Truth Sieve

With the close of World War I and the establishment of the League of Nations, the post-war period saw, as yet, unprecedented industrial development and economic growth.  Numerous new technologies such as the automobile, the airplane, motion pictures (including early “talkies“), and radio became essential parts of “civilized” life.  Many places in the world saw lifestyle changes as well:  Prohibition in the US and other countries, universal education, suffragette movements, and the abolition of child labor.  Technological advancement, economic growth, and social development were seen by the power elites, the initiates of the secrets of extra-terrestrial contacts as strong indicators of preparedness of “civilized nations” to share in the marvel and bounty of alien contact.  The Great Depression changed all of that.

The Great Depression was the most severe economic contraction that the world had seen.  Reverberations are still being felt today.  The uncertain economics, social climate, and the rise of militaristic regimes in Germany, Japan, and the USSR caused those who thought that the world might be ready to learn about real extra-terrestrials to reconsider and delay.  They felt that war was all but certain and that the war would likely be worse than the Great War.  Their great fear was that given the climate of blame for problems by some (the Nazis in Germany), fear of the Western schemes by some (Stalin in the USSR), and naked territorial ambitions by some (Imperial Japan), that jealousy regarding which nations the aliens had contacted would fuel the spread of the war.

Throughout the early part of the 1930s many felt that the war could be prevented by appeasing the aggressors or working within the charter of the League of Nations.  Neither worked as intended and both tracks served to embolden leaders to continue more aggressive behaviors.  Ultimately the war began any way.

The 1920s and 1930s saw the development of a literary genre called “science fiction.”  Science fiction is an expansive field that includes space travel, fantastic extra-terrestrials, time travel, “death rays,” and all manner of things imaginable.  While science fiction developed independent of the initiates of the alien presence on Earth, it serves as a convenient vehicle to gauge the public’s interest in and capacity to receive information about “space aliens.”  The more popular, the more ingrained in the public’s imagination the more likely it is that the revelation when finally made will be well-received.  The October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds had the opposite effect.  The ensuing panic during the broadcast and the outrage afterwards demonstrated that as a whole humans were still unprepared for the “truth.”