As we enter the third millennium the Western world has reached a point in its evolution that the human species has never had to face before. Increasingly we must utilise novel information areas in order to bootstrap our linguistic and conceptual maps as we seek pathways forward. Maybe the core issue facing us at this moment is the ever-accelerating revealing of 'Otherness' or the alien overmind and how we begin to interface and process the higher intelligence agencies that beckon us forward into new cosmic realms. A handful of writers have previously discussed the onset of this moment: Teilhard De Chardin, Terence McKenna and Jean Baudrillard all had their own metaphors for this transcendental signifier. Philosophical abstractions are one thing but there is no doubt that the collective human psyche is feeling the backwash of the integration of the alien Other in a far more visceral sense. The choice isn't about whether to engage with these HIAs - it's already here and it's already happening - the issue is more about what systems of mediation are used, which parties intend to influence this process and for what ends.

Two events that occurred within a decade of each other in the post war period symbolise the main thrust and direction of this paper, these were the Roswell incident and the citizen-based, communal meetings at Giant Rock[i], Landers California during the 1950s. Here we see demonstrated the tension that stillmass community contact events such as those at Giant Rock have not been seen since. What frightened the emerging military industrial complex in the 1950s was the degree of openness that surrounded these events and the way the media reported it pretty much impartially - they insured this never happened again by actively increasing disinformation campaigns, control of media[ii] and targeting of those citizens claiming to have interfaced with the various alien cultures. Additional complexities are introduced to the situation as it appears that some above-government systems have made agreements with ET groups and this agreement extends to maintaining a truth embargo on the subject. Thus today's researchers face vast problems if they decide to become catalysts and educators about this situation and in this study we'll examine some key points of contention that appear during the ongoing disclosure[iii] process as communication with so called advanced beings becomes increasingly overt. plays out today between the secrecy based control matrix and individual or communal groups who are aiming for transparent and open dialogue. As we move through this 60 year period we see numerous examples of where both sides react to episodes when initial or repeat contact breaks through consensus reality but what's different is the

Although Exopolitics partially focuses on formal disclosure of the alien presence by government structures it has to also account for other routes that may be conduits for the same. It is feasible that some elements of black project or above-government groups have or will trickle feed this information via usual methods [political policy, mainstream media etc] as time goes by but it appears there is an equal amount of persons who wish to maintain the secrecy for a variety of reasons: economic, technological advancement, political and moral. Another avenue is that citizens [group or individuals] will bypass most formal structures and encourage a process of openness and dialogue themselves. Both of these methods are of course subject to a third angle that is more unpredictable i.e.: that the ET overmind will continue to disclose itself in a variety of possible ways and both official [track 1] and citizen [track 2] systems[iv] will have to react quickly to take advantage of this in order to achieve their desired outcome. Given the rapid adoption of a truth embargo in the post Roswell timeframe and the continued attempts to maintain this status it looks as if citizens will become the prime driver for catalysing communication, a preference that appears to be mirrored in recent years in some alien groups also, many of which appear to be increasingly engaging citizens via a variety of tactics that account for the onset of repressive control structures. It also seems likely that some ET groups adhered to some sort of galactic protocol and formally contacted government structures initially - only to have these agreements broken[v]. Despite these points we need to view the subject within a ‘prime directive' framework - no blatant ET intervention in cultures still developing in the gravity well of their home planet - as such a policy is undoubtedly functioning.

In the process of drawing up a historical meta-map of track 1 and track 2 liaison episodes we can perhaps begin to gain a foothold as to just where we are at present and what needs to be done to end the denial and fully engage off-planet civilisations. Exopolitics will only become a useful research tool if it embraces some of the basic ground defined by ‘deep politics' - an approach highlighted by Peter Dale Scott[vi] amongst others. Deep politics essentially suggests that our usual methods of analysis and investigation are wholly inadequate and rarely result in locating truly pragmatic avenues forward. Part of this revolves around the issue of denial and hidden aspects of today's highly complex social world, i.e.: we never get a ‘true' reflection of what's going on because mainstream academia and media refuse to consider how activities like organised crime, business and politics are now tightly interwoven. The ET issue is of course one of these hidden elements that prior to the development of exopolitical research most commentators omitted from their view of consensus reality. By examining patterns in official and citizen contact we open up the possibility of seeing post-Hiroshima social and political activities in a different light.

