A Room 101 Interview with Andrew May – Author of ‘Conspiracy History’

In his new book Conspiracy History – A History of the World for Conspiracy Theorists, Andrew May shows how conspiracy theories have been used to explain important political events long before the JFK assassination, going back as far as the time of Ancient Egypt. 

  

ROOM 101: In the first chapter you start by defining the term conspiracy theory; why do you think so many people associate the term with the paranormal when conspiracies have been a regular occurrence throughout history? 

  

ANDREW MAY: That’s a good question! I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I guess part of the answer is there’s a big overlap in the readership of the two subjects. People who are interested in conspiracies are also often interested in the paranormal. They’re people who don’t automatically believe what they’re told – people who are always questioning authority. The media slaps the “crackpot” label on both interests, but there’s an important difference. Paranormal phenomena, whether or not they’re real, have a big problem in that they conflict with well-established laws of physics. But conspiracies are completely consistent with the laws of human nature. That’s why the same types of conspiracy recur over and over again throughout history.

   

ROOM 101: It is often said that the JFK assassination was the event that gave birth to the widespread belief in conspiracy theories in the United States, however, it could be argued there is a conspiracy theory in the US constitution. The Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right to “keep and bear arms” as a safeguard against the government turning tyrannical. Any thoughts on this? 

   

ANDREW MAY: I’m not sure I would put it quite like that. When the Second Amendment was formulated, the idea of democracy was very new, and people must have seen it as very fragile. Most of the world at that time was controlled by a small number of powerful monarchies and empires. There must have been a real fear that the US could revert to that situation. But your question reminds me of something I was just reading about – Gödel’s Loophole. Kurt Gödel was a 20th-century mathematician, who was famous as a logical thinker – some people say he was the greatest logician in history. At one point he claimed to have discovered a logical flaw in the Constitution that would allow the US to become a tyrannical dictatorship. But no one knows what his argument was – he never wrote it down! 

   

ROOM 101: Why do you think in recent years with films like V For Vendetta the image of Guy Fawkes has become a symbol for many people who believe in conspiracy theories? 

   

ANDREW MAY: I think it largely came about as an accident, although it’s a very neat one. I’m a big fan of Guy Fawkes – the real historical character – so I love the way he’s now seen as a hero instead of a villain. As I say in the book, he may have been the victim of a government conspiracy himself. People think of him as an anarchist, because he tried to blow up Parliament. “The last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions” – I think that’s a great phrase. But really Fawkes wasn’t an anarchist at all – he just wanted a better deal for Catholics at a time of extreme religious intolerance.

   

ROOM 101: In chapter two you write about false flag operations like “Operation Northwoods” the Pentagon’s insane plan to create a pretext for war with Castro by staging attacks on the United States and blaming Cuba. Is it too much of a leap of faith from this to question the official history of the events surrounding the JFK assassination or 9/11 as many conspiracy writers do? 

   

ANDREW MAY: The answer to this one is a definite “yes and no”! Yes, the Operation Northwoods document proves the US is prepared to mount a false flag operation in order to achieve its objectives. But I’m doubtful whether they’re competent enough to pull off a really large-scale operation successfully. As you say, Operation Northwoods itself was a pretty crazy idea. An earlier operation against Cuba, the Bay of Pigs invasion – which was effectively a false flag operation in its own right – was a complete disaster. A double disaster, in fact – the invasion failed, and the world knew right away that the US was behind it. So, I’m skeptical that they could have pulled off 9/11 all by themselves. On the other hand, I’m sure the Bush administration turned a blind eye to warnings of a big attack because they thought they could use it as an excuse to invade Iraq.

    

ROOM 101: Do you see any parallels between the Lincoln assassination and the JFK assassination a century later? 

   

ANDREW MAY: Well, there are a lot of parallels between the two assassinations, but I’ll focus on aspects that are of particular interest in the context of conspiracy theories. To start with, both assassinations happened in the wake of massive crises – the Civil War in the case of Lincoln, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in Kennedy’s case. Predictably, the official view places the blame on the obvious “enemy” of the day. We’re told that a small group of disenfranchised southern rebels was responsible for the plot against Lincoln, while a pro-Cuban communist sympathizer acted alone against Kennedy. But when you look at the evidence more closely, it makes more sense for the brains behind both attacks to be people who were supposedly on the same side as the victims. They had far more to gain from an assassination than the “enemy” did. 

   

ROOM 101: What do you think of the widespread belief within conspiracy research circles that the Illuminati pre-dates 1776 and continues to exist today? Is it a simple way to explain a complex and rapidly changing world, or is there an element of truth to the idea of a secret group steering, if not controlling exactly, world events behind the political and financial scenes? 

   

ANDREW MAY: The book discusses over 70 historical conspiracies, spread over a period of thousands of years, but they all have one important thing in common. The people behind the conspiracy wanted to see results right away, in their own lifetime. That’s even true of the Bavarian Illuminati, who may have been behind the French Revolution. I find it difficult to believe in long-term conspiracies that require many generations before they come to fruition – that’s simply not the way human nature works. On the other hand, history has a way of repeating itself, so Illuminati-like groups do crop up again and again. Some of them may even adopt the name Illuminati, but I don’t believe they’re doggedly following the same agenda century after century. 

  

ROOM 101: Are there any controversial conspiracy theories that you think could be true? 

   

ANDREW MAY: In a way, the very essence of a good conspiracy theory is that it “could be true” – that’s why they have such appeal. Conspiracy theories usually fit all the known facts just as well as the conventional narrative does. The key question is whether the conspiracy theory is MORE LIKELY than the conventional view. The most obvious case where this is true is the JFK assassination. The idea that it was simply the work of a lone gunman – an attack out of the blue, which took the authorities completely by surprise – is almost impossible to believe. There are at least a dozen conspiracy theories that are more likely than that! 

   

ROOM 101: Thanks for doing the interview. Where can readers buy Conspiracy History and your other books? 

  

ANDREW MAY: The book is published in Britain by Bretwalda Books. The paperback should be available from all good booksellers in the UK, and through online retailers such as Amazon in other countries. There’s also a Kindle version, which may be easier for people outside the UK to get hold of.

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A Room 101 Interview with Joy Porter

Joy Porter is Professor of Indigenous History within the History Department at Hull University and the author of Native American Freemasonry: Associationalism and Performance in America, a book the historian was writing when she was one of my lecturers at Swansea University back in 2007. I remember once in class the subject of the Freemasons came up (not hard considering George Washington and many other of the founding fathers of the United States were Freemasons) and after class I got into what must have seemed a bit of a odd conversation to the mainstream academic about secret societies, in particular the bizarre antics of Republicans and Democrats inside the Bohemian Grove. After seeing the Indian Freemasonry book was out, I decided to catch up with my old teacher and ask her some questions about the new book and the role of Freemasonry in the early United States.

Richard Thomas: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Joy. The first question I have is how did you go from writing and researching about Native Americans to writing a book about the history of Freemasonry in the United States?

Joy Porter: My first book was a biography of a key Seneca-Iroquois named Arthur Parker and he was a very committed Freemason. That got me thinking.

Richard Thomas: I know you are from Ireland and in one lecture I remember the topic of the Freemasons came up and someone in class said that in Northern Ireland there are a lot of Freemasons in the police and government. What were your initial thoughts, if any, about the secretive organization and did writing the book challenge your perceptions at all?

Joy Porter: To be honest, my knowledge of N. Irish Freemasonry is limited - that'd be a whole other book! My old friend Jim Smyth at Notre Dame has written about it in terms of Irish history- he's your man.

Richard Thomas: Thanks to the internet the Freemasons are famous for their strange rituals and costumes. Did you see any of these, what did you think? And in your opinion is Freemasonry a religion?

Joy Porter: In the US for many men it has served as a religion of sorts, but the organization itself has been very concerned over time to make clear that it is not a religion. This has not prevented organized faiths such as Catholicism from feeling very threatened by it.

Richard Thomas: The perception, of course, is that the Freemasons are an elitist organisation. So I was initially surprised to learn that Native Americans have been involved in Freemasonry for centuries. How did this happen and what were the motives of the white men who brought Native Americans into their lodges and how has this relationship changed over time?

Joy Porter: Answering that took me a whole book! In short, US Freemasonry accepted elite Indians because of the imagined world Indians were deemed to inhabit and because of the Indian relationship to ritual, something Masons respected. Once within Freemasonry, Indian Masons were able to retain aspects of their tribal and pan-Indian identities that they could not develop in the same ways in the non-Masonic world. I argue that the Indian Masonic relationship over time has largely been very positive for Indian and non-Indian Masons alike.

Richard Thomas: Given the secrecy involved in Freemasonry, historically how have non-Freemasons in the Native American community viewed Indians who become Freemasons?

Joy Porter: This is an enormous question that is another research project in its own right but in my experience at least, I found limited evidence of Indian folk resenting Indian Masons. But then, I wasn't looking for that data.

Richard Thomas: Many of America's founding fathers were admitted Freemasons. How important do you think Freemasonry was in the American Revolution?

Joy Porter: It had a significance certainly. The best book on the topic is by Steven Bullock.

Richard Thomas: Overall do you think Freemasonry has been a force for good in America, or does the secretive group deserve some of its bad reputation?

