1997 - flatland magazine - jim martin interview of peter robbins

7/30/2019 1997 - Flatland Magazine - Jim Martin Interview of Peter Robbins

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A Review of he Repressed. and Secret Evidence*IS $6.00

PSYCHOHISTORY:

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PETER ROBBINS,COAUTHOR OF LEFT ATEASTGATE

Flatland. Maqaz ine # ISP.O. Box 2420 Fort Bragg, California 95437


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ADVERSELYAFFECTED THEORDNANCEAN INTERVIEW WITH PETERROBBINS. COAUTHOR OF LEFI 'ATEASTGATE

byJim MartinI won't diwlge the details of what LarryWarren, as a young Air Force Security Pollee officerat Bentwaters USAFB in England, saw that night inDecember, 1980. Lots has been written about theincident, anyway. Most of the previous accounts arebadly confused. As unbelievable as Larry Warren'sstory may sound, however movie-like, howeverdream-like, something happened,we know, since one of the commanders on duty at the base filed areport about the incident, whichwas subsequently released to thepublic by a Freedom ofInformation Act request. And yes,an audio tape recording of thescene was made public as well.Warren reports that video cameraswere on site, but as yet, none ofthese have been released.Larry Warren's story is repletewith al l the elements of zaniness:underground bases, Air Force officials in communication withaliens, men in black with darksedans carrying New York plates(in England), lights in the sky,pagans in the woods. you name it.Besides all the bells-and-whistles,one government official admittedthat the spacecraft witnessed byLarry Warren, and by scores of m1l1tary officials,had somehow penetrated hardened nuclear missllll

bunkers an d "adversely affected the ordinance."Don't you love militarese'? ..Adversely affected theordinance .."Col. Corso's offering notwithstanding, LarryWarren an d Peter Robbins' contribution. Lett atEastgate. remains the most important UFO book toappear in 1997. Unlike Corso's memoir of back-engineering the relics of Roswell, this book is fully documented.The essence of this book is the process of investigation carried out by Warren's coauthor. Peter

Robbins, as he tried to verify and analyze the evidence. I have respected Peter's work on UFOs foryears, ever since I read his articles on "WilhelmRetch and UFOs" when he gathered the publishedsightings, mostly multiple-witness or m111tary incidents, those that the government affirmed as unexplained ever since the fifties. In those articles,Robbins showed that what Reich reported aboutUFOs was very similar to what everybody else wasseeing, and reporting to the Ai r Force. Some of usfeel that the Air Force had and has an interest inReich's ideas about UFOs, energy and weather. It'snot surprising, then, that Robbins found severalpeople who attested to the use of Reich cloudbustersat Bentwaters AFB.Lett at Eastgate reveals the National SecurityAgency (NSA) as the main governmental entitybehind the UFO cover-up, or, if you prefer, d1s1nfor-mationlcollective fantasy/fairy tale. Peter Robbinssoon found himself under the NSA's open scrutinyand covert harassment when hegot deeper into the research. Healso found himself a up-close an dpersonal witness to strange doingsat Bentwaters, an d finally wasforced to struggle with the factthat he was no longer an "objectiveobserver. One of the most memorable passages of the book is thetranscript of an audio tape of Larryand Peter. on a return visit to thesite many years later. as they see

and describe what appear to beUFOs buzzing around nearBentwaters. Peter just falls apart:the composed and objective UFOresearcher gets his chance at directobservation and the experience.... ''"' leaves him speechless an d gibbering.Another big part of the book is thediscussion of what happens to UFOwitnesses who come forward andmake public what they've seen, atgreat personal cost in terms of friends. job, andfamily. It's a stinging indictment of the ufologicalcommunity and the "official" UFO interest groups,and you'll be wondering why anybody would bother to come forward at all.Ten years in the making, Lett at EastGate, anall-too-rare document in the lore of the allen visitation, has already gone through its first print ing

run.

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Interview With Peter Robbins.coauthor of Lett at East GateConducted at Greensprings,August lOth, 1997

Q: Why do you consider the Bentwaters casemore significant than the Roswell Case? What arethe comparisons and what makes this a more clearcase of alien contact?A: Well. for starters. although I'm as convincedas most people are, that Roswell was a real event,there was indeed a crash of an unknown craft andthat 1t was covered up, but as we sit here right now.Jim. it's fifty years since 1t happened. The principalsinvolved are all deceased. All the witnesses aregone. The anecdotal material is compelling, but notdefinitive. The paper trail is not just cold, it's vaporized. The interference that's been run has beentotally effective. And in a funny way, much like abullfighter just moving the energy right past himself, the establishment has managed to so deeplyacculturate "Roswell" as to negate its power andimpact. It's part of American culture right now.The Bentwaters/Woodbridge incident happenedjust over sixteen years ago. All the principals arestill alive. There is a paper trail, a fair amount ofwhich we were able to follow up and research forthe book. There are multiple witnesses that havecome forward with full or part ial accounts. Thereare two new ones who have come forward since thebook has come out, and four new civilians witnessesthat I've spoken with in England since then as well.It is supported by physical evidence of several typesthat we've discussed. Ultimately the book is developed as the kind of case that you could bring tocourt. One of the greatest things that could comeout of it is that it might serve as a springboard tore-convene a serious Congressional investigation;we haven't ha d one in decades. The book givesinformation about the case that could lead to subpoenas.We 're closer to the mark. there's less anecdotaland more real evidence that in the Roswell case. It'sjust waiting to happen.

