Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

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Our Feature Presentation
Films
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Starring:
The woo is out there
UFOlogy
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Aliens did it...
...and ran away

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun is a 2020 "documentary" film starring famed ufologist Steven Greer[1] which aims to bring "viewers face-to-face with extraterrestrial visitors and their message for humanity."[2] Proving the old adage that sequels are often worse than the movies that preceded them, Close Encounters isn't nearly as fun to watch as Unacknowledged, Greer's previous film - unless one derives enjoyment from watching hippies sitting in circles while trying to contact aliens.

In contrast to the fast-paced spy thriller story of its predecessor, Close Encounters has a narrative that feels dreary and overlong. All the fun historical facts and dramatic music have been replaced with new age quantum woo and a severe overuse of the words "profound" and "consciousness." It marks the final stage of Greer's evolutionary life cycle: from amateur sky watcher, to heroic underdog and now finally - Deepak Chopra.[note 1]

The tagline should have been "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a crappy yoga teacher."

Close Encounters of the Dumb Kind: A Half-hearted Debunk[edit]

The following article will attempt to analyse some of the arguments presented in this film - or, rather, it WOULD do that if the makers of this film had bothered to put in any. It's impossible to use logic or talk about how the premises are connected to the conclusions when most of this movie takes place in the mystical, magical realm of the "Not Even Wrong." Consider the following quote, given by Greer at 1:28:20 - 1:29:08. He is telling a story about a man (a former employee at Lockheed Martin, apparently) who was flying through space in his "astral body" when he suddenly collided with an alien space ship:

I said because the density of that spacecraft resonantly, energetically, was identical to your astral body because with the naked eye, it was shifted out of 3D into this dimension that is increasingly conscious energy and conscious forms. And since like can interface with like, your density of your astral body and that craft, because it was shifted to that level, it could interact with it. Now, had it been a 3D craft, that had stepped down like a Transformer, stepped down into full 3D, he would have gone straight through it. Because the density would have been different, the resonant field interface, would have been different. And when I explained that to him, he said "Now I understand so many things that have happened between me and ETs."

At this point some of the viewers might be thinking "Well, this all sounds very technical and complicated. I have no qualification in physics, so I can't really judge." But you don't need a qualification in physics,[note 2] because nothing was actually said. The ending where Greer nods to himself and tells us that this made sense to somebody is rhetorical window dressing. This type of garbage is not designed to explain anything - it's there to distract and overwhelm people in order to reduce their ability to think critically. This is a common tactic in conspiracy theorist circles.[3]

Since the modus operandi of everyone in this film seems to be "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit," our work is cut out for us. That said, there is a couple of moments worthy of examination. And anyways, we have already paid for the tickets - they will hardly give us a refund at this point.

So take your seats and grab your popcorn. The movie is about to start.

Prologue[edit]

Before the headache inducing opening sequence kicks off Greer and the narrator (Jeremy PivenWikipedia) outline a classification of "Close Encounters," a sort of tier list of UFO related phenomena. They are as follows:

  • Close Encounters of the First Kind - consists of visual sightings of an Unidentified Flying Object.
  • Close Encounters of the Second Kind - some physical trait is present, like impressions in the ground or scorched vegetation.
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind - the occupants or pilots of an ET craft are witnessed.
  • Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind - a human is brought on board an ET craft.
  • Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind - proactive human initiated communication with extra-terrestrial beings.

This tier list should be kept in the back of one's mind while watching this film, (even if the creators of it will go on to ignore the damn thing) because a lot of time is spent trying to convince the viewers into thinking that they witnessed "Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind" with very little evidence to back that statement up.