Joy Porter: Certainly a force for good in my opinion. Freemasonry upheld the colour line but so did most organizations when this was the norm. It gave a great deal to many communities. I think community-based associations generally are positive as they bring people together but as with any grouping, it will by definition be selective. Associations are as much about who is excluded as who is included but the evidence I found suggests that Freemasonry gave many men over time a sense of solace and brotherhood in a world increasingly bereft of such compensations.

Richard Thomas: Thanks Joy. What are some of the other books you've written?

Joy Porter: I've just published another book with Praeger, Land & Spirit in Native America (2012). It looks at how we comprehend wilderness and Indian land, including Indian "Sacrifice Areas" in the nuclear Southwest.

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A Room 101 Interview with Regan Lee

Regan Lee is a prolific writer, penning columns for UFO Magazine and Binnall of America as well as writing and publishing a book on the Oregon Bigfoot legend. Bigfoot and UFOs might sound like an unlikely combination, researchers in both fields sometimes dismiss each other, but there are some parallels.

One of the many categories of alleged alien beings associated with close encounters is known as the "Animal" type. These are large furry humanoid creatures which closely resemble the famous ape-man. More generally, though, like UFOs far from there just being one definitive answer to the Bigfoot mystery there are probably many explanations.

Some Bigfoot sightings might be explained by the traditional hypothesis that there may still be a species of undisclosed primate roaming the forests and mountains of the world, but other sightings might have more exotic explanations, including extraterrestrial visitors and even beings from other dimensions. In my interview with Regan we discussed all of these possibilities.

Richard Thomas: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Regan, I want to focus on your Bigfoot research in this interview. I think I first became interested in Bigfoot because of my interest in Doctor Who, the Yeti or Tibetan Bigfoot are in two classic stories from the series, The Abominable Snowmen and the Web of Fear. How did your own interest in Bigfoot begin?

Regan Lee: I've always been interested in anything Fortean or unusual, in mysteries "of the weird..." I don't remember a time when I wasn't curious about all these things. But probably my interest with Bigfoot really took off when I moved to Oregon, and I came across Bigfoot encounters connected with UFO sightings. Stan Johnson's story, an Oregon LTW (long-term witness), and other similar tales in Oregon, had me go from "this is ridiculous! --Bigfoot and UFOs all in one tale -- to "this is really juicy Fortean stuff!" I think I'm open to the stranger aspects of Bigfoot encounters because of my own lifelong experiences with UFOs and the paranormal in general.

  

Richard Thomas: Have you ever had a Bigfoot sighting yourself, or are there any sightings that particularly impressed you?

  

Regan Lee: I haven't had a Bigfoot sighting myself. I did have one odd experience while discussing Stan Johnson's experiences with someone who knew him. Now, Johnson's story involves psychic communications with the Sasquatch, travels in UFOs, spiritual and religious epiphanies, healings... a sort of UFO contactee-Bigfoot combo. I met Johnson at a UFO conference; he was very charismatic. I literally felt "buzzy" as he was talking; he exuded an energy, that was for sure.

  

So there I am, talking about Johnson with this person, when a cone of light comes down from the ceiling and completely surrounds us. I was seeing coloured lights and everything, feeling very "buzzy" as I call these psychic connections of mine. Sound was muffled, as if cotton balls were stuffed in my ears. I thought I was going to vibrate up towards through the ceiling! When our conversation ended, the cone lifted up, back through the ceiling, and everything was back to normal. I've had a couple of other things like that happen -- not directly related to Sasquatch, but connected in a roundabout way.

I told this story to a woman I met at the first OSS (Oregon Sasquatch Symposium) in Eugene. She told me that it was "spirit" that had manifested, responding to being called, in a sense. Or responding to the energy generated while talking about Sasquatch in that context. Come to think of it, it was a lot like a very intense ghostly apparition -- a mist or ectoplasm -- I had once experienced in a haunted house.

Richard Thomas: Probably the most famous Bigfoot sighting was captured on the Paterson film. What do you think of the footage?

  

Regan Lee: I saw that film in the theatre the first time in, I think, the late 60s, maybe early 70s. I think it was the Pickfair theatre in L.A. Well, it's one of those things where I keep going back and forth, but I lean towards it's a real film of a real Sasquatch. I have days when I'm not so sure, but I then I go back the other way and say, "Yeah, it's real." Despite the hundreds of attempts to debunk the film, in my opinion no one has been successful in that. Something about the way the creature moves... not so easy to reject as fake. I also believe Bob Gimlin, who I saw at the OSS and just following him through the years. He's either a very good lair or actor or, he's telling the truth. I think he's telling the truth.

Richard Thomas: My own belief is that like UFOs there is no single explanation for Bigfoot sightings, some might be undiscovered animals and others might have some more esoteric explanations. In Doctor Who the Yeti are robots created by an alien intelligence to conquer the earth. You also write about UFOs, do you think there might be an alien connection or something equally strange with Bigfoot?

Regan Lee: I agree with your take Richard. There is a connection with UFOs, what we call aliens, and all kinds of weirdness and Bigfoot. There are plenty of stories of encounters involving Bigfoot and other strange things that forces us to consider them seriously. When I say "there's a connection" I mean that there are stories out there fro witnesses that we have to consider. What that means, is another story. Unfortunately, there are those in Bigfoot research that stick strictly to the flesh and blood angle and ignore or reject there weirder accounts. I have no idea what it all means. Like UFOs, it's tangled, complicated, and no one has the answer. I do think Bigfoot is a lot more than ust flesh and blood -- it's certainly not a simple "giant ape" -- there's a lot more going on here than that.

  

Richard Thomas: I think Mac Tonnies might have been on to something with his Crypto-terrestrial hypothesis to explain UFO sightings. His idea was that instead of beings from outer space, UFOs were really the work of a parallel civilization right here on the earth, possibly another species of human. Have you seen any evidence that far from being lower on the evolutionary ladder, or, a missing link, Bigfoot might be a parallel species to man and might be a lot more advanced than we think? For instance, do you think stories about Bigfoot being able to go invisible might be proof of them possessing superior technology like a Star Trek cloaking device or something similar?

  

Regan Lee: It is tragic that Mac died so young. He was really on to something with his theory. I still hang to an ET explanation for some of the UFO stuff -- but I have been thinking the past few years that it's much more than that, or, more specifically, not only that. Call them Djinn, or whatever, but entities do exist right alongside of us. I think they are more aware of us all the time than we are of them. Sometimes we get glimpses of them, experience them, much to their amusement. I don't know if they control that or if it's just the way it is. I base this opinion on the research and experiences of others but also, on my own direct experiences with entities.

 

I don't think Bigfoot posses literal technology -- like they have machines underground or off in some hidden forest laboratory. Although, Peter Guttilla, in his book Bigfoot Files, relates some very strange stories of Bigfoot, or Bigfoot type creatures, wearing a sort of tool belt with all kinds of electronic gadgets. Lots of other weird stories like that.

I think that, very possibly, Sasquatch posses abilities that allows them to manipulate energy, that causes us to experience things on some level we interpret as, say, paranormal.

Richard Thomas: In 2010 there were reports that Bigfoot had been shot. What was your reaction to this news and do you think we'll ever have definitive proof of the existence of Bigfoot? (I know a Russian expedition made some claims we'll ever have definitive proof of the existence of Bigfoot?

  

Regan Lee: I didn't believe the story, and I hoped it wasn't true. I am a NO KILL/NO CAPTURE person: very adamant about that. I've offended some in the Bigfoot community by being so... opinionated, I guess, about this, but when it comes to killing another being, I am opinionated. Whatever Bigfoot is, it's clearly highly intelligent, and no doubt as intelligent as us humans. Maybe more so. But the NO KILL stance isn't based solely on intelligence -- as if that's the only criteria. It's a living being, clearly wants to be left alone in the sense it hasn't come out and camped out on the local wildlife management steps-- who are we to go out and kill it, just because we want to? I know all the arguments about doing it for science, and I say: I don't care. It's not justification enough.

 

Okay, I went off on a tangent there. Back to topic. Like UFOs, I don't know if we'll ever get definitive proof that will satisfy everyone within all the infrastructures that Bigfoot exists. Both have remained maddeningly elusive for a very long time. That elusiveness is part of the phenomena. It's supposed to be forever elusive. I'm okay with that but it frustrates others, and some refuse to accept that. It's not hopeless; within that elusiveness answers can be found. It's difficult to explain. It's sort of a state of being.

I just don't think definitive proof will ever be produced because Sasquatch isn't "definitive."

Richard Thomas: For readers who want to begin their own research are there any books you would suggest they read, magazines they should subscribe to, or groups they should join?

  

Regan Lee: I come from a kind of folklore, Fortean perspective, so I'd recommend books that discuss the stranger side of Sasquatch encounters. Researchers like Stan Gordon,Henry Franzoni, Peter Guttilla, Lisa Shiel, Nick Redfern. Lee Harper wrote a book with Ida Kannenberg, My Brother is a Hairy Man. Sali Sheppherd- Wolford's Valley of the Skookum about her experiences with Bigfoot years ago; she's the mother of Bigfoot researcher Autumn Williams. Williams isn't specially about the paranormal or UFOs, she does solid field researcher, but she's open and sympathetic to the kinds of accounts that some others may reject or scoff at. There's Jack Jack Lapserits and Henry Franzoni. I'd also suggest writers like Patrick Harpur, Colin Bennett, George Hansen, who don't write about Bigfoot necessarily, but their views on the paranormal in general and a sort of Gestalt perspective.

