From: rpattree2@gmail.com   
      
   Interview With Mark Pilkington On UFO Documentary 'Mirage Men' And The Games   
   Intel Agencies Play   
   by Matt Staggs on April 2, 2014 in News   
   Mirage_Men_posterMark Pilkington's 2010 book Mirage Men is one of the more   
   credible takes I've read on the topic of unidentified flying objects.   
   Pilkington alleges that many of the stories we've heard about alien visitors   
   and flying saucers are part of a    
   deliberate campaign of disinformation created by intelligence agencies to   
   cover up secret military technology and clandestine operations.  These "mirage   
   men" have manipulated some UFO believers to the point of madness and beyond   
   through the use of    
   fabricated "evidence" and psychological warfare techniques, all in the name of   
   national security.   
      
   Pilkington, along with directors John Lundberg, Roland Denning, and Kypros   
   Kyprianou, just released a documentary based on the book. Also titled Mirage   
   Men, the film expands on the premise of the book and feature interviews with   
   some of the mirage men    
   and their victims. It's now available to rent online courtesy of Perception   
   Management Productions, Random Media, and Yekra.   
      
   RENT MIRAGE MEN HERE.   
      
   I just finished a short interview with Mark Pilkington about the film and why   
   viewers should believe anything a group of self-professed disinformation   
   artists and liars have to say.   
      
   The premise - as I understand it - behind Mirage Men is that the United States   
   and Soviet Union have used UFO believers and supposed contactees as a smoke   
   screen for real military experiments. Does this preclude the existence of   
   "real" UFOs or    
   extraterrestrials?   
      
      
   PIC: Mark Pilkington. Photo by Etienne Gilfillan (C)   
   PIC: Mark Pilkington. Photo by Etienne Gilfillan (C)   
   There's no question that people do see UFOs - strange objects and lights in   
   the sky - and that some of them have anomalous experiences in connection with   
   these events, but I'm not persuaded that any of the evidence from the UFO lore   
   points to    
   extraterrestrial visitation. The Mirage Men hypothesis certainly doesn't   
   exclude ETs as a possibility, however I don't believe that any government is   
   hiding such knowledge from the rest of the world. Like many astronomers and   
   astrobiologists, I do think    
   that there is life elsewhere in the universe(s) and that some of it may be   
   technologically advanced. I subscribe to the late Christian De Duve's notion   
   that "life is a cosmic imperative". It will find a way, but is it visiting us   
   in interstellar craft? I    
   don't believe so, and I don't think the many and various UFO phenomena are the   
   right place to be looking for them. Might UFO phenomena represent an   
   intelligence of another kind, something stranger and more subtle? Certainly,   
   but that's another story...   
      
   I was wondering what kind of blowback (if any) you've faced from the UFO   
   community? People sometimes don't react well to the idea that they might have   
   been made fools of, especially when they're already suspicious of the   
   government.   
      
   Responses have been predictably mixed - I've spoken about Mirage Men at   
   numerous UFO meetings and conferences in the UK and I'd say the majority of   
   people have been fascinated and even relieved to be presented with this   
   perspective on the subject, which    
   while not new in itself (Leon Davidson was saying just such a thing in the   
   1950s), doesn't get discussed all too often. Naturally some people have been   
   upset, but the key thing for us with the film, and for me with the book, was   
   that the UFO community,    
   and their beliefs, which I think are no less plausible than most other   
   religious or spiritual systems, are treated with utmost understanding and   
   respect. After all, I myself was deeply immersed in the UFO culture for many   
   years, so I understand that    
   feeling of excitement and hope looking up at the stars - I still feel it to be   
   honest. I haven't discussed the material to UFO groups in the US however, and   
   this is something I'd love to do, and I'd be fascinated to hear how they   
   respond to the material.   
      
   Were you disappointed when what you learned led you to an Earthly origin for   
   supposed extraterrestrial activity? Had you hoped to find something else?   
      
   Perhaps! We all dream of stumbling upon the ultimate truth in a hangar   
   somewhere, or in an old photostat document, but I just don't think it's out   
   there. I do however hope that one day we'll find, or meet, the 'smoking gun'   
   (or 'smoking man'!) that    
   clarifies and exposes some of the Mirage Men's operations. It was routine for   
   CIA, NSA and other intel groups to destroy sensitive documentation after an   
   operation, and mountains of paperwork were destroyed before the Church   
   Commission got their hands on    
   it in the 1970s, so it's possible we may never even see documentary evdidence   
   of the Mirage Men's activities.The 1950 RAND document about the use of   
   superstitions in psychological warfare, and the recent Snowden-leaked   
   powerpoint 'The Art of Deception'    
   are pretty much as close as we have to that at the moment.   
      
   How did you get a guy like Richard Doty to come on camera?   
      
   We just asked! John and I actually never expected to interview Doty, so when   
   he agree to go on camera we couldn't believe our luck. We flew out to Nevada   
   in 2006 to meet him at the Laughlin UFO conference and spent a week with him   
   there, so he's now    
   really the central pivot of the film. We were disappointed that William Moore   
   wouldn't speak to us, which surprised us, but I'm sure he has his reasons.   
   Naturally we'd like to have spoken to some of Doty's superiors and colleagues,   
   and we did try to    
   contact them, but they weren't happy to hear from us. It was great to get   
   Walter Bosely on screen though, a fascinating guy.   
      
   I can anticipate that many UFO enthusiasts will want to know why they should   
   believe people who are admitted liars and disinformation artists. What would   
   you answer to that?   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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