“The Guardian” of What?

This recent article published in The Guardian has come to my attention: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/14/men-in-black-ufo-sightings-mirage-makers-movie

This article in The Guardian, written one week ago (August 14, 2014) by journalist Steve Rose, was inspired by the recent release of Mirage Men, a film produced by crop circle “artists” John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington. That should tell you something. I preface my responses to various quotes excerpted from Rose’s article with the following statement:

Dr. Jesse A. Marcel Jr. was, for many years, a medical colleague at St. Peter’s Hospital and a close friend of mine here in Helena, MT. I discussed the Roswell UFO crash and its implications with Dr. Marcel on numerous occasions. I attended the remarkable 2013 “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” with Dr. Marcel and his wife, Linda. Dr. Marcel always maintained that an extraterrestrial UFO did crash in the desert outside of Roswell, NM, in July, 1947. Dr. Marcel plainly stated that his father, a USAAF Major and the Chief Intelligence Officer for the Roswell AAF, brought to their home debris he personally recovered from that UFO crash site, displayed some of those debris on the Marcel’s kitchen floor, and stated that the debris was from a “crashed flying saucer” that was “not of this world”. Dr. Marcel repeated this story not just to me, face-to-face and on several occasions, but also to all who approached him with their honest question, “did Roswell happen?” Dr. Marcel’s story never changed over the many years he obligingly re-told his recollections of the Roswell event. Dr. Marcel was an ENT physician/surgeon, a man of great integrity, and a man of great courage. Dr. Marcel served as Montana’s Surgeon General. He was a flight surgeon and a helicopter pilot for the Montana Army National Guard. Dr. Marcel served 2 tours of duty in Iraq, beginning when he was 68 years old. I give the reader my word that I am 100% certain that Dr. Marcel would never have lied to his family, to others, or to me about what happened at Roswell, and there is no possibility that Dr. Marcel’s father could have misidentified debris which the U.S. military subsequently claimed was, first, from a radar target, then a “Project Mogul” balloon, and, finally, from “crash test dummies”. Anything, written or otherwise, that speaks contrary to Dr. Marcel’s simple truth –that extraterrestrial visitation to this planet has already occurred – including the article cited above in The Guardian by Steve Rose is, either intentionally or simply out of ignorance, propaganda that is intended to dissuade you from believing Dr. Marcel’s simple but important Truth – that we are not alone.

My responses to various excerpts from Rose’s article:
“…the UFO community is a textbook case of a gullible group susceptible to manipulation.”
The “UFO community”, if defined as those who have seriously searched through and carefully considered the evidence supporting the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis for UFOs, is arguably less gullible and less susceptible to manipulation (such as that presented in The Guardian article) than those who have not.

“If there really is a UFO conspiracy, it’s surely the worst-kept secret in history.”
The conspiracy to cover-up the reality of ET/UFO visitation to this planet has been real and has evolved in its strategy over time. When it became clear, early on, that the subject could not be contained as a “secret” for the long term, the strategy then shifted to one of denial and ridicule. This strategy was formulated, sanctioned, and instigated by “The Robertson Panel” in 1952.
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/robert.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Panel

“But a new documentary, Mirage Men, unearths compelling evidence that UFO folklore was actually fabricated by the US government. Rather than covering up the existence of aliens, could it be that the real conspiracy has been persuading us to believe in them?”
Is Rose suggesting that we should consider official U.S. military/government documents that clearly point to our own U.S. military, FBI, and CIA interests in UFOs as “UFO folklore”?
http://www.majesticdocuments.com/official.documents.nara.php
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/evidence/countries-releasing-ufo-information/
Or, that numerous UFO encounters, documented by simultaneous ground observer, ground radar, pilot observer, and aircraft radar are “UFO folklore”. Are affidavits describing up close and personal UFO sightings and signed by all aircraft crew members to be regarded a “UFO folklore”? It seems that this is what Rose is suggesting, and we can identify the term “UFO folklore” as an obvious example of ridicule that has, for decades, been a staple of the strategy to cover-up the UFO reality.
http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/oppenheimer_einstein.pdf
http://www.ufoevidence.org/Cases/CaseSubarticle.asp?ID=106
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/evidence/bae-documents/)
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/evidence/
If the “real conspiracy has been persuading us to believe in them”, then, in my view, the aim toward that goal has been completely off the mark. Most people, largely due to repeated exposures to articles like this one in The Guardian, still do not “believe” in UFOs. The “real conspiracy” has been to induce such a state of confusion about the existence of extraterrestrial UFOs that the individual simply surrenders to that confusion and then goes on about his/her business. This The Guardian article only contributes to that state of confusion.

