How much of the Truth is worth preserving?

Ok, imagine yourself in this situation - you just told everybody the truth about what happened to you last summer. It's amazing. It's awesome. Everybody is interested and you're getting lots of questions from people who want to know more. Even websites devoted to news and information about summer events have sought you out and asked you to tell them, in great detail about your experiences last summer. They hired artists to document the amazing experiences you had and they published it for the world to see and appreciate.

Then, you have a friend come up to you, somebody you figured was a friend because of they way they'd always behaved when around you..... and after sitting down together, he says...
he's dissapointed in how you are squandering your chance to tell people about your summer experiences...... and then asks
"how much of the truth about that would you be willing to sacrifice to get your message out to a wider audience?"

Screech! Hold Everything! This isn't a horrible fantasy, it actually happened.


It took place several weeks ago when Dan and I when we were meeting with a friend. I was shocked! I couldn't believe the question! Our experiences and the account of Dan's work for all those years at Area-51 S-4 is not up for negotiation.

Of course, we both immediately said "NONE!" at the exact same moment, shocking our friend who seemed to think there was nothing wrong with his question.

According to what he was saying, he was an expert in marketing and website optimization, which frankly has never been a huge priority. And with as many hits as Eagles Disobey gets per month, it probably won't become one in the near future.

As I explained to our friend, people can go anywhere and get George Lucas Industrial Lights and Magic stuff. That's what people do when they have to make something out of nothing.

I suppose we are the exact opposite of what most people expect. With all those people shoving themselves into the limelight with whatever little bit of tinfoil they found (and think is a piece of a UFO) or with whatever stunt they managed to pull off (like dressing up in a blue cape and feather head-dress with crystals hot-glued to the headband while breaking into a national defense facility for the sheer publicity), I guess people think that we should fall into line with that rabble, hoping to gather some attention from the masses.

Sheesh. I finally told him that I didn't give a crap whether people believed anything we are telling them. The truth isn't affected one way or the other by what somebody believes about it.

We have had the experiences we are telling people about. We have done what we say, and it doesn't matter one iota whether or not anybody likes it, believes it, or even wants to listen. And I'm sure not going to allow our message to be buried under a bunch of glitz. That simply doesn't fit with us. The truth stands on its own.

That shut him up for a second, but then he just launched in again with how dissapointed he was in how we were squandering or wasting all the potential marketing we could be doing.

Why was he dissapointed in anything we were or weren't doing. There's a difference between being a friend, and being a little too interested in our business. Treating it like it was his own.

I told him that at least with our low key personal and conversational approach, people know they are getting the truth. And best of all, the videos and interviews we provide will probably be around, irritating people who can't get us to 'sell out', for a long time to come. There is no way either Dan or I will ever compromize on the truth.

We are who we are! And we are telling the truth as we lived it. Period.

Dr. Marcia McDowell