In Greek mythology, Cassandra is endowed with the gift of prophesy. But Cassandra is also cursed; her prophesies are never to be believed.
As former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke writes in “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes,” modern-day “Cassandras” – experts who sound the alarm over catastrophic or paradigm-shifting events – are often ignored.
Clarke, who served in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations, is all too familiar with this phenomenon. Like the engineer who foresaw the space shuttle Challenger catastrophe, the lone intelligence analyst who warned of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the Louisiana State University professor who issued dire predictions years before Hurricane Katrina and the “outsiders” who foresaw the 2008 financial collapse, Clarke’s desperate warnings of an impending terrorist attack fell on deaf ears before Sept. 11, 2001.
Writing in 2017, Clarke is prescient about the risks of a global infectious disease outbreak.
Shortly after “Warnings” was published, a stunning exposé of U.S. government efforts to investigate unidentified flying objects appeared in the New York Times. An accompanying article paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary, multi-witness UFO encounter off the coast of southern California. A follow-on piece describes naval aviators’ frequent observations – corroborated by multiple sensors – of unknown objects exhibiting seemingly highly advanced technology.
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