Edgar Mitchell has claimed that UFOs are real and represent an alien expedition to Earth for over a decade.

Yet all of a sudden, this past week, it was news.  Why? It’s not like the interview itself was big media—Mictchell was talking to a small-time Candian arts and culture zine, Kerrang!.  This is not exactly Diane Sawyer or Wolf Blitzer.  So why was this news picked up by major corporate syndicates?

I’m guessing it’s probably related to the fact Edgar Mitchell is a paid advisor for the next X-Files movie.  Before you assume you know what I’m saying here, let’s pause to savor the flavor: a franchise about shadowy government conspiracies and cover-ups is engaged in a conspiracy to promote itself.  This conspiracy involves driving paranormal memes into popular awareness to create a context, and thus a demand, for their product. It’s the most elegant example of a “full circle” phenomenon I can think of for these times.

Charlie White & The Reptilians.

Here’s an earlier example: the incredible photographic proof that David Icke’s reptilians are real.  Even assuming that this is a sane framework, there’s the question of how a severed monster head is nescessarily proof of shape-shifting reptilians running the world.  (How exactly does a member of the Illuminati wind up with his head swinging from a chain in a barrio somewhere?  Did Tony Blair just go missing?)

The photo, of course, is not “real” but a work of art, by photographer and surrealist Charlie White.  His whole portfolio is equally as inspired and I definitely recommend checking him out. 

http://www.charliewhite.info/

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/white.html

Cloverfield and The Nephilim

Another great example of viral marketing creating post-reality conditions is the short snippet of Cloverfield promo which featured a transparently fake news broadcast about an enormous monster washed ashore in India.  These days, it exists on YouTube—not as a commercial, but as proof that the biblical Nephilim existed.  It’s being re-purposed to promote End Times Christianity, and it’s examples like this—really huge unintended consequences—that will characterize the future of viral marketing.

Here’s an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2k7cigzi6Y

The Recent Montauk Monster

This inspiration for all this was the recent “Montauk Monster” that’s making the rounds online, which immediately evoked Charlie White’s work for me.  (My own variation on the same confirmation bias I mock in others—LOLZ hypocrisy FTW)

Naturally, there’s no other angles, no accompanying email or explanation, just an image and lots of speculations in the comment boxes of various high-traffic sites.  Naturally, a big part of that speculation involves viral marketing, and I think it’s important to clearly state something signifigant:

Regardless of this specific instance—or any of the examples I’ve shown here—there’s now another possibility that needs to be considered when evaluating bizarre evidence and High Strangeness: corporate pranking for the purpose of advertising.  These operations are deliberately secretive and cryptic, and backed up by huge budgets.  For instance, I’m sure more got spend on the Cloverfield hype than NIDS of MUFON have spent in the past 5 years.

Post-Reality

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and we’re on the verge of a flood of extraordinary evidence, devoid of context. I cannot over-emphasize how debilitating this will be, when anyone who wants confirmation and proof of their reality tunnels will have an over-abundance of utterly realistic evidence at their disposal.

Remember what MJ-12 did to UFOlogy in the US? Destroyed it for decades.  Expect more of the same.  A flood of counterfeit evidence will undermine reality as surely as a flood of counterfeit money would weaken an economy.  (Or as surely as gangs of criminals running around dressed as cops or SWAT teams would erode faith and trust in authority.)

And the CARET glyphs are being used on Alienware notebooks—parasite marketing:

http://forgetomori.com/2007/ufos/caret-drones-finally-marketing/

Of course, the flipside to this is that due to pollution, radical earth changes and novel mutations, it’s not like reality really needs the help being any weirder.

Here’s the latest from China:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2941186.html

Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.

“It’s hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!” Feng told Oriental Today.

He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.

Feng’s wife said the monkey-faced piglet was one of five newborns of a sow which the family had raised for nine years.

“My God, it was so scary. I didn’t known what it was. I was really frightened,” she said.

“But our son likes to play with it, and he stopped us from getting rid of it. He even feeds it milk.”

Neighbours have suggested the couple keep the piglet to see how it looks as it matures.

