UFOMystic » Mike Clelland & Final Events

Early yesterday Mike Clelland (whose fine artwork can be seen in the pages of Mac Tonnies’ book The Cryptoterrestrials) interviewed me on the topic of my latest release, Final Events .

The Q&A went on for approximately one-and-a-half hours, and Mike has now posted the interview to his blog, where you can download it.

This post was written by

Nick Redfern – who has written 1064 posts on UFOMystic.
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.

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20 Comments to “Mike Clelland & Final Events”

shadowcass Says:
September 16th, 2010 at 11:50 am

Nick, the problem with your latest book, as I see it…is that it has too much in it about Satanic UFOs and Christian Conspiracies and not enough about Betty Boop and Cab Calloway.

You might want to watch that, in the future.

Well, I’m just SAYIN’….

drew hempel Says:
September 17th, 2010 at 3:13 pm

Naw Nick said how the Christians are 400 pounds and laying in on. Except he rhymed it — Cab Calloway style. I liked that other Final Events interview with Nick too mentioned on the secretsun blog comments — how the other dude just kept ranting on Nick and Nick was cool about it. That dude said he was Freemason and how people shouldn’t be afraid of Freemasonry. haha. So then secretsun blog goes off on how the Nazis were Christian …. it’s definitely a fascinating false paradigm in the conspiracy scene being exposed.

I went into this on Micah Hank’s blog too — how H.G. Wells was secret British intelligence promoting the Rhodes Christian fascist NeoPlatonic alien invasion and this was picked up by New Ager theosophist Dr. Andrija Puharich working for the CIA.

red pill junkie Says:
September 17th, 2010 at 5:36 pm

@ shadowcass:

Well *of course* an old animation short related to Mike Clelland had to feature a creepy, big & talking owl!

red pill junkie Says:
September 17th, 2010 at 5:38 pm

PS: Also, Mike is a self-proclaimed “ski bum” who often treks at the Teton Mountain National Park

mikeclelland Says:
September 17th, 2010 at 8:35 pm

Curious.

I am a huge Cab Calloway fan – and also a huge Max Fleicher fan.

What can it mean???

not_anonymous Says:
September 19th, 2010 at 4:15 am

Nick,

Listened to the interview, bought the book and finished it about 5 minutes ago. Are you participating in any public Q&A regarding the contents elsewhere or should I just post my questions here?

Nick Redfern Says:
September 19th, 2010 at 9:06 pm

N.A.:

I do have a few radio shows lined up about the book, but they probably don’t have phone-in access for listeners.

So, you can either post the Q’s here or you can email me direct via my nickredfern.com website with the questions and I can answer them direct.

not_anonymous Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 12:32 am

Thanks Nick. I’m in the process of making notes on a number of points in the book and will follow up in the near future.

not_anonymous Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 6:01 pm

Setting aside for the moment my own suspicions and speculations I have a number of fairly basic questions:

1. Not counting Boeche, as he was apparently unaware of the group’s name, how many individuals in total did you personally speak with that claimed knowledge of or interaction with The Collins Elite? I’m only interested in those that knew the group’s informal title as opposed to third parties interacting with officials expressing an interest in the spiritual aspects of the phenomenon. I count four:

a. anonymous (elderly sounding) women on telephone (how did you determine this call originated from Offut AFB?)
b. Richard Duke (86)
c. Robert Manners (50-ish)
d. Dr. Mandor (elderly)

Am I skipping anyone?

2. Can you describe any vetting done on the three men listed above?

3. Since publishing Final Events have you become aware of anyone claiming prior knowledge of the group by name or of any corroborating documentation referring to the name? If so, please elaborate.

4. With the exception of The Collins Report extracts provided to you, is it correct to say that all documents provided were previously declassified and available through FOIA? Could you elaborate specifically on which documents you feel were obscure enough to be previously unknown prior to being pointed to them by your sources?

5. How many pages of The Collins Report were you given? Only one page is reproduced in the book while it is stated there are two volumes and that the first volume is 367 pages. There are a number of other paragraphs included that are not shown in the photocopy. Were you shown pages that you were not allowed to keep? In general, please describe in detail the extent of what you were shown of these documents.

