111 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
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SUBJECT: ARTICLE ABOUT COOPERS UFO LECTURE FILE: UFO1937
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What IS The "Truth About UFOs"?
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by Ted Bronson
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I attended Bill Cooper's four-hour lecture last Sunday in Atlanta.
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Supposedly, now I know the "truth about UFOs." At least, that was
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the title of his lecture. Most of it I'd heard before. And I
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wasn't convinced before, either.
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But then, am I ever convinced of anything? Have I become the
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"universal agnostic" that Robert Anton Wilson has been writing
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about for so long?
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Cooper's theory -- and it's not Cooper's alone, apparently;
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John Lear and the mysterious "O.H. Krill" have been pushing the
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same line for some time now -- is simple: Extraterrestrials have
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entered into a deal with the governmental and corporate Elite of
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our planet, and are controlling our destinies through behind-the-
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scenes manipulations. Our government has agreed to keep the
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aliens' existence a secret and will allow the aliens (like there's
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a choice!) to abduct a certain percentage of the population for
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research purposes. In return, the aliens have given us advanced
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technology.
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It's an interesting story. It may even be true. The theory
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explains many things. Thousands of UFO sightings and abduction
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reports from around the globe by seemingly sane and responsible
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people... the enigma behind what's really going on at the atomic
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testing sites in Nevada... why a television season doesn't go by
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anymore without at least one "nice alien" series appearing... why
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the Berlin Wall has crumbled... according to Cooper, we can even
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blame JFK's assassination on the alien conspiracy.
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I like a good story, "fact" or "fiction." And by and large,
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the Lear/Cooper story is a good story. Cooper had what seemed an
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inexhaustible supply of slides to show of "secret" government
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documents. He even showed one set of documents, purportedly a
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briefing report on the alien presence written for president-elect
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Eisenhower, and then announced that he knew it was a fraud, and
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suspected it had been planted in the UFO-research community. Why
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he thinks it was planted escaped me -- something about the
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acceptance of the papers "discrediting" the true researcher. The
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same documents appear in Timothy Good's "Above Top Secret," but
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Good nowhere mentions they are believed to be fakes.
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Cooper's personal story of his encounter with a UFO seemed
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very familiar. He opened his lecture with a tale of being on watch
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aboard a surfaced submarine when he was in the Navy. A huge disk
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rose out of the sea, "lazily tumbled," and flew away. Shipmates
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also saw it, he says. I recall this exact story appearing in the
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book "Clear Intent." My copy is loaned out, so I can't double-
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check. It's quite possible that the story in the book is about
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Cooper.
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The strangest part of his lecture, to me, was about the Amoco
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Oil Company advertisement in Aviation Week and Space Technology
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magazine. Quickly he flashed the cover of the magazine onto his
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screen, and then switched to the next slide, showing a full-page
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advertisement supposedly from the magazine. The ad had a bold
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headline saying "Prepare for advanced technology that will answer
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a lot of questions," or something very similar (I didn't take
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notes, and taping his lecture was not allowed). And there was a
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lot of small print that couldn't be read from that distance. At
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the bottom of the page was the Amoco logo. Still talking fast he
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changed slides again, this time showing an alien head-and-shoulder
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shot -- the resemblance to E.T. was remarkable. His story about
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this ad was remarkable, too... but it was hastily presented.
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During this part of the lecture I felt more like I was watching an
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unpracticed Doug Henning or David Copperfield than a leading UFO
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"expert."
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He claimed the alien picture was a part of the Amoco ad. It
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may well have been, if the original ad was a two-page ad. If it
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was a two-page ad, why hadn't he taken a larger-frame shot of the
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ad? As he presented it, it was merely two slides, one after the
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other -- that may have been as close as those two items had ever
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been to each other. After he explained his story about the ad,
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several people in the audience shouted to him, "What issue?" I
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thought it was the right question -- of course we all wanted to go
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research this for ourselves. Cooper stuttered and hesitated and
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finally said it was from "before July" in 1989. I thought of the
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obvious, but didn't say it, since I'm not one to yell out things
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from the midst of an audience: Why didn't he just back the slides
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up and show the magazine cover again??? He had backtracked several
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times earlier in the lecture, and could have easily done it again.
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Here's his story about the ad: He called Amoco, got the name
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of the advertising agency, and called them, pretending to be an ad
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designer. He asked for the name of the artist -- who had drawn the
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alien? Someone took his name and number and when they called him
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back said, "It's against our policy to divulge the name of the
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photographer."
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"OOooooo." "AHhhhh..." The audience loved this. Proof, at
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last, of the great conspiracy. But upon being pressed, the caller
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"admitted" the alien was a 9-feet-tall bronze statue. Cooper then
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switches slides to show close-ups of the alien, pointing out
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"moisture in the eye," "fine hairs on the neck," etc., asking the
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audience over and over if we'd ever seen this or that on a statue?
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I hope I'm wrong. I hope it was a real ad. I hope it was a
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real alien. I hope Cooper's not a snake-oil salesman. Cooper's
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catch-phrase of the day, every time he felt he'd made a particular
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good presentation of "fact," was "Wake up, America. You've been
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had."
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By whom, though?
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Coming: Dallas Revisited; The Krill Files; Mafia Kingfish; Philip K.
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Dick's Eye in the Sky review.
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March 5, 1990
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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**********************************************
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