Q: In the sense that this was much more of aninternational event than Roswell. how do you thinkthe Bentwaters case affects US-British diplomaticrelations'?A: In terms of the nuclear treaty violation, thechildren do not inherit the sins of the parents. Thiswas a Carter-era incident, and i t doesn't have anything to do with the current administration. Wherethere' s a potential problem. it 's with the NationalSecurity Agency. As we know, they are the mostsecret intelligence agency this na tion has ever char-

tered. They actual charter is classified. Their mandate. thei r reason for being is classified. What theiremployees do is classified. The NSA's "black budget"is classified.The way things stand now. with the break-up ofthe Cold War and the loss of the Soviet threat. agood deal of the NSA's perceived mandate has evaporated. That leaves them with a problem. They arestUl in England. sitting on several billion dollarsworth of sophisticated listening posts. sharing certain facilities with British Telecom. and monitoringevery bi t of communication they'd like. There is noCongressional oversight, no British oversight. ThePresident of the United States only knows what heis cleared to know about the NSA.Q: Which wouldn't be much, right now ..

A: Not much at all ... Sadly, this is emblematicof the fact that, our democracy- this amazing.flawed, wonderful 220-year-old experiment - isfloundering. There is no question that secrecy hasbecome the state religion of both countries. I am anoptimist, but I don't know 1f i t can be reversed. Wethe People are not in the equation.

Q: You document your experience of being surveilled and harassed by the NSA in your book. Howdid you move past that to continue the work.There's a lot of paranoia associated with this type ofresearch: some people even get paranoid just buying a book about it. What resources did you drawupon. what changes did you go through, to pushforward?A: Boy, that's a good question. The changes gonethrough were manifest. I understood. as i t started tohi t me how deeply involved I ha d gotten myself.that I ha d free choice here. I could walk away fromthe project. and in fact, I d id for quite a number ofmonths in 1988. But a combination of things fusedmy resolve and made me to some degree just asheadstrong as my coauthor. Larry Warren. who hada much more personal reason for being that way.One was, I mean. it's going to sound so corny, but lgrew up to understand certain things about thiscountry, and I love this country, and I hate certainaspects of what happens here and how it functions.Number one. I was irate when I realized that youngAmerican airmen ha d been, basically, mind-fucked,to keep them quiet. Number two, being a quarterBritish by a quirk of fate, I do feel some real connection to that country, and there was a very realpossibility of a nuclear tragedy over there, becauseof this incident. At the very least. we lied, we had amajor amount of nuclear ordinance there in violation of our treaty with Her Majesty's Government.struck me as profoundly wrong. As readers willlearn in the book. Larry had been approached several times by the NSA. and at the last time, we were

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already starting to work on the book, and he wasinformed that a fair ly routine background checkhad been done on me, and they had no feeling oneway or another, whether he should work with me. Iwas horrified. frightened and enraged that theyhad done this to me. It just all kind of melted downand I realized that my teeth were severely on thisstick.

I f there was an ultimate catalyst. it was seeingfor myself with Larry, a multiple UFO incident, onlocation, on our first tr ip to England, about fivemiles from the original site at Bentwaters. I lost myobjectlvity at that point. My hope to write an objective non-fiction book just had the rug pulled outfrom under it. I was now going to have to deal withmyself in the book as a character in the story. Andit was about as comfortable to have to write aboutmy own feelings and experiences as it was to pullmy own teeth out with pliers. I was much morecomfortable at the NY Public Ubrary pulling outarchival material.I found a way to make it exciting again formyself, and realized that 1f I walked away from it , Idon't know 1f I'd ever be able to take on anotherserious project without self-doubt. I don't advisethis as a career track. It was reckless. 1t was imprudent economically, and 1t was isolating. I am a verysocial person and I'm lucky enough to have a lot ofpeople in my life that I care about, and they reallycare about me. I isolated from a lot of them over theyears. Some of them, irreconcilably, but most ofthem, thank God, not.

