SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE PASSES

Commentary 27

March 19, 2008

 

Sir Arthur was a friend at distance that tapered off over the more recent years as his health and energy and contact with the outside world deteriorated. Likewise, as you might imagine, what he and I had in common was stressful controversial subject matter and I had no wish to introduce stress into his last years of life. Among his many well known qualities, this was a very complex man and we will all miss his presence. He was unquestionably a great visionary and intellect and that is what I admired so much about him and it is what led him to so many well deserved accolades in his renowned life.

However, I suspect that the further off in the future posterity may(?) not be necessarily as kind to him as we might be here in the shorter run following his passing. For example, he may have had proclivities that I would have found personally unacceptable. More importantly though I suspect this left him vulnerable to the influence of others who used him to their secrecy ends. So his life in part served the purposes of others not oriented on truth. Ever the great perceptive intellect, he knew he was endangering his ultimate legacy in this way and introduced a few suggestive comments into the media here and there and thereby the historical record designed to strike a balance for posterity and his legacy while not infurating the secrecy types too much.

He and I discussed this years ago. In the end, I bluntly warned him of the potential inadequacy of this and posterity's possible treatment of him using Carl Sagan as an example. In my opinion, this other great intellect Carl Sagan by choice in order to be an insider with insider knowledge often served the purposes of others not focused on truth. They often had Sagan in a debunking role, which he too willingly filled, and Sir Arthur reluctantly did some of this at times as well. Each later used speculative comments as to the possibility of other life out there to try and offset this debunking and serving other masters part of their experience and legacy.

Even so, Sir Arthur, to his credit, did a little more than just make suggestive comments. Let me tell you a little personal information between us without violating any confidences that perhaps will offer a little insight.

Dr. Tom Van Flandern and company held a Press Club event some years ago in 2001 not too long after the initial release of the MGS MOC science data to the public. In my opinion their own original first discoveries of the time from this then new data were very suggestive but just a little too weak and interpretive as too many would see it and especially in a Press Club setting full of expectations. This resulted in the overall evidence presented being met with mostly a big yawn at the time by the media attending the event. The press correctly knew well that the average inexperienced media viewer would need much stronger in one's face evidence for ready recognition and it just wasn't there.

At the time, according to Sir Arthur, Dr. Van Flandern's and his associates were in contact with and courting Sir Arthur trying to persuade him to join them. This would of course be for the obvious boost that Sir Arthur's name and/or presence would give them. At the same time, Sir Arthur had received material first from someone else on the colossal tree or plant evidence in my first 2001 Report #019 (and again more recently in my 2008 Report #133) and then very quickly on the heels of that independently from me as well. It is possible that this other party had also supplied this discovery directly to Van Flandern and company but I'm not sure of that.

What I do know is that Sir Arthur had this discovery at least from me and told me that he had also received it from this other party that I do not remember him identifying. Sir Arthur asked me about the Van Flandern group and what I thought about them and whether he should seriously consider joining them and I gave him my opinion. He told me that he was pushing the colossal tree/plant evidence on them to present at the Press Club meeting but had decided against joining them. In fact, with his suspected vulnerability, I was surprised that he even considered it as I suspected others held his future welfare firmly in their grip.

My own reporting waited until after the Press Club event and, as we all now know, Sir Arthur also stepped up and made his famous very suggestive comment as to the life he suspected may be on Mars based no doubt in part on that bio-life evidence provided him and also a water discovery from me that I shared with him. So he knew it was all very possible. I suspect his purpose was in part to attend to his legacy. However, it was also in part to try and give this earlier very strong bio-life discovery evidence and any that might follow after it a boost with his name and that took courage because I'm satisfied that the secrecy agenda did not approve of it and that it was quite risky business for Sir Arthur to do it.

I felt sorry for him in realizing how much he may have felt so trapped and constrained. For example, when I shared that water discovery with him shortly later included it in my 2001 and it in a forest setting conveying both strong liquid surface water and bio-life presence, he was quite excited about it, knew there was more to follow, and so he started sharing that evidence with his NASA friends. I thought at the time that it was naive but remember saying nothing to him in that regard.

As I expected, the feedback he got from them was mostly negative and disbelieving. Although he said nothing about it to me, the handwriting on the wall was very clear. I suspect that he knew that he would be alone despite his big name with no backing from any mainstream scientist and in a uphill fight at the wrong time in the down turn of his health life with a strong chance of not succeeding. In other words, he would have loaded up his life with extreme stress and would have risked his already renowned accolade loaded career for nothing. You have to know when to hold them and when to fold them and he did.

It was also sad because I believed that I knew his constraints and the reasons for them. I would have loved to have shared the very strong surface water and bio-life evidence that I was already holding back to be in a partnership with him in such a fight. But, I suspected his decision making in this regard would have to be full of compromises via constraints unknown to me and that my own work would be entering a nightmare existence if I did so. Therefore I did not share anymore with him and I suspect he was as sad about that as I was. However, to his credit, he never tried to get anything more out of me. I'd like to think that was not because of apathy but because he knew the evidence would not be safe with him.

This man lived a long and full successful life and needs no accolades from me. He may have been flawed in some ways but he is also most definitely a great intellect and visionary and I'll miss him and his presence in this world. I know it's selfish considering his age and deteriorating health but I wish he could have lived a little longer in decent health to see the secrecy collapse and the new age that is relentlessly on its way. It will not be long now and he would have been vindicated for his courageous comments in his own lifetime and the secrecy and its grip on him would have been much diminished.

I would have loved to see what he might do turned loose with that new found freedom.