...Reasons To Be Thirsty

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Art Bell was like Von Daniken... 

with the treble turned up high. 

I mean that in a good way; 

Art could really make you fly!  

He dragged the light, perforce sometimes, 

to places it won't go.  

See, most won't risk their ridicule—

so "looking's" OUT, you know? 

...But this shan't stop Art's conflagration

—in your earpiece—at his station.  

Perspicacious in his way, 

he was interesting, if flawed, we'd say.

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Yeah, the facts weren't checked-out... "to the tooth." 

Conclusions? Premature... 

Some's half-baked innuendo, 

or then hammered bull-manure... 

He wandered into fantasy, 

and he wants to "rock" you first... 

but where else would we hear that stuff 

when we have our kind of righteous, thirst?

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See, there're reasons to be thirsty, 

and one does the best one can. 

One hears strange "stuff" one just won't find 

in the "mainstream," understand?  

That's why we listen carefully 

to the broadcasts of the night, 

it's there we hear the stuff not heard 

passed dawn... and in the light.

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There're reasons to be thirsty, 

where "decisions sans all sight" 

so profoundly disrespect us 

as we fight our daily fight...  

We're losing faith in government, 

and the church is in arrears. 

Our agencies all threaten us.  

We've lost our star by which to steer...

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There're reasons to be thirsty 

when one "sees" but through their "scales," 

and our "population problem" 

is "addressed" by building jails!?!

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There're reasons to be thirsty 

when the world's lacking sense, 

and most can't see to either side... 

to come down off a swaying fence!

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There're reasons to be thirsty 

as the cosmos flash and glow 

with all the special "portents" 

of the stuff we'd like to know!

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Look, the "mainstream" 

just won't touch that stuff—

keeps its coward's tongue in cheek! 

It shivers in its ermine boots 

at the whispers, hints, or leaks.  

See, disclosure threatens catbird seats 

and other seats "court side"; 

these are loath to give up power 

so must opt to cheat and lie!

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Though... foundations, yet, are crumbling! 

Big money's running scared. 

The "word" is getting out along 

with falsehoods we've dispaired!

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The information curve's straight up! 

The content's harsh and raw! 

The better brains are getting out 

to "float" above it all?

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See, "their" news is predigested pap! 

So, you pick and choose your own! 

Perceiving their duplicity? 

You find you're not alone.  

You explore alternatives, 

look for truths supporting lies; 

the world's so much bigger 

than you ever knew...  Surprised?

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That's why I like Von Daniken, 

and the higher-pitched Art Bell. 

These are guys who "soar and cleave" 

to burst our stifling shells!

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Some argue they're responsible 

for all the "kookish fringe." 

Some argue they have murdered folks (!)—

think of "Heaven's Gate" and cringe!

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Some argue they're both charlatans, 

and in your pocket, friend...

...while accepting televangelists 

as an honored kith and kin!

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Too, Art and Erich think out loud—

must know there's something there! 

These are men (like one John Ford), 

who've questioned, sought, and dared!

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These are men—and women too—

who point it out for me and you! 

These are folks who bring some light 

we otherwise would find denied!

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What has "science" done but hide (?) 

from stuff we KNOW must haunt our skies? 

The evidence is startling—clear. 

"Science" hides a smirking fear.

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It tries to quash the anecdotal, 

all the photographic—totaled! 

All the history is deterred, 

and what we're left's the "bag," we learn!

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Read forbidden books, my friend, 

and come to know or comprehend 

that there's a lot to see besides 

what some might stifle, lose, or hide! 

"Science" wallows FUNDING troughs 

and Art Bell pisses folks, yes, off... 

but I'm indebted to a clan 

who asks disturbing questions, man!

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They stretch our limits, walk the brink, 

make us ponder, watch, and think ... 

Friend, we NEED those frontiers W I D E 

if we expect to soar and fly!

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I would have my news if pilfered, 

but true to life, pristine—unfiltered. 

I'm offended at the pap 

the mainstream feeds me lap for lap. 

I'll get my news, and be not burned, 

from Bell—or Bill and Nancy Birnes!

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These are people with the guts 

to look "beyond," dismissed as nuts (?), 

but with the access to that "edge" 

that some deny, dismiss, and hedge!

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Bell does not deserve the MUD... 

that's slung around—such *vicious* crud! 

McGaha, Shermer—like detractors 

don't disclose the facts! They're CANCER!

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All they do implores discredit, 

proclaiming truth because they "said" it, 

shilling for their own dark ends 

a "status quo" that they pretend!

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Toe to toe, Art makes HIS case 

while all the rest project disgrace. 

Cheap-shot artists whine and pule 

to demonstrate that they're the fools, 

but Bell must pay to move this freight 

as other items fill his plate. 

"Other items" undersells ... 

his troubled past does not fare well.

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Perhaps it's that which drove him under, 

...or calling Y2K HIS blunder, 

when (perhaps) it's HIS attention 

kept the *focus* on that mission?