  

There are a lot of blogs out there that I like but among the Bigfoot blogs that address the stranger side of things: Nick Redfern has something like, four hundred blogs or so; I like Thom Powell's thomsquatch,Lisa Shiel's blogs , Autumn Willaims at Oregon Bigfoot.com and Melissa Hovey's The Search for Bigfoot, Lon Strickler's Phantoms and Monsters. there are a lot more I can't think of but there are so many dedicated people out there sharing their experiences about Sasquatch and related subjects, it's just amazing.

See if there's a state or local Bigfoot group in your area and join up, depending on their policies. Some are very vocal in their insistence that no discussion of anything paranormal or weird take place. Even if you're not intending to do field research, or believe in a strictly flesh and blood creature, ti's good to take part. I belong to a local Bigfoot research organization that is definitely primary flesh and blood, field research but they're open to other theories; and I joined a few others that aren't local, but good people and again, there's a diversity of members regarding all kinds of experiences. So find the one that fits who you are.

No matter what anyone says about all this; Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts... no one knows everything and no one has a magic key to unlock the mystery. You are entitled to follow your own truths in all this and make up your own mind. For myself, I change my ideas about things as I continue to both experience events as well as where my studies take me.

Richard Thomas: Thanks Regan, where can readers find your columns and blogs?

  

Regan Lee: I contribute online to UFO Digest, UFO Mystic, Monster Track, Tim Binnall's Binnall of America, Skylaire Alfvegren's League of Western Fortean Intermediates and I run several blogs of my own; Frame 352 is my Bigfoot blog, Mothman Flutterings, Animal Forteana are others. And of course, there's The Orange Orb, Vintage U.F.O. and Saucer Sightings, which deals with UFOs. I've written articles for some of Tim Beckley's books and I write a column for UFO Magazine.

  

Thank you, Richard! You do great work and it's an honour.

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A Room 101 Interview with Gerrard Williams, co-author of Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolph Hitler

Last year, the web was ablaze with conspiracy theories when the news of Osama Bin Laden's death was announced to the world on the exact same day as Adolf Hitler's death was 66 years earlier, May 1st. Most of these conspiracies included the belief that Osama bin Laden hadn't been killed at all because the Al-Qaeda founder and leader had been dead for years. Similar uncertainty has surrounded the fate of Hitler after WWII, only instead of dying years before the war's end, many believe the Nazi Fuhrer escaped Germany to begin a new life in South America or elsewhere. Like Bin Laden, except for a few skull fragments which could belong to anyone, no body was ever shown to the war-weary public, so why shouldn't people question the official story?

In their new book, Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, Gerrard Williams and his co-author Simon Dunstan investigate claims that Hitler not only escaped to Argentina after the end of the war but that the deposed dictator even fathered children and lived until 1962.

Richard Thomas: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Gerrard, I read your new book Grey Wolf over the Christmas holidays and have lots to ask you about, but how did you start your writing career and have you always had an interest in the Second World War?

Gerrard Williams: Thanks for asking me, Richard. I trained as a Journalist with the NCTJ in Cardiff, but had always written for school competitions (Eisteddfod in Wales). Most of my life has been spent in international TV News with Reuters, BBC and SKY as well as time in Australia and Kenya. For people of my generation (I'm 52) WW2 always figured heavily in our lives. My Dad was a "Desert Rat" (8th Army N.Africa/Italy) and my mum was in the Army when they met. That and films, comics and books about the War always kept it at the forefront of our minds.

Richard Thomas: Last year the internet was ablaze with conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden being announced on the same day as Hitler's death was made public, May 1. And oddly enough Prince William and Kate Middleton got married on the same day as Eva Braun and Hitler as well, 29 April.

Do you think theories like these are in part due to the failure of historians to sufficiently investigate the fate of Hitler after the war, or, are there other reasons why people are still fascinated by conspiracies linked with the Nazis?

Gerrard Williams: I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories. In 33 years as a journalist any I've come across – and there have been a few – always seemed to fall apart at the first serious investigation. We should remember that the Nazis were the embodiment of Industrialised Evil, and also the biggest criminal gang in History. They cast a long and fascinating shadow, why would a civilized nation like Germany behave so badly?

Richard Thomas: What first persuaded you that the rumour about Hitler's escape from Germany in 1945 was anything more than just another conspiracy theory? Was it the revelation that the fragment of a skull the Russians have couldn't have belonged to Nazi dictator?

Gerrard Williams: I was filming a series of documentaries in Argentina partly on the Malvinas/Falklands War anniversary when I came across the story. I was going to do a silly conspiracy theory film about it – it would have been my first – but so many people I met and talked to were so sure that he had escaped and lived in their country, I decided it needed more investigation. I teamed up with my old friend and respected Historian Simon Dunstan and what we discovered shocked us both. There is far more evidence to his escape than to his death.

Richard Thomas: If Hitler did escape from Germany why do you think this wasn't discovered or maybe even ignored by the allies and mainstream historians?

Gerrard Williams: The amazing thing is that there were dozens of quite serious stories from news agencies and other sources that detailed his escape. I think elements in the US helped him and thousands of his supporters get away. Some people in Britain were complicit in the cover-up. Why did the head of MI6 hire an unknown medieval Historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper to write the "definitive" detective story of the deaths? Why didn't we put in serious investigators, Scotland Yard?

Richard Thomas: What do you think happened in Hitler's bunker in 1945 and how do you explain the account of Hitler's bodyguard that the bodies of Hitler and Eva were burned and buried?

Gerrard Williams: The details are in the book, but simply Hitler and Eva were swapped for two look-alikes. AH fled, and Bormann and "Gestapo" Mueller executed the two stand-ins when they were sure Hitler was clear. These bodies were allegedly burnt – although the Soviets at the time did not find any evidence of the bodies. They did find Josef and Magda Goebbels charred, but recognisable corpses and happily put them on display.

Richard Thomas: How did you begin your research and what led you to Argentina?

Gerrard Williams: I was sitting in a car park in the Green Zone in Baghdad in 2005 wearing a flak jacket, and helmet in 35-degree heat smoking a cigarette and a realization came over me. At 46 I was too old for "hard" news. I had always loved making long-form films and decided to see if I could make a living doing documentaries. I had never been to South America and starting with the letter "A" seemed sensible, hence Argentina. Since then I have been back 13 times, each time discovering something new and backing this up with intense research online, wading through literally hundreds of books, at Kew, in Berlin and in the US.

Richard Thomas: Where are some of the eerie places you visited in Argentina and was there a witness or other evidence that particularly impressed you?

Gerrard Williams: Hitler's home at Inalco is a strange place, a lovely estate which when built was virtually inaccessible, and the deserted Nazi-Funded Hotel Viena at Mar Chiquita is worth a visit.

Richard Thomas: I've often heard it said Hitler was suffering with Parkinson's disease by the end of the war and wouldn't have lived long even if he hadn't committed suicide. What evidence is there that Hitler lived until 1962? And what do you think happened to the former German Fuhrer's remains after his death?

Gerrard Williams: There is no evidence Hitler had Parkinson's . It's pure supposition based on a couple of home movies which show his right hand "trembling" while he holds it behind his back. Hitler was 56 in May 1945, probably massively stressed and known to have been suffering gastric problems – today they'd probably call it IBS – but still a relatively young man. The evidence is pretty detailed in "Grey Wolf" the FBI taking sightings seriously, numerous eye witnesses to his life in Argentina. Since publication we have had new information which adds to this. As for the body, I don't know. My best guess it was cremated and scattered on Bormann's orders to maintain the fiction that he died in Berlin.

Richard Thomas: One of the strangest revelations in the book is that Hitler and his wife may have had children. If this is true what do you think happened to Eva Braun and where do you think Hitler's children are now?

Gerrard Williams: Eva Braun was 33 in 1945. There is a lot of information about the birth of their daughter "Uschi" in Germany pre-war and also a still-born child in the middle of the war which was attested to by Eva's Mother. She seems to have also been newly pregnant – according to close members of their circle – in May 1945. There were rumours – which we so far have been unable to prove or disprove – that she was still alive in 2000 when she would have been 88. The two daughters would now be in their late 60's and early 70's. We still have leads to follow up. Our last confirmed sighting was from a senior Buenos Aires Human Rights lawyer who says she met "Uschi" in the late 80s.

Richard Thomas: Why do you think it is still important to find out the truth about the events of the final days of WWII over 65 years later?

Gerrard Williams: I'm a Journalist – of the old school – I think the truth is something that needs to be told.

Richard Thomas: Thanks Gerrard, where can readers buy the book and have you got a website you would like to plug?

Gerrard Williams: Thanks very much Richard. The book's available online at Amazon across the world, Barnes and Noble stores in the US – and online from them, Waterstones and all good book shops in the U.K. People who are interested can check out greywolfmedia.com. We're currently working on our follow-up.

