Plausible Deniability

by J. W. Deardorff (2002, updated 2006, 2013)

Maintenance of the UFO Coverup

That there is a UFO coverup can scarcely be denied (Fawcett & Greenwood, 1984; Good, 1988; Greer, 1999, pp. 301-312; Maccabee, 2000). It has been maintained through the voluntary wishes of about half the population, particularly persons in position of authority, as well as by the various governmental agencies that established the UFO ridicule factor. This factor has been especially effective in causing the UFO topic to be taboo for scientists. However, the coverup has also been maintained by the UFO aliens themselves (Douglass, 2001). This should be obvious, considering the several hundred-thousand screened UFO reports since 1947, many multiply attested, in which the aliens could have made their appearances definite or could have stayed in one place long enough for the news media to gather and present the event to the world—that is, if the aliens had wished to allow this and show how easily they could, in self-defense, defeat the military forces that would converge upon the scene. Instead, not only the multitudinous sightings and landing-trace evidence, but abductions, crop-circle formations and cattle mutilations have all been accomplished covertly, without leaving sufficiently firm evidence behind to satisfy most ufologists.

Since such aliens did not move in and wipe us out or enslave us decades or millennia ago, the inference is that they, or the ones in charge of the coverup, maintain an ethic of not forcing society as a whole to believe what it is not yet prepared to believe. They appear to have done their homework on us, and are leaving it up to us: experiencers, ufologists, the other half of the general public, and Hollywood, to gradually make their existence, presence and capabilities known. The aliens’ role, then, is largely as catalysts and behind-the-scenes teachers, or, as Leo Sprinkle has expressed it, as messengers conditioning us towards cosmic consciousness (Sprinkle, 1999, pp. 168-169). Even from abductions—especially from abductions—we have learned much about the alien capabilities that we never could have just from UFO sightings alone. This is not to imply, however, that covertly educating us and preparing us is the only reason for the alien presence here now. We cannot expect to fathom all the reasons the various alien groups may have for being here.

Where is science in all this? Its fringes have not been totally silent. In the past quarter century the hypothesis has been proposed that aliens are currently in Earth’s vicinity and aware of us, but are mainly staying out of sight, by means of their advanced technology, because they have an embargo or quarantine against us, or because they are treating the solar system as if it were a wildlife refuge (e.g., see Ball, 1973; Kuiper & Morris, 1977; Harrison, 1981; Soter, 1985). Suggested motivations for such strategies include the desire by ethical aliens to wait until we have become more civilized, to not provoke our societies into chaos by a sudden alien presence for which we are unprepared, and to ensure that unethical alien groups don’t take over. The UFO phenomenon then represents a purposeful “leak” in the alien embargo, such that when full disclosure does occur, the shock upon society will not be so calamitous (Deardorff, 1986; Deardorff et al., 2005; Sprinkle, 1999, pp. 183-184).

Alien use of deception is another means by which they can uphold the "leaky embargo" while making their presence known to witnesses who can distinguish between the real features of a genuine UFO sighting versus deceptive features. As to speculated alien motivations for this, besides the ethical goal of not prematurely disrupting the UFO coverup, one is that the "good" aliens do not wish us to turn them into gods or initiate new religions. This might occur if everything they told their abductees and contactees appeared to be fully truthful and consistent, but is less likely if deception or disinformation is involved. Most people presumably don't wish their god/God to lie to them.

A possible alien goal closely related to this is to discourage us from accepting their every word or action as truthful or non-deceptive. This will tend to cause those who recognize the reality of the alien presence to continue to think logically and scientifically for themselves, and not lapse into an unhealthy dependence upon the aliens for information. Instead, every alien communcation and apparent action will need to receive close scrutiny as to its veracity.

The Coverup as applied to the Meier case

It is consistent with the leaky-embargo hypothesis that the Meier case comprises a part of the leak in the embargo. However, its uniqueness indicates the man has been singled out for a special role. Bringing the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) to the attention of interested persons could be a major part of this role. What other document in the past two millennia could be more important for Western civilization than setting the history straight as to the origins of Christianity, and giving the true teachings of Jmmanuel, alias Jesus?

The Pleiadians must have had to abide by the overall alien strategy of covertness even while setting Meier up with unique photo opportunities and contacts that would serve to attract attention to him, his experiences, his writings and the TJ. They would have had to ensure that doing this would not prematurely rupture the UFO coverup. This would be akin to abiding by a Codex Galactica as suggested by Newman & Sagan (1981), or the Prime Directive of “Star Trek.” With hindsight, we can understand how this balancing act was accomplished. The aliens themselves would have to ensure that Meier would be an easy target for skeptics, realizing that debunkers tend to ignore supportive facts while focusing upon actions that may seem suspicious of fraud.