“The classic case, well-known to conspiracy aficionados, is Paul Bennewitz, a successful electronics entrepreneur in New Mexico.”
Note Rose’s use of the term “conspiracy aficionados”. Again, this is not-so-subtle ridicule. That Richard Doty allegedly baited Paul Bennewitz, a private U.S. citizen and a man who very likely suffered from mental illness, into a contrived situation in which Bennewitz was deliberately set up to believe that he was being fed “insider” UFO information by an official U.S. government agent is an unconscionable act for which Doty, still living, should have deep regrets. This is made worse by the likelihood that U.S. (our) tax dollars were likely paying Doty’s salary at the time. Now, Doty is engaged in law enforcement? Rose (and Lundberg/Pilkington) seem to make nothing of these inconvenient truths, while giving the impression that we should just accept such schemes directed at U.S. citizens by agents of our own government who are, presumably, “just following orders”.
The Bennewitz case is an unfortunate side-show of the UFO cover-up and was intended to present Bennewitz to the world as an example of “the lunatic fringe” that “believes” in UFOs.

“Doty almost admits to having had a hand in supposedly leaked “classified” documents, such as the “Majestic 12” dossier.”
The “Majestic 12 Documents” have been poured over meticulously by Dr. Robert Wood and his son Ryan Wood. Both of these men are quite brilliant. Their painstaking analysis, which Mr. Rose predictably doesn’t even mention, can be found in the link below. In short, the Wood’s analysis indicates that the “Majestic 12 Documents” are, with a high degree of probability, genuine.
http://www.majesticdocuments.com/

“Mysterious cattle mutilations in 1970s New Mexico turn out to have been officials furtively investigating radiation in livestock after they’d conducted an ill-advised experiment in underground “nuclear fracking”.”
“Cattle mutilations”, which are actually skilled surgical dissections, are not a phenomenon restricted to the 1970s. These events are still going on and have involved not only cattle but horses, sheep, deer, elk, and even buffalo. These events have occurred not only in the U.S., but also in the U.K., Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and right here in Montana. The instruments used to carry out these procedures do not exist in the operating rooms of the U.S. We know this because the hide incisions often exhibit a unique, serrated, and cauterized edge that is not seen with the electrocautery, harmonic scalpel, or the ubiquitous #15 Bard-Parker surgical scalpel commonly in use. I know this because I have worked as an anesthesiologist in surgical operating rooms throughout the U.S. for the past 30 years. If these procedures were carried out to monitor the effects of “nuclear fracking” carried out in the 1970s (absolutely ludicrous, Mr. Rose), then simple biopsies would suffice that would take much less time and inflict much less harm to an animal. Instead, large areas of tissue are removed “en bloc”, and the entire blood volume is drained from very large (and powerful) animals. In many instances, animals appear to have been dropped from a height.
http://www.nuforc.org/CB990225.html

“Test pilots for the military’s experimental silent helicopters admit to attaching flashing lights to their craft to fool civilians.”Really?
Speaking of “a textbook case of a gullible group”, who here, besides Mr. Rose, has seen a “silent helicopter”? I have yet to see a “silent helicopter”, despite his implication that this technology has been around for 40 years. If “silent helicopters” exist, where are they, Mr. Rose? Dr. Marcel never mentioned “silent helicopters”, and for many years he was a helicopter pilot for the Montana Army National Guard.

