The UFO/free energy narrative as libertarian fantasy

Mant adherents of the UFO coverup/Disclosure/recovered technology milieu believe that the alien spacecraft supposedly being concealed by the government and/or its aerospace contractor partners possess the key to human emancipation vis a vis "free energy". I suggest that this technofantasy is a way of parlaying or at least feigning social conscience with anti-government sentiment that is core to the libertarian world outlook ("government is the problem"). Since libertarians distrust government programs, they are probably unreceptive to most calls for transitioning to available renewable technologies in a scaled transition away from fossil fuels, which would entail a substantial government involvement in building the infrastructure, investing in research and development, and providing economic incentives for individuals and private enterprise (which would count as a "market distortion" to most libertarians). Alien free energy tech is thus a "safe" arena in which libertarians can psychologically deal with this problem (or at least postpone it) and circumvent the concrete social realities, such as how technology must be embedded within social relations to be effective, and the necessity for concerted state action in dealing with environment issues, while wielding their favored motif as yet another weapon against government. Science and serious social analysis and diagnosis cast aside; magical escapism inserted; government as the enemy preserved; hyper-individualist posturing presented as social concern flaunted. Ironically, this is the type of thinking that only ensures that the ecological despoliation of the planet will get worse while we wait for a grand "reveal" that will "change everything". By then, this fool's errand will be far too late, for the wait will be eternal, not so much because of government obstinacy but because of the non-existence of the underlying items. It amounts to little more than a giant cosplay on the part of these libertarians, honorable though their underlying sentiments (naive thought they are) might be.

Of course, this technofantasy also channels and expresses the broader technology-centric focus prominent in Western culture that is far broader than libertarianism. I only mean to suggest that the free energy angle might be especially appealing to libertarians who believe in ET contact and the cosmic coverup, and that the free energy belief system, whether harbored by libertarians in any particular case, is a concentrated expression of the broader tendency of seeing technology as the solution to every problem. I don't claim that this provides a comprehensive explanation for the popularity of the free energy motif in ufology, but it might well account for a substantial or at least underappreciated part of it.

This is all rather reminiscent of the QAnon/MAGA adjacent "medbed" meme. Med beds are supposed to be bed-like contraptions in which all ailments, even amputations, can be reversed, and they are supposedly being concealed by secretive forces (the deep state, globalist cabals, etc.) who want to deny these benefits to "the people." Again, a reticence toward dealing with the social aspects of science and health policy while favoring pseudoscience and outright science denial mirror the alien/free energy culture's preference for social circumvention of the real issues while adopting cosplaying fantasy to project social conscience and anti-government sentiment. Incidentally, the medbed motif seems to be quite reflective of some alien/space sci fi themed media, such as the scene in "The Fifth Element" (1997) in which an artificial person is being created, and the scene in "Prometheus" (2012) in which the lead protagonist has an alien squid baby pulled out of her body (see video below). Conspiracy culture and sci fi often overlap, with the former drawing upon the latter for many of its visual motifs, but at times this relationship is inverted (such as with "The X Files"), though it's actually more subtle than that, as the ultimate origins for an X Files themed topic might itself come from an earlier sci fi story that was absorbed into conspiracy culture and then fed back to sci fi. With each cycle, the motif grows stronger through reinforcement and normalization, burrowing its way into the collective (sub)conscious, erupting again and then seeding another round of proliferation.

Despite the libertarian overtones, there's arguably a pro-government angle at play. As theologian Ted Peters has suggested, the entire Disclosure narrative evinces a type of grudging admiration of the US government, which is seen to have the power not just to recover and conceal alien technology, but to exploit it and to maintain a longstanding silence supposedly spanning decades. Disclosure, Peters suggests, might be a way of channeling patriotism and celebrating US hegemony and prowess, even if the believers in the cosmic coverup disagree with the coverup itself.

I've long thought that there might be a libertarian flavor to the Bob Lazar story, one of the quintessential recovered technology/reverse engineering fables within alien lore. Lazar's wasn't the first such story, but it was an accelerant in that throughline, and it also drew upon anti-government sentiment during the Reaganite 1980s, in which libertarian economic doctrines were being injected into the larger culture and society. The Area 51 facility served as the centerpiece and became a household name around the world thanks largely to his story. More than that, it became a type of symbol for government secrecy (again with the odd duality of a grudging admiration for the US government's power and prowess). Importantly, Area 51 and the Nevada Test Site had long been a focus of wrangling between the state of Nevada and the federal government. Lazar himself, who feigned victimhood for his role in "exposing" the reverse engineering program of alien craft at the (nonexistent) "S4" facility near Area 51, is an entrepreneurial type (albeit with some ethical and credibility issues) who is seen by his supporters as someone who "stood up" to the government to bring the "truth" to the masses and suffered retaliation for doing so. The resilience of the Lazar story's appeal for many people is probably explainable in such terms, just as much as for his claims about the alien tech itself. That gets onto the original issue in this piece: free energy. Lazar says that the alien craft use element 115 and anti-matter. His physics claims have been definitively debunked as pseudoscience, but they operate within a liminal space in between sciencey-sounding credibility and unattainability. This is at least adjacent to the free energy narrative and may well serve a similar social function.