Q: There was a sense of anger against the forcesthat were working against the completion of thisbook ..A: It's a very compelling force to get the jobdone. It really is. You realize that the myth that alot of us were taught. that society and culture andhistory is changed by mass movements - certainlythat has truth to it , but indlviduals in their ownways do impact on great social change and perception shifts. What Larry and I accomplished in thisbook was beyond the wildest imaginings of eitherof us. The results are what we begin to see now asthis book begins to move out American and Englishreaders.Q: One of the most interesting parts of the bookwas what happened to Larry Warren when he initially carne forward with his story. and how he wastreated by the UFO "experts" -not the debunkers. but

the buffs. What happens to a person who comesforth with a story like that.A: Folks don't get into UFO research becausethey earn a degree from a university in UFOs. Thereone of two reasons they become involved: ei ther 1tintellectually captivates them, which is as good a

, Peter Robbins Interviewreason as any, or because they have had a sightingor experience. or somebody close to them has. It'shad a real impact on their lives. There are no rulesor bylaws to investigate UFOs. Those of us in thefield approach it in two different ways. Some joinorganizations, subscribe to newsletters. and workout of an organizational structure. Others of us do itindependently. There's no such thing as total independence, of course. As the acknowledgments in ourbook attest, there is a long list of individuals whohelped me as a researcher and helped us as wemoved forward. and without whom this book wouldnot be what it is. But it was not done in tandemwith any organizational assistance.I have a very solid code of ethics that governsmy behavior as a person and my behavior as aresearcher. I'm proud to say that in a decade'sworth of investigation on this one case, I did notbetray a single confidence or break a single agreement with one outstanding exception which is discussed at some length in the conclusion of the book.It has to do with character. I f you approach this ina skeevy or squirrely way and you put the case first,above people. the fact is that you may get moreinformation. you may produce a more compellingarticle or book. but somebody will suffer for it andit won't be you. Unfortunately there's a tendencyamong many researchers who think of people whocome forward. and have the courage to say "thishappened to me. I'm willing to talk to you about it.here's my story" - these people are a bit disposable.There's sort of a double ethic here. Someresearchers will run a facade of serious interest inwitness, but on the other hand they categorize people. like, "here's another abductee, this one saw adeltoid over his house - how many have you got?""Oh. yeah I got one of those too." They don't put thepeople first.I put people first. The book could have beenstronger. 1f I had been maybe a little bit less ethical.Boy, there were several episodes that carne to methat I honestly I would have been willing to commita felony 1f I could have gotten these people to allowme to publish what they said. One of them in par-ticular absolutely took the top of my head off withan amazing aspect of this phenomenon atBentwaters.Now, when Larry got involved in this, we werein another time when MUFON , for example, and Ican't say that it was a party-line, but the prevalentfeeling, underscored by thei r administration, wasthat yes. UFOs are real, they come and they go.they're machines under intelllgent control. but letus not really get into what is really going on inside

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Left at Eastgateof them. The beings who are piloting thesemachines, that's fa r out. Any organiZation canrigidify. I like Walt Andrews as a person, he seemslike a nice man. As fa r as I know he's never saidanything against me. and sent me a note or two ofencouragement when I started. But I wonder whyLarry Warren was cu t off at the MUFON conferenceof 1987. You just can't censor someone because oftheir style, or their attitude, or that they're no t acomfortable person to be around. That's what Isensed happening. MUFON has never addressed thiscase in the last te n years. They have not reviewedour book. I would rather have an honest. unflattering review than be ignored. It 's not that way withthe affiliate organiZations. I was graciously receivedby many local groups and told to continue fightingthe good fight. It hurt Larry and it made me angryto be treated this way. It makes no sense, becausesupposedly we're al l in this for the same reason.OrganiZations, 1f they're going to serve theirmembers, need to be flexible and adjust as thingsmove forward. As we know. organiZations and I'mnot just aiming this at MUFON, for the record areas capable of pathology and neurosis as individuals.I f we lived in a per fect world, where an organizaUon. be it a political party, a corporation, a studygroup or what have you, could self-perceive that i twas going off its original principles and dreams. i tshould dissolve or reorganize. Unfortunately 1t hasn't worked like that. It's human nature.

Really, we have been ignored by UFO groupsand publications in the United States, and it's ashame because it's an important book. Part of thereason 1s that we have had the audacity to co-writea book where th e first time, a fully-authentic milltary witness who is articulate and intelligent. whoknows how to write has written a very moving andsolid account of what happened to him - and hadthe nerve to add extraneous material that's notstrictly UFO stuff. It's the old jack Webb line, "justthe facts, Ma'am." There are the facts. bu t it's alsowho this person was when the incident happened.We get to meet him growing up, have some idea ofwho he was as a kid, how he matured as a teenager, and we follow along after an d see how thisimpacted on relationships. I f anything, Jack Webb isme . I'm the neutral voice of information and Iweave my way throughout his account. It's not untilhalf-way through the book that you meet me as acharacter, so there ar e three voices in the book. Itgoes against all the rules of a so-called "UFO book."The fact is, we didn't write it for people who areUFO buffs. We hope everyone that's interested inUFO studies, researchers or folks who just want to

learn more about it . gets our book and reads it . Butwe wrote 1t for your mother, my uncle, for the janitor. for the junior high school student, for theretired person. We wrote ou r book for people.Unfortunately, that has made 1t an "outsider" bookin the field of UFO studies.