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Not addressed?! 2K's a BASTARD! 

Did Art Bell help AVERT disaster? 

Very few proclaimed concern, 

but from Art Bell, of this, we learned.

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Intrepid Art provides a taste 

of what we might then hear too late. 

He's exposed the programs, Jack, 

that haunt our shadows queer and black.

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He allows a venue, friend, 

for different thinking some pretend: 

is specious nonsense made to pry 

the dollars from your pocket—lies!

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Sure and all it's mostly bogus, 

but "enough" is brought to focus—

justifying an alarm 

that MIGHT come up; 

...there's greater harm? 

The harm that's found 

are secrets used 

to disrespect—yes—

me and you!

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So let Art be, 

and I'll decry, 

for me, what's worse—

but I'LL decide!

lehmberg2002@gmail.com

www.AlienView.net

Excuse this small hyperbole, but compared to his unethically noisy and criminally unimaginative detractors? Art Bell is a towering shrine to inspired ethics and incisive accuracy. That's right!

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He leaned further right than I find comfortable... but then, hey... compared to me, so does Dennis Kucinich, eh? LOL!

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Forgetting my own small concerns, it remains I have been dazzled by Art Bell like few others are able to constructively "dazzle," you know? He was the GOAT!

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The reason? Art Bell, a default giant love him or hate him, remained an advocate for his listening audience like few others can or appear to want to—or fake—frankly. This is with regard to other giants interviewed or points raised, a point other broadcasters and pod-casters—overawed or trying to make points— frequently miss. What's the listener getting out of it; that's where rubber chews road.

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That said: Bell is 'establishment' and he has a certain synchronicity with that 'entity' establishment... writing a giant's checks, perhaps, eh?

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I don't dither, his admonitions have a corporate—status quo-preserving—ring to them. His recriminations of "9/11 wing-nuts," for instance, are illogical and inconsistent imo (Building 7!)... but his sense of memorable radio remains unerring! This is forgetting that what he got out of a quality guest with seeming ease was providing for the "dazzle" mentioned earlier.

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Though... it's like the great buzz on a trick liquor you know leaves a hangover because of its impurities, I imagine. ...But still. Dazzled, in ordeal, but dazzled still.

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Though what a dazzlingly beautiful child he'd produced, am I right? How bad can he be?

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Should he have come out of retirement? Of course. In his way he was a national treasure. We should have availed ourselves of him while we could have...

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There was but that one caution... [g]... Look, but don't reflexively believe. Truth told to be understood can be believed it's self-consistent and common-sensical... it IS there to be winnowed out. We got a lot of truth from Bell even having to sift that cat box for the likes of Sean David Morton et al. Remains, we listened. Many millions of us did... religiously. A hunger for getting what we know were not getting was an understandable motivation.

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Oh, and on the now legendary "Y2K" debacle, where it once seemed that there was to be a real disaster looming computer-wise in the late 20th century because of old machine code trying to conceptualize a year with three zeros in it... a very real problem.  There was a very real potential for catastrophe!

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It is the alarm partly raised by his early attention, I submit, that got enough people working on the problem—early enough—so there wasn't a problem, eh? ...Or, not a stretch, what was "Office Space's" raison d'etre, then? Weren't they there to rewrite the code precluding a "Y2K" catastrophe? Yes... they were. Y2K was a "thing." Unaddressed, it was disaster!

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Art Bell? Say what you will, but he can hold his chin higher than most network anchors or mainstream pundits. I anticipate proud remembrance... forgetting his easy disdain for poetry precludes my complete regard, as regards go.

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I've been critical in the past of his memory and maintain that same criticality. I even refused to go on his program once to talk about losing my teaching job (as a result of my interest in UFOs) with Stephen Basset, out of principle. Though, with regard to where Bell was and given who he was talking to, many times... well. You couldn't ask for better than him. Excelsior Mr. Bell. I regret not going on your program.

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Oh—and on EVD... say what you want about him too, but he sure got us all looking thoughtfully in new directions, didn't he? I suspect a list of who he inspired into their own quality investigations is impressive, to say the least. I think I recall that Flatwoods' Frank Feschino was an early fan of EVD! That's enough.  Read on.

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Restore John Ford.

Robert Hastings: The Corinthian Scribe of “UFOs and Nukes”

Friedman, Feschino, Hastings, and Dolan... On UFOs?
The total aspect, an in-depth aspect,
the aspect's aspect, and the historical aspect.
All one needs to start!

Robert Hastings: The Corinthian Scribe of 

“UFOs and Nukes” ...and Full Disclosure
by Alfred Lehmberg


In the vaulted halls of modern myth, where the marble pillars of secrecy rise like Doric columns into an unknown and duplicitous sky, one particular name is meaningfully etched by this writer's deliberate and appreciative hand. That name? Robert Hastings. 

A staid chronicler of our unsettling shadows and a sober herald of officially silenced testimonies, Hastings has been standing time's test as both archivist... and lately provocateur... in that strange concord between UFOs and an observing humankind’s nuclear fire. He's been truly masterful!

