UFO Insiders: The Problem
Greg’s post UFO Belief and Cognitive Dissonance is both highly instructive and food-for-thought for any of us that delve into the murky world of the government insider - or have interaction with such characters.
Greg states in part: “What many of the ‘insiders’ who leak information to the public are counting on are researchers and their audience who already have an unshakeable belief in the idea that there are extraterrestrial beings visiting us and that there is a dark secret about this fact being held by those in power–everything from some sort of agreement with an alien race to the idea that our best technological and spiritual advances came from these beings.”
This is indeed true.
However, occasionally, the opposite can be true, too. As I found when undertaking the research for my books Body Snatchers in the Desert and On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, there are significant numbers of whistleblowers who are also just as likely to promote the idea that:
(A) We do not have aliens among us and that the Roswell affair was not an ET-related event (Body Snatchers); and:
(B) The government’s interest in “us” as a community has nothing to do with our “alien beliefs;” but is actually focused upon official concerns pertaining to the political interests and activities of certain players in the UFO research arena (Saucer Spies).
Then there are those shadowy sources who straddle the middle ground; that “gray” area where anything goes, and where the story gets even more complicated and convoluted.
In the latter category I place firmly a strange story told to the late Karl Pflock by a shadowy, un-named source. In some quarters Karl was portrayed as a UFO skeptic. He was not. Karl was a champion of the Betty and Barney Hill case, and had come to the conclusion that from the 1940s to the 70s, there were some definite, strange things afoot in our skies of a firmly alien nature.
However, Karl did not believe that aliens had crashed at Roswell, New Mexico on that fateful day back in July 1947; and as a result, his words were often dismissed as those of a debunker - which was grossly wide of the mark.
So, Karl was hardly a champion of crashed UFO tales - at all. Yet he, too, became the recipent of data that sounds suspiciously whistleblower-like in nature and that had a bearing on crashed UFOs. We are well-accustomed to hearing about pro-crashed UFO researchers being on the receiving end of “allegedly real” MJ12 style documents or secret testimony; but it is not every day that those on the other side of the fence find themselves implicated in such scenarios, too. But, as with Karl, it does happen.
I met Karl only once: at a UFO gig in Aztec, New Mexico a few years back. Both of us shared a mutual interest in the story of the Aztec “crashed UFO” legend of March 1948 - a weird and controversial story that seems to have just about as many supporters as it does detractors.
For the next couple of years, Karl and I kept in regular touch by email and phone; and at one point we even planned on co-writing a book on Aztec - with the thrust of it focusing upon the life of one Silas Newton: a notorious figure whose involvement in the story leads many to believe (quite justifiably, too) that Aztec is utterly without merit in terms of being a genuine, credible UFO incident. We got about as far as a synopsis for the book, and a pooling of information; and that was about it, unfortunately.
Put bluntly, Silas Newton was a shady character, who was the subject of an FBI file that most definitely did not portray him in a great light, and who had run-ins with the law throughout much of his life. Newton was also one of the chief sources of data that led author Frank Scully to write his 1950 book on the Aztec affair: Behind the Flying Saucers.
And it was with respect to Silas Newton that, in the late 1990s, Karl was the recipient of data that can be said to fall into classic “shadowy informant” territory.
In Karl’s own words: “In 1998, under curious circumstances, I was made privy to a fascinating document about one of the most controversial cases of the Golden Age of Flying Saucers, the so-called Aztec crash of 1948. I had little more than passing interest in the case until 1998, when a source, who insists on complete anonymity, showed me a handwritten testament, set down by the key player in this amazing, often amusing, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction episode.”
He continued that: “It seems that what I was shown was…something penned by sly old Silas Newton, but what can we say about the veracity of its content?”
Karl added that after having spoken publicly about the Aztec affair (albeit under the name of “Scientist X”) Newton “received two visitors at his Newton Oil Company office in Denver.”