Q: Do you ever get the sense that people who areheavily invested in the UFO scene ar e somehowdefending themselves against something, defendingthemselves against. I don't know what, maybe atouch with the cosmic? Or defending themselvesagainst the reality of UFOs?

A: In specific areas of study, individuals useintellect as a defense either against feeling oragainst something that 1s undisclosed. First of al l, 1fwe get to the bottom of this mystery, an d the is "ananswer" it means Ufology is out of business. Sothere's a real problem with pursuing problems fully

ALL I W A N T E D W H E N IW A S F OURTEEN W A S S O M ECOOL CLOTHES A N D TO GETM Y H A N D S O N A GIRL. M YTICKET W A S G O I N G TO BECANCELLED IF I SAID I SAWFLYING SAUCERS OVER T H EN E I G H B O R ' S H O U S E .

through to closure. Second, i f you actually leaveyourself open to what the hell this really represents.and your not a terribly armored person. you're infor a real emotional roller coaster. I f what we'redealing with is real as I maintain it is, as millionsof people do from either an intellectual point ofview or an experiential one ..... number one, we'rebugs. Tiny specks in the great cosmos of things. I tmakes you feel, especially i f there's a little insecurity in you. it's enough to sweep you off the ma p.However, if you are in contact with the fact thatwe're al l part of this extraordinary sweep of life. ofcreation, and I'm not mystifying here. just talkingpoints of physics. it's terribly exciting and it's anxiety-provoking too. Dealing with your own anxietywithout dumping 1t on someone else is crucial tothis work. to do i t properly.

Q: You work with Budd Hopkins. an d it's myunderstanding that people like john Mack and BuddHopkins are using some type of "orgone therapy* asfar as I can tell, or something related to Reich'stherapeutic technique. They elicit a kind of cathar

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sis to work through repressed memories. Do youthink there is a relationship the way Budd in particular handles abductees?

A: 1 can only speak about Budd Hopkins, since Ionly met John Mack a couple of times. No. I don'tthink there is any connection. Budd is not a thera-pist. and he's the first one to say so. His methodology is such that he's got a great intellect, he caresabout people. he 's tremendously curious and he 's aremarkably ethical an d straightforward regressivehypnotist who knows how to walk that line - an dthis is an area where 1 have heard him so irra-tionally and inappropriately criticized and I stakemy reputation on what I'm about to say here as faras my perception of his work - what he does isexplore in terms of interview a person who feelsthey may have had an abduction experience as wecall it . If the person wants to pursue i t on a deeperlevel - an d many of these people come to him wi thcomplete memories of what happened and a maJority have partial memories - I cannot imagine amethod that is more aboveboard, un-mystical.with questions that do not lead the individual thanBudd's. This is something I have seen violated overan d over again among pseudo-therapists, irresponsible practitioners who have an agenda .I f there is something therapeutic in followingthrough an d exploring what may be a very frightening episode in your life, in an atmosphere whereyou feel safe an d you are respected, there is a ther-apeutic by-product, but that is up to the individualtaking more responsibility for their life. comingthrough the fear. realizing that no matter what hashappened or what may happen again, it's not goingto get in the way of them living their life, and moving forward. That for me is transformational, andinspiring. Again. the therapeutic result is a byproduct. I would expect somebody at Dr. Mack'slevel of the game, a psychiatrist. to practice therapyas such. but Budd is a natural. He cares an d hereally does a lot of good for a lot of people. He doesn' t take an y money for l t.

Q; I st111 have questions about thi s whole area ofhypnotic regression and alien abductions, not somuch skepticism but I'm curious about the idea of"repressed memory". When somebody has a traumatic experience there is a tendency to forget it. Ibelieve that you had a similar experience when youwere growing up.A: I had a sighting when I was fourteen yearsold at a time when there was no peer acceptance ofthis at all. It was 1961, for goodness sakes. All I knewwas i f I talked about this I would be laughed out ofmy junior high school. All I wanted when I wasfourteen was some cool clothes an d to get my handson a girl. My ticket was gomg to be cancelled i f I

Peter Robbins Interview'said I saw flying saucers over the neighbor's house.Can it be that simple? Yes, sometimes i t can.I don't know how to say it , because tragically itis so rare in the culture that we've grown up in, Ihad a happy childhood. I have a wonderful famllyan d we still spend time together. So for me. themost traumatic event in my childhood was thissighting. I know that's a cupcake compared to a lotof people's childhoods. It absolutely closed down

t h ~ t part of my thinking. which didn't reemergefor almost fifteen years and made me feel like I wasgoing a little crazy. Luckily I had somebody I couldverify it with and that was my sister. who neverforgot it . She didn't bring 1t up because she knew -and I had made it very clear at that time - that Ididn't want to talk about it . It's funny. one day wUllead to the next week. the next month and the nextyear and one stays in a habit and i t never came up.Finally one day I brought It up without specifymgit . and she gave me the details. It was exactly whatI remembered an d my life changed overnight. Istarted to research, which means quite simply "tolook again."

