"I'm never going to be
famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do
Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my
nails, but I don't even do that any more."
Special Features/Characteristics: Physiological Effects, E-M Effects, Missing Time, Abduction, Polygraph Test, Witness Photo, Witness Sketch
Source: Loy Lawhon, About.com
Summary:
On January 6, 1976, three women were abducted near Stanford, Kentucky.
As they were driving together to have dinner, a bright red object
appeared in the sky, which Mona Stafford at first thought was an
airplane on fire. As the object descended from the right side of the
road to a point ahead of them, they could see that it was not an
airplane, but a huge object bigger than "two houses."
Full Report
The three women who were abducted near Stanford, Kentucky. Left to
right: Louise Smith, Elaine Thomas, Mona Stafford. (credit: Jerome
Clark)
January 6, 1976 was Mona Stafford's 36th birthday. To celebrate, she
and her friends Louise Smith and Elaine Thomas decided to drive
thirty-five miles from their home in ,
to have dinner at the Redwoods Restaurant, between Stanford and
Lancaster, Kentucky. Louise Smith was driving them in her '67 Chevy
Nova.
The three women had an enjoyable dinner together. None of them drank
any alcoholic beverages with their meal. At about 11:15, the trio headed
back home, expecting to be home by midnight. At Stanford, Kentucky,
nine miles from Lancaster, they turned off Highway 27 and onto Highway
78 towards Hustonville.
Just outside Stanford, a curious thing happened. A bright red object
appeared in the sky, which Mona Stafford at first thought was an
airplane on fire. As the object descended from the right side of the
road to a point ahead of them, they could see that it was not an
airplane, but a huge object bigger than "two houses." The object stopped
about a hundred yards ahead of them, stretching across the road on both
sides. It rocked back and forth for a couple of seconds, and then moved
off to the left.
Another drawing of the UFO by Mona Stafford.
They kept driving, and assumed that whatever it was had kept going.
However, after they had been about a quarter of a mile, a blue light
appeared through the rear window of the car. At first they thought it
was a highway patrol car with its lights flashing, but soon they
realized that the flying object had circled around and had come up
behind them. Suddenly, something wrested control of the car away from
Louise Smith. The car accelerated even though Mrs. Smith took her foot
off the accelerator, and the speedometer was soon on 85 mph. Mona
Stafford, in the front passenger seat, tried to help Louise regain
control of the car, but it was not possible. The women began to feel a
burning sensation in their eyes. The ignition lights lit up on the
instrument panel, an indication that the car's engine was stalled, but
they were still speeding along. They saw a wide, brightly lit road ahead
of them, and then, seconds later, the scene became Highway 78 and they
recognized they were on the outskirts of Hustonville, a full eight miles
from where they had just been. Checking the time, they found that,
incredibly, an hour and twenty minutes had passed.
They arrived at Louise Smith's trailer in Liberty at 1:25 am, almost an
hour and a half late. They went inside to collect themselves and found
that they each had a red mark like a burn on the backs of their necks,
and they all had burning, irritated eyes. Louise Smith went into the
bathroom and removed her watch to wash her face. She saw that the hands
of her watch were spinning at a much higher than normal speed. When she
splashed water on her face, she found that contact with water caused
pain in her hands and face.
They went next door, to the home of Mr. Lowell Lee, and told him what
had happened. He had them separately sketch the object they had seen.
The sketches were extremely similar, if not identical. They called the
police and the local navy office, but neither showed any interest in
their story.
In the days that followed, Mona Stafford had more problems with her
eyes than did the other two women, and she sought medical help for
severe conjunctivitis. Louise Smith's pet parakeet was now inexplicably
terrified of her and the bird died a couple of months later. Smith's car
also began to develop mysterious electrical problems.
The navy office reportedly gave information about the story to the news
media, and the story was soon in the newspapers. Hearing of the case,
Jerry Black of MUFON set up an interview with the three women. J. Allen
Hynek of CUFOS and Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO also investigated the
case. The investigators found that other individuals had independently
reported sightings of a UFO in the Casey and Lincoln counties that same
night. Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle of the University of Wyoming heard of the
case and flew in, and on March 7, 1976, he performed a preliminary
hypnotic regression of the women.
In July of 1976, Lexington Police Department detective James Young
separately gave the three women lie detector tests regarding their
experience. They all passed with no problems. Later that evening and
continuing into the next day, extensive hypnotic regression of the women
was performed by R. Leo Sprinkle. These sessions were similar to the
story of Betty and Barney Hill in that they revealed that during the
period of missing time the three women were taken on board the object
they had seen. While there they were medically examined by shadowy
beings that they later identified as being similar to depictions of
aliens.
Special Features/Characteristics: Vehicle Interference
Source: Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
Summary:
This case is perhaps the most important concentration of vehicle
interference events in the United States. On the evening of November 2,
1957, Patrolman A. J. Fowler, officer on duty at Levelland, Texas,
received the first of several strangely similar phone calls. The first
was from Pedro Saucedo, who, with companion Joe Salaz, had been driving
four miles west of Levelland when a torpedo-shaped, brilliantly
illuminated object rapidly approached the car... as the object passed
close over the car, the truck headlights went out, and the engine died.
Officer Fowler reported that a total of 15 phone calls were made to the
police station in direct reference to the UFO.
Full Report
The Levelland, Texas, Sightings
November 2, 1957
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, "" (1972)
For the moment, let us look at the probability that motors are killed
and lights and radio stop by coincidence when the driver has a UFO close
sighting.
We have all seen cars stopped by the side of the road, hood up, waiting
for tow trucks. It would be highly improbable that a car would become
completely immobilized and then a few moments later "heal itself," yet
it can happen. Perhaps, for example, a wire that had become loose was
jarred back into place in some way. But to combine this low probability
event with the simultaneous appearance of a strange light coming down
from the sky and hovering over the car, the car remaining disabled only
so long as the light was present, is dubious at best.
It is, of course, much the easier way out to dismiss the whole matter
as "psychological" (whatever that means in this context) and return to
commonplace, understandable matters. However, that would not be acting
true to the high ideals of science, which involve being curious about
all things that occur in man's environment, investigating and weighing
them, and calmly considering the evidence.
If the probability of a happening in any one case is extremely low,
consider the probability of coincidence in the following train of events
- if they happened as reported.
On the evening of November 2, 1957, at about 11:00 P. M., just one hour
after the Russians had launched their second, dog-carrying artificial
satellite (that certainly was coincidence) but before we Americans knew
about it, Patrolman A. J. Fowler, officer on duty at Levelland, Texas
(population 10,000), received the first of several strangely similar
phone calls.
The first was from Pedro Saucedo, who, with companion Joe Salaz, had
been driving four miles west of Levelland when a torpedo-shaped,
brilliantly illuminated object (as Saucedo described it) rapidly
approached the car. Fowler listened to a terrified Saucedo relate the
incredible story of how, as the object passed close over the car, the
truck headlights went out, and the engine died. A certified copy of a
statement made by Saucedo reads:
To whom it may concern: on the date of November 2, 1957, I was
traveling north and west on route 116, driving my truck. At about four
miles out of Levelland, I saw a big flame, to my right front. . . . I
thought it was lightning. But when this object had reach to my position
it was different, because it put my truck motor out and lights. Then I
stop, got out, and took a look, but it was so rapid and quite some heat
that I had to hit the ground. It also had colors - yellow, white - and
it looked like a torpedo, about 200 feet long, moving at about 600 to
800 miles an hour.
As the UFO moved into the distance, the truck lights reportedly came on
by themselves, and Saucedo found that his truck started easily. The two
men drove on to Whiteface, ten miles west of Levelland, and it was from
a phone booth there that the call was made to Officer Fowler. Fowler
apparently figured the man must have had one too many drinks, and he
dismissed the report from his mind.
Considered by itself, the testimony of an uneducated, frightened truck
driver, as sincere in his reporting as he might have been, has little
credibility. But one hour later Fowler got another call, this time from
Mr. W. of Whitharral. Fowler was told that he (Mr. W.) was driving four
miles east of Levelland (the direction in which the Saucedo object had
disappeared) when he came upon a brilliantly lit egg-shaped object,
about 200 feet long, sitting in the middle of the road. As Mr. W.
approached it, his car engine failed, and the headlights went out.
According to the observer, the object was lit up like a large neon
light and cast a bright glare over the entire area. The observer decided
to get out of his car, but when he did so, the UFO rose and, at an
altitude of about 200 feet, the object's light or glare blinked out
entirely. Mr. W. then had no trouble starting his car.
A short time later Officer Fowler got another call, from another
Whitharral man, who was, at the time of the incident, some 11 miles
north of Levelland. He reported to the police station that he had come
across a glowing object sitting on the road and that as he approached it
- the reader can finish the sentence -his car engine stopped, and his
headlights went out. But when the object left shortly thereafter, all
was again well.
But that was not the end. According to a signed statement in Project
Blue Book files, at 12:05 A.M. that Saturday night in November, a
19-year-old freshman from Texas Tech, driving roughly 9 miles east of
Levelland, found that his car engine began to sputter, the ammeter on
the dash jumped to discharge then back to normal, and the motor "started
cutting out like it was out of gas." The car rolled to a stop; then the
headlights dimmed and several seconds later went out.
Baffled at the turn of events, he got out of his car and looked under
the hood but found nothing wrong. Closing the hood, he turned away and
then noticed for the first time, he reported, an oval-shaped object,
flat on the bottom, sitting on the road ahead. He estimated it to be
about 125 feet long, glowing with a bluish-green light. He stated that
the object seemed to be made of an aluminum-like material, but no
markings or other details were apparent. Frightened, he got back into
the car and tried frantically but in vain to restart the car.
Resigned, he sat and watched the object sitting in front of him on the
road (he did not state how close he thought he was to the object) for
several minutes, hoping that another car would drive by. None did. The
UFO finally rose into the air, "almost straight up," and disappeared "in
a split instant." Afterward, the car was again fully operable.
"I then proceeded home very slowly," his statement continues, "and told
no one of my sighting until my parents returned home from a weekend
trip .. . for fear of public ridicule. They did convince me that I
should report this, and I did so to the sheriff around 1:30 P.M. Sunday,
November 3."
At 12:15 A.M. Officer Fowler got still another call, this from a man
phoning from a booth near Whitharral. This observer reported his
encounter with the strange object at a point some nine miles north of
Levelland. Once again the glowing object was sitting on a dirt road, and
as his car approached it, its lights went out and its motor stopped.
Soon the object rose vertically, very swiftly, and when it reached an
altitude of about 300 feet, its lights went off and it disappeared from
sight. As the reader expects by now, at this point the car lights came
back on and the car was started with no difficulty.
By this time Officer Fowler had finally realized that something odd was
going on, and he notified the sheriff and his colleagues on duty, some
of whom took to the roads to investigate. Two of them reported bright
lights, seen for just a few seconds, but they did not have any
car-stopping encounters.
At 12:45 A.M. another single witness - I have broken my rule to use
only multiple-witness cases because of the independent witnessing of
essentially the same event or object, with the same physical effects,
from independent nearby points - driving just west of Levelland and thus
close to the spot where two hours earlier Saucedo had had his sighting,
spotted what looked like a big orange ball of fire at a distance of
more than a mile. The ball then came closer and landed softly on the
highway about a quarter of a mile ahead of the observer. It covered the
paved portion of the highway.
The witness reported that the motor of the truck he was driving "conked
out" and his headlights died. Meanwhile, the object sat there on the
road ahead of him, glowing bright enough to light up the cab of his
truck. In about a minute, the observer reported, it made a vertical
ascent - and, of course, things returned to normal. This encounter was
not phoned in at the time to Officer Fowler but was reported the
following day. One possibly significant clue to some as yet unknown
process may lie in the fact that the reporter stated that when the UFO
landed it changed from its original red-orange color to a bluish green
but that when it rose it changed back to red-orange. And it is perhaps
of interest to note at the object or objects always landed on the
pavement, except once, when it settled on a dirt road.
But that is not all. At 1:15 A. M. Officer Fowler got another call,
this time from a terrified truck driver from Waco, Texas, who was at the
time just northeast of Levelland, on the "Oklahoma flat road." The man
told Fowler that his engine and headlights suddenly failed as he
approached within 200 feet of a brilliant, glowing egg-shaped object. He
said that it glowed intermittently 'like a neon sign" and that he
estimated it to be about 200 feet long. He reported that as he got out
of the truck, the UFO quickly shot straight up with a roar and streaked
away.
Officer Fowler stated that the truck driver was extremely excited when
he called and that the witness was most upset by his close encounter.
The truck engine and lights worked perfectly when the object left.
By this time patrol cars were out looking for the reported object.
Sheriff Clem and Deputy Pat McCulloch were being kept up to date by
Fowler as they drove around the area. At 1:30 A.M, while driving along
the Oklahoma Flat Road, between four and five miles from Levelland, the
two men spotted an oval-shaped light, "looking like a brilliant red
sunset across the highway," a good 300 or 400 yards south of their
patrol car. "It lit up the whole pavement in front of us for about two
seconds," said Clem.
Patrolmen Lee Hargrove and Floyd Gavin were following in their patrol
car several miles behind. In his signed statement Hargrove stated:
Was driving south on the unmarked roadway known as the Oklahoma Flat
Highway and was attempting to search for an unidentified object reported
to the Levelland Police Department.
· . . I saw a strange-looking flash, which looked to be down the
roadway approximately a mile to a mile and a half. . . . The flash went
from east to west and appeared to be close to the ground.
Constable Lloyd Ballen of Anton, Texas, also reported seeing the
object, although his statement was: "It was traveling so fast that it
appeared only as a flash of light moving from east to west."
None of these patrolmen's cars was affected, but Levelland Fire Marshal
Ray Jones, who also was looking for the UFO, stated that his car's
headlights dimmed and his engine sputtered but did not die, just as he
spotted a "streak of light" north of the Oklahoma Flat.
Officer Fowler reported that a total of 15 phone calls were made to the
police station in direct reference to the UFO, and he added, "Everybody
who called was very excited."
In terms of probabilities, that all seven cases of separate car
disablement and subsequent rapid, automatic recovery after the passage
of the strange illuminated craft, occurring within about two hours,
could be attributed to coincidence is out of the statistical universe -
if the reports are truly independent (and they are, according to the
tests we've used throughout).
Suppose we try to attribute the happening to mass hysteria, although
that does not disclose a mechanism for killing engines and extinguishing
lights and stopping radios. The observers were independent unless all
of them, for example, were listening to a local radio station that
carried the news. (No investigator ever checked into the important
question of whether the radio stations were notified and if they
broadcast the reports.) We know that at first Officer Fowler discounted
the reports, and it is unlikely that he would have almost immediately
notified the local station. But let us suppose that he or someone else
did and that all car radios were tuned in to that particular station. We
still would need an explanation for the physical effects reported
unless we attribute them to downright prevarication rather than to
hysteria.
What was needed at the time was swift reaction by Blue Book and a
serious, thorough investigation. Captain Gregory, then head of Blue
Book, did call me by phone, but at that time, as the person directly
responsible for the tracking of the new Russian satellite, I was on a
virtual around-the-clock duty and was unable to give it any attention
whatever. I am not proud today that I hastily concurred in Captain
Gregory's evaluation as "ball lightning" on the basis of information
that an electrical storm had been in progress in the Levelland area at
the time. That was shown not to be the case. Observers reported overcast
and mist but no lightning. Besides, had I given it any thought
whatever, I would soon have recognized the absence of any evidence that
ball lightning can stop cars and put out headlights.
I was told that the Blue Book investigation consisted of the appearance
of one man in civilian clothes at the sheriff's office at about 11:45
A.M. On November 5; he made two auto excursions during the day and then
told Sheriff Clem that he was finished.
A newspaper reporter subsequently said that he had recognized the investigator and identified him as an Air Force sergeant.
In any event, Blue Book came under severe pressure. In a memo dated
December 4, 1957, Captain Gregory complained that.... . as a result of
pressure from both the press and public
· . . Assistant Secretary of Defense requested that ATIC immediately
submit a preliminary analysis to the press . . . a most difficult
requirement in view of the limited data."
Interfering with cars on the highways is but one of the physical
effects reported in this category of Close Encounters. There are also
the reported - and photographable - effects on living things, notably
plants and trees. Many witnesses have reported temporary paralysis in
their limbs when their encounters have been quite close.
More than 300 cases of "scorched, denuded circles" and related "landing
marks" frequently associated with the sighting of UFOs at close range
have been cataloged. These, like UFOs in general, have been reported
from many parts of the world, and a definite pattern is evident. The
prototype is clear from an examination of even a few cases.
(not for reprint except for MUFON, or with express permission by author)
Abstract: Alien
abductions extend beyond the physical medical exams and presupposed
"alien/human" genetic hybridization breeding programs as premised in
current
literature. Alien orchestrated human bonding dramas in numerous
abduction cases suggest an alternative factor in understanding the
motives of the extraterrestrials’ interaction with humanity. These
bonding dramas consist of alien instigated, "staged" relationship
manipulations, emotional and sexual bonding arrangements between two
targeted abductee partners, often resulting in dramatic love obsessions
in one or both partners. Several case studies will be presented
demonstrating the characteristic signs, symptoms and patterns of alien
directed relationship bondings and manipulations. An alternative
explanation and motivating factor for these alien orchestrated dramas
will be presented.
Introduction
Alien abduction research has
struggled to maintain credibility in the UFO community and academic
world. It’s paradoxical nature and lack of concrete physical proof of
extraterrestrials thrusts UFO abduction researchers into taking greater
efforts in empirical methodologies. In essence–a hard line, nuts and
bolts approach.
As an abduction researcher of 15
years and from the perspective of female intuition, I contend that most
Ufologists and abduction researchers are so adamant about the nuts and
bolts--that they overlook the whole drama of what is taking place in abductees' lives. Even other well-known abduction investigators, such as
have commented that many events within the abduction scenario appear to
be pre-arranged or staged events in the abductees’ lives. Some of these
staged events take place in and out of the classic abduction scene and
into the interpersonal lives of the abductee. Specifically, I am
referring to a variety of alien orchestrated human bonding dramas,
relationship manipulations and love obsessions that are carried out in
the abductee population mediated through the alien presence.
Observe the Drama
This angle of approach is better
understood if you place yourself in the position of a drama director:
Imagine for a moment, watching a children's puppet show. Raggedy Andy
meets Raggedy Ann. They flip and flop to the tune of an enigmatic love
affair. Raggedy Andy courts his beloved Ann, wooing her to that
anticipated kiss. Raggedy Ann swooned into a spell of romantic love. The
curtain closes.
Next scene Raggedy Ann is yearning
for her newfound knight in shining armor. Raggedy Andy sees her, but
instead of running to embrace her, he turns around and walks off stage,
leaving Ann grieved with unrequited love.
Raggedy Andy and Ann are not really
puppets; they're real people who have had lifelong alien encounters. The
puppet masters are the aliens playing the role of the proverbial Cupid
and his arrow. Perhaps a puppet show is a harsh analogy for the lives of
some abductees caught in the dramas of the alien matchmakers. But I
adjure you to take a look from a different perspective, one that asks
different questions regarding the modus operandi of the alien or .
Throughout my experience studying and
counseling abductees and "experiencers", I can confidently say that the
alien presence--or whoever is acting behind its image--exerts a heavy
influence on their lives, sometimes down to the lovers they meet and
even the very partners they choose to marry.
