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For whatever reason, my farewell-to-De Void post from 9/13/16 has vanished. It was titled “A shift in the weather.” Don’t know exactly when or why it was removed … but if only the bewilderment ended there. When I went noodling through some of the earliest blogs that still hadn’t auto-purged, from 2009, it was like getting punted into some parallel universe. The comment threads had been erased and replaced with exchanges in Cyrillic. Seriously, I’m not making this up. There were, ostensibly, Russians having conversations by piggy-backing off my blog. This sounds totally insane, but this actually happened. And why me? My biggest regret

By Billy Cox De Void / Herald Tribune.com 7-14-17

is I didn’t do a screen grab, because when I revisited the same posts the next day, all reader comments – Cyrillic, English, whatever – had been removed. A clean wipe.

Anyway, I’m reposting a version of that mysteriously spiked September blog because I’m still a little pissed. So don’t be erasing my history, whoever you are, or I’ll rewrite it with even less accuracy.

Due to professional circumstances beyond my control, I have been reassigned to a new job here at the Herald-Tribune, a beat which involves a steep learning curve and my undivided attention. As you know, newspapers are undergoing a radical downsizing transition, and no one is immune to these pressures. So at least for now, and for the foreseeable future, I will step away from De Void, which I started writing in April 2007.

By serving up a combination of reporting, analysis, industry criticism and a few other quirks in between, I had hoped I might be able to make a difference in the way my colleagues in traditional media cover UFOs. And in fact, the last nine years have provided some remarkable opportunities for the MSM to rethink its strategy in the way it approaches The Great Taboo. But that was the flaw – assuming there might actually be a strategy in play. Beyond resorting to requisite clichés (e.g., “This next story is out of this world” and “Is the truth really out there?”), chasing balloons (“Mystery shiny objects floating over Manhattan, spark UFO frenzy” – NY Daily News), and hyping common lens flares for ratings (“UFO or Lens Flare in Google Street View? You Decide” – ABC’s “Good Morning America”), big media falls apart when approaching the gorilla in the room. Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper, maybe the most qualified interviewer on corporate television – even his brains roll around in suntan oil and head for the beach whenever he gets near UFOs. And that’s what’s making the blown opportunity of 2016 so dispiriting.

Contrast where we are today with the 2007 Democratic primary debates. That’s when NBC’s Tim Russert asked longshot pacifist Dennis Kucinich to confirm a report that he was eyewitness to a UFO event. Russert, of course, had no interest in the material, and simply wanted to muscle the fading Ohio congressman off the stage and back to the fringe where he belonged. Remember that? Looking like he didn’t know whether to wet his pants or vomit, Kucinich fell back into the shopworn stance of trying to joke it off. And it didn’t help him a lick. Now fast-forward to 2016 and a scenario that would’ve been unthinkable nine years ago – a presidential frontrunner has not only publicly and repeatedly discussed her curiosity about UFOs, she has even advocated releasing related government documents.

Put aside, as if that’s possible, your emotions, pro or con, about Hillary Clinton. Because this is not about her. Nor is it about veteran Beltway operator John Podesta, whose gamble to encourage the former First Lady to speak rationally and fearlessly about The Great Taboo has provoked negligible media blowback. Think about that for a moment. Whenever a public figure in this country utters something stupid or outrageous, the peanut-gallery microphones are always there to rain torrents of snark and reality-based facts and figures on the offender (not that facts make much difference in this day and age). And yet, although the echo chamber has dutifully regurgitated the quotes Clinton has made on three separate occasions about reassessing UFOs, no significant major news platform has bothered to follow up or ask what the hell she means by that. No debate moderator has raised the subject. Not even Clinton’s myriad foes have chosen to weaponize or even make an issue of her remarks concerning undoubtedly the most unconventional topic ever raised on a campaign trail. They’d rather talk about pneumonia.