Q: Was i t just the conversation with your sisterthat caused you to remember or ..A: No . the conversation was a result of thememory. What I remembered. when I rememberedi t. I guess you could say that I was ready to remem-ber it. If there was a catalyst. the only thing I'vebeen able to come up with is at the time is that as ayoung painter. I had a loft in the City's Chinatown.where I lived for almost ten years an d loved 1t, andthe memory returned in February 1979 If you'veever been in any "Chinatown" or Chinese ghetto atNew Year's, 1t is pretty wild. In New York it meant48 hours of gunpowder, explos10ns, the smell ofcordite in the air, and just as you were ready to goto sleep somebody would throw a giant 30-foot matof firecrackers over the lamp post outside your window and light them and a thousand firecrackerswould go off. I really hadn't slept very well in twodays, to put i t mildly. I don' t know whether thatopened me up or not. but that memory came back aday or two after Ch1nese New Years celebrations .Q: Who were some of the influences. the writersyou followed as you began your research into UFOs?A: I was a guy in his late twenties beginning tomake a career for himself as a painter. which wasmy dream. My degree was in painting an d film history. At the time I was teaching pain ting at theSchool Of Visual Arts. my alma mater. I was veryproud of that . My work was starting to sell; I wasoccasionally showing some work in Europe. Whenthis reality caught up with me. and I realized that

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Left at Eastgatethere was something more compelling than what Iha d dreamt of doing since I was a little kid, mycareer trolley jumped the track. I t was not a goodfeeling. The very serious game of establishingmyself as an artist in New York City lost a greatdeal of its meaning. I continued to work for thenext few years but my work got very literal in that Iwas working with images of UFOs in many differentmaterials an d mediums. The heart had gone out ofthe fight.

As I continued the research, I realized that atremendous amount of the literature was mysticalnonsense, fairy tales. highly subjective material thatha d no means of verification. I longed for something nuts-and-bolts to hang my hat on.I started to read some of the early, good authors.like Donald Keyhoe, who set a serious tone and didtheir homework. I was lucky enough to read theworks of Jerome Eden, who I thought was very outspoken. I had been studying Wilhelm Reich before Ibecame interested in UFOs . Eden was at the timepersona non grata in serious UFO research and st111is. Most people were very uncomfortable with hiswork because it attacked the character ofresearchers and why we basically run in circles anddon't get to the point. But you really need a graspof Wilhelm Reich's work to appreciate Eden's workin UFO research.In Eden's work I noticed a mention of a NYCpolice officer. who was involved in UFO researchand had an organization called the ScientificBureau of Investigation. This intrigued me because Iwas a New Yorker and this guy is a detective. Hisname was Pete Mazzola and you'll notice that thebook is dedicated to him as well as Larry's mother.I met Mazzola and started to work with hisgroup. which was an extraordinarily fast-growingorganization. The thing that set i t apart from agroup like MUFON was that several hundred of itsinltial members were police officers all over theUnited States - trained investigators. Let's face it -after the Condon Report. the Air Force wouldn'ttouch the new reports. Local police were starting toget the reports that used to go the Air Force. And.what did they do with the reports? Well, there wasa hot-line to Pete's organization. He was a greatfriend, an important teacher, his investigationswere superb. an d he was one of two people that theNYPD ha d trained to use hypnotic regression incriminal investigations. which he then used withpeople who reported sightings and incidents.Pete was a real mentor for me. Around thatsame time, I read an article in the Village Voice,reprinted from Cosmopolitan magazine as I recall.

on an outstanding case in New Jersey. It was written by a new investigator. Budd Hopkins. In fact. itwas Budd's first case. I said to myself. I know thatname from the painting world. And I got in touchwith him. He didn't live that far from me. We had achat, an d I found out from my school that if I couldput together and assembly and presentation onUFOs. we could do it . I arranged for Budd andGeorge Obarsky, who was the main witness in thiscase, a guy named Dick Ruhl, an old NICAP investigator: and the four of us did the presentation forthe students of the School of Visual Arts. in 1976. Itwas Budd Hopkins first UFO presentation and it wasmine as well. We've been friends ever since.Very quietly, Hopkins' reputation skyrocketedand we kept in touch. I volunteered to help out withhis work-load. I had training in crisis-intervention.which served me well in the work. just helping outkeeping up with the tremendous amounts of mail.

