UNDERSTANDING ASCENSION (revisited yet again)

HARDWARE/SOFTWARE = BODY/MIND-SOUL
by Antares

"They are among us now. In the streets of our cities there are already citizens from other worlds. They are here as messengers of the Light to fulfill their mission on the planet Earth." - Willaru Huayta, Chasqui Sun Messenger of the Incas, in the Mayan Solar Year 7 Eb of the Itza Age (1996)

CAUGHT UP in the daily grind, hacking away for pay in some partitioned cubicle in a centrally airconditioned highrise office block... it's so easy to forget that we're all already seasoned travelers in Outer Space.

Zoom out from wherever you are right now and picture yourself as a glowing whirl of vibrant atomic particles, a pinpoint of awareness on a dazzlingly beautiful watery planet, spinning a bit wobblingly around our sun Ra, on the remote fringes of the Magdalenian Galaxy (commonly known as the Milky Way) - which is herself pirouetting majestically round a Supergalactic Central Hub somewhere deep, deep in Boundless Space.

But there's a lot more to "space travel" than meets the eye. Too often we forget that Inner Space is just as vast and mysterious as Outer Space. A would-be Interdimensional Traveler must intuitively understand the subtle process of "inside outing." He or she or it must boldly defy conventional definitions of Body, Mind and Soul!

Where does the physical end and the metaphysical begin? How can we separate one dimension from another? Reality comprises multi-layered webs of interwoven energy and consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, so how can we expect to comprehend the workings of the Whole System simply by analyzing its myriad minute parts? Without our physical brains and the billions of neural interconnections in our nervous system, can we possibly experience Mind? Without this phenomenon called Mind, would we require all the sophisticated hardware that so many of us have fallen into the habit of identifying as "ourselves"?

And what about this mysterious essence we call Soul or Spirit? In an age that doubts and questions the soul's very existence, can we trust our materialistic sciences to uncover transcendental truths? Yet we can complain that the food or music we're being served is "utterly soulless" and be perfectly well understood.

The age of computers has given us access to powerful new metaphors that effectively wed the world of dense matter with the realms of spirit. Today we can think of the physical body and brain as a computer server system: the hardware which can be taken apart, repaired, modified, reconditioned, or junked. The Mind would thus be the vast array of software programs the system can operate - anything from simple calculations to multimedia transactions using superfast chips that function at near lightspeed. Soul would then be the original inspiration (the indwelling Spirit) behind and within and beyond all this - the ultimate arbiter of the cosmic shelf life of both hardware and software.

Take your personal computer. With the power off it's just a hunk of hardware, mere furniture. Turn it on, install a word processing or graphics program. Now... you're ready to produce an exciting piece of electronic art, write a 50,000 word thesis or best-selling novel, produce some funky techno-trance music, or insult a few fellow nerds on the Net. But where do you, as the Operator, feature? It is your intention, your will, your aspirations and desires that the computer serves (though cynics might aver that the only person whose will is genuinely served by computers is Bill Gates).

Extending the Mind-as-Software metaphor a little further, we can understand how our Thought Patterns are determined by our Mindsets - which obey the genetic, social, cultural and religious formatting (or preconditioning) we're all subject to. However, once we're aware of our programming, it's possible to break through to the level of the Metaprogram whereat we may radically alter the operational pathways of our Biocomputers. A good example of this is when a yogi learns to control his metabolism through pranayama (the discipline of fully conscious breathing): he can then keep his body in suspended animation indefinitely, while his Mind-Soul moves freely in any chosen direction or dimension.

This is the approach to space travel - or, more accurately, interdimensional travel - taught in ancient Mystery Schools, whether in Egypt or the Andes or the Himalayas.


Peruvian chasqui (spiritual messenger) Willaru Huayta (pictured above) says: "Many noble people in South America have conquered infinite space, visited other worlds, and have brought knowledge back to benefit humanity. They travel without the necessity of space ships. Some Indians in the Andes travel to distant planets and learn much about the universe, while official science still investigates the superficial level of the material plane. Investigations in three-dimensional reality are always incomplete."

