Tuesday 13 February 2024

Edward Snowden on UFO's

                               
The renegade secret agent Edward Snowden has made some more comments about UFO's. I think he deleted the Tweet, but from what I gather through commentary, it is very similar to ones he has made before; for example, this one from last year: "It's not aliens. I wish it were aliens, but it's not aliens. It's just the old engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring natsec (national security) reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la Nord Stream) until next time." Source: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1625241477642088454. By "balloon bullshit", he's referring to "Objectgate", see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/06/objectgate-mini-portal.html. Of course, because Snowden is a former intelligence officer as well as an admired countercultural figure, we assume what he says has to be so; but it's not, it's just another pile of backslapper fodder. There is ample worldly drama around involving Ukraine and Taiwan etc. There is no need to invent fairy stories about UFO's to distract the defence press, in fact such phantasms might trigger the opposite reaction; as I have explained elsewhere, for example: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/06/bob-lazar-on-richplanet-virtual-tour.html. Chris Mellon put it very well: "I see Edward Snowden espousing the view that the US government is using an alien threat to justify increased defence spending. In fact, as anyone following the comments of Dr. Kirkpatrick lately, or any other administration at any time knows, the USG is doing precisely the opposite; as it always has, flatly denying there is any evidence at all of aliens. The issue has only become a topic of discussion because a couple of former insiders and Navy pilots engaged the press and Congress. Finally, given what is transpiring in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Pacific, the USG doesn't need to invent bogus reasons to justify increased defence spending. Anyone who believes the USG is leveraging UAP to justify increased defence spending is plainly out of touch with the facts." Source: https://twitter.com/ChrisKMellon/status/1756521656439214426. Well said, sir! It's important to realize that just because Snowden was in the NSA does not make him an omniscient titan. He is a human being like the rest of us, and he works in a compartmentalized organization. It's like these fools who keep moaning about how "David Grusch has never handled an alien himself so he must be lying!" I hope more rational heads will back up Chris Mellon soon.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Personally, I don't trust Edward 'The Friendly Spook' Snowden a whole lot either - there is a researcher called Dave Emory who has, apparently, done a very deep dive into Mr Snowden over he years and found strong links to 'deep state' actors like Peter Thiel and Carl Lundstrom. He also suggested that Snowden may be working with a clandestine German intelligence operation (for what that's worth). And that Snowden’s actions “give every indication” of functioning as an “intelligence community destabilization operation.” But this intel was from a few years ago and things have moved on a lot since then.

Personally, I never bought into how he was able to travel so easily to Russia via Japan, etc., when he was such a high value wanted asset - it just never sat well with me!

Calpestavo68
p.s. On a huge change of subject - I gather you'll be working with the great Mark Devlin soon in Oxford? If true, it sounds great. I'd love to come along if I could!

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Hope you can come to one of them, Caplestavo. Mark plans to do a series of them, maybe three. I've not looked in depth at Emory's research, but I know he takes a very dim view of Mr Snowden. Michael Shrimpton believes he is a double agent, an asset of the DVD, German foreign intelligence... Mind you, Shrimpton says that about almost everybody!

Anonymous said...

Re: Snowden, in truth, it really is difficult what to make of him (or the info he actually has access too). I guess 'spies', by definition are slippery characters to pin down - That said, if I was super-wishful thinking I'd like to think he was a 'White Hat', out to help save humanity from the Evil Empire, but this 'op' has now been running for 10+ years, and we haven't really seen much evidence of that so far. But who knows? Maybe we are nearing the 'end game' - it kinda feel a little like that right now to me! (As for Emory - to him, everyone is a far-right extremist! LOL)

n.b. You might find this 5 min vid interesting...

https://bombardsbodylanguage.com/2017/02/06/body-language-edward-snowden/body-language-edward-snowden/

Anyway enough about Snowden, re; Oxford. Alas, I live abroad, rarely visit Blighty nowadays, so me attending your Oxford gig is highly unlikely. Shame, as I'm a fan of both your work, and would very much like to meet you guys and chew the fat. It'd be a blast! :-)

Calpestavo68

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Thanks, Calpestavo68. Sorry you can't get to Oxford at this time. Hope to see you another time and another event. Thanks for the link. Body language is always worth studying, but it should not be relied on as a standalone method, like statement analysis.
I'm certainly not suggesting we should take Snowden 100% at face value. It may turn out his Kim Philby act might be nothing more than a smokescreen. Time will tell, hopefully not another ten years!

SpiesAreUs said...

Interested in fact based espionage and ungentlemanly officers and spies? Try reading Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.

What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies' induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa.

The action is set in 1974 about a real British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Simultaneously he unwittingly worked for MI6. In later books (when employed by Citicorp and Barclays) he knowingly worked for not only British Intelligence but also the CIA.

It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti but do read some of the latest news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website before plunging into Beyond Enkription. You'll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won't want to exit.

See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2023_06.07.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Hi SpiesAre Us. Thanks for the recommendation. I do like real life spy stories and have made HPANWO publications about spies. I like novels that immerse me in a whole world. Will take a look.

SpiesAreUs said...

Hi Ben - I hope you like it as much as we did. We found TheBurlingtonFiles website people on the end of Contact Us very helpful when we asked after the facts about Operation Smiling Buddha. In REALITY this leaves Bond and co miles behind. Hoping they make films based on these files. Have fun and best wishes

SpiesAreUs said...

Happy ninety fifth birthday to Len Deighton ... and to think for 95 years I thought The Ipcress File was a cook book by Harry Palmer until I read the fact based spy thriller, Beyond Enkription in #TheBurlingtonFiles series. Philby would have ranked it as a must read for espionage cognoscenti ... https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Many happies to him! A great writer.