“The men,” Karl explained, “claimed to be with a highly secret U.S. Government entity, which they refused to name. Were they Air Force OSI [Office of Special Investigations] agents, who Newton hyped into something more mysterious? Newton writes, ‘They grilled me, tried to poke holes in my story. Had no trouble doing it and laughed in my face about the scientific mistakes I made. They never said so, but I could tell they were trying to find out if I really knew anything about flying saucers that had landed. Did not take these fellows long to decide I did not. But I sure knew they did.’”
Karl expanded further, and the tale became even more intriguing: “Newton’s visitors told him they knew he was pulling a scam and then gave him what may have been the surprise of his life: ‘Those fellows said they wanted me to keep it up, keep telling the flying saucer story and that they and the people they worked for would look out for me…I could go on doing what I always did and not worry about it.’”
Karl asked the notable questions: “Did the U.S. Government or someone associated with it use Newton to discredit the idea of crashed flying saucers so a real captured saucer or saucers could be more easily kept under wraps? Was this actually nothing to do with real saucers but instead some sort of psychological warfare operation?”
Sadly, Karl died in 2006; and he never revealed the name of his informant. However, during the period that we were planning on writing the book, Karl did tell me that his source’s data had come from a journal written by Newton - that may have been the initial outline for a planned book by Newton himself - in the early 1970s. Moreover, Karl had been able to confirm that the handwriting definitely was Newton’s.
Unfortunately, Karl’s passing brought this aspect of the Aztec story to a standstill.
But there are several things worth noting:
(A) Karl, via a shadowy, un-named informant, was shown data that offered the possibility, at least, that the U.S. Government was engaged in a strange psychological warfare operation to hide real crashed saucers;
(B) Karl was not at all a champion of the idea that aliens had crashed at either Roswell or Aztec - yet this seemingly did not matter to the shadowy person who related the data to Karl, and who showed him the relevant material penned in Silas Newton’s own hand;
(C) This only served to confuse the issue of what did, or did not, occur at Aztec even further;
(D) Silas Newton - as a conman and rogue - was considered as someone that elements of the Government were willing to work with with respect to possibly confusing the crashed UFO issue even further.
So what’s my point?
I will repeat Greg’s words again: “What many of the ‘insiders’ who leak information to the public are counting on are researchers and their audience who already have an unshakeable belief in the idea that there are extraterrestrial beings visiting us and that there is a dark secret about this fact being held by those in power–everything from some sort of agreement with an alien race to the idea that our best technological and spiritual advances came from these beings.”
Remember those words; for they are utterly true. However, as I have demonstrated above, shadowy, un-named sources also make use of others, too: such as those who are skeptical of crashed UFO accounts and much of the lore that goes along with this aspect of the subject (Karl); and even convicted con-men (Newton).
In other words, there are those on the inside who seem to be willing to tell their Deep Throat-like stories to one and all; and not just to to those that swallow them in wide-eyed, jaw-dropping fashion.
Unfortunately, this still does not answer the question of what lies at the heart of the UFO puzzle. And this is the problem with the “UFO Insiders”: they rarely provide proof of anything.
Indeed, none of these people ever shed any light on the truth behind the UFO puzzle that can be utterly and conclusively confirmed. What they are very good at, however, is ensuring that certain elements of the UFO research community - at least, those that salivate like Pavlov’s Dogs whenever the terms “whistleblower” and “leaked documents” are used - are kept busy (for decades, in some cases - MJ12 being one) chasing the things that the whistleblowers are responsible for bringing to light in the first place.
And maybe that’s the point. We have to remember that when it comes to working with the classic “government insider” we are all (believers, fence-sitters, and skeptics alike) in the same boat; and it’s a boat filled with half-truths, lies, disinformation, occasional facts and masses of data that promises a lot but that usually ends up in years of tireless research, countless dollars and pounds spent, but with few definitive answers ever secured.
And, meanwhile, deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, men in black suits and cigar-chomping generals congratulate themselves on the fact that, yes, once again, they have successfully manipulated the UFO research community into those pathways and avenues that are perceived as being far less problematic than the road to the truth - whatever that may be.
