Cosmic Peace
By Joseph Burkes MD
Introduction: Originally published in 1998 and revised in 2018, I authorize this document to be reproduced in its entirety and distributed without charge.
If the ET hypothesis is the correct explanation for UFO phenomena then we are not alone and the question arises. “Can we live in peace with our cosmic neighbors?” To help prevent war and hopefully usher in a new era of interspecies cooperation, the creation of a new kind of peace movement is required, one that acknowledges the likely ET presence and resists those social forces that are systematically fanning the flames of war. Such a movement will definitely require a strong spiritual base.
A phantom has appeared in the skies of Earth. It is the specter of Flying Saucers. On the slopes of volcanoes in Mexico, over US ballistic missile bases, in the vicinity of large cities as well as in remote locales, millions are seeing these unearthly craft. Who is piloting these strange vehicles? Are they visitors from other planets? If so, then what is their mission? Are they friend or foe? No one seems to know for sure.
A Call for New Kind of Peace Movement
A growing number of people find the extraterrestrial explanation most reasonable for the UFO dilemma. Yes, many sightings are undoubtedly due to other types of phenomenon. Honest skeptics as well as prejudiced self-styled debunkers would have us believe that all structured objects that appear to defy the laws of nature, are simply advanced terrestrial military craft. Despite the skeptics’ pronouncements, the flying saucer phenomenon is quite robust. The number of close encounters with true unknowns continues to increase. Sightings of what are considered to be unearthly craft, appearing as flying golden globes, saucers and triangles, persist in defying the denials of want-to-be debunkers.
The reaction of terrestrial elites, governments, scientific and religious authorities, has been a predictable, albeit not an enlightened one. It is my assessment that what is very likely to be an ET presence profoundly threatens all terrestrial power. This includes the international corporate, military, political and religious leaders of our planet. Without acknowledging and thoroughly studying this challenge to terrestrial power, those interested in the phenomenon of what is likely extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting our planet, will in my opinion be hopelessly confused.
In the absence of undeniable evidence that the extraterrestrials are here, our leaders have simply attempted to ignore their presence. A de facto policy of denial of alleged ET visitations has been in effect for over seven decades. Witnesses to the flying saucer phenomenon are routinely subjected to ridicule in an attempt to secure their silence.
The so-called “alien abduction” experience is the focus of much investigation by sincere private citizens. Sadly, within the civilian UFO research community, harrowing tales of routine abuse by non-human beings have been peddled non-stop. In the popular media culture such interactions are deemed criminal acts. The highly bizarre nature of these numerous accounts however, has led many to question the reality of what is being described. UFO investigators often lack the scientific research tools and financial resources to adequately study this phenomenon. Sympathetic volunteer investigators often cannot provide professionally sound counseling for witnesses that claim to have experienced psychological trauma at the hands of non-human beings. Thus a popular mythology appears to have emerged. Frightful tales portray humanity as being the helpless victim before the onslaught of “alien abductors”. On scandal sheets, in sci-fi horror films and in tabloid television reportage, fear of the unknown is being exploited to promote xenophobic, racist and militaristic fantasies in response to what appears to be a growing realization of an extraterrestrial presence. In contrast to these trends, The Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Encounters (FREE) has surveyed over 4000 self-described contact experiencers. The results show that the overwhelming majority of the responders have a positive view towards their interactions with what they believe are non-human intelligences.
Under the current conditions of general societal denial that we are likely being visited by ETs, the predominant human response to a sighting has been a passive one. The UFO literature is rife with accounts describing how those observing flying saucers make no attempts to interact with the intelligence piloting what appear to be strange vehicles. The response of passive amazement, as well as fear based approaches to an ET presence, are not the only ones that humanity is capable of. The situation is beginning to change in positive ways.
Individuals and small groups with a more active and upbeat approach to flying saucers have taken the daring step of deliberately inviting contact with the intelligences behind the UFO phenomenon. As a result of these efforts, numerous encounters with what appears to be extraterrestrial spacecraft have been documented in the course of fieldwork. A smaller number of human initiated close encounters with what are called Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (EBEs) have also been described.
One long-standing example of such an effort has been the extraordinary work of the group known in the past as Rama, now going by the name Rahma. It was founded in 1974 around the contact experiences of Sixto Paz Wells and his coworkers in Peru. For over four decades Rahma has quietly facilitated human initiated close encounters for thousands of people. The result has been the creation of a worldwide network of contactees that are promoting interplanetary solidarity and peace. In 1993 I was privileged to meet Dr Fernando Limaco, a retired dental surgeon who is a leader in Rahma and continues to engage UFO intelligence near Mount Shasta with Hispanic contact workers.
