Britain’s former Minister of Defense has warned the public that aliens could attack at any moment. About a year ago, a former Canadian Minister of Defense, Mr. Paul Hellyer, said basically the same thing.

Although I watched Hellyer’s speech on TVO, I didn’t talk about it. I have an open mind, am a patient man and decided to read the books that Mr. Hellyer used as evidence.

Well, it’s a year later and I’ve read those books. I remain totally unconvinced that there is any danger from the stars. Furthermore, I am also ready to prove that I too can wear a tin-hat.

Hellyer recommended two books: The Day After Roswell by Col. Phillip Corso and Exopolitics by Michael E. Salla PhD. Both of these books are total crap. Skeptical Inquirer did a great job of giving the lie to “The Day After Roswell,” so I’m just going to point out a few things.

Both of these books act as if we would stand a chance against an alien invasion and both recommend a Star Wars defense system to counteract one. Was it a coincidence that these books appear at roughly the same time that Bush was talking about militarizing space?

It’s possible.

But I doubt it.

Remember, 30 percent of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations. That’s a big demographic. It would certainly benefit the military to make those people think that these UFOs are hostile and that we need weapons in space to defeat them.

I’m not sure that we can trust Phillip Corso – who is a military man – or Michael E. Salla, who has written on topics other than little green men. He wrote a book called “The Hero’s Journey Towards a Second American Century,” which emphasizes an interventionalist (i.e. neocon) foreign policy. He also wrote one called “Islamic Radicalism, Muslim Nations and the West.” He is involved in a group called “The Center for Global Peace,” which has received a grant from the US Department of State to form the Iraq Human Rights Commission.

If I was a cynic, I’d suggest that he might be in someone’s pocket.

If I wasn’t, I would wonder why The Center For Global Peace would give an academic appointment to man who has a chapter in his book named “US Motivation for Preemptive War Against Iraq: Stargate Technology and the Return of the Gods.”

In Exopolitics he talks about what constitutes proof of aliens and assigns three rankings – “Strong-Moderate-Weak.” The strongest of these proofs are “whistleblowers.” That is, if someone high ranking talks about aliens it must be true. (This is, of course, nonsense. Having authority cannot free people from presenting evidence.) Salla discusses Col. Philip Corso and his “revelations” at length. He finds no problems with them.

Twice in two years we’ve had former Ministers of Defense, from America’s two closest allies, talking about the imminent threat of an Intergalactic War. According to Salla’s methodology these two men represent the highest form of truth on the matter. As evidence, Hellyer recommended a book that says that people like Hellyer must be taken at their word. This whole scenario is a self-stoking bullshit machine.

The politicians are using little green men in the same way that they use religion. It’s a prop. If they can get the 30% of people who believe in UFOs to believe that they are hostile, they can then convince these same people to put weapons in space and that Bush went to war in Iraq, not because of oil or WMDs, but because of an alien “Star Gate technology.” (Getting that technology was, apparently the reason the museums were looted after the fall of Baghdad.)

I still have an open mind about aliens. I do not, however, have an open mind about Salla, Corso and the slew of government and military officials who are using an “alien threat” so that they can build weapons and invade who they like. I might be cynical but I’m not half as cynical as these bastards.