Note that Willaru describes these spaceshipless travelers as "noble people" - NOT "technologically advanced" or "militarily powerful" or "economically privileged."

Does he mean that a prerequisite of interdimensional travel is Moral Quality? Perhaps the capacity to feel openhearted compassion and freedom from finicky ego trips? The implications are, if one seeks to travel Beyond, one needs to travel Light!

Now, in Drunvalo Melchizedek's Flower of Life teachings, the same emphasis is placed on "nobility" - though in this instance, the necessary state of being is described as "Christ consciousness." Drunvalo, like Willaru, states that spaceshipless interdimensional travel (known as Ascension in the Bible, as well as in New Age circles) doesn't negate the existence of UFOs or Flying Hardware. But we are gently reminded that just as Troy fell for the old Wooden Horse ploy, modern humanity is susceptible to being bamboozled by extraplanetary "Greeks" bearing gifts.

INDEED, THE WORST HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!

Apparently - or, rather, not-so-apparently - a bunch of fetus-like aliens popularly (or unpopularly) known as the Zeta Reticulan Greys made contact with high-level military officers and politicians many decades ago (in the 1930s, some say, but the truth is, such contacts with extraterrestrial Trojan Horses have been occurring on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years). After the expected exchange of pleasantries, the aliens ordered a top-secret closed-door conference with a handful of extremely influential Earthians whereby a Memorandum of Understanding was signed. The Greys offered their services as "technical consultants," giving elite members of the human race access to hitherto undreamed-of scientific secrets that would enable certain humans to conquer space and time. In return they only wanted the right to conduct genetic research on this biologically diverse planet. Of course, this Special Project required absolute confidentiality.

The public must never hear of this. If any word leaked out, it had to be quickly smothered by massive disinformation campaigns. It sounded fair enough at the time. After all, vivisection and animal research are commonly practiced in our own research laboratories. So are secret experiments with viral warfare, genetic cloning, social engineering, ideological imprinting and so on. What the kids don't know won't alarm them.

All very Faustian, don't you agree? Where did Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe get their inspiration for Mephistopheles from? An archetype, you say? But of course. Seems like it's the same everywhere in the universe, archetypical behavior! Anyway, the Greys began to feed the Inner Core members of the Pentagon-sponsored scientific cabal with very interesting information - but they kept the flow gradual.

"You need time to absorb all this high-tech stuff," the Greys intoned. Meanwhile, they went on a rampage with their genetic research. Cattle mutilations, human abductions, crossbreeding experiments.

Crossbreeding? That's right. The Greys knew they were doomed as a species. Their destructive technologies had laid waste to their home planet and made every man jack of them incapable of fertilizing even a toad's egg.

They needed hospitable human ovaries to produce a viable hybrid Grey-Earthian, a veritable Neo-Tech Man, that would quietly and efficiently take control of the planet and turn our future Bleak and Grey.

Only a few weeks ago at the local night market - and later aboard the Tanjong Malim bus - I saw people wearing black and grey T-shirts that gave me quite a start and prompted a sardonic smile. They featured an embossed depiction of fetus-like creatures, with the legend: "Alien Workshop Mind Control Laboratory." Ha! I see they're ready to advertise their presence. However, please don't panic. The Movie isn't over yet and some of us are betting on a Happy Ending.

I realize this is beginning to sound like an allegory of our times.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS NOT AN ALLEGORY OF OUR TIMES!

This is bona fide information which has been effectively kept out of your school curricula for decades, if not eons. Due to certain mitigating circumstances and mysterious factors in the cosmic scheme of events and schedules, the information is now DECLASSIFIED. But it may do little good, considering how resistant human egos have grown to any news that threatens the Status Quo or, worse still, jeopardizes Economic Growth.

However, I am encouraged by my optimistic Higher Dimensional Aspect to discuss it openly with you without fear of rejection or reproof.


