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Zeta Reticuli

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« Reply #30 on: August 06, 2011, 07:11:40 pm »




Front Cover
Author(s)    Whitley Strieber
Language    English
Publisher    Avon
Publication date    February 25, 1987
Media type    Paperback
Pages    320
ISBN    978-0-38-070388-3
OCLC Number    17375661
Followed by    Transformation
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« Reply #31 on: August 06, 2011, 07:12:21 pm »

Cover art

The cover painting of an alien was rendered by Ted Seth Jacobs. The painting is considered one of the most widely-recognized popular culture images of a "grey" alien. "The Communion cover," Jacobs recounts,

    "was painted in my small apartment on East 83rd St, in New York City. Whitley sat with me first for a drawing of the Alien. As I sketched, he would indicate how to change the portrait so that it would more match what he saw. It was, I believe, the process used by police sketch artists. Every last detail was corrected according to his instructions. At one point, he said the image corresponded exactly to what he had seen. With Whitley beside me for the subsequent session, I began to paint the image on a wooden prepared panel, going through the same process as for the drawing, until Whitley finally said the image was exact. ... As to the gender of the Alien image, to tell the truth, the subject didn't come up. I don't even know if the 'greys' have gender as we understand it. Whitley corrected the developing image to have a certain fragility, a vulnerability. I suppose we Earthlings usually associate these qualities with femininity."[2]
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« Reply #32 on: August 06, 2011, 07:13:01 pm »

Popular culture references

The band PG.99's song "By the Fireplace in White" contains someone reading passages from the book at the end of the song.

Swedish Progressive Metal band Evergrey wrote their 2001 concept album, In Search of Truth, around the ideas presented in "Communion" after the band's singer Tom S. Englund read the book.

The X-Files episode Jose Chung's From Outer Space parodied the book cover.
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« Reply #33 on: August 06, 2011, 07:13:38 pm »

Bibliography

    * Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber, Avon Books, paperback, 1995. ISBN 0-380-70388-2

References

   1. ^ Colin Groves in Skeptical - a Handbook of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, ed Donald Laycock, David Vernon, Colin Groves, Simon Brown, Imagecraft, Canberra, 1989, ISBN 0731657942, p. 4
   2. ^ Bueche, W., "Ted Seth Jacobs: An interview with the artist" URL accessed Aug 18, 2008(1999)
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« Reply #34 on: August 06, 2011, 07:15:15 pm »

A UFO conspiracy theory is any one of many often overlapping conspiracy theories which argue that evidence of the reality of unidentified flying objects is being suppressed by various governments around the world. Such theories are often intentionally hoaxed, and are backed by little or no evidence, and absolutely no reliable evidence despite significant research on the subject by non-governmental scientific agencies,[1] and therefore, are considered pseudoscience.[2]

They commonly argue that Earth governments, especially the Government of the United States, are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrials despite public claims to the contrary. The theory's tendency to target the United States government over others can be attributed to many possible explanations. Among them two of the most often put forward are; A.) Because it is an American cultural phenomenon.[3] , or B) Because in the event that there were a conspiracy of infiltration by a non-terrestrial power, friendly or hostile, the United States as the dominant military , political, and economic power would present the primary obstacle to such a design were it to oppose that design, as such it would in all likelyhood constitute the primary target of any plan of co-option. Particularly one dating back to 1947 when the U.S. possessed 50% of global economic output, was the only nation with nuclear weapons, and was without substantive opposition in the political sphere, as the cold war was still in it's opening stages, not yet in full swing, and the former imperial powers of Europe and Asia were devastated by both WWII & their disintegrating colonial empires, with economic output near zero.

Some of these theories claim that the government is explicitly allowing alien abduction.
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« Reply #35 on: August 06, 2011, 07:16:50 pm »

Origins

Charles Fort's 1919 The Book of the Damned exposed a small but influential group of readers to Fort's extensive references to unidentified objects. Fort himself was extremely critical of scientific consensus, and his book contained extensive references to reports he said were "damned" or ignored by scientific dogma. The Fortean Society was founded in 1931 to promote his works and over time its members included H. L. Mencken, R. Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright. According to the Durant Report on the CIA's top-secret 1953 Robertson Panel, "The writings of Charles Fort were referenced to show that 'strange things in the sky' had been recorded for hundreds of years."

