To be fair, I don't find the prospect of alien habitats on Earth all that far-fetched. Given that we have visitors -- and to me, the UFO phenomenon certainly suggests that we might -- then it's not a completely unreasonable leap to think that they might be here, albeit in seclusion. Scientists have remarked that we know less about the bottom of our oceans than we do about the surface of the Moon. While this may or may not be literally true, it does a good job of quantifying our ignorance. And given the myriad documented sightings of unusual aerial phenomena in the vicinity of oceans (credible reports are not only plentiful but go back many decades; see zoologist Ivan Sanderson's aptly titled "Invisible Residents"), there's at least some evidential meat to the notion.
But the author of "The Alien Intent" takes such provocative ideas to absurd extremes. His sources are apocryphal at best. He dwells lengthily on alleged government/alien liaisons -- the old "silent invasion" meme in which Grays strike bargains with the U.S. government for the "right" to perform abductions and dissect cattle. Of course, all of this supposedly has its origins in the crash of an alien vehicle in Roswell in 1947.
The possibility of some sort of technology transfer -- planned or unplanned -- at Roswell shouldn't be dismissed. There are two perfectly credible witnesses that the debunking media universally ignores: Gen. Arthur Exon, who oversaw incoming flights from Roswell Army Air Field while stationed at Wright-Patterson, and Dr. Robert Sarbacher, an impeccably credentialed scientist who went on the record with his knowledge of a UFO crash working group.
A few detractors -- and even some Roswell proponents -- are quick to point out that Sarbacher wasn't directly involved with aliens or their craft. But he never claimed he was. And the bits and pieces of data he managed to retrieve from those who were are nothing less than astounding: Sarbacher confirms statements made by Exon testifying to the bizarre nature of the "metal" salvaged from the Roswell crash site and describes the apparent alien bodies as insect-like. I find this description compelling because it was made long before the insectile "alien head" became a pop-culture staple. Sarbacher seems to be describing the same skinny, bug-eyed creatures who crop up in endless "abduction" accounts and unsubstantiated testimony from self-proclaimed insiders like the controversial Bob Lazar.
A possibly authentic photograph taken from color motion picture film footage of an alleged UFO crash victim circa 1954.
Sarbacher also named names. He wrote that John von Neumann was "definitely involved" in dealing with UFO crash recovery. Von Neumann, a pioneering mathematician and physicist, would have been a logical choice for a secret study of extraterrestrial technology.
Exon also has interesting things to say about a UFO oversight group. On videotape, he refers to it as the "Unholy Thirteen." For all intents and purposes, he's describing a rigorously compartmentalized working group identical to the controversial Majestic Twelve, suggesting that the alleged MJ-12 "Eisenhower briefing document" may contain at least some factual information.
In 1994, the Air Force set to work on its ostensibly "final" report on the Roswell case, presenting doctored math that "proves" that the Roswell material was due to a semi-secret balloon project. (The project's mission -- to listen for nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere -- was indeed secret, while the balloons themselves were off-the-shelf and disappointingly mundane.) Interestingly, after the AF's pre-emptive 1994 "investigation" of the Roswell affair, Exon suggested that his previous statements had been the result of misquoting by alien-happy UFO investigators. (After examining the chronology of his testimony, it becomes quite obvious that someone had a talk with him.)
Fortunately, he told his story on video. Not only did he overhear some most interesting stories from Wright-Patterson's Foreign Technology Division, where technicians were busy analyzing unidentifiable metal specimens (certainly a far cry from the paper-backed aluminum foil flaunted by the military after its initial "flying disk" press release), but was flown over one of two crash sites in the New Mexico desert, where he saw a gouge in the ground where something had evidently had a grazing collision. According to Exon's sources, the bulk of the wreck had come to rest at a second site. If there were bodies, as matter-of-factly indicated by Sarbacher, then they probably would have come from there.
(Weirdly, Sarbacher refers to the aliens alternately as "people" and "instruments." Was he implying that the insect-like aliens were in some sense artificial -- mechanical or biological automata? We'll never know; Sarbacher died only days before a then-unknown Whitley Strieber could interview him while researching for his book "Communion," which became a number-one New York Times bestseller and subsequently popularized the conventional image of the large-eyed, big-headed alien.)
Of course, none of this will sway committed debunkers. They'll insist it's all scuttlebutt, hearsay, unsubstantiated rumor. And to be sure, a great deal of the Roswell mythos is exactly that -- with the lingering exception of a core group, of which Exon and Sarbacher are perhaps the most difficult to ignore.
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