Remember, I started out explaining how the boundaries are blurring between the operational parameters of Body, Mind and Soul. How the lines between Hardware and Software need to be redrawn, so that we shall be less willing to sacrifice the Spirit for the Form - and vice versa, since it's never either/or but always both/and.


Messengers like Drunvalo Melchizedek and Willaru Huayta are only here to remind us that we have a divine birthright to reclaim, which entitles us to craft our own 'lightships" from pure intention married to fully conscious imagination - rather than depend on a sneaky, secretive mafia of rocket scientists.

Freedom from hunger, envy, fear, jealousy, poverty, discomfort and suffering does not entail a multibillion-dollar budget. It requires the cultivation of "a noble spirit" in all humanity. "Noble" does not mean "snootily aristocratic." It means something far humbler. The readiness to lay down arms and surrender to the inspiration and guidance of our own "higher nature" - to heal our wounded hearts so that we can FEEL again. To redirect our attention and energies towards the Whole, towards the Total Unity of Life - rather than remain paranoically fragmented behind security alarms and barbed wire and steel-plated doors.

To address our highest integrity towards maximum honesty and openness, and our greatest ingenuity towards restructuring our lifestyles and values so that we shall once more tread gently, lightly, lovingly - creatively rather than destructively - upon our gracious Mother Earth, our living goddess, our once-and-future Garden of Eden. In the course of moving in this general direction, we shall find ourselves ascending as a collectivity - as well as individually. We shall be moving not so much from "here" to "there" but from a coarser to a finer vibration, from the gross to the subtle frequency bands.

Yes, call it a major Change of Octaves that's impending. Happy travels!


[First published in JOURNAL ONE, February 1997. Reposted here 12 September 2008, 1 January 2014, 19 March 2016, 12 June 2017, 9 March 2020, 4 June 2022, 24 July 2023 & 12 March 2024]

Pirates & Parasites: Don't let them bring you down, folks! (reprise)

An old friend named Patrick with whom I recently reconnected after a long break sent me an email which concluded with the following sentiment:

Do you really think that this country will soon be rid of pirates and parasites? I think UMNO/BN is so entrenched that any alternative would be quashed before they get time to settle. I always say that this country has so much going for it, but it’s screwed up by politics. I should be careful with what I write for fear of getting a knock on the door by some unwelcome visitors...

It saddened me that Patrick is probably not the only one infected with this pessimistic view of the political situation. No doubt he thinks of it as "being realistic." The social circle within which Patrick moves is quite likely to share his cynicism as regards the possibility of genuine change. After all, they are mostly entrepreneurs, socialites, aristocrats and technocrats who have worked around the planet for decades as expatriates, getting paid in US dollars or euros. Whether they be based in Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Dubai, Qatar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka or Thailand, they are unlikely to be affected by the squalid conditions on the ground. Should massive trouble erupt at any point, they have the wherewithal to swiftly airlift themselves to safety.

Since Patrick happens to be someone I genuinely like, he deserves a thoughtful, well-considered response rather than a flippant brush-off. So I'm going to share my formal reply to Patrick with all of you through this post.

Dear Patrick,

I can understand where you're coming from. In fact, most of my friends and relatives who have, through their own efforts and resources, attained a comfortable position in the food chain will probably echo your views on the apparent immutability of the status quo. And by "status quo" I refer not only to Malaysia but to all of humanity on this fair earth. You might as well have asked:

"Do you really think that this planet will soon be rid of pirates and parasites?"

And my response to that would be an unequivocal YES. The reason I can state this with absolute confidence is simply because I have spent the last 45 years monitoring the frequency shifts in the human psychosphere and the dramatic increase in Schumann Resonance of the planetary electromagnetic field. In plain language, the planet is a living cosmic organism and it is evolving along multidimensional Fibonacci spirals of expanding awareness, carrying along the morphogenetic fields of all lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and elemental - embedded within its being.