His work, UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, is less a book than a reliquary—an especially august housing for the whispered confessions of vetted Air Force veterans who saw the impossible descend upon them in the fallaciously hubristic sancta of humanity's atomic power! It's a monumental work, reader. It is organized, objective, constructive, comprehensive, flexible, acceptable, specific, and thoughtful! It is able to stand entirely on its own... and has, for any specific pushback, for years!

An aside... his ufological initiative dovetails neatly, and is subtly ensconced and well reflected in the labors of the three other gentlemen this writer also discovered and learned to ufologically admire over the decades. This writer's ufological referential Quadriga... his Rushmore... about whom he's written extensively. The late Stanton Friedman, Richard Dolan, and Frank Feschino, Jr…. 

Robert Hastings, not as extensively. That is corrected here, to a degree.

Hastings’ journey began not in the cloisters of academia but in the humming corridors of 1967’s Malmstrom Air Force Base, where, as a youth on clean-up detail for an after-school job, he glimpsed radar operators tracking uninvited guests in his Montana skies. "Hey, Robert! ...Come look at this!" He was gob-smacked, and, as his father was rather highly ranked at the base, learned to discover later at dinner that night that there was some real “there” there!

The story was predictably CRUSHED as they all are... but from that fecund seed grew a singular vocation surpassing what had been realized via his degree in Fine Arts! He would endeavor to gather together the scattered fragments of waning testimonies by first-person experiencers, and then bind them together into a mosaic of stark ufological revelation! One is reminded of Frank Feschino’s unrelenting approach to his research subject, Dolan’s singular assessment of his near-completed and heavily cited history of UFOs, or Friedman’s meticulous scientific evaluation of 6 decades plus!

Back to Hastings, over 150 military witnesses, men sworn to silence by the sometimes insensible iron codes of national security, lent their brave voices to Hastings’ archive. Their accounts converge upon a singular motif in the reality of the highly strange and threateningly bizarre, but real, thing! UFOs were disabling nuclear missiles, fuhcrisakes! 

It was perhaps as if unseen cosmic arbiters sought to remind an arrogantly hubristic humanity of its fragile stewardship over its own threatening if self-inflicted annihilation? Somebody knows.

Unfortunately, Credibility, like Hastings’ Corinthian "capital" and "base," is carved with both flourish and fracture. The fractures are not his. Within the UFO research community and by this writer, Hastings is lauded as a master builder, his columns of testimony rising in honest symmetry and an earnest logic’s strength... 

Yet, "skeptics" (klasskurtxians!), clad in their fallacious armor of insincere “conventional wisdom” and pompous “feigned empiricism,” dismiss his work as "anecdotal" stonework—ornate but unproven, a cathedral without foundation! That's a risible assessment! 

Benjamin Radford and others even accuse Hasting's of re‑polishing old tales, of gilding “discredited” reports with a disingenuous rhetorical sheen. Thus, Hastings stands between worlds: respected by sensible persons in an invisible college of credible people... those credible persons accepting an open-ended UFO explanation... but then doubted (conveniently?!) by that officious academy of persons comfortable at their purloining funding troughs! 

Remains! Hastings is a liminal figure, frankly, in the agora of self-revelation’s truth. He knows what he’s seen. Then? He knows what he's experienced...

...See, Hastings did not remain merely the archivist. In 2019, with retired Maine University professor Dr. Bob Jacobs (a man of similar reluctances and reputational concerns to Hastings), he unveiled Confession: Our Hidden Alien Encounters Revealed. Here, the staid chroniclers became the reluctant witnesses, fully aware of the possible consequences of their honest admissions... though, unwilling to pass on with it remaining on their consciences. Theirs was a truth needing to be told for the record! 

This writer understands and has made similar confessions, mea culpas, and admissions. Admitting error is a step up, still! Truly, better out than in. The reader will come to know of that themselves as they winter their own winters and endure their own regrets. We digress...

Cut to the chase... Hastings would astonishingly admit to his own personal alien contact experiences! These were long concealed beneath the drapery of his public work. Why?

This writer knows Mr. Hastings for his intractable character, his superb due diligence, stunning intelligence, and his unblinking self-honesty. The man is virtually egoless, and his lack of unearned hubris is refreshing! One doesn't feel compelled to wonder what his "angle" is, eh?

We’ve conversed and corresponded over the years. He admitted to this writer around 2009 his claim of contact experiences. One doesn't know why he'd do that… maybe he wanted it leaked  (?)… maybe he just wanted feedback. This writer didn’t leak it. Hastings had asked that his confidence be kept. This writer will keep noncriminal confidences. ...Got some that could shake a person's worldview and stackin' swivel! 

This writer's feedback was that he keep that revelation to himself… seriously, so his openness didn’t unfortunately muddy the water on his “UFO and Nukes” initiative. Researcher/Reporter is usually ill-served as a controversial participant.

