This issue's rant is about the unexplained phenomena UFOs. I have always been captivated by this subject, out of pure curiosity or out of subconscious realisation, I don't know but I find the whole thing very interesting.

Have you noticed recently the increased media interest in UFOs, Alien abductions and strange phenomena ? Programmes like the US cult series the X-Files has massive ratings both here and in the States also there's many documentaries on UFOs, on stuff like telepathy, ESP and other such hidden human abilities.

I find it so comical that all these beneficial abilities are primarily tested by the Secret Services such as the US Remote Viewing programme and Russia's ESP and Telepathy experiments which have provided mind blowing research which could be used to develop the human species. Whilst their motives are to get an edge on the other side - to have programmable spies/assassins or to gain inside information without having to travel further than a chair in their office.

Any way with all this information being brought to the fore especially some of the stuff from ex-CIA operatives and ex-military personnel. Who've spoken out about what they've seen at the highest levels of Security, certainly leads me to believe that within the next few years we'll be hearing and seeing a great deal more about the alien visitors our earth is having and also I think we're going to see some advances in technology too (at the time of writing this a fossilised alien bacteria was discovered on Mars which was reported very non-chalantly for such an important find). So why now ?

Well one particular article I read recently was regarding a US guy called Bob Dean who has devoted his life to UFO research has a more sinister background which can only justify his access and insight into the world of Top Secrecy.

Dean served his country for 27 years as a patriot and professional soldier was a Commander of Infantry in Korea and Vietnam working on the so-called Special Assignments with the Special Forces units. He has now broken his 'Cosmic Top Secret' oath of security by revealing classified information.

He openly confesses that he's been places and done things he should never have done but his expertise in covert operations in the world of US Military Intelligence and clandestine projects landed him a top job working at the Supreme Headquarters of Alien Powers (SHAPE) in Paris as an intelligence analyst in 1963 and 1967 (which was then part of NATO). Dean was given Cosmic Top Secret clearance which entitled him to work in the inner sanctum of the War Room.

The reason he gives for breaking his oath, which he insists that he's not done lightly is for one specific reason: the UFO matter. With all it's implications he believes it is the single most important issue facing Humanity. Dean's conviction is that the public has been fed lies and deceived for over 50 years about how their money is being spent on secret UFO research and in the process Dean insists that we are losing democracy (I thought we'd lost it already-Ed). One such project is a 'black budget' programme commissioned by the US military which involved 15 countries and a 3 year study of combined knowledge of extraterrestrial involvement in human history, this project was called "The Assessment".

Dean first heard about it in 1963 but didn't get to read it until it's completion in 1964. The conclusions of the Assessment were that: "The planet Earth and apparently the entire human race is and has been the subject of an intensive and massive survey by several extraterrestrial civilisations and this survey has been extremely thorough and detailed. These civilisations have not only demonstrated high intelligence, but have also an extremely advanced technology that may possibly be hundreds if not thousands of years beyond ours."

The evidence collected and studied by this report indicated that "this survey has been going on for a very long time possibly several thousand years" although "Military Intelligence analysis has concluded that there did not appear to be a major military threat involved. The conclusions indicate that if they were malevolent or hostile, there was absolutely nothing at the time that we could do. NATO and SHAPE policy dictates that an on-going study continues and as many resources as possible be committed to this matter.

The entire subject is to be considered of the greatest importance and extremely sensitive. This committee recommends that the highest level of classification be placed upon this matter, if approved at or above Cosmic Top Secret". For Dean, reading The Assessment was just the beginning of UFO phenomenon study and what implications it bestowed on the human race. The US have already responded to public pressure and instigated various studies on UFOs including Project Blue Book and Project Sign which were public relations exercises which allowed the military to ridicule and debunk UFO reports, while inwardly enabled them to accumulate important information.

Dean suggests such studies were to determine the extent of a military threat but more importantly they were based on a fear of accidental nuclear annihilation during the cold war when itchy fingers could have resulted in world destruction. In fact during the 50s and 60s large metallic circular objects were frequently seen flying in formation over central Europe often coming very close to Soviet airspace at very high speeds which were obviously under intelligent control.