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A Room 101 Interview with Mack Maloney, author of UFOs in Wartime

From the foo fighters of WWII to the ghost rockets of the early Cold War, UFO sightings have always seemed to be more frequent during times of conflict. In his book UFOs in Wartime, author Mack Maloney takes a look at sightings not just from 20th-century conflicts but as far back as the time of Alexander the Great too.

Richard Thomas: How did you first become interested in the UFO subject as a writer?

Mack Maloney: I've always been interested in UFOs. Even as a kid, I read anything I could get my hands on having to do with UFOs. I think everyone likes to believe there's more to life than just life, and for me the thought that these things were flying around, appearing to people, things from some other place, I just found it fascinating and still do. So when I had the opportunity to write a book about them, I jumped at the chance.

Richard Thomas: Why did you decide to focus on UFO reports during times of conflict in your new book UFOs in Wartime?

Mack Maloney: I was having lunch with my editor and I mentioned to him that from what I'd read in the past, it seemed that lots of people see UFOs during times of war or just before a war starts. I had just read something about the foo fighters, and I'd known about the UFO incursions over U.S. ICBM bases in the 60s and 70s, and I just had the thought that whatever UFOs are, they might be particularly interested in us when we are either at war or preparing for war. My editor thought that it might be a good idea for a non-fiction book, even though I'm primarily a fiction writer. We went through the process and the book is the result.

Richard Thomas: The subheading of your book is What They Didn't Want You To Know. What do you think the authorities don't want us to know?

Mack Maloney: They don't want us to know what they know about UFOs. It's as simple as that. But the question is, what do they know? Do they know what UFOs are, and are keeping this news from us? Or do they not know what they are and they're keeping that news from us? It's a 50-50 question it could go either way. But they know a lot more than they are letting on. I'm absolutely convinced of that.

Richard Thomas: One of the earliest UFO reports you discuss in the book is Christopher Columbus' sighting. What do you think Columbus saw that night and would you agree that too much attention has been given to the Kenneth Arnold sighting and Roswell Incident from 1947 as the start of the modern UFO era?

Mack Maloney: What did Columbus see? It seems like he saw what would be normally described as a UFO a bright light, acting strangely in the sky, something that is not a star or the moon, or a meteor falling to earth. Whatever those things are, that's what Columbus saw. As for Kenneth Arnold's sighting being given too much attention, I agree that it has, at least in the context that these unidentified flying objects have been around for centuries. They didn't suddenly appear that day Kenneth Arnold saw them. What happened that day was the American press finally woke up to the story and branded them in this case, as flying saucers.

Once that happened then everyone became aware that unknown things were flying through our skies. But up to that point, no one in the media and apparently not in the military either, had ever thought that the foo fighters of World War Two and the Ghost Rockets of 1946, and the Ghost Fliers of 1933 and all these things that were seen by Alexander the Great and by people in the Bible and in medieval times were all connected that they were UFOs too. We just hadn't given them a name yet. So, yes, the popular involvement started with Kenneth Arnold's sighting, but UFOs had been around a long time before that. And as for Roswell -- I don't think anything extraordinary happened there. No crashed saucer, no recovered bodies. Nothing.

Richard Thomas: The Los Angeles Air Raid is perhaps the best-known UFO case from WWII in the United States. What do you think of the speculation that the US Army was able to shoot down and recover whatever was in the air on that day?

Mack Maloney: I did not come across anything to indicate the Army or the Navy shot down anything that night. The only thing that came out of the sky were spent anti-aircraft shells falling back to earth after being shot at whatever was flying overhead and missing their target. What is apparent is that both the Army and Navy were completely baffled and confused about what happened and they were at each other's throats the next day.

Richard Thomas: The most famous UFOs from the Second World War are the "foo fighters" spotted by both Allied and Axis pilots during that war. What are your thoughts on Nick Cook's book The Hunt for Zero Point in which he speculates that the Nazis could have been working on anti-gravity saucer-shaped aircraft?

Mack Maloney: I haven't read Nick Cook's book, so I can't comment on it directly. However, I will say that as far as the speculation that the foo fighters were actually Nazi superweapons, we reject that notion in the book. Simply put, the Nazis didn't have the resources from 1943 onward to even maintain their armies in the field, never mind create some futuristic flying machines that were seen doing fantastic things. By 1944, the Nazis were building the cockpits of their Me-262 jet fighters out of wood because they didn't have enough metal and steel to do the job. Second, if the foo fighters were Nazi weapons, why isn't there a single instance of a foo fighter firing on any Allied warplanes? If they were Nazi superweapons, why were they seen the Pacific theatre as well? Why was no vast super weapons manufacturing facility ever found in Germany after hostilities had ceased? And finally, if the Germans had these fantastic weapons, why did they lose the war?

Richard Thomas: The Rendlesham Forest Incident is often called the "British Roswell" but Jacques Vallee has suggested that it was a psy-op. How likely or unlikely do you think that explanations is?

Mack Maloney: I respect Jacques Vallee for all the tremendous work he has done in this field. And I've read only very little about his theory that the whole Rendlesham Affair was a psy-ops. But my first reaction would be to question whether the U.S. military or some U.S. intelligence service would actually run a psy-ops over the Christmas holidays. Why then? Government spooks have lives too. They go on vacation. They need time off. It seems like an unlikely time to conduct a psy-ops. Plus how was it done? Did the spooks construct a fake device that was able to float above the forest floor and then take off at a high rate of speed? Where they able to construct the half dozen large glowing lights that people saw in the sky one of those nights? Were they able to somehow stage the "crash" of some object into the woods and have it shine brightly with three vivid colours? Were they able to manipulate the radiation detection devices on aircraft flying over the forest to make it seem like the area was saturated with radiation? That's a lot of trouble to go through to psychologically test a bunch of Air Force types who, for whatever reason, couldn't get a holiday leave to go home for Christmas.

Richard Thomas: What do you think are some of the other best UFO cases from the Cold War era, not just the 1980s but the Korean and Vietnam Wars too?

Mack Maloney: The Korean War was pivotal in the U.S. government's investigation of UFOs. They'd closed up Project Grudge about six months before war broke out, basically saying UFOs didn't exist and that they were either misidentified aerial phenomena, the work of crackpots or people with delusions. But then, once the war broke out, a lot of U.S. pilots started seeing UFOs over Korea and the U.S. military realized they couldn't say all their pilots were crazy or hoaxers or delusional. So, they were stuck. Some UFO researchers believe that was one big reason the Air Force started Project Blue Book. So many of their pilots were seeing UFOs over Korea, they just couldn't ignore it. And there were some spectacular sightings. About two months into the war, three Navy fighter bombers were about to bomb a North Korean convoy when they encountered two enormous flying discs. And I mean these things were gigantic.

Then there were a couple cases of UFOs orbiting high above U.S. ships out at sea and playing hide and seek with carrier aircraft sent up to intercept them. There's an incredible story told by Dr Richard Haines in his book, Advanced Aerial Devices Reported During the Korean War, about a UFO appearing in the midst of a battle between U.S. infantry and North Korean soldiers. The object took fire from both sides, but then it bathed the American soldiers with some kind of ray, and two days later, nearly all of them were very sick. Really frightening stuff. I highly recommend the Haines book to anyone who wants to learn what happened in Korea when it came to UFOs. We just scratch the surface in our book.

For Vietnam, we came across a number of episodes. All of the sightings from Vietnam are strange because, I believe, the war itself was very strange. The most well-known is probably the Hobart Case, where US fighter planes fired at UFOs off the coast of the DMZ and wound up hitting this Australian warship, the HMAS Hobart, and killing four Australian sailors and wounding dozens of others. A very tragic story that got very little play here in the States at the time.

Richard Thomas: Are there any cases from the recent civil war in Libya or other recent conflicts you would like to include if you ever did a second edition?

Mack Maloney: If we did a second edition, we'd have to start just before 9/11, and cover all the conflicts in the Middle East. That might take up the entire book: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria maybe. That whole part of the world is turning upside down and when things like that happen, especially militarily, UFOs are usually on hand. Who knows what stories are out there, just waiting to be documented?

Richard Thomas: Where can readers buy UFOs in Wartime and have you got any plans for another UFO book?

Mack Maloney: UFOs in Wartime is published by Penguin-Berkley Books, so it's on sale at every bookstore in the United States and Canada. It can also be bought online at Amazon.

Whether there will be another UFO book in the near future, time will tell. I would like to do another one, but in a strange way our friends in the UFOs will have to cooperate and provide us some good stories. And so far, they're not returning my calls.

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A Room 101 Interview with Richard Thomas

Henry Baum of henrybaum.com turns the tables on me and asks me some questions about my new book PARA-NEWS - UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptozoology and much much more published by Bretwalda Books.

Henry Baum: Hey Richard,

As I mentioned on Facebook, one of the major things that struck me about your book was the references to Alex Jones, and these are questions that have been gnawing at me, so I hope you don't mind the focus. I get pretty long-winded here, hope that's not a problem...