There is little doubt that at various points throughout history, humans have had various contacts with forms of intelligence that could be described as off-planet, extra-terrestrial or trans-dimensional. Whether this has taken the form of a communal communication or a more individual structure varies with time and place but it stands out from more orthodox 'religious' worship as it is usually has limited or no mediation between self and other. We find a constant tension between this type of approach and that pushed by the cultural power matrix because use of this direct method of communication implies holding a worldview that to an extent bypasses the rigidity of this matrix. More recent history has recurring examples where the priesthood continually attempts to assert itself and its associated political belief structures by aligning itself between the logos, the divine or whatever term we use for higher intelligence agencies. In the contemporary world we have the Western military industrialists now doing much the same with regards ET communication and liaison. In the post-Roswell era the situation has become far more complex with the growth of a more aware populous, faster communications and a fully integrated media.

In the 1950s there was a strange cultural erruption from the fringe that threatened change the course of human history - the communal gatherings of international researchers at the Giant Rock in Landers, California. Within this first media and government observed community there were the forerunners of the wave of individual contactees who were happy to share their experiences. Led primarily by George Van Tassel, but also being the breeding ground for other younger researchers such as Bill Hamilton, the events at the Rock represented a new form of intergalactic diplomacy and equally importantly, demonstrated it to the world. The many individual accounts the spread from this era took on a certain form and content based mostly around the themes of atomic destruction and human awareness of sentient life outside the geosphere. Many claimed to have been taken on trips to other planets and to visit other civilisations and most came back with profound and positive stories of human potential if it steered itself away from destructive paths.

What's interesting from our point of view is how this kind of event, whilst you'd expect such an outbreak of novelty to continue or expand, in fact was rarely seen again in that same form. Rumours of intelligence agents mixing with these communities in this era and since appeared to have been based on some truths - NICAP being one example of CIA monitoring and disinformation dissemination. The media also switched from providing fairly objective accounts of the 'space brothers' era to promoting the kookier side of things. By working to present the conventions as fringe opportunism and crass commercialism, as opposed to genuine exchanges of extraterrestrial information and citizen diplomacy, the intelligence community won a significant victory. By discrediting these contactee conventions and later

organizations such as NICAP, it would be far easier for the intelligence community to deal with individual contactees, researchers and whistleblowers in future. Could it be that events such as giant rock represented the modern format of direct intelligence liaison and thus, due to its memetic potential with the mass media, the more covert elements of the MIC made sure it never happened again? Instead we see the continuation and expansion of individual contact cases without the group and mass media element. For the short term, this suited the power matrix as even if they couldn't totally prevent all forms of contact the individuals could at least be contained and the media would play its role in trashing any cases that perhaps got a little too 'real'.

From the examples below however - it does seem as if this tactic was not wholly successful. We see time and time again that when this alien form really wants to represent itself through terrestrial humans it can do so.  As we move through the 1960s to the current date many of these contact cases get significant attention, to the point where agents of these above-government factions have to step in and attempt to neutralise the contactee - either by bringing them onside or by more direct means.

Mid-point between Giant Rock and today we can plot the case of Billy Meier as another peak where the alien presence began to disclose itself - this time via one individual. Even within the UFOlogical community, the Billy Edward Albert Meier contact case is often attacked as a hoax when in fact it represents a key element of individual contactee evidence. Although the case has many strange and contradictory elements - for sheer volume of associated images, testimony, witnesses and philosophy it cannot be ignored. The BEAM case is complex and takes many months to investigate properly but has to be used as an example here as we're more interested in the wider impact of the contact case than getting into circular arguments of validity. Billy's contacts with the Plejarans re-started in 1975 when he met the pilot of a scout craft called Semjase in a Swiss meadow near his home. For the next few years [and to date as his support group FIGU would claim] Billy obtained an astounding amount of images of Plejaran vehicles, met a number of ETs from their star constellation and wrote up volumes of communications about their culture and the state of human affairs on this planet. By the late 1980s Billy's contacts had gained international recognition and it is now the best known contact case on record. In the UK, his dramatically clear photos were given a full colour spread in a tabloid newspaper and in Europe; the publication of his experiences brought many people to his village looking to see the UFOs for themselves. There is significant evidence that the Plejarans were adept in how to present themselves and their novel, sometimes anachronistic information. This element of 'plausible deniability' is rarely examined by UFOlogists [Jim Deardorff being one exception[vii]] and adds a more complex overlay to the discussion as it demonstrates awareness of how such information would be used, not only by Billy and his supporters but also by governments and intelligence agencies.