Alien Orchestrated Love Relationships in Abductees
Bud Hopkins famous
UFO abduction investigation brought to light this rarely discussed
aspect of alien directed human bonding arrangements in some abductees'
lives. Mr. Hopkins recent book, Witnessed recounts the dramatic
story of Linda Cortile's UFO abduction in 1989 from an apartment window
in Manhattan, USA. Three men witnessed the extraordinary event, one of
whom (Richard) Linda Cortile had previously met in her abductions as a
child and young adult. These mutually shared encounters and dream like
scenarios that took place between Linda and Richard can be described as
alien orchestrated bonding exercises.
According to Hopkins, the bonding
that Linda and Richard experienced are not isolated incidents in the
abductee population, but are rare. Mr. Hopkins has observed the bonding
dramas in 14 out of 650 cases, which accounts for roughly 2% of al his
cases.
Barbara Bartholic, a hypnotherapist
and abductions researcher of 25 years, has observed that many of these
alien manipulated bonding dramas result in dramatic love obsessions. Ms.
Bartholic maintains that the bonding phenomenon carried out by aliens
occurs much more frequently than one would think. In my own work, I’d
say a rough one third have had either a bonding experience or some kind
of relationship manipulation with another person (i.e., shared
abductions or mutually shared dreams with the targeted partner) within
their abduction experiences. These may include a classic physical type
of abduction, a vivid, alien controlled or "stage managed" dream or
virtual reality scenario. The oversight of these dramas result in a
serious lack of understanding concerning the alien intelligence and
their motives for interacting with humanity.
The bonding experiences exhibit a
characteristic pattern and sequence of events that goes something like
this: An abductee meets another abductee during one or more alien
abductions or in very vivid dreams. The couple may interact on a verbal
or physical level to initiate the bonding process. This can occur
several times until a strong emotional connection occurs. The nature of
the bonding exercises seems to be tailor-made to the individual.
The bonding interactions may or may
not be consciously recalled by either partner. Often, only one partner
will remember the experience, while the other has no memory or only a
vague recall. When both partners meet in real life, there is an instant
sense of recognition and the couple may fall in love. There are
variations to the pattern and sequence of events, but in most cases one
partner falls in love more than the other and is left feeling
unrequited.
In a few cases, a bonding with an
alien being or spirit guide progressed into a love obsession where it
was discovered later that the spirit guide turned out to be an alien
masquerading as the "lover".
Supernatural Events and Synchronicities
The relationship between the two
bonded individuals is such that both persons are magnetically attracted
to one another, often in unlikely situations. The love relationship
set-up may include a number of bizarre synchronicities, vivid dreams,
supernatural events and bonding exercises during alien encounters. The
orchestrated experiences are often intimate and sexual such that one or
the other develops an intense chemistry and love obsession with the
targeted partner. Oftentimes, either person is married to or has an
existing relationship with another mate. It makes no difference.
The emotional, passionate and even
telepathic connection between the bonded pair is unlike normal
relationships (whatever normal is, anyway). Some have described it as
the most exhilarating love imaginable, to the point of total spiritual
immersion or indwelling with their "beloved." Then the inevitable
happens. It's absolutely devastating. The targeted love partner becomes
"switched off" and the love-struck other half becomes painfully
unrequited. The switching off is described as an emotional and sexual
disinterest in their once "attractive" partner. The chosen partner may
have an initial attraction or even a strong love for the other, but then
loses interest, often right after an abduction or vivid dream. If one
or the other abductee has a good recall of their dreams and abduction
memories, they may remember being previously bonded together in one or
more experiences.
Some abductees report spontaneous
remote viewing images and visions of the intended partner in such a way
as to elicit emotions, such as jealousy, obsessive love, yearning and
grievous unrequited love pangs. The alien manipulated love obsession
process is akin to a carrot being dangled just enough to get the
obsessed lover into a constant cycle of love and unrequited love. This
can extend from relationship to relationship and is emotionally
exhausting.
Characteristics, Signs and Symptoms of a Bonding Set Up
Multiple abduction histories. In
most cases the person had numerous alien encounters and/or UFO
sightings. In a few cases the targeted love bite partner did not realize
him/herself to be an abductee. For example one partner was said by the"
alien handlers" to have been abducted only for the purpose of the love
bite relationship with a particular female abductee.
Memories of bonding scenarios in
abductions, vivid dreams or virtual reality scenarios. Some have
described it as a "stage managed" dream where both partners are present
in a bedroom scene set up, where both partners are being given
telepathic messages to initiate contact, either on a verbal level or
more physical sexual level. Oftentimes either partner appears to be in a
tranced out or drugged state. Other stage-managed dreams and/or
abductions may have the partners in various situations as if they are
being tested for their emotional compatibility or coerced into thinking
that this person would make an ideal romantic mate.
Supernatural Events and
Synchronicities. Uncoincidental coincidences and psychic flashes
concerning the targeted partner. Meeting the person seems to be set up
in a supernatural way such that the couple may believe their eventual
union to be divinely arranged. A match made in heaven. A first meeting
of the pre-bonded partner may set off a series of de ja vu memories,
flashback memories of previous abductions or dream related bondings.
Some have even described it as a "body memory" of having made love to
that person before. One or both partners have a strong sense of having
known the person before, as if they knew them all their lives or a
strong soul connection.
Paranormal and supernatural
phenomena increases during the love bite set-up. This may include
empathic and even telepathic communication between the love bite pair.
Spontaneous remote viewing images and mutually shared dreams. Other
oddities may include the physical sensation of the partners "touch" or
energy field when the other partner is thinking or fantasizing about
them.
Strong emotional, mental and even
psychic connections with the bonded partner–such that it sets up the
conditions and desire for them to meet one another. The connection can
be so strong that they have described it as a soul immersion in their
beloved or literally having their souls joined to one another.
A need for one partner or the other
to be with them to the point of becoming obsessed. This includes the
need to meet the person, even if it is in secret, and having to hear the
person’s voice on the phone, sometimes calling the person daily or
several times a day. Just hearing the targeted partner’s voice may have a
calming effect on the obsessed lover. Extreme anxiety may be felt if
the obsessed person cannot hear that person’s voice or see them somehow.
The obsessed partner usually feels
"love at first sight" and may lose all critical reasoning ability. Some
have described it as having the compulsion to make sudden life decisions
like moving away, changing jobs, getting divorced or going out of their
way to do things for the targeted person. It has been compared to being
under a "love spell" whenever the obsessed person hears their partner’s
voice. They may go to great lengths to please the person–doing anything
for them, even giving up their life for them.
Switching off. One or the other
partners becomes unplugged emotionally, leaving the other in a state of
unrequited love. Usually the obsessed lover becomes painfully unrequited
after the other partner loses interest, often right after an abduction.
It has been described as the psychic and emotional unplugging of the
targeted partner. Unfortunately the obsessed lover still feels the
strong psychic/emotional connection, but the other "switched off"
partner feels nothing, leaving the obsessed lover grieving. Or the
conditions for the bonded lovers are such that it is impossible for them
to consummate their strong love, such as both partners being married to
others or living a great distance away.
Emotional turmoil in the unrequited
partners life. These powerful emotions of love and grief may cause the
person to be inspired with creative energy, so that they write poetry,
music, or any other art form of creative inspiration. Conversely, the
degree of emotional pain may throw the unrequited lover into suicidal
tendencies, mental and physical exhaustion or illness.
Profound mystical experiences may also be perceived during the time of increased emotional processing or periods of prayer.
Increase in alien encounters during
periods of high drama and emotional conflict. These alien encounters may
also increase if the person gets involved in alternative sexual
lifestyles or increased sexual activity–especially if its with the
targeted love bite partner. Some have reported increases in reptilian
activity with methamphetamine or "crack concaine" abuse.
Some abductees have reported the
bonding experience to take place more than once, whereby they have been
on both sides of the love bite; the obsessed unrequited end, or the
non-unrequited end. When they are on the non-unrequited end, a platonic
friendship may be engendered. Some heterosexuals have suddenly become
obsessed with a homosexual where a drastic change in lifestyle occurs.
Case Studies of the Love Bite
These cases have been condensed for the sake of this paper and can be read in more depth in "The Love Bite" book.
The Case of Sophia and Dave
Sophia, a 33-year old married wife
and mother was on a truth quest concerning her lifelong alien
encounters. Her husband George did not share her spiritual interests or
fascination with the UFO phenomena. George was not an abductee and spent
most of his time working long hours in his career. His emotional
coolness left Sophia lonely and wanting for a companion who could
understand. During Sophia’s alien encounters George seemed to be "out
cold" or deathly unconscious. In any event, he was conveniently out of
town or unavailable.
Two months before Sophia became
pregnant with her daughter, she had an alien encounter where a
telepathic message was given which stated: "We need more offspring."
When the couple’s daughter turned
two, she would awake screaming in terror during the night and hide in
her bedroom closet, "away from the monsters." This sometimes happened on
the same nights Sophia had alien intruding "dreams." During these
periods, the daughter acted out with a lot of anger especially towards
her father. She also displayed an extreme phobia to bugs.
In the midst of Sophia’s quest for an
abduction therapist, Sophia met an older man named Dave. Dave was also
an abductee and happily married. When the two met, Dave couldn’t stop
staring at Sophia as if he knew who she was. Both exchanged business
cards after briefly meeting at a UFO conference and continued to
correspond by telephone.
Sophia then recalled "déjà vu" type
dream memories of having been with Dave before in very intimate detail,
years before met. She became empathetically connected to Dave and had
several dreams of him in which she was able to pick up real information
on Dave’s personal life that she had no way of knowing.
Dave started having spontaneous
remote-viewing images of Sophia, which she was able to confirm as true
to detail. Sophia also had remote viewing images of Dave, and
intuitively knew things about him and his family, which he confirmed
also.
Sophia was in love with Dave and
couldn’t understand why she loved him so much, as Dave was many years
older than she and not really her type. The two experienced a strong,
spiritual and emotional connection with one another as if they had known
each other for years.
Sophia made plans to visit an
abduction researcher and hypnotist but was detracted from visiting the
therapist following an encounter akin to a virtual reality abduction
involving military men. She became ill after the threatening scenario
and could not visit the therapist. One of Sophia’s main reasons for
seeing the therapist was due to her overwhelming love obsession with
Dave.
Sophia called Dave often, initiating
most of the communication. Soon, she started to get the feeling he was
trying to get rid of her, as he became indifferent and uncaring. Even
though Dave rarely called Sophia or reciprocated her affections, she
made excuses that he was just too busy and really would be with her if
he could. Wrong.
Dave was friendly and enjoyed
Sophia’s affections. But he was not in love with her. It didn’t seem to
matter to Sophia, as she thought that perhaps in the future they would
end up together. After all, the synchronicities, profound love and
bonding they experienced must have been divinely ordained.
Two years later and with the help of
an understanding abductions therapist, Sophia’s love obsession with Dave
finally tapered off. It had taken an enormous emotional and physical
toll on Sophia and at one point she became very ill. Part of the
therapeutic process was for Sophia and her husband George to undergo
marital counseling, bringing to light the awareness and effects of alien
abductions, and avoiding emotional isolation of one another.
Even though Sophia and George’s
marriage is still intact and improved, the love obsession left Sophia
very hurt. She loves her husband, yet admits she is not as attracted to
him anymore. Sophia’s consolation is her faith in God and helping
others.
The Case of Andrew
Andrew, a 32-year-old single male
abductee has had difficulty maintaining long term relationships with
women. He fell in love with a beautiful, affectionate woman named
Sharon. Two months into the romantic relationship a tall, tan, "Grey"
alien and a shorter, dark alien in a hooded cloak visited the sleeping
couple. Andrew recalled the first part of the abduction with the tan
figure, but feelings of fear and foreboding overcame him and the memory
faded.
Sharon was seriously distraught and
emotionally distant the next morning. Later, Andrew discovered that the
cloaked, alien jabbed Sharon in the side with a pointy, spear-like
object as the entity warned her to stay away from Andrew, leaving her
petrified. Even though Sharon found a red triangular mark on her body
the next morning, she assumed it was just a horrible dream.
Less than two weeks later, Sharon no
longer had amorous feelings for Andrew and seemed to be "switched off".
She soon broke off the relationship, leaving Andrew grief stricken,
pining away for his lost love.
In the next couple of months the
aliens revisited Andrew. In this encounter he remembered graphic imagery
of his girlfriend Sharon being a "slut", having sexual relations with
his best friend, making it appear that his best friend cheated on him
behind his back. This invoked feelings of intense jealousy, rage and
unrequited love for his ex-girlfriend Sharon.
In another relationship of Andrew’s
the aliens again interfered. This particular girlfriend, Ingrid, did not
recall the alien visitation they both shared one night. Andrew
remembered the tall, tan aliens in the room and saw Ingrid sitting up in
bed, her face contorted in horror, frozen into a silent scream. During
this encounter, Andrew attempted to ask the alien, "Why are you always
interfering?" Within seconds of his request, Andrew experienced intense
pain and blacked out.
After the abduction, Ingrid abruptly
changed her amicable attitude from indifference to outright nastiness
and the love affair suddenly ended.
Andrew’s persistence at pressing the
aliens for an answer was met with a barrage of platitudes such as, "She
wasn’t one of us. You are one of us. She wasn’t necessary, not part of
it. She doesn’t understand us." And the notorious, "You are not ready
yet to know."
After both of these broken off
relationships, the aliens projected into Andrew’s mind seductive images
of a beautiful, exotic Tahitian woman with children, implying that this
was Andrew’s future wife and kids. The understood message, according to
Andrew, was, "If you stick with us and so as we say, this is what we
will give you." It never happened. The aliens lied.
Today, Andrew is dating a nice woman
who is understanding of the alien abduction phenomena. They share a
mutually beneficial relationship. Andrew still distrusts the aliens, but
maintains a positive and hopeful attitude of overcoming his
difficulties and has even had some success in resisting abductions.
The Case of Angelina and Steve
Angelina, a 30-year-old wife and
mother of three children has experienced multiple abductions since
childhood. Her mother and sisters have also reported encounters with
alien Greys at various times throughout their lives.
In addition to Angelina’s encounters
with Grey’s, a tall, 7- foot lizard man replete with tail, claw like
hands and feet and yellow snake slit eyes, repeatedly visits Angelina
and rapes her. Very often, the reptilian being will physically enter her
bedroom at night through an interdimensional portal or doorway and
proceed to have intercourse with her.
Angelina’s husband, Dick does not
believe his wife that she is getting abducted. He emotionally isolates
her and is sometimes abusive, even blaming Angelina for the abductions.
Angelina’s children have seen small
reptilian creatures in the house at night and even in the daytime on
rare occasions. One neighbor has also witnessed poltergeistic activity
and ghoulish looking beings in their home as well.
When Angelina tries to tell her
husband Dick about her encounters with the aliens he becomes angry and
jealous and blames his wife that she enjoys the reptilian "sex" better
than him. Angelina has been turned off to her husband sexually and is
repulsed by his human "pheromones" as if she has developed a heightened
sense of smell that others cannot discern. She has conflicting feelings
of guilt and shame because her body responds to the sexual liaisons with
the reptilian male to an unnatural degree–so much so that she is
completely turned off to her husband.
Paradoxically, Angelina also reports
frightening, violent and unpleasant sexual assaults in her abductions as
well, which include the reptile being and also human military men. She
has recalled other abduction related procedures such as medical
gynecological exams, implant surgery, pregnancies and disappearing
fetuses, non-pregnancy related lactation and miscellaneous body marks
such as puncture marks, triangles, bruises, etc.
In one abduction memory, Angelina
recalled being in bed with a man who she was strongly attracted to. She
found herself in bed with a good-looking man in a non-descript white
hotel room, white bed covers and sheets. They are both nude and she
receives messages to make love to this man. They have sex and Angelina
recalls being told that she will meet this man named Steve in two
months. Angelina noticed that in the bonding "dream" Steve appeared to
be tranced out and not as fully aware as she was.
Two months later Angelina meets Steve
in her hometown, which is over 100 miles away from his residence. It is
unlikely that they would even meet considering the distance between
them. The couple has an instant attraction and sense of recognition with
one another. They fall in love at first sight and are compelled to
continue to communicate with one another.
The love bite pair call one another
often and make secret plans to meet one another. Steve is married to
another woman, but going through a separation. One weekend the couple
sneaks off for a weekend fling in another city so that no one would
recognize them.
While Steve and Angelina are away,
Dick is at home experiencing spontaneous remote viewing images of his
wife making love to another man. These vivid mental images pop into
Dick’s head as if they have been ‘inserted" in his mind. (These mental
pictures Angelina has associated with some ball of light phenomena). He
sees his wife in a sexy, teddy night gown with a man he later described
perfectly as Steve although the two had never met, nor had Dick ever
seen his wife’s new teddy that she had just bought for her weekend
rondevouz--purposely hiding it out of the house so her husband wouldn’t
find it. Dick is incited to jealousy and rage, accusing Angelina of
having an affair when she returns from the trip. She denies his
accusations, fearing abuse, but is shocked he could perfectly describe
everything Angelina and Steve did, as if he was right there in the room
with them.
Dick is so enraged that he starts
having homicidal ideations and obsesses over taking revenge on his wife,
her lover and then killing himself. During this time of chaos and
conflict, the paranormal activity and balls of light phenomena increase
in the household.
Meanwhile, Angelina and Steve make
plans to get married, but are continuously prevented from being with one
another for one reason or another. They both are in anguish because
they seem to be prevented from consummating their love and passion for
one another.
Dick’s homicidal tendencies subside
as the couple goes to counseling together with a friend who understands
the aspect of mind control and alien abductions. They try to make it
work between them, but Angelina is doubtful things will ever work out.
Six months later Angelina has another
abduction where she recalls beings told, "Steve will not be needed
anymore." She also was told that Steve was an abductee just for the
purpose of their bonded relationship, but he was "not in training" for
any other purpose as opposed to Angelina. Thereafter, Angelina no longer
feels the obsessive yearning for Steve and can easily let go of the
relationship. She breaks up with Steve, leaving him bewildered. Steve
has never been aware of the abductions, but only felt a strong sense of
recognition when meeting Angelina.
Meanwhile, Angelina continues to have
abductions involving Greys, Reptilians and human military. She is put
through a number of testing and training scenarios in very vivid dreams.
She and several other abductees in the support group experience
mutually shared dreams and abduction related testing and training
elements together.
A male abductee in the support group
named Scott was set up in a bonding encounter with Angelina in which
both recalled the sexual nature of the "dream". This creates a strong
sexual tension between the two when they meet. They also experience a
psychic link and even telepathic connection with one another. Although
they feel a powerful chemistry between them, they refrain from any
sexual behavior. Both have become aware of the love bite bondings and
purposely avoid any intimate contact.
Instead, they are good platonic friends and enjoy a close psychic bond with one another.
To this day, Angelina is still
married to Dick. He has become aware of the abductions and even has had
some of his own. They have numerous marital difficulties but have
managed to stay together despite the odds against them.
Marital and Family Issues of Abductees
On the surface, these relationship
problems appear to be easily explained marriage and family issues. But
as I got a closer look at a number of abductees’ lives and interpersonal
relationships it made me wonder. The psychological swamp gas theory was
no longer palatable. There was something real, possibly sinister going
on beneath the veil of alien contact in these people’s lives. It made me
ask the classic question–what came first, the chicken or the egg? Are
some dysfunctional relationship problems due to faulty coping mechanisms
of the individual’s response to alien abductions, or have the aliens’
deliberately contrived these family problems all along?
