I can hardly find fault with Petersen's vision of a post 2012 world. I mean, come on, who could object to a world that is safe, equitable, cooperative and sustainable?
It's when he outlines his strategy for actually getting there that he loses me. While fully acknowledging the "political and bureaucratic roadblocks that are placed in the path of progress" he then outlines a number of requisite steps that, in my humble opinion, don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of coming to pass.
For example, he postulates that, among other things:
The United States must clearly and unambiguously take the lead....
There must be a deep commitment to global cooperation....
A national innovation network must be put in place....
Did you pick up on that word must? I hope so because it appears no less than a dozen times in just two very short pages! And then, for good measure, after some verbiage about policy priorities, guidance and frameworks, he adds that we must change the systems, we must change the objectives, we must encourage people to change and we must build a new world.
If Petersen is correct and these things must come to pass, then pardon me for not feeling all that optimistic about our reaching his post 2012 future!
And for the above sentiment I guess he could justly accuse me of "fixating on the negative," a tendency which he encourages us to avoid, preferring that we instead see this as a "time of great opportunity," a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play an important...role in shaping the future." To which I am more than happy to say, amen.
Now, what about the arrival of those ET's that were mentioned in Part One? That far out, low probability event?
Would their appearance really come as such a big surprise to Petersen? Well, not if you can believe Catherine Austin Fitts, the former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush administration. According to Fitts, she had discussed the ET question with him in 1998 at Petersen's The Arlington Institute. It was within the context of developing a plan for the Undersecretary of the Navy "to help the Navy adjust their operations for a world in which it was commonly known that aliens exist and live among us."
She goes on to say that in later talking with a few sources she herself had in the military and the intelligence community, they did indeed confirm that "aliens exist and live among us."
All of this is not nearly as far fetched as you might think. For starters, it is widely held that the U.S. Navy is the service that has historically taken the lead in dealing with the alien situation; according to many insiders it plays a bigger role than even the U.S. Air Force. And Petersen, a Navy pilot in his younger days, apparently has very close and longstanding ties with some very high level Navy brass.
I also find it highly credible for another reason.
In the late fall of 1999 I conducted a day-long workshop for senior staff and board members of the Institute of Noetic Sciences founded by Edgar Mitchell. I had a longstanding relationship with IONS and had met Edgar on several previous occasions, so after dinner that night at a home high atop a Marin County hillside I pulled him aside and asked him the burning question of the day: Are UFO's real and have we been visited by extraterrestrials?
Now, for the few of you who might not know, Edgar was an Apollo 14 astronaut, former Navy pilot, holder of a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, and is one of only 12 people to have walked on the moon. And what he said to me in private that night he has now repeated publicly on numerous occasions -- namely that, yes, according to numerous high level contacts he has in government, the military and the intelligence community, UFOs are real and we have been, and are being, visited by ET's!
Now add that to the fact that there is a testimonial from Edgar on Petersen's The Arlington Institute endorsement page (which by the way also contains testimonials from my late friend Bill Harman and my former colleague Ed Cornish) and you have what might be seen by some as corroborating evidence.
In sum, I think it is highly likely that Petersen knows a lot more than he is letting on in his book -- and maybe for good reason. Who knows?