However, Meier was allowed to take so many beamship photos and collect so much other evidence (not even presented in this website) of his Pleiadian contactors’ presence that one may wonder: Why didn’t this cause rapid acceptance of the reality of Meier’s experiences? Why didn’t it cause a prompt collapse of the worldwide UFO coverup? Some of the answers to this question do not directly involve the ETs: Too many ufologists did not wish to treat a contactee case seriously; the Meier case was far too unique, and so ufologists would dismiss it like scientists do a datum point that lies too far afield; such ufologists did not wish to accept the possibility that aliens could actually work magical wonders well beyond our present level of understanding; they disliked the idea that aliens would pick for their prime contactee a man whose formal schooling did not extend nearly to the level of their own; they did not wish to receive ridicule from colleagues; they did not care for the spiritual message Meier received and disseminated, etc. Other answers involve the ETs.

Here are some of the actions that Meier's ETs could and did take, apparenty to prevent the large amount of good evidence they allowed him to accumulate from rupturing the UFO coverup, and to enable skeptics to maintain Meier in a debunked state:
      (a) allow only Meier to come to contact meetings;
      (b) allow only Meier to take daytime photos and 8mm film of the Pleiadian UFOs;
      (c) not allow Meier to photograph any of the Pleiadians themselves;
      (d) cause the tree at Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden in July 1975 to disappear only days after he took his photos of the beamship hovering there on all sides of the tree;
      (e) shower Meier with seemingly excessive flattery at times during contact meetings, which he would object to but dutifully record in his Contact Reports; later, skeptical readers would then assume that Meier had invented self-flattering prose. However, an extensive reading of the Meier material will disclose that the Plejaren do regard Meier's spirit as being that of past prophets with whom they have worked, and that this periodically incarnating spirit is like that of a uniquely high-level avatar, more highly evolved than they. Hence much of their flattery may be considered genuine, though it serves the purpose of feeding the Meier-case debunker;
      (f) maneuver a beamship deceptively during one of the 8mm movie filmings (e.g., Maccabee, 1989a; Deardorff, 1989; Maccabee, 1989b), so as to make it appear rather like an oscillating UFO model;
      (g) provide Meier, temporarily, with a model beamship, which he photographed and reported to be a model (Meier, 1983, photo #63; Stevens, 1988a), then retrieve it;
      (h) treat Meier to space trips and other events involving some of the aliens’ advanced technology, which would only invite incredulity on the part of most ufologists;
      (i) include items of disinformation at times for Meier to transmit in his Contact Reports, which items most ufologists or scientists would either chuckle over or shake their heads in disbelief, while assuming that Meier had invented them; this may include purposely false prophecies intermixed with astonishingly accurate prophecies;
      (j) tell Meier at first that his contactors were from the Pleiades, then later that they were from a space-time shifted form of the Pleiades, and that they should be called Plejarens, not Pleiadians— this could make it seem like Meier learned in the interim that the Pleiades were not an old enough star cluster to have evolved conditions suitable for advanced life to develop;
      (k) provide Meier (in 1990) with minor corrections to insert in future editions of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (Deardorff, 2001) — this could reinforce skeptics' views that Meier had invented the entire TJ. With plausible deniability in mind, Meier's contactors appear to have taken other actions regarding the TJ also: ensuring that Meier would survive to distribute the TJ translation while taking no such action to ensure survival of the translator (Rashid) and the Aramaic scrolls/rolls themselves, after the early 1970s; causing a rockslide down over the hillside containing the tomb site in which the TJ had been unearthed (this they could easily do without raising suspicions, as skeptics could so easily say 'How convenient!'); occasionally including disinformation within Contact Reports discussing subject matter about the writing of the TJ or of the Christian Gospels -- e.g., telling Meier that the Gospel of Matthew was authored by the disciple Matthew in contradiction to the information in the TJ that the latter was not available to be the source of any gospel until well into the 2nd century.
      (l) providing Meier with the broken-off top of the tree that showed up prominently in a few photographs Meier took while he was on Quetzal's "wedding-cake" craft (WCUFO) taking pictures of a second similar craft just above the forest canopy (photo #838, 3 April 1981, full story here); shortly afterwards Quetzal rammed his craft into the upper part of the tree, accidentally, supposedly, causing its top to break off, while a second such ramming broke the rest of the tree off lower down. Meier considered this tree top as good evidence that he had been in the WCUFO at treetop level so he soon photographed it next to his little tractor with which he hauled it and the broken-off lower portion out of the forest (photo #862), while skeptics might assume he had later placed this identifiable tree top upright on the ground and taken pictures of a model WCUFO somehow suspended behind it. Fortunately, Meier also took a couple photos of the rest of the downed tree (photo #853), which show it had been broken off, not sawed or chopped;
      (m) constructing their wedding-cake UFOs to make it seem to skeptics that they were all just a model composed of household items or fixtures. A most unlikely, lengthy and convoluted explanation to Billy as to why the lower circumference of the WCUFO had features identical to a certain garbage-can lid in use at Meier's property was given by Ptaah in Contact Report #254.