Won’t get fooled again? Of course the UFO community will get fooled again. Unless we wise up and start playing these people at their own game.
Greg’s Project Beta demonstrated perfectly how a dedicated researcher - and one not driven by the fatal “I Want To Believe” factor - can get very close to possibly uncovering the people who hide the real secrets, as well as determining what those secrets may be.
Next time a shadowy insider approaches you with startling tales of amazing, alien activity under New Mexico, or stories of dead aliens and crashed UFOs, I recommend that you spend less time investigating the stories and much more time secretly investigating your source(s).
Taking that approach may offer you a far greater chance of finding the truth than spending endless nights staring at the stars, wondering what may be out there; or hanging out at a government archive for weeks at a time.
After all, these people are getting their orders and stories from somewhere, and likely from someone way above them. And their superiors are probably getting their data from an even higher source.
Since the UFO presence is by its nature elusive, and the government deems us only worthy of half-truths, lies and disinformation, perhaps we should stop looking for UFOs and instead launch a concerted effort to expose the people pulling the whistleblowers’ strings and directing their actions. Only by doing that, I believe, do we stand a real chance of finding the answers that we seek.
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May 14 2007 
May 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Thanks Nick,
You always hit the nail on the head.
Your insight is refreshing to say the least. Sounds like you need to write us another book. ‘Body Snachers” really opened my eyes to what is possible.
Thanks,
DM
May 14th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Thanks DM.
I am working on another UFO book right now - as some listers know - on how certain figures in the official world (Intel and military) believe that UFOs have “occult” origins.
Doubtless it will make me as popular as Body Snatchers did! LOL
May 14th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Something I forgot to mention: at the weekend we logged our 2,000th comment from you, the readers.
Thanks to everyone and keep them coming. We appreciate the lively debates!
Nick & Greg
May 14th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Nick, over here in the UK, we have this reality TV show called ‘The Apprentice’. To the best of my knowledge we pinched it off you guys, (that sounds really weird referring to a Norfokkerunian as a ‘you guys’!).
Anyway, the gist of it, as you’ll probably know, is the gradual screening out of a series of candidates via a series of aptitude tests until only one remains, said individual then becoming Sir Alan Sugar’s business apprentice for a year.
Following me so far?
Anyway, what these aptitude tests amount to are simulations of a variety of situations one might find oneself in as a business person, whether a sole trader, a team manager, a director, a flunky/gopher, speculator, etc..
Now the thing is, if you encounter one or more of these candidates/testees during one of these simulations, (whether in the capacity of a ‘fellow’ trader or/and customer, or some other actually completely business unrelated capacity), while wholely unwitting you’re actually participating in a TV show or, at least, a TV show that is merely synthetically creating business-like circumstances to test candidates for capacity and aptitude, you may actually take the candidates/testees and your interactions with them on their face value, and go away without ever realising the whole picture.
Ultimately, though, that limited perspective could also apply to the candidates/testees, because if they also never actually realised they’re only particpating in a TV show or, at least, a TV show that’s merely testing them, then they too might go away forever after uncognizant of what really happened.
Now what’s important to realise here is that while these simulations are indeed tests, if one dispenses with the egotistical perception of winning or losing these tests, or one survives the testing process long enough, one might come to realise all that testing is also really learning/training exercises and, ultimately, exercises in sheer experience.
And my suspicion is a lot of these oddball encounters you and Greg (Bishop), and others in your field refer to, recount and even undergo, can be subsumed under this same ‘grey area’ aegis of exercises in testing/training/experience.
It may be the MJ-12 Documents, for example, are authentic; it may be they’re forgeries designed for purposes of dark misdirection; it may even be they’re merely a grand in-joke created by haughty ‘intellectual’ types - so-called ‘brights’ - to prove to themselves how everyone but them are idiots.