Between 1952 and 1979 the Schumann Resonance (SR) of the Earth was measured at 7.8 Hertz. It began to rise up the scale and is currently between 12 and 13 Hz. Cutting edge visionary scientists like Gregg Braden say they expect the SR to peak at 13 Hz between 2011 and 2013.


What will happen to the botanical and biological lifeforms on the planet's surface?

Some plant and animal species will vanish from the third dimension while a few new ones will spontaneously appear. As for humans, a great many will be unable to recalibrate and realign their energy fields; these will succumb and descend into various forms of psychosis and pathology. The news will be full of deadly epidemics and outbreaks of irrational violence camouflaged as interracial and interreligious conflict.

For millennia the warlords have ruled this planet and they will be resisting their own imminent extinction by attempting to drag millions of other lives with them as they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Those who have learnt to trust their heart wisdom will have little trouble accepting the incoming frequencies, thereby accelerating their own awakening on the cellular, molecular, atomic and nuclear levels. Within the next few months (that's right, I said months, not years, not decades), even as the 3D Matrix begins to get more and more unreal, the ones who can maintain their emotional equilibrium and trust completely in the Unknown will find life becoming simpler and more exquisite. They will consciously acknowledge their own integral roles in the evolutionary passion play that will take us from micro to macro perspectives, and gladly celebrate their initiation as galactic citizens.

Institutions that have enslaved the human imagination for untold generations will crumble like stale bread, even as their adherents become discombobulated and turn upon each other in desperation and panic. Armies will exhaust themselves and disintegrate through meaningless combat even as deserters begin to outnumber combatants.

Congenital liars, hypocrites and deceivers will end up their own victims. Those that persist in assigning blame and scapegoating others will find themselves devoid of a following. Empire builders will weep as grandiose monuments to their own megalomania are reduced to rubble.

The status quo is static - and reality is dynamic. In a dynamic universe, status has no value or significance. However, humble virtues such as compassion, empathy, humility, and goodwill towards others will become the only accepted currency.

Creativity rather than destructivity will regain the upper hand.


The planet has been ruled by criminal syndicates for countless millennia. This was only possible during the Kali yuga, which has just about run its course. Only inertia and long-ingrained habit are keeping oppressive social systems in apparent operation. Secret police, spy agencies, covert programs designed to keep power in the hands of a plutocratic elite will be exposed as more and more whistleblowers begin to break free from their indoctrination and implants.

Evil cannot withstand the light of publicity and will evaporate under the burning sun of an enlightened humanity.


As the democratization of human communities begins to spread like wildfire, centralized government and ancient power cabals will weaken and die. The Anunnaki bloodlines that constitute all monarchies will either transmute themselves into a force for universal good - or be forever terminated.

Don't worry about Umno. Or the Rockefeller-Rothschilds. From a macro perspective they are merely small-time street gangs that will soon become fascinating exhibits in cosmoanthropological museums. So fear them not.

Above all, FEAR NOT.

And love, love, love with a heart made whole.

All this and more will come to pass. I kid you not, my dear Patrick.













[First posted 3 March 2009. Reposted 13 January 2012]

PIRATES & PARASITES: DON'T LET THEM BRING YOU DOWN, FOLKS! (repost)

An old friend named Patrick with whom I recently reconnected after a long break sent me an email which concluded with the following sentiment:

Do you really think that this country will soon be rid of pirates and parasites? I think UMNO/BN is so entrenched that any alternative would be quashed before they get time to settle. I always say that this country has so much going for it, but it’s screwed up by politics. I should be careful with what I write for fear of getting a knock on the door by some unwelcome visitors...

It saddened me that Patrick is probably not the only one infected with this pessimistic view of the political situation. No doubt he thinks of it as "being realistic." The social circle within which Patrick moves is quite likely to share his cynicism as regards the possibility of genuine change. After all, they are mostly entrepreneurs, socialites, aristocrats and technocrats who have worked around the planet for decades as expatriates, getting paid in US dollars or euros. Whether they be based in Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Dubai, Qatar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka or Thailand, they are unlikely to be affected by the squalid conditions on the ground. Should massive trouble erupt at any point, they have the wherewithal to swiftly airlift themselves to safety.