Chapter I: Blood + Treasure[edit]

The fact that extra-terrestrials visit us has been already established. Or has it?[edit]

12:04 - 12:37 minutes into the film: The dramatic music swells and the audience is informed that arguing over alien visitations is futile. The battle has already been won by Greer and his merry band of free-thinking renegades; aliens are here and that's that. Anyone who says otherwise has been living under a rock.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Piven: "The question is often asked: when will UFO disclosure happen? The answer is: it has already happened. It happened in 2001 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., where military, NASA and intelligence agency whitleblowers testified to their involvement in the UFO coverup and the back engineering of extra-terrestrial technologies. It happened again in 2017, with the release of the film Unacknowledged."Since this is the initial premise upon which the rest of the film is built upon it would seem important to ask whether or not this is actually true. DID Steven Greer present undeniable proof that aliens visit Earth and that the US Military has been building alien reproduction vehicles?

What follows is a list of the very convincing pieces of evidence presented in both his 2001 press conference and his 2017 film:

Tumbleweed.gif

Some people might take offence at this and exclaim "Hey! That's not a counterargument! That's just ridiculing people who are giving testimony about what they believe to be true. Many of them even worked for the US government or the armed forces. You can't just hand wave that away!"

Perhaps you are right, dear reader. Perhaps dismissing all these people as liars is a bit harsh. But if hand waving the testimonies of seemingly credible figures is a bad thing, why does Steven Greer do it so much?


Tom DeLonge, wondering why he even bothered to start watching this film.

"Tom DeLonge, I'm gonna fight your f@cking ass!"[edit]

24:04 - 25:43 minutes into the film: In the start of a feud that will presumably be settled in the UFC Octagon, James Sheehan accuses Tom DeLonge and his menagerie of UFO cranks of being government shills, hell bent on tricking people into hating and fearing aliens.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Sheehan: "When I see this thing happening, with this To The Stars Academy - where they suddenly appear on the front page of The New York Times, and the CNN all of a sudden wants to talk with them and they're on MSNBC and all this kind of stuff - I immediately kind of realise: wait a second. This is part of what I have been worrying about coming out, because they were constantly spinning this story. That this is a threat."

DeLonge: "My name is Tom DeLonge. A lot of people know me from my band blink-182, I started that band when I was sixteen. Through a series of meetings I was soon connected to a large group of US government officials, from the CIA, the Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin Skunkworks. These guys were the ones involved in the secret US government programs that dealt with these subjects."
Sheehan: "What's happening is the To The Stars Academy people are all, you know, Jim Semivan who's there. The chief of covert operations, domestic, for CIA. Which in and of itself is totally against the law. You know, the National Security Act of 1947 completely, clearly and unequivocally prohibits any kind of covert operation stateside. But here, that's who he is. And there he is there, and you've got guys from the DIA and the Defense Department and Hal PuthoffWikipedia and stuff, and they're all there. And what they're doing is they're putting this intense spin, every single thing they talk about, all has this kind of gestalt to it, that this is a threat."
DeLonge: "And it very well could be a threat."

Sheehan: "It's a threat to our national security. It's a threat to our air space. It's a threat to our sovereignty. It's, what it is, is a threat to our dominion over our own planet."
Let's rip the piss here, why not.


Chapter II: The Crossing Point of Light[edit]

Silly, this movie is!

Use the Farce Luke![edit]

48:57 - 49:33 minutes into the film: During a montage of stock footage the guy from EntourageWikipedia explains to us how psychokinesis is a totally real and scientifically proven phenomenon. This claim is indisputable he says; there are decades of evidence to back up its existence.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Piven: "God. Prana. Chi. Magic. Consciousness. Every culture throughout history has had a word to describe this intangible energy that connects everyone and everything. Decades of laboratory studies show that our minds have a mysterious ordering effect on quantum level phenomena. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, most people would still be shocked to learn that certain scientists have known that the Force is real for a very long time."Overwhelming scientific evidence, you say? For the Force being real? Goodness, this sounds fantastic! To think that there is a reputable academic institution publishing high quality peer reviewed papers that... oh wait, nope, it's just the Institute of Noetic Sciences. The quackiest of quack groups,[4] with a long history of promoting pseudoscience. How disappointing.

The name might sound impressive, but there is little actual science being done over at the IONS. Their list of publications is like a bingo card of woo:[5] Trends in waking salivary alpha-amylase levels following healing lucid dreams.[6] Extended Perception Corroboration: A Pilot Study with Energy Medicine Practitioners.[7] Subtle Energy Perception: Pilot Study with a Buddha Relic?[8] What the hell is this?

