[tgraf66]

Here's a post from a brand new blog:

"I don't trust ETs"

Let me first say that I have never had any sort of ET contact (that I'm consciously aware of, anyway!), but I've read a lot of books and articles about contactees and their experiences. I also want to state that I absolutely believe that most contactees have had an experience they can't explain. This post is in no way intended to belittle them or what happened to them, nor will I brush off their memories as invalid or hallucinatory. Something happened to them and they are expressing it and dealing with it in the only way they know how, and for that, I applaud them.

Some of the things I've read that start or end with a statement like the title of this post seem to be arguing from the standpoint of xenophobia: "see the stranger, fear the stranger, hate the stranger, kill the stranger!" Others argue from a similar but more religious point of view, calling ETs demons. This one isn't like that. I don't trust them not because I don't understand them, but because I do understand humans.

I listened to the Jim Sparks interview on Project Camelot several months ago. If you're not aware of his story, the short version is that he has been a contactee all of his life, and over the course of several "visits" was taught how to read and understand the symbolic language of the group of ETs that took him. One of the things that struck me about his story was the fact that he strongly implied, like many other contactees, that the group that took him were able to create what are called "screen memories" in his mind during and after contacts with them.

A screen memory, if I understand it correctly, is an implanted memory of the contact events that is altered in some way, usually to tone it down and make the experience seem more plausible - and more palatable - to the human mind's ability to comprehend. For example, in one case, contactees reported seeing small monkeys instead of grays, and that memory was not dislodged until they underwent hypnosis. Assuming that the contactees involved were hypnotised by a reputable and ethical practitioner who didn't plant any suggestions of his/her own, I would guess that this was a screen memory placed there by the ETs they encountered in order to make the experience less frightening for the contactees.

Not all contactees report such things, but a number of them do, and many others report blank spots in their memories called "missing time" events. For the purposes of this treatise, I will assume that like screen memories, missing time events are induced to help the contactee cope with what he/she has just been through.

To get back to Mr. Sparks' story, he reported that he was eventually able to "see through" the implanted memories in some cases, so he remembered what actually happened as opposed to what his "hosts" wanted him to remember. That called to mind the stories of other contactees who have had missing time events or odd screen memories that have no other explanation and which have subsequently been clarified by hypnosis or intense meditation.

While Mr. Sparks testimony was interesting to me, I bring it up only to introduce the fact that in combination with other contactee stories of similar things, it made me very skeptical of the intentions of ETs in general. I want to reiterate that I believe that most contactees themselves are sincere, honest people relating events that actually happened to them and explaining them in the only way they know how. I just don't trust the ETs.

I think we can assume, based on the level of technology the ETs are reported to have, that their mental - and by extension, telepathic - abilities are more advanced than our own. This is supported by the reports of screen memories. Is it not also possible that they could implant more complex mental and emotional states into our ego-laced minds in order to push forward whatever agenda they may have with our species?

I think most of us want to be thought of as special, or that we have some great purpose or work that we must accomplish here on this planet. We are also very susceptible to fear as well as being easily impressed by technologies that we may perceive as being god-like "powers", such as telepathy and the ability to travel through space and possibly time, as attested to by Clarke's Third Law. ETs very likely know these things about us, and because they are at least somewhat more advanced than we are, I think most of us would tend to be over-awed by them, their technology, and the entire experience.

There are many contactees who return from their experiences with a profound feeling of being somehow "special" or that they have been "chosen" to spread the word about something they saw during their experience. To me, the simple truth of the matter is that if the ETs are capable of creating screen memories - and the emotions to go with them, such as a feeling of overwhelming peace and/or love - to protect the contactees, they could also quite easily show the contactee a picture of some devastating catastrophe that is sure to befall us unless we do as they say. They may also hold out the possibility of mitigating or stopping said catastrophe if we do as we're told. Then, by playing on the human susceptibility to ego, they tell the person that he/she has been chosen out of the billions of beings on this little mudball to go forth and spread the gospel to the unwashed masses. Having had instilled the appropriate level of fear, love, euphoria, and/or ego-stroked awe, the contactee does as instructed - and usually ends up being ridiculed. I have no idea what the purpose of all of that is. And that brings me to my point: because I don't know that and they certainly aren't being very forthcoming with an explanation, I don't believe we can trust them.

How can we believe anything ETs tell us? Again, I'm not referring to the contactees here; most of them are innocent participants in this and are telling their stories as they perceive them to have happened. I'm talking about the ETs themselves. If even one species is capable of spontaneously creating screen memories and/or inducing emotions in humans, then I would assume that at least some of the others have the same capability, whether by telepathic or other technological means. Given that possibility, everything we've ever been told or asked to do by ETs is suspect. Whether we're dealing only with the Grays and Nordics or an unlimited number of other species, none of us knows what their various agendas may actually be.

It's a survival tactic on our part to want to please someone or something that we perceive to be more powerful than ourselves, and most of us would perceive the ETs advanced abilities and technology as superior "force". Any ET group that knows this is probably going to take advantage of it to get us to do whatever it is they want done so as to ensure minimal risk to their own people, and we'll grovel at their feet for the privelege. They know that, too.

In spite of what some people say about how benevolent a lot of the ETs are, I don't believe we can or should assume that any ETs have our best interests at heart. As I've noted, we as a species are prone to manipulation through our ego frailties. We want to believe that we're different or chosen or special, and as easy as it is for other members of our own species to play into that, how much easier is it for a technologically more advanced group that has more effective means at its disposal?

I just don't believe that any one of us is any more special than any of the others, much less am I inclined to think that this one single tiny planet inhabited by just seven billion humans is all that special in the wide vastness of the universe. Our astronomers are discovering more and more earth-like planets all the time, so how can it be that this one is special? I would say that all religious or psuedo-spiritual rantings aside, it isn't, and neither are any of us. It's just one more planet with a lot of resources and we are just another naive and very gullible population. I understand how easy it is for our fellow humans to manipulate our comparatively undeveloped minds and emotions, and that is why I don't trust ETs.