Since Patrick happens to be someone I genuinely like, he deserves a thoughtful, well-considered response rather than a flippant brush-off. So I'm going to share my formal reply to Patrick with all of you through this post.

Dear Patrick,

I can understand where you're coming from. In fact, most of my friends and relatives who have, through their own efforts and resources, attained a comfortable position in the food chain will probably echo your views on the apparent immutability of the status quo. And by "status quo" I refer not only to Malaysia but to all of humanity on this fair earth. You might as well have asked:

"Do you really think that this planet will soon be rid of pirates and parasites?"

And my response to that would be an unequivocal YES. The reason I can state this with absolute confidence is simply because I have spent the last 45 years monitoring the frequency shifts in the human psychosphere and the dramatic increase in Schumann Resonance of the planetary electromagnetic field. In plain language, the planet is a living cosmic organism and it is evolving along multidimensional Fibonacci spirals of expanding awareness, carrying along the morphogenetic fields of all lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and elemental - embedded within its being.

Between 1952 and 1979 the Schumann Resonance (SR) of the Earth was measured at 7.8 Hertz. It began to rise up the scale and is currently between 12 and 13 Hz. Cutting edge visionary scientists like Gregg Braden say they expect the SR to peak at 13 Hz between 2011 and 2013.


What will happen to the botanical and biological lifeforms on the planet's surface?

Some plant and animal species will vanish from the third dimension while a few new ones will spontaneously appear. As for humans, a great many will be unable to recalibrate and realign their energy fields; these will succumb and descend into various forms of psychosis and pathology. The news will be full of deadly epidemics and outbreaks of irrational violence camouflaged as interracial and interreligious conflict.

For millennia the warlords have ruled this planet and they will be resisting their own imminent extinction by attempting to drag millions of other lives with them as they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Those who have learnt to trust their heart wisdom will have little trouble accepting the incoming frequencies, thereby accelerating their own awakening on the cellular, molecular, atomic and nuclear levels. Within the next few months (that's right, I said months, not years, not decades), even as the 3D Matrix begins to get more and more unreal, the ones who can maintain their emotional equilibrium and trust completely in the Unknown will find life becoming simpler and more exquisite. They will consciously acknowledge their own integral roles in the evolutionary passion play that will take us from micro to macro perspectives, and gladly celebrate their initiation as galactic citizens.

Institutions that have enslaved the human imagination for untold generations will crumble like stale bread, even as their adherents become discombobulated and turn upon each other in desperation and panic. Armies will exhaust themselves and disintegrate through meaningless combat even as deserters begin to outnumber combatants.

Congenital liars, hypocrites and deceivers will end up their own victims. Those that persist in assigning blame and scapegoating others will find themselves devoid of a following. Empire builders will weep as grandiose monuments to their own megalomania are reduced to rubble.

The status quo is static - and reality is dynamic. In a dynamic universe, status has no value or significance. However, humble virtues such as compassion, empathy, humility, and goodwill towards others will become the only accepted currency.

Creativity rather than destructivity will regain the upper hand.


The planet has been ruled by criminal syndicates for countless millennia. This was only possible during the Kali yuga, which has just about run its course. Only inertia and long-ingrained habit are keeping oppressive social systems in apparent operation. Secret police, spy agencies, covert programs designed to keep power in the hands of a plutocratic elite will be exposed as more and more whistleblowers begin to break free from their indoctrination and implants.

Evil cannot withstand the light of publicity and will evaporate under the burning sun of an enlightened humanity.


As the democratization of human communities begins to spread like wildfire, centralized government and ancient power cabals will weaken and die. The Anunnaki bloodlines that constitute all monarchies will either transmute themselves into a force for universal good - or be forever terminated.

