|
by Natasha Acimovic from ExopoliticsInstitute Website
Steve Bassett at National Press Club
If the call to arms from the Exopolitical perspective demands that the people must be impelled to political action, then Stephen Bassett is a living testament to this. He reminded us of the necessity for action when his usual, energetic style of dialogue filled the airwaves during his recent interview on the esteemed Coast to Coast am, on Monday 25th July 2011.
Bassett has, arguably, come to represent this particular form of Exopolitical activism.
His popularity with the people likely stems, in part, from his modus operandi to enlist them as recruits in the hero’s journey; a quest that evokes a powerful metaphor, traversing gender, religion, culture and time. It speaks to the human condition and engages the psyche on a profound level. As co-creators, Bassett speaks directly to the people and invites them to weave the tapestry of change.
The most recent opportunity to do so has arrived in the form of World Disclosure Day.
This, he tells George Noory, is a chance
for the people, alongside sympathetic organizations, to register
their support in an attempt to speed up the process of
extraterrestrial disclosure by the governments.
Bassett’s position on this is clear: that people arrive at the reality of the extraterrestrial presence via their own, personal mechanisms.
Alongside this, Bassett maintains that the issue of what astronauts may or may not be permitted to speak about is essentially unknown. This inclusive approach is one that the skeptics usually fail to adopt when addressing the UFO community, and perhaps Bassett’s perspective reflects a move towards a more mature understanding of the phenomenon, born out of Bassett’s own personal journey of having to navigate the sometimes uncomfortable and difficult terrain of validating the UFO in consensus reality.
From this perspective, Bassett finds room to accommodate the difficulties that any civilian agency, such as NASA, would surely encounter if suddenly confronted with the proof of advanced extraterrestrial existence; a discovery that would inevitably result in its deferral to the U.S. Department of Defense. A clause in the Space Act, it appears, has pre-determined this scenario.
As Bassett informs Noory, NASA is,
There is hope, however, as Bassett implies.
The scale of probability for the
existence of intelligent life seems set to tip in our favor.
Five hundred million of these reside in the Goldilocks Zone, an area that supports the existence of Earth like planets. The possibility of intelligent life beyond the Geostationary Earth Orbit is ‘maturing at warp speed’.
That being said, Bassett’s approach of initiating an inclusive strategy in the fight for disclosure is evident in his statement that a ‘bridging into the larger world’ must be attempted. Of course, any such effort is commendable, but this endeavor has not always proven to be a successful one in the past, for the old guard faction of Ufology at least.
It did, in fact, create a paradox. In their race to convince the skeptics and mainstream society of the reality of unknown, intelligent species visiting the Earth, a reductive paradigm was established to select evidence on the basis of its’ credibility gage.
Ufologists were expected to strictly adhere to the parameters of authoritative, scientific discourse. Strands were selected while others were discarded, despite the risk of consigning aspects of the phenomenon - frequently those that revealed a high level of strangeness - to the rubbish heap. These self-imposed restrictions left the skeptics unimpressed, as those in the UFO community were still denounced as little more than believers.
Bassett, however, demonstrates an awareness of this. Although not explicitly stated, he highlights a subtle distinction in his shrewd observation that Edgar Mitchell is not a ‘believer’, in the sense of how this term is usually employed, but rather he is ‘convinced’ of the reality of UFOs.
Edgar Mitchell of course, being able to add space exploration to his CV, is certainly more qualified than the skeptics to assert this. Arguably though, the rise of quantum theory in popular culture has illuminated the path of the hero’s journey and has perhaps helped us to move more confidently towards an expanded awareness of our reality, enabling us to break out of such a chrysalis.
Certainly, we are living in different
times now, as the experiencer phenomenon is now an accepted paradigm
in mainstream Ufology.
A couple of main ones have already occurred:
These programs, Bassett maintains, are unsupportable and would warrant the additional criticism of governments in a world after Disclosure.
Additionally, Bassett astutely discerns that the next ‘big’ topic in the disclosure process is the rise of the contactee.
He cites public figures that have already stepped forward into the public arena and predicts that more will follow suit. Of course, the impact of this would be significant in terms of bringing the issue to mainstream attention. Alongside this process, however, it is essential to remember that extensive and dynamic work should also be carried out for the purpose of deepening our understanding of what is occurring in the contactee narrative.
For this work, detailed experiencer
accounts already exist, but we have barely scratched the surface of
understanding the implications and the purpose of inter-dimensional
and (or) extraterrestrial visitation.
Humor aside, his determination to make a difference is evident throughout. It is this resolve to put the disclosure issue centre stage that enables him to acknowledge the work being done by others. Of notable mention is David Griffin’s, the founder of Exopolitics United Kingdom, contribution to the Exopolitical initiative in the UK, and Kim Carlsberg significant book, The Art of Close Encounters, is also discussed.
The prolific blogger and activist, Ed Komarek, is cited during the interview, and Anthony Beckett’s organizing of the Leeds Exopolitics conferences in the UK receives a mention.
In addition, the immense contribution to
the field of Ufology by Stanton Friedman and Linda Moulton
Howe is highlighted.
This is a notable shift when many researchers prefer to prioritize elements such as FOIA File Release and ‘reliable’ witness statements such as those documented by pilots and downplay ‘citizen’ type witness or experiencer data due to its ‘kooky’ image.
The hour long discussion can be streamed below:
|