These "strange things in the sky" captured the world's attention in the summer of 1947. Kenneth Arnold's description of nine shiny metallic-looking objects flying at an estimated 1,200 mph on June 24 was followed by sightings all over the United States and Canada, and later the entire globe. On July 9, 1947 the Roswell Daily Record ran a headline stating, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region". The Army Air Force changed their story the next day, saying that instead a balloon had crashed with a radar-reflecting disc suspended from it.

By August of 1947, a Gallop Poll indicated that 9 out of 10 Americans had heard of flying saucers. A wide diversity of theories were offered in the press about the origin of the UFOs. Some newspapers interviewed Forteans who offered historical context and were among the first to theorize that the objects could be extraterrestrial in origin. This idea was given a fictional treatment by popular AP writer Hal Boyle on July 9th with his story "Trip on a Flying Saucer." The story and its followup installments ran in newspapers all over the nation and detailed Hal's trip to Mars with an 8 foot tall green alien who is on a scavenger hunt to find Orson Welles.

Donald Keyhoe later began investigating flying saucers for True Magazine. Keyhoe was one of the first significant conspiracy theorists, asserting eventually that the saucers were from outer space and were on some sort of scouting mission. Keyhoe derived his theory from his contacts in Air Force and Navy intelligence. Project Sign, based at Air Technical Intelligence Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its successors Project Grudge and Project Blue Book were officially tasked with investigating the flying saucers. As reported in Edward Ruppelt's book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, many people within these research groups did in fact support the hypothesis that the flying saucers were from outer space.

Keyhoe later founded NICAP, a civilian investigation group that asserted the US government was lying about UFOs and covering up information that should be shared with the public. NICAP had many influential board members, including Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA.
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« Reply #36 on: August 06, 2011, 07:18:03 pm »

Popular culture and opinions

Various conspiratorial UFO ideas have flourished on the internet and are frequently featured on Art Bell's program, Coast to Coast AM.

In fiction, television programs (The X-Files and Stargate), films (Men in Black and Independence Day) and any number of novels have featured elements of UFO conspiracy theories.

Elements may include the government's sinister operative from Men in Black, the military bases known as Area 51, RAF Rudloe Manor or Porton Down, a supposed crash site in Roswell, New Mexico, the Rendlesham Forest Incident, a political committee dubbed the "Majestic 12" or successor of the UK Ministry of Defence's Flying Saucer Working Party (FSWP).[4]

Some civilians[who?] suggest that they have been abducted and/or body parts have been taken from them. The contention that there is a widespread cover-up of UFO information is not limited to the general public or UFO research community. For example, a 1971 survey of Industrial Research/Development magazine found that 76% felt the government was not revealing all it knew about UFOs, 54% thought UFOs definitely or probably existed, and 32% thought they came from outer space.[5]

Notable persons to have publicly stated that UFO evidence is being suppressed include Senator Barry Goldwater, Admiral Lord Hill-Norton (former NATO head and chief of the British Defence Staff), Brigadier-General Arthur Exon (former commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB), Vice-Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (first CIA director), astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer, and the 1999 French COMETA report by various French generals and aerospace experts.
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« Reply #37 on: August 06, 2011, 07:21:18 pm »

1930s

On the night before Halloween in 1938, Orson Welles directed the Mercury Theatre in their live radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's classic novel, The War of the Worlds. By mimicking a news broadcast, the show was quite realistic sounding for its time, and some listeners were fooled into thinking that a Martian invasion was underway in the United States. There was widespread confusion, followed by outrage and controversy. Some later studies have argued that the extent of the panic was exaggerated by the contemporary press, but it remains clear that many people were caught up, to one degree or another, in the confusion.

In other countries, reactions were similar. In 1949, part of the script for the War of the Worlds was read out at San Quentin, without announcement, as if it were a major piece of breaking news. Huge crowds of people emerged onto the streets and sought refuge inside of churches with their families. When the radio station was informed, they broadcast the fact that there was no invasion. An angry mob formed and burned the station to the ground, resulting in somewhere between six and twenty deaths. There were many other countries that experienced problems when broadcasting The War of the Worlds.[6]

According to U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt,[7] the Air Force's files often mentioned the panicked aftermath of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast as a possible reaction of the public to confirmed evidence of UFOs.
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« Reply #38 on: August 06, 2011, 07:21:34 pm »

1940s
[edit] The Great Los Angeles Air Raid
Main article: Battle of Los Angeles

"The Great Los Angeles Air Raid" also known as "The Battle of Los Angeles" is the name given by contemporary sources to the imaginary enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late 24 February to early 25 February 1942 over Los Angeles, California.[8][9] Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox speaking at a press conference shortly afterward called the incident a "false alarm." A small number of modern-day UFOlogists have suggested the targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft.[10] When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.[11]
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« Reply #39 on: August 06, 2011, 07:23:46 pm »