“In the cold light of the post-cold war, the evidence is starting to look pretty shaky for UFOs.”
If we accept the end of the cold war as 1991, the evidence presenting since then that supports the UFO/Extraterrestrial Hypothesis has grown quite dramatically. In fact, in my opinion, the evidence gathered since the end of the cold war is more prolific and more compelling than any other since “The Roswell Incident”. As the cold war was ending the world was confronted by the “Belgian UFO wave”. In 1997, we had the incredible “Phoenix Lights” event. In 2001, we heard dozens of first-hand government and military eyewitnesses, for the first time ever, come forward to tell of their personal experiences with UFOs via “The Disclosure Project”, organized by Dr. Steven Greer. The year 2008 brought with it the very well documented “Stephenville Lights” incident. In 2013, Steven Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group organized the “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure”. Our ability to catalogue and access new UFO reports has markedly improved, and Peter Davenport’s “National UFO Reporting Center” is the prime example of this. What about Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s statement, on a nationally televised Russian news program, admitting that UFOs are real?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d8NGCUNb6U
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc404.htm
http://www.thephoenixlights.net/PL_Home.htm
http://stephenvillelights.com/
http://www.nuforc.org/
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/witness-testimony/
http://www.citizenhearing.org/
http://www.nicap.org/papers/randdoc.htm

Sorry Mr. Rose, but it appears as though you did zero research on the UFO topic before you wrote, and The Guardian published, this piece of “journalism”. You swallowed Lundberg’s and Pilkington’s story hook, line, and sinker. Welcome to the world of Mr. Bennewitz.

“Numbers at UFO conventions and clubs are dwindling.”
Another false statement. According to Maureen Elsberry, a chief organizer of the “International UFO Congress” held each February at Ft. McDowell, AZ, the number of registrants attending the IUFOC has doubled since 2011. Maureen also reports a doubling in the number of attendees for the “Contact in the Desert” UFO Conference over the past 5 years. In my own experience, as founder of The Jesse A. Marcel Library here in Helena, MT, each Tuesday evening the JAML is realizing a growing number of interested visitors to the JAML, and a growing number of names added to our “email contacts” list. Many people are now waking up to this new reality.
http://ufocongress.com/

“…what if the lies and hoaxes Mirage Men reveals are simply a smokescreen for the fact that the authorities really do know secrets about extraterrestrials?”
What if? Mr. Rose, I can assure you that this is a certainty.

Now, some comments on a few of the comments generated by The Guardian article:
Comments:
“Unless they find some way of repealing the laws of physics, chances are they never will. Aliens are as stuck in their own solar systems as we are and are not wasting their time abducting delusional Americans.”
This statement assumes that there will not be a single additional breakthrough in our understanding of physics (there will be many), that we already have a firm grasp of all there is to know about physics (we do not, thus the existence of The Large Hadron Collider), and that we will not be able to devise any other strategies that will allow us to eventually travel interstellar distances (please note a recent report of a “xenon ion propulsion engine” currently being tested by NASA). Take a look back at how our technology has progressed over a mere 100 years, and then try to look forward 1000 years from now. This is a span of time that is truly insignificant within the cosmological time scale, but is very significant when we consider the probability that other intelligent races are finding their way to us. The Universe is at least 10 BILLION years older than Earth. We should only be surprised if other intelligent races have not arrived here sooner (and they probably have).
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2516.html

“The world is indeed full of mystery at every level. Which is exactly why the question of what explains reported UFO sightings is so relatively unimportant.”
Unimportant? Hmmm, let me think about that. Might they teach us something about completely novel methods of producing the energy that was required for them to arrive here? Would they have any ideas about how we might go about slowing, halting, or even reversing global climate change? If their civilization is older than ours, and it will be, how have they negotiated their way through the “nuclear energy for weapons of mass destruction” conundrum? Do they still engage in war and, if so, under what circumstances? Could they offer any examples of socio-economic systems that our own civilization could/should consider? Have they already developed advanced medical technologies that could be of benefit to humanity? Are there extraterrestrial races that are known to be hostile or in some way dangerous and, if so, how should we prepare to meet them? What is their concept/understanding of a Creator? Perhaps most importantly, we may all finally realize the need to critically analyze what we are being told, and where we are being led, by our respective governments. Will humanity, upon realizing that we are not alone, become more tightly bound with one another, and together strive to become a part of our galactic community? I think that is very likely.

“There are certainly some gullible UFO aficionados, but I would submit that Mark Pilkington (author of Mirage Men) is profoundly gullible to be resting his hat on the testimony of someone so transparently devoid of credibility as Richard Doty.”
I couldn’t agree more.

