Review: Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

Washington Examiner ^ | Tom Rogan

[RoosterRedux]

"If you're seeing this," warns Steven Greer within the first two minutes of his sort-of-documentary, "it's because I'm either dead, or have been entrapped, or have disappeared."

Or, perhaps, because I want to hook your attention.

In Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, we quickly learn that Greer is neither dead nor disappeared. But he does appear to be trapped in Batman's garage from the Dark Knight movie series. And it is from that stale bunker-like locale that he preaches to us, with interlude narrations from Jeremy Piven, for the next two hours.

A medical doctor turned UFO researcher, Greer claims that a great global conspiracy is concealing evidence of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind is designed to deconstruct that conspiracy, and it enjoins viewers to join Greer in meditation-like conferencing with aliens aboard orbiting UFOs.

His case doesn't convince.

Don't misunderstand me, the UFO topic is both serious and seriously under-examined by the media and scientific community. The U.S. military does not know the origin of numerous UFOs that have been tracked by expert military observers by sight, on camera, on radar, on sonar, and on an array of other sensor platforms. And while many UFOs are weather phenomenon or human machines misidentified as extraordinary, some are not. And those craft can perform in ways that no known Earth machine can. In its top-secret briefings, the Pentagon has very high confidence that these things are not from Area 51, China, Russia, or Elon Musk. To be clear, I would stake my journalistic credibility on saying that some UFOs are intelligently controlled machines not of this Earth.

But if the issue is this important, scrutiny of it deserves equal care.

Too often than not, Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind detaches from that imperative.

[RoosterRedux]

I would put Strieber into the "experiencer" category. In other words, he's not an empirical researcher into the subject like Vallee but he "claims" to have first hand experience.

Of course, like anyone who makes such claims, he may be lying or he may "believe" he had such an experience but didn't.

Having read all the accounts of Dr. John Mack re: abductees, I would give some unique weight to those who have first hand experience. As Dr. Mack said to the tenure committee at Harvard, one doesn't have to know exactly what happened to these people to realize that "something" happened. Something extraordinarily traumatic.

As I said upthread, I once met Strieber (in a small group, not one-on-one) and I walked away with the clear impression that he had been traumatized by this stuff in some way. It didn't seem like an act because, frankly, his behavior was oddly vulnerable (like the way someone might act if confessing something embarrassing).

Anyway, that was my take on it.

[RoosterRedux]

Interesting that you bring up Terence McKenna. There has been a strong connection between what is going on here with this alien/UFO stuff and the DMT experience.

[Grimmy]

You know why I’ve decided to believe outerspace aliens from outerspace are among us?

The Clintons.

They’ve gotta be outerspace aliens from outerspace in disguise. They just don’t pull the “human” thing off very well at all.

[PGalt]

The Clintons.

They’ve gotta be outerspace aliens from outerspace in disguise. They just don’t pull the “human” thing off very well at all.

EXACTLY. William Jefferson and Hillaryous Rotten CRIMINAL.

PSYCHOPATHS

Labyrinth of the Psychopath...

https://johnquincy.blogspot.com/2012/01/psycho-labyrinth-of-psychopath-1-when.html

Without Conscience - Robert Hare
Inside the Criminal Mind - Stanton Samenow

FAKE NEWS & FAKE POLITICIANS...CRIMINALS masquerading as politicians. They’ve gotten very good at it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAxEQYqo7no

[cgbg]

I have met “experiencers” at UFO conventions-—and I agree they are speaking the truth as they know it. These folks keep a low profile, but go to such events with others as a sort of “support group”.

I am very suspicious of folks who “make a living” as an “experiencer”. I suspect Streiber is enjoying the publicity a little too much, and while he may have experienced “something”, he is enjoying his role a little too much. It would be very easy for disinformation intelligence folks to manipulate someone like Streiber.

If you are interested in how the manipulation is done, the best “case study” is this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Beta-Bennewitz-National-Security/dp/0743470923

[cgbg]

On McKenna, his “UFO” podcast is a classic:

https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-261-the-definitive-ufo-tape/

The guy was off the charts brilliant and creative—I think of him as the Tesla of philosophy—he was wacky from time to time, but he always had fascinating new theories, insights, and provocative ways of looking at our world.

[RoosterRedux]

Like you, I always thought Strieber was making an awful lot of money from his abduction experience. Enough that it made me wonder about the authenticity of it.

On the other hand, given that Strieber was a writer before his abduction, I have always wondered if perhaps he was chosen as an abductee because of his writing ability. Communion certainly put the abduction experience solidly in the mind of America readers when it was published.

I remember the first time I saw the cover of Communion. My first thought was "I know that face."

[SunkenCiv]

Oh, there's probably a fifth of something involved...