Poking fun at things that sound silly is certainly enjoyable, but these papers aren't made bad by their weird titles. They are made bad by their many design flaws (we'll use that Buddha paper as an example):[9]

  • Small sample size: A whooping seven people took part in this study, four seers and three lab staff to act as controls. The smaller the sample size the less representative a study is and there is a decreased chance of obtaining results which are statistically significant..
  • Predatory publishing: Current Research in Complementary & Alternative Medicine is a journal published by Gavin Publishers[10] which is a noted producer of rags with a terrible track record. Gavin Publishers appears on Jeffrey Beall's List of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers[11], a "worst of" list of dodgy journals.
  • Suspicious references: Real science builds upon the accumulated body of knowledge produced by other real fields of science. When you read a scientific paper you expect to be overwhelmed by the number of other papers referenced. This study, by contrast, has a measly four papers in it's footer: two were published in the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine and the other two are Masaru Emoto's infamous water studies (more on that later). This research is nonsense, built upon a foundation of nonsense.
  • Mental gymnastics: Critical thinking and the correct application of the scientific method are key to overcoming one's inherent biases. Negative results must be accepted and hypothesis updated to reflect the results. The authors of this paper made no such effort - the discussion section of the paper consists of sloppy excuse making and the mind boggling statement of "It may also be the case that conventional scientific methodology is insufficient to distinguish subtle energy emanations from a Buddha relic." One wonders what the point of doing a double blind, randomised trial was if they were just going to hand wave their own findings.

But the real problem with this paper? The real problem with the Institute of Noetic Sciences? Check the results: "We found no evidence that professional clairvoyants were able to detect the presence of a Buddha relic without visual cues." These are supposedly real scientists who have produced "overwhelming scientific evidence" that the Force is real, remember? This piece of crap paper, with all it's many flaws, couldn't even fudge a fake result. "In a series of ten trials, four or more correct (40% or higher) responses would be statistically significant. We chose one-sided testing because we were not interested in detecting results worse than chance. Each participant’s results were analysed separately, and none achieved independently statistically significant results. A control participant was the best performing participant with two correct choices out of ten."


He has been dead for over 9 years, but his crappy ideas shall live on forever.

Masaru Emoto is haunting us with his nonsense from beyond the grave[edit]

55:17 - 56:05 minutes into the film: To lend some scientific credibility to his claims about consciousness Greer invokes the work of the late Masaru Emoto, who supposedly proved that the shape of ice crystals can be altered by thinking pleasant thoughts. But is this assertion actually backed up by scientific evidence?

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Greer: "Doctor Emoto, the Japanese scientist, began to experiment with water and people putting their intent on the water. And he did photography that would show these different crystalline structures. If it was a very negative emotion the crystals would be all dissonant. But if, when it was highly ordered, conscious or love, the structures were these beautiful ordered structures that he would photograph. And this was repeated by other scientists. Water has a crystalline component, but it's also tied into, like all matter and space and time in the universe, to this consciousness force field. If you enter into just a quiet state of consciousness and intent, something very positive, it literally altered the structure of the water itself."Masaru Emoto received his "doctorate" in Alternative Medicine in 1992 from the Open International University,[12] which means he was as much of a doctor as Gillian McKeith. What he did to deserve to be called a "scientist" is unclear; nothing that had his name attached to it could reasonably be labelled as "science."

Masaru Emoto's 2004 paper[13] on how ice crystals are affected by human thought has a number of problems:

  • He is the sole author of the paper.
  • It's two and a half pages long.
  • There are only two references in the footer. One of them is a book he wrote.
  • It was published in a crank journal.
  • He doesn't reveal every single photograph he took. Supposedly he took dozens, so why are there only five included with the paper? The reason scientists release all their data is so that others can transparently asses them. The danger of cherry picking is too great otherwise. He expects us to take him at his word when he says that these photographs are representative of the experiment as a whole.
  • There is no statistical breakdown of the data to prove that the results were significant.
  • The last part of the paper is literally an advertisement for some crank treatment he came up with:
This technique has also been applied to health and, in the last two decades, 15,000 people have been treated with HADO with excellent results. HADO is both energy and vibration at the level of human consciousness. I developed HADO counseling. In this method, a HADO measuring device called a magnetic resonance analyzer (MRA) is used to detect any disharmonious energy in the organs and tissues or various emotions in a client. When such an area is found, special HADO water is created with the same MRA machine by transferring vibrations into the water that can bring a balance of harmony to that area of the client. Microclustered water and some other special waters are used for this process because of their ability to retain externally applied vibrations. The client drinks the special HADO water that will deliver the necessary vibration and bring balance and harmony to the diseased area. As the process is repeated more and more, healing will occur within the client.


But, wait, what's this? This study has been replicated? Not once, but twice?![14][15] Dear Goat, this is fantastic! Reproducibility is an integral part of the scientific method. If reputable, independent scientists have... oh, hold on. Masaru Emoto was involved in both of these replica papers? And the water bottles were flown to Japan from America so he could handle them without being observed by his co-authors? But he has a clear conflict of interest, so why would his co-authors let him do that? Surely as respectable scientists... wait a minute. Dean Radin? Nancy Lund? Gail Hayssen? Who the hell are these people? What institute are they associated with?

Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, CA
The jokes just write themselves.


Signalling with lasers - just not at aliens[edit]

1:12:57 - 1:13:53 into the film: Greer is in the business of teaching people his alien communication skills - for a price. One of his customers, a gentleman by the name of Marcel Vidovic, says that he has witnessed the efficacy of the CE5 protocols first hand on a field trip that was led by Greer himself.

Footage of this alien summoning event is played during Vidovic's testimony. The clips are taken from a longer video, which can be watched below:

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Vidovic: "The second or third night we had twin ships come. You know from the Atlantic Ocean, 9/10 at night, here's all of a sudden this ship comes in and it's like the size of the sun and it's pulsing. And Dr Greer, you signal it with your laser and then a second one manifests. And they're both pulsing. At that point my hair is standing up, I have the chills, I'm going "This is is amazing!" I'm like... it's... to actually witness something first hand as opposed to seeing it on television or seeing photographs, it's mind blowing. For me it was so profound, I was, I couldn't sleep that night. I was just amazed but the amazement was that, not that I saw it, it actually, I needed that because I have that mind-set. But the feeling you got. I had this incredible feeling, you know you have these two ships and then I... I can't explain it, it's... it's just an emotional state and I was so taken by."Turn off the volume on that YouTube clip dear reader, and consider bumping up the playback speed to x2. What is actually in that video? What can be seen? Are those ships? Are they really the SIZE OF THE SUN? The Sun is a pretty big thing. One would think that if two objects the size of our local star suddenly warped into existence in the sky it would be a pretty big deal, making headlines around the world.

But there aren't any ships in this video. At around 00:35 the camera snaps to the left to film a ball of light in the sky. At 00:55 Greer uses a laser pointer to draw a circle around it, and at 01:13 a second ball of light appears in the sky. At 03:33 the ball on the right (the one that appeared first) starts flickering and dies. Then at 04:11 the second ball also disappears. Both of them lasted about 3 minutes, the one that appeared first also disappeared first and (contrary to what Greer claimed) they were both falling towards the surface of the ocean. The video has been deliberately slowed down but by bumping up the speed it's very obvious that both of the lights are slowly losing altitude. So what could explain floating lights in the sky burning for three minutes, slowly falling and then flickering out? How about... aerial flares?[16][note 3]

These vessels are being attacked by alien spacecraft.Do You Believe That?

Aerial flares come in many different shapes and sizes. Some are hand held roman candles, some can be fired out of gun. The ones in this video are most likely thrown out of an airplane with small parachutes attached, which is why they would appear so suddenly in the sky and float for such a long time.