Folks, this is flat-out freaky. And it begs the question of just how far watchdog journalism has strayed from the public interest. Even badly worded polls show nearly half of Americans believe UFOs are all about ET activity in our own atmosphere. Into this vacuum of empty space comes Hollywood, advertisers, cable television, tabloids, etc., all of whom are far more astute about engaging sustainable numbers than the press. The entertainment industry has also enabled conspiracy paranoia, stoked delusional hopes and unreasonable fears, and made loads of cash off a growth market that shows no signs of dissipating. And for reasons likely best summarized in a groundbreaking 2008 essay appearing in the journal Political Theory, America’s most influential institutions have proven incapable of leading us out of the woods. They remain stubbornly, willfully, perhaps even aggressively, uninformed.

For more than nine years, De Void attempted to bridge that gap, at least on the journalism frontier. With the discoveries of extrasolar Earth-like planets becoming so common they rarely make headlines anymore, with millions of research dollars being dumped into radioscope dishes trolling for alien signals, and given innovations in portable technology designed to track anomalies in our skies, there would appear to be no better moment for the media to snatch the permission slips extended by Clinton/Podesta this year and start asking truly skeptical questions. But that hasn’t happened. Maybe it can’t. Denial and avoidance are the results of faltering attention spans, national and global. We don’t read anymore. We want shortcuts. We think in bumper stickers. Glossy campaign pamphlets are called literature. We want our Cliff Notes rationed in 30-second video bites. We want our favorite colors back, black and white.

Despite the gloom, however, De Void has actually been a lot of gun. It’s forced me to become more discerning and (hopefully) a more careful thinker. It’s given me a deeper appreciation for those who’ve chosen the thankless tasks of attempting to rescue history buried in forgotten archives, for those who pressure bureaucracies for radar records, and the researchers giving voice to veterans whose stories have been disregarded, mocked or repressed for half a century or more.

Most of all, in this era of anonymity and internet cowardice, I have appreciated the civil, thoughtful and provocative tones that often characterize these comment threads. We don’t always agree – in fact, we may rarely agree – but I appreciate the level of sophistication you guys have been bringing to the table. And who knows, we may, in fact, have future discussions here on De Void. If, for instance, Stephen Hawking’s projected ET conquistadors do something as callous and disrespectful as zapping the Kremlin or the newly refurbished Capitol Dome, I’ll probably make time to weigh in as soon as I get through cheering.

And I’ll remain keenly interested in whatever comes next.
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"...corporate media blew its most promising opportunity — ever — for instigating a policy-level discussion of The Great Taboo..."

Two tantalizing developments in late October, just days shy of the most demoralizing U.S. presidential campaign in the history of the world: 1) Using NASA data, a journal called Proceedings of the National Academy of Science announced it had calculated that more than 8.8 billion Earth-like planets inhabit the Milky Way galaxy alone. Which is depressing enough. But also: 2) Another journal, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, identified 234 stars amid a survey of 2.5 million in which light-pulse signatures were consistent with

By Billy Cox De Void 11-10-16

theoretical models predicting extraterrestrial intelligence. The second item is far more speculative and controversial than the first, but the confirmation of either would turn our conceits upside down. Or at least we wouldn’t have to resign ourselves to the idea that the way we do things in this joint is as good as it’s ever going to get.

Nope, unfortunately, UFOs haven’t destroyed Capitol Hill or the Kremlin, and De Void is not back. But after seeing how corporate media blew its most promising opportunity — ever — for instigating a policy-level discussion of The Great Taboo, it’s difficult to sit back and pretend we’re not in very deep trouble, and on such a fundamental level. Market-tested and auto-programmed for parroting trivia, fear and anger, the Fourth Estate appears to have also severed its links to those things that can evoke the best of who we are or hope to be.