In my experience counseling
abductees, one of the hallmarks of these peoples’ lives is the pattern
of emotional isolation. This behavior can be explained as a result of
conditioning, learned adaptations from the abductee’s family members, or
reinforced by the alien handlers. In fact, some persons have discovered
that the aliens instructed them not to talk about their encounters,
making if apparent that the alien presence will go to great lengths to
maintain secrecy. They have often instilled false or screen memories
into their victims to cover their true activities and motives.
Some researchers, myself included,
believe that the human bonding relationships which result in high drama
and love obsessions may be instigated for purposes other than the alien
breeding and hybridisation program, as one may suspect at first glance.
(Although that is a factor that can’t be ignored).
Barbara Bartholic, a hypnotherapist
and abductions researcher of over 25 years has studied and defined the
love obsession phenomena down to a T. "First", Barbara states, "the
individuals are set up during encounters from childhood for maximum
emotional and sexual bonding. The bonding process sets the stage for the
drama of the love obsession. The aliens are somehow able to harvest the
energies emitted by the emotionally charged persons. These emotions
range from intense love, longing, passion, rage, jealousy and
anticipation of one’s beloved." Ms. Bartholic believes we are all
affected by this phenomenon, not just abductees and contactees. It is
just that we only find out about this love obsession phenomenon and all
its associated life dramas through the ones who do remember.
"The love obsession drama can be
played out on a large scale as well." Barbara adds. "This is
incorporated through glamorous public figures or super stars." The
drama-directing aliens can use the super star images for massive
unrequited love obsessions in the general population. "In short,"
Barbara concludes, "It is like one big human Nintendo game".
Bud Hopkins takes a more conservative
approach and stated, "The bonding phenomena is not an across the board
aspect of abductions. It is relatively rare and must be differentiated
from group abductions where two or more persons get taken
simultaneously, like husband and wife, or friends for various reasons".
When asked the general trend of how the abductees handle the bonding
dramas, Bud commented, "It depends on the circumstances. If they are
already married, it is extremely difficult".
According to Barbara Bartholic and
Bud Hopkins, the bonding is not always directed towards romantic,
opposite sex situations, and can include same sex friendships and even
homosexual relationships.
A noteworthy point here is the
emotional energy derived through a series of intense dramas and crises.
As ludicrous as it may sound, the aliens may feed off these emotional
energies.
I’ve had several persons admit to me
in private that they had a higher frequency of alien encounters during
the more stressful and chaotic periods of their lives. As one of my
support group members has sarcastically described it, "The aliens have a
way of jerking my emotional chain, putting me through intense highs and
lows."
Emotional Isolation and Maintenance of Secrecy: Dysfunctional Families
Our social structure and especially
in the Western world, reinforces the precept that "aliens and
extraterrestrials do not exist", and is only science fiction or
psychological delusion. The result of these negating and isolating
conditions forces the abductee to turn inward or even act our in
rebellion against parents, school, religion or society. The abductee who
has been denied validation of their experience will have a tendency to
distrust their own feelings, stay in denial or even act out in anger.
When core issues of alien abductions
(especially traumatic ones) are not addressed or resolved, a variety of
unhealthy coping skills result and extend into their relationships and
family systems. When alien abductions occur multigenerationally,
dysfunctional family issues are compounded. As such, abductees may find
themselves in unhealthy, unfulfilling relationships that perpetuate the
viscous cycle of emotional isolation or even abuse. These dysfunctional
patterns of relating serve to maintain the secrecy of alien abductions.
Resolution and healing of alien
abduction related issues–and the dysfunctional family systems which
serve to maintain the secrecy–can only be complete when false and
misleading "swamp gas" theories are put to rest. It makes one ask what
the real culprit is.
There are scores of courageous
abductees who have come forward to share their stories, only to be
ridiculed and blamed later by the mainstream or even their peers in the
UFO community. For these reasons, many abductees simply remain silent.
Volumes of valuable witness testimonies and alien abduction related
information remain under lock and key--by the twin pillars of fear and
imposed ignorance.
Whatever the true reasons for the
aliens’ interference in our relationships, we may never know, but from
what some abductees have reported, the effects are both devastating and
exhilarating.
After surviving of the grievous
effects of an alien contrived love obsession, Sophia poetically stated,
"Even though my experiences have been incomprehensibly painful, I
wouldn’t trade them for any other. I realized it was better to have
loved and lost, than to never have loved at all". I marveled at her
statement and could only imagine what the aliens are missing. Life
itself.
The Question of Spiritual Warfare
It doesn’t take long for any
abductions researcher to realize the alien presence–or whatever is
acting behind its image–is deceptive, manipulative and intelligent. The
aliens act both in a physical and non-physical reality, a true paradox.
Their ability to orchestrate elaborate dramas, bondings and love
obsessions in abductee’s lives bespeaks an adeptness with unseen
spiritual realities.
Researchers and abductees have
reported that as they delved into UFO related matters and especially
abduction related memories, they were besieged with a number of
detracting efforts that served to steer them away from retrieving hard
core information on alien abductions. One woman in my group named Sophia
described it eloquently, "Once I decided to pursue in-depth research
into my abductions, a series of tests and trials assailed me, like going
through a gauntlet of spiritual warfare."
If we take a closer look at how
spiritual warfare operates within the abduction phenomenon, we can see
it manifest itself in the bonding dramas that resulted in love
obsessions. Two targeted abductees are chosen by their alien handlers
for their ability to create and express a high degree of emotion within
the context of a romantic attraction. This romantic attraction more
often than not results in an unrequited love obsession for one or the
other partner– or they are unable to consummate their feelings due to
other impossible circumstances. These conditions release a variety of
powerful emotions such as intense love, longing, passion, rage, jealousy
and anticipation of one’s beloved. In the more severe cases, the
abductee became exhausted, depressed and ill, even to the point of
suicidal ideations, or brought close to death from severe illness. The
dramas that were set into motion in these people’s lives caused a lot of
chaos and conflict, some even losing their marriages due to alien
interference and manipulation.
The flip side is that some of the
abductees who experienced deep emotional conflict and intense love also
reported a release of creative energy at the height of the obsession. In
one case, the abductee moved into new levels of ecstatic mystical
experience as a result of reaching the deepest degree of her emotional
capacity. Paradoxically, we see excruciating grief and pain of
unrequited love on one hand, and ecstatic mystical visionary unions and
creative inspiration on the other.
If frequency of alien encounters is
directly proportional to high drama, chaos and conflict, then we can
surmise that the alien presence is somehow benefiting from our emotional
energies. In the cases of bonded love obsessions, a high degree of
emotional and sexual passion was present. Aliens have a keen interest in
our capacity to feel and express love and other highly charged
feelings.
We need to ask some serious
questions. What is the true essence of human abductees as a resource for
these alien beings? Rather than researching indefinitely with
frustration and confusion, ask the question: What are the intentions and
capabilities of the aliens based on their ability to insidiously
orchestrate such elaborate dramas such as love obsessions?
Within the annals of contemporary
alien abduction research we can say that the aliens are carrying out
some kind of genetic human/alien hybridization program spanning several
generations. This is what we see on the surface and it may very well be
true. When we look deeper we may suspect the worst conspiracy theory
imaginable. And somewhere in between, you may get a glimpse of the
magick trick taking place right before your eyes.
But where is the evidence of UFO’s and extraterrestrials? Everyone asks.
" Where’s the beef?" And to this I’d say,
"There is no beef. Only chunks of horsemeat in a tossed salad of confusion."
Summary
Alien directed human bonding dramas
that resulted in love obsessions were a serendipitous observation of
abductee’s interpersonal relationships. Although these bonding dramas
did not occur to a majority of abductees, its profound effects and
ramifications are of noteworthy importance.
If the alien presence can orchestrate
people’s lives to the extent demonstrated via their love lives–then we
need to reassess the intentions and capabilities of the alien abductors.
Perhaps it is not a far-fetched idea to hypothesize that the aliens
play the role of the mythical Cupid and his arrow. And much, much more.
Observing the dramas of abductees
lives opened up a doorway of perception hitherto unacknowledged in the
more scientific nuts and bolts methodologies of UFO abduction research. I
liken this concept to a "blocked memory" only retrievable to conscious
awareness by re-routing the neural pathways.
Summarized case studies of alien
orchestrated human bonding dramas were presented with characteristic
signs and symptoms. These patterns are unique to the abductee population
and can be clearly distinguished from other non-abduction related
psychological and relationship issues.
It is of great importance to address
the culprits of emotional isolation and the maintenance of secrecy
regarding alien abductions within marriage and family systems. The key
to unlocking the mysteries and motives of the alien intelligence lies in
the tenacity of abductees to search for the truth of their experiences.
Creating an environment of safety free from ridicule and politically
correct peer pressure is the first step in uncovering the truth of alien
abductions.
Discovering the reality of a lifetime
of alien encounters is a Pandora’s box few are willing or ready to
open. A few brave souls have explored the depths of their interactions
with the alien presence. For some, this means the realization that their
whole lives have been staged, manipulated and orchestrated at the hands
of the alien puppet masters–the architects of human drama. This
realization throws a whole new understanding on the quest and value of
human freedom.
The Love Bite is the title of my recent book "The Love Bite: Alien
Interference in Human Love Relationships". The term was first coined the
"alien love bite" by a small but growing number of aware
who began to realize that some of their love relationships were
engineered by the aliens who abducted them. I deleted the "alien"
notation from the description, because after working with many
abductees, I realized that aliens were not the only ones responsible for
these anomalous "pre-arranged" love relationships.
These alien orchestrated love bites often took the form of overwhelming
love obsessions with an alien chosen targeted partner—another abductee.
The targeted partner was sometimes another local abductee and other
times the chosen mate was across the country or even in another country.
For those abductees who were able to get together, the relationship was
often short lived and passionate, leaving one of the partners in a
state of unrequited love. There were many variations to the basic love
bite set-up or manipulated relationship, which will be elaborated on
more fully later in this chapter.
It became clear that the alien abductors be they ,
reptilians, human military or other unknown species, were heavily
manipulating their "chosen ones" down to the very detail of their love
and sex lives! Not only did these aliens set relationships up, but also
they interfered in ways to break couples apart, friendships and even
families. Clearly, the alien abduction phenomenon entailed more than the
simple medical exams, and missing time episodes as reported by the
"credible" and abduction researchers of the 1980’s and early 90’s.
Rigid academic minds struggled to maintain an empirical nuts and bolts
explanation of UFO’s and their abducting occupants. It appeared more
important for most researchers to maintain credibility within the eyes
of their academic contemporary peers, than to risk taking a step beyond,
addressing the deeper issues of this phenomenon. The glossing over of
abductee relationship manipulations served a useful purpose, ensuring
ignorance, secrecy and powerlessness in the abductee population.
Meanwhile, the suffering abductees caught up in the heavy hands of the
aliens went largely unacknowledged and unaided.
It took a bold, fiery spirited woman like Dr. Karla Turner to stand in
the gap for a growing number of abductees whose voice had been denied by
other researchers. Dr. Karla Turner, professor of literature at North
Texas University, and vocal alien abductions researcher, started a
groundswell movement of abductees who did not fit into the rigid "Grey
alien" abduction scenario of medical exams, implant procedures and
missing time episodes. Dr. Turner addressed serious issues that had been
muffled by the contemporary Ufologists and abduction researchers.
Things such as military abductions (MILABS), ,
relationship manipulations and deceitful tactics of the aliens were
being exposed. Her groundbreaking books included Into the Fringe,
Masquerade of Angels and Taken. Dr. Turner understood the suffering of
abductees and was able to clearly recognize the masquerade that a
majority of the abducting aliens were playing. In Masquerade of Angels,
Dr. Turner recounts the Ted Rice story, which is a classic expose of how
the aliens perpetrated extensive manipulations and deceptions,
including a major love obsession that was clearly engineered by Ted’s
alien handlers.
These revelations were an unwelcome shock to many abductees and
researchers alike, because Pandora’s box had been opened. At least in
this case—and many others—it was obvious that the aliens and visiting
extraterrestrials were no benevolent spirit guides or earth guardians!
They were deceivers with questionable motives who had interfered in
abductees’ lives. Not only this, but once the truth behind their
activities was seriously challenged, reprisals ensued. Something
snakelike was rearing its ugly head, creating chaos wherever it went.
Because of the disturbing nature of Dr. Turner’s findings, she was
criticized by many of her peers in the UFO community. Most of the
criticism came from those who believed that extraterrestrials are here
for our spiritual evolution. Other arguments to defend the benevolent ET
theories arose, such as any negative alien abduction experience or
MILAB (military abduction) originates from our own secret government
black projects. This argument is not substantial, as many MILAB
abductees observed alien Greys, reptilians and human military and
medical personnel working in tandem with one another, often times in our
own military underground installations! Furthermore, when the alien
–human-military connection was seriously questioned, and exposed by
MILAB abductees, reprisals soon followed. These events appeared
"coincidental" with the exposure of sensitive information regarding the
alien/human connection.
I believe that Dr. Karla Turner died prematurely as a result of an
abduction-related reprisal for her boldness in speaking the truth. I
personally know abductees and researchers who have been afflicted with a
series of unfortunate "coincidences" following exposure to these darker
truths. These reprisals included sudden divorces, love bite set-ups,
health problems and even cancer. Most whistleblowers ended up being
ostracized and discredited publicly one way or another.
After Dr. Karla Turner’s death on January 9, 1996, a small group of
abductees and myself began getting together on a regular basis. I
conducted a regular support group for abductees, and a smaller core
group of very aware abductees, who were less manipulated than the rest
of the abductees. I noticed that there was a continuum of
levels in abductees, and that those who were more aware, psychic and
spiritually strong could withstand the alien manipulations and spiritual
warfare more readily than the novices who had not yet reached a
heightened awareness level. I also observed that the degree of useful
information increased with these"more aware" abductees and spiritual
warriors.
One thing I’d like to point out is the difficulty working in the
UFO/Paranormal/Abductions field—at least when one is sincerely trying to
seek the truth and assist abductees who want to break free. The
constant criticism amongst mainstream, academic and scientific circles
regarding the reality of alien abductions is the lack of hard evidence.
But the real problem is not lack of evidence, but the warfare
conditions, which keep the average individual and researcher unaware and
distracted. I liken my own research as an intelligence gathering
operation under adverse warfare conditions with minimal or no
resources—except a strong spirit. And to manage this while being able to
truly help the suffering abductee or mind control victim without harm,
or harm to oneself or family. It is no easy task, and most persons who
complain about the lack of evidence or publicly discredit those who are
discovering these "dark dirty secrets" are manipulated muppets who have
no good works to show for themselves.
One of the reasons I even stumbled across the Love Bite, is because of
the distractions aimed at certain individuals who were getting close to
"breaking programming" or whistle blowing. This is only one of the
reasons behind a love bite set up. To get a clearer understanding of
what was happening to a number of abductees in my support group, I began
corresponding with Barbara Bartholic, an abductions researcher and
hypnotherapist of 25 years. Mrs. Bartholic was well aware of how love
obsessions manifested in alien abductees, sometimes following a major
abduction event. Love bite set-ups were also a pattern that Mrs.
Bartholic observed during intense periods of
activity. Barbara Bartholic is compassionate and deeply insightful with
respect to abduction related love obsessions and how the reptilian
aliens fit into the scheme of things. Much of this information is
elaborated on in my book The Love Bite, and I encourage anyone who
suspects this kind of thing in his or her own lives to read my book.
My own theory of the Love Bite developed after consolidating my own
observations of alien abductions, MILABs, chronic relationship
manipulations, anomalous health problems and the paranormal/occult side
of the phenomena. I also learned a lot from the more aware MILAB
abductees, whose bonding procedures with other persons (especially
psychics) served several purposes.
The symptomology of a love bite set up can be described by the
conditions below. Remember there may be a variation of these presenting
symptoms, depending on the individual and his or her background.
Characteristics, Signs and Symptoms of a Bonding Set Up
a. Multiple abduction histories. In most cases the person had numerous
alien encounters and/or UFO sightings. In a few cases the targeted love
bite partner did not realize him/herself to be an abductee. For example
one partner was told by the" alien handlers" to have been abducted only
for the purpose of the love bite relationship with a particular female
abductee.
b. Memories of bonding scenarios in abductions, vivid dreams or virtual
reality scenarios. Some have described it as a "stage managed" dream
where both partners are present in a bedroom scene set up, where both
individuals are being given telepathic messages to initiate contact,
either on a verbal level or more physical sexual level. Oftentimes
either partner appears to be in a tranced out or drugged state. Other
stage-managed dreams and/or abductions may have the partners in various
situations as if they are being tested for their emotional compatibility
or coerced into thinking that this person would make an ideal romantic
mate.
c. Supernatural Events and Synchronicities. Uncoincidental coincidences
and psychic flashes concerning the targeted partner. Meeting the person
seems to be set up in a supernatural way, such that the couple may
believe their eventual union to be divinely arranged. A match made in
heaven. A first meeting of the pre-bonded partner may set off a series
of de ja vu memories, flashback memories of previous abductions or dream
related bondings. Some have even described it as a "body memory" of
having made love to that person before. One or both partners have a
strong sense of having known the person before, as if they knew them all
their lives or a strong soul connection.
d. Paranormal and supernatural phenomena increases during the love bite
set-up. This may include empathic and even telepathic communication
between the love bite pair. Spontaneous remote viewing images and
mutually shared dreams. Other oddities may include the physical
sensation of the partners "touch" or energy field when the other partner
is thinking or fantasizing about them. This is known as telesthesia,
and is often experienced in a sexual way oftentimes in an altered state
of consciousness. These conditions may propel either person to find the
other, an obsession to find the dream partner.
e. Strong emotional, mental and even psychic connections with the
bonded partner—such that it sets up the conditions and desire for them
to meet one another. The connection can be so strong that they have
described it as a soul immersion in their beloved or literally having
their souls joined to one another. Another bi-product is the
amplification of psychic abilities in both or one partner. Some MILAB
abductees reported that the reason for the bonding was to amplify their
psychic abilities, such as remote viewing to be later used in a secret
mission or "mind controlled ops".
f. Love obsession. A need for one partner or the other to be with them
to the point of becoming infatuated. This includes the need to meet the
person, even if it is in secret, and having to hear the person’s voice
on the phone, sometimes calling the person daily or several times a day.
Just hearing the targeted partner’s voice may have a calming effect on
the obsessed lover. Extreme anxiety may be felt if the obsessed person
cannot hear that person’s voice or see them somehow.
g. The obsessed partner usually feels "love at first sight" and may
lose all critical reasoning ability. Some have described it as having
the compulsion to make sudden life decisions like moving away, changing
jobs, getting divorced or going out of their way to do things for the
targeted person. It has been compared to being under a "love spell"
whenever the obsessed person hears their partner’s voice. They may go to
great lengths to please the person—doing anything for them, even giving
up their life for them.
h. Switching off. One or the other partners becomes unplugged
emotionally, leaving the other in a state of unrequited love. Usually
the obsessed lover becomes painfully unrequited after the other partner
loses interest, often right after abduction. It has been described as
the psychic and emotional unplugging of the targeted partner.
