Jacques Vallee's 'Messengers of Deception' (1979) is an intelligent, complex, and prescient exploration of the UFO phenomenon that focuses specifically on its social aspects and the mysterious UFO cults which have arisen globally around it.
By the time he came to write 'Messengers of Deception,' Vallee had produced five earlier books on the subject, and was fairly confident that UFOs did not represent extraterrestrial craft of any kind ("I believe that UFOs are physically real. They represent a fantastic technology controlled by an unknown form of consciousness...they may not be from outer space.").
Almost thirty years later, Vallee, who contributes a new foreword to the current edition, is, like everyone else in the field, still in the dark about the exact nature of the subject under question.
What makes 'Messengers of Deception' particularly fascinating is that Vallee cautiously sketches out his belief that some agency with enormous power of various kinds is and has been "staging" thousands of technologically complex, essentially 'fake' UFO sightings around the world with the pointed intention of manipulating and guiding civilization, and man himself, in a very specific direction.
The apparent goal of this agency is to encourage mankind, via a belief in the impending arrival from the heavens of the benevolent 'space brothers,' to become anti-scientific, irrational, infantile, dependent, and endlessly hopeful that the essential problems of man---including his mortality---can be permanently overcome through the multi-prismed salvation the [false] "space brothers" offer.
Other goals include 'the reversal of the scale of values,' "leading to a new understanding of social good, the abolition of borders, and the death of nationalism," 'goals' which are certainly becoming the reality in today's American.
Which raises the question: who or what has such enormous, organizational God-like power?
Basing his argument on his own observations, experiences, firsthand investigations, contacts within the military-industrial complex ("Major Murphy"), and excellent brain, Vallee suggests a somewhat complicated two-pronged solution.
The 'real' UFOs are apparently solid objects (or objects of an essentially psychoid nature, able to move between solidity and non-solidity), sometimes lit and sometimes not, frequently observed flying or hovering above the ground, which, while probably not of extraterrestrial origin in the sense that they are interstellar craft, are of a yet-indefinable nature.
They may or may not represent some kind of a "control system," Vallee's term for a sort of spontaneous cosmic socio-evolutionary barometer that acts directly and indirectly on the psyche of man.
The second prong of Vallee's thesis focuses on the 'Manipulators,' which is Vallee's term for the (most likely human) agency which understands the genuine UFO phenomena enough to exploit it, duplicate its effects, and use those effects to control and corral mankind (initially through UFO cults and occult groups, but also by infiltrating civilian UFO investigatory organizations) by methodically reducing it to an irrational, dependent mob without recourse to country or nationality, and, by extension, without recourse to family, community, financial solvency, or spirit of independence.
The 'Manipulators' use "psychotronic" weapons, which harness electromagnetic energy that acts on the subconscious mind, creating hallucinations of aerial and landed 'flying saucers,' visitors from other planets, 'alien abduction,' and amnesia. Some of these weapons are loaded onto flying machines shaped like classic 'flying saucers,' while other such "psychotronic" devices actually create the illusion of the 'flying saucer' itself.
Again: who--or what--has the sort of scientific, technological, financial, and organizational resources required to pull off such a decades-long stratagem?
Vallee again offers two hypothetical scenarios: one in which a secret cabal composed of military personnel of various Western nations are attempting to convince the masses that an invasion from space may be imminent; their goal is to unify the nations of the earth against a common enemy and thus prevent further catastrophic wars. If this hypothesis is correct, then what should be made of the 'alien abduction' phenomenon that has replaced the 'peaceful space brother' visitations since the mid-Eighties?
The second, very different scenario Vallee offers is a sketchy version of the demonological argument that has been put forth by John Keel, among others.
However, Vallee rules out very few possibilities completely, so the 'Manipulators' might also be a hidden, non-human race coexisting with man on Earth, or time travelers, while the actual source of the genuine, "control system" UFOs might be an actual deity ['God'].
Towards the end, Vallee weakly addresses the subject of cattle mutilations, which he considers part of the stratagem of "the Manipulators." Numerous investigations on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and the National Geographic Channel (the same channels that have influentially been promoting the idea that UFOs are either 'space craft from other planets, or simply nonexistent' for ten years) over the succeeding decades have shown that for every 'expert' who can be found to validate "cattle mutilations" as a legitimate unexplained phenomenon, another can be found to officially discount it, with both sides offering convincing arguments and 'evidence' to support their positions.
As Vallee's treatment of "cattle mutilations" is rather cursory and poorly integrated into his argument, potential questions can be raised about the accuracy of his judgment and other conclusions.
Vallee also raises the question of synchronicity: are energy and information actually transmitted via association rather than within a space/time continuum framework? Vallee makes an example of a receipt he received from a taxi driver bearing a highly unusual but extremely significant last name: unfortunately, the reproduced document is not printed on official company letterhead, and is thus useless as evidence of any kind. Vallee himself, or anyone else, could have composed it.
Lastly, since 'Messengers of Deception' contains a decidedly conspiratorial bent, it's worth asking if Vallee himself hasn't been manipulated and deceived by "Major Murphy," who subtly steers much of Vallee's thinking throughout the book, or if Vallee himself isn't an active agent of misinformation and misdirection.
Conspiracy thinking and theory are like all-encompassing quicksand, and once suspicions and paranoia become constellated, they are capable of expanding and echoing endlessly ---and irrationally.
