A.D. After Disclosure

One Week A.D.

This cover to your left, from August 2009, is the only cover story Newsweek has ever done about aliens that wasn't really about a movie version (they did a Close Encounters cover in back in 1977 when the film was released). But the article inside this issue barely mentions UFOs, and the whole thing is only a page or so long. You see, Newsweek doesn't cover UFOs, except to ridicule the idea, and they certainly aren't going to give their precious cover real estate to a subject their editors and reporters treat with such contempt.

So we did it for them.

Here is a faux tricked-up version of a Newsweek magazine as it might look the week that Disclosure arrives. We originally thought we might be able to use it in the book as one of our between-chapters "vignettes" but eventually the decision was made not to use heavy graphic design elements like this. But we present it here, well, just because we like it, and it's fun to imagine this artistically interpreted version of how the establishment media (like Newsweek) which has ignored this important story for so many decades will pivot instantly to riding it to big newstand sales.

The alien and the flag concept was originally done by Alicia Fernandez and Michael Kaplan of Blue Sky Creative for NBC's Dark Skies promotional campaign. Our graphic designer Nancy Tokos re-interpreted it for us for After Disclosure and, at one time, we were going to use it on our book cover but the more we wrote on the book, the more we felt it would say "science fiction" to buyers when we wanted them to think "science faction." We still have affection for the design, however, and it's nice to bring it back for a stage bow here on the website.

Maybe someday, and even someday soon, a cover like this one will grace the cover of an establishment media giant like Newsweek (especially with Tina Brown taking over as editor!). 

If you want to know a bit more about the book itself, here is the link to read the Introduction to A.D. After Disclosure. It is easily available through Amazon.com. Or you can order it through your local bookstore.

As always, we thank you for considering a purchase of the book through the button below at Keyhole Publishing. It will be shipped directly from the publisher signed by co-author Richard Dolan, and you will receive a free MP3 of "Need-to-Know: The UFO Disclosure Song," currently available on iTunes.

Let's Get Small

While researching this book, we also looked through a lot of quotations to use as scene-setters at the beginning of individual chapters. As it turns out, we ended up using two quotations per chapter; one from powerful lyrics of songs that are cultural touchstones, and one from the more traditional sources. There are so many great ones that it was a difficult winnowing process. One of our favorites didn't make the cut, but we present it here now:

“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”

Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist, 1996

Pondering this one, it reminded us of an email that was making the rounds a few years ago. We don't know where these pictures come from and, although we think they're scientifically in the ballpark, we aren't absolutely sure. If you know the provenance of the work, please let us know and we will properly credit the source and, likewise, if there are factual corrections to be made, we hope you'll post a comment to this post and set the record straight.

When this was showing up at our Inboxes, international astronomers had everyone thinking about the cosmos for at least a day by throwing Pluto out of the Solar System for being a shrimp, a "dwarf planet" that is so small it can't even control its own neighborhood. This means that size does matter, at least astronomically, and it is a perfect way to begin to wrap your brain around what this universe is all about and put in context how consciousness expanding the act of Disclosure may be against a backdrop of truly orienting us into the universe.

Comedian Steve Martin made a splash in 1977 with his debut album "Let's Get Small". By the time you get through this photo journey you will feel even smaller than Martin felt at his smallest but you'll have a new context that is what Gould was driving at. Ready? Here's picture number one.

Now this should make you feel pretty good. There's our home planet Earth looking like the biggest baddest kid on the block. Mars, which is our closest cousin in the solar system they say, looks like a puny runt compared to us. Now let's roll in the outer planets in the solar system.

Whoa! Suddenly we're looking downright tiny and insignificant. If Jupiter is a basketball, then we're a marble, barely. Mars has turned into a BB. And we're still in the local neighborhood. Now let's pop in our own sun, Old Sol.

Suddenly our scale is, well, underwhelming. We need the arrow to see the Earth because, at its current size, we'd miss it. We're getting seriously small. But at least we can agree that it's all relative because the sun is immense, right?

What We Believe

The issue that was hushed up by one generation, then turned into an object of derision by another, now deserves to be heard straight up in ours. 

Disclosure Comix #1 - Contact

From time-to-time as we wait for the book to be published, we'll be posting our "Disclosure Comix" which are stills from alien-themed films from the past, interpreted with a skew toward After Disclosure news and politics. They're for fun, protected as fair use because of their commentary, and should be looked at like an editorial cartoon on the Op-Ed page (remember newspapers?). Anyway, here is our first one, from Contact, starring Jodie Foster.

 

Contact, the film, was based on Contact, the book, written by Carl Sagan. We take Sagan to task in our upcoming book for his blind-eyed belief in S.E.T.I. and his condescending dismissal of the possibility of UFO contact. He always said the universe was teeming with life but they couldn't possibly be here. We disagree.

The Stamp Act of 2010: A.D. Gets Zazzled!

Take a good look at the stamp to the left. It's probably the only place you'll ever see it, especially if the U.S. Postal Service and its gatekeepers at Zazzle have their way.

You see, behind-the-scenes, we were trying to create a few pieces of merchandising to go with the release of A.D. AFTER DISCLOSURE on September 23. One of the things that Zazzle, the on-line company that specializes in do-it-yourself merchandise, offered was an interface to put your own individual designs on postage stamps, offered through the U.S. Postal Service.

Ours was turned down because -- get this -- it fails the "Appropriate Use Guidelines." According to Mike of "Zazzle Content Management" who wrote us:

Hello Zazzler,

Thank you for contacting our Content Management Team regarding your cancelled design. 

We would love to print everything that our customers submit, however we must abide by all applicable laws and standards as well as our own content guidelines and copyright policies.

One of these restrictions prohibits the printing of any postage with content that advocates or protests any particular religious, social, political, legal, or moral agenda of any person or entity. In this instance, your custom stamp design(s) contained a design which may be controversial.

We certainly apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment that you may have experienced due to this cancellation and we look forward to delighting you with high quality products in the future!

Best Regards,

Content Management Team

Now, take a second again, and look at that stamp. It's our graphic design, done beautifully by artist Nancy Tokos of Tokos Design Associates, incorporating an alien head created by Todd Masters of MastersFX. 

Apparently, if we put soft clouds or photos of puppies playing on our stamp, it might be approved.

Sneak Peek

Our graphic designer, Nancy Tokos, has done it again. She's stripped our current logo down to its essence in black with white lines. Forget Waldo, she says, the real question is, "Where's ET?"

 

We will be using more of this style in some other ways shortly. Still in the planning stages.