Close Encounters is an allegory.  The driving psychological force that sends the two main characters to Devil's Tower, Wyoming is a mirror of so-called 'mind control' itself.  The subliminals/metaphors/symbols in Close Encounters center around human evils, shames, transgressions and weaknesses - from wreckless driving to smoking marijuana to child abuse.  That is the core of the Devil's Tower symbol.  True to the standard creative MC form, whenever the tactics and technologies of MC harassments are hinted at, they are also vaguely coupled to those human evils.  That is a propaganda formula that has been in use for well for over thirty years in cleverly selling MC via osmosis to the public in carefully controlled and artfully crafted terms, while avoiding any outright admission by anyone that anything is going on at all.  In fact, the only information the public really gets (beyond the research and accounts of targets themselves) is just the series of vague suggestions that Close Encounters and numerous other such examples represent.  Even today, professor Spielberg is giving us visions of people who are blips on computer screens and are implanted in productions like 'Taken'  (with Dakota Fanning being the symbolic center of the story), just as Spielberg turned to her yet again (and, if you'll notice, the tragedy of 9/11 - notice the undamaged writer's desk just off to the side of the downed jetliner) in an appeal for silence in War of the Worlds.

Still going strong thirty years later.  Same basic formula.  In essence, it's propaganda of the cleverest and most subtle kind to sell the philosophy of remote, continuous and anonymous manipulation of targeted persons (via implants or otherwise) and their effective transformation into micromanageable psychological voodoo dolls and emotional pinatas of others who can never be confronted or questioned.  The perfect scheme of control coupled to the best excuse for the application of such a scheme.  And just as a military pilot directing pixels towards other pixels on a computer screen loses sight of the fact that when those pixels intersect, it is human beings, not pixels, that are torn to pieces by bombs and missiles, so does the convenience of dissecting and manipulating persons remotely and anonymously lose sight of the degree of harm that can be and is being done by those means.  In short, it's simply too easy.

In thirty years time beginning on the heels of the Church Committee hearings, not one public debate on the implementation of this psycho-surveillance state has ever occurred, with the news media assisting by never investigating and reporting on that reality.  Undaunted, the CIA continued full speed ahead into MC research and implementation.  However, it (and the FBI and other federal agencies) did learn a great deal in the embarassment of being confronted with evidence of its own crimes that it wasn't able to destroy record of or suppress before that committee and took steps to preclude any such accountability for its MKULTRA style research in the future, in terms of leaving no paper trains, employing vague suggestion in fictional contexts, enhancing the deniability and transparency of techniques employed, training cooperating laypersons in the arts of evasion and half-truth, compartmentalizing information and perhaps most importantly, by always placing vague inferences that the interests of children at the core of their media propaganda.

Close Encounters conveys provocative emotional impressions in a fictional context, but no facts true to the media MC form.  The two main protagonists are also the between the lines antagonists in the form of the Jillian Gyler and the Roy Neary characters (and others along the way) and they may well draw in part from two or more actual people who obviously had some problems in their lives, though embedded in the overtly fictional context, any amount of exaggeration, spin and mixing is also possible.  For example, the film implies that the tactics and technologies of MC are for use in situations in which a child is somehow in jeopardy - i.e. Jillian's son and the Neary kids.  However, that is simply not the case in actual application.  It may have been back in the seventies, but it is no longer.  In fact, there are no known, publically accessible criteria for the application of the hardball tactics of MC at all.

Arguments in Favor:

"HOMES CHEAPER THAN AVERAGE INDICATES..."
"WINE/COCKTAILS"
"STATE POLICE SEE LIGHTS TOO.  FAIL TO CITE SKY SPEEDERS."





Marijuana symbols - A plant in hand and a Budweiser on the TV.  I'm not sure what the Duck herding moment was about, but it probably draws from the then more prevalent duck metaphor that Spielberg developed in Duckman a few years later about a talking duck that likes porn and is transported to a mysterious world.  "Low prices" on the TV (homegrown is cheaper).  "Just breathe deep and everything will look real pretty.", says Roy, while trucking potting soil into the den.  "Whatever you're doing, it's against the law." from the neighbor - meaning obvious.  A plant shadow in the fog of night as Roy says, "M Mary 10", Mary denoting marijuana.  A smoky symbolic exhalation floats by as the door slams shut in the boy's face.  "UFO buzzes air force", "Flying saucers and the twilight zone", "How to contact a UFO" (a metaphor for MC), "Canada a haven for aliens" (at least the kind that 'buzz')

Take out the trash metaphors - Roy's scraping grooves from his small clay mountain on the table and tearing off its top is, like emptying half the contents of the trash can, symbolic of giving up a few of his flaws but not others.  The boy gives a whoop as Jillian empties the trash.