Yet it may also be the case they were merely long forgotten high-level training exercises in producing manipulative propaganda, never for one moment intended for public consumption, until whoever came to lay their hands on them covertly released them, all the time sincerely believing otherwise.
Ditto Roswell and a whole host of other things.
The thing is, though, this sort of activity goes on right across the spectrum.
A standard manoeuvre of, for instance the Sufis, is to test would-be students for whether they’re really interested in the Spiritual by alternately exposing them to a host of worldly opportunities, and a host of otherworldly influences, by way of revealing whether they’re more attracted to the likes of material success or sensual indulgence, clandestine power accumulation or/and political style manipulation and influence, or freakish mystical light shows and other types of otherwise meaningless magical special effects.
It may even be the often apparently idiotic, and certainly sometimes really rather inane antics of some UFOs and their ‘inhabitants’ are actually highly sophisticated examples of precisely these same sorts of tests operating on something like a still more cosmic scale.
You say, “perhaps we should stop looking for UFOs and instead launch a concerted effort to expose the people pulling the whistleblowers’ strings and directing their actions. Only by doing that, I believe, do we stand a real chance of finding the answers that we seek.”
And you may be right - that’s certainly an area you’re very strong in.
The only thing is, that won’t work so well if the guys who imagine they’re pulling the strings [whether they envisage themselves as Black Op. style 00′ class operatives, Secret Government prime movers, Illuminati, Sufis, Left-hand Path Practitioners, Lords of the Forces of Darkness, Servants of Light, Extraterrestial benefactors/invaders/predators, Infinitely Powerful Force-fields of (sometimes visible) Conscious Energy, or even plain bl**dy Dolphins!), aren’t really pulling the strings at all but rather’re just having their strings tugged just as much as eveybody else!
P.S.
Speaking of pulling strings, how did Norwich FC do this season, or are you not a Canaries fan? (I’ve tried searching online but even the official website isn’t very forthcoming).
Do you think Delia can return the club to its former glories, or are the days of John Bond gone forever?
P.P.S.
No, I’m not taking the p*ss! I always had a sneaking fondness for Norwich. They were the Bolton of their day, and with a bit of luck might’ve attained to something like the greatness Forest or at least Ipswich did! They even managed to give us a hard time when we were in our previous heyday!
May 14th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Alan
Yep, I agree that almost certainly some UFO tales are exercises in loyalty: namely, feed a harmless and bogus “crashed UFO” story to someone who may in the future be exposed to classified data and then see if they keep their mouth shut, or if they run and tell their friends, family, the media etc.
If they do tell, then they don’t get the job and there hasn’t been any real compromise of genuine, classified data.
Of course, it’s not impossible that this could (and I stress *could*) account for the majority of such cases.
But I disagree with you about the “string tugging” issue though, because if there are *no* crashed UFOs and it’s all psy-ops as outlined above, then we have still solved that aspect of the UFO puzzle if we can find the people who are the *original* creators of these psy-op stories.
Do I support Norwich? Er…no. I’m from the West Midlands mate. Lived in Staffordshire first, then WM until 17 or 18. Then had a rented caravan home with 3 mates in Brixham for 3 or 4 years until early twenties, then Harlow, Essex, then back to the Midlands, then Devon bed-sits on and off, back to the Midlands, and then here! I have family from Norwich though and did spend a lot of time over there.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
OK Nick: Have you read BRITISH professor Harry M. Collins’ “Golem Science” series (M.I.T.)? He has one book that includes paranormal research along with laser research and gravity wave research. He argues that there is basically a mysticism that is equivalent to all cutting edge science, but where he really got in hot water with the big wigs was his deconstruction of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Despite the main inconsistencies in proofs for the theory of relativity Collins doesn’t claim that the theory of relativity is not true although certainly many others question it. But, of course, scientists were irate that someone would expose the fact that science is a construction.
Collins has a fascinating recent article called “Turning Lead into Gold,” The point he states is that only with technology can logical induction rely on a negative result of an upper limit as a proof for science. In otherwords there is no “pure science” — the mathematics is intertwined with the altering of our perceptions through technology.
