Matt Eaton's Blog: History has no future

In Plain Sight: An investigation into UFOs and impossible science by Ross Coulthart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Australian investigative reporter Ross Coulthart goes way out on a limb in writing this book.

Sharing, as we do, a longtime fascination with this subject, I've talked with Ross at great length on multiple occasions from beginning to end as he's undertaken this remarkable journey into the heart of the darkness that has veiled this topic for so long.

Finally, in the US at least, there are compelling signs that the veil is beginning to lift.

This is due to a small group of people who have persistently been brave enough to go public with all they can, even while being bound to legally binding non-disclosure agreements.

The very existence of those NDAs and the power they have over people is, on its own, enough to tell you there is so much more here than meets the eye.

UFOs — or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) as they are called now — have been a subject so deeply mired in taboo and ridicule for so many decades that the default setting for science academia and the media has been to dismiss all serious discussion on the mistaken presumption there is nothing to see here.

It's an attitude I've experienced many times in my own efforts to get stories over the line.

This is not a media conspiracy, though be in no doubt there is conspiracy in play here. The taboo is the result of a very clever campaign by high-placed people in defence and intelligence to belittle and bespoil all attempts at serious analysis.

In moving to break through that taboo, Ross has risked his own professional standing. This is no small thing for anyone to do in the name of truth, and this book is to be applauded for that.

What Ross has uncovered, both in the US and in Australia, are remarkable instances of UFO sightings that simply cannot be dismissed or explained.

He has helped put this subject back on the agenda.

Even if you've never thought to venture into this topic, read this book — it will open your eyes.



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In Plain Sight: An Investigation Into UFOs and Impossible Science

The editing and proofing is done and I've finally let loose my latest novel, Live Cross.

Very happy with the feedback so far. Riotously positive, which is most gratifying.

I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this book, there's something in it for just about everyone.

And it's a real page-turner.

An Aussie girl out of her depth in LA. Her career in the doldrums - until she lives through a horrific experience that makes her a global phenomenon.

But fame may prove to be Cass Loukas's misfortune.

I commend unto you... Live Cross.

I'm very happy to say I've just finished writing my latest novel, Live Cross.

This one is a little different from my works to date — it's paranormal crime suspense, about an ambitious but rather self-effacing Australian TV reporter, Cass Loukas. She moved to Los Angeles in a bid to make a name for herself.

Cass will do that in a way she could never have predicted. She's on a ride-along with the LAPD when she and two cops, officers Ethan Hill and Jimmy Vargas, find themselves in the middle of a multiple homicide.

The killer is himself shot dead by Officer Vargas, who saves Cass's life in doing so.

But death is not enough to slow this killer down.

I'll be getting this book out to the Advance Reader Team on my subscriber list soon. I'm aiming to have it out in the world in July, but it may be slightly later if production takes a bit longer. Stay tuned for more, or sign up to my mailing list if you're not on it already - follow the link from the front page of my website mattjeaton.com

So I watched the critically acclaimed third ep of X.

From the first word uttered by the stoners in the woods, it was clear this was going to be fun, albeit not at all like an actual X-Files episode.

More a spoof. It's like what Saturday Night Live might choose to do with the show if they had an hour to kill.

Sheer genius, though, to bring in Rhys Darby as the "monster". Don't know if any of you are familiar with his work in Flight of the Conchords,, but he is a comic genius. His glorious New Zealand accent alone cracks me up. The man couldn't play it straight if his life depended on it.

Rhys is now, I fear, in danger of being typecast in creature roles, having previously played a very amusing and marginally deadly werewolf in the movie, What We Do In The Shadows.

Very clever the way this episode had Mulder so whimsically doubting himself, while confronting a monster in reverse - a strange forest creature awakened after 10,000 years to find himself miraculously morphing into, of all things, a human - a change he found truly monstrous.

Big tick, then, to the third episode. But a self-deprecating piss-take is still not going to bring me back next week, eager for more.

I guess I'm just too hard to please.

It was an unexpected pleasure to flick on free-to-air TV last night and stumble onto the "encore" telecast of The X-Files, back from the vaults.