Pinnochio symbols - Goodness.  What are Pinnochio symbols doing in a movie about space aliens, unless... it's a kind of allegorical morality play?








Red Color Symbols - A red-masked, out-of-breath bandit whose ship-ment ain't going through the desert today, chased by a guy with a gun who is backed by the power of UN blue, cameras and copters.  Roy and Jillian are symbolically marked/burned (Jillian briefly and symbolically baring her breasts to the other) with Mr. Friendly and family's red truck in the background.  The fictional last name of 'Gyler' is probably a play on the word 'guile'.  The inconsequential red jumper-nauts hand over their manilla envelopes on a charter from Cheyenne Mountain to Devil's Tower.  Roy shows his symbolic mean side, finds himself under the glare of the spotlight (gets brighted) from time to time and adds an 'oink' for emphasis.  Numerous red stop signs thrown in for good measure.
























Other symbols

MORE stop signs (this one lit up for emphasis)...  Don't miss the continuing stop sign and train wreck metaphors in War of the Worlds.






Taco and Ice Cream Cone - Two great tastes that taste great together.  On that point, professor Spielberg and I heartily (pun intended) agree, particularly if it includes the lovely and talented Teri Garr.





Cool to hot, mailboxes demanding attention and shaking from side to side to symbolize 'No', a stop sign doing the same, exposed under the harsh light, flickering lights symbolizing camera flashes, the items flying around the truck symbolizing a world turned upside down.  Roy stops the truck at the railroad tracks, building upon the "thousands of lives are at stake" and "how far do you have to move this box car off the track" symbol of the model railroad set.



Great and heroic deeds of the red jumper-naughts - They are bravely bussed on a charter from Cheyenne Mountain to Devil's Tower, valiantly hand over their manilla envelopes, gallantly get roughed up by a white coated guy with a stethoscope, courageously get preached to and told that angels will watch over them, and then fearlessly get left behind.  (Think of the returned 'alien abductees' as red jumper-nauts, just without the jump suits and who have already been through the meat grinder.)


"She'll be comin' round the Mountain when she comes".  (as whistled by a winking Mr. Friendly and as symbolized visually as part of a car chase - a partial play on the word 'come'), the child in the road - an endangerment and careless driving symbol...




"The moment you come into view" another play on the word 'come' and symbolizing exposure in conjunction with the blinds zipped open, the 'Hoover administration' (pun intended) cleaning up the place, noises from the walls symbolizing click/thump messaging, rampaging washer/dryer symbolizing induced equipment malfunction, an "answer the door" suggestion from the child, the child yanked from the mother's arms symbolizing loss of custody, cowboy on the screen symbolizing pursuit (creative media MC style), red outside the door symbolizing a world filled with evils and dangers and/or anger...

'Harper Valley ahead' symbolizing hypocrisy...

"This is crazy."
"Help.  I'm lost."
"A little familiar landmark of some sort."
"Singles circuit.  Lead you right to nowhere."

(driving off into the fog symbolizing DUI, smashing into guard rail symbolizing wreckless driving, high speed chase symbolizing... a high speed chase)


I'm learning to be a slob...  I'm learning to be a slob...








Chased by aliens symbolizing high speed chase or flight from authority.  Ohio state line symbolizing limits of law...







A shame symbol.  "Soooo look with care for the shape of a square.  Can you fiiiind it?" 






The senators (you can tell by their being overfed and overdressed) pop out of hiding when everything looks politically safe and the wee space aliens make their appearance.  This is the proverbial baby kissing and a sign of the tacit support of government (when it can be portrayed as defending wee space aliens).









One of the two sons whacking a baby doll upon the green lined crib symbolizing abuse of the little sister.  The little girl with her rear end in the air symbolizing sexual abuse.  The "raise your arm and give me a smile" moment with the camera in the field at night symbolic of child pornography.  The taking pictures of Roy while shaving and Mrs. Neary's line "This isn't your toy to play around with every time I turn around" are suggestive of an odd reversal - child photography.










"It is an event psychological"

Mirrors the (mostly) psychological nature of MC.

"[Signs] for teaching music to the deaf" mirrors MC.