Remember what MJ-12 did to UFOlogy in the US? Destroyed it for decades.  Expect more of the same.  A flood of counterfeit evidence will undermine reality as surely as a flood of counterfeit money would weaken an economy.  (Or as surely as gangs of criminals running around dressed as cops or SWAT teams would erode faith and trust in authority.)

Indeed. From Edgar Mitchell’s follow-up interview:

IK: When did you have your meeting at the Pentagon?

EM: It was in the late ‘90s in Washington when I was there working with The Disclosure Project, trying to get all those opened up with another Naval officer by the name of Will Miller and Steven Greer, who you probably heard of. Steven and I don’t really work on this anymore together, but we did at that point and getting to the Pentagon and seeing what we could do there to try to get this opened up.

...

IK: Why do you think the government hasn’t acknowledged that there is life outside of Earth? I thought that was sort of the point of NASA.

...

[Truman] formed a committee, a very high-level military and academic and intelligent people—politically powerful people—and said ‘You guys work on this.’ And that was called ... the MAJIC 12. And they did pass a National Security Act, or so I’m told, under highly classified auspices, that gave this committee virtually unlimited power to deal with this issue, which they have done for the last 60 years, slowly excluding everybody—including presidents.

Also, this was interesting:

Without the atmosphere to block, the stars don’t twinkle, and there’s 10 times as many as you could possibly see on Earth because of the lack of interference and it’s much closer to what you could see through the Hubble Telescope these days, with those pictures and I hope you’ve looked at some of those: it’s overwhelming—and I realized as that happened, because I do have a PhD from MIT and I studied astronomy at Harvard and MIT and knew that molecules of matter in my body and in the spacecraft and in my partners’ bodies were made in some ancient generation of stars. That’s where matter is created.

Suddenly I realized that the molecules in my body were created in an ancient generation of stars and suddenly that became personal and visceral, not intellectual and I had never had this experience. It was accompanied by bliss, an ecstasy I had never experienced.

Later—and I’m making this long story short—with some discovery and some help from scientists at Rice University in Houston, I discovered in ancient transcripts that this type of experience—a transformational, transcendental experience where you see things as you perceive them but experience them viscerally and emotionally as one, as a part of it—is called samadhi. In doing more research, I found that it has taken place in every culture on Earth. The political and cultural expression of that turns out to be religion.

The experience is the same—a heady, overwhelming experience. But when it gets politicized, put into the culture, those things get lost on the people who had the experience and it becomes something else. So that’s what it was: a deep, deep cultural experience that is in the culture of our civilization in hundreds of places.

IK: Is that what the Noetic Institute is for? To bring this consciousness ...

EM: I’m trying to use the tools of science to understand precisely these types of knowledge.

IK: Wow, that’s quite a calling.

EM: That’s exactly what I’ve spent the last 35 years doing.

Then there’s the matter of Edgar Mitchell supposedly relaying a death threat to free-energy researcher Bruce Depalma:

Yes, I have been threatened for my life. The first threat came from Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who told me that the Government had said there “never was any doubt” that the N machine was the Free Energy machine they were looking for, and if I tried anything on my own in California I would have my head blown off. And the CIA warned me via Mitchell that I should not leave the country because I would be kidnapped. This was back in 1980, when these efforts frightened me out of going to Hanover, Germany for Dr. Neiper’s first Gravity Field Energy Conference, which is where P. Tewari brought his N machine from India and got the prize for the most clearly observable Free Energy phenomena to date.

At that time, Edgar Mitchell was “best friends” with George H.W. Bush, though it’s been hard for me to find corroborating sources for that claim.

And now, we have this guy apparently trying to piggyback onto the publicity:

NASA expert claims to have seen ET from UFO standing in Shuttle payload bay during space flight.

I was the Director of the NICAP Unit-3 actual X-Files at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, 1958 to 1992! YES, the ACTUAL X-FILES!! Aliens ARE HERE!! They walk among US! They may be implanted into OUR various earth governments!!

