Sunday, December 18, 2005

2005 Ufological Top 10 - #9 Paul Hellyer & Exopolitics

Remember, when I started this list, I said it would be the top 10 developments or events of ufology in 2005, for good or ill. #9 definitely falls into the "ill" category.

I have dealt with Hellyer's entry into the UFO field elsewhere; see Paul Hellyer - The Big Fish Flops and Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet the REAL Paul Hellyer, columns that anyone who thinks this is "good" news should read carefully, and objectively. The man has been an embarassment for ufology, and, frankly, for Canada. He and his exopolitical fellow travellers have set the cause of the serious and scientific study of the UFO phenomenon back, not moved it forward. Last night on Strange Days... Indeed, Hellyer was called "courageous" by two commentators. There is nothing courageous about what he has done, because he had nothing left to lose (What? His reputation and credibility?? Sorry, but that ship sailed years ago). None of the exopolitics crowd have anything to lose. How is that courage?

Answer: it isn't.

Still, this development does symbolize two things, in a broader sense, for ufology.

First, it highlights the frustration felt by many people at the failure of the mainstream to take ufology seriously (a situation which isn't as bad as they sometimes make it out to be, and which as much ufology's fault as it is anyone else's). Most of these folks are good people, like Victor Viggiani, the Strange Days... Indeed co-host who organized the Toronto exopolitics conference this fall where Hellyer had his coming out party (and where Philip Corso's The Day After Roswell got a new lease on life). What these well-meaning people don't realize, however, is that things like exopolitics (and the constant, conspiratorial nattering on about the "Truth Embargo" and "disclosure" that goes with it), and Paul Hellyer's involvement therein, do far more harm than good to the serious study of the UFO phenomenon. It is the 21st century equivalent to the contactee movement of the 1950s. The attention that it draws to ufology is uniformly negative.

Second, it highlights a "methodology" that has elbowed it's way into the study of the UFO phenemenon, which is not really a methodology at all, but rather an evangelical belief system masquerading as a methodology. A read-through of any of the convoluted writings of Michael Salla, or Alfred Webre, reveals exopolitics to be nothing more than an unscientific, a-historical sham, foisted upon people who desperately want to have their belief in the Extra-terrestrial hypothesis confirmed, and will follow any pied-piper, no matter how ridiculous, down the merry-little path of self-delusion. It isn't science; it isn't even pseudo-science.

That would be fine, in the "hey, each to their own" sense, except for the fact that in the process of their whacked-out, New Age, ETH evangelism, the expolitics crowd taints all of ufology. It is, after all, easy to dismiss someone like Dick Hall, Kevin Randle or Brad Sparks these days - just point to Salla, Hellyer, Webre, and Steven Bassett (a self-important quartet if ever there was one), and say, "well, they're all part of the same bunch." Indeed, it forces good guys like Randle, Sparks, and Hall, to waste their time countering the garbage put out by the exopolitics cadre, in the hopes of setting the record straight. Alas, as the exopolitics gurus seem to be making a full-time career of it, it's almost impossible to keep up; they drown out the voices of reason simply by the amount of material that they produce, almost as if they were being paid by the word, like a hack pulp novelist churning out bad sci-fi paperbacks .

Alas, quantity seems to be trumping quality these days, as the guys who are getting the publicity are the Hellyer's of the world - ridiculed on American television, in the Canadian press, and so forth.

This is a good thing?

Nope.

Lately, Webre et al, with Hellyer as front man, have been calling for public hearings / disclosure here in Canada (does this remind anyone of similar calls for disclosure made a few years ago by that Steven Greer south of the border??). Here is a confident prediction for 2006 - nothing will come of it, except for more ridicule heaped on ufology in general, and more television and radio appearances for the publicity hounds that steer the exopolitical ship - a "ship" which, more and more, seems to be dragging ufology in it's wake.

It's time for ufology to change course... before that "ship" sinks, and drags ufology down under, once and for all, into the depths of complete and utter irrelevance.

Paul Kimball

6 comments:

Paul Kimball said...

Mr. Webre:

I see that your definition of "good reportage" basically means anyone who will give you free, positive publicity. Well, I'm happy to say that, by that standard, I'm a lousy reporter.

Graham Simms is a nice fellow - I've met him a number of times. Like others who fall for the exopolitics line, he means well... which sadly makes it that much easier for you and the exopolitics crowd to exploit them. You and the rest of the exopoliticians should be ashamed, both of how you take advantage of them, and the damage you do to the serious study of the UFO phenomenon.

As science, law or history, exopolitics is ridiculous. As science fiction, it barely qualifies as a second-rate pulp novel.

Of course, what you're really on about has little to do with UFOs, and everything to do with getting people to hop aboard your far left, anti-American bandwagon. Good luck to you, and your pals in Cuba, China, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (see: http://peaceinspace.org/).

It is the old bait and switch. The far right used to do the same thing.

Paul Kimball

Alfred Lehmberg said...

http://www.alienview.net/news.html

alienview@adelphia.net
www.AlienView.net
AVG Blog -- http://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Hello Paul!

Merry Christmas to you, Linda, Zorgrot, and any and all of her bears that survived the 1990 bouncing at Acadia.

I hope none are suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hope it's a good one, mang.

Yours etc.
Ignatius and family

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

Well, Gorsh, I just actually read the entire first comment in this thread from the esteemed Mr. Alfred Webre, practitioner of exopolitics.

I believe I now have a better handle on what exopolitics is, or perhaps more accurately, what it purports to be.

I am struck by this line, among many, in Mr. Webre's comment and attached interview, that "(h)umankind will reclaim their Universal rights to Universal citizenship. Earth's politics will extend to the exopolitics of other societies in the Universe."

Questions:

1) Even if the existence of extraterrestrial societies organized anywhere near the legal and political lines Mr. Webre descrbes were proved, why would we necessarily want to join in the fray? I'm quite happy just to be an earthling, not some citizen of an assumedly far left-wing 'Universe society.' Hell, that more closely describes Canada than I even care to admit now. Barf.

2) Why would the Universe society want to adopt any of Earth's politics? Don't extraterrestrials have standards? As much as I don't want to join their society, I'm sure they probably wouldn't want our politics extending into and influencing theirs.

2) Mr. Webre, why have you not better described Scientific Remote Viewing? It seems to be the crux of your criticism of Mr. Kimball (i.e., that he ignores scientific data so collected). A better description of this "important source of replicable data" (as you describe it), along with its methodology and perhaps a description of its adherence to the strict standards of science, would go a long way (in my humble view) to convince critics of exopolitics to reconsider their views. Is there anything to tell?

Best regards,

Ignatius

Paul Kimball said...

Utah Ig:

Ditto, and right back at you to you and yours, you old neo-con scoundrel!

Indiana Stu

Paul Kimball said...

Ig:

Re: remote viewing:

Like most areas of the paranormal, one should not dismiss it out of hand. The CIA and the DoD spent a fair amount of money looking into it at one time (see: http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/parapsychologyDoc.htm).

Still, it remains unproven, and as an investigative tool unreliable, to say the least, especially when the "evidence" that Webre et al claim it supports is undermined by other, proven research methods.

Paul