UFOs: The Lost Battle
April 14, 2005
Since yesterday, two new changes have appeared on my website. I have deleted many pages from my site, which will now display only the following message:
Page deleted on April 13, 2005
Last year, the LEN law—or “Digital Economy Law”—was passed, amid near-total indifference, particularly among print and broadcast media. Why? Because information disseminated online constitutes competition for these traditional media, which remain heavily subservient to financial and political power. This law seeks to muzzle—or at least attempt to muzzle—online journalism, and one should not expect such media to defend themselves, as many are already silenced.
The LEN law compels website administrators to self-censor, and they do so. There is no alternative when faced with this new legal arsenal, which empowers judges to order the closure of a website under the pretext that its publication “disturbs public order” or “risks inciting disorder.” Indeed, France is the only country in the world to have enacted such legislation, aside from… the People’s Republic of China.
Those wishing to continue speaking, warning others, and “playing the role of the Capitol’s geese” must therefore maneuver carefully to avoid the abrupt closure of their sites without prior notice. Precedents already exist.
The pitfalls are numerous. A few months ago, I received two attachments from a “mysterious correspondent,” protected by the pseudonym: + + + +, + + + @wanadoo.fr (not bad, in that style). These were two previously unseen photographs, revealing the expansion of the radioactive cloud during the failed nuclear explosion at In Ecker in the Sahara, in the early 1960s. These documents supplemented an existing dossier I had compiled on this astonishing blunder committed by French military personnel, who sought to emulate their “American colleagues.” In brief, the French learned that the Americans had shifted their nuclear testing underground. They followed suit by digging a spiral tunnel into what they deemed “the most solid possible” mountain—granite. The immense pressure from the nuclear explosion, however, overcame the engineered confinement: the metal-and-concrete plug blew off, and a massive cloud enveloped the mountain, exposing numerous witnesses—including two ministers. Mesmer revealed this incident in an interview twenty years ago. Another minister present, Gaston Palewski, also exposed to radioactive substances, developed cancer shortly thereafter and died (along with how many others, as the photographs show them standing exposed, watching the cloud approach them). The error lay in attempting to contain the gases “forcefully within rigid structures.” The Americans, from the outset, understood that tests should be conducted in “loose terrain,” but at sufficient depth. Detonating the charge at a depth increasing with its power (in their Nevada test site) created a cavity, whose size also depended on the yield. The energy was absorbed “inelastically” by the overlying limestone layer. It’s akin to testing a grenade by placing the explosive beneath many overlapping layers of sandbags, which absorb the shockwave upon detonation. Indeed, underground nuclear tests cause the ground to rise—spectacularly in the case of very high-yield devices. For example, Soviet tests on Novaya Zemlya caused uplifts reaching one hundred meters. This uplift absorbs the energy. In hard rock, fissuring would occur, releasing highly radioactive gases.
The failed In Ecker test belongs to history, as does torture during the Algerian War. Forty years later, it is finally being discussed. The corpses are finally surfacing. Nevertheless, suppose these two photographs of the failed test had remained all this time in a ministry file, stamped “defense confidential” since 1961. Who sent me these images? How did they gain access to them?
Naturally, forty years later, this no longer matters much. All these facts are known, and the release of these two photographs would not change anything. But suppose it were a maneuver. Then the Ministry of Defense could simply appeal to the courts, presenting these two documents as “classified defense secrets since 1961.” The court would immediately shut down the site, invoking the clause “...for the protection of public order and national defense” (exact wording cited). Irresistible.
Thus, rapid reflection was required, and those photographs had to be removed. You can find the HTML page discussing the In Ecker test at the following address:
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/in_ecker.htm
You will see that the photographs have disappeared.
However, “cleaning up” a site exceeding 500 megabytes is no easy task. One would have to reread everything—or have a lawyer do so meticulously. Even then, a single overlooked phrase could suffice to trigger site closure. Merely removing hyperlinks, as done in the above example, is insufficient. If the documents remain publicly accessible—and verifiable by a bailiff—the offense persists. This was the case until yesterday. Fortunately, a reader alerted me. By accessing
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/dessins/in-ecker1.jpg
and
http://www.jp-petit.com/Divers/Nucleaire_souterrain/dessins/in-ecker2.jpg
one could still retrieve these photographs. I promptly deleted them—not only remotely, but also locally, from my own hard drive. Possession of such documents, classified as “national defense secrets,” constitutes an offense liable to result in site closure and confiscation of equipment.
That these two drawings had remained hidden in a forgotten file was pointed out to me by a reader. I have… a few “guardian angels,” fortunately.
But why delete so many HTML pages? In such cases, it is better to err on the side of excess. In any event, it matters little, as the battle is definitively lost on this front—at least.