Don't worry about Umno. Or the Rockefeller-Rothschilds. From a macro perspective they are merely small-time street gangs that will soon become fascinating exhibits in cosmoanthropological museums. So fear them not.

Above all, FEAR NOT.

And love, love, love with a heart made whole.

All this and more will come to pass. I kid you not, my dear Patrick.

[First posted 3 March 2009]

The Virtual Interview: Edward Snowden

Published on 11 Oct 2014

The New Yorker Festival presents Edward Snowden in conversation with Jane Mayer.

Great-granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower continues his campaign to alert humanity to the greatest danger of all - our misleaders!

Published on 13 Apr 2014

Laura Magdalene Eisenhower: ET invasion has already occurred and governments do not want us to know.

READ LAURA EISENHOWER'S OFFICIAL ET DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

[Brought to my attention by Eleanor Gay]

"$1.2 billion a week, squandered by folks with 1950s mindsets using 1970s technology... all in the name of National Security!"

A former CIA agent blows the whistle on the "national security" scam...

"They're only movers and shakers as long as YOU LET THEM BE movers and shakers." ~ Robert D. Steele

"Don't try to heal a broken system. Create a new system that replaces it." ~ Buckminster Fuller

[From a friend's facebook wall]

UFO REPORTS NOW APPEARING ON MEDIA

[Suggested by Olivia de Haulleville]

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell favors full disclosure of secret ET dossier

The Apollo 14 mission landed on the moon and lasted from 31 Jan to 9 Feb 1971.

Photo courtesy of the USS Hornet Museum.

APOLLO MOONWALKER CALLS FOR DISCLOSURE OF "ET" ARCHIVES

Dick Farley, Washington Correspondent, Cape Cod Today

WASHINGTON, DC - April 19, 2009 - Retired navy captain and Apollo XIV astronaut Edgar Mitchell today called for the U.S. government to disclose to its citizens and other Earthlings what he asserts are the realities of long-standing extraterrestrial visitations and interactions with our planet.

Speaking this morning at "X-Conference 2009" in Gaithersburg, MD, a suburb of the nation's capital, Mitchell (left) told several hundred attendees and a phalanx of video cameras that, with our planet confronting population pressures and critical questions of environmental and energy sustainability, the need for disclosure about ET involvement with Earth is critical.

Mitchell contends that the dispersal of knowledge about what he believes to be the end of Earth's apparent quarantine from other civilizations, and advancement of planetary culture beyond its present fragmentation and incoherence, are desirable results of the widest public release of information about the extraterrestrial presence he believes is real.

The conference, organized by long-time "UFO Disclosure" activist and one-time Maryland congressional candidate Stephen Bassett (right), centers on an emergent field of cultural reconsideration its advocates term "Exopolitics." Bassett's nonprofit Paradigm Research Group has mounted a decade-long broad spectrum campaign advocating disclosure of what he says are unwarranted secrets about "UFOs" and "ETs" held over as unnecessary "Cold War paranoia."

Questions of "What do we do and say after we say 'Hello!' to ET?" remain distant from wider public consideration, let alone consensus about their implications for national sovereignty, religious traditions and global policy formulation, discussions about which conference organizers and presenters are intent on provoking.

Front page, Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947

Mitchell, Bassett and other "ET disclosure" activists are banking on President Barack Obama's repeated assurances that government agencies withholding information from US citizens are "on notice," in the President's words, that an era of unnecessary secrecy is over.

Obama has said his administration's tendency will be to unlock what he and senior officials consider information rightfully belonging to the public, while recognizing constraints required for national security, a presidential promise replayed on video at the conference to sustained applause by hopeful disclosure advocates.


"We live in challenging, magnificent times," Mitchell said, emphasizing that, in his opinion, information that we are not alone in the universe - and indeed, he said, that we here on Earth are having ongoing interactions with nonterrestrial beings - may provide a key to consciousness changes he and his colleagues believe are necessary.

Mitchell said he believes such changes are essential for Earth to make progress through problems confronting humanity's competing needs, religious imperatives and cultural fragmentation. His efforts since leaving NASA and the space program have been focused on exploring frontiers "of the mind, body and spirit," he said.