Ghost rockets

In 1946 and 1947, numerous so-called ghost rockets appeared over Scandinavian countries, primarily Sweden, and then spread into other European countries. One USAF top secret document from 1948 stated that Swedish air intelligence informed them that some of their investigators felt that the objects were not only real but could not be explained as having earthly origins. Similarly, 20 years later, Greek physicist Dr. Paul Santorini publicly stated that in 1947 he was put in charge of a Greek military investigation into the ghost rockets sighted over Greece. Again, they quickly concluded the objects were real and not of conventional origin. Santorini claimed their investigation was killed by U.S. scientists and high military officials who had already concluded the objects were extraterrestrial in origin and feared public panic because there was no defense.
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« Reply #40 on: August 06, 2011, 07:24:49 pm »

Roswell Incident
Main article: Roswell UFO Incident

In 1947, the United States Air Force issued a press release stating that a "flying disk" had been recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. This press release was quickly withdrawn, and officials stated that a weather balloon had been misidentified. The Roswell case quickly faded even from the attention of most UFOlogists until the 1970s. There has been continued speculation that an alien spacecraft did indeed crash near Roswell despite the official denial. For example, retired Brigadier General Arthur E. Exon, former commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB, told researchers Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt that a spacecraft had crashed, alien bodies were recovered, and the event was covered up by the U.S. government. Exon further claimed he was aware of a very secretive UFO controlling committee made up primarily of very high-ranking military officers and intelligence people. His nickname for this group was "The Unholy Thirteen" (see also Majestic 12) [12]
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« Reply #41 on: August 06, 2011, 07:25:23 pm »

Mantell Incident

The 1948 death of Air Force pilot Thomas Mantell (the so-called Mantell Incident) may have contributed to a distrust of governmental UFO studies. Mantell's airplane crashed and he was killed following the pursuit of an aerial artifact he described as "a metallic object...of tremendous size." (Clark, 352) Project Sign personnel investigated the case and determined that Mantell had been chasing the planet Venus, a conclusion which met with incredulity. Later this theory was changed to include a Skyhook balloon instead of Venus, an explanation which continues to be debated to this day.
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« Reply #42 on: August 06, 2011, 07:25:39 pm »

Project Sign

The U.S. Air Force may have planted the seeds of UFO conspiracy theories with Project Sign (established 1947) (which became Project Grudge and Project Blue Book). Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of Blue Book, characterized the Air Force's public behavior regarding UFOs as "schizophrenic": alternately open and transparent, then secretive and dismissive. Ruppelt also revealed that in mid-1948, Project Sign issued a top secret Estimate of the Situation concluding that the flying saucers were not only real but probably extraterrestrial in origin. According to Ruppelt, the Estimate was ordered destroyed by Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg.
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« Reply #43 on: August 06, 2011, 07:26:10 pm »

1950s

    * The UK Ministry of Defence’s UFO Project has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD’s then Chief Scientific Adviser, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard. As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the Department set up the Flying Saucer Working Party (or FSWP).[citation needed]

    * In August 1950, Montanan baseball manager Nicholas Mariana films several UFOs with his color 16mm camera. Project Blue Book is called in and, after inspecting the film, Mariana claimed they returned it to him with critical footage removed, clearly showing the objects as disc-shaped. The incident sparks nation-wide media attention.

    * Frank Scully's 1950 Behind the Flying Saucers suggested that the U.S. government had recovered a crashed flying saucer and its dead occupants near Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948. It was later revealed that Scully had been the victim of a prank by "two veteran confidence artists".[citation needed]

    * Donald Keyhoe was a retired U.S. Marine who wrote a series of popular books and magazine articles that were very influential in shaping public opinion, arguing that UFOs were indeed real and the U.S. government was suppressing UFO evidence. Keyhoe's first article on the subject came out in True Magazine, January 1950, and was a national sensation. His first book, Flying Saucers Are Real also came out in 1950, at about the same time as Frank Scully's book, and was a bestseller. In 1956, Keyhoe helped establish NICAP, a powerful civilian UFO investigating group with many inside sources. Keyhoe became its director and continued his attacks on the Air Force. Other contemporary critics also charged that the United States Air Force was perpetrating a cover-up with its Project Blue Book.

