Friday, May 23, 2008

The Omega Men


Alien Head
Originally uploaded by adamantine

So I find myself scrolling through the AboveTopSecret.com news feed this morning when this gem reveals itself from the surrounding darkness: The Omega secret = Vatican + Aliens + USgovt. The Vatican. Aliens. The government. Is this not the wet dream trinity of every UFO conspiracy theorist? Yes. Yes it is.

Pregnant with excitement, I went first to the web post then to the original article, part one of a translation from Italian of a book by Cristoforo Barbato. I'll print out and read the entire article later but my eyes immediately locked on this passage, from an interview the author had with a mysterious man known as "The Jesuit" (this is a movie that writes itself!):

[In February of 1954] ...was the meeting that occurred in California at Muroc Airfield (which later became Edwards Air Force Base) of an alien delegation with the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, attended by the Bishop of Los Angeles, James Francis McIntyre.

The meeting was filmed by the military with 3 16mm cameras, placed at different points, loaded with color film and spring drive motors; that is because each camera operator had to change the film every 3 minutes and because in the presence of the aliens, electric motor did not work. In total they shot 20 minutes of film in 7 rolls, each of them 30 meters in length.

At the end of the meeting, each member of the Earth delegation swore never to reveal to anyone what he had seen and what he had heard about the aliens. Don't ask me where the film is because I think that you must know the answer...

I don't know the answer! What's the answer? Won't anybody tell me the answer?

[Sorry for that outburst. I have regained my composure.] The wonderful thing about these reports is that they rely on the testimony of one or more people whose identities and connection to the events cannot be confirmed. They hint at evidence which is not in hand and also cannot be confirmed. They also contain details that fit in with the existing UFO lore, such as the malfunction of electronics in the presence of the ETs. Given all this, why am I reading this stuff?

Because for all those reasons I love it. It makes great theater if not, ultimately, truth. If we wonder how the ancients believed in their leaders as the sons of gods or that those gods walked the earth, swam the seas, and flew through the skies, we need look no further than the same impulses that drive us towards these UFO theories. I can't say that this story is absolutely not true in the same way I can't say that Heracles definitely didn't exist. Still, I wouldn't bet on those odds. But I will read the literature. Unlike the myths of the very old world, these new myths are being created right before my eyes. And I can watch them happen. And there's a bishop!

The Bishop!