And would you look at that, there was a small Beechcraft DuchessWikipedia flying by Vero Beach in Florida, heading North-northwest, on the 27th of January 2015 at 09:11pm just when this video was being filmed. Why was Greer so adamant that the other observers turn off their night scopes? Why is he yelling so much about flares?[17][note 4]

The lady crank doth protest too much, methinks.


Are they sure it wasn't just a Bass Pro Shop?

I was (once again) promised flying pyramids and all I got was this lousy drawing[edit]

1:19:52 - 1:20:48 into the film: A lady by the name of Marian Kramer (who claims to be a long time acquaintance of Greer) is giving testimony about an extraordinary event: she claims to have witnessed Greer's alien summoning powers first hand while spending time in the French Alps in 1975. This, the narrator tells us, was "the first mass witness CE5."

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Kramer: "It was the summer of 1975 and that was the year we both turned 20. We were in teacher training, it was very intensive. We were meditating, doing yoga, listening to endless tapes of Maharishi."

[Picture of the late Maharishi Mahesh]
Greer: "So I did a deep meditation, went into this state, and could sense where in space these E.T. craft were. Connected to them, introduced myself by name. And then vectored them, like you would vector a jet into JFK Airport."
[CGI footage of a flying pyramid]

Kramer: "All of a sudden, right out of nowhere, appeared a metallic, silent, tetrahedron shaped, silver ship. It just appeared. And I said: "What is that Steve?" There was no sound, and it was just suspended in the air and then gone. And there was just the blue sky again."
Right... but there are no pictures of this flying pyramid? Not one? Just the usual anecdata from people who are in some way connected to Greer? This man, we are led to believe, can literally vector flying alien pyramids with his will power, but for some reason he can't convince his interstellar buddies to stick around for a photo op? The best he can produce, after decades of alien contact, is nebulous, unreliable witness statements and blurry photographs featuring the colour mauve with the occasional cheap special effect thrown in.


Fans of the Greer Cinematic Universe will remember that his previous film also contained claims of flying pyramids, with absolutely no proof to support their existence. If this standard of proof is sufficient for his followers, do they also accept the claim that the angel Gabriel appeared to the Prophet Mohammed in a cave? Do they also accept that the Virgin Mary appeared to some random children in Fátima? And if they claim that those events were fake and that the people involved in them were lying, what criteria did they use to determine this? How do they know the flying pyramids aren't also fake? How inconsistent do you have to be to accept the testimony of Greer and Kramer at face value but reject every sighting of cryptids/ghosts/etc? Surely if you accept one of them, you would have to accept all of them.

And if you believe ALL this stuff, well... we have some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.


This crop circle was created in 2008 by aliens at the explicit request of RationalWiki editors.[citation NOT needed]

Talking about crop circles like it's the 1970s[edit]

1:23:30 - 1:24:15 into the film: Greer claims that his ability to vector aliens to specific locations has left an indelible mark on the Earth. His spaceship controlling antics resulted in airport disturbances, as well as the mysterious appearance of crop circles. The logo of his organisation is based on one such circle.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Piven: "In 1990, he formed the Center for the Study of Extraterrestial Intelligence, to disseminate the CE5 protocols and establish peaceful and sustainable relations with ET lifeforms. Two years later, Dr Greer and his team went up to Woodborough Hill in Wiltshire, England. There they visualised and thought a geometric pattern symbolising the trilogy of components that make up the CE5 protocols: thought, light and sound. Immediately, this crop circle appeared in the field nearby. "Ah yes, crop circles. Crop circles, which have been proven to be man-made hoaxes.[18][19] Crop circles, which by Greer's own tier list are a measly CE2. It's also pretty funny that this supposedly took place in Wiltshire, a place where these sorts of hoaxes are a dime a dozen - local farmers frequently experience a loss of revenue because of the damaged crops.[20] Those darn aliens must really hate human agriculture for some reason.