Q: One of the remarkable things about Larry'sexperience is that it's so cinematic - it's almoststraight out of a sci-fi movie. What do you make ofthe interplay between films about UFOs. and thereal research being done? As more and more evidence piles up. an d I certainly include your book asa part of that. more an d more movies come out thatdraw from the literature. Is there a deleteriouseffect on the research or is there an interplay whereall ships are raised in a rising tide?A: I think you pretty much nailed it there. Idon't think there's a secret working group that says"Right, another good UFO book has come out - callSpielberg and have him make another movie." Or"get Joe Dante to a gremlins thing. bu t with aliens."I don't think it works like that. I think we selfassign. You hear people back-b iting along the paranoid fringes with the concern that producers workfor the government 98 out of 100 are what I wouldcall useful idiots. they just self-ass ign. We live in aculture where i f you want to get well-known, one ofthe best ways to do it is by attacking somebodyreally well-known There's an open market onvicious skepticism and debunking. You're a rationalskeptic, and I'm a rational skeptic. You can 't do thiswork without being skeptical. unless you want tototally bollocks your own research. You need to beyour own best critic.My work has a stric t methodology. When I waslooking into an aspect of this case, for example, thesoil around "ground zero of the landing site wasphenomenally affected. The sand was melted intoglass. the soU had four times as much iron ore .seeds germinate in it at a slower rate - somethinghappened there. I t wasn't a holographic projectionor a myth. I did not. upon seeing this, say "Oh myGod! A trace case!" I thought of more natural expla-

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nations: a play of light on the field - no . A farmerspilled manure there. unevenly spread. That didn' texplain it. Lightening strike. no . You can' t let yourenthusiasm overpower your rational approach tothe subject. Otherwise, you're going to get caught inyour own trap. In investigating, I always look at themundane before looking at the phenomenal poss1-b111ties.Q: Getting back to the popular culture and themovies, how does this affect your ability to make aserious case about all this?A: I think it's a drive mechanism. When a serious case is put forward and beqins to creep Into thepublic psyche - Roswell is a good example. Tenyears ago Roswell wasn't a word that everybodywas hip to, i t was still an Insider thing. As a caselike Roswell becomes better known. and people whoare in businesses, entertainment businesses, wherethey realize that here's a topic that the general pop

ulation seems to be more and more interested in.Let's knock off a film.I did not really enjoy "Independence Day" lastyear: I thought 1t was sanctimonious. bloated, overfunded, a combination of every WWII Nazi resistance movie I had ever seen. I thought that theplayers - and there are many good actors in it -overacted and the script was overblown and idiotic.I actually fell asleep during the show. When anybody takes themselves that seriously on an obViously blown-out piece of hysterical fiction. I reallydon't find it of interest.This year. I enjoyed "Men in Black" a lot morebecause although it has nothing to do with theoriqinal Men in Black tradition, from Gray Barkeron down, it was made in a self-deprecating way. I'dwatch Tommy Lee Jones in a dog food commercial.He's a great actor. Linda Fiorentino Is a fabulousactor who happens to be the most really sexy - nota cutesy-pie, pumped up bosom - I mean thewoman is an almost intimidating sexual presenceon the screen and she makes intelligent choices asan actress. so i t was doubly fun to see her in a comedy.For me. I was almost in tears laughing at theaUens smoking the Marlboros in the coffee room.When the shit hits the fan and It's time to bail out,you'd better believe they're taking the cartons ofcigarettes with them. This is pure entertainment.This is our lives. Get a life. I f you're so serious aboutthe topic, that you can't just relax and enjoy anobvious entertainment. forget it.Now there have been some outstanding filmsthat which really have brought up tremendousemotions. "E.T." was a film that really did its hornework and brought forth a lot of interesting characters. The ending got super-mystical, and was a real

Peter Robbins Interview

I D O K N O W THA.T W H E NS OMEBODY TELLS M E THA.TTHEY K N O W " W E ' R EDEA.LING W I T H S E V E ND I F F E R E N T TYPES O FCREATURES H E R E : T H ER E P T I L I A N S F R O M ALP HA.CENTA.URI, TH E B L O N D SF R O M TH E P L E I A D E S , T H EG R E Y S F R O M OVER H E R E ,TH E B I G F O O T S OVER T H E R E .T H E S E O N E S LOVE U S A.NDWA.NT TO CURE CA.NCER A.NDLET U S LIVE F OREVER, T H O S EWA.NT TO SUCK O U T O U RE N Z Y M E S A.ND EA.T O U RCHILDREN, T H E S E O N E S JU S TWA.NT TO U S E U S FO R C I R C U SA.NIMA.LS, THES E O N E S A.REVISITING U S F R O M O U R O W NF UTURE, THEY'RE U S IN A.MILLION YEA.RS - A.ND O NA.ND O N A.ND ON- A.ND I SA.YW I T H A.LL DUE RES P ECT,H O W D O YOU K N O W , A.NDTHEY SA.Y, "BECA.USE THEYTOLD M E . " I D O N ' T E V E N SA.YTO MYSELF, " R I G H T . CA.LLBELLEVUE." W H O A.M I T OP R E S U M E THEY'RE W R O N G .M A Y B E IT ' s TRUE, MA.YBETHEY D ID TELL T H E M . W H A . TI QUES TION, I A.LWA.YS D OA.ND A.LWA.YS WILL, W H YS H O U L D Y O U T R U S T T H E MA.NY M O R E THA.N Y OU T R U S TTH E US MILITARY?

