The Donkey and the Carrot: The Disclosure Psychosis.
Psychosis is a mental health condition that affects how a person perceives reality, often leading to a weakened sense of what is real and what isn’t. This can result in symptoms like delusions — strongly held false beliefs that cannot be reasoned away. Since the fifties, the world has been suffering from a disclosure psychosis (a “disclosis”?), the belief (because it’s always a belief with no real evidence) in an imminent revelation from the government (mostly the United States) that there is an alien presence on our planet and that this fact will soon come out into the open.
“Soon” is the word here — the buzzword ever since Donald Keyhoe predicted the imminent release of this information in his book Flying Saucers Are Real in 1950. In 1966, Frank Edwards proclaimed in Flying Saucers — Serious Business that “The Defense Department is clinging doggedly to its policy of pretending to ignore a problem which it really considers very serious. The day of the denouement cannot be far away. The time may be shorter than we realize.” In 1974, Ralph and Judy Blum’s book Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs stated, “We predict that by 1975 the government will release definite proof that extraterrestrials are watching us.” Then in 1983, MUFON’s international director Walt Andrus was sure that the book Clear Intent, authored by Larry Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood, would “force the Pentagon and our government intelligence agencies to reveal why they have conducted a ‘Cosmic Watergate’ or cover-up with respect to their involvement with UFOs.” In 1991, Stanton Friedman, the grandmaster of ufology, said the following on the radio show For the People: there would be “an international announcement. They will show pictures. I think they will clearly establish that we are dealing with alien visitors, and I think they will convene an international conference of religious, economic, and political leaders.” I urge you to read Isaac Koi’s walk-through of the subject, Official UFO Disclosure May Be Imminent — A Historical Perspective, and while it only goes up to 2020, it’s a very revealing read. There’s many more examples than those I mentioned above, and it goes on up until this very day.
And it just goes on, up until today, led by shady figures like Jeremy Corbell, Nick Pope, George Knapp, Ross Coulthart, Lue Elizondo, and yes, even complete madmen like Tucker Carlson, and so on. A stunning revelation is always promised within a short period of time, and disclosure is said to be imminent — within months, or next year — a year that keeps getting pushed forward, time after time. Like a carrot dangling in front of a desperate donkey. Do I sound mean? Yeah, maybe, but in these days of rampaging fascism, I feel it’s time to just not be nice and polite anymore. Maybe I have some kind of savior complex and don’t want newcomers to the field walking down the same energy-wasting path as many before them.
Here’s the thing: I fully understand the concept of dreaming of something larger than ourselves. I’d go so far as to say it’s important for us to do that, to cope with our existence. However, it can be a dangerous road to walk. Religious institutions, kings, and rulers once held sway in this way, using the power of grasping for the future — what will come, and what will happen if we only wait and fight for some abstract cause. They fill their followers, or those who obey willingly in the name of some kind of truth, with hopes and dreams of a big revelation, the event that will change everything. The fact is — and sorry if I sound cynical — the only thing we truly have is ourselves. By projecting meaning onto things we can’t fully understand (and that includes foreign policies, the traditions of monarchy, local politics, and much more), we humans think we can find meaning amid the chaos around us. It’s always easier to choose the simple answer instead of dealing with something far more complex and multifaceted. Maybe that’s why the American public voted for a simple-minded person as president, instead of actually addressing their own issues and problems. Or why more paranormal celebrities, ufologists, and “truth-sayers” often lean towards, or outright dive into, the right-wing cesspool of hate and despair: it’s a simple solution, blaming someone else.
Now I’m straying off-topic here. Sorry again.
Disclosure psychosis and right-wing extremism go hand in hand and always have. It’s a (fully understandable) skeptical attitude toward governments, but also an absurd trust in governmental institutions. Just look at the big irony: spending years claiming the government is hiding something, then — like a flip of a coin — blindly trusting every ex-spook from some three-letter agency who appears, claiming to know “the truth” (a truth that, of course, can’t be revealed because if it were — this BIGGEST truth in human history — it might get them fired from their well-paid consultant job). What they’re telling the UFO community is basically, “You’re too stupid to know what I know, but just wait; disclosure will come in 2025… or 2027… or 2034.” This constant pushing forward of the date is familiar from cults and even more established religions, and it’s an excellent way to keep followers under control. In today’s climate, it’s mostly about grifting, at least within the UFO field, where subscribers, likes, and intense interactions boost the advertising income for those in charge. Left all alone in a bubble of hope and desperation are those who want to believe, or those who already do and are stuck in a loop of hope and despair.
It can go even further. In Sweden, UFO-Sverige (where I’m a board member) has been around for more than fifty years now, beginning as a missionary organization with very little critical thinking. Clas Svahn once suggested a “third way” of ufology: neither blind belief nor debunking. We’re in it for the mystery, because there is one. When you remove all the observations of Starlink, the planet Jupiter, contrails, and other misidentifications, there’s truly something unexplainable left. We can’t say it’s aliens or ghosts or whatever, but it is something — without a doubt. This approach has brought a lot of criticism from believers in Sweden (no names mentioned), to the extent that Clas is accused on public television by some, let’s say, “less intellectually inclined” people (many of whom support extreme right-wing politics), of being paid off by foreign agencies to suppress the truth. While Clas is the main character in their delusion, even I and other colleagues in UFO-Sverige are claimed to be CIA assets, here only to be party poopers pushing the agenda that nothing outside our material, collective reality exists. Nothing could be further from the truth, but as with everyone suffering from disclosure psychosis, it’s impossible to reason with them. I must admit that I feel very worried about this. Some of these people are possibly dangerous — someone you might find on your doorstep one day. There’s a reason why I always check who’s outside the door before I go out, because I fear meeting a particular person with hostile intentions.
While I’m not okay with this kind of paranoia spreading through the minds and voices of genuinely delusional people, I can, however, live with it. It’s all good; it’s fine. The reason is that I see no reason to stop actually enjoying this subject, and I continue to focus on what’s far better and more interesting than what “trained observers” (another buzzword, and trust me, no one — regardless of uniform or title — is truly a trained observer) and government spooks claim. What’s more fascinating is the personal experience outside of the military and government. That’s where one finds honest and curious human beings who have experienced something extraordinary and genuinely — really — want to know what it was, and maybe, somewhere along the way, encounter something truly unexplainable.
Fred Andersson is a Swedish researcher and writer with over twenty years of experience in commercial television and the author of Northern Lights: High Strangeness in Sweden, out now from Beyond the Fray Publishing. Join him on Bluesky and Instagram.