What would be the risk? The LEN law provides every opportunity, leveraging the defamatory nature of certain texts. A formal lawsuit or even a formal complaint is unnecessary. Simply receiving a letter from a cited individual stating, “in this passage, I consider myself defamed,” is sufficient for a judge to order immediate provisional closure of the site, without needing to seize the court. Those familiar with the intricacies of this law know that provisions were deliberately inserted to exclude online publications from the three-month statute of limitations applicable to print and broadcast media (a defamed person has three months to “constitute themselves” as a plaintiff; otherwise, their complaint is inadmissible).
What constitutes defamation? Here we return to the UFO dossier. A few years ago, the head of a government unit responsible for UFO investigations was cited in a small ufological journal, printed in absurdly few copies. An obscure ufologist—also an RM (Renseignements Militaires) affiliate—called him a “charlatan.” And he was, quite rightly, correct. In analyzing a particular observation case—note the vagueness of the text—which had mobilized numerous witnesses, he had merely demonstrated the official’s incompetence. Years later, the ufologist produced irrefutable evidence of this incompetence. Yet, legally speaking, he had committed an error. One may write, without fear of litigation, “Mr. X’s work is nonsense.” But writing “Mr. X is a charlatan” is ample grounds for a defamation lawsuit, with claims for damages.
This is precisely what happened—and done thoroughly. The ufologist was condemned, both at first instance and on appeal, to severe penalties. The plaintiff, head of the unit, had his bank accounts seized. Had he owned any real estate, it would have been sold to satisfy the judgment.
It was… staggering.
This demonstrates the lengths to which the political-military establishment will go to conceal from the public how the UFO dossier was managed in France over 30 years. Every effort was made to hide from the populace the few pieces of information gathered by gendarmes—who, by decree, became the sole field investigators, bound by defense secrecy—once collected, these documents and data were entrusted to individuals utterly unqualified, generally non-scientists or those possessing completely inadequate scientific knowledge. This is what the disproportionate trial sought to conceal. In vain, thanks to the Internet. I immediately published the official report detailing the seizure of the RM affiliate’s accounts. A “Telethon” was quickly organized, raising the necessary funds to pay the massive fine (considering the “offense” and the defendant’s financial situation). At the time of the trial’s launch, ufologists associated with the defendant were warned by phone:
“If any one of you dares to move, if any of you even considers testifying, you will all face the same fate.”
The affair remained confined to the web; mainstream media did not report it. Nevertheless, it proved sufficient to shut down the government agency. Supposedly, the overseeing body is now attempting to form “a group of scientists to study the UFO dossier.” Another farce, that’s all. After thirty years, one more farce doesn’t matter.
Up until April 13, 2005, my site still contained numerous documents demonstrating, exposing, etc.
Meanwhile, there was the conference I attended in England in January 2001, resulting in my book UFOs and American Secret Weapons, published in 2003 by Albin Michel. I returned from that conference deeply shaken. I learned, from a group of Americans (one of whom, as we later discovered, held a senior position at the Carlyle Group!) the following:
*- That the Americans had indeed recovered wreckage in 1947
- That they were immediately convinced, at the highest levels, that UFO phenomena corresponded to extraterrestrial incursions
- That they implemented a global disinformation campaign, affecting virtually all countries (except perhaps the Russians, who may have had their own assessments)
- Having grasped the link between certain UFO aspects and MHD (magnetohydrodynamics), they accomplished the feat (by deliberately letting civil applications of the discipline wither in their own country) of convincing numerous countries—including all European nations—that this vast field held no interest
- Simultaneously, they launched ultra-secret research programs—so-called “black programs”—exclusively oriented toward military applications.*
Some of these efforts bore fruit—for instance, in nanotechnology. Americans love subtle hints. It is no coincidence that the company manufacturing the “chips,” the RFID tags, planned in April 2005 to embed in 500,000 Gillette razors, measuring 100 microns in diameter, was named:
January 2001 was a true shock for me. I realized—and this holds true worldwide—that governments’ sole motivation, when showing any interest in the UFO topic, is the dream of extracting new weapons or means of better numbing and controlling populations. In fact, all technology and science have long been at the service of the basest projects, utterly detached from humanism. I never imagined things could go this far—and this applies equally, albeit on a smaller scale, to my own country, France. Through front organizations serving as showcases and information-gathering structures, the military has spent 30 years trying to recover “exotic” knowledge they could apply to “defense”—a word covering planetary madness and a staggering diversion of our science and technology in favor of military-industrial lobbies.
In short, it was doomed from the start. Thirty years late, Europeans (and the French) now realize that among the “spin-offs” from the UFO dossier was MHD. But thirty years cannot be recovered. The Americans understood this in 1947!