Another organization that carried out positive interactions with the extraterrestrials has been the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). Founded in 1990 by the North Carolina physician Dr Steven Greer, it has carried out a campaign to establish contact with UFO intelligence called the CE-5 Initiative. The designation CE-5 stands for Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, which is the term that Dr. Greer coined to describe his “human initiated” contact work.
From 1992 till 1998 I was closely associated with Dr. Steven Greer’s Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, (CSETI). While participating in his group I had a number of limited interactive encounters with what appeared to be extraterrestrial spacecraft. In addition, my fieldwork with individual contactees has demonstrated to my satisfaction that consciousness-based communications, or in other words, telepathic interactions, is an important mode of engaging non-human intelligence. In 1998 I resigned from CSETI because of political and personal reasons and have not spoken to Dr Greer since, but I continue to write and speak about human initiated UFO contact experiences.
In 2010 Kosta Makreas organized the Global CE-5 Initiative. Every month on the same night hundreds of individuals working alone or in groups go out at night to secure locations in an effort to attract UFOs for limited peaceful interactions. As a participant in Kosta Makreas’ global contact initiative and my work with other groups I can testify to the efficacy of this approach in achieving sightings and other kinds of encounters with flying saucer intelligences.
Who Are the Controllers?
Unfortunately these preliminary attempts at what has been called “ citizen’s diplomacy” are not the only examples of humans interacting with non-human beings visiting our planet. There is growing evidence indicating that secret military programs focusing on an ET presence are also underway. Although initially these covert groups probably worked under government aegis, informed sources have reported that private defense contractors now play a major role as well.
CSETI Director Steven Greer has repeatedly reported meeting with many active and retired military and intelligence officers that have been involved with the UFO phenomenon as a result of their work. He has also described having a December 1993 private briefing with then CIA Director Woolsey. This active liaison with the representatives of the military intelligence complex continued for at least 5 years when I was part of CSETI’s leadership and I imagine such connections continue to this current day with Dr. Greer and other activists with access to so-called “insiders.”
In April of 1997 I attended the “Behind Closed Doors Briefings” in Washington DC organized by the CSETI Director. During that event as facilitated by Dr. Greer’s “military advisor” Commander Will Miller and astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the CSETI Director met with Admiral Wilson a then high-ranking intelligence officer at the level of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The fact that this meeting occurred was confirmed by noted UFO historian Mr. Richard Dolan in a conversation that he had with Admiral Wilson.
As a former peace and social justice activist from the 1960’s to 1980s I found this level of cooperation between a prominent contact activist, Dr. Greer and representatives of the military-industrial-intelligence complex both fascinating and profoundly disturbing. It seemed to me a glaring contradiction that CSETI, a group that I had volunteered for and that proudly proclaimed as its mission the establishment of “universal peace”, would work so closely with those forces that have carried out the military and “covert actions” of US Presidents in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam and the Middle East. The unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of US soldiers and millions of third world peoples have resulted from US Presidents’ policies that the military-industrial complex has dutifully carried out in those distant lands.
To give a personal example of the somewhat ironic situation that I found myself in during the 1990s, I recall a personal conversation that CE-5 activists had with Mr. John Petersen in Colorado in October of 1993. He is a former high ranking and decorated Navy officer that for over 25 years has led the Washington think-tank, the Arlington Institute. He was reportedly a personal friend of CIA Director Woolsey and facilitated the CSETI Director’s meeting with the head of Central Intelligence in December of 1993.
Mr. Petersen attended an October 1993 meeting in Ft. Collins Colorado in which Dr Greer gave the keynote address. It was obvious there that the CSETI Director and Petersen were working closely together. A number of contact workers from my LA based CE-5 team were also present. One contact activist present was a 747 “line captain” for United Airlines. He engaged John Petersen in conversation. Both were pilots although members of the elite core of Navy pilots that take off from aircraft carriers prefer to describe themselves as “aviators”. Initially it was fun to hear two old pilots share flying stories between the lectures.
