Hello friends!
I’m going to be handing the keyboard over to a new contributor for this update. I know I’ve mentioned ESDA projects quite a bit on here without complete context. With the full release of Encyclopedia Reptilica lagging behind, I felt like it might be helpful to bring in an outside expert to bring readers up to speed on some key moments in ESDA cultural operations (You know besides Operation Albino Cobra.) This is a fascinating part of ongoing UAP “disclosure” operations, so I think it’s valuable data.
Anyway, without further ado, please welcome Olson Iggers to the blog! I’ll let THEM take it away!
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The Sender (1998) is NOT to be confused with the 1982 British science-fiction film that of a similar title and some thematic overlap. (Google AI has made this mistake, lol.) This one stars the inimitable Michael Madsen as Dallas Grayson, son of WW2 F4U Corsair pilot Jack Grayson (Brian Bloom). Jack Grayson was shot down during a tangle with an alien craft, in a scenario obviously inspired in no small part by the Flight 19 mystery.
Decades later, an unnamed elite military unit, led by none other than R. Lee Ermey, recovers the wreckage of Grayson’s aircraft and transports it to a classified installation for analysis. This operation does not go as smoothly as you might imagine a super secret military operation would. Not only does Dallas Grayson show up to see his father’s airplane, but an intrepid pair of UFO activists hijack the truck hauling the plane and break out of the base.
This leads to an epic car chase with all the television action beats you would expect. Things happen, turns out that Dallas is friends with Admiral Fairfax (Robert Vaughn), and he lets him in on some deeply held secrets that can aid in him in his investigation. This opens the door to family secrets and an action packed search for the truth that leads deep into the heart of the Government’s secret UFO program.
So, what does the ESDA have to do with The Sender? Why is it important?
The Sender (1998) has some serious star power and a decent budget, despite pretty low-rent screenplay choices. Overall, it is not a great movie, even if the production is competent and pulls heavily from genre influences such as Terminator 2 (1991). So, it is an interesting example of how the ESDA covers the bases, keeping the desired narrative in flux across a spectrum of big budget film, event television, and low-budget cinema.
The X-Files (1998) was the keystone film for Operation Azure Tiger, a series of projects circa 1997-2000. The apparent goal of this project was to manage pre-millenium tension as well as keep the UFO/UAP narrative on track for those who were invested in it. The Sender was also a part of Operation Azure Tiger, but was intended for “counter-impact”.
The Sender avoids archetypes familiar to those invested in UFO lore, possibly to keep it less fringe, possibly to further add to the confusion that it was intended to provoke. However, R. Lee Ermey’s Level 5 Classified unit is clearly a paramilitary version of Men in Black, and the super secret alien containment base in the desert is Area 51 without being Area 51. (I could make the case that this is a bit of 4D chess, where by not mentioning Area 51, certain members of the audience would think the filmmakers were prevented from calling it Area 51, thus making it more authentic and renegade. I won’t though because I don’t think it is.)
The Sender and The Galactic Federation
Spoilers ahead!
So, in addition to misdirection away from the traditional UFO narratives, the filmmakers opted to lean up against nascent Galactic Federation theory. They work in a psychic storyline that connects the unnamed NHI to the Grayson family by way of an “angel” ExoPoli. The NHI, the “angel”, and Dallas’ daughter all have the ability to “send”. Sending is the paranormal ability to warp physical space according to the psychic intentions of the sender. A conflation of telekineses and magick for those who may have been Galactic Federation curious, so to speak.
Now, we all now that attributing psychic powers to NHI/aliens has a loooong history with ESDA-sponsored lore, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it pops up in this b-grade project. In fact, you could make the case that The Sender is a primer in ESDA misinformation. The film asks all the usual questions, and provides all the wrong answers.
It’s not all wrong answers though. The intentions of the generic NHI in The Sender aren’t too far from what we know of the Galactic Accord. While the aliens are presented as energy beings, their silhouette is most evocative of the Reticulian (Grey) body type. Which, of course, points to the highest order of the ExoPoli hierarchy and their role in keeping galactic order.
In the film, these energy aliens do their part to keep humanity in their place but also keep them from going completely off the rails. This is a hopeful nugget of truth, which is likely the message the ESDA hoped would resonate the most with the action film audience for this film. The message of “you are not ready for the galactic family” is a familiar refrain and an essential communication from the ESDA.
The how and why of this film’s production will be covered in Encyclopedia Reptilica, at least that’s what TA tells me, so I won’t go into that. In conclusion, in summary, I will say that I don’t know if anyone NEEDS to see The Sender, but it is a good case study in how the ESDA will create less prestigious media to reach audiences that films like The X-Files would not.