On with the questions …

In your book, you frequently raise the spectre of Alex Jones and his ideas on eugenics, the New World Order, and so on. Personally, I take some issue with Alex Jones for a few reasons, and I wonder if you could address them. The main thing that leaps out about Alex Jones is that he never raises the UFO issue - you actually interview someone at Infowars who seems pretty disinterested in the whole subject. This seems like a fairly impossible assertion to make - it's pretty clear that there is something going on with the UFO issue, if only because the government's explanation for many sightings is so suspiciously stupid. If that's the case, and there is also a conspiracy to bring about a New World Order, then the two cannot be separated. When you look through at the NWO through the lens of the UFO issue then the NWO makes more sense - not just a way to aimlessly enslave us, but perhaps to make the population more controllable in the event of first contact. Do you think that's a possibility?

Richard Thomas: I've been following Alex Jones off and on since about 2000 when I saw him in an episode of Jon Ronson's Secret Rulers of the World series for Channel Four. He's had a big impact on the way I see the world and interpret world events. However, I do agree that he is missing a huge piece of the puzzle by not looking at the UFO topic in more depth. That said, trying to get the average person to accept that the Bilderberg Group really does exist is hard enough … so I can understand why Alex Jones doesn't cover the topic as much as UFO researchers would like him to.

More recently, however, I have noticed that Alex is talking about UFOs a lot more on his radio show. Here you can listen to him and David Icke talk about Project Blue Beam.

I myself believe that the globalists will use any crisis be it real or manufactured to further their goal of a one world government, be it global warming, terrorism, Colonel Gaddafi, or yes, UFOs.

A lot of UFO researchers tend to romanticise what they call “Disclosure”, the day when the world is finally told the truth (whatever that is) about what the US government and others really know about UFOs. I'm more cautious. I think if Disclosure ever really does occur (and that's a big if) we have to be careful that the existence of extraterrestrials or whatever isn't used as a justification to turn the world into a giant police state. Rahm Emanuel said "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste" and his words sum up the mentality of the globalists perfectly.

Henry Baum: I guess another way of saying this is that what he sees as nefarious might actually have a purpose. Granted, the way they're going about globalization is a total nightmare. I just can't shed the feeling that they have a grander plan than just profit or enslavement. I mean if you have a billion dollars, what's 2 billion? Maybe they're just addicts, I don't know. But I also think all that profit might be going to black projects - sort of like the arks in the otherwise-terrible "2012" movie. That's not a way of excusing them, but just saying that there's more purpose to this than enslavement for the hell of it. Of course. Hitler had a "purpose" too, so there's a lot to be wary of. In sum: do you think it's possible that a one-world government could - in the very long term - potentially be positive?

Richard Thomas: No I don't. Let's say just for the sake of argument that the globalists have a higher purpose of some kind for what they're doing. Maybe they know about a fleet of marauding alien spaceships heading for Earth like in the film Independence Day or something like that, and the reason they want a world government and world army is so that the Earth will be able to defend itself against the alien invaders. That doesn't change the fact that we'll still be living inside a giant dictatorship created in stealth … maybe we would be better off under the aliens, lol.

But seriously even if the globalists were honest and open about what they were doing, and openly said they wanted to create a world government but it's okay because it's going to be a democratic one, I would still be very against the idea. I don't believe something the size of a world government could function as a democracy and it wouldn't be long before it became a dictatorship. Which is why I believe a world government and even the European Union are bad ideas to begin with.

Henry Baum: I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit because the globalists have really tipped their hand about the kind of world they want and it's a bad one. But for the sake of argument - say there was disclosure of an alien that was totally benign. Given the state of the world, releasing this info could be apocalyptic. If people get this upset about sharia law and illegal immigrants, what will the American public - let alone Middle Eastern terrorists - do with a literal alien? Seen through the lens of disclosure, the Patriot Act makes more sense. Not just to stop terrorism in 2011, but to keep an eye on the total global freakout that could be coming. I'm not longing for a police state or anything, but supposing 1% of what we know about the UFO is true - that amounts to a massive amount of world-changing information. Everything that's happened - 9-11, the war in Iraq, and so on - takes on a new meaning. So I wonder if those romantics about disclosure would trade some of their liberty for the big reveal if it meant finally getting some answers to the UFO enigma.

What's always troubled me is that people like Bush Sr. or Dick Cheney are the ones who are more likely to know the story behind UFO secrecy. There's a strange alignment between UFO secrecy and right wing ideology. Do you think it's possible to have disclosure without the world turning into a police state - given the impact it would have on religious ideology and technology?

Richard Thomas: Well it depends what we're told. Not everyone is convinced we're dealing with aliens from outer space. But if we are I suppose if they were “totally benign” and no threat it is possible to have Disclosure without the world turning into a police state. But if they're not. No I don't think it looks good. After 9/11 many people were willing to give up their civil liberties to fight a couple Islamic terrorists, imagine what they would be willing to do to combat a threat from outer space. But this is all just speculation.

Henry Baum: I also wonder about his ideas on Christianity. In his Bohemian Grove video, he points out that the men are sinister because they worship "the occult." He's even targeted Peter Joseph of "Zeitgeist" for being part of the New Age conspiracy, as if Christianity is the one true faith. If you watch "Zeitgeist" or "The God Who Wasn't There" it's pretty clear that the story of Christianity is fabricated. So Alex Jones believes in many conspiracies except one of the biggest: the fabrication of the Jesus story. Personally, I'd rather there be a universal religion than saying this one book (which advocates stoning heretics, among other things) is the be all end all of religious principles. What's your view of spirituality as it pertains to the NWO, or even to UFOs?

Richard Thomas: There's no question that early Christianity was hijacked by the Roman Empire. Christmas is as about as Christian as Halloween, December 25 was an important day to pagans. But I still celebrate it and I believe everyone has the right to believe, think, say, or do as they please as long as they don't knowingly lie or physically try to hurt anybody else.

Henry Baum: Finally, I wonder about things like population control. Studying population growth is not the same thing as advocating genocide, nor is advocating birth control. Planned Parenthood isn't evil - as he says in "Endgame" (which you reference). The Bilderberg conference might be totally sinister, but on the surface a bunch of powerful people all getting together to discuss the state of the world makes sense - why wouldn't they do that? I'm not even going to get into Global Warming science, as that's so loaded. I guess I never see in him any possible solutions - just a lot of paranoia about people who are looking for solutions. Certainly, some of these people are evil, but not all. Plainly our world is disordered, so people looking for a (lowercase) new world order might not all be dangerous.

I'm beginning to sound like a fat-cat apologist. It absolutely pisses me off that Obama and Bush are so identical and the wealthy elite are profiting off the backs of everyone else and raping the planet. They really seem to be sowing the seeds of disorder, rather than sustainability. If you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention. Jones' answer is to support Ron and Rand Paul - which I don't see as feasible. Giving corporations even more power via deregulation isn't the solution - i.e. Big Business isn't any better than Big Government. So I'm wondering what your ideal system would be, politically or economically.

Richard Thomas: Well my main problem with the Bilderburg Group is that most people have never even heard about them. I don't think that many powerful people should be allowed to meet in secret once a year and nothing be said about it in the media. Thankfully because of the hard work of dedicated researchers and activists around the world that is starting to change.

I get what you're saying about birth control etc, but there's no question that population reduction seems to be a big part of the globalist agenda. You just have to look at the comments of people like Prince Philip or Ted Turner and others.

"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."

- Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, in the foreword to If I Were an Animal 

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."

- Ted Turner, founder of CNN 

"And I actually think the world will be much better when there's only 10 or 20 percent of us left."

- Dr Eric Pianka, University of Texas biologist

What kind of system would I like?

First I think it's important to stress I don't believe in Utopia. There's no such thing, you'll never have a perfect world and every attempt at creating one has always led to mass slaughter and tyranny. I think we need to recognise that first.

I think the founders of the United States had some good ideas. Things like a written constitution that protected the freedom of speech and other rights of the people, and an educated, informed public who could understand what that constitution said. Now, of course, even the early United States had its problems, slavery being a big one. But I think that's a good place to start. But if readers want to disagree with me … great … it's called freedom. Hopefully, we can all agree on that.

Richard's new ebook PARA-NEWS - UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, Cryptozoology and much much more is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Also, please 'like' the Para-News Facebook page.

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A Room 101 Interview with Jim Marrs

One of my favourite films is Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK. Although Stone took a lot of creative licence in the film, for instance merging different historical characters into a single character like the "MR X" character, the film was largely based on two non-fiction assassination books. The first was On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, written by former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only prosecutor to bring a trial for the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and who is played by Kevin Costner in the Oliver Stone film.

The second book which informed the film was Crossfire by Jim Marrs. I remember listening to Jim interviewed about the assassination on The Alex Jones Show and that interview really captivated me and I began reading more and more books about the assassinations of the 1960s. What follows is my own interview with Jim Marrs about the JFK assassination and some of the parallels with 9/11.

Richard Thomas: I've always had an interest in the paranormal and unexplained, but Oliver Stone's film JFK and your book Crossfire played a large part in my becoming interested in the JFK assassination and other conspiracy topics. How did you first begin researching the JFK assassination and what exactly do you think happened in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963?

