How ufologists handle their evidence may also be self-sabotaging. Ego and self-interest may cause some to withhold what they consider to be their best evidence for negotiated "exchange" or sale, and to ensure credit or income is not lost to a "competitor". Ironic considering the "disclosure" movement.
The final result, when they finally do share the evidence they have gathered and jealously guarded, a more objective recipient may be left bewildered by how poor the "evidence" may be. This may also have happened to Grusch.
Excellent point. Maybe for a separate thread but I commented somewhere that up until very recently, the UFO crowd seemed to be mostly cooperative in the social media era, often cross pollinating with each other. Often looking the other way at some of the more questionable events.
The Third Phase of the Moon website will claim a cattle gate in Hawaii is Area 51 and promote claims by huckster Jaime Mausson while featuring Steven Greer. Garry Nolan will then work with Greer's supposed alien skull, while also being involved with Vallee and the UAPx guys. Knapp practically created Skinwalker Ranch, along with Puthoff, but also gave us Bob Lazar, which Jeremy Corbell still validates but got to enter a statement into the congressional record. And lots of them visit the Joe Rogan show.
In the past, like with the Bigfooters of the '60s-'80s it was all about personal gain and jealously guarding one's information. There was constant infighting, with big personalities and egos. I believe it was similar in UFOlogy in the '80s-'90s. John Lear was one of the big names, he introduced Knapp to Lazar then sorta brought in Bill Cooper to the scene. Cooper became the big deal and eventually turned on Lear, claiming he was a CIA plant.
It seemed though, that as we got into the big social media world in the '00s, the UFO world came together to an extent. They all had their gigs and hustles, but they found it more advantageous to cooperate a bit. Likely because this allowed a sharing of audiences. Similar to programing on the Discovery networks with an
Ancient Alien show that runs ads for a
Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch show, both of which feature Travis Talyor.
I wonder if this current age starts with the NYT '17 article that introduced Elizondo. While there were always ex-government types in the UFO world, the narrative starts to really change with this article. While the whole AATIP/AAWSAP thing was completely mangled, this was when the UFO world went from the outside looking in, to being on the inside. Even more so now, as they've added Grusch, Stratton, Galludet, Graves, Barber and the rest. All supposedly high ranking intelligence type people, more or less, from inside the government and the government's UFO programs. As such, these guys have the real goods and go straight to the head of the class. They're instantly the BMOC (Big Men On Campus).
At the same time, we have the introduction of a new big ego journalist in Ross Coulthart. Previously there was George Knapp, the grandaddy of legit, if small time, journalist turned UFO reporter and to a lesser extent, Linda Moulton Howe (LMH). Both were local TV reporters that rose to national levels in the UFO world when they got into UFO stories. LMH finely went a bit far with believing, for a while, that NASA had conducted several secret Apollo missions up to the '80s. Knapp is like the wise sage still riding the wave of Bob Lazar, John Lear and Area 51. He would go on to write a number of books, 2 of which were about Skinwalker Ranch, including the government boondoggle that was AAWSAP. Corbel is his young protégé or ingenue, making documentaries that try to legitimize the silly stories of Knapp's original golden ticket, Bob Lazar.
But the torch has clearly passed. While Corbel puts out occasional videos of floating jellyfish aliens, it's Coulthart that helped launch Grusch and Barber into the spotlight.
I think there is definitely some riffs starting to form. All these government types clamoring for disclosure are supposedly in positions to disclose, yet they don't. They all tell some great stories, but that's all they have, stories. And the longer some of them are around, the more their claims don't really pan out. Elizondo has been around a good 8 years now and even in the UFO world, he's increasingly being seen as more hustler than discloser. It will be interesting to see where the new Barber claims go, but he's already following a well-worn trail. Come out with some fantastic claims, but not a lot of evidence. Get your name out there, then form a foundation or company
or cos-play club or some sort of UFO/UAP advisory group and start with the social media dumps. Tease up a lot of hype and then produce very little. Maybe he'll reveal what the egg thing is, but I think for the most part, it'll just be more lights in the sky.