In February 1961 three UFOs were tracked on radar entering Allied airspace at 3am and came close to causing the US and Soviets to start firing at each other. Air Marshal Sir Thomas Pyke who was the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander promptly went to General Lemnitzer to ask permission to start an in-house study at SHAPE to determine what the origin of these object might be. Pyke was given permission by the Secretary General of NATO and for some time each side thought that the other had some secret weapon. But after a time in became apparent that the technology involved was far beyond that of either side. Which raised the question, who did? So in 1961 they initiated their three year Assessment at SHAPE. It was subtitled 'An Evaluation of a Possible Military Threat to Allied Forces in Europe' after all this was the whole purpose of NATO.
In 1964 when it was published there were 15 copies in three languages. The first copy went to the Secretary General at NATO, two went to General Lemnitzer and a copy was placed in the War Room which is where Dean came across it. He says " the document was about an inch and a half thick and was supported by eight inches of appendices and annexes.

They were remarkable in themselves and included a huge number of topics covering scientific areas such as radar and electromagnetic effects, to the analysis of psychological studies on mass effect and impact. The last annex is one I consider to be the most important of all. I suspect it accounts for the continued cover up after all these years. It was a study on theological implications for religion." Dean explains that key parts of the Assessment had been gleaned from top secret UFO studies which the US Military had previously carried out and later discovered that alot of the staggering information printed in the papers was in fact already known to sections of elite military and political members who made up an inner government within the Government. "As you know there had been several crashes and retrievals of extraterrestrial craft after Roswell in 1947. I don't think that it is a coincidence but '47 was also the same year that America, Britain and three other allied countries signed a special agreement allowing all signal intelligence information between them to be shared. Certain crashes involved retrieval of little bodies, some dead and some alive. In one particular crash near Kingman, Arizona one of the alien occupants called the Extraterrestrial Biological Entity (EBE) was kept alive for over a year and provided the Government with much information about its own background and that of other visiting intelligences."

Dean continues that it wasn't the existence of the small alien beings commonly called 'Grays' which sent the largest shock waves through the military but what invoked the most paranoia was the discovery of a different alien species interacting with the Earth which looked exactly then same as humans! "When I left the military in 1976 we knew of four different hi-tech extraterrestrial intelligences involved in this programme. I've subsequently been told by people who are currently working in the Intelligence Services, that there are more than twelve and possibly more after that. What interested the Admirals and Generals at SHAPE HQ and the Pentagon was that one of these races or groups looked exactly like us, so much so that you could sit next to one in a restaurant and you would never know!" These kind of revelations explain the reason why politicians of this world are keen to keep a tight seal of secrecy on the UFO phenomena or ridicule it. The implications that these ETIs were anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years ahead of us technologically would have a profound psychological shock on those who believed we were alone in the universe. Looking from a political or military perspective to publicly announce that a number of highly intelligent and advanced ETIs were currently visiting the planet and that we know virtually nothing about them and in comparison to them we are technologically powerless it is understandable and a fairly logical motive not to make such an announcement there by keeping this the biggest secret issue and conspiracy of our time.

What made Dean retire and dedicate the rest of his life to researching this phenomenon, was a series of conclusions which were much farther reaching than those in the Assessment. Dean submits " In the beginning you want to know who these visitors are and how they get here but after a while something strange happens to you. I began to find out that this entire search is not so much about who they are, but it is a search that has far more to do with WHO WE ARE, where we come from and where are we going." For Dean there are several key parts of the Assessment that have shaped his own views and conclusions. Firstly, the military discovered that the 'Programme of Study' undertaken by these ETIs had been conducted over a very long period of time and is still continuing. Secondly even though the agendas of each species may differ, if it was generally a malevolent or aggressive one then they could have invaded us at any time with their advanced technology. However the military concluded that they don't present a major threat to us. So the question remains why have they been interested in humanity for so long.

Dean explains his conclusions " I have become aware that this UFO phenomenon with all it's incredible variety and implications is about 90% a spiritual matter. Beyond the hardware, beyond the facts and figures it is pure spirit. I am not talking about religion as we understand it, this goes far beyond everyone of the separate organised religions on this planet." Dean's ideas revolve around a detailed investigation into human history and how he believes it has been continually influenced and shaped by the guiding hand of various benevolent extraterrestrial intelligences.

To back up this belief he illustrates his view with paintings depicting what appear to be alien craft or visitors. These paintings come from cave walls in the Stone Age through to ancient Egypt and including religious paintings from the Renaissance.
Dean is unsurprised that at least one of the groups looks like humans and is keen to point out that he thinks it is more a case that we look like them!!!