Jim Marrs: On Nov. 22, 1963, I was a journalism major at the University of North Texas and I began looking into the JFK assassination on the day it happened. I still have the Dallas and Fort Worth newspapers from that day to include the UNT campus special edition. I knew something was funny right from the start because witnesses were on TV stating that two shots came one on top of the other --- Bang! Bang! At the time I was a deer hunter and had bolt-action rifles of my own and I knew that the bolt on a bolt-action rifle had to be cycled before firing again. Therefore, one could not get two shots close together. But at that time, although I was puzzled, I had no alternative but to believe the official version.

As to what happened in Dallas, President Kennedy was killed in a military-style ambush involving organized crime with the active assistance of elements within the federal government of the United States to include the CIA, FBI and military. Pressure from the top thwarted any truthful investigation. The Kennedy assassination was a true coup d'etat—a sudden and violent shift of power to the right in this country. And that power remains with us today.

Richard Thomas: The final documentary in Nigel Turner's 9-part series The Men Who Killed Kennedy, "The Guilty Men," which speculated about Lyndon Johnson's involvement in the assassination was banned after its initial broadcast on the History Channel back in 2003. How significant do you think LBJ's involvement was in the assassination, and are there any parallels to be made with 9/11 and George Bush's War on Terror continuing under President Obama?

Jim Marrs: Common sense would dictate that one does not kill the president of the United States without being assured that his successor would not track and prosecute the culprits. I do not personally believe that LBJ had any foreknowledge of the details of the plan as he would have wanted "plausible deniability." However, I think he generally knew what was up and was in agreement as it was his lifelong dream to become president and he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

The parallels between the JFK assassination and 9/11 are numerous. In many ways, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks fit the same template as the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963:

• Within hours, despite a lack of real evidence, one man was blamed for the event along with hints that he was connected to foreign enemies.

• Official pronouncements were widely publicized only to be quietly admitted as errors later on.

• Although within the jurisdiction of the local authorities, the entire case was usurped by the FBI and CIA, both agencies under the control of a president who benefited from the tragedy. In 2001, FEMA, also controlled by the president, was added to this list.

• A group of specialists (medical in the JFK's case and engineers in that of the WTC) was convened but limited in what they could view and study, blocked from conducting an objective probe by federal officials.

• Evidence in the case was hastily removed and destroyed, forever lost to an impartial and meaningful investigation.

• More evidence was locked away in government files under the excuse of "national security."

• Federal malfeasance was excused by claiming lack of manpower and resources and no one was disciplined or fired. Federal agency budgets were increased.

• Any alternative to the official version of events was decried as "conspiracy theory" and "unpatriotic."

• The federal government used the event to increase its own centralized power.

• A foreign war (Vietnam in JFK's case and Iraq and Afghanistan today), which otherwise would have been opposed, was supported by a grieving population.

• A top government leader (then LBJ and now Bush), formerly under suspicion for election fraud and corrupt business dealings, was suddenly propelled to new heights of popularity.

• Many citizens knew or suspected that the official version of events was incorrect but were afraid to speak out.

• A compliant and sycophantic mass media was content to parrot merely the official version of events and studiously avoided asking the hard questions that might have revealed the truth.

• In yet another strange parallel to the Kennedy assassination, in the months and years following 9/11, an increasing number of potentially crucial witnesses began suffering untimely deaths.

Richard Thomas: Your second most recent book is called The Rise of the Fourth Reich. The Third Reich was born out of Hitler's Enabling Act and the end of the democratic Weimar Republic, would you agree that in the wake of the JFK assassination and 9/11 America has undergone a similar metamorphosis to 1930s Germany or the Roman Republic in the wake of Julius Caesars' assassination in 44 BC?

Jim Marrs: The American Republic has been lost to a National Security State Empire with many parallels to Rome and Hitler's Third Reich – 9/11 = Reichstag fire; the PATRIOT Act = the Enabling Act; Homeland Security = Secret State Police; secret detention centres = concentration camps; Nazi National ID cards = National ID Act of 2005, etc.

Richard Thomas: In Alex Jones' 2000 film Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove, the popular alternative radio show host exposed the bizarre annual "cremation of care" event, in which, as strange as it sounds, many of America's biggest names apparently meet up to conduct a mock child sacrifice to a forty foot stone owl deity, allegedly called Moloch. Have you seen any evidence of similar occult overtones in the JFK assassination or 9/11, or, even anywhere else?

Jim Marrs: There are many odd and puzzling aspects to both the JFK assassination and 9/11, for example, the strange similarities in names and places between the death of Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, of which many people are aware. Dealey Plaza sits on the 33-degree parallel which has significant Masonic meaning. There are many other such oddities but we must not let this fascinating aspect distract us from the hard factual evidence of conspiracy in both cases.

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A Room 101 Interview with Keith Chester: Author of Strange Company - Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII

Almost every book I've ever read dealing with UFOs seems to start with either Kenneth Arnold's June 24, 1947 sighting, or the early July 1947 Roswell Incident. Sometimes there's a brief mention of the foo fighters from WWII too, and better-researched histories might mention the ghost aircraft of WWI or even the phantom airships that made headlines across the United States in the late 19th century. But Keith Chester's Strange Company- Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII is the first book I've come across that exclusively deals with pre-1947 sightings. What follows is an interview with Keith Chester about his unique book and research.

Richard Thomas: Just wanted to start by saying thanks for doing the interview, I remember your appearance on BoA: Audio back in 2007 and you've been on my list of people I'd like to interview for a while now. I know your book Strange Company mainly focuses on "military encounters with UFOs in WWII" and it's slightly off topic, but with the recent passing of Zecharia Sitchin what's your take on the ancient astronaut hypotheses, that is that aliens have been visiting the earth for thousands perhaps even millions of years and might have even played some kind of major role in mankind's genetic and/or technological evolution?

Keith Chester: Richard, glad we're communicating with one another. I have entertained the ancient astronaut hypothesis since the late 1960s, when I was first introduced to the topic by Erich von Däniken's work, especially after seeing the 1973 documentary, In Search of Ancient Astronauts. That film really got me thinking and I remember being fascinated by the possibility that Earth had been visited by extraterrestrials. I didn't start reading any of Sitchin's works until the late 1980s. It was his scholarly approach that attracted my attention. It seemed he had taken the subject matter to the next level. Whether Sitchin interpreted his research findings accurately, I don't know. But, for me, that really does not matter. The ancient astronaut hypothesis was one of the first subjects I discovered as a kid that excited me about the unknown. It was one of the first times I remember learning of such an idea. It inspired me to think outside the box. More importantly, it was responsible for my interest in the UFO phenomenon, of which I'm still passionately interested in studying. I have a very open mind regarding such concepts. That said, I must point out, however, it is important to keep myself grounded by a dose of healthy scepticism, and not fall prey to unfounded faith and belief systems. So, the ancient astronaut hypothesis can't be ignored.

Richard Thomas: Probably the most famous UFOs reported during WWII were the "foo fighters," what do you think these odd balls of light represented?

Keith Chester: When the foo fighters were reported, it was thought by most all they were some kind of secret German technology. Many reports seem to indicate the objects could be explained by a multitude of conventional explanations, such as rockets, flares, balloons and jets. Though the intelligence memoranda indicated the foo fighters were conventional objects, as the war progressed, and the sighting reports kept coming in, allied intelligence could not confirm what these objects were. Aircraft, some absolutely huge in size, that could hover, travel at phenomenal speeds, and conduct seemingly impossible manoeuvres, are mystifying. In fact, after the war ended in Europe and the sighting continued in the Pacific theater of operations, there were still no answers.

The objects seemed to have come right from the pages of science fiction.

The problem is that these incredible sightings are not available in the official documentation. That means we have to take the word of the veterans. And I am in no position to tell them that they are fools, were drunk, poor observers, or were suffering from war nerves. Some of the veterans I spoke with felt the objects were unconventional, meaning they defied known conventional technology of the day.

At this time, I don't see conventional explanations for some of the more remarkable sightings and am willing to entertain an extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Richard Thomas: Perhaps the most famous UFO sighting during WWII has to be the 1941 Los Angeles Air Raid, what do the official files say about the incident also known as the Battle of Los Angeles?

Keith Chester: The official documentation indicates something real was observed. Whatever these objects were, and aside from the civilian accounts, the military witness accounts varied dramatically; some observers witnessed one object, while others witnessed multiple objects. Descriptions of size, shape, speed, and color also varied. We know the anti-aircraft batteries opened fire. We have a dramatic photograph that appears to reveal an object caught in the crosshairs of several searchlights.

And we know a report was made and passed to President Roosevelt concerning the event. In 1942, due to Pearl Harbor, the United States, especially the east and west coasts, were on edge. Official thoughts about what occurred in those early hours on February 25, 1942, ranged from war nerves to a psychological warfare exercise. But, to my knowledge, there has been no official documents released that reveal what happened.

Richard Thomas: In Timothy Good's latest book, Need To Know, the best-selling UFO author writes about an alleged 1933 UFO crash recovery in Milan, Italy, and the subsequent creation of a top-secret UFO group - Gabinetto RS/33 - to study "unknown aircraft." In my 2008 interview with Good he also mentioned that "Other governments – that of Sweden in particular – also became concerned about intrusions of strange flying machines that year," have you come across any other stories of pre-Roswell crashes and how significant do you think the RS/33 documents are for UFO studies?