If memory serves me correctly I heard Mr. Petersen describe his dangerous take-offs and landings from a carrier in the Tonkin Bay during the Vietnam War. In the course of that war US Presidents ordered the dropping of more bombs on Indochina than had been dropped by our military during all of WWII. Hearing John Petersen describing his work as an aviator I immediately thought of the countless numbers of civilians, schools and hospitals that were destroyed by the US Indochina bombing raids. This inevitable loss of civilian life was known back in the 1990s and to the present day by the euphemism “collateral damage.” I could not help but think what strange bedfellows Dr. Greer had introduced us to as part of his disclosure efforts. While pilots like Mr. Petersen were bombing Asian people, I was in the student protest movement calling for an end to what we believed was “criminal aggression” in an undeclared war.
Shadows of War
It appears probable that “those controlling this subject of a probable ET presence on Earth are covertly taking direct military action against the “extraterrestrials.” In his 1998 book “Confirmation”, author Whitley Strieber’s analyses the controversial NASA videotape made on space shuttle Discovery during mission STS-48. This video has been featured several times on national television. It displays what appears to be an unidentified flying object being fired upon by some sort of particle beam weapon. The incident transpired on September 15, 1991. The Space Shuttle Discovery was flying above Australia, approximately 1500 miles northwest from a secret US military base located at Pine Gap near Alice Springs. Strieber has provided a thorough analysis of the videotape by physicist Dr. Jack Kasher and imaging specialist Dr. Mark Carlotto. Their conclusion is that the prosaic explanations provided by NASA are simply not credible.
Philip Corso, a retired US Army Colonel and author of the controversial book, “The Day After Roswell”, has also provided support for the notion that covert military forces are fighting a secret war against the extraterrestrials. Colonel Corso was a former staff member of President Eisenhower’s National Security Council. He also worked under General Trudeau at the Army’s Research and Development Division’s Foreign Technology desk. In “Day After Roswell” Corso alleges that he passed out pieces of the wreckage of a crashed flying saucer to high tech firms. This supposedly allowed advanced alien technology to be analyzed and then integrated into our industrial culture. Philip Corso after publication of his book quickly became a celebrity within the flying saucer subculture. Sadly few UFO experts criticized his openly bellicose response to an ET presence. On page 267-267 in his book he states,
“These creatures weren’t benevolent alien beings who had come to enlighten human beings…. As long as were incapable of defending ourselves, we had to allow them to intrude as they wished. … We hid the truth and the EBEs (Extra-terrestrial Biological Entities) used it against us until 1974 when we had our first real shoot down of an alien craft over Ramstein Air Force base in Germany.”
It is difficult if not impossible to verify the particulars of Philip Corso’s account. In “Day after Roswell” he does not offer the names of others who might corroborate his version of the events described. On July 16, 1998, at the age of 83, he reportedly passed away from a heart attack.
As a former peace movement activist, I find Philip Corso’s extremist views chilling. I suspect that his perspective on an ET-human relationship nevertheless has great value. It is my suspicion that Corso’s boastings about shoot downs provide us with an insight into the mind set of a very important group, the wing of military-industrial complex that will likely try to use disclosure of an ET presence to unleash a new cold war. Such a campaign would improve the fortunes of military-industrial complex. My fear is that any official disclosure of an ET presence will be used to fuel xenophobia and to precipitate a costly arms race against an unlikely adversary.
Open war with advanced ET civilizations is an extremely remote possibility given the likelihood that flying saucers are ancient phenomena. Extraterrestrials have probably been here for centuries if not for millennia. If the “ETs” were planning aggressive action against humankind, why should they wait so many years before mounting an open attack? Thus, by passing a test of time, their non-harmful posture is confirmed in my opinion.
If disclosure of an ET presence were suddenly made today, defense corporations, their military and political allies would probably use such a revelation for their own narrow interests. This would result in an accelerated “ Star Wars” program. I imagine the slogan, “we must negotiate from a position of strength,” would be featured prominently in the congressional sales campaign for funding more space based weapon systems. A trillion dollars could be needlessly wasted to prepare against an enemy that we could never successfully fight. On a planet where some 10 million children every year die from hunger and preventable disease, squandering our limited economic resources on such weaponry would be particularly tragic.
How can socially responsible citizens respond to the threat posed by a future arms race against the alleged extraterrestrials? As long as there is general societal denial of the importance of the UFO phenomenon, political action will be difficult to say the least. Fortunately things are changing. Ever increasing numbers of people are having their own sightings of anomalous craft and other contact experiences. Thus there is a greater acceptance of the ET hypothesis. Government secrecy and press ridicule no longer have the same potency against the credibility of UFO witnesses. Recent opinion polls confirm this shift.