All of the above actions, and more, may, when examined only superficially, seem to discredit Meier, but they were well under the control of the Pleiadians/Plejarens to have implemented. Most of them are self-explanatory. In (f), the particular maneuver in the Maccabee reference mostly involved the UFO circling around the top of a tree in a simple harmonic motion, as in a pendulum movement. The skeptic’s interpretation then was of a model swinging around a model tree at the end of a string whose length could be deduced from the period of the pendular movements. Thus this maneuver fit in well with the alien strategy outlined. However, pendular UFO motions have been noted in other witnessed UFO instances (Olsen, 1989; Pine, 1993; Maccabee, 1993). Thus the UFO craft are quite capable of such maneuvers, and when this incident is examined in depth, one finds far too many very serious problems with the hoax hypothesis to advocate it.

Item (i) above is especially important. By including some “silly science,” contradictions, and/or unacceptable thoughts into what they tell a contactee, the aliens can ensure that most scientists who learn of it will assume the contactee invented it. Although Meier’s Contact Reports are fascinating reading, this precaution should be kept in mind. In many instances, however, even a scientist may not be able to discern for sure just what in these reports could be disinformation as opposed to truth. These reports are very realistic in their word-for-word recordings of what Meier said in response to what his contactor(s) told him, and in contact-related events they describe what different witnesses have corroborated.

Alien implementation of plausible deniability in general

Thus it is hypothesized that this strategy of presenting truth plus semi-plausible deniability is implemented by the aliens while they carry out their sightings to us and their contacts. Within ufology in general, aliens sometimes present their craft at nearly the same time, and in the same general location where persons are situated who could witness it, as the occurrence of a scientifically explainable event, such as a bright meteor or a satellite reentry (Gordon, 1985, p. 8). This seems to have happened much too often to be explained by coincidence. If in any particular instance the aliens should decide that they provided too much UFO evidence to some witness, they can always provide some further, seemingly bizarre, incident for that witness to experience that will tend to discredit him or her. Alternatively, they can cause evidence to vanish: (e.g., Stevens, 1982, p. 426; Gordon, 1984; Stevens, 1988b, pp. 139-140; Kinder, 1987, 249-253; Walters & Maccabee, 1997, pp. 34-35), including “angel hair,” and similarly for fetuses that vanish from pregnant abductees’ wombs. Yet again they can send around a few Men in Black (MIB) to intimidate the witness into not speaking out further (Clark, 1998), or to cause him/her to become discredited after reporting some bizarre aspect of the MIBs or their dress or behavior. In the Meier case, the Pleiadians/Plejarens must then have been especially careful to frequently provide deceptive evidence or remove other evidence in order to maintain the UFO coverup in the face of all the positive evidence they allowed him to accumulate.

Item (i) is also important in serving to prevent a UFO case from turning into some new religion, for ETs ethical enough to refrain from doing so. Who would want to turn the Pleiadians into gods and goddesses upon noticing that they have dished out disinformation along with truths? Or, how could Meier ever be treated as a spiritual teacher, or head of a new religion, if everything he relayed from the Pleiadians/Plejarens has to be considered on its own merits as to whether it is “wheat” or “chaff”?

This strategy of semi-plausible deniability seems to be fail-safe, in that even disclosing it can in no way cause it to fail. Those who are intent to focus on the aliens’ deceptive actions, or the naturally occurring uncertainties in a case, while dismissing the supportive evidence, are not likely to accept the reality of an alien strategy of semi-plausible deniability. They can just assume that those who do recognize the positive, supportive evidence are under a self-reinforcing delusion. The qualifier "semi-" is used here to prefix "plausible deniability," because the UFO aliens present evidence that supports the reality of their presence and sightings as well as presenting evidence or taking actions that can raise suspicions that the witnesses were mistaken or were hoaxers. The negative skeptics implausibly ignore the former while concentrating on the latter. This behavior seems to accompany such skeptics' refusal to accept the possibility or likelihood that not only are the UFO aliens present and greatly advanced over us technologically and scientifically, but they are also more intelligent than we, and can stay two jumps ahead of our best scientists. This topic, of the contacting UFO aliens (or ETI) actually being intelligent and implementing a strategy of semi-plausible deniability in dealing with us, such that people are not forced into believing what they don’t want to believe, has been almost entirely neglected within ufology. If or when this strategy were to become widely known and accepted, the time would have arrived at which the aliens should no longer need to maintain their role in the UFO coverup. Their strategy will then have succeeded.

Some advantages of this semi-plausible-deniability hypothesis are that it not only accounts for the UFO coverup by the aliens themselves, and for UFO aliens not having wiped us out any time in our past, but accounts for both the firm evidence favoring particular UFO cases and the elements that skeptics find suspicious.

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