Thanks!

Nick Redfern Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 11:15 pm

Not Anonymous:

Cheers for the questions. Here’s my replies and comments.

1. No, I don’t think you are skipping anyone who I refer to in the book (aside from Ralph Summers, who I refer to on page 26). However, I interviewed 7 more individuals who claimed knowledge of the Collins Elite (both of the group and of its name), 4 of who claimed to have had membership, but none of who (of that 7, I mean) were willing to be quoted either on or off the record in the book. As to how I knew the call came from Offut AFB, that’s very simple: the number wasn’t blocked on my caller ID. I google’d Offut, confirmed the number was theirs, and when I called it back, it was specifically an operator service at Offut involved in transferring certain internal calls to outside numbers. So, in other words, Caller ID gave me an operator/switchboard number, but not an internal extension of the actual, original caller.

2. Re vetting: Duke showed me copies of official papers at the second meet that confirmed his official employment (granted, not with the Collins Elite, but in the official world), and one particular document relative to his retirement. Manners was able to show me documentation confirming his employment, which I’d prefer to describe as in the Intelligence community, based on his wishes as to how far he was willing to go re his identity/background. The only thing Mandor ever showed me in terms of who he was (I mention in the book that he was a non-American), was his Permanent US Resident Card. I live in the US too, although I’m British by birth, and for the past 9 years have had (and continue to have) legal permanent American Residency (not just a work-card, in other words). And as a legal US resident, I’m required to be issued with a Permanent Residency Card, and I can state with absolute certainty that Mandor’s PR card looked completely genuine.

3. No, no-one else has corroborated the name yet. However, bear in mind that the official publication date of the book was only 15 days ago, and the book is not available for sale in any book-shops anywhere (nor will it be), as it’s specifically a print-on-demand book (which is not the same at all as a vanity press – where the author has to pay to have the book published – as some have claimed!), which means it can only be ordered (Amazon etc), not picked up off the shelves. In other words, with a print-on-demand book, you can’t walk into Barnes & Noble etc and find it in the paranormal section – B&N would have to order it. So, that reduces its presence to the casual bookshop browser. And as the book is on a subject that is unlikely to attract massive attention anyway, and which was only published 2 weeks ago, it’s not surprising (in my view, at least) that we’re still in the VERY early stages of trying to corroborate (or deny as disinfo) the existence of such a group.

4. Yes, this is indeed absolutely correct that the documentation shown and/or provided to me had been previously declassified via FOIA – aside from the questionable “Collins Report” pages. As you may recall, Richard Duke particularly stressed to me (on page 29), several times no less, that everything he was showing me was FOIA-cleared, even though a few (and I do mean just a few) pages did look old, and not like new copies. As for those documents that I think were obscure enough to have avoided large-scale comment, that’s a very difficult point to judge. I don’t think any of the FOIA material was obscure enough to the point that no-one on the outside would ever have seen it before, but I do think that the 17-page surveillance file on Ruth Montgomery was pretty obscure.