problem for me.But be that as i t may, I think one thing drivesanother. Let's say that you're Interested In UFOs . butyou go to a fantasy movie. i t may well get you intothe serious literature. And that's great. Or. you'reinto the research, an aspiring researcher and you'rereally wound up , and you go to something like"Men in Black" and you just laugh and have a goodFlatla11.d Maqazl11.e tttSP.O. Box 2420 fort Bragg, Calt(ornta 95437


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Left at Eastgatetime and get back to your work again. They canbalance each other outI don't see that one is a problem for the otherQ Maybe it's a way that we can work out someof the implications - and by the way. what do youthink are the implications? When you start considering it as an objective reality. then a whole num-ber of other possibilities start creeping in on you.possibilities that are very uncomfortable to thinkabout.A: Like that we're somebody else's lab rats?Q: Yeah. or farm animals. or experiment. orprogeny .. What are your feelings on all of this?

A: After 22 years in the field. I can ask muchbetter questions. I wouldn't presume to tell you thatI have an idea of where these intell1gences comefrom. why they're here. what they want. howthey're propulsive systems work. why they interactwith human beings they choose to interact with. It'sso ironic that at this time. the most conservativething I can say about it is that it is an extraterrestrial phenomena. I think it's very likely that we'realso dealing with other types of phenomena: beingsfrom other dimensions, possibly. Beings fromanother time. Perhaps simply another reality thathas been here since time immemorial but just out ofour perception. I don't know.I do know that when somebody tells me thatthey know "We're dealing with seven different typesof creatures here: the Reptilians from AlphaCentaurt. the Blonds from the Pleiades. the Greysfrom over here. the Bigfoots over there. These oneslove us and want to cure cancer an d let us live forever. those want to suck out our enzymes an d eatou r children, these ones just want to use us for circus animals. these ones are ViSiting us from ourown future. they're us in a million years - and onand on and on - and I say with all due respect, howdo you know. and they say, "because they told me."I don't even say to myself, "Right. Call Bellevue."Who am I to presume they're wrong. Maybe it'strue. maybe they did tell them. What I question, Ialways do and always will. why should you trustthem any more than you trust the US mllitary?Question everything. certainly question authority.Don't assume that anyone is telling the truth in thiswithout verifying it for yourself as well as you can.I don't know, Jim, I just don't know. In a funnyway. it's become a moot point for me. and we don'tmake a big deal of it all in the book. If they're fromanother dimension. another reality - 1t is what it is.Somebody can present me with evidence thatthey're super-secret joint American-British projectsto check out ou r perceptions, then show me the

proof. I'm not married to any agenda here.Q: For most people. the problem is: okay. I'venever seen a UFO. If they do exist. and they are thissuperior force, then there's nothing we can doabout it and it doesn't matter. Then. is there anyrelevance to the whole question?A: The relevance doesn't have to do with theether, outer space. or any other New Age nonsense.The relevance is: there is a secret being kept. Makeno mistake about it. I am as convinced as we aresitting here that there is an historic cover-up goingon at the highest levels of certain working groupswithin our government. and the need-to-knowstructure upon which our post-war intell1genceoperat1ons are built, permeates i t That means anyseated President. whoever he is. may not know anymore than the cabal feels the President needs toknow. And it's varied with different Presidents fordifferent reasons.What we're talking about here 1s nothing lessthan the erosion of this amazing, flawed. crazy.blessed social experiment called the United States ofAmerica. It's been clicking along for 220 years. andbeing compromised more an d more each year bythose who keep the secrets from those of us thatwork. pay our taxes. live an d die as Americans.There is nothing ethereal here. What fnghtens memore than what the aliens - an d I hate that wordbut we' re stuck with 1t - whatever these other intelligences mean for us. I'm concerned about the USAand other countries as well. Secrecy has become thestate religion of our country, nowhere more thanhere. Our democracies are threatened by this.