Mirrors of high and low tech MC attack tactics


Click and thump sounds from the ceiling mirrors click/thump messaging
Sounds_In_The_Attic.mpg (~1 meg)







"Has the outage hit you yet?"  Lights out - mirrors electrical service disruption.  The children cheer when the power goes out.  "We've got a big problem coming your way."  'The Ten Commandments' on the TV.







"Where did the voices come from?"

Mirrors voice to skull and other sound induction methods in the arsenal.  Also symbolic of 'voice of God'.  Professor Spielberg placed the upward pointing finger 'sign' in War of the World recently (did you miss it?) and I've seen that sign used by at least one passing street theater 'player'.




"He says it sang to him."  Another voice-to-skull (or general clandestine messaging) mirror.








Ringing in the ears.  Headaches/migraines.  Burning and itching sensations.  (Commonly reported MC attack tactics).  "He'll wake up with a hell of a headache."

"If this is just nerve gas, how come I know everything in such detail?  I've never been here before."  (A mirror of the natural need of targets to gain answers and resolution to their mysterious, clandestine persecutions.)  "You can't make people crazy."  (In fact, you can, if you try or at least you can make them seem so.)



The exploding kitchen mirrors induced electrical appliance malfunction (part of the arsenal).  "Halloween for grown-ups"








Other Symbols

Classic alien abduction scene symbolizes loss of custody to the state.










"They [aliens - i.e. the state] got him [the son]."  Cointelpro style whisper tactics mirrored.  The shaming aspect of MC is mirrored (notice the giggle).  "Room thirty-six fifty-five" mirrors biblical numerology.  The question "Are you involved in any kind of parapsychology" is symbolic (i.e. bad - psychology or psychological problem).









The familiar Close Encounters pop tone can be translated as "Me doe doe, so ray me".  The mothership booms out "DOE DOE!" as the musical conversation begins, breaking the glass over Roy's head.  That the pop tone leads to the coordinates of Devil's Tower on the map is itself symbolic.  "It's our first day of school fellas."  The (usually) blue-tinted mothership is our authority figure and symbolic of MC itself.  The long armed space alien represents roughly the long arm of the law, the wee space aliens represent children (particularly those from red-tinted homes and lives, professor Spielberg bouncing the camera view back and forth between Jillian's son and the aliens to emphasize this) and the medium sized alien is roughly symbolic of adolescence.  If there is anything more to the musical conversation, then look to those mentioned five-note groups, take note of when the mothership adds red tracery to its generally blue color, and expect something pictographic and (you guessed it) utterly ambiguous.

If a targeted person found himself hit with the familiar CE pop tone in the late seventies (or any time ever since, so prominent has that tone become in social memory) whistled in passing, voice-to-skulled or otherwise, the target would know immediately what was up.  And CE supplies a drawer-full of fodder to give it meaning - that's part of CE's crafted function.  Some targets in the course of being harassed might descend into a delusion that what they had seen in the theater was a part of an actual alien presence on Earth or something similar, particularly in that many targets chosen are relatively low on the IQ scale.  Other dumb ones would start screaming 'Jewish comspiracy!'.  Smarter ones would look to the signs of military association with MC.


TV Signs

"Happy birthday, you thing from another world, you."  "Oooh.  Thank you!"  (MC - The gift that explodes in your face.)   "Well, I guess he's had enough."   "Now I use my secret weapon!"  "I've got you on my super video detecto set."









Roy sneers at the beer/alcohol ad with a plant in hand.  The soap opera package at the door moment (and "controversial rail shipments") probably symbolizing drug sales by mail and MC itself.  The news moment perhaps giving a rough idea of the number of people 'served' by MC back in the mid seventies.  The McDonald's moment implied much the same (considering the number of alien visitation/abduction claims from the seventies, maybe they DID number in the millions, though the actual number was and is probably in the tens of thousands at any given time).  It should be obvious by now that MC is the clear basis for many of those claims.



"What are you doing?"  "I'm just running away from the [?]..."  "Bill, do me a favor.  Go home.  Just go home.  Hospital authorities... better services... bar association... investigator"







Anyone who operates under the delusion that these TV moments were chosen at random to fill time is just a fool.  Any first year film student knows that a film director (particularly one as meticulous as Spielberg) and his team have complete control of all of the elements (even seemingly inconsequential ones) from set to props to dialog to (in this case green) lighting.  Why not use them to enrich the film with meaning?  In other words - to turn the film into a kind of anvil to accompany a hammer?