5. Of the finished Collins Report, I was given 87 pages including (not in addition to) the cover page and contents page, and 7 pages of which were copies of the front-cover-jackets of some of the more famous Contactee books of the 50s that were reproduced page-size in the report. There were no more pages on Roswell (that I was provided with, at least). I will one day release this extra material, which is comprised of extensve data on the Contactees section of the report (focusing on the occult, ouija-board and channeling aspects of the Contactee controversy); on the abduction section (even though Mandor, who was allegedly involved in this, is not mentioned in this section – which some people may admittedly find problematic that his name doesn’t appear); and 2-pages of background data on Sir Shane Leslie, the second page of which just runs to 5 lines on that second page. In other words, it was all randomly culled from the file (I conclude, at least) and shown to me as examples of what was in the file. Before I release this material, I want to see if anyone can – as a possible example – tell me what the first paragraph of the Contactee section states. It runs for 15 lines and includes a small quote from a 1950s Contactee book that is relevant to the beliefs of the Collins Elite. If someone – indeed anyone! – can cite that first paragraph accurately and in its entirety, I’ll know that someone else has seen this file, and that may help vindicate it – or at least demonstrate I’m not the only one to see it. I was also given 5-pages of a first-draft of the Report, which contains subtle differences to the published report. As prime evidence of this, take a look at the second complete paragraph of page 169 of the book, which quotes from the finished report and which begins: “This writer assumes…” Then look at the reproduction of the draft-copy (you’ll see I specifically state below the document that this is from the draft-copy) reproduced on page 177, and you’ll see the wording of that opening paragraph in the draft that begins “This writer assumes” on page 177 is slightly different to the wording of the published report quoted on page 169. We (me and the publisher) thought it might be a good idea to show that the Report had gone through at least one draft-stage before the final stage, and to quote – or reproduce – those subtle differences. I don’t think those subtle changes mean anything in particular, other than the document had been tidied up – but that’s just my view, others might disagree.

Although this isn’t relative to your questions as such, in terms of trying to validate things, Don Ecker – of Dark Matters radio – told me only a few days ago about how he had been told of a project on the inside world that was literally trying to capture a Djinn. As you’ll know from the book, Mandor was obsessed with Djinns. This isn’t of course corroboration, but barely 2 weeks after publication of the book, I think it’s a step in the right direction to validating the existence of the group, or of similar groups – albeit, of course, not validating the theories of the group at all, which are, without any doubt whatsover, absolutely belief-driven.

If I’ve missed or misinterpreted anything from your comment, let me know.

Nick.

Nick Redfern Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 11:38 pm

N.A.:

Off-topic: are you a fan of the band Killing Joke?

not_anonymous Says:
September 22nd, 2010 at 1:06 am

Oh Nick,

Now I’m curious to as how you know/suspect that. I’d like to be apprised as to how you arrived at that reference. Amazon trickery? As a matter of fact, I’ve actually interviewed Geordie Walker in years past but have never had the pleasure of a conversation with Jaz. Love them. Geordie is one of the heaviest guitar players ever imo.

Cheers!

Nick Redfern Says:
September 22nd, 2010 at 5:01 pm

NA:

My all-seeing eyes know no boundaries… LOL.

Seriously, though, it’s very simple. You asked some very good and logical questions and so I wondered who you were.

So I Googled your email address which appears in the Dashboard page, and it took me to a discussion list on KJ.

Sadly, no big conspiracy courtesy of the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderbergers! LOL.

Yeah, they are a great band!

not_anonymous Says:
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:29 pm

Aha! At first I was thinking that Amazon was showing something along the lines of, “people who bought Final Events also bought: Killing Joke, Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath and Dr. Laura Schlessinger Talking 11-Inch Action Figure.” As much as I use that address I’m a bit surprised that is the only thing that Google returns.

More thoughts on this story later. I read Sex and Rockets when it came out 10 years ago so I’ve pulled my copy and am reviewing a few points.

not_anonymous Says:
September 27th, 2010 at 11:30 pm

This actually leads into a question near the end.

I think one of the central things that seems to bother me about this story is that while I’m completely on board with the points regarding the deceptive nature of the phenomenon and the dubiosity that it represents ET, the path to their conclusions as presented in the book seems, well, somewhat unsophisticated for a genuine think-tank.

How did they conclude that Parsons’ Babalon operation, concluding in March of 1946 in Pasadena, had anything to do with events in Roswell, NM 16 months later? Did they conclude this solely because Parsons said “that there probably was a connection”? I’m sure Parsons believed it but how did they substantiate it? If the standard history is correct, the western revival of Enochian magic practices had started some 60 or so years previously with MacGregor Mathers. What was Parsons supposed to have done differently that opened the floodgates? Even in 1947 the intelligence community would have had access to a fairly substantial number of ceremonial magic practitioners in the U.S. and Britain who could have provided them with a very detailed working knowledge of what the kind of thing Parsons was doing was all about. The description in the book kind of makes it seemed like they just jumped straight for the devil-worship-as-cause view.