What I know, they would NOT allow me to publish! I have written at least three books to release the TRUTH to all of the HUMAN RACE! I was on the leading edge of this subject, and I have met with many NASA and other astronauts throughout the years I have been involved in the Military, NASA Space Programs, 1958 to 1992! I have heard many experiences of ETs having been seen on the Moon, etc., by NASA Astronauts and I relate these and more in my books.

Captain, where did you get the Bush-Mitchell connection?

Duncan Roads, form Nexus Magazine--or someone saying that he’s Duncan--says he knows McClelland. :

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread206574/pg2

Clark C. McClelland has been involved in the study of alien life visiting earth since 1947. He was the Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomona at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, Florida for a period of 12 years and later the Director of the MUFON Unit at KSC and Assistant State of Florida Director of the Mutual UFO Network for two years.

McClelland was trained in Astronomy (Amateur) at the former Buhl Planetarium, Pittsburgh, PA and was a planetary observer (Mars, Jupiter, Moon, Venus, etc.) at the Allegheny Observatory of the University of Pittsburgh under former Director, Dr. Nicholas E. Wagman. His observations were published in Sky and Telescope Magazine, The Strolling Astronomer Magazine, in Japan and in the science journal of the Soviet Academy of Science.

McClelland joined the US Space Program in 1958 and observed or assisted in launching 628 rockets and space missions since that time.

He was the actual X-Files at the Cape and KSC during his years in the US Space Program.
McClelland was a member of a ONI Unit (Office of Naval Intelligence) at Patrick Air Force Base South of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

I would like to add that I have dealings on occasion with Clark, and I consider him honest and a man of integrity. He is financially destitute and desperate for money, and being a cantankerous old guy doesn’t help him much. But he is the real deal.

peace

Duncan

and then someone at abovetopsecret forums emailed Clark:

Mr. McClelland,

In regards to your news-release in supporting of Dr. Mitchell, I was wondering if you could provide a bit more detail about the incident.

Which space shuttle did this take place on? When did the incident take place? Who were the astronauts speaking to this alien?

Also, you have had your website since 1998 (though correct me if I am wrong); why come forward with this story now?

-----Original Message-----
From: Clark C. McClelland [mailto:clark0003@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 9:56 AM
To: Bruce P.
Subject: Re: Message from Stargate-Chronicles Site

I have the shuttles and crews, dates, etc.
I WILL NOT cause these brave astronauts any problems, since several are NOT yet retired!
Below is my resaons to seek $$.
I deserve the honor and respect from all humanity!
My release now was to substantiate and support Astronaut Mitchell.
He and I had several coversations about 3 years ago in my town!
C.

NOTE:

Most of you are not aware that my Space Program Retirement was DENIED TO ME!!

I was told by several KSC high management people to not take a legal action, and that they were working to have my job returned to me with back pay!

Thank the Legal Gods that I found an attorney who would give me a free consultation.

He told me that I had a fixed time limit to file an action against those responsible.

My attorney called me and said, your time is running out. It had about two weeks still allowed for filing a legal action.

I informed him that he could file that action after I called KSC to see if they had accomplished any action for my return. None of those management people would talk with me. They were hoping my time would run out. People I had worked with, were cowards!

My attorney and I had several meetings with their legal group from Miami.

They offered me peanuts to accept their “final” offer! I advised them that I would write several books to disclose my astounding experiences at Cape Canaveral and the KSC! I refused the offer.

It went to the criminal court system we have been educated to TRUST! The initial court hearing REFUSED my attempt to have a court trial with my peers as the jurors. I believe they realized that with my personal experiences of lecturing at many universities, that I would no doubt win my case! So, they denied me my Constitutional Rights

My attorney said that he could have it transferred to the Federal Court in Atlanta, GA. He said it was one step from the Supreme Court in Washington DC.

He required MORE $$$! Of course, what else would anyone expect to hear from a lawyer?

I borrowed $$ from my beloved and not-to-well-off wonderful parents.

The attorney took my case to Atlanta!

It languished there for a couple of years! My attorney was summoned to Atlanta. He returned to tell me that once again, I had been denied my Constitutional Rights! They would not allow my case to be heard!!