Mitchell acknowledged that, before humanity can travel with practicality much beyond our own solar system, solutions to Einsteinian limitations to faster-than-light propulsion of our spacecraft must still be solved, a frontier the aging astronaut said he believes science eventually will do.

But he stressed that our own limitations have not limited the extraterrestials he asserts are present on Earth.

"The aliens have done it!" Mitchell said of an apparent ability to traverse what to us are insurmountable distances.

He contends that as a result of wider public awareness of the ET presence, revisitation of much phenomenology catalogued in human history should precipitate revision of how we understand planetary history in light of what he believes are long-standing extraterrestrial interactions on Earth.

The astronaut, who told Cape Cod Today he was raised in a strict Baptist household, said reevaluations of source phenomena that led to Earth's major faiths, and which he said foster divisions among humans, might be another of the beneficial results of wider awareness of what Mitchell believes is the historical and ongoing "ET" presence and their asserted involvements in human development.

Mitchell and his fellow explorers of what he has called the "Frontiers of Consciousness" have long contended that broader public awareness of the extraterrestrial presence and interactions the astronaut-scientist believes are reality could help promote a "global mind change."

Mitchell and colleagues assert this could point us toward "planetary transformation," helping Earth's culture to mature sufficiently to gain entry into a wider community of civilizations for which they believe abundant evidence exists, now and throughout history, when viewed through a filter in which the claimed extraterrestrial presence is considered.

Taking questions following his presentation, Mitchell told Cape Cod Today that his beliefs as expressed this morning about extraterrestrial involvements with humanity on Earth are drawn from information generally available to those who study the field of alleged "ET-UFO" events and experiences, citing no "secret information" to which he has been privy.

He also contradicted some other presenters at X-Conference 2009, who claimed that Mitchell and the other NASA astronauts were briefed before their space flights about potential encounters with UFOs of an extraterrestrial nature and how to handle or disguise them from the public. He said unequivocally that this did not occur.

In a previous private interview with Cape Cod Today, Mitchell also expressed skepticism about some of the more popular "UFO conspiracy lore," i.e., stories that NASA astronauts did not really visit the moon or that the space agency has been covering up satellite photographs of Mars purportedly showing evidence of past civilizations.

"We had no briefings on UFOs during our astronaut training," Mitchell told the conference, suggesting that "human nature" tends to embellish and distort things about which there is insufficient information or which embody concepts disruptive of our respective world views.

Mitchell said decades of "UFO disclosure" revelations, drawn principally from elderly military and nonmilitary folks claiming bits and pieces of the larger puzzle about what they believe really happened at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947

He also acknowledged that the UFO field has often been the target of disinformation and intentional misinformation seedings throughout the years, some perhaps for legitimate national security reasons having to do with terrestrial aerospace research and development.

But Mitchell's stance on NASA-centered conspiracy theories about "ET UFO" remained firm in the face of questions.

"It was not mentioned during my career," he said, adding that he and his fellow spacefarers saw no evidence of space visitors on the back side of the Moon, another long-standing tale among the more cult-like cohorts of UFO faithful.

Mitchell said decades of "UFO disclosure" revelations, drawn principally from elderly military and nonmilitary folks claiming bits and pieces of the larger puzzle about what they believe really happened at Roswell, NM in 1947, helped shape his belief that the event actually took place and was not, as the US Air Force claimed, a crash-test balloon.

He cited what he described as the credibility of the witnesses and the coherence of their stories as influencing his belief in the reality of the ET scenario attendant to the Roswell event, which stems from a 1947 cover-story released in July of that year after a crash of some unspecified aircraft not far from Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF).

The next day the initial "recovered flying saucer" cover story issued by Roswell AAF public affairs staffers was countermanded by a senior Army Air Force commander, who said a "weather balloon" was what had crashed, pieces of which had been recovered.

