Disclosure Schmolsure.
If I were less original as a writer, I would state that disclosure can only be found in your heart and not through government whistleblowers, but that’s a bit too cheesy. However, skipping the irony of it all, there is truth in it. As long as I’ve been involved in ufology (heck, I was even called a ufologist recently — I’m not, just a researcher of the weird and such), talk about the upcoming disclosure has been constant. It’s always “next year” or in “five years” or “soon,” and these time limits are being pushed forward all the time by the disclosure bros, while ignoring earlier predictions like they never even happened. That, to me, is the greatest mystery with this subject: amnesia.
As we all know, or should know, talk about disclosure has been present since the forties. I won’t go into specifics, but please read Isaac Koi’s excellent historical summary of disclosures, “Official UFO Disclosure ‘May Be Imminent’ — A Historical Perspective” on AboveTopSecret.com. It’s a very telling list of upcoming spectacular revelations — over and over again — and nothing happens. As Isaac himself quotes, Richard M. Dolan calls it “Ahab’s White Whale.” And we all know what happened to that old, cranky captain. Left after each announcement that IT will happen are frustrated, sad, sometimes hateful, and paranoid people. Not all, of course; most of them are, for sure, just disappointed and move on with their lives. Others just see the adventure in it — what will come next? What’s beyond the event horizon? That’s a lot healthier than digging yourself deeper into the rabbit hole of government conspiracies and other kinds of cover-ups.
I’m very comfortable with the idea that I’ll never find an answer to the subject I love so much. If an answer comes, where’s the mystery? Suddenly, all the fun will be gone, and there’s nothing left to explore. I’m exaggerating a bit. Even if a flying saucer landed in front of some landmark building, demanding to talk with someone in charge of this planet, there would still be things to explore. IF that were to happen, I’m afraid it wouldn’t help the world anyway. This idea of everyone coming together in peace and harmony is, of course, bullshit. An added form of intelligent life on this earth will (mark my words) just add to even more division in our civilization, as that’s the nature of humans. It will always be us and them, no matter what.
While I can never know for sure, I’m pretty convinced that governments know absolutely nothing about alien life or unidentified flying objects, outside of what people have seen, of course. Stories. There are no crash retrievals, no alien bodies in some freezer deep underground, no secret projects working with back-engineering alien technology, and so on. I’d say, in a very humble way, that the mystery is way deeper than that. It’s plain wrong to simplify it into primitive government shenanigans, which more and more seems like a very cheap and shallow way to see it. Like an episode of Ancient Aliens in real life.
The phenomenon is, first of all, something that belongs to us humans. That’s where the really interesting experiences can be found. Humans are the key to it all. To make all of this into militaristic technology porn is disgraceful, to put it lightly. My advice, and I try to follow it myself, is to not expect anything and have fun. Humor definitely belongs in ufology, and the decline of self-deprecating humor and being able to laugh at — and with — the absurdity in this subject is sort of sad to see. I’ve seen some disclosure activists compare what they do to human rights activism, but nothing could be further from the truth. The understanding and acceptance of other people just don’t exist within the disclosure movement. It’s all an egotistical game where the one who dies with the most anonymous sources on their YouTube channel wins.
Anyways, disclosure is apparently coming, and good luck with that. See you next year when the next announcement is made, when a new whistleblower shows up, and yet another endless bureaucratic process of papers and vague statements resumes.
(if you want to read a different approach to the UFO phenomenon, please read my book, Northern Lights: High Strangeness in Sweden.)
Fred Andersson is a Swedish story producer, researcher, and writer with over twenty years of experience in commercial television and the author of four books. He lives in Märsta, outside Stockholm, with his photographer husband, Grzegorz, and two overly active cats. Join him on Twitter and Instagram.