Keith Chester: Starting in 1933, Sweden, Finland, and Norway were being over-flown by unknown objects. This was the first time known official military investigations were initiated relating to aerial phenomena. It was a time in UFO history known as the "Scandinavian Sightings." Known in the press as "ghost aviators" and "phantom fliers," the reports ranged from lights in the sky to craft with propellers. Though the objects seemed conventional, there were several issues that puzzled Military authorities. They were unable to establish how such flights could occur over rough mountainous regions in harsh weather, including blinding snow storms, especially since most all aircraft flying in the early 1930s were bi-planes. The authorities were further puzzled over the skill needed to operate in such conditions, since it exceeded that of Europe's best-known pilots. Unless Russia or Germany, or both countries, were operating very secret and advanced aircraft, then some of the sightings defied conventional wisdom. And that is the primary reason these objects remained a mystery.

Regarding the Italian documents, if real, they are definitely significant. I have not seen any documentation during my research that indicates any crash and retrieval operations took place during the war. I am, however, open-minded about such a possibility.

Richard Thomas: The newspaper headlines from the late 1940s speak of "flying disks" and "ghost rockets" but the idea that UFOs might be from outer space didn't really gain popularity until Major Donald Keyhoe's 1949 article in Fate magazine, "The Flying Saucers Are Real," which in 1950 Keyhoe expanded into his best selling book. (Although, I know Mussolini made some odd comments (probably just in jest) about the "warlike inhabitants of the planet Mars" in a speech once.) Do any of the pre-1947 UFO files you've looked at indicate the Allies thought UFOs might represent something other than Axis weapons or experimental aircraft or vice versa even?

Keith Chester: During WWII, the first, and foremost, thoughts by allied air intelligence were the sightings represented enemy technology, after satisfactorily ruling out conventional ordnance and other possibilities. If the sightings were not misidentifications of conventional weaponry, meteorological and celestial phenomena, war nerves, or secret axis weaponry, then there is reason to suggest an extraterrestrial explanation was explored.

I feel the most important document uncovered that strengthens the case that unconventional aircraft were observed comes from a document discovered by British researchers, Dr David Clarke and Andy Roberts, in the National Archives in London. Over Turin, Italy on November 28/29, an "object , 200-300 feet long, travelling up to 500 mph, with "four red lights spaced at equal distance along its body, " was reported by Lancaster bomber crew. What gives this report real strength that something very unusual was observed appears in a follow-up report to Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command by No. 5 Group: "Herewith a copy of a report received from a crew of a Lancaster after raid on Turin. The crew refuses to be shaken in their story in the face of the usual banter." No. 5 Group's statement to Bomber Command is very telling in that it reveals the aircrew reports were not well received by the air intelligence men debriefing them. The reports were too unbelievable. And this is very important.

The intelligence memoranda I uncovered reveals confusion existed at the highest military levels. When reading some of these reports, of which many excerpts are included in my book, one can clearly see the struggle to find conventional answers for the sightings. It's as if the sightings were lifted from the pages of pulp science fiction; truly "Buck Rogers" and "Flash Gordon" material. When these intelligence reports are combined with the witness testimony, not included in the official reports, and are viewed as a collective whole, then the overall picture changes, thus strengthening the extraterrestrial hypothesis. This gives what I've assembled in my book its power. This is what I'm hoping the reader of my book will appreciate.

Richard Thomas: In his book The Hunt for Zero Point, Jane's Defence Weekly journalist Nick Cook speculates that "anti-gravity" aircraft technology captured from the Nazis by the United States during WWII might be responsible for UFO sightings in the post-war era. What are your thoughts on what Cook calls "the legend" in his book, and how strong in your opinion is the evidence for Nazi flying saucers? Also have you looked into the Nazi "bell" device in Joseph P. Farrell's The SS Brotherhood of the Bell at all?

Keith Chester: If I understand "the legend," correctly, it is basically the accumulation of documents and testimony that collectively address a subject, such as the Nazi UFO story, but when each piece of information is scrutinized, one finds out that particular piece of information is either false or can't be verified, thus becoming what is considered, in the industry, "the legend."

When I read Nick Cook's book, The Hunt for Zero Point, I was fascinated. I knew little about the anti-gravity subject. "The Hunt" grabbed my attention and I wanted to learn more about the story. I found Cook's investigation fascinating and I definitely began to question if such a breakthrough in anti-gravity had occurred. Aeronautics and aeronautic applications, such as anti-gravity, is a subject matter related to Cook's field of expertise, so for him to become interested in following the alleged "Bell" story, I felt compelled to follow his journey. Farrell's research adds a new layer of information to the "Bell" investigation. I must say, though, both Cook and Farrell, and others, have helped open awareness to a possibility that is pretty interesting.

Richard Thomas: What do you think were the most impressive UFO sightings documented in your book, and are there any cases you learned of after publishing you wish you could go back and include now? The WWII RAF sighting that supposedly resulted in PM Winston Churchill calling for a cover-up perhaps?

Keith Chester: For me, the most impressive sightings are those provided by the witnesses. Again, this is information that has not been verified. The most spectacular sightings, for me, were: A June 25, 1942 when a large circular object with high manoeuvrability was fired upon by an RAF bomber crew; A May 28/29 1943 sighting of a cylindrical object with portholes, hanging motionless and then speeding away at thousands of miles per hour; August 12, 1944 similar type sighting; November 1944 sighting of a circular object that some of the crew felt its heat and followed their bomber for 50 minutes; 1945 sighting of small several circular objects low above the ground, moving silently at low altitude; and, of course, Leonard Stringfield's daytime sighting of three tear-drop shaped objects flying in formation, possible causing malfunction to his aircraft.

The latest release of documents pertaining to one of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's RAF bodyguards, who claimed he heard a discussion between Churchill and General Eisenhower discuss remarkable UFO encounters is very interesting. Unfortunately, the new documents are only those generated by the RAF bodyguard's grandson, wanting information from the British government.

Since publication of my book, I have not located more documentation, but I'm still actively searching.

Richard Thomas: Thanks for doing the interview Keith, where can readers buy the book, and have you got a website or anything else you would like to plug?

Keith Chester: Richard, thanks for giving me the opportunity to have this interview. I enjoyed it. For those interested in my book, you can get it online from Anomalist Books. It can also be ordered from Amazon.com and at your local books stores, including Barnes and Noble and Borders, along with their on-line sites. You can find my web blog at keith-chester.blogspot.com.

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A Room 101 Interview with Mark Pilkington

Is it possible that instead of perpetrating a UFO cover-up the US intelligence agencies have really been promoting ideas like alien abductions, UFO crashes and recoveries, and secret bases all along? That’s what Mark Pilkington alleges in his controversial new book, Mirage Men: A Journey in Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs. Sceptical but putting nothing past the US military-industrial complex I decided to actually read the book a lot of UFOlogists will try and ignore. Impressed, if not convinced, I decided to get in touch with Mark Pilkington to ask the author a few questions.

Richard Thomas: First things first. Thank you for giving us the time to answer these questions, I really appreciate it and I’m sure our readers will too.

Reading the book you're obviously a lot more sceptical about UFOs or to be more precise the ETH than you were when you first got interested in the subject. How did you first become interested in UFOs and how has your view of the phenomenon evolved since that time, and why?

Mark Pilkington: I've been interested in Fortean phenomena all my life – HG Wells' War of the Worlds was my favourite book aged about 7 or 8 and I grew up reading 2000AD (the British SF comic) and as much SF, fantasy and horror as I could get my mitts on. I found my first copy of Fortean Times in the mid-1980s aged about 13 and read Timothy Good's Above Top Secret when I was 14 in 1987. UFOs always appealed to me because they seemed to be the most accessible form of anomalous phenomena – you could look up at the night sky wherever you were and imagine seeing one.

I'm not sceptical about UFOs themselves – people see them every day – nor am I sceptical of the existence of ET life, I believe it's out there, and I can accept that it will come here and perhaps even has done at some point in our past. What I *am* very sceptical of is the popular notion of ET visitation as presented in the UFO lore that has emerged since the late 1940s. This has developed out of a multi-directional feedback loop between UFO experiencers, UFO book authors, mainstream popular culture and those in the military and intelligence worlds who would exploit and shape these beliefs and ideas.

Each era gets the UFOs and ETs that it desires, they are a culturally constructed phenomenon. In the book I demonstrate, for example, that there's nothing alien about flying saucers, which were synonymous with ET visitation from the 1950s through to the 1970s. Whether or not the Germans, British or Americans ever successfully flew disc craft at great speed, they certainly tried, as far back as the 1930s. Perhaps they did fly but were less useful than more conventional types of aircraft.

Richard Thomas: You write early in the book about some UFO sightings of your own you had (or thought you had) when you were younger. What did you see and is there any doubt at all in your mind that these weren’t anonymous like you originally thought?

Mark Pilkington: I open the book with a sighting of three silver spheres seen by myself and two friends in Yosemite national park in 1995. I still have no idea what these were, though I'm still confident that they weren't balloons. I actually tried to track down my companions, who I've since lost touch with, to ask them to send me their memories of what we saw, as I thought it would be a fascinating demonstration of the fallibility of memory if they described something entirely mundane or different. If I hear from them I will certainly publish their stories on the Mirage Men blog. As I point out in the book, silver spheres were seen at least as far back as WWII, and are still reported to this day. I have no idea what the things we saw were.