The secret of UFOs is one of many types ofsecrets being kept by our government We are treated as children. You know what, maybe SO years agothere was something to the thought that in 1947. anannouncement of this kind might destab1l1ze thesocial fabric. But I think we're made of sterner stuff.It has been so deeply acculturated. hke 1t or not,that there's hardly anyone who has not tried on thethought, as uncomfortable as it is, and perhapsslipped 1t right off after that. I f we do not begm toface the schizophrenia at the highest levels of theintelligence community, which permeates our government. I think we're going to lose it. A lot of people say we've lost it already. We 've got the FederalReserve that screwed us out of all our money. them111tary's lying to all the poor Gulf War veterans.We've got Vietnam vets talking to themselves. we'vegot kids brushing their teeth with fluoride and sitting under un-ballasted fluorescent lights andgoing crazy in school. they're glued to the TV ..microwaves and EMF fields permeating our citiesand driving people crazy. True!I don't know where this fits in. in terms of its "a

Q Flatlaad Maqasiae liS~ P.O. Box 2420 fort Bragg, Cali(ornta 95437


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priori."Q: It fits in because it's alien to us. The worldthat we live in is alien to us. One of the more popula r theories, or implications of alien visitation isthat they are actually in controLA: I've heard that, and it may be true. As far as

I'm concerned, the "invasion" is over. Whateverhappened, happened. I'm not going to allow i t toinvade my humanity. I'm not going to wonder i f thenew head of the CIA takes his face off at night andlives like an ET .. these are not issues that I can bebothered with at this point.You think about the world ou r parents inheritedat th e end of WWII; i t had just been wrecked and atthe same time something important happened. Avery frightening fascist threat ha d been beatenback. America had come into its own. I'm no jingoist. I f you get seriously involved in these studies,you begin to have an idea of what we're up against,an d the most remarkable by-product is that youbegin to see yourself as a human being, before yousee yourself as a religious being, a socioeconomicclass being, a certain color being. You're a person,an d I think one of the things that frightens governments more than anything is that we'll al l start tothink of ourselves as people before we think of ourselves as Americans, Brits, Russians. Indians,Canadians, whatever. That's pretty intolerable forthe folks at the top of the food chain.In that sense, here we are sitting in beautifulsouthern Oregon, in the home of a good friend. I fnot for this nutty subject and th e chance to comehere and talk before some wonderful people, youand I would not be talking, would not have madefriends, would not be looking forward to the nexttime we're going to get together. This time nextweek I'll be in central England with some oldfriends and new friends. I resent tremendouslywhen people say to me or Larry, or other peopleinvolved in this who work so hard and put thework ahead of everything, that we're in i t for themoney. It's a joke. Larry and I will never make backth e money we put into this project. That's a given.However, I don't know many people who are as richin friends as I am .I don't know i f the book will be a commercialsuccess. It's not a cutesy-pie book. It has no sexscenes to speak of. But I'm getting to travel an d talkto people about a subject that I know is important.and many of them feel is important. It's aboutbeing a human being .

Q: Speaking to your comment that the alienphenomena means that we'll start thinking of eachother as people instead of nations, a comment I'veheard Stanton Friedman say as well: you probablyhave heard the conspiracy theory that that's just

Peter Robbins Interviewwhat they want you to think to give up yournational sovereignty. This is a theme that was putforth in The Iron Mountatn Report back in 1967, ahoax that suggested that the elites created the alienphenomena to provide an external threat amidworld peace. What do you think of that?A: I think that's a very important point thatgives me a chance to clarify. In some ways, I'm afairly old-fashioned person. I think of things thathave evolved on Earth with a certain reason. I likebeing an American in many respects. I like that welive in a world o f diversity. I am not that interestedin seeing everything break down. When I say that Ithink of myself as a person first , it doesn't meanthat I don't think of myself as an American. As aprofessor of mine once said. you don't have to be aparanoid to know that someone is following you.I've studied enough of the behind-the-sceneshistory, and like you. really consumed with the loveof al l of these factors and players that come together. You know, your new book is going to be a fabulous example of that, how these individuals playthese games in terms of trying to shape forces inhistory and manipulate society at large really dopull the wool over our eyes at times. I don't thinkthat one should give up vigilance for "goodness!Welcome!" I f the aliens have taken over the brainsof world leaders and live inside of them and clonethem and drink their enzymes. hey what th e hell.we're here and we're having a good time. There'snot a lot I can do about that.The bottom line is, we're aU here for just amoment. We come and we go, we may come backbu t we don't know that for sure. Reich said i t best."Love, Work and Knowledge are the wellsprings oflife. They should also govern it ." I love the workthat I've chosen to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't pa ythe bills as well as other work does. so. kids, don'tbecome a UFO researcher. Keep your day job anyway.What I'm saying is that balance is important inal l things. Without your feet on the ground. peopleto love and even bills to pay, it's hard to use thetime we put into this kind of stuff as effectively aspossible 1fwe don't have basic values, 1f we don'tfollow some aspect of the Golden Rule. But that alsoincorporates rational rage. There's a lot to be angryabout in this world. Evil exists. One has to guardagainst it. But you need to be th e kind of personthat can love, that can laugh. that ccm enjoy studyan d always stay in the school that the world offersyou. The moment that you think you know all thatis going on is the moment when you stop learning.

Flatland Maqazine nsP.O. Box 2420 fort Bragg, California 95437

1997 - flatland magazine - jim martin interview of peter robbins

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