No time to think

Gendarmes search for clues in the abduction of Frank Fontaine, 1979

"The magician is quicker and his game is much thicker than blood,
and blacker than ink.
And there's no time to think." - Bob Dylan

Most people who give any thought to UFOs won't - and even self-described "Ufologists" can't - devote the kind of energy and attention to the study of the phenomenon that it actually merits. As in many pursuits, there really isn't much money to be made on the serious end of things. (If you want to perpetrate hoaxes, create a new religion or dumb down the data for mass consumption, that's another matter.) There's no "Ufology" career path; it's an all-amateur effort, squeezed in around the edges of peoples' ordinary lives.

This puts the public at a huge disadvantage, because powerful forces have been at work for a long time to confuse and deceive us by manipulating the phenomenon. And some of these forces are even human.

As ever, the disinformation itself makes an important study, because it's as worthwhile to know what they want us to think as it is to know the truth. And there, beneath the official denials, are several layers of deception that mean to direct the public towards the presumption of extraterrestrial origin. I've written much on why I believe this is as unsatisfying to the data as swamp gas, and that we should be highly suspicious of the silence of the military-occult complex to the occultic characteristics of the phenomenon. Those who suggest occultic provenance are marginalized, even on the margins, as was Lord Hill-Norton, former UK Chief of Defense and a UFOlogist of high repute, who formed an organization in 1997 called UFO Concern to warn of their "satanic nature."

The disinformation is chiefly divided between two main narratives. In one, the government is suppressing the healing technologies and spiritual teachings of benevolent space brothers, who mean only to save us. In the other, they mean to eat us. Elaborate castles in the air - or rather, enormous bases underground - have been constructed, in which humans and their Reptillian allies are said to sometimes conduct horrible genetic experiments, and other times battle each other in Starship Trooper-like shoot outs. For instance, the legend of the joint US-alien Dulce base appears to have had its origin in the disinformation campaign waged against researcher Paul Bennewitz, and then - the hallmark of brilliant disinfo - to have taken on a life of its own, perpetuated by hoaxers and the credulous.

Ufologist Bill Moore, author of the first books on Roswell and the "Philadephia Experiment," admitted to having been part of a US Air Force disinformation campaign against Bennewitz, in return for access to classified material. Moore's main contact Richard Doty, who also "befriended" Bennewitz, was trained in disinfo and psychological warfare. The campaign was successful: it drove Bennewitz so paranoid that he had to be institutionalized for a time, and the disinfo which nearly drove him out of his mind is alive and well on the Internet. (The sad episode is well told in Greg Bishop's Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth.)

And note: that there is no US-alien base under Dulce doesn't mean there is nothing weird going on out there. In fact, the legend arose and took hold to explain the weirdness that remains unexplained. The cattle mutiliations, for instance, which according to the disinformation were for genetic experiments.Yet one would think an advanced race of space travellers would have genetic technologies at least as advanced as ours, that would not require such gruesome and wasteful methods. Rather than for science, the mutilations appear to be more for ritual. And for another instance, there's the matter of many sightings of UFOs around Dulce, some seen to actually penetrate the surface. Though no opening into the Earth was seen, one was presumed, and then an underground base is just one assumption away. But if UFOs are hyperdimensional, rather than extraterrestrial, we should expect them sometimes to pass unobstructed through solid matter, and there are many other examples of similar observations from around the world. (In It's all in the egg" I wrote how Jane Chapin had initially lied to investigators, and told them that the object flew over the trees though she had seen it pass through them as though they didn't exist, because "I could see they wouldn't believe me if I told them the truth.") If the genuine phenomenon is hyperdimensional, there's no need to presume the objects need to access hidden doors and underground garages.

Also, there is a kind of disinformation which actually creates the events, and suggests we ain't seen nothin' yet. (Here's some earlier speculation about what we may have yet to see. And let's keep an eye on"Prophet Yahweh.")

About four in the morning on November 26, 1979, in the French town of Pontoise, three friends in their mid-twenties named Franck Fontaine, Salomon N'Diaye El Mama and Jean-Pierre Prevost were loading up an old station wagon with jeans and sweaters to sell at a market. Fontaine was startled by a luminous object, larger than the full moon, descending behind a nearby building. He pointed it out to his companions, and decided to get a closer look in his car.

Jacques Vallee, in Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception, tells what happened when Saloman and Jean-Pierre, who saw a large ball of fog engulf the car, approached it:

The found the car on the right side of the road with its parking lights on. It was indeed surrounded with a large ball of whitish fog around which three or four smaller spheres were moving. These spheres entered the large ball, which itself was absorbed into a cylinder that flew off into the sky at a very high speed.