Unlike Steve Rose, I am not a professional writer/journalist, and I am not paid for the considerable time required to write this rebuttal to Rose’s less-than-enlightening article in The Guardian. I have taken the time and the effort to write this because I was a colleague and friend of Dr. Marcel, I know that he was an honorable and truthful man, and I feel obliged to let others know this. With regard to “The Roswell Incident”, this is a damn sight more back-up than our own U.S. military ever gave to him, or to his father. They were both patriots, and they were both willing to “take one for the team”. You did good, Jess. You both did. Rest in peace.
Richard O’Connor, M.D.

ADDENDUM August 24, 2014: An email from Joan Bird, author of Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials, to me and many others on her contact list is also worth reading.

UFO List – A friend on this list, who happens to be a contactee, sent me this link to a recent article in the widely read British newspaper, the Guardian, “the world’s leading liberal source,” by a reporter named Steve Rose.

It begins by focusing on some of Snowden’s discoveries of a British intelligence powerpoint called “The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations,” detailing methods of disinformation for use by intelligence agencies.

“Images include camouflaged moths, inflatable tanks, women in burqas, and complex diagrams plastered with jargon, buzzwords and slogans: “Disruption Operational Playbook”, “Swap the real for the false and vice versa”, “People make decisions as part of groups” and, beneath a shot of hands shuffling a deck of cards, “We want to build Cyber Magicians“. Curiously, sandwiched in the middle of the document are three photographs of UFOs. Not real ones – classic fakes: one was a hub cap, another a bunch of balloons, and one that turned out to be a seagull.”

The article segues into a review of a new movie based on a book by Mark Pilkington called “Mirage Men.” Great title. And it sounds like it does a good job of showing some of the textbook cases of just how far the government will go to sow disinformation. Unfortunately, Pilkington and the Guardian reporter seem to jump from there to the conclusion that all UFO evidence was fabricated by black ops to hide covert technological advances in aircraft and weaponry. A rather large leap.

The derisive and condescending treatment of the UFO community is annoying, to say the least. I would like you to read the language carefully and notice your reaction to it. This is what ridicule looks/feels like in the media. Here’s an example:

“Devout ufologists might seize upon this as further proof that our governments “know something” about aliens and their transportation methods, but really it suggests the opposite: the UFO community is a textbook case of a gullible group susceptible to manipulation. Having spent too long watching the skies and The X-Files, it’s implied, they’ll readily swallow whatever snippet of “evidence” suits their grand theory.”

Rose also invokes some academic psychological theory to further deride anyone who takes the UFO phenomenon seriously. He inserts a paragraph about “cognitive dissonance,” a theory explaining how the human psyche ignores evidence that doesn’t fit its belief system. He accuses the UFO community of doing this, while it doesn’t seem to occur to him that he and other skeptics could be doing the same thing.

The following comment was particularly annoying:

“In the cold light of the post-cold war, the evidence is starting to look pretty shaky for UFOs. Numbers at UFO conventions and clubs are dwindling. The UK’s Ministry of Defence closed its UFO desk in 2009, and, like many countries, has declassified its UFO documents. If there was any smoking gun, you’d imagine it would have been found in our current golden age of leaks and disclosures – but so far there’s only been more smoke.”

Sigh. If a skeptic were to read this, it certainly would assuage them they need look no further. But it’s woefully inaccurate. I don’t think Rose is a “mirage man” himself, but just someone who has only superficial knowledge about the phenomenon, speaking as if he is an authority. (Authoritative persuasion sadly seems to be more of an influence on the mass psyche than scientific evidence, and is something to watch out for) A recent interview on Coast-to-Coast radio talked about the current proliferation of UFO Conferences, at least in the U.S. and South America. Somehow Rose failed to go beyond the tip of the iceberg phenomenon in the declassified British reports, and look at the abundance of credible witnesses and evidence for the 1980 Rendlesham case in the UK. And actually there are several other excellent cases brought to light by those declassification files, though “the rest of the story” was not in the declassified info. And what about all the abduction/contactee accounts? the implants? the well-vetted photos? the military witnesses? Paul Hellyer? Jimmy Carter? the several dozen Roswell witnesses?

Anyway, just wanted everyone on this list to know that this kind of reporting is still happening, annoying as it is. It takes a familiarity with the abundant UFO evidence and personal courage to stand up to this kind of attack on those who take the UFO phenomenon seriously. Be advised.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/15/snowden-files-the-real-men-in-black-hollywood-and-the-great-ufo-false-flag/