More UFO Stuff: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 404-419

 There is an interesting balance that one must strike when discussing aliens. If you see something in the sky, you can admit that it was a UFO. You can even admit that you think you saw an alien spacecraft, but as soon as you start getting specific about what kind of alien spacecraft it was—you start to look like a crank. The balance is between just enough knowledge to imply what it is that you saw, but not enough that you know what it was. In the UFOlogy world this presented a problem, the conspiracy theorists needed to constantly toe that line because eventually the blurry photographs just lose appeal.

We are still in Appendix B, and we’ve been provided with one person’s testimony that they built storage warehouses for aircraft crash recovery. I’m using the word “aircraft” in the loosest sense of the term; it was a craft that used to be in the air. I am giving the unnamed writer the benefit of the doubt that he’s not lying. Then we were treated to two really blurry and poorly copied pictures of something. I don’t even want to call it a UFO because the pics are that bad.

Now we have another letter. In this one the writer claims that he’s just returned from Muroc. This letter is signed “G.L” which I found refers to Gerald Light and the letter is to Meade Layne. Light was an early UFOlogist and Occultist. In this letter he claims that he toured Muroc (later renamed Edwards Air Force Base) and saw five craft. Layne was also an early pioneer in the UFOlogy realm, but he had a different take on it. Layne believed that UFOs didn’t come from outer space, but they came from a dimension that existed within our own. We can’t see them because their vibrational energy is different than ours (think “phasing” from Star Trek TNG season 5 episode 24). Layne called them “Etherians” and this letter claims that President Eisenhower was briefed on their existence.

The first letter ends, and ok, sure. It’s standard UFO faire, no concrete evidence. Light is claiming to be an eyewitness, but he gives no details of his encounter. He claims that his visit elicited a “wave of pity that arose in my own being as I watched the pathetic bewilderment of rather brilliant brains struggling to make some sort of rational explanation which enable them to retain their familiar theories and concepts…I had forgotten how commonplace such things as the dematerialization of “solid” objects had become to my own mind."

It’s a telling section because this is the motive for UFOlogists—to be smarter than everyone else. Light isn’t familiar with dematerialization, he’s read about it pulp magazines, science fiction stories, and the UFO newsletters. However, the smug condescension he is exuding is usually the kind reserved for anti-vaccination theorists. The letter ends, I should note that this is dated April 16th, 1954.

The next letter begins in reference to the visit, but then quickly becomes anti-Communist rant. He goes on about the possibility of Oppenheimer being a traitor, but then maybe not. Perhaps he was “overwhelmed with the monster which he had helped create…”

I’m not an expert on the Cold War. The author’s implication that Oppenheimer was a Soviet Spy was shared by many in the US government at the time. Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance because of these suspicions (though it would later turn out that there was never any link between Oppenheimer and Soviet Intelligence). The anti-Communist rant certainly belongs in this book, but I don’t think it belongs here. I think it shows that Cooper is just fluffing up the book with random artifacts he’s found in his office. The letter ends talking about Christian Idealism and a further coming pamphlet about the Etherians.

The next document is a drawing of a classic UFO which is claimed to be built by Northrop, McDonald Douglas, and General Electric. This vehicle claims to be stored at both Norton and Edwards Air Force Base but then flies out of Area 51? I would think that they would fly it out of the same place that they store it, but the “They” are never good at logistics. We are then given two more very blurry photographs and a 3 satellite images of Area 51. As I said last week, this is a chapter, not an appendix. Cooper is giving us nothing in his own voice.

Then there is an overly long letter addressed to “Dave” dated 20th April 1980. The author claims he worked inside Area 51 on something called Project Red. It’s much the same as the very first letter but it’s more detailed. We see the appearance of “Q Clearance,” which was nice; but ultimately this letter is just as pointless as the first one. There are some unique claims: such as the test flights occurred mostly in the day than at night, the testing runway was in the North rather than the South, and that the security was so tight it was almost “paranoid.” Well, it should be paranoid, they’ve got workers leaking information from inside Area 51.

Finally, for this week, is a declassified report of a radar contact over Belgium that could not be identified. The nearest I can tell, the document is dated to Mar 20, but we aren’t given a year. I see some reference to “90” but that is in a serial number near the “Mar” so it could be 1990 but given that this appendix has documents dated to 1987, 1954, 1980; we cannot be sure. There is some redaction over parts of the report, and I think that would give us a solid date, but I am only making an assumption. I think Cooper wants us to view it as proof of ET UFO, but we cannot do so. It would be noteworthy if, during the Cold War period a mystery plane flew over Belgium. He wants us to connect all of these documents, but even if we do—we’re not left with the UFO invasion or even a government conspiracy. We’re left with merely a possibility, and unfortunately Cooper wants to get much more specific.