Unfortunately the obsessed lover still feels the strong
psychic/emotional connection, but the other "switched off" partner feels
nothing, leaving the obsessed lover grieving. Or the conditions for the
bonded lovers are such that it is impossible for them to consummate
their strong love, such as both partners being married to others or
living a great distance away.
i. Emotional turmoil in the unrequited partners life. These powerful
emotions of love and grief may cause the person to be inspired with
creative energy, so that they write poetry, music, or any other art form
of creative inspiration. Conversely, the degree of emotional pain may
throw the unrequited lover into suicidal tendencies, mental and physical
exhaustion or illness.
j. Profound mystical experiences may also be perceived during the time of increased emotional processing or periods of prayer.
k. Increase in alien encounters during periods of high drama and
emotional conflict. The alien encounters may also increase if the person
gets involved in alternative sexual lifestyles or increased sexual
activity—especially if its with the targeted love bite partner. Some
have reported increases in reptilian activity with methamphetamine or
"crack concaine" abuse.
l. Some abductees have reported the bonding experience to take place
more than once, whereby they have been on both sides of the love bite;
the obsessed unrequited end, or the non-unrequited end. When they are on
the non-unrequited end, a platonic friendship may be engendered. Some
heterosexuals have suddenly become obsessed with a homosexual where a
drastic change in lifestyle occurs.
There are variations to the love bite dramas, wherein, for example, two
abductees are placed together perhaps for the purpose of having
children together, and they may not go through all the stages in the
above set of symptoms. Based on the number of love bite histories I have
compiled, I have come to the conclusion that there are at least four
reasons for these set-ups. Some of these may serve dual purposes. One
for the aliens and the other for the cooperating human military or
intelligence personnel involved with a particular abductee. In this
instance, MILABS or a faction of MK Ultra operatives under the abduction
programs. The four basic reasons behind love bite relationships are:
a. Genetic bloodline study or perpetuation of a particular trait useful
for the aliens and/or military, intelligence or Illuminati related
group. For example high psi and dissociative ability.
b. Emotional soul harvesting of energies siphoned off the abductee for
aliens, such as reptilians, Dracos, or demonic powers accrued to human
magicians. In cases where sexual manipulations are done, this sexual
energy can be used in Montauk type experiments for time travel or psi
amplifications, or materializations.
c. Amplification of paranormal abilities such as telekinesis,
telepathy, remote viewing and precognition through sexual and soul
bonding of other psychic abductees. In this case you can call them MILAB
operatives. Some of these operatives may have Monarch Programming or
the more sophisticated alien programming based on the fundamentals of
Monarch MK Ultra programming. Oftentimes programmers, who orchestrate
the various missions for their highly trained operatives, will want to
soul bond and sexually bond a pair. This serves to keep the twinned
operatives loyal to one another, and increase their performance. For
example, when two operatives are so bonded to one another, they can
telepathically transmit large amounts of information to one another,
sometimes during sexual activity. If they love one another, they will
also die for one another, taking greater risks for the success of a
dangerous mission.
d. Distraction and neutralization of troublesome abductees, or
researchers, who are either breaking programming, whistle blowing, or
getting too close to the truth. This may present itself as an abductee
client that comes in to work with a researcher, where a love affair
ensues. Then the relationship may be an emotional roller coaster, or
create chaos in the researchers life distracting him or her from useful
research. Or a sleeper operative abductee starts coming to a support
group, wreaking chaos wherever they go, which may include a love bite
set up with one of the members. It may result in dividing the support
group, creating unnecessary enmity between abductees and researchers who
could have shared insightful experiences. In these instances the set up
serves to prevent useful information from reaching the public.
In general, there is great resistance amongst the UFO abductee
population to discuss the more "negative" abduction reports. I can
personally attest to this when being on various Internet list groups or
support groups held by the less informed group facilitators. The
resistance usually is regarding reptilian aliens, sexual assaults,
underground bases memories where horrific things were observed, such as
the "processing plants, or gory details. Oftentimes even military or
government abductions are not allowed to be spoken of. Any hints at
Monarch trauma based programming and Illuminati connections are frowned
upon. I even know of a case where a certain Internet list group for
abductees only made rules to not discuss reptilians or military
abductions! This is pathetic, because it shows you how effective the
alien programmers are at keeping their chosen ones" in complete denial. I
call this "muppetization. I’m sorry to strike a negative tone here, but
there is a major problem going on in the UFO community!
Last but not least, I must say something about persons who swear they
were matched together by divine or supernatural means to meet their
lover. In some cases the couple married and enjoy a good, healthy
relationship. I believe there are some relationships, which are guided
by benevolent angelic forces and even ones own karma. And yes, I have
seen love bite cases where the couple claims that they are happy and
it’s not an unhealthy relationship contrived by evil aliens. In some
cases, I’ve observed how a love bite relationship was set up as a
positive perk to an abductee who helped promote the alien agenda without
knowing it. Or the orchestrated relationship served to keep publicly
vocal abductee in some kind of economic bondage, or under increasing
amounts of control from their partner—whose view of the visiting
extraterrestrials opposed them. The net effect was to muffle the public
appearances of the abductee, or keep them under a leash with a
controlling partner.
One reason why I am skeptical of alien orchestrated love relationships
that appear "happy and healthy" is, that when one of the persons starts
challenging the alien agenda or its insidious mind control, then all
hell breaks loose. It will often manifest as chaos in ones relationship
that was set up in the first place. This is a bitter pill to swallow for
persons who have realized the extent of control exerted on them by
their alien handlers. This same truth extends to those in MK Ultra
programs, and Illuminati bloodline families, or cults.
True love will not try to control and manipulate. True love will
support freedom from the bonds of ignorance, and encourage individual
sovereignty. True love will empower an individual, and work in unselfish
ways to promote freedom for others. Most importantly, true love is
discerning, confident, unselfish, humble, persevering and deeply
compassionate for the suffering of others.
The greater our awareness of what is truly happening in today’s
sophisticated world, the better able we are able to regain control over
our destinies. At first, we will become disturbed. But if our love for
the truth outweighs our arrogance and ignorance, we can have a chance
for true love and freedom.
It has come to the attention of a few astute researchers in the UFO
community that there are subtle methods of surveillance, involving a
of the Hive Mind Matrix consciousness. The HIVE Mind represents a type
of collective consciousness, especially the mass consciousness of
humans (or non-humans) who is more susceptible to the Alien HIVE MIND
control/manipulation. To make my point more clear I'll give an example
of what has been observed consistently by some close associates in the
UFO community.
A researcher makes plans to write an article or publish a book, or do some whistle blowing regarding ,
mind control related dynamics of manipulation. These manipulations
have been observed in certain abductees, experiencers or contactees, as
if in response to a plan or even a mental thought of a "whistle
blowing" or truth telling researcher. Oftentimes the plans of the
researcher revolves around exposure of the various deceptions,
disinformation and methods of manipulation of "abductees". The
researcher may keep the plan to him/herself or may communicate the
plans to a close friend on the Internet via personal e-mail, phone or a
physical meeting and talking with the friend.
Within days to a
week the researcher and/or his close friend will receive another email
from another person, or some kind of communication from even an
anonymous source as if in response to the "plan"-- usually in efforts
to counteract or thwart the "plans" of the researcher. Sometimes this
happens in a synchronistic manner, where the Hive mind recipients
respond to the researchers "thought waves or plans" in an unconscious
manner.
Other times, the responses are consistently
communicated from a specific person in the UFO community cyberspace. It
has been observed that in at least two of these persons, they were
directly or indirectly connected to the intelligence community. The
"coincidental" communications usually take place via email, suggesting
these persons are either directly monitoring the researcher, or that
their mind is responsive to the overall Hive Mind Will of the aliens(?)
plans to maintain secrecy, creating confusion. For the sake of
simplicity, I am calling them aliens, but in reality, the Matrix
manipulators can be military, humans in the occult black arts, or even
hosted who are connected to the reptilians in some way.
In most cases, the coincidental (or out right telepathic) responses
were done on an unconscious level, usually by abductees who maintain the
"neutral or positivist" stance of aliens and especially reptilians. It
has been observed that the ones who respond in such a detracting
manner, are connected to the Hive mind and more easily used or
manipulated to carry out the "apparent" alien agenda. Sometimes the
"muppet" may not be a positive ET Propagandist, yet due to other
factors,( huge egos, u addictions, poor spiritual foundation, etc) they
are easily manipulated, for other reasons which I will mention
further.
These people do not necessarily have to be abductees
or knowing disinformants, but can also be people who have many mental
and emotional weaknesses that make them easy targets for manipulation
by the MATRIX manipulators. They just happen to be at the right place
at the right time for the intended target. Example, an editor of a
researcher who was about to publish a book (exposing alien activity)
starts developing antagonistic, accusatory and insulting behavior, for
no apparent reason. Then the editor starts experiencing odd bumps in
the night after associating with the researcher. They get buzzed by
black helicopters while working on the book. Then after a series of
weeks, the whole manuscript of the researcher is changed and slanted in
such a way as to degrade the quality of the researcher’s work.
Another example. A woman starts retrieving memories of abduction
related incidents in her life that could be traced back to trauma based
mind control, disguised as alien abductions. She keeps the memories to
herself and does not discuss them with her immediate family members or
her spouse. She does discuss them with a close friend via phone and
e-mail communications. Within days to a week, her spouse and child
start exhibiting bizarre behavior, such as starting marital fights, as
if .
The child starts having nightmares of monsters, like reptilians or red
eyed animals visiting her at night. She starts developing extreme
anxiety around bedtime and school, so much so that she develops a
urinary frequency problem. She shows signs of trauma or even sexual
abuse, but from no apparent source. The abductee is forced to stop
opening up memories for fear of a divorce and loss of custody of her
child. When she brings up the issues of what is truly happening via
abductions or strange mind control manipulations, she is accused of
being crazy and the husband threatens to take custody of the child and
file for divorce, regardless of the child's obvious distress and
"anomalous trauma.
Another subtle thing that has been observed
was, that the more she brought out information about trauma based mind
control at a local UFO conference, the more strange things got. When at
the conference, several contactee "Muppets" walked out of the room as
one of the researchers was presenting. On another occasion, when an
abductee started bringing up the subject of trauma based mind control,
the whole power grid of the section of town they were at, just shut off.
The hotel they were staying at blacked out in a "synchronistic
manner". It was as if the Hive mind was activated to turn off the
"lights" when exposure of this kind of material was brought out into
the open. Again, these things occurred in a highly coincidental manner,
so as to offset exposure of the dynamics of how this HIVE mind and
Matrix manipulation works.
Now, a close associate also has
observed, that the self-same persons who were somehow connected to the
intelligence community and alien abductions, responded to the person's
thoughts. This has also occurred on several occasions where the person
made mental plans and did not share them with anyone. Then the Hive
mind recipient responded to the mental plans. The response was either
to "show" that the plans/thoughts of the researcher are known and
somehow monitored, or it was done in such a way as to subvert the
researchers' plans. Again, sometimes this subversive communication was
done on an unconscious level. But it does indicate that there is a
larger intelligence that is very aware of what is going on and is
proactive to even the thoughts of an individual.
This Matrix
manipulation may also be a causative factor in "Love Bite"
relationships, whereby abductees or those who have been in trauma based
mind control or ritual abuse families. These relationships have been
defined as those relationships, usually male/female love relationships
that appear to be "set up" for the targeted love partners by a
supernatural source.( Or perhaps high technology intelligence
operations and implants) Some abductees claim that aliens had
pre-bonded them and set up situations for them to meet a pre-arranged
"targeted partner". The relationship may then instigate problems for
the love bitee, that prevent them from carrying out positive healing
and growth from abduction and/or trauma related issues. It happens a
lot to people who have discovered too much about
(researchers) or mind control victims who start having memories of
their abuse. The Love Bite set up appears to be designed to steer the
victim off course from positive growth and exposure of the "darker" side
of the UFO phenomena and mind control operations under its alien/ET
masquerade.
Other types of
relationships are discussed in the Love Bite book. Critics of the Love
bite hypothesis have commented that there are some "good love bite set
ups" carried out by aliens. I have seen this also, but I have also seen
that some of the good love bite set ups had been orchestrated as a
positive "perk" by the controlling aliens, so that the couple carry out
some aspect of the alien propaganda or agenda. In other cases, the
set up appeared to be a divine set up based on soul mate and/or karmic
connections and did not fit the classic love bite scenario, although
the abductee/contactee in question believes that they were set up to
meet their partner. There may be many reasons for a relationship to be
orchestrated, but my definition of a classic love bite is one that is
not empowering for the true healing and growth of either individual.
Note* Synchronistic events and psychic/telepathic connections exist
between some people with a greater frequency. These events are very
common for abductees and do not necessarily fall into the category of
negative alien manipulation, although the question arises as to whether
these peoples lives are deliberately "led" by their alien "handlers".
The increase in telepathic connections between people within the UFO
research community has also been reported within a neutral or positive
vein, and here the question arises as to "why ". Is this a genetic
quality of abductees, i.e. psychic ability? Is there a bloodline of
individuals who have some kind of supernatural abilities-monitored and
clandestinely bred by the aliens? Or has the minds of most people
involved in UFO research somehow been linked to a larger MATRIX mind
that is intelligent, responsive and manipulative?
It's been almost fifty years since the modern era of UFO reports began,
and in all that time and out of thousands (millions?) of UFO sightings,
no definitive evidence regarding the nature of Our Shining Visitors has
been found. Much has been alleged/hypothesized/theorized/dreamt during
that time, but as of 1996 we are no closer to The Truth than Kenneth
Arnold was in 1947.
The extraterrestrial hypothesis is by far the most popular theory of
UFO origins, but it presents many problems. As the great UFO waves of
the late 1960s faded into history, many UFOlogists were left wondering
if the "nuts and bolts" approach was really valid. They had abundant
eyewitness reports, some landing traces, and even purported fragments of
flying saucers, yet they were not able to pin down true nature of the
phenomenon. The exclusive domination of the ETH among serious UFOlogists
began to crack under these paradoxical conditions, and a new theory
emerged.
But was it new? As far back as 1919, writer Charles Fort had been
collecting accounts of inexplicable anomalies, including strange objects
seen in the sky. Fort was a philosopher and a humorist, and he proposed
many tongue in cheek theories to explain the events he described. One
of his favorites was that the Earth did not belong to mankind, but in
fact was a sort of cosmic game reserve, owned by a race of superbeings.
He summed up this idea in the pithy aphorism: "I think we are property."
Fifty years later,
came to same conclusion. Keel, a New York writer, got a publishing
contract to write a UFO book. He set off for the hills of West Virginia,
which in 1967 was inundated with UFO sightings, monster reports, and
general weirdness. Keel spent some weeks investigating the antics of an
entity dubbed "Mothman," and the mysterious Men in Black (MIB). The
latter were an underground legend in UFO circles. Supposedly strange men
clad in dark suits cruised around the country threatening UFO witnesses
into silence. Everyone knew about them, but the conservative NICAP
crowd thought if they existed at all, they were likely agents of the US
government, engaged in a massive cover-up of the UFO problem. Keel saw
them as something quite different. To him they were ordinary people
controlled by entities from another dimension, a force he dubbed "the
Superspectrum."
After the Flap of '67 ended, he spent a few years digesting what he'd
learned and issued a series of odd but compelling books in the early
1970s: UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, Our Haunted Planet, , and The Eighth Tower.
Keel's thesis, like Fort's, was this planet was more of a private zoo
than a sovereign world, and we are the exhibits. So who are the zoo
keepers?
Keel, drawing on a background in folklore and the occult, dubbed these
higher entities "Ultraterrestrials" (UTs). UTs were the gods of our
ancestors. Their meddling was responsible for all human progress and
human woe, from religious and scientific enlightenment to wars and
murderous cults. Because our modern culture thinks in terms of
spaceships and visitors from other planets, that is how we see the UTs
when they manifest themselves today.
All of this was kind of hard to swallow for the nuts-and-bolts crowd,
who tended to see Keel as a nut, no more acceptable than a Space
Brother-worshipping contactee. But as the '70s wore on and the cherished
hard evidence of the ETH failed to appear, others decided to explore
the paraphysical realm.
Most notable of these was .
Vallee started out on the hard science end of the UFO spectrum (his
Ph.D. is in computer science), but the untenability of the ETH gradually
pushed him into alternate theories. He cut his ties to the
nuts-and-bolts thinkers and began exploring the links between UFOs and
cult groups, religious movements, ghosts, angels, and psychic phenomena.
Because his views are still evolving, it's hard to characterize
Vallee's position, except to say he thinks UFOs are merely the modern
manifestation of an age-old phenomenon. He's less sure than Keel about
the role of UTs in human history and more concerned with the deliberate
manipulation of human society by the phenomenon -- and by those who use
UFO trappings to influence us.
The greatest weakness of Paraphysical Theories (and there are many
variants) is that while they explain some of the weirder aspects of the
UFO experience, they are inherently untestable and unprovable. Both Keel
and Vallee have "retired" from UFOlogy for periods because there seemed
nothing more to do. They have come back and made new studies, but the
total knowledge of the phenomenon doesn't seem to advance much. In the
end the PT is not so much an answer as an objection to the shortcomings
of the ETH or the skeptical view that there's nothing to UFOs at all.
Two minor variations of the PT are the time-travel hypothesis and the
angel/demon theory. The time travel idea holds that UFOs are time
machines from our own future, coming back to study us primitives. (A
humorous exposition of the time travel theory can be seen in the movie
"Repo Man.") The angel/demon theory, as its name implies, says that UFOs
are God's angels (or Satan's demons) reinterpreted by modern mankind as
visitors from space. The weaknesses of these two concepts is self
evident.
After a peak in popularity in the early 1980s, paraphysical theories
have declined in favor among the UFO cognoscenti. The thrust of research
in UFOlogy in the past decade has been either historical (digging into
alleged UFO crashes in the past, like Roswell), or psychological
(hypnotic regression of alleged UFO abductees). In both cases the
underlying assumption is that UFOs are extraterrestrial machines, though
some abductionists do entertain notions of psychic influence and
out-of-body travel, two staples of the paraphysical theory.
The following excerpts are taken from Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt's book, The Report On , first published in 1956.
Capt. Ruppelt was Chief of the Air Force's ""
from 1951 to Sept. 1953, an operation of the "Air Technical
Intelligence Center" (ATIC). On 21 May 1951, the United States Air Force
established ATIC as a field activity of the Assistant Chief of Staff
for Intelligence.
Foreword
This is a book about unidentified flying objects - UFO's - ."
It is actually more than a book; it is a report because it is the first
time that anyone, either military or civilian, has brought together in
one document all the facts about this fascinating subject. With the
exception of the style, this report is written exactly the way I would
have written it had I been officially asked to do so while I was chief
of the Air Force's project for investigating UFO reports - Project Blue
Book. . . .
It
was only after considerable deliberation that I put this report
together, because it had to be told accurately, with no holds barred. I
finally decided to do it for two reasons. First, there is world-wide
interest in flying saucers; people want to know the facts. But more
often than not these facts have been obscured by secrecy and confusion, a
situation that has led to wild speculation on one end of the scale and
an almost dangerously blasé' attitude on the other. It is only when all
of the facts are laid out that a correct evaluation can be made.
Second,
after spending two years investigating and analyzing UFO reports, after
talking to the people who have seen UFO's - industrialists, pilots,
engineers, generals, and just the plain man-on-the-street, and after
discussing the subject with many very capable scientists, I felt that I
was in a position to be able to put together the complete account of the
Air Force's struggle with the flying saucer.