My schtick is the book “Anomalies and Scientific Explanations,” wherein it details that Einstein got his photon concept from a variation of pressure and volume — not Planck’s constant. Pressure, of course, can be ionized, thereby unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But then we need to through out the “negative result of an upper limit as proof” and instead rely on logical inference with infinity as formless awareness, the Platonic mind pointed to by Kurt Godel.
May 15th, 2007 at 12:09 am
“We got about as far as a synopsis for the book, and a pooling of information; and that was about it, unfortunately.”
Nick–
Can you tell us why the book project you had planned with Karl did not get beyond the planning stages? What happened?
“Next time a shadowy insider approaches you with startling tales of amazing, alien activity under New Mexico, or stories of dead aliens and crashed UFOs, I recommend that you spend less time investigating the stories and much more time secretly investigating your source(s).”
~~~
“Since the UFO presence is by its nature elusive, and the government deems us only worthy of half-truths, lies and disinformation, perhaps we should stop looking for UFOs and instead launch a concerted effort to expose the people pulling the whistleblowers’ strings and directing their actions. Only by doing that, I believe, do we stand a real chance of finding the answers that we seek.”
Interesting suggestions. Cutting to the heart of your point, _how_ would you suggest a ufologist or serious researcher could or should investigate such “insiders” or “whistleblowers” and their “string-pullers?” The implication is some kind of physical or other form of surveillance. If the person is not known, or uses a false name, or is otherwise difficult to identify as to his location, just how would one do as you propose?
May 15th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Drew
No, I haven’t read that one; but I’ll definitely get a copy.
Nick
May 15th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Curious:
Re Karl: basically the book we planned would have required a lot of traveling to various sites, to visit people, and archives etc. And with Karl’s health situation, things became harder, to where we weren’t able to really do that.
It had become clear to us that this wasn’t a book that we could write from doing just Net and Phone based research; and so we shelved it.
This was around late 2004/early 2005, and Karl died in summer 2006.
As far as whistleblowers are concerned, it is largely twofold:
(a) in terms of whistleblowers who came forward years ago, follow the approach that Greg took with his Project Beta book - namely try and determine where these people operated from (in those Greg was chasing it was within the DIA and at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico); and then try and track down their colleagues (who may be retired after 15 or 20 years and willing to talk etc).
(b) If someone approaches you today, yes do some sort of surveillance. If they ask for a meeting somewhere, go to the meeting, and after see if you can get their car license plate and track them down. It’s tougher to do if no names are supplied or if you have no way of knowing if the supplied names are real etc.
For example, the so-called Falcon who disclosed data back in the late 70s used a faked name when needed - Steven V. Ayres (spelling on last name may not be correct).
I’ve run into a few of these people over the years.
One, who i interviewed for my “On the Trail of the Saucer Spies” book told me how the British Police Force’s “Special Branch” were secretly investigating certain UFO researchers with political interests.
He declined to speak on the record and so I had to use a pseudonym. Some scoffed at the idea that Special Branch were doing such surveillance of elements of the UFO community - until files on some of these people began to surface this year (2 years after i interviewed the guy and a year after the book was published), confirming that Special Branch was engaged in exactly the sort of UFO surveillance that he claimed.
So, here was a whistleblower experience that was a positive one.
Others, it’s less easy to determine. I’ve had some who I’ve been suspicious about whether or not I ever got their real names, or what their motives were/are - particularly with some stories I heard back in the UK in the 90s.
So, yes, if someone comes forward and asks for a meet and claims secret knowledge of this and that, then it’s a valid (indeed required) area of research to look into them as much as their story.
But I will concede that without firm evidence of names, etc it can be something that sometimes leads nowhere.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Nick: The book with the paranormal-gravity wave-laser analysis is “Changing Order” (1985) but the recent article that is really intriguing is:
Collins, H M - Lead Into Gold: The Science of Finding Nothing, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 34 4 (2003) 661-691