Thank you for reading, Anthony! And for such a thoughtful comment. I think if I were Carter, I might have cried if I had not been briefed on UFOs. Carter knew, and this was just one more thing they ridiculed him about. I suspect he was not as bad as history painted.

You'll have to help me with this one, as I still deliberate. I am not sure humanity is as bad as we are led to believe. Statistically, most humans are good, caring, law biding people. There are those outlier, that I think mostly are troubled by mental health. And then we have elites, or leaders, and even they may also be experiencing mental health issues... But most of us, if we had food, energy needs met, we'd mostly devote our time to family and community gardens and sustainability. Big business does not favor small community sustainability. So, this is the struggle we're in now. What do you think?

As for animals lying? Sure they do. Ambush predators, they lie, while they lie and wait for someone to come into chomping range. Camoflauge, well, that is the ability to lie so as to go unseen.

The best artifact of lying was Koko the gorrila. I don't know if you know about her, but she was taugh american sign. She watched television. She saw a kitten and asked for one. They gave her a kitten! One day, Koko had a bad day and ripped the sink from the wall and threw it across the room. Trainer, I forget her name, asked, 'what happened?' Koko responded, "the kitten did it!'

What's interesting about that is koko understood abstraction. She predicted this could be trouble and it affects her relationships with her people. She was afraid. When the trainer repeated back, the kitten did this... Koko recanted. "No, Koko did this." That, too, is interesting because she recongized the lie affects relationship. Wouldn't it be interesting to know if she recanted because she don't want the kitten in trouble? It's my fabvorite koko story, but there are others.

There is some evidence that aliens lie. I have an essay somewhere in there about that, even titled that. But in the UFO lore stories of lying, I am not confident that it is malicious lying because there is missing data. So, if aliens are dealing with a group of humans that have broken agreements, they now know they're dealing with rascals and if you need to manipulate rascals to help humanity, do you lie to them? So, in a game of lies, do you keep increasing the level of lying till it all breaks down and all deceipt is known so we can re-establish truth?

Or, if we were bartering, a form of negotiation, there is a level to that game that requires a sophisticated nuance of manipulating perceived value. Is that a lie, or a game? Sometimes, when I am playing with my son, I test him... I will say something outrageous. I am looking for a response.

Oh, this is funny. He asked me if there are giants the other day. I said, yes. I gave him this picture of a japanese giant from what looks like 1940s. He said, that's fake. I am like, no- you're looking right at it... I showed it to my best friend and he said, John- that's a movie. And he showed me the movie. My son was on the phone with us at the time, "I told you!"

So, yeah... humanity. there is room enough that even an old man like me can be fooled, wrong, misbehave, and be schooled! I do hope the aliens are schooling us in subtle ways so that 'humanity' has a group memory of why we need to be more thoughtful and kind to each other.

Lying can be about fear, but it also kind of be a game. All creatures play. It is in that play we develop strengths of engagement.