Verily, his revelation transformed him from historian to participant and from scribe to initiate. ...But let the reader be cautioned! 

Hastings' Corinthian style demands that we see this not as "contradiction" but as "apotheosis": the humbly honest archivist stepping into, drawn into, his own archive, the marble column of his substantive archive revealing its own living veins... like SO many others! He wanted to express his whole truth. We old men will feel compelled to do that in the winters of our winters...

What then is the measure of Hastings’ credibility? Consider if Jimmy Carter had been the one to admit to contact experiences? The subject GAINS credibility! It doesn't lose it! Consider Hastings, and by extension, Bob Jacobs—similarly! Observe!

In the strict calculus of science (or scientism!), Hastings' claims remain "unverified," the staid testimonies "uncorroborated" by physical evidence… forget the credibility of the quality witnesses... and 150 credible people, readers, many backed up by radar, are not to be sneered at! Yet in the mythic register, credibility is not a "ledger of physical proof" but a resonance of the sincere narrative of truths bravely told. Truth, told to be understood, will be believed. In the beginning, we're reminded, was the word... and that's ALL there is!

Sincerely, Hastings’ "word" resonates because it entwines the most potent symbols of our age: UFOs, emissaries of the unknown unknown... and nuclear weapons... those emblems of our potential (?) self-destruction! Together, these form a dialectic of awe and dread, a Corinthian ufological frieze carved upon the edifice of the unsettled and self-denying modernity that humanity contrives for itself out of its own regrettable intellectual cowardice. Sad but true.

Thus, Robert Hastings endures as both chronicler and confessor! His legacy is not merely the catalog of testimonies, but to have the courageous audacity to speak of silenced things about himself! Whether skeptic or believer, one must admit: he has raised a ready column in the temple of discourse, a Corinthian pillar adorned with the leaves of secrecy and the scrolls of confession... and he's left an efficacious mark!

...And in that "temple," the original question lingers like an incense: are the watchers of the skies also the guardians of our nuclear fate? We’ll recall that we'll know nothing with regard to ANY of these matters. Robert Hastings might.

No… he didn’t cross the line. Remains, he may have pierced the veil. Read on.

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This essay is written in appreciation of Robert Hastings, a man whose integrity, diligence, and unflinching honesty have shaped my own understanding of the UFO problem for decades. I have known him personally, corresponded with him, and witnessed the quiet gravity with which he carries truths that most would bury. Nothing shared here violates a confidence; Hastings himself chose to step into the light with his own admissions, and I write only to contextualize that courage within the broader arc of his work. As an old man reflecting on old truths, I offer this piece not as hagiography but as acknowledgment—of a life spent gathering forbidden testimonies, of a mind unwilling to lie to itself, and of a legacy that deserves to stand in the vaulted hall of our modern myths.

Fare For Vultures...

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The skies above me flash with light 

that most won't see... They're filled with fright...

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See? Distracted by some "skeptibunky," 

these submit ... become his flunky.  

This is easy 'nuff to do. 

Remains that "these" are gaming you!

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You wallow their "convinced" denial, 

while these avoid true tests and trials. 

These abstain, and are redundant! 

Truly, their abnegation is repugnant.

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Yes, sold that "bill of goods" we "need" 

to live our lives on callused knees, 

we take the word that those we "know"... 

will keep us safe and warm... you know? 

We dismiss imagination, 

refuse a valid protestation—

depend upon convenient culture.  

Our cherished dreams?...Mere fare for vultures.

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There is more to "life," I KNOW, 

that wheels, darts, and hotly glows... 

beyond the limit some impose—

to keep their "high ground," don't you know!

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This—perceived by many persons, 

spanning years which number thousands—

left its traces on the ground... 

and on some film that I had found.

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It's chiseled into ageless stone! 

It's evidence we're not alone! 

It's PROOF denied by scabrous scholars 

addicted to their cloying dollars... 

truth retreating with all pride 

in fulsome shame of truth denied.

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See, we won't hear the real story, 

so we can't earn our "stab at glory"! 

We're denied the human right 

informed consent provides, I'd write! 

With mad heads shoved, so hard, between

—our flaccid cheeks—we're très obscene...

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Too, we've been *WARNED* 

what "could" occur 

if folks were *shocked*, 

*upset*—*disturbed*!

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"Why, wanton panic would ensue, 

mass suicide—we'd come unglued! 

Riots in the streets occurring, 

markets crashing, cultures lurching—

institutions then dissolving, 

and chaos rules! We'd be devolving..."

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Wait! Cities razed in mass confusion, 

darkness claiming harsh intrusions, 

mobs of people looting, stealing, 

shocked, assaulted—senses reeling? 

Culture's web must come apart? 

...We'd be hell bound in a shopping cart?

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...Well, we'd DESERVE that awful harvest, 

sowing as we had, in earnest, 

feckless seeds marooned in space... 

...that we're the pointless "washed up" race!

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Though?! There's no proof this must occur, 

and evidence we could make de'tour!