There is no doubt that the Meier case represented a shift in how individual contactees were perceived in the public mindset. The images alone put an end to the era of UFOs pictured only as distant specks - an element sufficient in itself to attract attention from both positive and negative groups. In addition the rhetoric passed on by the Plejarans was overtly confrontational. Semjase had claimed that the USA's Carter regime were approached regarding disclosure of the alien presence but this failed. The ETs ability to pass on details of geopolitical events to Billy [eg. a note was passed to one researcher of the case claiming that at the SALT II talks between the US and USSR, those present agreed to continue withholding UFO information from the public] and call for the removal of all corrupt officials can only have been taken as a threat. It's clear that he was given specific information about future events by the Plejarans, and these in cases turned out to be accurate for example the assassinations of Pope Paul and then Pope John Paul I. Whilst this information does not make Meier a prophet as some suggest -  it does make him a legitimate contactee. If you add these elements up with the fact the Swiss airforce obviously knew the occasions when the ET craft would visit Billy's area as they dispatched Mirage fighter jets - you have a real challenge by a single individual to the status quo.

The case highlights several mechanisms via which certain above-government groups responded to the contacts. Two of the early researchers of the case, Wendelle Stevens and Lee Elders were approached by a member of upper British political echelons in an attempt to bring them 'onside'[viii]. They received letters written on both House of Lords notepaper and also some indicating this person's supposed position as Secretary General of the Royal Knights Templar of Malta. When these were ignored a more direct approach was taken and the US researchers found themselves "met" at various London locations on their way over or way back from staying in Switzerland. After a long series of bizarre events they ultimately ended up in a London "CIA safehouse" where on several occasions they were asked, not coerced, to share the information they had gathered on the BEAM case. At one point they had new images from Meier and were asked to show them to the British representative at the building. Interestingly at one point the phone in the room at one of these meetings range 10 short bursts - this being the usual signal the Plejarans sent to Billy to tell him they were in the area. Given that Stevens is one of the most respected researchers in the field, holding one of the biggest UFO image databases on the planet, sceptics really have to ask themselves why this extravagant degree of intervention happened if the case was based on fabrication. It also demonstrates that if official structures cannot directly penetrate a contactee's circle, they will utilise other methods to obtain what they desire. The London CIA Case Officer admitted to Stevens that he had been forced to approach them in this manner as "they" could not get anyone near to Meier himself.

This aspect of intervention was less ominous than other methods, that we could suggest had official directives, used to neutralise Meier. He has also had several assassination attempts near his home - although we cannot prove whether this is anything more than a few annoyed Swiss locals or religious psychotics. In addition one of the biggest disinformation[ix] campaigns in UFOlogy was initiated against the case. Some of this could be said to be based on the nature of the case itself but not all. A few core members of the UFO scene seemed to make it their prime goal to destroy the case - usually making spurious claims and desperate lies. We also have several episodes of what appear to have been evidence removal or tampering. As disorganised as Meier seems to be - at least some of these demonstrated responses by above-government assets.

In the last two decades there have been numerous individual contactees that appear to have had significant interaction with ETs of some form and have spoken about their experiences in some detail. If we see the Meier case as a midway marker - more recent cases have similar elements but to date have never reached the same degree of public awareness and exposure. We have to ask if this is a deliberate decision on behalf of the entities they are in touch with or is it as a consequence of the methods employed by the various intervening agencies? Whatever the reason it seem that to some extent this form of contact is in fact tolerated or at least the controllers have learned that the more direct attempts to silence do not work. Given that the CIA sponsored Robertson Panel[x] provided the impetus, we could suggest that the post Giant Rock era's warping of the whole contactee phenomena via ridicule and disinformation has resulted in the [desired] outcome that rarely do individuals directly connected to this phenomena pose a significant threat -  even the huge Meier case was, at some level, thwarted. When we look at individual contact cases - it seems there are two stages with regards external intervention. There are regular accounts of official structures attempting to access contactees prior to their case being fully publicised. People like Whitley Strieber, Jim Sparks and Leah Haley all talked of military or shady official types trying to get information from them in the earlier stages of their contacts. Sometimes this takes the form of just monitoring - other times it is more nefarious with attempts at wrecking identities, harassment and even mind control or new weaponry techniques. Once the contactee continues to the phase of talking publicly or publishing their accounts sometimes the tactics change or become more blatant. Certainly it seems that the many modern intelligence apparatus around the globe have people who they use as assets in both the media and UFOlogical circles for continued monitoring and if needed, neutralisation.