I do understand that intelligence work is often about intuition and instinct but that Von Karman was supposedly related to the Golem of Prague Rabbi of some four centuries previous as a dot that connected strikes me as blind grasping. The pool of people that could claim a genealogical link to someone living 400 years ago is pretty large and I’d hazard a guess that 90% of the planet’s present Jewish population knows the Golem of Prague story.

Another thing that bothers me is that their reference material on Roswell seems to consist almost entirely of mass-market paperbacks that contain a lot of questionable-at-best material. They assume “awareness of STAC Reports (I-XI)” yet “critical independent and prior reading” of a pile of ufology paperbacks? This reads like they were never permitted to actually see the “real”(STAC) reports and had gleaned what they knew from mainstream ufology books.

There are enough references to STAC (Science and Technology Advisory Committee?) to make me feel like this is an attempt to name-drop a new MJ-12–speaking of MJ-12, this reads a bit like this Collins stuff. Granted the Collins Report is not necessarily a classified document but I wonder if it doesn’t strike you as odd that they did not redact document name references, such as the DIA paper, if they weren’t going to provide them? If this were an actual serious release of secret info I would think references to other secret things would be scrubbed out of it, no? “What We Believe and Why” suggests an intelligence summary to be handed out to outsider higher-ups yet a fair amount of the text you quoted reads like While You Were Out–minutes from the last meeting w/ our bosses regarding their big plans for the ufo coverup–for the benefit of absent Collins members. I could be entirely wrong but all these references, Cub Elite, STAC, NASA-TZER, feel more than a bit like someone is intentionally trying to suggest a larger landscape in a world-building exercise without actually having to build it out with thousands of pages of documentation.

Having been raised in an American midwest fundamentalist Christian environment I feel I have a very intimate understanding of the worldview from the inside and it would not surprise me at all to learn that there was a group within the intelligence community exactly as described but I really do wonder about the legitimacy and/or actual purpose of this Collins Report document.

If, as you say, these people have thrown in the towel, firmly and fearfully believe that the die has been cast, that the astral soul-eaters are unstoppable and that in the balance hangs the souls of the entire human race, it seems counterintuitive to me that their reaction to this situation would be to semi-anonymously hang out a small number of pages that rehash Keel’s Operation Trojan Horse. (Now with new artwork by Jack Chick!)

I might be a bit too sarcastic above but I’m entirely open to hearing exactly how they reached their conclusions. Lead me down that path. Let’s see some sophisticated in-depth analysis from the occult scholars they recruited. Let’s see detailed case studies. Let’s see something that cannot simply be surmised from the collection of ufo books that I personally already own. The most sophisticated argument in the book came from the entirely unclassified Heiser who makes the very cogent point that, if the accounts are to be believed, these beings are perfectly capable of communicating with us and continue to operate with deception.

This is my question: Of the additional 87 pages you received, could you comment on the sophistication? I realize that is a bit subjective but is there anything in there that strongly suggests it is a comprehensive and detailed analysis by serious, albeit belief-driven, thinkers or does this seem more like bits and pieces from ufology paperbacks cherry-picked to support their a priori assumptions?

Interested but jaded.

Nick Redfern Says:
September 29th, 2010 at 4:20 pm

Not Anonymous:

You’re absolutely correct. Many of their conclusions (maybe all of them) were driven by belief, and there is ZERO evidence that they are the keepers of the Roswell secret – hence why they largely (but not completely) references open-source material as their sources.

I should stress the C.E. does most assuredly NOT appear to be some MJ12-type group (if such exists!). Rather, it’s a group of people in the Intel world who had some money thrown at them to research the Demonic angle, but who were not privy to the Government’s most guarded UFO secrets, and so came to their own conclusions based on studies of open-source materials and their own belief-systems, mixed in with a few insider things (but not many) that rest of us don’t have access to – such as certain info on Roswell.

The C.E. is NOT some all-powerful group with access to all the secrets. It seems to be a pretty low-key group that is signficant not because of what they are saying (a number of books have been written on this issue already of demonic UFOs), but because of the positions they hold/held in the Intel/defense world.

