SUBJECT: ARTICLE ABOUT COOPERS UFO LECTURE                   FILE: UFO1937                  

                  
                  
                  What IS The "Truth About UFOs"?

                           by Ted Bronson


I attended Bill Cooper's four-hour lecture last Sunday in Atlanta. 
Supposedly, now I know the "truth about UFOs." At least, that was 
the title of his lecture. Most of it I'd heard before. And I 
wasn't convinced before, either.
     But then, am I ever convinced of anything? Have I become the 
"universal agnostic" that Robert Anton Wilson has been writing 
about for so long?
     Cooper's theory -- and it's not Cooper's alone, apparently; 
John Lear and the mysterious "O.H. Krill" have been pushing the 
same line for some time now -- is simple: Extraterrestrials have 
entered into a deal with the governmental and corporate Elite of 
our planet, and are controlling our destinies through behind-the-
scenes manipulations. Our government has agreed to keep the 
aliens' existence a secret and will allow the aliens (like there's 
a choice!) to abduct a certain percentage of the population for 
research purposes. In return, the aliens have given us advanced 
technology.
     It's an interesting story. It may even be true. The theory 
explains many things. Thousands of UFO sightings and abduction 
reports from around the globe by seemingly sane and responsible 
people... the enigma behind what's really going on at the atomic 
testing sites in Nevada... why a television season doesn't go by 
anymore without at least one "nice alien" series appearing... why 
the Berlin Wall has crumbled... according to Cooper, we can even 
blame JFK's assassination on the alien conspiracy.
     I like a good story, "fact" or "fiction." And by and large, 
the Lear/Cooper story is a good story. Cooper had what seemed an 
inexhaustible supply of slides to show of "secret" government 
documents. He even showed one set of documents, purportedly a 
briefing report on the alien presence written for president-elect 
Eisenhower, and then announced that he knew it was a fraud, and 
suspected it had been planted in the UFO-research community. Why 
he thinks it was planted escaped me -- something about the 
acceptance of the papers "discrediting" the true researcher. The
same documents appear in Timothy Good's "Above Top Secret," but
Good nowhere mentions they are believed to be fakes.
     Cooper's personal story of his encounter with a UFO seemed 
very familiar. He opened his lecture with a tale of being on watch 
aboard a surfaced submarine when he was in the Navy. A huge disk 
rose out of the sea, "lazily tumbled," and flew away. Shipmates 
also saw it, he says. I recall this exact story appearing in the 
book "Clear Intent." My copy is loaned out, so I can't double-
check. It's quite possible that the story in the book is about
Cooper.
     The strangest part of his lecture, to me, was about the Amoco 
Oil Company advertisement in Aviation Week and Space Technology 
magazine. Quickly he flashed the cover of the magazine onto his 
screen, and then switched to the next slide, showing a full-page 
advertisement supposedly from the magazine. The ad had a bold 
headline saying "Prepare for advanced technology that will answer 
a lot of questions," or something very similar (I didn't take 
notes, and taping his lecture was not allowed). And there was a 
lot of small print that couldn't be read from that distance. At 
the bottom of the page was the Amoco logo. Still talking fast he 
changed slides again, this time showing an alien head-and-shoulder 
shot -- the resemblance to E.T. was remarkable. His story about 
this ad was remarkable, too... but it was hastily presented. 
During this part of the lecture I felt more like I was watching an 
unpracticed Doug Henning or David Copperfield than a leading UFO 
"expert."
     He claimed the alien picture was a part of the Amoco ad. It 
may well have been, if the original ad was a two-page ad. If it 
was a two-page ad, why hadn't he taken a larger-frame shot of the 
ad? As he presented it, it was merely two slides, one after the
other -- that may have been as close as those two items had ever 
been to each other. After he explained his story about the ad, 
several people in the audience shouted to him, "What issue?" I 
thought it was the right question -- of course we all wanted to go 
research this for ourselves. Cooper stuttered and hesitated and 
finally said it was from "before July" in 1989. I thought of the 
obvious, but didn't say it, since I'm not one to yell out things 
from the midst of an audience: Why didn't he just back the slides 
up and show the magazine cover again??? He had backtracked several 
times earlier in the lecture, and could have easily done it again. 
     Here's his story about the ad: He called Amoco, got the name 
of the advertising agency, and called them, pretending to be an ad 
designer. He asked for the name of the artist -- who had drawn the 
alien? Someone took his name and number and when they called him 
back said, "It's against our policy to divulge the name of the 
photographer."
     "OOooooo." "AHhhhh..." The audience loved this. Proof, at 
last, of the great conspiracy. But upon being pressed, the caller 
"admitted" the alien was a 9-feet-tall bronze statue. Cooper then 
switches slides to show close-ups of the alien, pointing out 
"moisture in the eye," "fine hairs on the neck," etc., asking the 
audience over and over if we'd ever seen this or that on a statue?
     I hope I'm wrong. I hope it was a real ad. I hope it was a 
real alien. I hope Cooper's not a snake-oil salesman. Cooper's 
catch-phrase of the day, every time he felt he'd made a particular 
good presentation of "fact," was "Wake up, America. You've been 
had."
     By whom, though?


Coming: Dallas Revisited; The Krill Files; Mafia Kingfish; Philip K. 
Dick's Eye in the Sky review.

March 5, 1990
     
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