Toy Metaphors 
The police car and the aircraft flanked by the helicopter corner and converge on the crazy driver spinning in circles.  The toys moving of their own accord symbolizes electromagnetically induced equipment function/malfunction - part of the arsenal.






The crazy driver smashes into a car.  Borrows from the earlier 'Conflict Alert' moment in the 'traffic control' room, 'traffic' being a play on words.  "Continue to sign at your discretion" (a play on the word 'sign') and "I have a target at that position now" symbolizing the ability to track and surveill targeted individuals at any location.  The quick transition from "following traffic to destination, over" in the control room to the house at night suggesting the destination of that 'traffic'.






The tank shakes its turrent signifying 'no' and suggests a military presence in MC.  The moving light in the sky symbolizes surveillance satellite (the watching eye).  The light in the sky proceeds to chase Roy down the road.  The military has long enjoyed a loose relationship (pun intended) with the film biz and this movie is no exception.  When a director needs military helicopters, planes and other hardware, the military is usually happy to cooperate with a few conditions attached such as a favorable portrayal of the military.  Obviously, the relationship goes deeper than that.





The boy smiles as the police car comes to the rescue.  A 'speed' racer on the floor <cough cough> <sniff sniff> and a toy police car just behind.  She's covered in blue, she will soon find that her son has run away and she will soon be surrounded by blue yet again in a quest to regain custody of her son.










Signs of signs.  The sign points to the military helicopter, again suggesting a military presence in MC.    Not sure what the late night group outing represents (beyond the obvious 'watching for aliens'), but there's a lot of red about and the copter soon comes along to symbolically break it up.  The old people's card game?  Lemme guess - Bingo for bucks?

Monilithic Symbols (mountain, monkey, alien).  Devil's Tower - a tuned variation on the mountain metaphor.  "We are not alone" symbolizing surveillance.  Mountain sometimes represents 'the sum of all evils'.  Sometimes represents the MC insider's network or the Air Force's mountain hide-away of Cheyenne Mountain.  If you've wondered what that branch of the armed forces has been up to all these years, the technologies and techniques of MC are probably a big part of it - 'Area 51', etc.  Interestingly, Thomas Dolby in his MC laden album, The Golden Age of Wireless, apparently refers to the nature of the influence of MC (a play on the name air force) as 'wind power' - i.e. a force that is as apparently soft and invisible as the air itself, but brutally powerful too, as anyone who has ever stood in a hurricane can easily understand.  The line, "I've been seeing this shape in pillows and shaving cream" is a sexual metaphor.  Roy's drawing the shape of a mountain on the newspaper with the headlines "Cosmic Kidnapping" (and breaking the pencil in frustration) is symbolic.










No analysis of mind control would be comple without showing what it does to its targets and their families.  Mind control is pain, confusion, misery, loneliness and hopelessness.  Mind control is being a slave, used, crucified and destroyed, thrown into a pit and left there.  Ask any targeted individual.  On the giving end, it's cruelty, hypocrisy and entrenched denial.  Its tactics often encourage resistance, which only brings more pain, rather than encouraging aquiescense.  Does ambiguous justification, seeing your lights turned off without warning, being hit with mockery, ridicule, discomfort and pain encourage beneficial change and integration?  Naturally enough, it often encourages just the opposite.  Being publically caned would be better.  At least then you know exactly where you stand and someone had to take responsibility for hitting you with a cane and for accusing you of something requiring the cane.  That essential missing element is critical.  "When this mission fully develops, I get white knuckles thinking about what might be ahead for those folks."   Unfortunately, the only ones with white knuckles are the targets themselves.  Noone who has not lived it themselves can really know what it's like to feel the words "I should kill myself" or something similar (whether from one's own quite naturally depressed mind or astoundingly from source unknown) run through their mind and a split second later hear a tick sound at the window, see the house lights flicker for an instant, feel a light bee-sting sensation upon the skin, see a noise pixel or two appear in their cable signal for an moment or hear a soft 'yes' voice make itself felt via some means.  The worst part is knowing that the offering of the encouragement to die will never be known (or believed) by anyone but your human tormentor(s) and you, that they can launch ten thousand more in the months and years to come (as well as other wonderful surprises), that there's not a thing in the world between you and their hate and nothing you can really do about it, except perhaps obey your master(s) and accept being a psychological slave.  In my own twelve year experience (and that of every other targeted person I've ever met), the very structure of MC is so astonishingly hateful and cruel, that I see little good that can come from it, other than to provide hateful people a ready and safe outlet for their own hatred.  Beyond that, the stark injustice and unfairness of it, about which targets are all too aware, would seem to preclude much good from coming from it.  And keep in mind Spielberg's own intended and very relevant quote - "These are ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances".  Time and again, people assume that if you're troubled, you surely deserve it, quite forgetting that power corrupts and, like absolute power, which MC approaches, power with no checks and balances limiting its use is absolute power.  MC practitioners subject their targets to public or semi-public scrutiny, while avoiding that scrutiny themselves, though they love to work the media in favor of MC.  MC rarely seems to include that beautiful, tender, inspring John Williams variation upon 'When You Wish Upon a Star' as one more target's tale fades to black (at least as far as I've been able to tell) though there may be some happy endings out there somewhere.





