Alex Collier's situation was interesting when compared to the Meier case as he too had amassed a vast amount of information since his contacts with the Andromedan race began in the early 1980s. He never distributed images or video of his interactions but instead began passing on his accounts to small groups like the various Gnostic societies with the support of author Val Valerian[xi]. Collier's information differed from many former contactees as it highlighted an urgent agenda at play on the earth. This related to a group of dominating reptilians whose exploits were being monitored by a galactic council led by the Andromedan race. In some cases Collier pointed out, the various governments were aware of this agenda and were either working with it or were helpless against it. He also provided a lot of information that he would not have known under normal circumstances such as the locations of DUMBs and other data related to MIEC systems. Like Meier, Alex's physical meetings with the Andromedan reps were often held in remote locations to maintain safety.

What stands out about Alex's case is that given his continued pushing of the reptilian angle and as a consequence his failure to get taken seriously by many with the UFO field you'd have assumed he would not be a priority for keeping quiet. He had nothing more than his story to tell yet his case marks another shift in the situation we are covering - the onset of networked technologies. By the end of the millennium, the power matrix had realised that the internet was far more powerful as a mechanism for distributing information than they had initially thought. Not just information - the net was primed to distribute fringe information that was not being dealt with elsewhere. It may therefore not be a co-incidence that Collier get's more or less left alone, until the late 90s when a website alone could bring fringe and "damaging" information into the public sphere overnight. About 2000, Alex was approached by several officials supposedly from Naval Intelligence and told in no uncertain terms to stop disclosing what he knows. The threat was such that he agreed to stop talking and presenting for the foreseeable future[xii]. This case brings up another aspect of individual contact experiences insofar as we should posit: does the response of the NSA, CIA, or whichever agency, give us some indication as to the authenticity of the contactee's information? Was the fact that Alex had death threats made regarding friends and family if he went ahead with newsletter distribution and internet sites directly related to his disclosure that a powerful race of ETs were actually not benevolent but preyed on the species and had been living here for a long time? This type of disclosure is harder to debunk when, as with Collier's story, it is accompanied by accurate information in other areas such as science, astronomy and evolutionary history etc.

In addition to the two contact cases above - other individuals have succeeded in having a wide variety of contact experiences and disseminating the information associated with it. Although Steven Greer was part of a group when they began using protocols to vector ET craft into arranged locations he was, along with an assistant, targeted by a branch of the military that saw his activities as a threat during the 1990s. He believes that some mechanism was used to give him fast acting cancer and although he underwent treatments and recovered, his assistant did die as a result.[xiii] Using our model, it could be possible that CSETI [Centre for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence] made the power matrix uneasy as it represented a possible contemporary form of the Giant Rock meetings. The possibility existed again for individual contactees to spread their experiences to a wider section of the public and thus their response was increased proportionally. Karla Turner also represented a similar threat due to her status as a medical doctor, her activist stance and the fact she refused to tone down her discussion of negative abductions. There is some suggestion she was also killed in a similar manner.

There are few it seems that do not attract at least some intervention and probably some that result in death of the contactee. Paul Bennewitz was certainly hassled to a large degree resulting in mental breakdown but how much of this was a direct result of AFOSI operations is unclear. Jim Sparks experienced years of long abductions/contacts with what appeared to be little 'official' interruption. It seems that the technological abilities of ETs to take people onboard craft and re-align temporal systems provides opportunities for such things to occur unimpeded. Whilst living between his actual experiences Sparks did have several episodes with MIB type entities but nothing major. His case does bring up another layer to all this though as like others, Jim often found himself in military or scientific settings with what he assumed to be regular humans working with the aliens. How do we define an official response to these individual cases when the territory gets murky because there is a human element already interacting with the ETs? Then of course there is the whole MILABs or military abductions issue - is this a response, an intervention or part of the same process?

