It seems like a prospect that went from humorous to wildly bizarre. At least one economist Paul Krugman discussed the possibility of an Alien Invasion saving the economy in August. Looking back on that statement now and the events that followed shortly afterward, it would be easy to get the impression that something strange was going on. Keep in mind less than a week later one of the largest mass UFO sightings of the year happened in Arizona and California. Is there something to this?
Rumors of “Project Blue Beam,” as it is known across the Internet have been around for quite some time, but hearing it in hushed tones rumored on the Internet and hearing an economist say it’s precisely what our country needs are two completely different things. Those following the Project Blue Beam conspiracy theories have started giving the idea a different look now. And that wasn’t the last time the idea of an alien invasion -fake or real- has come up in major news networks.
Of course while it is perfectly valid in theory, it’s disturbing how much of a foregone conclusion deception seems to be sometimes in matters both political and (these days) economic. Are those in power looking at the problems of the world today through a lens of what lie will best suit our purpose? Is there any amount of comic book villainy that will ultimately solve the world’s financial meltdown? Perhaps it’s out of context – the world markets are certainly in dire enough straits to consider whether lying about an alien invasion is ethical or not. Of course considering and then dismissing is a bit different from suggesting it on national television as the remedy.
Whether the political machinations of the past and the financial elements of it are viable causes for concern or not is something economists trained for years in theory are debating at the moment, but now is a moment when we actually have to ask ourselves, regardless of how strange it may sound, whether the next generation of Keynesian economics will have a component of the paranormal in it.
Of course the idea of fooling the world into thinking an alien invasion is happening to make them more productive is based on faulty logic in addition to being more than a bit weird and more than a bit terrifying. This James Bond plot would fall through the moment the final payoff of the invasion occurred. If lying to the world about an alien invasion didn’t hurt trust in financial institutions then nothing would. And what happens when the problems that caused the crisis in the first place, upon being ignored wholesale in favor of an alien invasion story, come up once again? Would the world simultaneously solve these and fight an alien war at the same time? It seems unlikely.
Ordinarily topics such as economics don’t enter the paranormal field. Both topics have a substantial amount of unexplained phenomena going on within them. And now it seems both seem to share a certain element of creepiness rarely seen anywhere else. And if the statement made by Krugman was nothing more than a joke that the world took too seriously, then we have to ask ourselves why we took it so seriously. Is it because we believe deep down there are institutions out there that would try this in the interest of international profit?
Perhaps the most disturbing element is the fact that lies behind all wars – the loss of human life. How much of a human loss of life would this deceptive war on phantom alien invaders cause?