They crash through a road closed sign, pass by some dead animals and Roy has a little argument,
"According to my birds, the only bad air around here is you guys fartin' around!"















Sniff...  <Through an air-tight mask??!>

The dead birds and other elements are symbolic, not so much of a cover story about a toxic chemical spill, but of infectious disease.
Bad Air (0.7 meg)




"Contaminated water.  Affects people.  Crops.  Disease."

"Yea.  Epidemic.  A plague epidemic."






"What kind of disease?"

"A plague.  A plague epidemic."

"Nobody's going to believe a plague in this day and age."




"Good.  Good.  That's good.  I like that.  But it may not evacuate everybody.  There's always some joker who thinks he's immune.  What I need is something so scary, it'll clear three hundred square miles [around Devil's Tower] of every living Christian soul."


"Plague epidemic" - Close Encounters 1977    HIV outbreak - 1981)

You'll also find the addition of little details like 'Moorcroft Wyoming', the "M00" digits that are part of a number at the Devil's Tower landing sight (can you find them?), the Piggly Wiggly logo shown prominently on the side of one truck and the Baskin Robbins ice cream logo on the other (get it?) and lines of dialog like "Lot of sheep in those hills.  That's definitely sacred cow stuff to those people in Wyoming."  What is being alluded to is disease and a couple of different modes of transmission (back in the real world and not simply in the cover story premise), which is and probably always has been a component of MC.  Roy's sit-down scene with Lacombe and the pictures during the interview are probably useful as a (promiscuous) sexual partners 'sign' of essentially the sort that are often seen in Ad Council style abstinence ads these days whether it was intended that way or not.  It would all be fairly matter of fact were it not for the chilling plague epidemic sign and the movie's placement in time as shown below, which brings it all into a whole new ball park.  Recall that the Christ metaphor is common in creative media MC:


An MKULTRA Timeline Subset

(1969) Mr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists. 

(1970) Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses. 

(1970) United States intensifies its development of ethnic weapons (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA. 

(1975) The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retro virologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus). 

(1977) Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

* Close Encounters debuts

(1978) Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men. 

(1981) First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine. 

(1985) According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship. 

(1986) According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.

(1986) A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.

(1987) Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation. 

(1990) More than 1500 six-month old black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental. 

(1994) With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.



In fairness to professor Spielberg, it's possible that a suggestion was made to him during the conception of the film to inject into the film a social warning in terms of danger of disease associated with certain sexual behaviors, that the professor was used in a sense and had no knowledge of any planned HIV epidemic to come a few years down the road.  It's possible, though I believe unlikely, that the apparent implications of the 'plague epidemic' metaphor in a film that is resplendent with moralistic, religious, sexual and punitive metaphors is just a symbol for MC itself in a general way and that any association with a very real plague epidemic a few years away is purely coincidental.  It is possible that HIV, if a planned or allowed epidemic at all, was intended to act as bulwark against the transmission (including anal and intra-species) of a host of other possible diseases, a bulwark that got way, way out of hand and is now busy ravaging Africa and other parts of the world.  It is also possible that the US military knew about the pre outbreak form of the HIV virus and was ever so gently warning the public against certain risky sexual behaviors via professor Spielberg and through Spielberg, indicating some of the ways that it was pursuing those members of the public who engage in them.  But if so, it also implies that they knew full well of the potentially devastating danger of HIV well before the outbreak.  So, it makes little sense to warn the public in such a way that most would miss the warning entirely and requires training in order to wake up to their presence.  Also, the US government has admitted no foreknowledge about the dangerous potential of that virus when the epidemic was in its earliest stages or ever since.  But it was apparenty experimenting with deadly disease causing agents at the time and they would surely have been aware of a biological agent as potentially lethal as HIV.

