect is profound distrust in government.

In other words, pushing ETs into the spotlight, albeit evidence-free, is a political tool. Those who fall for it have a disposition to susceptibility. If they are gullible enough to believe that ETs walk among us and alien spacecraft routinely travel to Earth, then it’s a short step to embracing a view that the world is run by a cabal of Jewish bankers and Bill Gates is engaged in vaccine-driven genocide.

That’s when a conspiracy theory becomes a cult.

To quote Eric Idle, we should pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, because there’s bugger all down here on Earth.