Dean explains "There is one secret above all others that our Government do not want us to know. The Military studies I have read on the impact that the Assessment would have on the world's religious institutions plus all the other findings I have discovered has led me to this conclusion. The human race is a hybrid race.

We have been seeded on this planet and have been genetically manipulated since the beginning of human history and since this is an on-going programme, I believe that this process is still continuing today."

Dean is not the only person to suggest such things French researcher Jacques Vallee has stated that a vast amount of reported close encounters are too high to be explained by the idea of just a curious ETI civilisation.

Richard Hoagland has provided extensive and empirical evidence for the existence of Alien ruins on both the Moon and Mars, which are incredibly old and whose architecture is connected to that of our own ancient civilisations.

Research on the Alien Abduction phenomena has shown that there is some kind of genetic programme involved.
Abductees report all kinds of medical procedures under regression that indicate the main motive is the creation of some strange kind of hybrid alien-human genetic offspring. Also the Roswell crash, which was effectively the beginning of the modern UFO age occurred in a place that contained the first ever bombers to carry atomic weapons and the White Sands missile test set, the fabled birth place of the US military space programme. Dean further adds "I am convinced that this race on this planet has reached a crucial point and I also think this has been a universal constant which has probably occurred thousands of times in the history of this vast universe. Races do reach a key moment, a crisis point of critical mass were they have invented thermonuclear, biological weapons. They have reached a level were they are capable of completely annihilating themselves and they'll make a choice, they'll probably make a jump towards a new direction and eliminate war in all its forms and they'll survive" he also believes the more we study the UFO phenomena and all its guises the more we'll begin to understand ourselves and our own origins "I think that in the history of the universe there have been hundreds of thousands of races and societies that have never made it. The question arises will we? I think these advanced intelligences are interested in helping us to make it.

They have offered us guidance; they have been very gentle and subtle in their relationships with us. I mean they avoided overt mass contact because they know we are not quite ready for that. But it is vital that we some how grow up enough to look at the evidence, that we study all the material available to us and to grasp that we are only one people on one little planet. Then I believe that the awareness of who we might be and the fact that we are not alone and we have never been alone, will bring about an expansion of human consciousness that will help us to make that transition into the future. And I think we will make it".

These certainly are some ideas to make you think but I believe that there could be a great deal of truth in it after all the guy is taking one hell of a risk, knowing the Secret Services methods for quietening people - like permanently. I have always thought that we were some big experiment when I saw a TV programme about how it would be possible to create life on Mars by taking the original elements of our atmosphere and nurturing it, in fact I think there is some university in the US running such a programme to create artificial atmospheres.

Who knows this is probably financed by the Secret Services?! Secondly I find it hard to believe that we are alone it is just too egocentric and rather sad that the human race is the only intelligent species in the universe.

Finally, all discoveries and inventions I believe have to have come from somewhere, all creations have an initial or stolen idea.
So it is quite possible that the many energy sources, modern day inventions, etc were initiated by some Extra Terrestrial species giving us a few pointers - take the Stealth Bomber, Nuclear Power and Microwaves.

On the flip of the coin it could also suggest that Bob Dean is a bloody liar or gone totally off the rails but why? and even if he was it's still a possibility after all fact is stranger than fiction and many an idea of Science Fiction has become reality.

I personally think that this maybe a possible way forward for the human species, we can see that the world is becoming ever more desperate and as Bob Dean says we do seem to be heading for critical mass. As the Millennia gets closer I think that more information will come out and it is up to us to move with this information as it could have so much bearing on the future of our species.

We either go around in circles until we think 'fuck it, let's die' or we try to head into a new era, one of increased awareness of our surroundings (ie the universe) and ourselves.

We are a mere amoeba in a sea of life and we, in the underground, are always preaching about change yet deep inside we all find it difficult to accept that we need to change - this however is the ultimate change.
Giving a new perspective on our past, present and prospective future, I believe the ideologies and ethos behind punk/underground has given us an openness to encompass these matters and may also be a chance to eliminate some of the things we've strove so hard to beat in the past.

This of course could just be the wild meanderings of a sad zine writer with a rather overactive imagination trying to search for some glimmer of hope in a self-destructing world of self-obsessed, paranoid people who see screwing people over and killing as being the only means to facilitate their existence.
If I've done nothing more, I hope that I have sparked something off up their in your mind and give you some food for thought.