Incidentally, I wish readers would stop sending me messages urging “the revival of French MHD.” This is undesirable, as such activities would be exclusively oriented toward developing new weapons. Moreover, I find we already devote a sufficiently large share of our efforts in this direction without adding more. In any case, it is utterly out of the question that I collaborate on any project in this field, given the current context.
I rediscovered a surviving photo of the complete destruction of all the MHD files I had compiled. After my abandonment by K.O. in 1986, I had thrown everything into the trash. This photograph escaped the purge, having remained stuck between the pages of a book:
MHD in the 1980s, elsewhere in the world. Note the size of the seats in the cockpit.
What is extraordinary is cataloging the disinformation operations conducted by the Americans—for instance, the Pocantico conference, where the retired plasma physicist Peter Sturrock (fully aware of the “truth” in his own country), before a credulous European audience, expressed the wish “that scientists finally decide to take an interest in the UFO topic.” What a laugh! What a con job! I was told that Mrs. Galbraith (wife of a former U.S. ambassador to France, closely linked to the Rockefeller family) was about to publish or had just published a new book, summarizing her first inventory of available material for a serious study of the UFO topic—and people swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker.
In fact, the sole pebble in this ocean of disinformation was yours truly—alone, and in vain, publishing scientific papers aimed at alerting the scientific community to the reality of the UFO issue. On this front, the failure is total after 30 years of insane efforts, even if this flood of publications prompted some individuals to question things and inspired more than one student. As mentioned earlier, we have discussed the brilliant policy implemented by “the authorities.” Two of its main architects are now deceased—one in 2005, the other the previous year. One was a minister; the other held the highest-level position in nuclear energy. Additionally, add the resignation, ignorance, and utter cowardice of members of the international scientific community. Do not expect a scientist to risk his life. Should he risk his career, he would already have completely folded. I believe I now harbor a certain contempt for this unimpressive lot. The Aragos and Lichnowskys have disappeared, replaced by “entrepreneurs in science,” intellectual opportunists, careerists. I knew a man, a scientist, who took risks by revealing what he had discovered in the early 1980s: the phenomenon of nuclear winter. Today, it has become common knowledge, widely discussed in films. But at the time Vladimir published his work, these ideas disturbed the military-industrial lobby. He was assassinated in Madrid, and his body was never found. I believe that, aside from me, no one remembers his name, which I have mentioned in several of my books.
For one Alexandrov, how many legions of cowards?
Cowards—or simply narrow-minded individuals, too preoccupied with their small careers and personal interests, too constrained by fear to look beyond the tip of their noses. In one book, I had referred to our scientists as “timid monks.”
They are not the only ones. Others, fortunately among the brightest, sold their souls long ago and now work, equipped with powerful resources and generously paid—though bound by the strictest secrecy—in military sanctuaries to which even politicians… do not have access.
What remains on the French scene? Nothing—or ufologists, which amounts to the same thing. They are the bandar-log of UFOs, occupying the abandoned citadel and wasting time in vain debates. Anything and everything is found there, including fantastical mythomaniacs. But I will not weary myself revisiting such a tedious subject.
Among them are media figures, fingers on the seam of their trousers, seated on ejectable seats, saying only what they are told to say—otherwise, their “frequency band” would immediately disappear.
They include “honorable correspondents,” linked to intelligence services. One of them published a book. You can guess which one I mean. His name appears as advisor in a project for a theme park dedicated to… espionage, the Spyland project. Don’t bother looking for the page referencing it—I removed it from my site. Not out of fear of reprisal, but out of fatigue. If the French accept their money spent on such a theme park, planned near Valence, frankly, that’s their problem—it’s no longer mine.
The “honorable correspondents” infiltrate as best they can, using their four available neurons. One, assisted by a vain third-degree practitioner, seized, without resistance, a vast and fascinating file—now become… an empty fortress.
All this is tiresome and tedious. Yet, in truth, it amounts to nothing if this immersion in the UFO dossier had not, brutally, forced us to confront our own terrestrial destiny. As Swiss author Ziegler notes in his recent book The Empire of Shame, in just a few years (five, he estimates), everything on our planet has begun to unravel. The poor grow poorer, the rich (everything is relative) grow increasingly numerous and bloated. International law is dying. This is perhaps the most important sentence in a book that presents a staggering account of current deviations.
The author, a UN rapporteur on food issues (one might say, a secretary for famine), concludes his book without suggesting any solutions. In his epilogue, one senses he believes an event comparable to the 1789 Revolution—which fascinates him—would be welcome. Yet what he forgets—or ignores—is that such a bourgeois revolution is no longer even conceivable. Mass media brainwashing, the future “chipping” of humans, their manipulation, and the enormous coercive means now available render the barricade no longer even a viable solution. Soon, Zorglonde (a fictional planet in French sci-fi, symbolizing absurdity) will rule the world. Reality surpasses fiction.