I was and still am VERY BROKE!

I am asking those that are rich, famous, like Rock Stars, Movie Stars, Bill Gates, all who have enough for ten life times, PLEASE HELP ME! I am doing this FOR YOU, the Human Race! I am standing ALONE, so FAR! Are any of you courageous enough to assist me? If not, then my astonishing books may never be read! Clark

Maybe he must address Robbie Williams?

Found it in the comments here while searching with Google:

Empire on verge of nervous breakdown

Tentatively assuming BS on this one, of course.

“In early November 1980, the night before Bruce DePalma was scheduled to leave for Germany to be the featured presenter at Hans Nieper’s Gravity Field Energy Conference in Hanover Germany, DePalma got a phone call from US astronaut Edgar Mitchell claiming “The CIA has information to the effect that if you go to Germany you will not be coming back. And you better watch out what you do there in Santa Barbara, or you might get your head blown off.” Mitchell was “best friends with George H.W. Bush” - at that time directing the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). DePalma eventually left the USA to live in New Zealand.”

Obviously the answer is “you can’t know it”, but I’m just curious on what people thinks about. The commentary you quote ends this way:

Since DePalma has a website disseminating all his energy know-how, am I to assume that CIA death threats have a sell-by date?

What do you think?

Anyone else think the monkey-pig looks infinitely more bizarre than the “Montauk monster”? Nature not only doesn’t need help being weird, it’s got all the trump cards.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/07/the_monster_of_montauk.html

No definite answers - man does this thing ever fit the topic of this thread…

What do you think?

The whole CIA thing is almost certainly total BS, but who knows about Bush. It’d be interesting to get some corroboration on that. At the very least, Edgar Mitchell has led a weird life.

Ok, so it appears that the guy was inside the ATSforums for years. Most rational post i read in that discussion:

Clark’s background has been thoroughly exposed in many places. It only takes an open mind and Google to track this stuff down.

Secondly, I post his remarks from other sites to give an insight as to how his mind works. He clearly has a histrionic/narcissistic personality. I am not saying he is lying, just that he needs to provide rational, calm, logical proof if he wants to be taken seriously, especially here.

Thirdly, he obviously has a motive. Time and time again from the 90s forward you can see him threatening to expose ‘The Truth’ if someone will just pay him/publish him/cuddle him, etc.

If he won’t come here and defend himself then I refuse to believe any more of his unsubstantiated claims of 9 foot aliens (in SPACESUITS!) climbing around on the space shuttle like it’s an extraterrestrial jungle gym.

By attaching himself to the coattails of respected folks like Ed Mitchell, he is destroying any credibility in the public’s eyes about UFOs.

By parroting his tripe here in ATS it makes us look stupid and people who come here looking for the truth are likely to just walk away thinking this is just another campy tinfoil hat forum, and it’s not.

By entertaining these claims without scrutiny and without healthy intellectual skepticism we are actually *promoting* ignorance.

I am not saying vote the guy off the island, but lets get some data, evidence, proof to start looking at before we say “Another NASA employee comes forward...”

Not saying it’s a hoax, just asking that we give him the same scrutiny we give everyone else.

http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/piglet-with-monkeys-face/

More pictures of the pig.  Adds some credibility.  They actually sadden me deeply; that thing looks like its existence is a very painful/uncomfortable one.

Montauk monster replica

Not nearly as creepy as the original. They should’ve spent more time on getting the mouth right.

Yeah, that’s so poorly done they really should have tried again instead of photographing it.  You’d have to be seriously visually impaired to think those are a close fit. It’s more like a sculpture of a picasso.

Georgia Gorilla: Bigfoot Body’s First Photo!

I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop.

A New York Times article about faking photographs.

photographs seem to grab people’s attention a lot more than a sterile block of text.  you could acutally probably do some kind of sociological experiment in this context:  show test groups a picture of something bizzare as well as an accompanying paragraph stating it’s fake and people will still believe..

i was a big sucker for the georgia bigfoot story until i started to dig.

occam’s razor my friends.  the truth doesn’t seem to require a lot of assumptions.