"Close Encounters with the Pentagon" article

[Yex]

just found a good article here titled

Close Encounters with the Pentagon

By Robbie Graham and Matthew Alford

For 60 years space aliens have left their mark on the Hollywood box-office in some of the most popular movies of all time, from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), E.T: The Extraterrestrial (1982) and Independence Day (1996), to the highly lucrative Monsters vs. Aliens (2009). The new Transformers sequel, Revenge of the Fallen (2009), is also poised for box-office glory this summer with its big-budget blend of eye-popping special effects, fan-fiction and UFO mythology. The most interesting aspects of the Transformers films, however, are evident not so much in celluloid form as they are behind the scenes – in a production process built around the close relationship between Hollywood, the United States military and a variety of government agencies. While the dryer details of this relationship have been relatively well documented, the curious tale of government involvement in Hollywood’s UFO movies represents a forgotten chapter in the history of American cinema.

Perception Management: Past and Present

Bizarrely – and for reasons not entirely clear – the U.S. government has taken a keen interest in Hollywood’s flying saucer movies since the early days of the phenomenon. Official efforts to debunk UFOs through media channels originated with the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel which, in 1953, decided that public excitement about flying saucers should be actively discouraged. The panel recommended “That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the… aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired,” and that this should “be accomplished by mass media such as television [and] motion pictures...” with specific reference to Walt Disney.i

Continued here...............


http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22893.htm

Cheers,

Yex

[Cogburn]

[offsite:3os44ql2]Judging by the examples outlined in this article, official policy regarding media representations of UFO phenomena seems to have shifted from project to project, from decade to decade, between concerted debunking efforts at one end of the spectrum and, at the other, more subversive attempts to quietly monitor and even seed the content of UFO-related media for purposes of psychological warfare and/or perception management. If nothing else, this should provide incentive for us to sit up and pay greater attention to the fleets of flying saucer movies that will undoubtedly continue to land in our multiplexes in the years to come.[/offsite:3os44ql2]

Smite. Brilliant find.

[Yex]

Some snippets that I found interesting.......

Discussing his classic UFO movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Steven Spielberg once revealed in an Australian film journal that he “found [his] faith [in alien life]” when he heard that the government opposed the film. “If NASA took the time to write me a 20-page letter, then I knew there must be something happening,” Spielberg said. “When they read the script they got very angry and felt that it was a film that would be dangerous. I felt they mainly wrote the letter because Jaws convinced so many people around the world that there were sharks in toilets and bathtubs, not just in the oceans and rivers. They were afraid the same kind of epidemic would happen with UFOs.”iv


In 1979, Kimball claimed that in the mid-1950s the USAF had approached Walt Disney himself to request his cooperation on a documentary about UFOs that would help acclimatise the American public to the reality of extraterrestrials. Even more intriguing was that, in exchange for his cooperation, the USAF would apparently supply Disney with real UFO footage for exclusive use in his documentary. According to Kimball, Disney accepted the deal and began work immediately on the USAF project, which would not have been unusual considering Disney’s established relationship with the U.S. government (during WWII Disney made approximately 80 propaganda shorts for the military).

Emenegger described to the authors how he was briefed on the UFO project at Norton Air Force Base in “a clean room used by the CIA… so there was no way anyone could eavesdrop on us.” In an offer similar to that made some twenty years earlier to Walt Disney, the USAF promised Emenegger real UFO footage – this time allegedly showing a UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base in 1971 and the subsequent face-to-face meeting between alien visitors and delegates of the U.S. government. Emenegger was sceptical, but was assured by the USAF that the footage existed, and was genuine.

Disney’s UFO-themed Race to Witch Mountain (2009) received assistance not only from the military but from the CIAxix – a curious arrangement since the latter is not even represented on screen; what’s more, the film’s portrayal of the military is decidedly negative

[Cogburn]

Funny he mentions Witch Mountain.

I'm not one to think that the media is trying to "tell us something", but the original back in 1975 just struck me as odd for a Disney film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072951/
http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/screenplay/vi2969830169/

"I should have known there was more than ESP to those two."

[Yex]

Disney bought out a blatent Pro Ufo Documentary in 1995, been trying to track down a copy with no luck

officially it was to promote a new attraction, but the Documentary had nothing to do with the ride itself

http://www.hedweb.com/markp/disney.htm

A glowing object flies across the television screen. "This is not swamp gas. It is not a flock of birds. This is an actual spacecraft piloted by alien intelligence - one sighting from tens of thousands made over the last 50 years on virtually every continent on the globe. Intelligent life from distant galaxies is now attempting to make open contact with the human race and tonight we'll show you the evidence."

[boycotteverything]

It's a confusing can of worms all right- which is probably the best measure of success of the IC disinformation program concerning ETH and the Core Story. The latest manifestation of the program may well be the foodfight surrounding the release of Bob Collins' EfD and the Serpo affair. They are connected by the involvement of Rick Doty (and Green and Pandolfi?) in both cases. Corso's book (although panned by Stan Friedman) is equally a part of hall of mirrors created by Majic/CIA/ONI/NSA/AFOSI. Ufology is being either subjected to a drip by drip disclosure or a death by a thousand cuts- or both by separate factions within the IC.

[Alessandra]

Holloman \o/