The
report has been difficult to write because it involves something that
doesn't officially exist. It is well known that ever since the first
flying saucer was reported in June 1947 the Air Force has "officially"
[emphasis added] said that there is no proof that such a thing as an
interplanetary spaceship exists. But what is not well known is that this
conclusion is far from being unanimous among the military and their
scientific advisers because of the one word, proof; so the UFO
investigations continue.
The
hassle over the word "proof" boils down to one question: What
constitutes proof? Does a UFO have to land at the River Entrance to the
Pentagon, near the Joint Chiefs of Staff offices? Or is it proof when a
ground radar station detects a UFO, sends a jet to intercept it, the jet
pilot sees it, and locks on with his radar, only to have the UFO streak
away at a phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet pilot fires at a UFO
and sticks to his story even under the threat of court-martial? Does
this constitute proof? . . .
Chapter One
Project Blue Book and the UFO Story
.
. . The UFO story started soon after June 24, 1947, when newspapers all
over the United States carried the first flying saucer report. The
story told how nine very bright, disk shaped objects were seen by
Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho, businessman, while he was flying his
private plane near Mount Rainier, in the state of Washington. With
journalistic license, reporters converted Arnold's description of the
individual motion of each of the objects like "a saucer skipping across
water"- into "flying saucer," a name for the objects themselves. In the
eight years that have passed since Arnold's memorable sighting, the term
has become so common that it is now in Webster's Dictionary and is
known today in most languages in the world.
For
a while after the Arnold sighting the term "flying saucer" was used to
describe all disk shaped objects that were seen flashing through the sky
at fantastic speeds. Before long, reports were made of objects other
than disks, and these were also called flying saucers. Today the words
are popularly applied to anything seen in the sky that cannot be
identified as a common, everyday object.
Thus
a flying saucer can be a formation of lights, a single light, a sphere,
or any other shape; and it can be any color. Performance wise, flying
saucers can hover, go fast or slow, go high or low, turn 90 degree
corners, or disappear almost instantaneously.
Obviously
the term "flying saucer" is misleading when applied to objects of every
conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers
the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects.
UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short.
Officially
the military uses the term "flying saucer" on only two occasions. First
in an explanatory sense, as when briefing people who are unacquainted
with the term "UFO": "UFO - you know- flying saucers." And second in a
derogatory sense, for purposes of ridicule, as when it is observed, "He
says he saw a flying saucer."
This
second form of usage is the exclusive property of those persons who
positively know that all UFO's are nonsense. Fortunately, for the sake
of good manners if for no other reason, the ranks of this knowing
category are constantly dwindling. One by one these people drop out,
starting with the instant they see their first UFO.
Some
weeks after the first UFO was seen on June 24, 1947, the Air Force
established a project to investigate and analyze all UFO reports. The
attitude toward this task varied from a state of near panic, early in
the life of the project, to that of complete contempt for anyone who
even mentioned the words "flying saucer."
This
contemptuous attitude toward "flying saucer nuts" prevailed from mid
1949 to mid 1950. During that interval many of the people who were, or
had been, associated with the project believed that the public was
suffering from "war nerves."
Early
in 1950 the project, for all practical purposes, was closed out; at
least it rated only minimum effort. Those in power now reasoned that if
you didn't mention the words "flying saucers" the people would forget
them and the saucers would go away. But this reasoning was false, for
instead of vanishing, the UFO reports got better and better.
Airline
pilots, military pilots, generals, scientists, and dozens of other
people were reporting UFO's, and in greater detail than in reports of
the past. Radars, which were being built for air defense, began to pick
up some very unusual targets, thus lending technical corroboration to
the unsubstantiated claims of human observers.
As
a result of the continuing accumulation of more impressive UFO reports,
official interest stirred. Early in 1951 verbal orders came down from
Major General Charles P. Cabell, then Director of Intelligence for
Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, to make a study reviewing the UFO
situation for Air Force Headquarters. . . .
ATIC
soon got the word to set up a completely new project for the
investigation and analysis of UFO reports. Since I had made the review
of past UFO reports I was the expert, and I got the new job. It was
given the code name Project Blue Book, and I was in charge of it until
late in 1953. During this time members of my staff and I traveled close
to half a million miles. We investigated dozens of UFO reports, and read
and analyzed several thousand more. These included every report ever
received by the Air Force.
For
the size of the task involved Project Blue Book was always under-
staffed, even though I did have ten people on my regular staff plus many
paid consultants representing every field of science. All of us on
Project Blue Book had Top Secret security clearances so that security
was no block in our investigations. "Behind this organization was a
reporting network made up of every Air Force base intelligence officer
and every Air Force radar station in the world, and the Air Defense
Command's Ground Observer Corps." [Emphasis added] This reporting net
sent Project Blue Book reports on every conceivable type of UFO, by
every conceivable type of person. . . .
If
all the UFO reports that the Air Force has received in the past eight
years could be put in this "psychological quirk" category, Project Blue
Book would never have been organized. It is another class of reports
that causes the Air Force to remain interested in UFO's. This class of
reports are called "Unknowns."
In
determining the identity of a UFO, the project based its method of
operation on a well known psychological premise. This premise is that to
get a reaction from one of the senses there must be a stimulus. If you
think you see a UFO you must have seen something. Pure hallucinations
are extremely rare. . . .
On
Project Blue Book our problem was to identify these stimuli. We had
methods for checking the location, at any time, of every balloon
launched anywhere in the United States. To a certain degree the same was
true for airplanes. The UFO observer's estimate of where the object was
located in the sky helped us to identify astronomical bodies. Huge
files of UFO characteristics, along with up-to-the-minute weather data,
and advice from specialists, permitted us to identify such things as sun
dogs, paper caught in updrafts, huge meteors, etc.
This
determination of the stimuli that triggered UFO sightings, while not an
insurmountable task, was a long, tedious process. The identification of
known objects was routine, and caused no excitement. The excitement and
serious interest occurred when we received UFO reports in which the
observer was reliable and the stimuli could not be identified. These
were the reports that challenged the project and caused me to spend
hours briefing top U.S. officials. These were the reports that we called
"Unknowns."
Of
the several thousand UFO reports that the Air Force has received since
1947, some 15 to 20 per cent fall into this category called unknown.
[Emphasis added] This means that the observer was not affected by any
determinable psychological quirks and that after exhaustive
investigation the object that was reported could not be identified. To
be classed as an unknown, a UFO report also had to be "good", meaning
that it had to come from a competent observer and had to contain a
reasonable amount of data. . . .
There
is a great deal of interest in UFO's and the interest shows no signs of
diminishing. Since the first flying saucer skipped across the sky in
the summer of 1947, thousands of words on this subject have appeared in
every newspaper and most magazines in the United States. During a
six-month period in 1952 alone 148 of the nation's leading newspapers
carried a total of over 16,000 items about flying saucers.
.
The
subject of flying saucers, which has generated more unscientific
behavior than any other topic of modern times, has been debated at the
meetings of professional scientific societies, causing scientific
tempers to flare where unemotional objectivity is supposed to reign
supreme.
Yet
these thousands of written words and millions of spoken words - all
attesting to the general interest - have generated more heat than light.
Out of this avalanche of print and talk, the full, factual, true story
of UFO's has emerged only on rare occasions.
Many
civilian groups must have sensed this, for while I was chief of Project
Blue Book I had dozens of requests to speak on the subject of UFO's.
These civilian requests had to be turned down because of security
regulations.
I
did give many official briefings, however, behind closed doors, to
certain groups associated with the government - all of them upon
request.
The
subject of UFO's was added to a regular series of intelligence
briefings given to students at the Air Force's Command and Staff School,
and to classes at the Air Force's Intelligence School.
I
gave briefings to the technical staff at the Atomic Energy Commission's
Los Alamos laboratory, where the first atomic bomb was built. The
theater where this briefing took place wouldn't hold all of the people
who tried to get in, so the briefing was recorded and replayed many
times. The same thing happened at AEC's Sandia Base, near Albuquerque.
Many
groups in the Pentagon and the Office of Naval Research requested UFO
briefings. Civilian groups, made up of some of the nation's top
scientists and industrialists, and formed to study special military
problems, worked in a UFO briefing. Top Air Force commanders were given
periodic briefings.
Every briefing I gave was followed by a discussion that lasted anywhere from one to four hours.
In
addition to these, Project Blue Book published a classified monthly
report on UFO activity. Requests to be put on distribution for this
report were so numerous that the distribution had to be restricted to
major Air Force Command Headquarters.
This
interest was not caused by any revolutionary information that was
revealed in the briefings or reports. It stemmed only from a desire to
get the facts about an interesting subject.
Many
aspects of the UFO problem were covered in these official briefings. I
would give details of many of the better reports we received, our
conclusions about them, and how those conclusions were reached. If we
had identified a UFO, the audience was told how the identification was
made. If we concluded that the answer to a UFO sighting was "Unknown,"
the audience learned why we were convinced it was unknown. . . .
The
briefings included a description of how Project Blue Book operated and a
survey of the results of the many studies that were made of the mass of
UFO data we had collected. Also covered were our interviews with a
dozen North American astronomers, the story of the unexplained green
fireballs of New Mexico, and an account of how a committee of six
distinguished United States scientists spent many hours attempting to
answer the question, "Are the UFO's from outer space?" [Emphasis added]
Unfortunately
the general public was never able to hear these briefings. For a long
time, contrary to present thinking in military circles, I have believed
that the public also is entitled to know the details of what was covered
in these briefings (less, of course, the few items pertaining to radar
that were classified "Secret," and the names of certain people). But
withholding these will not alter the facts in any way.
A
lot has already been written on the subject of UFO's, but none of it
presents the true, complete story. Previous forays into the UFO field
have been based on inadequate information and have been warped to fit
the personal biases of the individual writers. Well-meaning though these
authors may be, the degree to which their books have misinformed the
public is incalculable.
It is high time that we let the people know. . . .
Chapter Two
The Era of Confusion Begins
On
September 23, 1947, the chief of the Air Technical Intelligence Center,
one of the Air Force's most highly specialized intelligence units, sent
a letter to the Commanding General of the then Army Air Forces. The
letter was in answer to the Commanding General's verbal request to make a
preliminary study of the reports of unidentified flying objects. The
letter said that after a preliminary study of UFO reports, ATIC
concluded that, to quote from the letter, "the reported phenomena were
real." [Emphasis added] The letter strongly urged that a permanent
project be established at ATIC to investigate and analyze future UFO
reports. It requested a priority for the project, a registered code
name, and an over-all security classification. ATIC's request was
granted and Project Sign, the forerunner of Project Grudge and Project
Blue Book, was launched. "It was given a 2A priority, lA being the
highest priority an Air Force project could have." [Emphasis added] With
this the Air Force dipped into the most prolonged and widespread
controversy it has ever, or may ever, encounter. The Air Force grabbed
the proverbial bear by the tail and to this day it hasn't been able to
let loose.
The
letter to the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces from the chief
of ATIC had used the word "phenomena." History has shown that this was
not a too well chosen word. But on September 23, 1947, when the letter
was written, ATIC's intelligence specialists were confident that within a
few months or a year they would have the answer to the question, "What
are UFO's?" The question, "Do UFO's exist?" was never mentioned. The
only problem that confronted the people at ATIC was, "Were the UFO's of
Russian or interplanetary origin?" [Emphasis added] Either case called
for a serious, secrecy shrouded project. Only top people at ATIC were
assigned to Project Sign.
Although
a formal project for UFO investigation wasn't set up until September
1947, the Air Force had been vitally interested in UFO reports ever
since June 24, 1947, the day Kenneth Arnold made the original UFO
report.
.
. . By the end of July 1947 the UFO security lid was down tight. The
few members of the press who did inquire about what the Air Force was
doing got the same treatment that you would get today if you inquired
about the number of thermonuclear weapons stock-piled in the U.S.'s
atomic arsenal. No one, outside of a few high-ranking officers in the
Pentagon, knew what the people in the barbed wire enclosed Quonset huts
that housed the Air Technical Intelligence Center were thinking or
doing. [Emphasis added]
The
memos and correspondence that Project Blue Book inherited from the old
UFO projects told the story of the early flying saucer era. These memos
and pieces of correspondence showed that the UFO situation was
considered to be serious; in fact, very serious. [Emphasis added] The
paper work of that period also indicated the confusion that surrounded
the investigation; confusion almost to the point of panic. The brass
wanted an answer, quickly, and people were taking off in all directions.
Everyone's theory was as good as the next and each person with any
weight at ATIC was plugging and investigating his own theory. The ideas
as to the origin of the UFO's fell into two main categories, earthly and
non earthly. In the earthly category the Russians led, with the U.S.
Navy and their XF-5-U-l, the "Flying Flapjack," pulling a not too close
second. The desire to cover all leads was graphically pointed up to be a
personal handwritten note I found in a file. It was from ATIC's chief
to a civilian intelligence specialist. It said, "Are you positive that
the Navy junked the XF-5-U-1 project?" The non earthly category ran the
gamut of theories, with space animals trailing interplanetary craft
about the same distance the Navy was behind the Russians.
This confused speculating lasted only a few weeks. . . .
At
first there was no co-ordinated effort to collect data on the UFO
reports. Leads would come from radio reports or newspaper items.
Military intelligence agencies outside of ATIC were hesitant to
investigate on their own initiative because, as is so typical of the
military, they lacked specific orders. When no orders were forthcoming,
they took this to mean that the military had no interest in the UFO's.
But before long this placid attitude changed, and changed drastically.
Classified orders came down to investigate all UFO sightings. Get every
detail and send it direct to ATIC at Wright Field. The order carried no
explanation as to why the information was wanted. This lack of an
explanation and the fact that the information was to be sent directly to
a high-powered intelligence group within Air Force Headquarters stirred
the imagination of every potential cloak- and- dagger man in the
military intelligence system. Intelligence people in the field who had
previously been free with opinions now clammed up tight. . . .
Early
statements to the press, which shaped the opinion of the public,
[Emphasis added] didn't reduce the confusion factor. While ATIC was
grimly expending maximum effort in a serious study, "certain high placed
officials" were officially chuckling at the mention of UFO's. . . .
The
"experts," in their stories of saucer lore, have said that these brush
offs of the UFO sightings were intentional smoke screens to cover the
facts by adding confusion. This is not true; it was merely a lack of
coordination. But had the Air Force tried to throw up a screen of
confusion, they couldn't have done a better job. . . .
As
1947 drew to a close, the Air Force's Project Sign had outgrown its
initial panic and had settled down to a routine operation. Every
intelligence report dealing with the Germans' World War II aeronautical
research had been studied to find out if the Russians could have
developed any of the late German designs into flying saucers.
Aerodynamicists at ATIC and at Wright Field's Aircraft Laboratory
computed the maximum performance that could be expected from the German
designs. The designers of the aircraft themselves were contacted. "Could
the Russians develop a flying saucer from their designs?" The answer
was, "No, there was no conceivable way any aircraft could perform that
would match the reported maneuvers of the UFO's." The Air Force's
Aeromedical Laboratory concurred. If the aircraft could be built, the
human body couldn't stand the violent maneuvers that were reported. The
aircraft structures people seconded this, no material known could stand
the loads of the reported maneuvers and heat of the high speeds.
Still
convinced that the UFO's were real objects, the people at ATIC began to
change their thinking. Those who were convinced that the UFO's were of
Soviet origin now began to eye outer space, not because there was any
evidence that the UFO's did come from outer space but because they were
convinced that UFO's existed and only some unknown race with a highly
developed state of technology could build such vehicles. As far as the
effect on the human body was concerned, why couldn't these people,
whoever they might be, stand these horrible maneuver forces? Why judge
them by earthly standards? I found a memo to this effect was in the old
Project Sign files.
Project
Sign ended 1947 with a new problem. How do you collect interplanetary
intelligence? During World War II the organization that was ATIC's
forerunner, the Air Materiel Command's secret "T-2" had developed highly
effective means of wringing out every possible bit of information about
the technical aspects of enemy aircraft. ATIC knew these methods, but
how could this be applied to spaceships? The problem was tackled with
organized confusion.
If
the confusion in the minds of Air Force people was organized the
confusion in the minds of the public was not. Publicized statements
regarding the UFO were conflicting.
A widely printed newspaper release, quoting an unnamed Air Force official in the Pentagon, said:
The "flying saucers" are one of three things:
1. Solar reflections on low hanging clouds.
2. Small meteors that break up, their crystals catching the rays of the sun.
3. Icing conditions could have formed large hailstones and they might have flattened out and glided.
A
follow-up, which quoted several scientists, said in essence that the
unnamed Air Force official was crazy. Nobody even heard of crystallized
meteors, or huge, flat hailstones, and the solar reflection theory was
absurd.
Life, Time, Newsweek,
and many other news magazines carried articles about the UFO's. Some
were written with tongue in cheek, others were not. All the articles
mentioned the Air Force's mass hysterical induced hallucinations. But a
Veterans' Administration psychiatrist publicly pooh-poohed this. "Too
many people are seeing things," he said.
It
was widely suggested that all the UFO's were meteors. Two Chicago
astronomers queered this. Dr. Gerard Kuiper, director of the University
of Chicago observatory, was quoted as flatly saying the UFO's couldn't
be meteors. "They are probably man-made," he told the Associated Press.
Dr. Oliver Lee, director of Northwestern University's observatory,
agreed with Dr. Kuiper and he threw in an additional confusion factor
that had been in the back of many people's minds. Maybe they were our
own aircraft.
The
government had been denying that UFO's belonged to the U.S. from the
first, but Dr. Vannevar Bush, the world-famous scientist, and Dr. Merle
Tuve, inventor of the proximity fuse, added their weight. "Impossible,"
they said. [Emphasis added]
All
of this time unnamed Air Force officials were disclaiming serious
interest in the UFO subject. Yet every time a newspaper reporter went
out to interview a person who had seen a UFO, intelligence agents had
already been flown in, gotten the detailed story complete with sketches
of the UFO, and sped back to their base to send the report to Project
Sign. Many people had supposedly been "warned" not to talk too much.
[Emphasis added] The Air Force was mighty interested in hallucinations.
Thus
1947 ended with various sized question marks in the mind of the public.
If you followed flying saucers closely the question mark was big, if
you just noted the UFO story titles in the papers it was smaller, but it
was there and it was growing. Probably none of the people, military or
civilian, who had made the public statements were at all qualified to do
so but they had done it, their comments had been printed, and their
comments had been read. Their comments formed the question mark.
Chapter Three
The Classics
1948
was only one hour and twenty-five minutes old when a gentleman from
Abilene, Texas, made the first UFO report of the year. What he saw, "a
fan shaped glow" in the sky, was insignificant as far as UFO reports go,
but it ushered in a year that was to bring feverish activity to Project
Sign.
With
the Soviets practically eliminated as a UFO source, the idea of
interplanetary spaceships was becoming more popular. During 1948 the
people in ATIC were openly discussing the possibility of interplanetary
visitors without others tapping their heads and looking smug.
During 1948 the novelty of UFO's had worn off for the press and every
John and Jane Doe who saw one didn't make the front pages as in 1947.
Editors were becoming hardened, only a few of the best reports got any
space. Only the "Classics" rated headlines. "The Classics" were three
historic reports that were the highlights of 1948. They are called "The
Classics," a name given them by the Project Blue Book staff, because:
(1) they are classic examples of how the true facts of a UFO report can
be twisted and warped by some writers to prove their point, (2) they are
the most highly publicized reports of this early era of the UFO's, and
(3) they "proved" to ATIC's intelligence specialists that UFO's were
real.
