Oct 28 2010
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Mark Pilkington On “Mirage Men” And Project Blue Beam
Is it possible that instead of perpetrating a UFO cover-up the US intelligence agencies have really been promoting ideas like alien abductions, UFO crashes and recoveries, and secret bases all along. That’s what Mark Pilkington alleges in his controversial new book, Mirage Men: A Journey in Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs. Sceptical but putting nothing past the US military-industrial complex in my latest Room 101 column at Binnall of America I interview Mark Pilkington about his new book and the parallels with the alleged NASA Project Blue Beam (i.e., the US national security state encouraging the belief that UFOs=aliens from outer space). Below you can read some extracts:
Richard Thomas: Briefly as possible who exactly are the “Mirage Men” and how did you first become aware of them?
Mark Pilkington: Ultimately everyone who talks or writes about UFOs become Mirage Men as their stories influence the field. In the book I’m specifically referring to those people from military and intelligence organisations who have used the UFO lore as a cover for their operations and, in extreme cases, have seeded new material within the UFO culture to further muddy the waters.
Richard Thomas: Perhaps the best evidence for UFOs are radar reports, but in the book you explain quite convincingly how such evidence might not be as convincing as researchers originally thought. Could you explain why this is to the readers, and what this might mean?
Mark Pilkington: Yes I talk about the Palladium system for spoofing radar returns, which I stumbled upon by accident while reading James Bamford’s NSA biography Body of Secrets. By the mid 1960s this had got very sophisticated and was being used by the NSA and CIA. It was used with drones for example, to create the impression of much larger aircraft. I later found out that Leon Davidson had talked about the technology in the late 1950s, with reference to the famous 1952 Washington DC UFO overflights.
The radar ghosting phenomenon was actually first observed in 1945. By the mid-late 1950s the technology to create them was being used to train radar operators in the civilian domain. So the circumstantial evidence that the 1952 UFO wave was a demonstration of *somebody’s* radar spoofing abilities is quite compelling.
And this was Mark Pilkington’s response when I asked the author about the parallels between his thesis as outlined in The Mirage Men and the Project Blue Beam conspiracy theory:
The earliest version of this story I know of is a speech made by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to the UN in March 1947, in which he posits that an invasion by Martians would be the only thing that might unite the world’s nations. Of course the Roswell incident took place four months later, something that was picked up on by former intelligence agent Bernard Newman in his 1948 novel The Flying Saucer. In which scientists stage a fake invasion to bring about world peace.
Reagan famously alluded to the idea again in 1987, also talking to the UN. It’s a common motif in science fiction – I was recently pointed to an Outer Limits episode, “The Architects of Fear,” which follows the same premise. There are rumours that Wernher von Braun believed that a false ET invasions was on the cards, and it’s something that UFO researcher and Manhattan Project scientist Leon Davidson also talked about in the 1960s referring to the contactees, who he thought were being deceived in elaborate setups by the intelligence agencies. It’s a very appealing idea whether true or not.
I think it’s a reflection on our times that the Blue Beam story uses the same premise to warn of an impending global police state, rather than world peace!
In the interview I also ask Mark Pilkington about his thoughts on the 1947 Roswell crash and whether he thinks former MoD UFO investigator Nick Pope might be working for the “Mirage Men.” Read the complete text interview here.
This post was written by
 Richard Thomas – who has written 35 posts on UFOMystic.
Richard Thomas lives in Swansea, South Wales, and graduated from Swansea University with a BA in American Studies in 2007. Richard grew up watching science fiction shows, including his all-time favourite program: Doctor Who. As a child, this enthusiasm for Sci-Fi evolved into an interest in space, UFOs and other esoteric subjects.
In 2008, Richard began to write his regular 'Room 101' column for the popular esoteric website Binnall of America, a bi-weekly column focusing on parapolitics and the unexplained, in addition to interviews with some of the leading researchers in these fields, including among others, Nick Pope, Timothy Good and Nick Redfern. Soon after that, he started writing a Sci-Fi / TV related column for Stuart Miller's Alien Worlds Magazine.
In 2009, he expanded his contributions to BoA with a second column, titled 'Sci-Fi Worlds,' exploring the connection between science fiction and the esoteric.
Recently, he’s contributed feature articles for publications such as the glossy Paranormal Magazine and Scott Burditt’s Doomwatch Fanzine.
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October 28th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Serpo?! My bets are on the O’Hare & Stepenville sightings having a much more profound influence in revival of UFO talk in the mainstream channels.
October 31st, 2010 at 1:26 am
I regularly check American UFO sites for new developments, and I’m beginning to think the US Govt. is responsible for far more objects reported than is realised. The triangles, which often turn round and go back to hover over witnesses, are by no means the only ones. There has been a recent spate of large objects seen expelling lots of smaller objects which then fly around before rejoining it.Cylinders and cigar-shaped objects are often seen escorted by helicopters or jets (as are triangles). Now we have rectangles,with the proportions of a sheet of A4 paper, cruising around slowly and of course invisible at an oblique angle. Even the Pentagon wouldn’t stretch the budget just to build something to keep the rain off the Chief of Staff’s putting green, it must have some other purpose, such as freaking people out maybe?
Weirdest of all is the ‘hole in the sky’ phenomenon, whereby a black ‘hole’ appears and UFO s emerge through it as if from some ‘other side’ – a recent instance of this had a triangle, a disc and a chevron/ boomerang shape come through it, all typical and very current UFO shapes. This is very similar to something seen at that box of clandestine tricks Skinwalker Ranch, where a human figure emerged from an aerial ‘hole’.
They can’t all be secret prototypes – they are not very secret ( often seeming to be seeking attention), have no apparent military purpose and most are probably airships. Deception seems more likely, and both sightings and variety of craft seen are drastically increasing.