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Finding Our Place in the Cosmos Some of you in the UFO/ET community may remember me as a co-founder of Operation Right To Know a UFO political organization that held demonstrations and other political actions in Washington and around the world. The purpose of this organization was to focus the attention of the UFO/ET community as well as the public at large on the fact that the UFO problem was as much a political problem as a scientific one. It had become obvious to me that we could not do good science if the underling data was being manipulated for political reasons. I found myself following in the footsteps of the late Donald Keyhoe who understood the political nature of the problem in the 1950's. I am gratified that others have taken up this challenge. My political activities were the most visible, but were only a small part of my overall activity in the UFO/ET field. My main focus has been and still is an attempt to gain a grasp of the big picture and our place in that picture. I want to know what the cosmic neighborhood is like, who's in it, and what are the agendas and motivations of the other advanced intelligent species occupying this neighborhood and co-existing with us. Of course this is taking a pretty big bite in itself but it is dwarfed by the even greater perspective of the nature of life and reality as we know it. There are always those who would say why bother to even try. I have found the endeavor to be very rewarding and feel I have been able in my life to vaguely grasp something of this lesser and greater whole and been a better person for that. I believe that the meaning of life is to be found in our relationship to the big picture, the greatest overall perspective possible. Interestingly as I have gained a vague understanding of the cosmic neighborhood, this has in turn acted as a mirror illuminating the primitive and imperfect nature of today's social, political, religious and scientific communities. This has also highlighted my personal imperfections and caused me to work to remove these imperfections from myself so as to better be in tune with the universe as a whole. I realize that while the physical laws of the material universe can be manipulated by intelligent life, the over riding moral and ethical laws of the universe cannot be so manipulated. Life no matter how technologically advanced is still subject to the basic ethical and moral laws. All species in nature work to manipulate their surroundings to a greater or lesser degree. The ultimate for advanced intelligent species would be the full and total control of mater and energy itself through the technological manipulation of the underlying information field. One day we may be able, like some in the neighborhood, to manipulate the material world just as we do the images on a computer screen. We, however, will not be able to manipulate moral and ethical laws such as the law of affinities, the law of cause and effect, and the fact that truth can only be known by the truthful. Those of like mind and emotion are going to continue to congregate together in the sharing of experience and there will always will be consequences, both constructive and destructive, in the thoughts and actions we and others take. The key to our living a good, happy life is the understanding and living of the moral and ethical laws and our not confusing them with mutable laws of the material universe that are forever subject to change. In particular this is true in our understanding of the activities of the cosmic neighborhood on, in and around earth. 216