Dumfounded in the face of the phenomenon, they were unable to react while the manifestations were taking place. Eventually they rushed toward the car. Franck had vanished.

The two, frantic, called the police, who arrived about 30 minutes later. (The first officer on the scene reported that Franck's car was surrounded with very thick fog, and a witness in a nearby apartment, suffering from insomnia, corroborated the story of bizarre luminescent displays at the time of Fontaine's disappearance.) Unsurprisingly, their story was not taken seriously, and under harsh interrogation were accused of perpetrating a hoax, and even of killing their friend. That is until exactly one week later, on December 3 at 4:20 am, when Saloman's doorbell rang.

Vallee again:

When the bell rang in the apartment, Salomon got up in his pajamas, opened the door and confronted the man every cop in France had been hunting for the last seven days. Franck Fontaine was confused and angry. Why did Salomon go back to bed when they should already be on their way to the market? Where was Prevost? And what would they do about the car, which was missing? Obviously it had been stolen with everything it contained.

Salomon started crying, hugged his friend, and told him everything was all right: the station wagon was in the parking lot, and a whole week had elapsed! Confused, Franck had to acknowledge that he had a beard of several days' growth.... He stared wordlessly out of the window while Salomon sprinted down the road to get Prevost.... They showed him the front-page headlines, which were printed about him in every newspaper in France.

Franck Fontaine, "alien abductee"


Fontaine had no idea what had happened to him, though he began to remember drifting in and out of consciousness for a long time, lying in a laboratory on top of a machine. Along the walls were tall cabinets and blinking lights and dials, and signs in a language he couldn't read. Often, floating above him, were small luminous spheres, and he heard soft voices which seemed to eminate from the spheres, speaking to him about the perils of the Earth, and the projected date of their official contact with humanity.

Fontaine wanted to forget the whole affair and resume a normal life. He refused hypnosis, saying enough people already thought he was crazy. A hypnotist named Daniel Huguet, who may have been contracted by French intelligence, turned his attention to Prevost. Under hypnosis Prevost recalled having been contacted by an entity named Haurrio during Fontaine's absence, who told him that he should start a cult of UFO believers, to trust the extraterrestrials and save their own lives and spare the world. Haurrio said the group would be used as the kernel of a new civilization.

Prevost claimed to have been given a date, of August 15, 1980, when the extraterrestrials would being revealing themselves. Hundreds gathered near the site of Fontaine's abduction, and left disappointed. Three years later he was given another date, and still the aliens stood him up.

What was going on?

In Revelations, Vallee writes that the investigation led to the French military and technological establishment. An associate researcher of Vallee's got the story in a Parisian safe house on Novemeber 14, 1980, from a "Mr D," whose full name Vallee knows, who was on the staff of the Service Technique des Engines Tactiques at the French Ministry of Defense.

From the exchange:

"Will you tell me what the disappearance of Franck Fontaine was all about?"

"We refer to the operation as an Exercise of General Synthesis. A highly-placed personality has done detailed planning for it." [ He mentioned the name of a cabinet member with vast connections to the world of high technology.]

"How many people were in the know?"

"No more than ten to fifteen, all at a high enough level to establish what sort of manipulation was justified under the state secrets rule."

"What were your objectives?"

"The operation was structured around military, scientific, and political goals. It was purely national and had no impact beyond our borders."

"What happened to Fontaine?"

"We put him to sleep and he was kept under an altered state of high suggestibility."

"Were you also using the media? Did you have wider objectives?"

"I cannot answer your question. But if this operation had been completed, the next phase would have been far worse."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"I have my own reasons."

"Aren't you afraid I will publish this interview?"

"Anything you publish will simply be denied."

Vallee adds:

Franck's recollection of being inside some sort of laboratory, lying on top of a machine, and going in and out of consciousness for a week, is consistent with the idea that he spent that time in some secret service facility such as the "hospitals" where defectors and suspected spies are interrogated.... All the events that happened to Franck are well within the state of the art.

And I would add that Fontaine's laboratory is evocative of that described by survivors of trauma-based mind control.

This kind of disinformation is a very lengthy strip tease of dry runs and beta testing. But for what purpose? What information was gleaned by the abduction of Fontaine, and Prevost's inducement to create a UFO cult? What would have been the "next phase," which would have been "far worse"?

Whatever the answer, someday the beta testing will be completed, and the real show will begin.

Take time to think. And don't take your eyes off the magician.

UFO cultists awaiting contact in the field of Fontaine's disappearance.