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Remember, then, the Middle Ages! 

Turn way back—historic pages!

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...Think back, quickly, to a time..., 

when stuff of legends filled our minds! 

Many years ago, it's asked... 

what was wrought?! How WERE we tasked?  

Hearing *stories* of new races, 

critters FOREIGN, no relation? 

It's just like now, that other time. 

Did WE "freak out" and lose our minds?

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Did western culture fall apart?  

No! We but ordered, "a la carte."

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Too, please don't think me over-callous, 

too filled with venom, spite, or malice, 

but the FEW who freak that way, 

and lose their minds to chaos, say

—kill themselves or worse—... unblinking...? 

Good RIDDANCE to their blood, I'm thinking!

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Flush them from the gene pool, cousin! 

They're not worth bemoaning's fussin'!

We've much bigger fish to fry!

At this point?! It's Root, hog, or die!

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If our culture comes apart 

...where folks from space are "found"?! Be smart!  

It DESERVES to "crash on down" 

and crumble (!)... to some stabler ground!  

If we're unhinged by real beings... 

apart from us in space—some "thing"? 

Well, we betray intelligence... 

artistry, our common sense. 

We'd deserve a crass demise, 

bereft of tears... I would surmise.

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...Makes you wonder who hangs ON 

to well-worn ways no longer sound. 

Who hangs on to their pollutions—

glad (corrupted) institutions?!

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Why, those, the few, professing doom! 

Those, who forecast shadowed gloom! 

Those, the ones, the "few who lose," 

when truth is offered un-confused. 

And too, myself, my culture's child, 

aware of such (so slightly wild!) 

provoked in turn to bite the hand... 

t'would feed such failure to this man!

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Majorities would profit grandly; 

I've a feeling, some understanding. 

Read between the lines, yourself, 

and show yourself some mental health.

lehmberg2002@gmail.com
www.AlienView.net

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Perhaps I didn't make this crystal clear.  If our culture implodes on an admission of the actuality of an extraterrestrial intelligence, it flatly DESERVES to implode.  No apologies... At least it would implode to something solid, solid instead of inflated... a foundation more construction worthy.  I've a suspicion that this *admission* could have been made around 1947—the year before I was born.­  ...And the alleged *implosion* I've alluded to, would now be well behind us.  ...And I would have never known anything else.

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...We'd also be living in the asteroid belt closer to Utopia, I suspect, and our respected Earth would be an honored garden—but you knew I was going to say that. No apologies here either. That's just my feeling... a result of aspiring to conscience and humility provoked by a humiliating self-assessment brought about by an honest assessment of my society and culture... who we are, what we are... and what we do... what we have DONE... not all good... a result of CHOICE!

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Additionally? Don't use Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast to reflexively feather your whiny, skepti-feebroid, and nay-saying denialist's "bed" any longer... if that applies to the reader.  That 1930s broadcast was inadvertently or "advertently" (sic!) HAND-TOOLED to incite panic, and besides, the reaction of the people to it was no different than a genuine broadcast informing its listeners that the *Red Chinese* (say) had landed in a small American town and were killing and pillaging an actual hapless citizenry. Would culture implode as a result of this incursion by the red Chinese? Well, if it did? It would deserve to implode. Good riddance.  No! Dumb as a bag o' broken hammers is not a viable world, or galactic, citizenry.

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Consider: the rather minimal panic that ensued was a provoked lawlessness only to procure the means to resist and survive! Every man for himself!  Pretty freaking healthy from a biological and psychological standpoint. Under the circumstances of a suspected attack from beyond space and time for which we were unprepared?  C'mon.  I submit that we performed passably well! Very well indeed, actually!

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Remember! Minimal DEATHS occurred in THAT regrettably misunderstood debacle, and FEWER suicides.

Then, in 1952, when there was a very real "War Of The Worlds" (!) (True Story... google Frank Feschino!) we had ANOTHER opportunity to refrain from just "kicking the can," but actually bending over to pick it up and examine it! There have been subsequent opportunities: 

1952	Washington, D.C.	Radar-visual sightings over the Capitol; USAF scrambles jets; Project Blue Book intensifies
1965–1966	USA (Midwest, Northeast)	Michigan “swamp gas” sightings; Hillsdale College incident; Congressional hearings follow
1973	USA (Southeast)	Pascagoula abduction; wave of humanoid reports and close encounters across the South
1980	UK (Rendlesham Forest)	Military witnesses strange lights and craft near RAF Woodbridge; dubbed “Britain’s Roswell”
1989–1990	Belgium	Triangular craft seen by thousands; radar confirmation; military jets scrambled
1994	Zimbabwe	Ariel School incident; 60+ children report contact with beings and craft
2008	Turkey	Kumburgaz sightings; video evidence of craft with visible occupants (disputed but widely circulated)
2023	USA, Latin America	Surge in sightings post-UAP hearings; whistleblower David Grusch’s claims spark renewed interest

Is there not a huge debate going on in Congress as we speak that this anomalous and highly strange "can" be picked up and examined? 

