Alien
Agenda?
(Draft, 30 January 1999)
I reshelved all my Kennedy materials recently. One book that caught my
attention was Jim Marrs's 1997 Alien Agenda: Investigating the
Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us. I had purchased this book in mid-1997 at
one of the JFK conferences, and had read enough of it to be struck by its
author's strong feelings that UFOs are real and that their extraterrestrial
beings are now a regular part of life on earth. I even noted Marrs's beliefs in
the syllabus for my Kennedy course this semester at the University of Rhode
Island [Spring 1999], saying something to the effect that by publishing this
book, Marrs may have revealed more of his thought processes than he should have.
After reading Alien Agenda, we may be inclined to reevaluate the strength
of his arguments about conspiracy in Crossfire, which we are also using
in that course.
Since I hadn't seen the book in a while (a euphemism for its
being buried in a pile of books), I decided to have another look at it. What I
found reinforced my original feelings. I hope you are as intrigued as I was.
Upon opening the book, one is immediately struck by its
strong language. "We are not alone," says the front inside cover.
Marrs, it continues, offers a "comprehensive, shocking explanation that not
only confirms the reality of UFOs, but reveals the decades-long disinformation
campaign that has kept the truth from us until now." Then the introduction
begins: "The controversy over the existence of UFOs is over. UFOs are
real." Next paragraph: "Only those persons whose outlook prevents them
from dealing honestly with the massive amount of documentation and reports
collected over the past five decades still cling to the idea that nothing soars
in the skies of Earth but man's imagination. …UFOs represent real and tangible
objects…" Next paragraph: "Of course, arguments and protestations
will continue. There are, after all, some few folks [emphasis added] who
still refuse to believe that the world is round." Next paragraph:
"But, whether you believe in them or not, UFOs are now part of our
reality."
Strong stuff indeed! Marrs's position is clear—UFOs are
real, and if you don't accept it, you might as well belong to the Flat Earth
Society.
Next Marrs slams the establishment for ignoring the evidence
on UFOs, using phrases like "documented government deceit and duplicity
aided by the reluctance of conventional science to publicly address the
evidence," "the smug scientific and political intelligentsia,"
"bastions of conformity and conservatism," and "regular media
infusion of conventional thinking by various experts, most of whom owe their
livelihood to government in one way or another." To find the truth, he
says, we must "get beyond this restrictive mind-set" and "be open
to all possibilities." We must "look past the media pundits who
narrowly define the issues and paradigms of the day," and "seek truth
in whatever form it may appear—whether in alternative publications, video
documentaries, newsletters, or even comic books. Only after absorbing as much
information on UFOs as possible, from as widely divergent sources as possible,
can the thoughtful individual begin to gain the overview necessary to determine
the realities of the phenomenon."
Incidentally, this approach to truth—by divining it from
all possible sources—is very similar to his recommendation in Crossfire.
In the preface to that book, he offers these prescriptions: "To truly
understand what happened in Dallas in 1963, one must get an overview of the
event…Only by gaining a broad view of the assassination can one begin to
detect the outlines of the conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of Kennedy,
patrolman J.D. Tippit, and the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald," and
"Only by studying all of the relevant information about the
assassination and then applying common sense can one come to an understanding of
the truth of the JFK assassination."
In short, we must keep our minds open to all possibilities,
seek the truth everywhere, use widely divergent sources, study all the relevant
information, get an overview, and apply common sense. Then and only then will we
come to the truth. For the UFOs, that truth is clearly that they are real. After
reading this much of the introduction, I wanted to retitle the book Alien
Agenda!
Imagine then my surprise when I turned one page more, to xiv
of the introduction, and read the following two sentences one after the other:
"Yet a tangible reality exists within these various aspects [of the UFO
phenomenon]" and "At least that is what the vast amount of material
now available on the subject suggests to me [emphasis added]." Whoa!
Stop! Suggests to me? Haven't we been discussing undeniable reality?
Isn't it Alien Agenda rather than Alien Agenda? What about the
earlier "reality of UFOs," the "real and tangible objects,"
and the "controversy over the existence of UFOs [being] over"? What
about the disinformation campaign and the few Flat Earthers who stubbornly won't
believe? Frankly, I don't know. I know only that after setting us up with
definitive ideas and unambiguous language, Marrs suddenly makes a huge
about-face and whispers that maybe he isn't so sure about it after all.
Mr. Marrs isn’t the first JFK writer to write this way.
Anthony Summers beat him to it, with Conspiracy in 1980. Like Alien
Agenda, Conspiracy is a title with an unambiguous message—there was
a conspiracy. Summers's position is reinforced by much of the orientation of his
text, which reaches its apex with these sentences: "Conspiracy, as a
Supreme Court justice once defined it, is 'a partnership in criminal purposes.'