But, at the end of the day, they got to see not much more than the average UFO researcher, and what they did see they added to it via belief systems.

Nick Redfern Says:
September 29th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

Not Anonymous:

One other thing, religion is solely belief-based. Faith is basically belief in something without evidence that it exists.

A lot of people have faith that when they kick the bucket they will go to heaven. That’s fine if it makes them feel good that they will one day be reunited with their loved ones.

But, it’s still a belief. No-one can prove any of this.

And that’s what makes the C.E. so different from so many other government think-tanks. If you have a think-tank that is analyzing (hypothetically) future potential warfare with Iran, they can study Iran’s weapons factories etc.

But if you believe that UFOs are demonic, as the C.E. did, you have no solid evidence to analyze. Rather, they had data they studied and then reached a conclusion based around their beliefs and faith – a disastrous mistake in my view.

People want answers (as you do) on how the group concluded Parsons opened doors etc, but the simple fact is that….they believed this is what he was doing. And that’s it.

Others might conclude Parsons was a brilliant, eccentric nut, some might say he opened a portal to inter-dimensional entities that have nothing to do with demons.

When the “U” in “UFO” still stands for “unidentified,” theories and beliefs are all we – and the C.E. – have to go on.

And the only reason why the story in Final Events is any more significant than any other book written on demonic UFOs (such as the Pacheco/Blann book, Unmasking the Enemy; or the Weldon/Levitt book, UFOs, What on Earth is Happening), is because this was a quasi-official group within government that reached the conclusion.

All it demonstrates in my mind is that the Govt throws money at different think-tanks on all sorts of subjects – some routine and some downright weird – and this is just such an example.

We’re probably – although i cannot prove it, given that I’ve only interviewed a dozen or so people – dealing with a group of perhaps 50 at the most. This is NOT an all-powerful agency, and this is most clearly borne out in the section of the book where they were complaining about not havng access to helicopters, etc to undertake deeper investigations – they were tucked away, and relatively obscure. At least, until they began attarcting the support of religious extremists in the Reagan and Bush administrations – these are the people we should be worried about, those who think the world is 6,000 years old and that the war on terror is the countdown to the final battle between good and evil.

So, the Collins Elite are just a small bunch of people, who probably didn’t attract too much attention, and did their own thing with a small amount of funding, and a lot of faith-based belief systems – until later years, and maybe, with attempts to force religion into government and the military nowadays, which is what we’re now seeing.

Religion should play no role in government or the military. What a president believes – or doesn’t believe – about life after death (or no life after death), has no bearing on whether he or she can balance budgets, rescue the economy, cut crime etc etc.

And had the C.E. not become overwhelmed by the “Fundies” then they probably would have continued as some little obscure group, with access to a bit more (but not too much more) data than the rest of us.

But the “fundies” had to screw it up by their fascist approach of trying to rewire the populace – if such could happen, of course.

So, in other words, the C.E. are like everyone who reads UFOMystic – they are interested in UFOs and may have a belief as to what they are. But if they weren’t holding positions of some significance, no-one would take much interest in them. It’s who they are, not what they are saying -which is a decades-old theory – that makes this significantly different.

Nick Redfern Says:
September 29th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

Finally (LOL), where you state:

“I might be a bit too sarcastic above but I’m entirely open to hearing exactly how they reached their conclusions. Lead me down that path. Let’s see some sophisticated in-depth analysis from the occult scholars they recruited. Let’s see detailed case studies. Let’s see something that cannot simply be surmised from the collection of ufo books that I personally already own.”

I agree, but bear in mind that the only people – so far as I know – within the UFO community who have had direct contact with these people are Ray Boeche and me. And I would certanly never have had any contact were it not for Boeche’s account leading me on the trail.

Linda Howe hads indirect contact and Phil Imbrgono has learned of a group researching Djinns in the official world – which touches on certain things in the book.

And Chris O’Brien has uncovered some things about occult practices and the U.S. official world.