Closing Ziegler’s book, one wonders: “Then, if this man suggests no solution, what remains for the world’s despairing?”
We live on a planet worsening in every way, increasingly unable to point its youth toward any viable path. It is shocking to see Bush and his entourage claiming Christianity, while the Gospels clearly state, “No one can serve two masters: God and Mammon” (Mammon meaning money). Elsewhere, mullahs exploit the despair of their youth, sending them to blow themselves up (randomly selected youths, not their own sons). In Benares, thousands of widows simply starve to death, amid general indifference, within a system offering its own ready-made explanation:
“This must be your karma. But do not worry: in your next reincarnation, things will surely improve. As for us, it is only natural that we enjoy good lives. We must have been kind in past lives, just as you should have been…”
The last refuge of humanity, of the despairing, is a land called:
Absurdistan
Our world, to quote Ziegler once more, “is re-feudalizing,” becoming absurd. Ubu casts his shadow over the entire Earth, wielding “his shit-crook and his finance-stick,” declaring, “I shall kill everyone, and then I shall go.”
Have you read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles? It is a series of chapters where the author, through the metaphor of the “conquest of Mars,” addresses profoundly human themes. At one point, Black residents of a U.S. region decide to build their own rocket to leave Earth and seek their fortune elsewhere. A young Black waiter timidly informs his white employer he is leaving. The latter, stunned, watches with his friends as the rocket—carrying all the bar waiters and shoeshine boys—lifts off into the blue, leaving behind a heterogeneous mass.
All this suggests an idea. Ultimately, the “fuck-ups”—the poor—have become too poor to be consumers. Robotics and artificial intelligence are thriving. Our cars are already manufactured by robots. Extrapolating, all terrestrial industrial activity could be entrusted to machines endowed with a rudimentary artificial intelligence. Consider, for example, Gillette’s recent attempt to embed RFID chips in razors, “to improve inventory management.” Fortunately, American consumer associations forced the company to delay the project. Yet it was a trial run. Beyond this, every supermarket product could be tracked using these “remotely interrogable labels” (Radio Frequency Identification Devices). Today, what is a supermarket cashier? A poor woman living under fluorescent lights, never seeing daylight, scanning thousands of items daily with a barcode reader. With RFID, scanning could occur remotely, inside the shopping cart. The customer would pass through a turnstile; the machine would detect the cart’s contents. A monotonous synthetic voice would say:
“Please insert your credit card into the slot, or, if you have an implant, confirm your purchase by simply saying ‘yes.’”
Bradbury’s world is not so far off, after all. A cohort of cashiers will swell the ranks of the newly unemployed. As with the widespread adoption of barcode readers, such changes could happen very quickly. Technically, everything is ready.
The final problem, ultimately, concerns the mechanics of our economy. Are customers truly necessary for an economy to function, as are commercial transactions? Why not imagine a world populated solely by the very wealthy, surrounded by docile robots, with a few extremely wealthy scientists amusing themselves by inventing new robots?
We have the solution. We must get rid of this dead weight of today’s world—the poor, who have become too poor to be consumers. Modern science makes this possible. It is morally somewhat awkward, but that’s all—someone must be thinking about it.
If we choose to remain within the bounds of morality, then we must invent a new societal model—and do so quickly. The world’s tensions are escalating so rapidly that catastrophe looms within a timeframe I estimate to be less than ten years. Many find it hard to believe this could be so imminent. Some dream of a “rebalancing” of forces and economies among ethnic groups. Yet I fear this belief in an imminent “equilibrium” or a new “stage” is merely a dream. We resemble passengers on a bus hurtling down a mountain road, accelerating uncontrollably, its brakes having failed, saying to themselves, “we’ll surely stop somewhere eventually.”
In one sense, yes—but the contemporary question is:
Can we reach the shores of wisdom without paying for this journey with billions of deaths?
The UFO dossier brings us back to Earth, brutally. In one sense, it compels us to question humanity’s role in the cosmos, as many believe it was created entirely for humanity’s pleasure—the famous “anthropic principle,” cherished by Brandon Carter. According to this principle, the cosmos was arranged, and the constants of physics calibrated solely to allow the emergence of this jewel of the universe: humanity.
What is extraordinary is that our brightest minds, our cosmological philosophers—like Baron Carter—exhaust their imagination precisely when they could simply consider the possibility of beings more advanced than themselves. But why would humanity be the endpoint of an evolutionary pyramid? Why not simply one link in an evolutionary process that seeks to continue?
Might we not be like unruly monkeys, grown dangerously reckless—for themselves and their environment—mistaking their bladders for lanterns, wondering what the future holds for the monkey species?
Unruly monkeys, observed by qualitatively different beings, such that this qualitative difference renders communication nearly impossible.
Indeed, let us look behind us. Bonobos, mentioned in my last book The Year of Contact (Albin