Giant Paranoids (was Giant Adenoids)

[Craig Clark]

Apropos Hangar 12 and Area 51, I wrote:
 
> Now wouldja believe when I first read this yesterday it made no sense 
> to me at all? ("Area 51? Whathefux Area 51?")
> Then last night I went to see you-know-what, and the clear light of 
> day burst upon me.
> By the way, shit movie.

David Andignac replied: 
> It's a bit off topic, but there is a lot of paranoia and conspiracy theory
> going around about this movie, ties to the government and the ongoing
> government plot to undermine the UFO community.
> 
> By "exposing" Area 51 to the general public in this mindless entertainment,
> They distract us from asking the real questions about what is going in a
> base that the government claims doesn't exist. 
> 
> The other theory is that They are using this movie (as well as Star Trek)
> to get Us used to the idea of aliens so that when They reveal the contact
> that has been going on for years we won't collapse into chaos.
> 
> More information from someone who is REALLY paranoid can be found at
> http://www.ufomind.com/area51/.

There was a time I used to keep up to date on this stuff through a 
really looneytunes magazine called _UFO Universe_, but I haven't seen 
a copy on South African news-stands in many a year. Either They 
silenced the courageous souls who published it, or the whole 
enterprise sank through widespread lack of real interest. The "movies 
and TV are preparing us" theme came up often enough.

To get things a bit more on-topic, one of the things that I admire 
about TRP is that he doesn't indulge in these kinds of fantasies - 
the conspiracies to which he alludes, even the fictitious ones, are 
always definitely not tabloid material. To take two examples: the 
fictitious Tristero is just way more complex and interesting than any 
"Elvis-was-abducted-by-aliens-because-he'd-visited-Roswell" style 
hooey, and its implications, because they are less obvious, are all 
the more disturbing for it. And the IG Farben conspiracy, its role in 
two world wars and after, is real: documented history of the type 
that never makes it into _The National Enquirer_. 

The schlock stuff - by which I mean _The National Enquirer_,
_Independence Day_, _UFO Universe_, and their ilk, serve to 
distract us indeed, not from the possibility that there really are 
aliens on ice at a secret USA airforce base, but from the kind of 
stuff Chomsky warns about: the powerful vested economic and 
political interests who manufacture consent about the way in which 
the world operates to serve Their interests. That's why, after the 
quote I use as my sig, my second favourite passage in all Pynchon is 
that wonderful Proverb for Paranoids, "If They can get you asking the 
wrong questions, They don't have to worry about the answers." 

_ID4_ finally may serve to get people to ask the wrong questions: "Is there 
an Area 51?" rather than "What is it about the US's influence in the 
modern world that makes it possible for a piece of nationalistic 
propaganda like this one to be an international box office hit?" I 
think the side-stepping of that question by many viewers is FAR more 
sinister than any attempt to discredit the UFO community.


Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"