So, my point is that, right now at least, we are extremely limited in seeing the full picture of the C.E. and how they came to conclusions based around things aside from open-source literature.

Remmeber, it’s only 3 weeks since the book was published, so it’s early days to see how much more data surfaces.

Bare in mind too, that Ray Boeche’s meeting with DoD people on the demonic issue occurred a full 20 years ago next year, and very little more has surfaced on that aspect.

So, unfortunately, while your questions are all valid, due to the limited number of people I spoke with, and the fact that we only have part of a story that I only published 3 weeks ago, we’re at a stage where things are veyr hazy – but may become clearer and not quite so “Grey” (ho-ho).

not_anonymous Says:
September 29th, 2010 at 5:39 pm

Nick,

My ramblings above may have been a bit muddled but it was clear from the book that this is a small thinktank not a MJ-12 masterminds type group.

My larger point was that they repeatedly refer to STAC, ie. STAC-5 as an individual outside C.E. who is a shot-caller, at least as far as they are concerned.

My understanding is that with compartmentalized programs even revealing the existence of a program by name and admitting it exists without revealing the substance is still forbidden. So, if they were given the ok to give you the Collins Report, which refers by name to other presumably classified programs (possibly they are just off-the-books thinktanks similar to C.E.) ie, Cub Elite, NASA-TZER, STAC then either they are intentionally revealing, both by name as well as implication of their purpose, other classified programs or they throwing out some red herrings for people to chase. These names could have easily just been blacked out with a marker and still leave the reader with enough context to know that they were referring to some unnamed group or individual.

Sources and methods are almost always censored in classified documents yet not here. What do you make of that?

Hopefully they will release more of their documentation in the future. Given the subject matter and complete deniability of the whole thing I don’t see what the problem would be.

p.s. Thanks for taking the time to respond at length. Fascinating topic that I’d like to continue to see explored. Seems like you are responding in comments sections and forums elsewhere so if you’d prefer to kind of focus your interaction w/ a particular site or forum let me know as this ufomystic post is going to get buried pretty soon.

Nick Redfern Says:
September 30th, 2010 at 11:18 am

N.A.:

Re the extracts from the Report that were provided to me, I think there are a couple of important things to bear in mind.

As you’ll note from the top of page 168, the extracts were specifically provided to me by Robert Manners – and Manners alone.

These extracts were the only ones provided to me that were not FOIA-cleared. All other documents reproduced in the book are FOIA-cleared.

Also, as you’ll note from the top of page 214 onwards, Manners was clearly distressed at the path the C.E. was now following – trying to get religion to play a huge role in both government and the military. In other words, his views (by then) were at odds with the approach the C.E. wished to take.

So, my speculation is that the C.E. didn’t authorize the release of this document – Manners did it himself without authorization, hence why this has not been blacked-out in certain parts as FOIA material often is.

You often find that questionable documentation such as this that surfaces into the UFO research community is not blacked out (such as the original MJ12 documents, some of the later MJ12 documents, etc etc).

This gives the impression of leaked documents – and maybe that’s what the extracts from the Collins Report are: leaks made available by a man (Manners) concerned at how things were progressing (or perhaps from his perspective, regressing).

So, if this is true, I don’t think there’s any shadowy agenda behind its release: Manners had a copy, was worried how the C.E. was forging ahead, and so made copies to get them into the public domain, and to get the word out re what the C.E. was up to. It could be that simple.

You’ll note (from the final paragraph extracted from the document on page 172) that the document addresses this issue of “indoctrinating population with belief and faith…” which is what Manners was against re indoctrination.

So, I suspect (but again this is just my speculation, I have to admit) that because the document references this controversial plan, Manners took it upon himself to make the document available outside of the C.E.

I suspect this places the government (or those within government who care) in a quandry, because any admittance that the document is a leaked, classified document, is the same as admitting the group – and its accompanying story – is real.

My view, based on past situations involving questionable UFO documents, is that the official world generally does very little to comment on such matters, in case it brings to light the fact that the questionable document/group is not quite so questionable after all!

Re your last point: Yeah, I’m fine commenting here, or wherever you prefer.