The
apparent lack of interest in UFO reports by the press was not a true
indication of the situation. I later found out, from talking to writers,
that all during 1948 the interest in UFO's was running high. The Air
Force Press Desk in the Pentagon was continually being asked what
progress was being made in the UFO investigation. The answer was, "Give
us time. This job can't be done in a week." The press respected this and
was giving them time. But every writer worth his salt has contacts,
those "usually reliable sources" you read about, and these contacts were
talking. All during 1948 contacts in the Pentagon were telling how UFO
reports were rolling in at the rate of several per day and how ATIC UFO
investigation teams were flying out of Dayton to investigate them.
They were telling how another Air Force investigative organization had
been called in to lighten ATIC's load and allow ATIC to concentrate on
the analysis of the reports. The writers knew this was true because they
had crossed paths with these men whom they had mistakenly identified as
FBI agents. [Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI)] The
FBI was never officially interested in UFO sightings. The writers'
contacts in the airline industry told about the UFO talk from V.P.'s
down to the ramp boys. Dozens of good, solid, reliable, experienced
airline pilots were seeing UFO's. All of this led to one conclusion:
whatever the Air Force had to say, when it was ready to talk, would be
newsworthy. But the Air Force wasn't ready to talk.
Project
Sign personnel were just getting settled down to work after the New
Year's holiday when the "ghost rockets" came back to the Scandinavian
countries of Europe. Air attaché's in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway fired
wires to ATIC telling about the reports. Wires went back asking for more
information.
The ,
so tagged by the newspapers, had first been seen in the summer of 1946,
a year before the first UFO sighting in the U.S. There were many
different descriptions for the reported objects. They were usually seen
in the hours of darkness and almost always traveling at extremely high
speeds. They were shaped like a ball or projectile, were a bright green,
white, red, or yellow and sometimes made sounds. Like their American
cousins, they were always so far away that no details could be seen. For
no good reason, other than speculation and circulation, the newspapers
had soon begun to refer authoritatively to these "ghost rockets" as
guided missiles, and implied that they were from Russia. Peenemunde, the
great German missile development center and birthplace of the V-2 and
V-2 guided missiles, came in for its share of suspicion since it was
held by the Russians. By the end of the summer of 1946 the reports were
widespread, coming from Denmark, Norway, Spain, Greece, French Morocco,
Portugal, and Turkey. In 1947, after no definite conclusions as to
identity of the "rockets" had been established, the reports died out.
Now in early January 1948 they broke out again. But Project Sign
personnel were too busy to worry about European UFO reports, they were
busy at home. A National Guard pilot had just been killed chasing a UFO.
On
January 7 all of the late papers in the U.S. carried headlines similar
to those in the Louisville Courier: "F-51 and Capt. Mantell Destroyed
Chasing Flying Saucer." This was Volume I of "The Classics," the Mantell Incident. . . .
The
people on Project Sign worked fast on the Mantell Incident.
Contemplating a flood of queries from the press as soon as they heard
about the crash, they realized that they had to get a quick answer.
Venus had been the target of a chase by an Air Force F-51 several weeks
before and there were similarities between this sighting and the Mantell
Incident. So almost before the rescue crews had reached the crash, the
word "Venus" went out. This satisfied the editors, and so it stood for
about a year; Mantell had unfortunately been killed trying to reach the
planet Venus.
To
the press, the nonchalant, offhand manner with which the sighting was
written off by the Air Force public relations officer showed great
confidence in the conclusion, Venus, but behind the barbed wire fence
that encircled ATIC the nonchalant attitude didn't exist among the
intelligence analysts. One man had already left for Louisville and the
rest were doing some tall speculating. The story about the tower-to-air
talk, "It looks metallic and it's tremendous in size," spread fast.
Rumor had it that the tower had carried on a running conversation with
the pilots and that there was more information than was so far known.
Rumor also had it that this conversation had been recorded.
Unfortunately neither of these rumors was true.
Over
a period of several weeks the file on the Mantell Incident grew in size
until it was the most thoroughly investigated sighting of that time, at
least the file was the thickest.
About
a year later the Air Force released its official report on the
incident. To use a trite term, it was a masterpiece in the art of
"weasel wording." It said that the UFO might have been Venus or it could
have been a balloon. Maybe two balloons. It probably was Venus except
that this is doubtful because Venus was too dim to be seen in the
afternoon. This jolted writers who had been following the UFO story.
Only a few weeks before, The Saturday Evening Post had
published a two-part story entitled "What You Can Believe About flying
Saucers." The story had official sanction and had quoted the Venus
theory as a positive solution. To clear up the situation, several
writers were allowed to interview a major in the Pentagon, who was the
Air Force's Pentagon "expert" on UFO's. The major was asked directly
about the conclusion of the Mantell Incident, and he flatly stated that
it was Venus. The writers pointed out the official Air Force analysis.
The major's answer was, "They checked again and it was Venus." He didn't
know who "they" were, where they had checked, or what they had checked,
but it was Venus. The writers then asked, "If there was a later report
they had made why wasn't it used as a conclusion?" "Was it available?"
The answer to the last question was "No," and the lid snapped back down
This interview gave the definite impression that the Air Force was
unsuccessfully trying to cover up some very important information, using
Venus as a front. Nothing excites a newspaper or magazine writer more
than to think he has stumbled onto a big story and that someone is
trying to cover it up. Many writers thought this after the interview
with the major, and many still think it. You can't really blame them
either.
In
early 1952 I got a telephone call on ATIC's direct line to the
Pentagon. It was a colonel in the Director of Intelligence's office. The
Office of Public Information had been getting a number of queries about
all of the confusion over the Mantell Incident. What was the answer?
I
dug out the file. In 1949 all of the original material on the incident
had been microfilmed, but something had been spilled on the film. Many
sections were so badly faded they were illegible. As I had to do with
many of the older sightings that were now history, I collected what I
could from the file, filling in the blanks by talking to people who had
been at ATIC during the early UFO era. Many of these people were still
around, "Red" Honnacker, George Towles, Al Deyarmond, Nick Post, and
many others. Most of them were civilians, the military had been
transferred out by this time.
Some
of the press clippings in the file mentioned the Pentagon major and his
concrete proof of Venus. I couldn't find this concrete proof in the
file so I asked around about the major. The major, I found, was an
officer in the Pentagon who had at one time written a short intelligence
summary about UFO's. He had never been stationed at ATIC, nor was he
especially well versed on the UFO problem. When the word of the press
conference regarding the Mantell Incident came down, a UFO expert was
needed. The major, because of his short intelligence summary on UFO's,
became the "expert." He had evidently conjured up "they" and "their
later report" to support his Venus answer because the writers at the
press conference had him in a corner. I looked farther.
Fortunately
the man who had done the most extensive work on the incident, Dr. J.
Allen Hynek, head of the Ohio State University Astronomy Department,
could be contacted. I called Dr. Hynek and arranged to meet him the next
day.
Dr.
Hynek was one of the most impressive scientists I met while working on
the UFO project, and I met a good many. He didn't do two things
that some of them did: give you the answer before he knew the question;
or immediately begin to expound on his accomplishments in the field of
science. I arrived at Ohio State just before lunch, and Dr. Hynek
invited me to eat with him at the faculty club. He wanted to refer to
some notes he had on the Mantell Incident and they were in his office,
so we discussed UFO's in general during lunch.
Back
in his office he started to review the Mantell Incident. He had been
responsible for the weasel worded report that the Air Force released in
late 1949, and he apologized for it. Had he known that it was going to
cause so much confusion, he said, he would have been more specific. He
thought the incident was a dead issue. The reason that Venus had been
such a strong suspect was that it was in almost the same spot in the sky
as the UFO. Dr. Hynek referred to his notes and told me that at 3:00
P.M., Venus had been south southwest of Godman and 33 degrees above the
southern horizon. At 3:00 P.M. the people in the tower estimated the UFO
to be southwest of Godman and at an elevation of about 45 degrees.
Allowing for human error in estimating directions and angles, this was
close. I agreed. There was one big flaw in the theory, however. Venus
wasn't bright enough to be seen. [Emphasis added] He had computed the
brilliance of the planet, and on the day in question it was only six
times as bright as the surrounding sky. Then he explained what this
meant. Six times may sound like a lot, but it isn't. When you start
looking for a pinpoint of light only six times as bright as the
surrounding sky, it's almost impossible to find it, even on a clear day.
Dr. Hynek said that he didn't think that the UFO was Venus.
I later found out that although it was a relatively clear day there was considerable haze.
I
asked him about some of the other possibilities. He repeated the
balloon, canopy reflection, and sundog theories but he refused to
comment on them since, as he said, he was an astrophysicist and would
care to comment only on the astrophysical aspects of the sightings.
I
drove back to Dayton convinced that the UFO wasn't Venus. Dr. Hynek had
said Venus would have been a pinpoint of light. The people in the tower
had been positive of their descriptions, their statements brought that
out. They couldn't agree on a description, they called the UFO "a
parachute, an ice cream cone tipped with red," "round and white," "huge
and silver or metallic," "a small white object," "one fourth the size of
the full moon," but all the descriptions plainly indicated a large
object. None of the descriptions could even vaguely be called a pinpoint
of light.
This
aspect of a definite shape seemed to eliminate the sundog theory too.
Sundogs, or perihelia, as they are technically known, are caused by ice
particles reflecting a diffused light. This would not give a sharp
outline. I also recalled two instances where Air Force pilots had chased
sundogs. In both instances when the aircraft began to climb, the sundog
disappeared. This was because the angle of reflection changed as the
airplane climbed several thousand feet. These sundog-caused UFO's also
had fuzzy edges. . . .
During
January and February of 1948 the reports of "ghost rockets" continued
to come from air attaches in foreign countries near the Baltic Sea.
People in North Jutland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany reported
"balls of fire traveling slowly across the sky." The reports were very
sketchy and incomplete, most of them accounts from newspapers. In a few
days the UFO's were being seen all over Europe and South America.
Foreign reports hit a peak in the latter part of February and U.S.
newspapers began to pick up the stories.
The
Swedish Defense Staff supposedly conducted a comprehensive study of the
incidents and concluded that they were all explainable in terms of
astronomical phenomena. Since this was UFO history, I made several
attempts to get some detailed and official information on this report
and the sightings, but I was never successful.
The ghost rockets left in March, as mysteriously as they had arrived.
All
during the spring of 1948 good reports continued to come in. Some were
just run-of-the-mill but a large percentage of them were good, coming
from people whose reliability couldn't be questioned. For example, three
scientists reported that for thirty seconds they had watched a round
object streak across the sky in a highly erratic flight path near the
Army's secret White Sands Proving Ground. And on May 28 the crew of an
Air Force C-47 had three UFO's barrel in from "twelve o'clock high" to
buzz their transport.
On
July 21 a curious report was received from the Netherlands, The day
before several persons reported seeing a UFO through high broken clouds
over The Hague. The object was rocket shaped, with two rows of windows
along the side. It was a poor report, very sketchy and incomplete, and
it probably would have been forgotten except that four nights later a
similar UFO almost collided with an Eastern Airlines DC-3. This near
collision is Volume II of "The Classics. . . ."
In
intelligence, if you have something to say about some vital problem you
write a report that is known as an "Estimate of the Situation." A few
days after the DC-3 was buzzed, the people at ATIC decided that the time
had arrived to make an Estimate of the Situation. The situation was the
UFO's; the estimate was that they were interplanetary! [Emphasis added]
It
was a rather thick document with a black cover and it was printed on
legal sized paper. Stamped across the front were the words TOP SECRET.
It
contained the Air Force's analysis of many of the incidents I have told
you about plus many similar ones. All of them had come from scientists,
pilots, and other equally credible observers, and each one was an
unknown.
The
document pointed out that the reports hadn't actually started with the
Arnold Incident. Belated reports from a weather observer in Richmond,
Virginia, who observed a "silver disk" through his theodolite telescope;
an F47 pilot and three pilots in his formation who saw a "silver flying
wing," and the English "ghost airplanes" that had been picked up on
radar early in 1947 proved this point. Although reports on them were not
received until after the Arnold sighting, these incidents all had taken
place earlier.
When
the estimate was completed, typed, and approved, it started up through
channels to higher command echelons. It drew considerable comment but no
one stopped it on its way up.
A
matter of days after the Estimate of the Situation was signed, sealed,
and sent on its way, the third big sighting of 1948, Volume III of "The
Classics," took place. The date was October 1, and the place was Fargo,
North Dakota; it was the famous Gorman Incident, in which a pilot fought
a "duel of death" with a UFO.
The pilot was George F. Gorman, a twenty-five-year-old second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard. . . .
"I had the distinct impression that its maneuvers were controlled by thought or reason," Gorman later told ATIC investigators.
Four
other observers at Fargo partially corroborated his story, an oculist,
Dr. A. D. Cannon, the Cub's pilot, and his passenger, Einar Neilson.
They saw a light "moving fast," but did not witness all the maneuvers
that Gorman reported. Two CAA employees on the ground saw a light move
over the field once.
Project
Sign investigators rushed to Fargo. They had wired ahead to ground the
plane. They wanted to check it over before it flew again. When they
arrived, only a matter of hours after the incident, they went over the
airplane, from the prop spinner to the rudder trim tab, with a Geiger
counter. A chart in the official report shows where every Geiger counter
reading was taken. For comparison they took readings on a similar
airplane that hadn't been flown for several days. Gorman's airplane was
more radioactive. They rushed around, got sworn statements from the
tower operators and oculist, and flew back to Dayton.
In
the file on the Gorman Incident I found an old memo reporting the
meeting that was held upon the ATIC team's return from Fargo. The memo
concluded that some weird things were taking place.
The historians of the UFO agree. Donald Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps major and a professional writer, author of The Flying Saucers Are Real and Flying Saucers from Outer Space,
needles the Air Force about the Gorman Incident, pointing out how,
after feebly hinting that the light could have been a lighted weather
balloon, they dropped it like a hot UFO. Some person by the name of
Wilkins, in an equally authoritative book, says that the Gorman Incident
"stumped" the Air Force. Other assorted historians point out that
normally the UFO's are peaceful, Gorman and Mantell just got too
inquisitive, "they" just weren't ready to be observed closely. If the
Air Force hadn't slapped down the security lid, these writers might not
have reached this conclusion. There have been other and more lurid
"duels of death."
On
June 21, 1952, at 10:58 P.M., a Ground Observer Corps spotter reported
that a slow moving craft was nearing the AEC's Oak Ridge Laboratory, an
area so secret that it is prohibited to aircraft. The spotter called the
light into his filter center and the filter center relayed the message
to the ground control intercept radar. They had a target. But before
they could do more than confirm the GOC spotter's report, the target
faded from the radarscope.
An
F-47 aircraft on combat air patrol in the area was vectored in
visually, spotted a light, and closed on it. They "fought" from 10,000
to 27,000 feet, and several times the object made what seemed to be
ramming attacks. The light was described as white, 6 to 8 inches in
diameter, and blinking until it put on power. The pilot could see no
silhouette around the light. The similarity to the Fargo case was
striking.
On
the night of December 10, 1952, near another atomic installation, the
Hanford plant in Washington, the pilot and radar observer of a
patrolling F-94 spotted a light while flying at 26,000 feet. The crew
called their ground control station and were told that no planes were
known to be in the area. They closed on the object and saw a large,
round, white "thing" with a dim reddish light coming from two "windows."
They lost visual contact, but got a radar lock-on. They reported that
when they attempted to close on it again it would reverse direction and
dive away. Several times the plane altered course itself because
collision seemed imminent.
In
each of these instances . . . the sources of the stories were trained
airmen with excellent reputations. They were sincerely baffled by what
they had seen. They had no conceivable motive for falsifying or
"dressing up" their reports. . . .
While
the people on Project Sign were pondering over Lieutenant Gorman's
dogfight with the UFO - at the time they weren't even considering the
balloon angle - the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was working its
way up into the higher echelons of the Air Force. It got to the late
General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then Chief of Staff, before it was batted
back down. The general wouldn't buy interplanetary vehicles. The report
lacked proof. A group from ATIC went to the Pentagon to bolster their
position but had no luck, the Chief of Staff just couldn't be convinced.
The
estimate died a quick death. Some months later it was completely
declassified and relegated to the incinerator. A few copies, one of
which I saw, were kept as mementos of the golden days of the UFO's.
The
top Air Force command's refusal to buy the interplanetary theory didn't
have any immediate effect upon the morale of Project Sign because the
reports were getting better.
A
belated report that is more of a collectors' item than a good UFO
sighting came into ATIC in the fall of 1948. It was from Moscow.
Someone, I could never find out exactly who, reported a huge "smudge
like" object in the sky.
Then
radar came into the picture. For months the anti saucer factions had
been pointing their fingers at the lack of radar reports, saying, "If
they exist, why don't they show up on radarscopes?" When they showed up
on radarscopes, the UFO won some converts.
On
October 15 an F-61, a World War II "Black Widow" night fighter was on
patrol over Japan when it picked up an unidentified target on its radar.
The target was flying between 5,000 and 6,000 feet and traveling about
200 miles per hour. When the F-61 tried to intercept it would get to
within 12,000 feet of the UFO only to have it accelerate to an estimated
1,200 miles per hour, leaving the F-61 far behind before slowing down
again. The F-61 crew made six attempts to close on the UFO. On one pass,
the crew said, they did get close enough to see its silhouette. It was
20 to 30 feet long and looked "like a rifle bullet."
Toward
the end of November a wire came into Project Sign from Germany. It was
the first report where a UFO was seen and simultaneously picked up on
radar. This type of report, the first of many to come, is one of the
better types of UFO reports. The wire said:
At
2200 hours, local time, 23 November 1948, Capt. saw an object in the
air directly east of this base. It was at an unknown altitude. It looked
like a reddish star and was moving in a southerly direction across
Munich, turning slightly to the southwest then the southeast. The speed
could have been between 200 to 600 mph, the actual speed could not be
estimated, not knowing the height. Capt. called base operations and they
called the radar station. Radar reported that they had seen nothing on
their scope but would check again. Radar then called operations to
report that they did have a target at 27,000 feet, some 30 miles south
of Munich, traveling at 900 mph. Capt. reported that the object that he
saw was now in that area. A few minutes later radar called again to say
that the target had climbed to 50,000 feet, and was circling 40 miles
south of Munich.
Capt.
- is an experienced pilot now flying F-80's and is considered to be
completely reliable. The sighting was verified by Capt. , also an F-80
pilot.
The
possibility that this was a balloon was checked but the answer from Air
Weather Service was "not a balloon." No aircraft were in the area.
Nothing we know of, except possibly experimental aircraft, which are not
in Germany, can climb 23,000 feet in a matter of minutes and travel 900
miles per hour.
By
the end of 1948, Project Sign had received several hundred UFO reports.
Of these, 167 had been saved as good reports. About three dozen were
"Unknown." Even though the UFO reports were getting better and more
numerous, the enthusiasm over the interplanetary idea was cooling off.
The same people who had fought to go to Godman AFB to talk to Colonel
Hix and his UFO observers in January now had to be prodded when a
sighting needed investigating. More and more work was being pushed off
onto the other investigative organization that was helping ATIC. The
kickback on the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was beginning to
dampen a lot of enthusiasms. It was definitely a bear market for UFO's.
A bull market was on the way, however. Early 1949 was to bring "little lights" and green fireballs.
The "little lights" were UFO's, but the green fireballs were real.
