Ok, Weird: Nick Pope Basically Wrote A Foreword To My Book Draft At Skeptic Mag
This is a little uncanny. Also validating
Nick Pope worked for the Ministry of Defence over decades, running the ‘UFO desk’ from 1991 to 1994. While the MoD closed the office in 2006 and announced it was no longer studying UFOs at all in 2009, Pope became a fixture of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, and more recently, a commentator on Steven Greenstreet’s Basement Office YouTube channel at The New York Post.
Pope recently announced that he has metastatic stage IV cancer. In what is likely to be his final written article at Skeptic, Pope has neatly summarized the conclusion of my completed book draft, A Spiritual Biography of the Flying Saucer. Rather than a scientific endeavor, Pope describes the UAP disclosure movement as “a neoreligious interpretation of ufology”, detecting “a sort of quasi-religious, cultish feel to all this, in which one can only access the divine through the intermediary of the priest.”
The word Pope wants here is Harmonialism. As my book draft explains, the UAP disclosure ‘movement’ is in fact a species of cult. One of its key figures, Jay Stratton, has a forthcoming memoir this year, Pope says. The book “may shed some light on unresolved questions concerning the evolutionary process from NIDS to BAASS to AAWSAP to AATIP, as well as other not-yet-resolved questions.” Rest assured I shall read and review it here.
Pope’s historical gloss of the latest UFO ‘flap’ is a perfect summation of what I describe in my book draft. However, he misses the precise spiritual significance of all this mystery cult mongering.
A loose coalition of believers in UAP and the paranormal, often with backgrounds in government, military, and the Intelligence Community, sought and obtained official funding for their work. When that funding was terminated, they continued the work in a quasi-official capacity. Finally, when they felt they’d taken matters as far as they could without official funding, they decided to go public, successfully gambling that the resultant firestorm would generate other ways to take things forward. The goals may have included funding (TTSA certainly raised some money through a share issue) and Congressional engagement. The latter has clearly been a big success.
As Pope explains, the flap began with a New York Times headline about UAPs. Two of the three reporters on the story are clearly Harmonialists. “Ralph Blumenthal’s interest predated the December 2017 article and began with his research into Harvard Professor of Psychiatry John Mack, who had conducted research into the alien abduction mystery”, Pope writes. Leslie Kean, a spirit-medium, “lived for some years with abduction researcher Budd Hopkins, who first introduced John Mack to the topic.”
I mention all this in the book draft by way of revealing that the present-day UAP disclosure cult belongs to the same genus of religion as the UFO cult movements of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The new Harmonialists are the same as the old Harmonialists. As my book draft explains, one same group of believers inside the military-industrial-intelligence complex has systematically disrupted the community of believers outside that world. No wonder “one occasionally hears some civilian UFO researchers complain that the whole thing is a PSYOP,” per Nick Pope.
Pope also describes “factional infighting” and “a struggle for narrative control within the field” of ufology. As I note in the book, there is a doctrinal difference emerging among the priesthood of Harmonialism. “Even among the various whistleblowers and other key players, who are ostensibly polite with each other, there are clearly some tensions.” Because as I explain, the source of spiritual authority must ultimately lie with only one living medium. Like The Highlander, ‘there can be only one’.
By way of a personal anecdote, I’ve had more than one TV producer tell me how Individual A told them he’d appear on a show, provided Individual B wasn’t featured (the requests backfired because producers don’t usually play that game). I’m similarly aware that some of the key players who are ostensibly being polite to me are briefing against me, perhaps seeing my mainstream media platform as a potential threat, especially given that I’m independent in all this and don’t take anybody’s side.
This is as surprising as beer bottles in a bar. My book draft identifies Joe Rogan’s podcast as the most important platform in the UAP community, and befitting the martial artist host, it has become the scene of Harmonialist infighting. Jay Anderson attacked Luis Elizondo “accusing him of orchestrating an aggressive campaign to control the narrative, as well as making reference to what he’s sometimes called a ‘UFO Hate Group.’” Elizondo’s fandom, who call themselves The Lue Crew, attacked Anderson on social media. I haven’t had time to get to reporting this out yet but it is exactly the kind of behavior we should expect.
Nick Pope has studied this same bunch of believers for longer than I have, and much closer up, so it is extremely validating to discover that he sees what I see. However, my book draft goes much further than the one group of believers by exploring the history of Harmonialism in America, showing how communing with aliens on other worlds was part of the mixture of beliefs that grew up in the American religious landscape of the 19th century.
When the reader gets to the post-World War 2 era halfway through the book draft, the elements of Harmonialism no longer bear explanation, for the reader already recognizes them. By the closing chapters, the Harmonialism within the literature of the ‘disclosure movement’ is also obvious to the reader. As I explain along the way, Harmonialism is a perfect religion for the administrative, bureaucratic, and corporate classes — the scientific-technical elites who would run the world according to what they believe is a rational program.
One striking feature of the UAP disclosure movement is that aside from the media figures who promoted it, almost everyone involved as a long career in the ‘deep state’. Nick Pope has numerous professional colleagues across the Atlantic who developed their Harmonialism during their time in government, adopting the belief openly upon retirement. That reminds me of medieval Albigensian Gnostics who confessed their true religion to a priest only at the end so they could expire as heretics. Challenge these people for details, and invariably they hide behind classification. It is a stage curtain they use to create the illusion of government secrecy.
Last weekend, I warned readers to prepare for disappointment when the new AARO historical volume of reporting on the UFO phenomenon is published. I pointed out that Donald Trump made his announcement of disclosure in an uncharacteristically subdued and restrained tone. Now I am warning you that my book will not disappoint, not one little bit, because my ley conclusions about David Grusch and the Harmonialists have already been validated by someone who knows the truth better than I possibly can.
A Spiritual Biography of the Flying Saucer: Revealing An Old Time American Religion explains what this phenomenon is and why it keeps coming back, despite disappointment after disappointment. It is a religion that wants you to believe it is science, and while the outer skin of scientific language makes it very popular among very scientific people, it must always fade and wear out with time. The UAP disclosure ‘movement’ must inevitably follow the same historical pattern of disunity and schism, followed by a rebranding and revival, that is always seen in Harmonialist movements.
The giveaway is their concern for ‘consciousness’ after death, which is the return of the original religious idea. Sadly, Nick Pope will explore this undiscovered country all too soon. Then watch as Harmonialists start communing with his spirit to get reports from the other side of the veil. Given the opportunity, they will always reveal themselves to us.