What IS The "Truth About UFOs"?
by Ted Bronson
I attended Bill Cooper's four-hour lecture last Sunday in Atlanta.
Supposedly, now I know the "truth about UFOs." At least, that was
the title of his lecture. Most of it I'd heard before. And I
wasn't convinced before, either.
But then, am I ever convinced of anything? Have I become the
"universal agnostic" that Robert Anton Wilson has been writing
about for so long?
Cooper's theory -- and it's not Cooper's alone, apparently;
John Lear and the mysterious "O.H. Krill" have been pushing the
same line for some time now -- is simple: Extraterrestrials have
entered into a deal with the governmental and corporate Elite of
our planet, and are controlling our destinies through behind-the-
scenes manipulations. Our government has agreed to keep the
aliens' existence a secret and will allow the aliens (like there's
a choice!) to abduct a certain percentage of the population for
research purposes. In return, the aliens have given us advanced
technology.
It's an interesting story. It may even be true. The theory
explains many things. Thousands of UFO sightings and abduction
reports from around the globe by seemingly sane and responsible
people... the enigma behind what's really going on at the atomic
testing sites in Nevada... why a television season doesn't go by
anymore without at least one "nice alien" series appearing... why
the Berlin Wall has crumbled... according to Cooper, we can even
blame JFK's assassination on the alien conspiracy.
I like a good story, "fact" or "fiction." And by and large,
the Lear/Cooper story is a good story. Cooper had what seemed an
inexhaustible supply of slides to show of "secret" government
documents. He even showed one set of documents, purportedly a
briefing report on the alien presence written for president-elect
Eisenhower, and then announced that he knew it was a fraud, and
suspected it had been planted in the UFO-research community. Why
he thinks it was planted escaped me -- something about the
acceptance of the papers "discrediting" the true researcher. The
same documents appear in Timothy Good's "Above Top Secret," but
Good nowhere mentions they are believed to be fakes.
Cooper's personal story of his encounter with a UFO seemed
very familiar. He opened his lecture with a tale of being on watch
aboard a surfaced submarine when he was in the Navy. A huge disk
rose out of the sea, "lazily tumbled," and flew away. Shipmates
also saw it, he says. I recall this exact story appearing in the
book "Clear Intent." My copy is loaned out, so I can't double-
check. It's quite possible that the story in the book is about
Cooper.
The strangest part of his lecture, to me, was about the Amoco
Oil Company advertisement in Aviation Week and Space Technology
magazine. Quickly he flashed the cover of the magazine onto his
screen, and then switched to the next slide, showing a full-page
advertisement supposedly from the magazine. The ad had a bold
headline saying "Prepare for advanced technology that will answer
a lot of questions," or something very similar (I didn't take
notes, and taping his lecture was not allowed). And there was a
lot of small print that couldn't be read from that distance. At
the bottom of the page was the Amoco logo. Still talking fast he
changed slides again, this time showing an alien head-and-shoulder
shot -- the resemblance to E.T. was remarkable. His story about
this ad was remarkable, too... but it was hastily presented.
During this part of the lecture I felt more like I was watching an
unpracticed Doug Henning or David Copperfield than a leading UFO
"expert."
He claimed the alien picture was a part of the Amoco ad. It
may well have been, if the original ad was a two-page ad. If it
was a two-page ad, why hadn't he taken a larger-frame shot of the
ad? As he presented it, it was merely two slides, one after the
other -- that may have been as close as those two items had ever
been to each other. After he explained his story about the ad,
several people in the audience shouted to him, "What issue?" I
thought it was the right question -- of course we all wanted to go
research this for ourselves. Cooper stuttered and hesitated and
finally said it was from "before July" in 1989. I thought of the
obvious, but didn't say it, since I'm not one to yell out things
from the midst of an audience: Why didn't he just back the slides
up and show the magazine cover again??? He had backtracked several
times earlier in the lecture, and could have easily done it again.
Here's his story about the ad: He called Amoco, got the name
of the advertising agency, and called them, pretending to be an ad
designer. He asked for the name of the artist -- who had drawn the
alien? Someone took his name and number and when they called him
back said, "It's against our policy to divulge the name of the
photographer."
"OOooooo." "AHhhhh..." The audience loved this. Proof, at
last, of the great conspiracy. But upon being pressed, the caller
"admitted" the alien was a 9-feet-tall bronze statue. Cooper then
switches slides to show close-ups of the alien, pointing out
"moisture in the eye," "fine hairs on the neck," etc., asking the
audience over and over if we'd ever seen this or that on a statue?
I hope I'm wrong. I hope it was a real ad. I hope it was a
real alien. I hope Cooper's not a snake-oil salesman. Cooper's
catch-phrase of the day, every time he felt he'd made a particular
good presentation of "fact," was "Wake up, America. You've been
had."
By whom, though?
Coming: Dallas Revisited; The Krill Files; Mafia Kingfish; Philip K.
Dick's Eye in the Sky review.
March 5, 1990
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