The following quotes have been excerpted from his 1956 book
'The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects'
The UFO story started soon after
June 24, 1947, when newspapers all over the United States
carried the first flying saucer report. The story told how nine very
bright, disk shaped objects were seen by Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho,
businessman, while he was flying his private plane near Mount Rainier,
in the state of Washington. With journalistic license, reporters
converted Arnold's description of the individual motion of each of the
objects like "a saucer skipping across water"- into "flying saucer," a
name for the objects themselves. In the eight years that have passed
since Arnold's memorable sighting, the term has become so common that it is now in Webster's Dictionary and is known today in most languages in the world.
For a while after the Arnold
sighting the term "flying saucer" was used to describe all disk shaped
objects that were seen flashing through the sky at fantastic speeds.
Before long, reports were made of objects other than disks, and these
were also called flying saucers. Todaythe words are popularly applied to anything seen in the sky that cannot be identified as a common, everyday object...
Obviously the term "flying saucer" is
misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and
performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if
less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced
Yoo-foe) for short...
Some weeks after the first UFO was seen on June 24, 1947,
the Air Force established a project to investigate and analyze all UFO
reports. The attitude toward this task varied from a state of near
panic, early in the life of the project, to that of complete contempt
for anyone who even mentioned the words "flying saucer."
This contemptuous attitude toward
"flying saucer nuts" prevailed from mid 1949 to mid 1950. During that
interval many of the people who were, or had been, associated with the
project believed that the public was suffering from "war nerves."
Early in 1950 the project, for all
practical purposes, was closed out; at least it rated only minimum
effort. Those in power now reasoned that if you didn't mention the words
"flying saucers" the people would forget them and the saucers would go
away. But this reasoning was false, for instead of vanishing, the UFO
reports got better and better.
Airline pilots, military pilots,
generals, scientists, and dozens of other people were reporting UFO's,
and in greater detail than in reports of the past. Radars, which were
being built for air defense, began to pick up some very unusual targets,
thus lending technical corroboration to the unsubstantiated claims of
human observers.
As a result of the continuing
accumulation of more impressive UFO reports, official interest stirred.
Early in 1951 verbal orders came down from Major General Charles P.
Cabell, then Director of Intelligence for Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, to make a study reviewing the UFO situation for Air Force Headquarters.
I had been back in the Air Force
about six months when this happened. During the Second World War I had
been a B-29 bombardier and radar operator. I went to India, China,
and later to the Pacific, with the original B-29 wing. I flew two
DCF's, and some Air Medals' worth of missions, got out of the Air Force
after the war, and went back to college. To keep my reserve status while
I was in school, I flew as a navigator in an Air Force Reserve Troop
Carrier Wing.
Not long after I received my degree
in aeronautical engineering, the Korean War started, and I went back on
active duty. I was assigned to the AirTechnicalIntelligenceCenter at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio. ATIC is responsible for keeping track of all foreign aircraft and guided missiles. ATIC also had the UFO project.
I had just finished organizing a new
intelligence group when General Cabell's order to review past UFO
reports came down. Lieutenant Colonel Rosengarten, who received the
order at ATIC, called me in and wanted to know if I'd take the job of
making the review. I accepted.
When the review was finished, I went
to the Pentagon and presented my findings to Major General Samford, who
had replaced General Cabell as Director of Intelligence.
ATIC soon got the word to set up a
completely new project for the investigation and analysis of UFO
reports. Since I had made the review of past UFO reports I was the
expert, and I got the new job. It was given the code name Project Blue
Book, and I was in charge of it until late in 1953. During this time
members of my staff and I traveled close to half a million miles. We
investigated dozens of UFO reports, and read and analyzed several
thousand more. These included every report ever received by the Air
Force.
For the size of the task involved
Project Blue Book was always under-staffed, even though I did have ten
people on my regular staff plus many paid consultants representing every
field of science. All of us on Project Blue Book had Top Secret
security clearances so that security was no block in our investigations.
Behind this organization was a reporting network made up of every Air
Force base intelligence officer and every Air Force radar station in the
world, and the Air Defense Command's Ground Observer Corps. This
reporting net sent Project Blue Book reports on every conceivable type
of UFO, by every conceivable type of person.
By the end of July 1947 the UFO
security lid was down tight. The few members of the press who did
inquire about what the Air Force was doing got the same treatment that
you would get today if you inquired about the number of thermonuclear
weapons stock-piled in the U.S.'s atomic arsenal. No one, outside of a
few high-ranking officers in the Pentagon, knew what the people in the
barbed wire enclosed Quonset huts that housed the Air Technical
Intelligence Center [ATIC] were thinking or doing.
The memos and correspondence that
Project Blue Book inherited from the old UFO projects told the story of
the early flying saucer era. These memos and pieces of correspondence
showed that the UFO situation was considered to be serious; in fact,
very serious. The paper work of that period also indicated the confusion
that surrounded the investigation; confusion almost to the point of
panic. The brass wanted an answer, quickly, and people were taking off
in all directions. Everyone's theory was as good as the next and each
person with any weight at ATIC was plugging and investigating his own
theory. The ideas as to the origin of the UFO's fell into two main
categories, earthly and non earthly. In the earthly category the
Russians led, with the U.S. Navy and their XF-5-U-l, the "Flying
Flapjack," pulling a not too close second. The desire to cover all leads
was graphically pointed up to be a personal handwritten note I found in
a file. It was from ATIC's chief to a civilian intelligence specialist.
It said, "Are you positive that the Navy junked the XF-5-U-1 project?"
The non earthly category ran the gamut of theories, with space animals
trailing interplanetary craft about the same distance the Navy was
behind the Russians.
This confused speculating lasted only
a few weeks. Then the investigation narrowed down to the Soviets and
took off on a much more methodical course of action...
As 1947 drew to a close, the Air
Force's Project Sign had outgrown its initial panic and had settled down
to a routine operation. Every intelligence report dealing with the
Germans' World War II aeronautical research had been studied to find out
if the Russians could have developed any of the late German designs
into flying saucers. Aerodynamicists at ATIC and at Wright Field's
Aircraft Laboratory computed the maximum performance that could be
expected from the German designs. The designers of the aircraft
themselves were contacted. "Could the Russians develop a flying saucer
from their designs?" The answer was, "No, there was no conceivable way
any aircraft could perform that would match the reported maneuvers of
the UFO's." The Air Force's Aeromedical Laboratory concurred. If the
aircraft could be built, the human body couldn't stand the violent
maneuvers that were reported. The aircraft structures people seconded
this, no material known could stand the loads of the reported maneuvers
and heat of the high speeds.
Still convinced that the UFO's were real objects, the people at ATIC
began to change their thinking. Those who were convinced that the UFO's
were of Soviet origin now began to eye outer space, not because there
was any evidence that the UFO's did come from outer space but because
they were convinced that UFO's existed and only some unknown race with a
highly developed state of technology could build such vehicles. As far
as the effect on the human body was concerned, why couldn't these
people, whoever they might be, stand these horrible maneuver forces? Why
judge them by earthly standards?...
With the Soviets practically
eliminated as a UFO source, the idea of interplanetary spaceships was
becoming more popular. During 1948 the people in ATIC were openly
discussing the possibility of interplanetary visitors without others
tapping their heads and looking smug...
All of this time unnamed Air Force
officials were disclaiming serious interest in the UFO subject. Yet
every time a newspaper reporter went out to interview a person who had
seen a UFO, intelligence agents had already been flown in, gotten the
detailed story complete with sketches of the UFO, and sped back to their
base to send the report to Project Sign. Many people had supposedly
been "warned" not to talk too much. The Air Force was mighty interested
in hallucinations...
The apparent lack of interest in UFO
reports by the press was not a true indication of the situation... All
during 1948 contacts in the Pentagon were telling how UFO reports were
rolling in at the rate of several per day and how ATIC UFO investigation
teams were flying out of Dayton
to investigate them. They were telling how another Air Force
investigative organization had been called in to lighten ATIC's load and
allow ATIC to concentrate on the analysis of the reports. The writers
knew this was true because they had crossed paths with these men whom
they had mistakenly identified as FBI agents. The FBI was never
officially interested in UFO sightings. The writers' contacts in the
airline industry told about the UFO talk from V.P.'s down to the ramp
boys. Dozens of good, solid, reliable, experienced airline pilots were
seeing UFO's. All of this led to one conclusion: whatever the Air Force
had to say, when it was ready to talk, would be newsworthy. But the Air
Force wasn't ready to talk...
The "ghost rockets," so tagged by the
newspapers, had first been seen in the summer of 1946, a year before
the first UFO sighting in the U.S.
There were many different descriptions for the reported objects. They
were usually seen in the hours of darkness and almost always traveling
at extremely high speeds. They were shaped like a ball or projectile,
were a bright green, white, red, or yellow and sometimes made sounds.
Like their American cousins, they were always so far away that no
details could be seen. For no good reason, other than speculation and
circulation, the newspapers had soon begun to refer authoritatively to
these "ghost rockets" as guided missiles, and implied that they were
from Russia. Peenemünde,
the great German missile development center and birthplace of the V-2
and V-2 guided missiles, came in for its share of suspicion since it was
held by the Russians. By the end of the summer of 1946 the reports were
widespread, coming from Denmark, Norway, Spain, Greece, French Morocco, Portugal, and Turkey.
In 1947, after no definite conclusions as to identity of the "rockets"
had been established, the reports died out. Now in early January 1948
they broke out again. But Project Sign personnel were too busy to worry
about European UFO reports, they were busy at home. A National Guard
pilot had just been killed chasing a UFO [Mantell
incident - some of his last words were "It looks metallic and it's
tremendous in size". Could easily have crashed due to a lack of oxygen] ...
During January and February of 1948
the reports of "ghost rockets" continued to come from air attaches in
foreign countries near the Baltic Sea. People in North Jutland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany
reported "balls of fire traveling slowly across the sky." The reports
were very sketchy and incomplete, most of them accounts from newspapers.
In a few days the UFO's were being seen all over Europe and South America. Foreign reports hit a peak in the latter part of February and U.S. newspapers began to pick up the stories.
The Swedish Defense Staff supposedly
conducted a comprehensive study of the incidents and concluded that they
were all explainable in terms of astronomical phenomena. Since this was
UFO history, I made several attempts to get some detailed and official
information on this report and the sightings, but I was never
successful.
The ghost rockets left in March, as mysteriously as they had arrived...
Then one day I was at a meeting in Los Angeles
with several other officers from ATIC, and was introduced to Dr. Joseph
Kaplan. When he found we were from ATIC, his first question was, "What
ever happened to the green fireballs?" None of us had ever heard of
them, so he quickly gave us the story. He and I ended up discussing
green fireballs. He mentioned Dr. La Paz and his opinion that the green
fireballs might be man-made, and although he respected La Paz's
professional ability, he just wasn't convinced. But he did strongly
urge me to get in touch with Dr. La Paz and hear his side of the story.
When I returned to ATIC I spent
several days digging into our collection of green fireball reports. All
of these reports covered a period from early December 1948 to 1949. As
far as Blue Book's files were concerned, there hadn't been a green
fireball report for a year and a half...
It was six or eight months later
before the subject of green fireballs came up again. I was eating lunch
with a group of people at the AEC's Los Alamos Laboratory when one of
the group mentioned the mysterious kelly-green balls of fire. The
strictly unofficial bull-session-type discussion that followed took up
the entire lunch hour and several hours of the afternoon. It was an
interesting discussion because these people, all scientists and
technicians from the lab, had a few educated guesses as to what they
might be. All of them had seen a green fireball, some of them had seen
several.
One of the men, a private pilot, had encountered a fireball one night while he was flying his Navion north of Santa Fe
and he had a vivid way of explainihg what he'd seen. "Take a soft ball
and paint it with some kind of fluorescent paint that will glow a bright
green in the dark," I remember his saying, "then have someone take the
ball out about 100 feet in front of you and about 10 feet above you.
Have him throw the ball right at your face, as hard as he can throw it.
That's what a green fireball looks like."
The speculation about what the green
fireballs were ran through the usual spectrum of answers, a new type of
natural phenomenon, a secret U.S. development, and psychologically
enlarged meteors [they also discussed the extraterrestrial possibility]...
From the conversations, I assumed that these people didn't think the
green fireballs were any kind of a natural phenomenon. Not exactly, they
said, but so far the evidence that said they were a natural phenomenon
was vastly outweighed by the evidence that said they weren't.
During the kidney jolting trip down the valley from Los Alamos to Albuquerque in one of the CARGO Airlines' Bonanzas, I decided that I'd stay over an extra day and talk to Dr. La Paz.
He knew every detail there was to
know about the green fireballs. He confirmed my findings, that the
genuine green fireballs were no longer being seen. He said that he'd
received hundreds of reports, especially after he'd written several
articles about the mysterious fireballs, but that all of the reported
objects were just greenish colored, common, everyday meteors.
Dr. La Paz said that some people,
including Dr. Joseph Kaplan and Dr. Edward Teller, thought that the
green fireballs were natural meteors. He didn't think so, however, for
several reasons. First the color was so much different. To illustrate
his point, Dr. La Paz opened his desk drawer and took out a well worn
chart of the color spectrum... everyone had picked this one color. The
pale green, he explained, was the color reported in the cases of
documented green meteors.
Then there were other points of dissimilarity between a meteor and the
green fireballs. The trajectory of the fireballs was too flat... Then
there was the size. Almost always such descriptive words as
"terrifying," "as big as the moon," and "blinding" had been used to
describe the fireballs. Meteors just aren't this big and bright. A
meteorite is accompanied by sound and shock waves that break windows and
stampede cattle. Yet in every case of a green fireball sighting the
observers reported that they did not hear any sound. But the biggest
mystery of all was the fact that no particles of a green fireball had
ever been found [Dr. La Paz had tried. He only succeeded when investigating regular meteors or astroids]...
New people took over Project Grudge [started in February 1949].
ATIC's top intelligence specialists who had been so eager to work on
Project Sign were no longer working on Project Grudge. Some of them had
drastically and hurriedly changed their minds about UFO's when they
thought that the Pentagon was no longer sympathetic to the UFO cause.
They were now directing their talents toward more socially acceptable
projects. Other charter members of Project Sign had been "purged." These
were the people who had refused to change their original opinions about
UFO's.
With the new name and the new
personnel came the new objective, get rid of the UFO's. It was never
specified this way in writing but it didn't take much effort to see that
this was the goal of Project Grudge. This unwritten objective was
reflected in every memo, report, and directive...
To one who is intimately familiar
with UFO history it is clear that Project Grudge had a two phase program
of UFO annihilation. The first phase consisted of explaining every UFO
report. The second phase was to tell the public how the Air Force had
solved all the sightings. This, Project Grudge reasoned, would put an
end to UFO reports.
... Before long, however, the right man came along. He was Sidney Shallet, a writer for The Saturday Evening Post.
He seemed to have the prerequisites that were desired, so his visit to
ATIC was cleared through the Pentagon. Harry Haberer, a crack Air Force
public relations man, was assigned the job of seeing that Shallet got
his story. I have heard many times, from both military personnel and
civilians, that the Air Force told Shallet exactly what to say in his
article - play down the UFO's - don't write anything that even hints
that there might be something foreign in our skies. I don't believe that
this is the case. I think that he just wrote the UFO story as it was
told to him, told to him by Project Grudge.
Shallet's article, which appeared in two parts in the April 30 and May 7, 1949, issues of The Saturday Evening Post,
is important in the history of the UFO and in understanding the UFO
problem because it had considerable effect on public opinion. Many
people had, with varying degrees of interest, been wondering about the
UFO's for over a year and a half. Very few had any definite opinions one
way or the other. The feeling seemed to be that the Air Force is
working on the problem and when they get the answer we'll know. There
had been a few brief, ambiguous press releases from the Air Force but
these meant nothing. Consequently when Shallet's article appeared in the
Post it was widely read. It contained facts, and the facts had come
from Air Force Intelligence. This was the Air Force officially reporting
on UFO's for the first time.
The article was typical of the many
flying saucer stories that were to follow in the later years of UFO
history, all written from material obtained from the Air Force.
Shallet's article casually admitted that a few UFO sightings couldn't be
explained, but the reader didn't have much chance to think about this
fact because 99 per cent of the story was devoted to the anti saucer
side of the problem. It was the typical negative approach. I know that
the negative approach is typical of the way that material is handed out
by the Air Force because I was continually being told to "tell them
about the sighting reports we've solved - don't mention the unknowns." I
was never ordered to tell this, but it was a strong suggestion and in
the military when higher headquarters suggests, you do.
Shallet's article started out by
psychologically conditioning the reader by using such phrases as "the
great flying saucer scare," "rich, full blown screwiness," "fearsome
freaks," and so forth. By the time the reader gets to the meat of the
article he feels like a rich, full blown jerk for ever even thinking
about UFO's.
He pointed out how the "furor" about
UFO reports got so great that the Air Force was "forced" to investigate
the reports reluctantly. He didn't mention that two months after the
first UFO report ATIC had asked for Project Sign since they believed
that UFO's did exist. Nor did it mention the once Top Secret Estimate of
the Situation that also concluded that UFO's were real. In no way did
the article reflect the excitement and anxiety of the age of Project
Sign when secret conferences preceded and followed every trip to
investigate a UFO report. This was the Air Force being "forced" into
reluctantly investigating the UFO reports...
Many famous names were quoted. The
late General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force,
had seen a flying saucer but it was just a reflection on the windshield
of his B-17. General Lauris Norstad's UFO was a reflection of a star on a
cloud, and General Curtis E. Le May found out that one out of six UFO's
was a balloon; Colonel McCoy, then chief of ATIC, had seen lots of
UFO's. All were reflections from distant airplanes. In other words,
nobody who is anybody in the Air Force believes in flying saucers.
Figures in the top echelons of the military had spoken.
A few hoaxes and crackpot reports rounded out Mr. Shallet's article.
The reaction to the article wasn't
what the Air Force and ATIC expected. They had thought that the public
would read the article and toss it, and all thoughts of UFO's, into the
trash can. But they didn't. Within a few days the frequency of UFO
reports hit an all-time high. People, both military and civilian,
evidently didn't much care what Generals Vandenberg, Norstad, Le May, or
Colonel McCoy thought; they didn't believe what they were seeing were
hallucinations, reflections, or balloons. What they were seeing were
UFO's, whatever UFO's might be.
The one thing that Shallet's article accomplished was to plant a seed of doubt in many people's minds.
Dr. Hynek was one of the most
impressive scientists I met while working on the UFO project, and I met a
good many. He didn't do two things that some of them did: give you the
answer before he knew the question; or immediately begin to expound on
his accomplishments in the field of science...
One afternoon in February 1953 I had
an opportunity to further my study of UFO sightings by airline pilots. I
had been out at Air Defense Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs
and was flying back East on a United Airlines DC-6. There weren't many
passengers on the airplane that afternoon but, as usual, the captain
came strolling back through the cabin to chat. When he got to me he sat
down in the next seat. We talked a few minutes; then I asked him what he
knew about flying saucers. He sort of laughed and said that a dozen
people a week asked that question, but when I told him who I was and why
I was interested, his attitude changed. He said that he'd never seen a
UFO but he knew a lot of pilots on United who had. One man, he told me,
had seen one several years ago. He'd reported it but he had been
sloughed off like the rest. But he was so convinced that he'd seen
something unusual that he'd gone out and bought a Leica camera with a
105 mm. telephoto lens, learned how to use it, and now he carried it
religiously during his flights.