But even if crop circles weren't incredibly easy to fake, even if there wasn't a well documented history of pranksters like Doug Bower and Dave Chorley pulling off these little stunts, even if crop circle art was unheard of in Wiltshire - so what? What evidence did Greer present that he caused this to happen? If this is the standard of evidence for accepting such extraordinary claims then what's to stop us from claiming credit for all manner of things? 9/11? That was actually us, dear reader. Yep. We caused it. The Titanic? It was our great-grandparents who sank it, by sitting in a circle in a field and thinking really hard about icebergs! All manner of events could be explained in hindsight by unfalsifiable paranormal phenomena, and everyone who dissented could be silenced by shifting the burden of proof upon them.


Chapter III: A New World[edit]

Harassing female joggers? Dang, these "alien light beings" aren't nearly as nice as Greer would have us believe!

The Cosmic Spermatozoa[edit]

1:41:25 - 1:41:50 into the film: Greer is showing off a boring slideshow of some pictures he took while on holidays. There are a quite a few images we could examine here, but we'll zoom in on the most entertaining one - that of a stream of wavy light in the midst of a group, which seems to attach itself to somebody's face.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Greer: "Get a load of this. We're in a deep meditation I'm leading. We're in cosmic consciousness. This is a Peruvian doctor, medical doctor. I call it the Cosmic Spermatozoa! It looks..."

[Audience laughter]

Greer: "And it comes in and it wraps around her, and she begins to have the Kundalini, and an enlightenment experience like she's never had. And, of course this happens a lot during these expeditions. But, we got it on photograph. Isn't that cool?"
Long exposure photographyWikipedia is a popular way of capturing light trails, those beautiful illuminated streaks one occasionally sees in pictures.[21] The above example is not from some secret vault documenting alien contact. It's a lady with a headlamp out for a jog, who was kind enough to provide a detailed explanation of the equipment and settings used to make this photo - note that "having an alien" does not seem to be a necessary ingredient. This isn't some niche, uber-difficult thing that only professional photographers do. Wikimedia Commons has a whole category dedicated to light trails.


The photography enthusiasts in the audience have probably already guessed how Greer's photo was taken, but for the uninitiated: Cameras capture a very specific moment frozen in time. The shutterWikipedia is the part of the camera that controls the entry of light through the lens and determines how long the film/digital sensor is exposed to light. Shorter shutter speeds produces crisper images, but longer shutter speeds allow for light to pass through the lens for a longer period of time, creating blurriness when moving objects pass in front of the camera.[22]

Are those aliens circling in the sky? Nah, it's just a police helicopter. Long exposure photographs of helicopters at night can make for convincing UFO pictures.[23]

What's more likely? That the lady in Greer's photograph was standing around with a headlamp near the edge of the group before doing a 360 degree turn to her left (momentarily covering her headlamp with her body) then walking across the frame as someone took a photo of her with their camera shutter set to a long exposure time? Or that the universe jizzed all over her face, thereby granting her spiritual enlightenment?

Can probably guess what we think.


He is literally Jesus you guys[edit]

1:52:34 - 1:54:20 into the film: This is where things stop being fun and veer off into a more sinister territory. The part where the giggling about the hippies stops and the concern over the forming of a cult begins. The claims of spiritual enlightenment, of a special connection with the heavens, the aliens performing a miracle and healing a deaf man, the big crowd of true believers singing the praises of Greer... doesn't this all sound familiar? All these outlandish claims about the main character of this film have been leading up to this point: he is a messiah, whom not even death can hold back.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Greer: "I'll tell a really funny story. In 92, the head of army intelligence and a few of his minions intercepted me and took me to a hotel room, very threatening. There was a national security agency person there, CIA people. They were saying: "What the hell do you think you're doing? Teaching people to bypass our systems and contact these civilisations." I said: I don't recognise your authority over this matter. And then I looked him in the eyes and I said: I'm not afraid of you, because I died when I was seventeen and I know that there is no death. I don't care about your money. And I've had direct contact with these civilisations, so you can't deceive me about who they are and why they're here. And the general just sat back like this and went: "Oh we know exactly who this son of a bitch is." And I said: yes, so this is what we're gonna do. It was very frustrating for them but later, a member of one of the European royal families, who I don't wanna name, who was involved with that crowd came up to me and she said: "You know they are very jealous of what you and your team are doing." I said: jealous of what? These are the most powerful people. He says: "No. They know that you guys, actually collectively have all the power. And they wish they could do what you're doing, but they're in the box of this national security state program that they can not escape from. And you're free, you're a free agent, you're free to do wonderful things and they're not. And they're really jealous of what you guys are doing." It was a real insight into the sad psychology of the people who are in this pinched small world. So I say to the public: you should be happy that you're not part of all of that. You have the freedom to do things they can never do. So let's do it."I have a girlfriend but you guys wouldn't know her because she edits a different wiki and is also from Canada.


