In sci.astro John Griffin <thathillbilly@yahooie.com> wrote:

If I were running Area 51, I would make a big, shiny, saucer-
shaped balloon, paint some unearthly features on it, and park it 
where the nuts couldn't miss it. It would be visible for only a 
couple of minutes, repeated until I the first time I found a 
picture of it on the internet.  Then I would make sure lots of 
pictures of it escaped into the wild.

Most people would say it looks like a saucer, but only  the most 
fucked up two or three percent of them would say 
"extraterrestrial saucer."  I'd continue leaking pictures until 
I fooled at least half a dozen people with nearly average 
intelligence, so we could hear something approximating a 
rational conspiracy theory. (Not that you crazies aren't fun, 
but it's getting old.) 

Actually you wouldn't do that at all! And I'll tell you why.
First off, if you ran area 51 you'd be working for the Power
Elite. They have ZERO interest in calling attention to themselves
OR anything that admits of potential power such as UFOs. What you'd
do if, say, two UFOs collided near Roswell, is send a team to 
scavage the crash sites dry. You'd invent a "weather balloon" cover 
story for the press to give you "plausible deniablity". You'd
threaten any happenstance witnesses to the event with WHATEVER
it took to shut them up forever, up to and including murder. And
finally you hire writers to blanket the world with coverup stories
to counter any rumors that might inevitably leak out. The cover-up
writers would come in all flavors: Some would appear to be "kooks"
so as to discredit any valid rumors by painting them as "insane",
others would act as "debunkers" who would attack not only their
"kook" colleagues, but also launch major name-calling assaults
upon anyone innocently repeating valid facts. The idea is that 
this would scare others with valid information into keep
their pieholes closed. Finally you would turn over the debris
to your best scientists to try to extract the "power" out if it.
It is the potential "power" of this technology that is the REAL
prize here.

Let me explain. Say you are Pope during the renaisance. You hear
this nasty rumor that some guy named DaVinci has come up with some
nifty device (telescope) that allows you to spy into peoples homes
while they are totally unaware of you. What do you do? I think 
it's obvious: You GRAB the technology and COVER UP it's existence.
First off, you want the political POWER inherent in the technology
and secondly, you don't want the people to discover you using it
against them (that could in fact be interpreted as a declaration 
of war against them) and finally, you don't want the very existence
of the technology to become known even in superstition and rumor,
because it could induce behavior that could nullify the power
the new technology gives you, (people just might start drawing their
blinds at night rather than not worring about anyone seeing in 
from a great distance). Bottom line is that if you were a Pope
like most historical popes of the period, you'd be VERY interested
in political power and LITTLE interested in advancement of the 
body of human scientific knowedge. The ONE thing you would NOT
do is stage any "event" that might call attention to what you
are up to...even a "fake" one!

OK, You debunkers, have at it! Tell me how what I've just described
is "nuts", "wacko", "Kooky" and just plain wrong and I'll call
you all paid liars!

bjacoby

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