We can see that there has been an ongoing process of individual people recording and distributing their contact experiences in the post Roswell era we've considered - from the detailed accounts of Adamski and the people associated with the Giant Rock through to the continued experiencer reports of today. In some ways the direct contact situation offers less of a problem to authorities as it is a subjective method of communication - the exact opposite of a mass UFO landing. However this aspect also means the people are hidden - some contacts even take the total non-physical form of channelling [see for example the highly detailed and 'flowing' sessions of ‘Bashar'] the ET representative[s]  directly - relating to individuals at the synaptic or consciousness level - so there is little to actually intervene for, until the message is communicated to a wider public. Bill Hamilton made an interesting comment in his account of the situation at the Giant Rock. He told about the contactees' use of electronic receiving radios for alien communication but they soon learned that the preference was for direct telepathic forms instead. If this and telepathic forms are the preferred method of communication, to some extent it puts multi-million dollar programs like SETI in perspective!

It seems that the responses to this network of contactees vary from case to case depending on a number of factors - probably many we are not aware of: some are left alone, some are tackled by deliberate confusion or media misinformation but others have fairly obvious tactics of harassment. Some cases have been reported where government structures have helped the contactee - Elizabeth Klarer was having contacts in the 1950s and 60s and was allegedly taken to the location of her ET meeting by the South African air force[xiv]. We have to ask just how much of this is going on when we especially consider the evidence of Jim Sparks as we may well hear about more incidents of negative intervention than those that appear to offer a degree of facilitation. Communal locations such as James Gilliland's ECETI[xv] ranch have been operating for a number of years with significant success in demonstrating Et craft interactions with guests but it appears that even this organisation has had to deal with some indirect challenges[xvi] to its survival and growth despite the fact it remains in an isolated location and under the radar of any real media attention.

Whilst we can therefore create a post-Roswell historical map of the changing nature of the ET contact experience and the reactions of ‘state' apparatus to this it's important to highlight what we mentioned  at the start of the article regarding the ‘deep structures' ever present in the equation. So although a pattern emerges of communal contact breaking out in the 1950s with its opposing reaction and the move to individual type Et liaisons such as the few mentioned as examples we must also account for the complexities that are layered on top of this model. These include the fact that some ET races appear to be present on the planet itself and living day to day lives. This would suggest there is either a degree of tolerance to human/alien contacts or the ability to do anything about the situation is limited. The whole area becomes confused at the point where ETs and elements of the government are liaising together on projects. In this scenario we have an interweaving mesh of actors and stakeholders with the boundary between terran/ET beginning to blur. In addition it is likely that the differing ET groups or alliances are themselves acting as agenda or disclosure arbiters. However, instead of concluding that the situation is simply too big for us to interface with, we should increase our collective efforts to examine and interface with the phenomena just in case those mediating with the various off-planet cultures are not the sort we'd want to be representing the human race at this crucial point in evolutionary history.

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Rock

[ii] See: http://www.disclosureproject.org/mediaplay.htm and Project Mockingbird

[iii] Exopolitics tends to see disclosure as an ongoing process although many agree that a formal announcement by some national or trans-national body is urgently required.

[iv] Conflict resolution and liberation theology both highlighted the dual track approach to seemingly intransigent issues. For an overview of these systems see: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/citdip.htm

[v] The Pleiadian group contacting Billy Meier claimed to have approached the Carter government during the 1970s - see: http://www25.brinkster.com/chancede/Cnotes.html. Jim Sparks discusses the breaking of ET-Terran agreements here:  http://www.exopolitics.org.uk/media-objects/audio/cosmic-trigger-radio-%11-jim-sparks-sessions-1-and-2/

[vi] http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/

[vii] See: http://www.tjresearch.info/BillyYes.htm

[viii] For the BEAM and UK/CIA links see UFO-Congress talk on video by Wendelle Stevens and Michael Hesseman

[ix] Michael Hesseman has been through  and adequately disputed the majority of the points made by Kal Korff in his book debunking Meier ‘Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story'

[x] In 1952 this group put forward the idea of covering up the growing UFO issue by ridicule. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Robertson%20Panel

[xi] See the book available free online -  Defending Sacred Ground

[xii] http://www.galacticdiplomacy.com/Contactees-Collier.htm

[xiii] http://www.ufomind.com/misc/1998/jan/d14-001.shtml

[xiv] See Jeff Rense audio archive sessions on Elizabeth Klarer

[xv] http://www.eceti.org/

[xvi] Gilliand has described problems attempting to obtain foundation or charitable status for his organisation and puts this down to ‘bureaucratic interference from above'.