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Finally, we can all just accept that we are at our efficacious best when conditions are at their most trying... conversely, we are at our worst with conditions at their very best!  We might conduct our affairs with that knowledge in mind—yes, let's move on into the truth... though the heavens fall! ...If they do fall? We'll make better heavens!

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Verily, "Brookings" can bite me. We'd best stop kickin' this can... hell, all our cans. We'd be well served!

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Restore John Ford!

[You knew I was going to say that, too.]

Klasskurtxia, Be Not Proud!

"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith." ~ Thomas Merton

Klasskurtxia, Be Not Proud!

by Alfred Lehmberg

Where it counts... in the aggregate and all'round? As a human species, allegedly "self-aware," and "cogent," ...are we not insipid, cowardly, and stupidly inept as a collection of "reasoning" beings? 

No? Is this not fulsomely dictated to any observing individual aspiring to conscience, and abundantly, given even the remotest attention to current events? Is it not true that ALL of our avoidable woes are a result of the choices we have made, always? …Or more to the point, the choices we didn’t make. 

Let's forget God's providence. No God will be there to bless us or abandon us. Verily, our existence is all on us, adrift in a creation we can neither define nor truly understand... presently, if ever. This is even as our errant hubris proclaims that it CAN, more or less, define and understand our nature and place in the cosmos! 

It remains that "we," those of us who must define that place where a "hard rubber meets an abrasive road," are, and have ever been... the providers of our own damnation or salvation... only using thousands of gods we've manufactured... as excuses for our lack of understanding "of all things" under the sun! 

We're talking monkeys! What would one expect of us? 

This might be what a "secular humanism" is all about! This might be where we discover as a humanity, as a species, that we would be much better served by respecting ourselves, investing in ourselves... worshipping ourselves! ...And doing that with all the same humility and humbleness we've extended to thousands of invented deities over the eons! 

Plainly, these dieties, a multitude of gods we only ever manufactured to do our bidding, have done that bidding, perfunctorily, as can be readily observed, anyway! Untestable faith is valueless to a species' rising and advancing... it is "hopium." This is forgetting that some of that faith is unethical and criminal. The KKK has faith. 

No... we are our own invention, an accident of cosmic nature always, reinventing ourselves, always, to wit! Here we are, and after many hurdles of fate, too! ...This is likely not by the grace of God!

So, back to the ranch! Let's ignore our religions and turn our eyes inward at ourselves, then, to regard for a moment one other, potential and ironically real, cause for some of that insipid "cowardice" and "ineptitude" to which we have alluded above.

Enter, the klasskurtxian. Behold and weep!

Oh… he had a noble start. "Critical Thinking" was being cheapened for the masses by the too readily available alternative facts, especially via the internet later on... and too many of the cruelly psychopathic among us were misleading and misdirecting the credulous misled, and even encouraging some of these into some real mental illness! …But, as the inordinately officious and fulsomely arrogant usually end up? ...His very honorable and well-conceived initiative quickly went bad. 

Think: Scientistic authoritarianism (...not scientific! Science can't be authoritarian by definition!)! That phrase? A foreshadowing synonym for klasskurtxia!

Klasskurtxian? This is a word coined in a mash-up of the names Philip Klass and Paul Kurtz—two CSI(COP) creating "heavyweights" at its provenance—a mashup attempting to put some "name" to the aspects of their... for this humble observer? ...A cripplingly Anthropomorphic, arrogant, and altogether cowardly science "philosophy," one ever filled with obnoxious hubris and unearned arrogance. This philosophy would be counter to one more legitimately and constructively sought, eh? Remember the name Rupert Shelldrake...

"Klasskurtxian," it is submitted, evolved to be a graceful co-mingling of Onomatopoeia and a "clear-crystal" self-definition just begging its explanation! It is a word meant to clatter concussively—if effortlessly—off the tongue and palate... like a big porcelain urn of live poisonous snakes dropped in the CSI(COP) Commissary to shatter dangerously on its shiny obsidian floor! That sound. Hear the hissing! Hear the shattered glass! It's the sound of philosophical betrayal.

It has a meaning easily determinable just in context, eh? It’s not a complementary appellation... even not understood! It just looks and sounds derogatory! Oh... and it is. ...Of needs and for cause as we point out!

Philip Klass? He was the more fabulous ufological nay-sayer and unethical well-poisoner of the duo. We recall the time he attempted to turn Canada against the late Stanton Friedman when Friedman sought to immigrate there... Klass, in a letter on his letterhead, and scurrilously, painted Stanton Friedman to Canada as an undesirable! Klass was unsuccessful...

The effin' GALL! Headshakes are called for. ...But, that's ok... Klass wrote Friedman a big fat check later in another matter where Friedman caught him short on a disingenuous point... and nailed him for it.

Ostensibly, Philip Klass was a prominent aerospace journalist and a leading UFO "skeptic." He was also very well known for too aggressively, if weakly, debunking ALL UFO claims! To this end? 

