The report on UFOs discovered by American pilots not only did not clarify anything for the public, but is also likely to result in the emergence of new conspiracy theories, since some of its parts turned out to be classified, Chris Carter, creator of the popular X-Files series, writes in his article for the www.nytimes.com.
As Carter emphasizes, in the current “post-conspiracy era,” catchphrases from his offspring have become a harsh reality, but the government still continues to lie to its citizens and hide information from them.
“When we were working on The X-Files, preparing the first scenery for Agent Mulder’s office, I came up with a poster with a picture of a UFO and the inscription I want to believe. And, it seems to me, this phrase reflects how most people look at the question of the existence of extraterrestrial life – they are not that absolutely sure that it exists, but still they are waiting for some sign that will confirm this”, Chris Carter, an American producer and creator of The X-Files, writes on the pages of The New York Times.
As Carter emphasizes, “The universe is simply too big for us to be alone in it”. Meanwhile, in the public domain not so long ago, perhaps the first evidence that people finally met aliens appeared in the form of videos shot by US Navy pilots with “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” – this is how it is now customary to call UFOs in America, the producer notes. And last Friday, a government-organized study of collected materials about unknown objects was presented in the US Congress, the author recalls.
“We were promised answers, as always,” he writes.
“As much as I would like it, I myself have never seen a UFO or aliens, ” admits Carter. “But because of The X-Files, I met quite a few people who claimed to have seen it all. I’ve seen fuzzy videos of gray aliens walking around in someone’s backyard.
“I personally know an award-winning director who once told me with a serious face that he saw a UFO when he was in college. And Annie Jacobsen, the author of the wonderful book Area 51, introduced me to a man who worked at this secret facility for many years and saw how strange aircraft flew into and then flew away from the Air Force base located there. In general, for ten years I became a real magnet for such things”, said Carter.
The plot of The X-Files was built on a conspiracy theory that the government is hiding the existence of extraterrestrial life from citizens, the producer continues.
“Do I think the government is lying to us? Well, of course – I’m from the generation of the Watergate scandal“, Carter argues. “Do I believe in conspiracy theories? Of course. For example, I am convinced that someone is attacking CIA agents and White House employees with microwave radiation (this is also called “Havana Syndrome”), although our government denies it. But can this new UFO report – or any other report from government officials – give us clear answers to all our questions? That’s about it, I’m skeptical, as always.”
As Carter recalls, in 1996 Harvard University psychiatrist John Mack invited him to watch a hypnosis session of a woman who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
“In 1996 I was invited to the clinic of the Harvard psychiatrist John Mack to witness the regression hypnosis of a self-professed alien abductee. I first met Dr. Mack, who studied and ultimately believed in alien abduction, when he came to Fox Studios to discuss his work. I had used a Roper survey he was involved in (a poll of 6000 Americans on their belief in the existence of extraterrestrials) to sell “The X-Files” as a TV show in 1992, and later read his book, “Abduction.”
“So I knew something about what I was going to see. I went in doubtful, unprepared for the drama of a woman sitting next to me in tears and in terror over the encounter with aliens that she described, on a beach in Mexico. The experience turned out to be powerful and not a little unsettling.“
A few years later, Carter happened to attend a conference held in the Californian city of San Mateo, dedicated to some secret program of the US government – the participants of the event believed that within the framework of this program, the US authorities, among other things, use technologies “extracted” from captured UFOs to create space weapons.
“Outwardly, these people looked like quite respectable and well-deserved professionals – among them were even ex-officials and lawyers, but at the same time, some of them also believe that the armed forces have secret bases on the far side of the moon, where they secretly hold meetings with reptilians, ” the producer writes.
According to Carter, humanity has entered an era of “uncertainty” in which the truth sometimes becomes unattainable – and this gives rise to a whole host of conspiracy theories, “starting with a documentary about the coronavirus called “Pandemic” and ending with the idea that we all live in black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider after the discovery of the Higgs boson.
“The truth is somewhere nearby”, “Trust no one”, “Deny everything” – the provocative signature phrases of The X-Files said, but this was in the nineties, when we still lived in a relatively common reality. Now these slogans have become the harsh reality of life”, he writes.
The videos shot by the pilots were not the only reason why UFOs were again in the spotlight – The New York Times also contributed to this, which in 2017 published sensational material about the secret US Department of Defense program to search for real information about the “saucers”.
According to the producer, all this together resulted in a new government report. Nevertheless, according to the author, the report turned out to be a failure – after all, there are no specific conclusions about where the unidentified flying objects came from and whether they are of an extraterrestrial nature, and the fact that parts of the document were classified will only result in the emergence of new conspiracy theories.
“It’s all very X-Files style. But besides that, it’s also an occasion to ask some important questions, ” Carter emphasizes.
“How did the US Department of Defense manage to keep a secret budgeted project for ten years, the main sponsor of which in 2007 was Senator Harry Reid? Why was Mr. Reed rejected when he tried to achieve even greater levels of secrecy and asked for physical evidence of the existence of UFOs? Why, finally, did the initiative, designed to answer questions about intelligent aliens that come to us from space, receive only 22 million dollars (which is equivalent to the cost of filming three episodes of the Netflix series Stranger Things)?”, Carter asks.
“Stubborn skeptics” have previously claimed that the UFOs in the Navy-provided videos are “an optical illusion” – even though pilots who have seen these objects have described them in detail, reporting that they had no wings, no exhaust, and that they performed impossible maneuvers at hypersonic speeds.
As he recalls, such disbelief – both scientifically based and not – has existed since the forties, when American pilot Kenneth Arnold saw nine “flying saucers” over Mount Rainier. But skeptics ask at least one reasonable question: why has not a single former or current official appeared in all these years who is ready to show all the cards at least on his deathbed?
“Could it be that the government, in declaring that it does not know what to think about these phenomena, is really telling us the truth? Or is the truth at a level even further than top secret?”, Carter asks.
As the producer notes, Barack Obama, who once made sarcastic jokes about UFOs on television, now admits that unidentified objects do appear in the sky, and even Donald Trump, at whose direction the last report began, does not deny that.
“I think in all likelihood this report will come and go, and with it the mainstream chatter around U.F.O.s, until definitive proof is exposed. A planet that can’t come together on climate change or a global pandemic might not pay much attention even if wreckage or an alien corpse is discovered. The culture wars alone might eclipse it, so rabidly are we in their grips.
“But what if we had direct contact? With actual alien beings from an exoplanet who’ve traveled light years to seek us out? Who have answers to every question we’ve ever asked?
“The result would unquestionably change the course of mankind. But would it change us?
“I want to believe.”
Chris Carter is a screenwriter and director who created the TV series “The X-Files.” Source: www.nytimes.com