I used to follow crowds of visitors onto the banks of the Indian River Lagoon and the beaches of Cape Canaveral, where they converged for the countdown to shuttle launches and planetary missions, most of which rarely made their deadlines. But no matter. Taking expensive chances with the weather and the inevitable hardware glitches, they rolled in from everywhere, from around the world, pickup trucks, RVs, lawn chairs, binoculars, bug spray, SPF50, coolers, Coleman grills, lanterns, campfires, tripods, radios, you name it, they packed it. And it wasn’t just to watch — they could’ve tuned into network coverage for that, and with a lot less aggravation. They came to participate, to be a part of something that reduced to irrelevance whatever affiliations that divided them, even if they weren’t aware of it. And they were united by storylines that generated parades of firsts:

First woman astronaut, first black astronaut, first teacher, first Saudi, first Israeli, first American in orbit giving it another shot to see if his 77-year-old bones could withstand, 35 years later, the rigors of space flight. There were multi-ethnic multi-racial shuttle crews fulfilling Gene Rodenberry’s “Star Trek” prophecy. There were astronauts pushing back against skittish administrators, demanding a chance to risk their lives to fix a failing telescope renowned for peering into the edge of time. There was the 96-year-old widow of the astronomer who discovered Pluto, on hand to watch an unmanned craft programmed to deliver, among other things, her husband’s ashes to that unimaginably distant world.

These stories fueled pilgrimages. And the entire planet joined the learning curve, sometimes in horror, learning to exhale only after solid-rocket boosters cleared the fuel tank 90 seconds out. On the high frontier, death is the ultimate price of knowledge; yet, the waiting list to engage that voyage swells. And it has been this way since the first crazy people hopped into hollowed-out logs and splashed off for nothing more than invisible hunches and theories on treasures their faith said lay waiting beyond the horizon.

Walter Cronkite once said history will look back on America’s Apollo moon program as the 20th century’s crowning achievement; indeed, 50 years later, the study of the neurological shading that occurs when space travelers gaze upon Earth — called the “Overview Effect” — is only beginning. But Cronkite’s sensibilities were nowhere in evidence during the presidential debates. There were 27 national stage-managed auditions during the campaign of 2015-16, and unless I missed something, not a single journalist bothered to solicit a candidate’s vision for space, the arena in which the U.S. and Russia are indispensable partners. Not a one. In fact, after securing their party’s nominations, neither Trump nor Clinton could find room for a website blurb on NASA policy. But you can bet your ass those two would’ve dashed off something, no matter how cynical or meaningless, had a single member of the press stepped up to ask about it in a public forum.

Which brings us to journalism’s great lost moment. Let’s do this again:

For the first time ever, a monopoly-party candidate attempted to post UFOs on the Beltway talkboard. With persistent nudges from campaign director John Podesta, Hillary Clinton on three separate occasions showcased not only a conversational grasp of the phenomenon but also a rhetorical willingness to pursue the issue wherever it led. All three statements rated dutiful cut ‘n’ paste coverage worldwide. But not a single major daily or network or public radio station had the guts, or the foundational knowledge, to ask HRC why — exactly — she was so interested in broaching such a politically radioactive topic. It made no sense, tactically or strategically. It was a baffling non sequitur, with no moneyed momentum to propel it. Where were the payoffs? Who was the audience? It was intended to be a counterweight to — what?

Well, given how no news division or editorial board saw fit to mention our once-bejeweled space program, their failure to confront Clinton with her counterintuitive UFO remarks was at least consistent. And as a final kick out the door, Esquire magazine’s snark over the Podesta/Clinton gamble, published two weeks ago, mirrored the prevailing media tone over the last 11 months: “Cracking the Crackpot Vote — How do you win over true believers (in extraterrestrials) in an election this crazy?” If you were too stupid to get it, the editors punched it up with an illustration of HRC sitting on a flying saucer shooting a laser beam from its belly.

Someday, these presentations will be compared with what “Reefer Madness” did for marijuana laws. For now, what is truly unforgivable is journalism’s demonstrated inability to revitalize rigorous inquiry into whatever may be waiting for us out there, conventional angles or otherwise. Even as the universe grows more crowded, more vivid and more complex with each flip of the calendar.

Like an amoeba, our species assumes its definition not at its middle, but at its leading edges, at the margins, where it decides to go next. If we’re losing our capacity for awe — not to mention an appreciation for the human ingenuity required for translation — let’s start calling out the usual media suspects. Clinton-Trump ’16 flagged an opportunity for institutional journalism to explore documentation it has never properly addressed, to make a different kind of history, no matter who won. And like a streak of summer lightning, that moment flickered and vanished. It’s already almost like it never existed.
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