He was often accused of cherry-picking evidence and using ad hominem tactics to fallaciously discredit even expert witnesses and researchers. Kurtz was even to have said of him… “Yeah, he’s a nut… but he’s OUR nut.” The reader can Google this institutional back-stepping scourge at their whim! No links, a pox on his memory! Paul Kurtz… less famous, needs the deeper dive as the creator and provenance of this lurid CSICOPian morass.

Paul Kurtz, we discover, was a pivotal figure in the rise of organized skepticism in the United States. He founded CSICOP—the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal—in 1976, and later, perhaps caught intellectually short and hedging pecuniary bets vis-à-vis his lucrative "klasskurtxian" publishing house, Prometheus Books, and trying to rebrand (in the opinion of this writer), dodged reputational accountability, renaming it as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in 2007 for a "new" start. 

His purported initial "mission"? It was to counter what he saw as a "dangerous surge" in paranormal belief and pseudoscience. He had a BROAD brush for any of that, as it turned out, and would dismiss new ideas perfunctorily on his largely unsupported dictate. That's science?

Who Was Paul Kurtz? Kurtz was a Philosopher and secular humanist: Kurtz championed rational inquiry, ethics without religion, and the scientific method as a foundation for public discourse… so… full marks so far? Where’s he go bad? …Well, to start?

He faux-institutionalized real skepticism! Kurtz helped transform legitimate skepticism from a personal, if factually based stance, into a bureaucratic machine of scientistic (sic) dogma! Indeed and verily! CSICOP became the corrupt "Vatican" of the "paranormal's" official denial! The patriarchy of a bigoted science officiality.

Then? He disguised that DOGMA as the proclaimed governor on "rational inquiry," while claiming, disingenuously, to promote open scientific investigation! No! To the contrary, CSICOP often defaulted to debunking, dismissing, and deriding anomalous data before any full engagement or credible investigation was initiated, at all! 

In fact! He and his ready minions refused to investigate that which he would then authoritatively pronounce upon! That’s science?

He suppressed the genuine anomalous: UFOs, psi phenomena, and other compelling "edge" cases weren’t just questioned—they were ridiculed, marginalized, erased, or canceled from serious discourse and discussion, out of hand! ...Ask Dr. Rupert Shelldrake, he’ll tell you!

Then there was the foreshadowing cast by the early Truzzi schism! The CSICOP movement started to go bad… so well-respected philosopher Marcello Truzzi, co-founder of CSICOP, loudly left in a huff, bailing early on! He would accuse Kurtz and others of "abandoning true skepticism for ideological [culture issue?] warfare." Ouch! Truzzi’s departure marks the moment when a full-blown klasskurtxianism began to crystallize. 

Morever? Money was being made... big money. Ask pro-skeptics Shermer, Magaha, Sheaffer, and Oberg et al... all on the Promethean Books payroll! We begin to suspect that "comfortin' naysayin'" makes great bank for those in catbird seats!

Reaching? Kurtz’s inclusion in the mashup could be a play on Colonel Kurtz, evoking “Heart of Darkness” motifs, and that motif's descent into moral and ethical chaos for the "system"... Our Kurtz, revealed as an ironic author of that which he opposed... but... that would be a stretch. Our arrogant and officious Kurtz certainly contributed to our further cognitive degradation, in the opinion of this writer… and how ironic was that? 

Degradation? Perhaps a worrying result of some phonetic twist on "curse" or "crux," thinly suggesting a burden or some central dilemma, one unaddressed and unadmitted? There is our encouragement to intellectual cowardice and species stupidity, ironically provoked by klasskurtxian proclivities and initiatives... proclivities and initiatives creating unnecessary "informational vacuums" or "knowledge voids" ...and them sucking in whatever is there to be sucked in... nature abhorring that vacuum! This, while making no real effort, scientifically, to provide credible information, perhaps helping to fill some of those "vacuums" and "voids"? At least a "good faith" effort, and not just the usual dismissiveness, denial, and unsupported and reflexive derision, the abject marginalization of the "paranormal," practiced otherwise!

...More irony! Kurtz wanted to rescue secular scientific sensibilities but only cast his ostensibly righteous science in the light of an uptight officialdom not investigating that which it was airily pronouncing upon, as we’ve already pointed out! That's not a good look for a perspicacious person or any serious sceptic.

Defined, then? Klasskurtxianism (n.) ...A satirical or speculative ideology that does not critique the entanglement of class-based power structures with moral decay, institutional absurdity, and the sad performative rituals of cultural orthodoxy. These are attitudes often expressed by the activities of short-sheeting charlatan catbirds, happy with the “way things are [...were!].”

Klasskurtxianism, used in a sentence? "The bureaucrat's devotion to klasskurtxianism was complete—he filed his soul in illegible triplicate and then burned the original."