As the scientific case stands, and as a massive official inquiry has indicated, the
Kennedy assassination was the result of such conspiracy [emphasis
added]." Who could misinterpret such an obvious statement?
But review these sentences very carefully. Use a jaundiced
eye even if you find the prospect distasteful. Begin by noting that Mr. Summers
did not directly state that "The Kennedy assassination was the result of
conspiracy." Instead, he prefaced his concluding words with the two
short phrases "As the scientific case stands, and as a massive official
inquiry has indicated…" Why? Why not just say it straight? This wording
gave him an out, in case some day, somebody destroys the purported case for
conspiracy. Note how the first phrase hedges in a way that is not immediately
obvious. "As the scientific case stands" sound at first very strong.
But it is really weak. It does not say "The science has proven
that…" No, instead, it employs the weaker terms "the scientific case"
and "stands," both of which imply something less than
certainty. A "case" is a step toward proof. Had Summers possessed real
proof, he would have written "proof." "Stands" implies the
current status of something that has changed and can change again. Hardly the
terms we use for a locked-in conclusion. The second phrase does much the same:
"indicated," even when linked with the "massive official
inquiry," is far weaker than "proven." Thus Summers is really
saying something closer to "To the extent to which we can tell from the
current science and the big governmental investigation, Kennedy appears to have
been killed by a conspiracy."
Once we recognize what Summers is really saying, the rest of
his book falls nicely into place. The end of its second chapter now makes sense
when it says "The fact of the matter is that science [in the JFK
assassination] has produced no certainties" and when it adds that the
HSCA's technical experts "rocked the old 'lone gunman' theory to its
foundations." Rocked it to its foundations? Why not just say
"killed it off once and for all"? Because that is not Summers's
message. His real message, like Marrs's, is one of equivocation. Maybe
there was a conspiracy. It surely looks that way. But it's too soon to tell for
sure. Shades of Marrs's "suggests to me."
Why do writers use such strong language in one place and
retract it in another? Not being inside their heads, I can't say for sure. Could
it be as simple as just not realizing what they are doing? While that would
offer a nice and neat resolution, I am very reluctant to believe that such
established, long-time professional writers as Summers and Marrs are unaware of
their actions, although I cannot exclude the possibility. But I consider it more
likely that they know exactly what they are doing. And although I will not
presume to guess their motives, it is plain to see what this style of writing
gets them—the opportunity to sell books by leading with strong messages (Conspiracy!;
Alien Agenda!) that readers will remember and then retracting them or
weakening them later. It's like having your writer's cake and eating it too. You
burn the strong message into readers' heads but then change it when no one is
looking. At the end of the day, you didn't really claim all those strong things,
but everybody thinks you did. You sell your books without really selling the
ideas; you escape on technicalities. The kind word for this approach is
"misleading;" the strong word is "deceiving."
But the "thrust and pull back" tactic gains the
writer still another huge advantage in the world of difficult subjects like
assassinations and mysterious flying objects—it allows them to write without
resolving anything. Was the JFK assassination really a conspiracy? Of course
it was, but then again maybe not. Are extraterrestrials among us? Obviously
they are, as anyone with half a brain and a little common sense can see.
But come to think about it, maybe they aren't. Who can really be sure? It's
really hard to tell, you know.
How ironic that this kind of weasel-wording sells vast
amounts of books. How unacceptable that their fleet-of-foot authors come to be
accepted as great authorities on their subjects. We apparently have reached a
state where nobody is taken to task any more for tricky little nuances in the
printed word, for all those little escape clauses that allow their writers to
say one thing but get credit for another. For those who master this style, it is
truly the best of both worlds.
But it is not intellectual. Being intellectual and truly
coming to grips with difficult ideas is hard, and these writers are taking the
easy way out. Even before the clapping stops, they are out the back door, into
their limousines, and far out of town, where they can never be touched.
Intellectually speaking, they are taking the money and running.
What can we do to stop these practices? First, we can reveal
these writers for what they really are—impression-makers garbed in thinkers'
clothing. Then we can take them to task by keeping their intellectual feet to
the fire, by reminding them and all their readers that they haven't really
answered any of the big questions—they have just sidestepped them. Maybe we
can even refuse to buy their books. But in the long run, there is only one way
to put a stop to these kinds of practices, and that is by doing the jobs right
ourselves, by finding the right answers and telling everyone in plain language
what they are, how we got to them, and what is wrong with the other approaches.
Maybe when those writers know someone out there is watching them, they will be
more careful in what they write. Let us hope so.