Odd Old Theory
For many years, the late Robert Bletchman fought for UFO disclosure. He believed public pressure could force the government to reveal all. I did not share his optimism. Since 1981, when he began his quest, I considered it futile. Undaunted by my views, and fascinated by what was concealed, Bletchman wanted disclosure within his lifetime. I wonder if three decades of failure induced him to reconsider my views.
Just recently, it occurred to me that his involvement with UFOlogy was not a total waste. Back around 1997, when crash dummies were invoked to explain alien bodies, Bletchman came up with an unusual interpretation of that claim. Aware of its obvious absurdity (crash dummies didn't even exist until the 1950s, or years after Roswell) Bletchman opined that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. In his view, the government was deliberately putting out nonsense as a kind of indirect preparation for disclosure. Since the dummy claim was obviously false, a coverup, hence ETs, looked more probable than ever. Naturally, this would increase belief in aliens, and pressure for disclosure.
At the time I didn't believe Bletchman's theory, and nor did others. It just seemed that the government was grasping at straws. Desperate to keep the public from believing aliens were at Roswell, it put out anything to divert attention from them.
Recently, Annie Jacobsen's book has caused me to reconsider the theory. Jacobsen included a dubious (to put it mildly) tale of a Stalin-Mengele connection. According to this story, Stalin, seeking to cause panic in the US, induced nazi doctor Joseph Mengele to produce genetically deformed humans to pass as aliens in a craft sent to crash in the US. No intelligent UFOlogist believes that; not even skeptics buy it. Since it originated with someone once at Area 51, this story was probably a government scam. Like MOGUL, and the Japanese POW story, it seems intended to replace the ET explanation with an alternative. But what is the point of producing a tall tale nobody will believe? Maybe it's just to get people tired of Roswell, by constantly adding absurd baggage. Bletchman's theory is flawed in that many years of nonsense have generated neither general acceptance of ETs nor disclosure. But who knows?
posted by starman at 7:06 AM
5 Comments:
I knew Bob quite well as a friend and colleague. He was also a lawyer and came up with the idea of my obtaining samples of documents by Roscoe Hillenkoetter to see if linquistically they matched The Eisenhower Briefing Document which he supposedly wrote. They did. Incidentally polls as described in my
"Flying Saucers and Science" show there are more believers than non believers despite the "Anything But Alien" attitudes of the nasty noisy negativists. I have had only 11 hecklers at more than 700 lectures. Stan Friedman
The government is hurting its case by coming up with so many explanations that contradict each other. That shows that they are very desperate in terms of trying to refute the idea of space aliens at Roswell.
Neal Robbins
Are we really to believe the government is behind this guy O'Donnell who told his tale to Annie Jacobsen after several decades; and who partly retracted what he said when interviewed (by phone) by Tony Bragalia? Nothing like introducing more complications into an already over-complicated subject.
By the way, would you claim that Nick Redfern's sources are also part of a government plot (or counter-plot)?
Is it Blechtman or Bletchman?
Disinformation can serve multiple purposes. There is the usual primary purpose of trying to confuse the target audience as to what the truth is. But if you are also trying to get some part of the truth out while still maintaining plausible deniability, it also does that.
E.g., governments float "trial balloons" on controversial subjects all the time to see how what the reaction is. Usually it is some anonymous "high government source" "leaking" the information, but it is all very deliberate and premeditated. If the reaction is decidedly negative, they still have their plausible deniability. Maybe some unnamed person said so, but the government has no such plans, etc., etc. That's how the game is played.
If the government is trying to slowly get the public used to the idea of alien visitation, which might be considered socially devastating if revealed all at once, then you put some truth in with the red herrings and lies. This I believe was Bletchman's theory, and I and others have long held that notion as well.
I don't know what the motives of Jacobsen's source (Alfred O'Donnell) were. They could have been purely personal, or maybe he was working in cahoots with the government. We are always guessing, aren't we? It wouldn't surprise me, however, if some of these old guys who spent their entire lives on the government payroll immersed in a culture of strict secrecy are "leaking" Roswell "secrets" to supplement their government pensions. Maybe it also gives them something fun to do in their old age, jerking people around.
I mispelled the name; it's Bletchman. David, you suggest some people are leaking info to supplement their government pensions. Was there ever any evidence of this? I wonder if O'Donnell just bought a yacht or something. :) Some time ago, it was suggested that Kaufmann lied to attract tourist $ to Roswell. But what did HE get out of it?
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