    * Canadian radio engineer Wilbert B. Smith, who worked for the Canadian Department of Transport, was interested in flying saucer propulsion technology and wondered if the assertions in the just-published Scully and Keyhoe books were factual. In September 1950, he had the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. arrange contact with U.S. officials to try to discover the truth of the matter. Smith was briefed by Dr. Robert Sarbacher, a physicist and consultant to the Defense Department's Research and Development Board. Other correspondence, having to do with Keyhoe needing to get clearance to publish another article on Smith's theories of UFO propulsion, indicated that Bush and his group were operating out of the Research and Development Board.[13] Smith then briefed superiors in the Canadian government, leading to the establishment of Project Magnet, a small Canadian government UFO research effort. Canadian documents and Smith's private papers were uncovered in the late 1970s, and by 1984, other alleged documents emerged claiming the existence of a highly secret UFO oversight committee of scientists and military people called Majestic 12, again naming Vannevar Bush. Sarbacher was also interviewed in the 1980s and corroborated the information in Smith's memos and correspondence. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Smith granted public interviews, and among other things stated that he had been lent crashed UFO material for analysis by a highly secret U.S. government group which he wouldn't name.[14]

    * The Robertson Panel was a secret, CIA-assembled scientific UFO review committee that met in January 1953. In part, it recommended a public relations campaign to reduce public interest in UFOs, including ridiculing and discrediting those who claim UFO encounters, and to spy on civilian UFO groups. The Robertson Panel's existence was first disclosed in 1956 by former Blue Book director, Edward Ruppelt, who had participated in the discussions. Immediately after the Panel, Blue Book public relations officer Al Chop told Ruppelt that, "We've been ordered to work up a national debunking campaign, planting articles in magazines and arranging broadcasts to make UFO reports sound like poppycock." (Dolan, 193-202) This protocol is still in effect.

    * A few weeks after the Robertson Panel, the Air Force issued Regulation 200-2, ordering air base officers to publicly discuss UFO incidents only if they were judged to have been solved, and to classify all the unsolved cases to keep them out of the public eye. In addition, UFO investigative duties started to be taken on by the newly formed 4602nd Air Intelligence Squadron (AISS) of the Air Defense Command. The 4,602nd AISS was tasked with investigating only the most important UFO cases with intelligence or national security implications. These were deliberately siphoned away from Blue Book, leaving Blue Book to deal with the more trivial reports. (Dolan, 210-211)

    * In 1954 an automatic working station for UFO monitoring was installed at Shirley's Bay near Ottawa in Canada. After this station detected the first suspicious event, all data gained by this station was classified as secret, although the cameras of the monitoring station could not make any pictures because of fog.(citation?)

    * 1956 saw the publication of Gray Barker's They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, the book which publicized the idea of sinister Men in Black who appear to UFO witnesses and warn them to keep quiet. There has been continued speculation that the men in black are government agents who harass and threaten UFO witnesses.

    * Also in 1956, the group Foundation for Earth-Space Relations, led by film producer Tzadi Sophit, tested their own flying saucer outside the Long Island town of Ridge Landing. It is speculated in Robertson's "The Long Island Saucer" that an FBI cover-up silenced witnesses. (citation?)

    * On January 22, 1958, when Donald Keyhoe appeared on CBS television, his statements on UFOs were precensored by the Air Force. During the show when Keyhoe tried to depart from the censored script to "reveal something that has never been disclosed before", CBS cut the sound, later stating Keyhoe was about to violate "predetermined security standards" and about to say something he wasn't "authorized to release". What Keyhoe was about to reveal were four publicly unknown military studies concluding UFOs were interplanetary (including the 1948 Project Sign Estimate of the Situation and a 1952 Project Blue Book engineering analysis of UFO motion presented at the Robertson Panel. [Timothy Good, 286-287; Richard Dolan 293-295]

    * Astronaut Gordon Cooper reported suppression of a flying saucer movie filmed in high clarity by two Edwards AFB range photographers on May 3, 1957. Cooper said he viewed developed negatives of the object, clearly showing a dish-like object with a dome on top and something like holes or ports in the dome. The photographers and another witness, when later interviewed by James McDonald, confirmed the story. Cooper said military authorities then picked up the film and neither he nor the photographers ever heard what happened to it. The incident was also reported in a few newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times. The official explanation was that the photographers had filmed a weather balloon distorted by hot desert air.[15]
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« Reply #44 on: August 06, 2011, 07:26:33 pm »

1960s

    * Throughout much of the 1960s, atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald suggested—via lectures, articles and letters—that the U.S. Government was mishandling evidence which would support the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
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