Wait, hold on... did we just watch a two hour long ad?![edit]

1:55:42 - 1:56:20 into the film: The state of things on planet earth are looking pretty grim for the truth-seekers. Their efforts at turning us into an interstellar civilization are being thwarted by the shadowy figures who manipulate our lives. Fortunately, a solution is available - a solution that is conveniently being sold by Greer for the low, low price of $9.99.

The Claim:The Rebuttal:
Piven: "People from all walks of life are becoming interstellar ambassadors, and experiencing transcendent sates of consciousness in union with these beings. Thousands are making contact by simply using the guided meditation and the "CE5 Contact" app. It's up to the children of earth to become active participants in the unfolding of our universe and not leave it to the power elite. Once we reach a critical mass of people, a coherent and enlightened minority can transform the rest of humanity - instantly."Buy my shit.


In conclusion[edit]

Another serving of baloney from the usual suspects. It's fine. Not as good as the previous one, but still a better love story than Twilight at least.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Like a Pokémon, or something.
  2. Greer sure as shit didn't feel the need to have one, so why should you?
  3. This debunk has been brought to you by the skeptics at Metabunk the truthers over at r/UFOs.
  4. How much of a charlatan do you have to be for a right-wing, anti-science rag like the Washington Examiner to call you a phoney? The author of this article literally admits to believing in UFOs before debunking this CE5 event.

References[edit]

  1. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind IMDb
  2. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun Rotten Tomatoes
  3. The Bewilder Gambit: a conspiracy theorist tactic designed to distract The Skeptic (UK) 25 August 2021
  4. Questionable Organizations: An Overview Quackwatch 8 December 2023
  5. IONS Publications Institute of Noetic Sciences
  6. Trends in waking salivary alpha-amylase levels following healing lucid dreams IONS 16 January 2024
  7. Extended Perception Corroboration: A Pilot Study with Energy Medicine Practitioners IONS 14 February 2022
  8. Subtle Energy Perception: Pilot Study with a Buddha Relic IONS 18 November 2022
  9. Open access journal article Kayale F, Radin D, Wahbeh H, Delorme A, Carpenter L, et al. (2022) Subtle Energy Perception: Pilot Study with a Buddha Relic. Current Research in Complementary & Alternative Medicine 6: 163. https://doi.org/10.29011/2577-2201.100063
  10. Current Research in Complementary & Alternative Medicine Gavin Journals
  11. Beall's List of List of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers beallslist.net
  12. Masaru Emoto Office Masaru Emoto
  13. Emoto M. Healing with water. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2004 Feb;10(1):19-21. doi: 10.1089/107555304322848913. PMID: 15025874.
  14. Radin D, Hayssen G, Emoto M, Kizu T. Double-blind test of the effects of distant intention on water crystal formation. Explore (NY). 2006 Sep-Oct;2(5):408-11. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2006.06.004. PMID: 16979104.
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  16. Steven Greer faked a group CE5 sighting with flares Reddit 7 November 2021
  17. Did Steven Greer fake a UFO with flares? Washington Examiner 31 July 2020
  18. Whatever happened to crop circles? The Skeptic (UK) 1 July 2008
  19. Crop Circles: The Art of the Hoax Smithsonian Magazine 15 December 2009
  20. Invasion of the barley snatchers: crop circles cost farmers thousands in lost revenue The Guardian 24 September 2022
  21. Five tips to photographing light trails by night Canon
  22. Focus on lights that illuminate the night with light trail photography. Adobe
  23. Helicopter long exposure Metabunk 21 November 2023