The story died for three decades until being resurrected in the early 1980s, eventually prompting a 1994 U.S. Air Force revision of their "official story," contending that the Roswell crash was of a "Mogul" project balloon of the type used for atmospheric monitoring to detect possible Soviet nuclear weapons tests.

A subsequent version of the Air Force story was that the alleged "recovered alien bodies" endemic to some Roswell crashed saucer tales were, in reality, "crash test dummies" used for testing experimental high-altitude equipment for the U.S.'s growing strategic bomber forces.

As is well known to worldwide "UFO" enthusiasts, the Air Force's efforts to defuse the Roswell story were in vain, and a host of alternative scenarios have persisted.

These range from "ET crashed saucer recovery" to speculations that the event being camouflaged was human experimentation on unwitting subjects, in contravention of the then-recently adopted Nuremberg Protocols governing medical experimentation on humans following disclosure of Nazi concentration camp Holocaust horrors.

Mitchell is among many former military officials and large numbers of US and world citizens who scoff at the Air Force "clarifications," citing what he says are the credibility of the witnesses and the coherence and consistency of their recollections, in his opinion, that an extraterrestrial craft indeed crashed and the event covered up for six decades.

"What more do you need?" Mitchell declared, asserting that the Air Force's balloon stories are transparently false.

Roswell, New Mexico, in the 1940s

Ironically, the future astronaut grew up in Roswell, NM, where his family had a ranch not far from the alleged crashed saucer site, although Mitchell said that at the time it happened, he had no firsthand experience or knowledge about it.

But other space related research was going on at Roswell during Mitchell's youth, as rocket pioneer Robert Goddard had moved his research and testing program to Roswell in the 1930s and launched numerous experimental rockets. The youthful future astronaut was captivated by Goddard's efforts, which captured his imagination about possible travel away from Earth and to the stars.

Roswell UFO crash site, now a tourist attraction

Mitchell also related that in 1945 he and his family's neighbors witnessed the bright, white flash over the horizon which signaled the advent of the atomic age with testing of the first nuclear weapon at the Trinity site. Mitchell said the bomb influenced him significantly when he later learned what it was and, much later, better understood its implications.

Mitchell said he believes the nuclear explosion also may have attracted the extraterrestrial presence he believes resulted in the alleged ET aircraft collision which UFO researchers have claimed for three decades happened near Roswell, which is situated not far from where the nation's first nuclear weapon was detonated.

"I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason for Roswell (as the alleged ET aircraft crash is euphemistically termed) was that the UFO phenomenon was drawn to our nuclear sites," Mitchell told the gathering. He said he is concerned about the tendencies of terrestrial governments and their militaries to stake claims and perhaps fly weapons in space, a concern Mitchell believes may be shared by the intervening extraterrestrials.

Mitchell said that many years ago, after leaving NASA, he authored a manuscript advocating against militarization of space attendant to nationalistic colonization of the high frontier for military advantage or benefits other than for all of humankind.

"I submitted it to thirty-four publishers, and all refused to publish it," Mitchell said.


He told the X-Conference that his coming forward so unequivocally at this time reflects his concerns about the direction our planet is heading and his belief that wider public awareness that "we are not alone" will precipitate a healthier consideration of Earth's future.

Mitchell is slated to appear at the National Press Club tomorrow morning (Monday, April 20, 10 a.m.) to amplify his encouragement of the Obama administration to compel disclosure of what the U.S. government may know about the extraterrestrial interactions with humanity the astronaut said he believes have been happening and remain ongoing.

And as for the Cape Cod connection? The late Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John E. Mack (left) , a former summer Cape dweller who studied and wrote about purported "ET alien abductions" in the early 1990s, and long-standing "ET abduction" researcher (and Provincetown resident) Budd Hopkins, a New York modern artist who has studied the phenomenon since his own "UFO" sighting in 1964, met each other at the Cape. They were introduced by a mutual friend, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, the acclaimed psychiatrist and author, also at Harvard, who lives on the Cape.

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