No… Klass and Kurtz were duplicitous UFO skeptibunky bigots needing a more fulsome and descriptive appellation... So! By fusing these figures, one attempts to craft a mythic archetype: the institutional “gatekeeper” turned ideological “saboteur,” but cloaked in glad faux-rationalisms and driven by deeper fears—fears of paradigm shifts, fears of cosmic accountability, and fear of losing control over the "official" narrative. That last was the big one.

Another definition? Klasskurtxianism (n.) — A rhetorical and ideological posture marked by performative skepticism, institutional gaslighting, and the strategic suppression of anomalous truths—especially those threatening entrenched power structures. Named for Philip Klass and the Paul Kurtz archetypes, it embodies the paradox of denying the extraordinary while secretly fearing, so then ignoring, its implications.

Used again in a sentence? "The committee's klasskurtxianism was palpable—they dismissed the radar data, ridiculed the pilots, and then quietly encouraged funding for classified aerospace programs."

What are the more obvious traits of Klasskurtxianism?

Well, to start, it weaponizes skepticism! Not into some hard-ass but genuine tool of inquiry where there's "truth though heaven falls," but as a mechanism to preserve a comfortable orthodoxy keeping that same heaven from falling, at all, it is offered! There seems to be a palpable if ironic fear of that "heaven falling," is the suspicion... their heaven! 

Michael Shermer's a lapsed Christian fundamentalist, is the understanding, so this new fundamentalism might be a comfortable fit for many of them... still, it's peculiar behavior from avowed atheists. It remains, heavens that CAN fall, SHOULD fall. We rebuild from that and always have.

Then? It facilitates "institutional duplicity"! Its public denial is only paired with covert interest or exploitation. Moreover, it is a “Mythic inversion” where the skeptic becomes the zealot, the unreasonable "religious" fundamentalist guarding a "truth" they refuse to name or substantiate! It becomes a Cultural gaslighter! It rewrites history to erase the anomalous, the inconvenient, or the highly strange. To what end one wonders... but the death of wonder.

Kurtz, folded into our term "klasskurtxianism," becomes the "institutional philosopher of denial" as his well-deserved legacy! He became what he abhorred. See, he was the one to provide for the codification of skepticism into a bureaucratic fundamentalist religion!

His legacy is tragically complex: he helped elevate science in public discourse, but he also helped entrench a form of gatekeeping that usually stifled purposeful inquiry into the genuinely anomalous! UFOs (we don't say UAP in these parts!) are a case in point!

Paul Kurtz, this architect of institutionalized skepticism, was the errant philosopher who codified doubt into an insentient, officious, and hypocritical doctrine. In klasskurtxianism, he’s not just a name but a mythic archetype: the "gatekeeper of reason" who, in his zeal to protect science, may have unwittingly worked but to ossify it?

A last definition to make the point fine? Klasskurtxianism (n.) A mythic ideology rooted in the legacy of Philip Klass and Paul Kurtz, characterized by a reflex institutional skepticism that only masquerades as scientific inquiry while actively suppressing what might be anomalous truths. It weaponizes reason and then distorts it to defend orthodoxy, often at the expense of any genuine exploration or science.

A last sentence? Klasskurtxia is certain where hubris outruns humility and complacency's convenient certitude outweighs one's unblinking honest inquiry.

So? ...More James MacDonald, who risked his reputation for empirical truth! Less Edward Condon, who embalmed inquiry in bureaucratic denial in the service of a lack of truth!

Closing… Jerry Clark, a serious ufologist of yesteryear, hated this word’s coinage and scorned it openly. …Only, one thought the Kurtz crowd was getting away with too much and needed a snatching up by their rusty and unserviceable stacking swivels. To that end, this writer penned a two-part send-up that took on Kurtz’s CSI(COP) [still in the website address!] point for effin’ point. Find it here! 

That said… intellectual cowardice, like simple cowardice, is a choice. Humanity could choose better, and has on occasion. Lately, though? We prefer the insensible sectarian to the sensible secular. We accept the alternative facts over the genuine facts! We embrace the ill-purporting authoritarian over the receipt-holding authoritative! Strikes one, two, and three! One ponders what belief in the afterlife has done to persons in this life to add to what arrogant persons in this life do to themselves in the creation of new scientistic religions.

Klasskurtxianism can shoulder some of the blame for this imaginational and intellectual malaise of spirit and courage, perhaps driving persons he was trying to reach back into the arms of their contrived and perfunctory gods, the ironic inverse of Thomas Merton above. Irony gets thick!

No... one doesn't encourage a person to their banner or sense of things by ridiculing, canceling, and dismissing them out of hand sans receipt! What's "hammered down" inordinately for (errant?) dogma's sake, only pops up somewhere else... just meaner. That seems plain to this loose-cannon [...if small caliber!] but aspirant staid observer.

Finally, Restore John Ford! Yes! Restore John Ford—a silenced witness, a forgotten scapegoat for klasskurtxian denial and misdemeanor! Restore John Ford—our reminder that truth suppressed festers, but it never dies. Restore John  Ford!