Serendipity, perhaps, as these days we pay little attention to what the networks are putting to air and instead become lost in Netflix and DVDs, (barring a good sporting event).

And it strikes me this morning that my sentiment has shifted in the 20 years since I first became an ardent follower of Fox Mulder. I still have his 'I Want To Believe' poster in the back of my wardrobe, presented to me by friends and colleagues at Triple Jay when I left the station to go bush in Byron Bay for six months.

While it remains true that I do want to believe, the precise nature of it has shifted through the years, I suspect.

So much so, in fact, that I found myself sympathising more with Scully last night when Mulder started rattling off a list of every conspiracy theory that has surfaced since 9/11. It was a long list, and added together it sounded like a joke. Like the producers are saying to us: 'You do know how crazy this stuff is, don't you?'

Moreover, the constant imposition of a big brother-type evil secret government that seems to know everything actually starts to undermine the dramatic stakes, because it imposes a sort of helplessness on the viewer. No matter what Mulder might uncover, it'll all get swept away again, out of public view. It worked when there was sufficient mystery attached to the original series, but so much has already been revealed here.

TV drama has grown up so much, thanks largely to HBO, since this show last graced our screens. But The X-Files doesn't seem to have grown with it.

Interesting to see Skinner re-emerge as Mulder's long-suffering benefactor in the FBI. What has actor Mitch Pileggi being doing in the intervening time? Did Chris Carter have him in some cryogenic deep freeze, ready to trot out again two decades later?

As Mulder, David Duchovny has gone a bit puffy around the edges, which is especially noticeable when they play the original series credits at the start of each new episode.

Basically, I'm not sure I'm buying it. Channel Ten is carping on about how episode three has critics across the world raving. Well it had better be a damn sight better than the first two episodes, because at this point it's fair to say I'm no longer a believer.

The truth IS out there. But it's never going to fall into the hands of Mulder and Scully. Sorry to anyone still thinking otherwise.

I'm in the process of reworking the blurb for Blank.

Have also decided to look at a new cover.

Am gaining some valuable insights from the authors' group at BooksGoSocial, and am now very excited about what's going to happen in the next few weeks.

Blank: Mind the Gap For the past few months, I've been recording an audiobook version of Blank, which I plan to foist upon the world by the end of September, if I can get the mix done by then.

I'm being aided and abetted by a very talented Gold Coast musician, Fletcher Babb, who has delivered me a collection of incredible music that I am in the process of mixing through my own narration, adding colour and emotion to the words.

The result is going to be amazing, I'm quite sure.

It takes me back to when I was mixing my travelogue docos for Triple Jay. The result is going to be just as engaging, I hope.

If you haven't already read Blank and fancy a memorable audio experience, keep it in mind.

The audiobook will be more expensive than the ebook - I'm listing it with Amazon Audible and they set the price. But given it's been like writing the book all over again, I'm not going to argue. And I think people are going to get their money's worth.

Very happy that my novel Blank is finally out in the world.

I'm eagerly awaiting a few reviews now, having already received some positive feedback from early readers.

I was recently interviewed on ABC Radio Queensland's evenings program.

Here is a link if you'd like to have a listen:

http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/20...

The word conspiracy is often thrown about these days as a term of derision, a way to dismiss anyone who raises a far-fetched idea of secret collusion.

Nobody wants to be labelled a conspiracy theorist. It's like being called a lightweight or a fool.

Yet we are surrounded by conspiracy, much of it accepted as a necessary part of life. It's the case in the business world, certainly so in the police forces of the world - except they call it undercover investigation.

Conspiracy lies at the very heart of national security and that's usually for a very good reason.

I say usually because most of us have no real way of judging for ourselves. Julian Assange would have us live in a world of no secrets, but I'm not at all sure that's a world many of us want to live in.

Most of us are more than happy to be kept in the dark. It's far less daunting than the alternative.

But there may soon come a day when some of those secrets emerge into the light and change the world forever.

That's my long-held theory of conspiracy anyway.
JFK: The Smoking Gun