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There is growing debate concerning ‘exopolitics’,
which is oriented towards public policy
issues concerning extraterrestrial life; and
its relationship to UFOlogy, which primarily
concerns itself with evidence concerning
unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
Supporters of exopolitics largely accept
that the existence of extraterrestrial life
has been abundantly demonstrated by a vast
pool of evidence over the last sixty years
provided by eyewitnesses, whistleblowers,
scientists, ‘experiencers’ and leaked
government documents. Supporters of
exopolitics claim it is now time to focus on
public policy aspects of this evidence,
rather than maintain a myopic focus on
proving to perennial skeptics that UFOs are
real and a legitimate focus on scientific
study. Indeed, exopolitics supporters
believe that much of this skepticism is
unwarranted and can be traced to the
debunking recommended by the CIA appointed
Robertson Panel in 1953. The panel delivered
a report, the Durant Report, that
recommended ridiculing the ‘flying saucer’
phenomenon and the possibility of
extraterrestrial life, for national security
reasons.
Many individuals are still trying to grasp
what exopolitics is all about, and many
‘UFOlogists’ remain highly critical of
exopolitics as an emerging disciplinary
approach to public policy issues concerning
extraterrestrial life. UFOlogists still have
difficulty grasping that exopolitics is the
forerunner to a legitimate academic
discipline that will soon be established in
every major university. Critics of
exopolitics often tend to focus on some of
the pioneers of exopolitical thought in
terms of their methods and ideas, rather
than the identifying the merits of a
scholarly approach to public policy issues
concerning extraterrestrial life.
The present situation is some ways analogous
to the 19th century where there was much
debate on how to prepare individuals for
studying public policy issues for careers in
international diplomacy and public office.
Historians at the time argued that efforts
to establish the discipline of 'political
science' was ill founded, since the best
preparation for a life dealing with public
policy issues was to read historical works
by Arnold Toynbee, Herodotus, Thucydides,
etc. Well, political science developed
anyway as an academic discipline out of the
department of history since it fulfilled a
functional need. The functional need was to
better understand public policy issues and
how individuals could be trained to
professionally deal with these.
Political science is now the discipline of
choice for those wanting to study public
policy issues and to be professionally
trained to work with these. During the
1860’s, political science departments began
to emerge in many universities. Similarly,
exopolitics will be the discipline of choice
for those desiring to study public policy
issues associated with extraterrestrial life
since it fulfills a functional need. The
functional need is to understand how
extraterrestrial life impacts on public
policy issues, and to professionally train
to deal with these. Exopolitics will be
first established in departments of
political science as a legitimate sub-field
as is currently the case with ‘international
politics’, ‘foreign policy’, ‘comparative
politics’, ‘political economy’, etc., in
many political science departments.
Eventually, exopolitics will emerge as a
distinct department with an
interdisciplinary focus spanning public
policy issues relating not only to political
science, but to exoscience, exoreligion,
exodiplomacy, etc.
Debunkers and Ufologists in general are poor
students of history not to have observed how
academic disciplines and sub-fields develop
to fulfill functional needs. They are remiss
in not observing how exopolitics will fill
the functional need for the systematic study
of public policy issues concerning evidence
of extraterrestrial life. The choice of the
word 'exopolitics'
to represent this nascent academic
discipline has long term strategic value due
to the functional need it fills.
Furthermore, exopolitics is the term of
choice to deal with public policy issues
like the national security cover up of
extraterrestrial life and technologies.
UFOlogy as a field has little academic
future since the functional need it serves
will quickly be settled once the existence
of extraterrestrial life is accepted. The
reality of UFOs will be moot once they have
been publicly identified as
‘extraterrestrial’, ‘interdimensional’ or
‘intertemporal’ in origin. Those devoted to
UFOlogy are missing a great opportunity to
contribute to establishing legitimate social
science parameters for exopolitical study.
Exopolitics is here to stay as the
discipline of choice for a new branch of
knowledge that will revolutionize academic
studies and the world as we know it.
Michael E. Salla, Ph.D.
Founder and President
Exopolitics Institute
www.ExopoliticsInstitute.Org |