In my opinion, the moment is just what it appears to be - evidence of a planned epidemic targeted primarily at homosexuals and intravenous drug users that was a part of a brutal, planned curtailment of promiscuity, sexual immorality and some forms of drug use initiated back in the mid seventies (when homosexual sex was considered a crime in many more places than it is today) and a fear based political springboard for the promotion of monogamous, heterosexual relationships.  And it appears to be evidence that professor Spielberg knew about what was to come a few years before it actually happened.  If so, why did zey not warn ze world, ambassador?




Dr. Boyd Graves has taken a much closer look at the possibility of the development of an artificial virus here:  US Special Virus Program



Writer Steven King is an old creative media MC expert, himself.  In the made for television movie, 'The Stand', about a plague epidemic that kills millions, you'll notice plenty of clever language like the name 'Stew Redman' (translatable as 'cook the man marked by the color red').  You'll notice a character tormented by disembodied voices that taunt him perpetually over his past sins, who, propelled by those disembodied voices, runs around bombing things.  And of course there are more obvious characterizations of good and evil.  You'll also find language like, 'The super flu got rid of the dogs.', as the old horror novelist (oops, my mistake - the old painter), satisfied and rather smug in being one of the righteous survivors, writes his horror novel (oops, my mistake - paints his picture).  And language like, 'They took care of that problem in Wyoming.'.  Wyoming is the location of the Devil's Tower and the focus of Close Encounters.  And the otherwise absurdly inconsequential outhouse scene with the old woman who symbolizes good but momentarily represents a grossification sign.  Of course, those quotes don't prove anything (the clever art of creative media MC never does), having been written well after the disease's event horizon, though they are certainly suggestive an may indicate something about Mr. King's personal opinions.  Referencing and supporting other creative media MC artist's metaphors and symbols is a common practice in contemporary creative media MC to this day.



A few further questions and comments about the film:

Did the reports of alien abductions and other phenomena by targeted individuals filtering by osmosis into public folklore ultimately help to sell the film by accentuating the aliens craze of the seventies and beyond?

Whether you call them subliminals, somnambulstic training, between-the-lines, symbols or metaphors, they're real.  The precise nature of their intended function is debatable.  Are they subliminal, designed to preach to the conscious (or subconscious mind) and intended for moving the attitudes and emotions of the population as a whole?  For the use of click and cough messagers and other forms of signing/deniable messaging as triggers in theaters, at home and elsewhere?  To trash and psychologically destabilize specific people deniably in support of COINTELPRO style whisper campaigns and/or as tar-and-feather warnings to others?  To play to the body of MC supporters 'in the know' and to give them a powerful vehicle with which to quietly induct other, in such a way that it can always be cast years later as a "Didn't you know that's what he meant?  I thought EVERYONE knew that." kind of scenario?  To self-associate with targets being 'trained'?  Are they intended to induce targets to attempt to awaken others to their presence, and thereby, reduce their own credibility?  All of the above?

Aliens (and bogus ghost, religious and psychic phenomena of course) have long played a traditional role in MC as versatile symbols and a kind of cover, a role that has been advanced in large part by professor Spielberg himself through the course of his long and busy career.  In this film alone, they represent everything from reckless drivers to targeted individuals to law enforcement and the state to children and adolescents.  Either fortunately or unfortunately, the aliens thing is entirely human in origin.  At least now you know some of the deliberate underpinnings behind all the bogus alien, ghost, religious and psychic phenomena (not to mention the subliminals craze of the seventies and eighties).

If I seem to other targets of MC unduly swayed by the propaganda and arguments of MC insiders, that is largely because I have personally been bombarded with them each day, every day for the past twelve years.  In a very real sense, I too am brain washed, though I still have enough presence of mind to perceive what has been done to me.  Do all targets look like the provocative picture, Professor Spielberg and his oodles of gleefully enthusiastic associates insinuates?  NO!


Explain this, Professor Propagandist.  Why should this poor girl have to spend her life just trying to figure out who is doing this to her and why?  Just so your goddamn network can preserve its goddamn deniability.  She thinks you people are satanists and that's just a hair's breadth away from the truth.  If you think I'm being hard on you, it's not nearly as hard as you deserve, mister.

One More Victim








A Wife Held Hostage