Nevertheless the risks of conflict are ever present as long as the planet’s elites are unwilling to adequately prepare humanity for what appears to be an inevitable disclosure of an ET presence. The situation is even more dangerous because these elites have not reeled in the militarists that are planning, and if Philip Corso is correct, already fighting a secret war against extraterrestrials.
A Cosmic Peace Campaign
To help prevent war and hopefully usher in a new era of interspecies cooperation, the creation of a new kind of peace movement is required, one that acknowledges a likely ET presence and resists those social forces that are systematically fanning the flames of war. Such a movement will definitely require a strong spiritual base. The realization that we are not alone compels humanity to ask the question, “What then is our true place in the universe?” This has enormous religious implications that will need to be addressed by those promoting cosmic peace.
Such a movement will naturally stand on the shoulders of pioneering groups like Rahma and the CE-5ers, as well as other networks of contactees that have operated without much publicity until now. Individuals affirming that they are experiencing positive, long lasting relationships with non-human intelligence, will likely be prominently featured in any cosmic peace campaign. These contactees’ direct personal bonds with the extraterrestrials appear quite bizarre at the present time. Hopefully they could serve as an example of how humanity might coexist, and perhaps even prosper, within the context of a positive ET-human relationship. A new internationalism could emerge based on the realization that here on Earth we are truly one people living in one homeland. If this sounds too idealistic let us consider the following.
Humanity is facing a constellation of man-made problems that perhaps threaten the very existence of many life forms on our planet including humans. Global environmental destruction from pollution is becoming an increasingly probable end point as the atmosphere heats up with the release of greenhouse gases. Nuclear proliferation will continue as long as the great nuclear powers do little to reduce and eventually eliminate their obscene stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Without a robust program of nuclear disarmament, it is most likely that these instruments of genocide will be used at some point during the decades to come. We should never forget that some 100 million people died from war, revolution and the resultant famines during the 20th century alone. Regional wars continue across the globe and threaten to be the sparks for another world wide military conflagration.
I urge those who insist that extraterrestrials are a potential enemy to entertain the following. Preconditions for any culture to become star faring or travel from other dimensions, likely include conditions of enduring peace and ethical development far beyond anything accomplished on Earth. The enormous energy required to move between the stars or between parallel universes, if used for military purposes, would likely cause a civilization to self-destruct. Thus if a race of intelligent beings have survived long enough to be able to arrive here, then they are probably wise enough to live in peace, not only with us, but with other civilization they might encounter while perhaps voyaging across the sea of stars.
The UFO literature of the modern era provides some support for the notion that the so-called “aliens” are friendly. A growing number of individuals claim to have experienced Close Encounters of the Third and Fourth Kinds. These witnesses often describe different races of EBE’s (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities) working cooperatively on the same alien spacecraft. To accept the hypothesis that extraterrestrials are non-harmful however, most of the “alien abduction” literature would have to be reevaluated. This is currently being done in my judgment by the Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial Encounters, FREE.
THE ROAD AHEAD
My personal view is that by acknowledging a likely ET presence we can promote the hope that a better future is possible right here on Earth. I view the benefit of accepting the reality of extraterrestrial visitations as being primarily an ideological one. After all, our planet is beset by what appear to be unsolvable problems. If these so called “aliens” have survived their own dark times, similar to those we currently face, then perhaps we too can survive and prosper. If they can curb self-destructive tendencies, travel from distant solar systems or parallel universes, then God willing, we too can make it to the stars! This is my hope.
It is extremely unlikely however that any extraterrestrials will save us from ourselves. Nor in the opinion of many observers is it likely that they will seriously harm us. The alleged ETs are neither Darth Vader nor Jesus Christ in a spaceship. Humanity will have to overcome its own problems by exercising wisdom, compassion and a fierce determination to survive.
This upbeat message is particularly important for the current generation of youth. So often they experience a sense of hopelessness when threatened with what appears to be insurmountable social, economic and environmental problems. To Earth’s young people, the realization that they are not alone in the universe, will in my opinion inspire them to join a campaign promoting interplanetary peace and cooperation.
Youth already exhibit a tremendous interest in the UFO topic. If a link could be made between an ET presence and the ongoing struggles to save humanity from its self-destructiveness, it is my firm conviction that such a movement would change the course of history. There is much work to be done! I invite you all to help start the process of building a new kind of social movement, a cosmic peace movement.
Sasquatch Close Encounter Network for Interspecies Communication 