Richard Thomas: I haven’t looked into it much but after I read the back of your book I automatically thought of Project Blue Beam, a conspiracy theory on the web that the US Government are planning on staging a fake alien invasion to bring about a global police state. Do you think there might just be a seed of truth to such paranoid thinking?

Mark Pilkington: The earliest version of this story I know of is a speech made by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to the UN in March 1947, in which he posits that an invasion by Martians would be the only thing that might unite the world's nations. Of course the Roswell incident took place four months later, something that was picked up on by former intelligence agent Bernard Newman in his 1948 novel The Flying Saucer. In which scientists stage a fake invasion to bring about world peace.

Reagan famously alluded to the idea again in 1987, also talking to the UN. It's a common motif in science fiction - I was recently pointed to an Outer Limits episode, “The Architects of Fear,” which follows the same premise. There are rumours that Wernher von Braun believed that a false ET invasion was on the cards, and it's something that UFO researcher and Manhattan Project scientist Leon Davidson also talked about in the 1960s referring to the contactees, who he thought were being deceived in elaborate setups by the intelligence agencies. It's a very appealing idea whether true or not.

I think it's a reflection on our times that the Blue Beam story uses the same premise to warn of an impending global police state, rather than world peace!

Richard Thomas: Briefly as possible who exactly are the “Mirage Men” and how did you first become aware of them?

Mark Pilkington: Ultimately everyone who talks or writes about UFOs become Mirage Men as their stories influence the field. In the book I'm specifically referring to those people from military and intelligence organisations who have used the UFO lore as a cover for their operations and, in extreme cases, have seeded new material within the UFO culture to further muddy the waters.

Richard Thomas: Perhaps the best evidence for UFOs are radar reports, but in the book you explain quite convincingly how such evidence might not be as convincing as researchers originally thought. Could you explain why this is to the readers, and what this might mean?

Mark Pilkington: Yes I talk about the Palladium system for spoofing radar returns, which I stumbled upon by accident while reading James Bamford's NSA biography Body of Secrets. By the mid 1960s this had got very sophisticated and was being used by the NSA and CIA. It was used with drones for example, to create the impression of much larger aircraft. I later found out that Leon Davidson had talked about the technology in the late 1950s, with reference to the famous 1952 Washington DC UFO overflights.

The radar ghosting phenomenon was actually first observed in 1945. By the mid-late 1950s the technology to create them was being used to train radar operators in the civilian domain. So the circumstantial evidence that the 1952 UFO wave was a demonstration of *somebody's* radar spoofing abilities is quite compelling.

Richard Thomas: In Nick Redfern’s book, Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story. he speculates that horrific Cold War experiments carried out on Japanese prisoners of war might be the truth behind the saucer crash story. Do you think the US Government are using the UFO lore to cover-up this and similar crimes, or, do the “Mirage Men” have other motives?

Mark Pilkington: I don't know what happened at Roswell, and the story has grown far too convoluted now ever to be satisfactorily resolved. Nick Redfern and I certainly think along similar lines at times and aspects of his Body Snatchers theory are quite convincing. We have to remember that the years following World War II were difficult and often desperate. The threat of Soviet infiltration and/or atomic annihilation was extremely serious, and the US government, like those of every nation, was prepared to do awful things to maintain the status quo.

The point about Roswell is that *whatever* came down, whether it was a Mogul balloon or something more exotic, the saucer deception worked – nobody took the blindest bit of interest in the Roswell story for at least 30 years, though someone in the military and or intelligence world appears to have been promoting saucer crash stories as early as 1950.

So in that respect Walter Haut and the others who put out first the flying saucer, then the weather balloon press releases are amongst the first Mirage Men that we can identify. As an aside, William Davidson and Frank Brown, the two Air Force Intelligence agents who died while investigating Kenneth Arnold in Tacoma, Washington, should also be added to that roll of honour.

Richard Thomas: The idea that the US intelligence agencies might have encouraged or perhaps even invented much of the UFO canon, i.e., crashed saucers, recovered ET hardware and bodies, etc, I’m sure will be rejected out of hand by most UFO researchers. Why do you think this is?

Mark Pilkington: Some prominent researchers have invested a huge amount of time, energy and credibility in believing and promoting the ETH and tales of an attendant cover-up. It will probably be harder for some of them to consider the ideas I present in Mirage Men without prejudice, though the positions certainly aren't mutually exclusive.

But, as Leon Festinger showed in his book When Prophecy Fails, there's a strange effect that when someone's deeply-held beliefs are challenged or shown to be delusional, especially when issues of credibility are at stake, rather than accept a new set of beliefs, they will cling more strongly to the old ones, reinforcing them with increasingly warped logic. Festinger studied a 1950s UFO group and his findings are just as relevant today as they ever were.

I'm just putting forward my take on a very complex story. I wrote Mirage Men to be an outward-looking book that would interest people outside of the UFO community, I also wanted to present a reasonable and responsible critique of the mainstream ETH to those who are already well-versed with the UFO lore. Most people who have contacted me seem to agree that I've done a decent job of this, though there's also been some hate mail. Generally I think I've only succeeded if I find myself take flak from both sides of the sceptical divide!

Personally speaking, I have no problem with people believing anything they like, as long as others aren't being exploited, harmed or prejudiced against as a result those beliefs. Taken literally, I think beliefs in ET visitation are actually more logical than those of any of the major religions for example.

Most UFO beliefs are quite harmless, even positive, though I think it's a shame that some people use them as a means to undermine human ability and potential, for example suggesting that advanced technologies or the feats of ancient cultures can only be attributed to aliens rather than human ingenuity.

Richard Thomas: What would your answer be to people who say that too many honest and credible witnesses have reported seeing phenomena that Earthly explanations just can’t explain?

Mark Pilkington: I accept that there are always going to be cases that refuse to give up their mysteries under even the most focused scrutiny, and in those instances it's ultimately going to come down to what people prefer to believe.

I'm fascinated by the 1980 Cash-Landrum incident for example. If even half of that incident was accurately reported by the witnesses then there are either some remarkably advanced toys in the human arsenal, or we really have been borrowing, or stealing them from someone else.

Some of my friends have had some really spectacular and bizarre UFO sightings, but personally I just don't see the need to invoke the extraterrestrial hypothesis. As military analysts have pointed out since the late 1940s, the patterns of behaviour ascribed to UFOs make no sense as part of a surveillance or invasion plan. Meanwhile if some secret cabal has been negotiating with the aliens, then what have they got to show for it? Where are the technological leaps or anomalies?

I've been reading Paul Hill's Unconventional Flying Objects. Although himself an ET believer, Hill, who worked on successful flying platform designs in the 1950s, points out that there's very little about UFO reports that is truly inexplicable – they obey, rather than defy the laws of physics. My own belief, and it's only a belief, is that some highly advanced experimental craft have been flown over the years, perhaps much further back than we realise.

Richard Thomas: Probably the big UFO story of 2006 was Project Serpo. In the book you meet Bill Ryan who runs the website where the most controversial documents since the MJ-12 papers were first posted. How do you think the story first began and if the “Mirage Men” were behind it what might have their intentions have been?

Mark Pilkington: Yes John Lundberg and I got involved with Bill Ryan within a few weeks of Serpo breaking and followed him to Laughlin for his ufological debut. That's a key section of the book. I don't know whether Serpo was a 'Mirage Men' operation, though in the book I do suggest a few purposes it might have had if it was. What we can say for sure is that the Serpo story, ridiculous as it seems, single-handedly reinvigorated, even resurrected, the UFO field at a time when it was almost entirely moribund.

In 2004 when John and I first began mooting the idea of Mirage Men you couldn't get anybody to take the least bit of interest in the UFO subject other than to say that it was a cultural dead zone. Now UFOs and ETs are once again big business with a flood of books, films and TV series headed our way. While interest in UFOs, like anything else, is always cyclical, I really think that Serpo was the seed for this particular wave of interest.

Richard Thomas: Have you found any evidence that Britain or other countries might have their own “Mirage Men,” I don’t believe them myself but there are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding Nick Pope, for instance?

Mark Pilkington: I don't know about Nick Pope, though he *did* come to my book launch. hmmmmmmmm.

Seriously, my understanding - confirmed by a source who wishes to remain anonymous for now (yes, him again!) - is that the USAF's OSI (Office of Special Investigations) and the RAF's Provost and Security Services often work together, or at least keep each other informed of operations on UK soil. AFOSI have certainly run a few Mirage Men type operations over the last forty years, and I'm aware of at least one UFO-themed disinformation operation conducted on UK soil in the 1990s. I hope to be able to write more about this in the near future.

Richard Thomas: Thanks Mark, where can readers find the book and have you got any other projects or a website you’d like to plug?

Mark Pilkington: Thanks Richard. Mirage Men is currently available in the US and the UK via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and the rest. I've set up a website for the book, which I'm using to explore some of the book's ideas and themes further.

I also run Strange Attractor Press, publishing books including Welcome to Mars by Ken Hollings, which is about America in the heyday of the flying saucer era, and The Field Guide, by Rob Irving and John Lundberg, which is an insider's history of the crop circle phenomenon, including detailed instructions on how to make your own.

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