The UFO reports had never stopped
coming in since they had first started in June 1947. There was some
correlation between publicity and the number of sightings, but it was
not an established fact that reports came in only when the press was
playing up UFO's. Just within the past few months the number of good
reports had increased sharply and there had been no publicity.
There was a lull in the conversation, then the captain said, "Do you really want to get an opinion about flying saucers?"
I said I did.
"O.K.," I remember his saying, "how much of a layover do you have in Chicago?"
I had about two hours.
"All right, as soon as we get to Chicago
I'll meet you at Caffarello's, across the street from the terminal
building. I'll see who else is in and I'll bring them along."
I thanked him and he went back up front.
I waited around the bar at
Caffarello's for an hour. I'd just about decided that he wasn't going to
make it and that I'd better get back to catch my flight to Dayton
when he and three other pilots came in. We got a big booth in the
coffee shop because he'd called three more off duty pilots who lived in Chicago
and they were coming over too. I don't remember any of the men's names
because I didn't make any attempt to. This was just an informal bull
session and not an official interrogation, but I really got the scoop on
what airline pilots think about UFO's.
First of all they didn't pull any
punches about what they thought about the Air Force and its
investigation of UFO reports. One of the men got right down to the
point: "If I saw a flying saucer flying wing tip formation with me and
could see little men waving - even if my whole load of passengers saw it
- I wouldn't report it to the Air Force." Another man cut in, "Remember
the thing Jack Adams said he saw down by Memphis?" I said I did.
"He reported that to the Air Force and some red-hot character met him in Memphis on his next trip. He talked to Adams a few minutes and then told him that he'd seen a meteor. Adams
felt like a fool. Hell, I know Jack Adams well and he's the most
conservative guy I know. If he said he saw something with glowing
portholes, he saw something with glowing portholes - and it wasn't a
meteor."
Even though I didn't remember the
pilots' names I'll never forget their comments. They didn't like the way
the Air Force had handled UFO reports and I was the Air Force's "Mr.
Flying Saucer." As quickly as one of the pilots would set me up and bat
me down, the next one grabbed me off the floor and took his turn. But I
couldn't complain too much; I'd asked for it. I think that this group of
seven pilots pretty much represented the feelings of a lot of the
airline pilots. They weren't wide-eyed space fans, but they and their
fellow pilots had seen something and whatever they'd seen weren't
hallucinations, mass hysteria, balloons, or meteors.
By May 1950 the flying saucer
business had hit a new all-time peak. The Air Force didn't take any
side, they just shrugged. There was no attempt to investigate and
explain the various sightings. Maybe this was because someone was afraid
the answer would be "Unknown." Or maybe it was because a few key
officers thought that the eagles or stars on their shoulders made them
leaders of all men. If they didn't believe in flying saucers and said
so, it would be like calming the stormy Sea of Galilee.
"It's all a bunch of damned nonsense," an Air Force colonel who was
controlling the UFO investigation said. "There's no such thing as a
flying saucer." He went on to say that all people who saw flying saucers
were jokers, crackpots, or publicity hounds. Then he gave the airline
pilots who'd been reporting UFO's a reprieve. "They were just fatigued,"
he said. "What they thought were spaceships were windshield
reflections."...
But the U.S. public evidently had
more faith in the "crackpot" scientists who were spending millions of
the public's dollars at the White Sands Proving Grounds, in the
"publicity mad" military pilots, and the "tired, old" airline pilots,
because in a nationwide poll it was found that only 6 per cent of the
country's 150,697,361 people agreed with the colonel and said, "There
aren't such things."
On September 8, 1950, the UFO's were back in the news. On that day it was revealed, via a book entitled Behind the Flying Saucers
that government scientists had recovered and analyzed three different
models of flying saucers. And they were fantastic - just like the book.
They were made of an unknown super-duper metal and they were manned by
little blue uniformed men who ate concentrated food and drank heavy
water. The author of the book, Frank Scully, had gotten the story
directly from a millionaire oilman, Silas Newton. Newton
had in turn heard the story from an employee of his, a mysterious "Dr.
Gee," one of the government scientists who had helped analyze the
crashed saucers.
The story made news, Newton and "Dr. Gee" made fame, and Scully made money.
A little over two years later Newton and the man who was reportedly the mysterious "Dr. Gee" again made the news. The Denver
district attorney's office had looked into the pair's oil business and
found that the pockets they were trying to tap didn't contain oil.
According to the December 6, 1952, issue of the Saturday Review,
the D.A. had charged the two men with a $50,000 con game. One of their
$800,000 electronic devices for their oil explorations turned out to be a
$4.00 piece of war surplus junk.
Ever since July 4, 1947,
ten days after the first flying saucer report, airline pilots had been
reporting that they had seen UFO's. But the reports weren't frequent -
maybe one every few months. In the spring of 1950 this changed, however,
and the airline pilots began to make more and more reports - good
reports. The reports went to ATIC but they didn't receive much
attention. In a few instances there was a semblance of an investigation
but it was halfhearted. The reports reached the newspapers too, and here
they received a great deal more attention. The reports were
investigated, and the stories checked and rechecked. When airline crews
began to turn in one UFO report after another, it was difficult to
believe the old "hoax, hallucination, and misidentification of known
objects" routine. In April, May, and June of 1950 there were over thirty
five good reports from airline crews.
UFO's we're seen more frequently around areas vital to the defense of the United States. The Los Alamos-Albuquerque area, Oak Ridge,
and White Sands Proving Ground rated high. Port areas, Strategic Air
Command bases, and industrial areas ranked next. UFO's had been reported
from every state in the Union and from every foreign country. The U.S. did not have a monopoly.
The frequency of the UFO reports was
interesting. Every July there was a sudden increase in the number of
reports and July was always the peak month of the year. Just before
Christmas there was usually a minor peak.
The European Flap started in the summer of 1953, when reports began to pop up in England and France... Netherlands... Sweden... Norway... Italy... Romania... Russia... The flap continued into 1954.
During 1954 and the early part of
1955 my friends in Europe tried to keep me up-to-date on all of the
better reports, but this soon approached a full time job. Airline pilots
saw them, radar picked them up, and military pilots chased them. The
press took sides, and the controversy that had plagued the U.S. since 1947 bloomed forth in all its confusion.
Halfway around the world, in Australia, the UFO's were busy too...
In early 1955 the flap began to die
down about as rapidly as it had flared up, but it had left its mark -
many more believers. Even the highly respected British aviation
magazine, Aeroplane, had something to say. One of the editors
took a long, hard look at the over-all UFO picture and concluded,
"Really, old chaps- I don't know."
Probably the most unique part of the
whole European Flap was the fact that the Iron Curtain countries were
having their own private flap. The first indications came in October
1954, when Rumanian newspapers blamed the United States
for launching a drive to induce a "flying saucer psychosis" in their
country. The next month the Hungarian Government hauled an "expert" up
in front of the microphone so that he could explain to the populace that
UFO's don't really exist because, "all 'flying saucer' reports
originate in the bourgeois countries, where they are invented by the
capitalist warmongers with a view to drawing the people's attention away
from their economic difficulties."
Next the U.S.S.R. itself took up the cry along the same lines when the voice of the Soviet Army, the newspaper Red Star, denounced the UFO's as, you guessed it, capitalist propaganda.
In 1955 the UFO's were still there
because the day before the all important May Day celebration, a day when
the Soviet radio and TV are normally crammed with programs plugging the
glory of Mother Russia to get the peasants in the mood for the next
day, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences had to get on the air to
calm the people's fears. He left out Wall Street and Dulles this time -
UFO's just don't exist.
Summary: The purpose of this
essay is to explain how to clarify the evidence for or against the
reality of UFO abductions. Many workers in this field have modified the
conventional meaning of both the word "reality" and the word
"abduction." I do not accept these modifications. A , if it occurs, is a physical event.
Don Donderi is Associate Professor of Psychology at McGill University, .
His basic research interests include human perception and memory, and
his applied work is in the field of human factors and ergonomics. He is
a principal of Human Factors North, Inc., a Toronto-based ergonomics
consulting firm.
Essay originally appeared in: International UFO Reporter, Spring 1996, Volume 21, Number 1 Copyright 1996 by the , 2457 West Peterson Ave., 60659 published bimonthly with a subscription rate of $25/yr.
The
purpose of this essay is to explain how to clarify the evidence for or
against the reality of UFO abductions. Many workers in this field have
modified the conventional meaning of both the word "reality" and the
word "abduction." I do not accept these modifications. A UFO abduction,
if it occurs, is a physical event. A person is taken aboard an
extraterrestrial spacecraft and interacts with its crew. If this event
is imagined, then it is not a physical event, it is an imaginary one. If
the event happened before and it is being relived in the present, then
it is a re-experiencing, not an abduction. There is nothing wrong with
either imagining or memory as a description of human experience. A
re-experiencing is clearly evidence for an earlier abduction, if it can
be separated from an imagining, which is based on the incorporation of
other people's experience (through conversation, books, or films) into
one's own experience. But in no case is an imagining evidence of an
abduction. By misusing the descriptive categories of language, and
calling imaginings and re-experiencing "abduction reports," confusion is
produced which can only bring the substantial evidence for the
physical reality of UFO abductions into doubt.
THE ABDUCTION REPORT
What
is the UFO abduction phenomenon? To abduct means to "carry off or lead
away (a person) illegally and in secret or by force, esp. to
kidnap."(1) Anyone who reports that he or she has been carried away by
force is reporting an abduction. Since we are obviously only concerned
with abductions by nonhuman extraterrestrials, the carrying-away must
be reported as done by nonhuman extraterrestrials. Evidence for the
non-humanness of the abductors comes from the appearance of the
abductors, the tools they use, including the methods of enforcing the
abduction, the things they do, and the locations to which the abductee
is taken. If none of these are nonhuman, then we are talking about an
abduction experience, but one which can be explained as caused by
humans. "Abduction phenomenon" in this essay means the abduction of
humans by nonhuman extraterrestrials as described here.
False,
imagined, and real experiences. The second problem in discussing the
abduction phenomenon is to evaluate the source of the reports. I am
perfectly capable of reporting an abduction experience on the basis of
my accumulated knowledge. I know enough background material to report an
experience which would match very closely other reports made by
reliable witnesses. Why wouldn't my report be valid? Because, of course,
it was fabricated out of my indirect experience, as communicated to me
by conversations, books, films, and television, and not my direct
experience; that is, through my own senses without the intermediary of
other humans' spoken, written, or visually portrayed experience. Anyone
can report an abduction experience. Our problem is to learn whether
these reports are reports of direct personal experience or whether the
reports are mediated by the experience of others. If they are mediated
by the experience of others, they are worthless as evidence of the
existence of UFO abductions. They are simply repetitions of other
people's stories, however convincing either to the listener or (as is
often the case) to the teller.
There is no a priori reason why
the reporter of an abduction experience which is entirely mediated by
other people's experiences may not also report that he or she believes
that the experience was direct and un-mediated. It is very well
established that people reporting experiences do not always accurately
attribute the source of those experiences.(2) Spoken or written
language, as well as the visual media, are efficient ways of conveying
information which may be incorporated indiscriminately into what the
reporter thinks is his or her own direct .
The human mind is efficient at generating and storing images or
representations of experience, and inefficient at retaining and
classifying the sources of those same images or representations.
Suggestible human beings often mistake the sources of their information,
and they are demonstrably capable of reporting as personal experience
events and experiences which have been suggested to them by others.
The
properly skeptical public. In ordinary conversation, in the
give-and-take on a sunny afternoon by the lake, or of a dinner party
with good wine flowing, we do not always - or even often - critically
examine the sources of our ideas, or of our conversational bons mots.
Why should we expect something more critical, more detached, from the
investigators and reporters of abductions? Simply because so much more
is at stake. Our real audience is not the lake-side or dinner-table
conversationalists. If the purveyors of ideas about UFO abductions want
to be treated as entertaining lake-side conversationalists, or as
slightly outre dinner-table companions, then we can all go on as before.
Some of what we say will be based on what we know are the reports of
reliable witnesses, corroborated by circumstances: missing time,
physical traces, concurrent UFO sightings. Other reports, whether in the
National Enquirer or in our own publications, will be ambiguous and
lend themselves to alternative interpretations.
The greater
public will get some of both kinds of reports, and will be, as always,
puzzled about what to believe. The scientific public will say to itself:
"X has written two books full of interesting information about
abductions and UFOs. X writes with obvious integrity, and the phenomenon
sounds plausible. But Y includes as abductions reports from people who
sit in a trance and stare at the ceiling, and then describe the same
kind of things X is describing. Isn't the obvious explanation to assume
that both X and Y's reports have the same epistemological status - the
same grounding in reality - and that Y's are the more representative,
because they require the least deviation from present knowledge? Witness
Z is obviously imagining things, and abduction investigator Y reports
Z's imaginings as abductions. Therefore, abduction investigators are
reporting what people imagine, not what actually happens to them."
The
leaps of reason in my imaginary quote above are not logically
convincing, but they are psychologically very convincing. Just because
one abduction report (A) is imaginary (i) does not mean that all A's are
(i). But if you are predisposed to reject more complicated
explanations, and are predisposed not to change your world-view on the
basis of what the UFO research community is claiming, than your
reasoning process is: Some A's are certainly i. I cannot look into all
of the A cases, and if I have found one i case among them, I can say
that because I have shown that at least one A is i, most-or all-of them
might he. And with this very big "might be," I escape the need to
change my world-view, because I can subsume my simpler world-view under
the "might be" of the imaginary abduction report. Therefore I will
defer judgment, or, more conservatively, not change my world-view in
the absence of a more convincing reason to do so.
I think it
helps to make this problem specific because it explains what the UFO
and abduction community is up against when it seeks to persuade the
rest of the world - our lake-side and dinner-party neighbors and
companions, as well as the even more skeptical scientific public - that
what we have to say should be taken seriously. We have to decide what
we are trying to convince people of. We know, and they know, that
people report abduction experiences. If in the interest of
accommodating every abduction reporter we decide to treat all reports
equally, whether or not there is corroborative evidence that there was a
physical abduction by extraterrestrials, then our public will nod
politely and discount virtually everything we have to say. They will,
quite reasonably, consider all abduction reports as evidence of, at
most, an interesting psychological aberration or phenomenon.
What
are we to think of an abduction case in which the alleged abductee is
observed to be present during the entire time she experiences an
abduction? The evidence in this case is unambiguous. The investigators
who reported the case were present during the time the woman had the
experience, and she didn't budge. There was no missing time, and there
were no abduction corollaries - UFO sightings or physical aftereffects.
The answer least in need of supplementary explanation is that the
woman wasn't abducted. There is no reason to think that she may not
have been reexperiencing a past abduction - the most generous of
hypotheses - but by any objective criterion she was not experiencing a
physical abduction and the report of her experience made by the
investigators was the report of a psychological experience, not a
physical one. In my already-expressed opinion, this case should not
have been presented as an abduction report.(3)
Abduction
researchers should screen abduction reports into those which are
probably based on direct sensory experience, and those which are
probably based on experience mediated by human language or media. It is
clear from the proceedings of the 1992 Abduction Conference at M.I.T.
that not all abduction researchers want to do that. And it's a free
world: there is nothing to stop them from using whatever inclusive
categories they choose to use in defining abductions. My point is
simply that this inclusiveness mitigates against anyone with common
sense and no access to the original data from taking the abduction
phenomenon seriously. Those of us who are better informed can sort the
bad cases out for ourselves; but our friends and colleagues in the
general and scientific public can't. We should be doing it for them. If
we don't, we suffer the inevitable diminishing of our credibility.
SCIENCE AND THE UFO/ABDUCTION PHENOMENON
There
is a great reluctance on the part of some investigators to stick to a
scientific approach to the abduction phenomenon. The argument runs
something like this. Our systematic understanding of nature is severely
limited; science doesn't even explain many things about inanimate
nature, other animals, or the human mind. Not only that, but the
technical or scientific approach to the mastery and understanding of
nature has led mankind into grievous errors which threaten to destroy
the species if not the planet. Therefore, we should abandon science in
dealing with this new phenomenon, particularly since it is so far beyond
our comprehension as to make the idea of a scientific theory to
explain UFOs or abductions meaningless. We can't really decide whether
the phenomenon is mental or physical; even calling it physical is
meaningless because the mental and the physical are so completely
intermixed that separating them, in this instance, is almost impossible.
Much of this argument rests on a very generalized
incomprehension of what science means, and an even greater
incomprehension about the science of psychology. First of all, science
is a method as much as it is a collection of facts and theories. It is
also a very complex social process. Boiled down to its essence, the
scientific method is a prescription that evidence about nature must be
presented in a form that explains how it was obtained, makes it possible
for other people to review and criticize the methods used for
gathering the evidence, and to repeat those methods and obtain the same
evidence, so far as is practical. It is a social agreement to be
honest and transparent in presenting data, and to engage in a mutual
(sometimes highly competitive) effort to cross-check, criticize, and
ultimately verify the information on which we base our advances in
understanding nature.
The scientific enterprise. Our
technological world is built from complex, true stories that describe
the natural world. How do we know that the stories are true? The
natural world works the same way for a Russian engineer as it does for
an American scientist. Bridges designed in France will stand in China;
airplanes made in America will also fly over Brazil or over Australia.
There is a consensus about our nature stories, at least so far as we
can carry them. The civilized machinery of scientific education,
scientific research, and scientific communication shapes a community of
knowledge whose products are everywhere and whose methods are
universal.
Unfortunately, many of the scientific nature
stories are unintelligible to the lay person, who hasn't learned the
mathematical methods and doesn't have the knowledge or the vocabulary
to understand them. Because science is also divided into very narrow
specialties, many scientific nature stories are equally unintelligible
to scientists in other specialties. Most scientists aren't as
successfully gregarious as the physicist Ernest Rutherford, who is
supposed to have said, "If you can't explain it to the barmaid in the
Eagle Pub, it isn't good science." Even nature stories which fall into
the category of "classical" science, like the time-travel paradoxes of
Einstein's theory of special relativity, seriously challenge both the
lay and the scientific imagination. The sheer volume of detailed
knowledge in every scientific specialty makes it practically impossible
for a lay person or a scientist in another field to evaluate the
latest development in an area to which he or she is a technical
stranger.
Scientific specialization. The scientific community
which generates and uses accurate stories about nature is specialized
and divided. Adam Smith praised the benefits of specialization in his
famous l8th- century example of pin manufacture: A single craftsman,
manufacturing entire pins, makes not more than twenty per day, while a
team of ten men, employed in a small manufactory, could produce
"upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day." Men "educated to the
trade," each specializing in one part of the manufacture, turn out on
the average 4,800 per day. Thus specialization amplifies the output of a
pin manufacturer many fold - a lesson which has not been lost on
scientists and scientific funding agencies.(4)
The "industrial
system" is thoroughly established in science, with the same satisfying
results. Collegial teamwork of surprising sophistication and
complexity exists across the entire world. The system consists of
multiple independent but cooperating research centers which regularly
exchange information and personnel. Ever since the Middle Ages,
academicians and researchers have been cooperative and mobile. Their
greatest pleasure is to visit each other's universities and
laboratories, and to congregate in large numbers at attractive places
(Venice, Prague, Paris, Honolulu) to discuss, argue, and criticize each
others' work. This is their life's blood. The results are poured into
the research journals which are circulated and read internationally.
The
international scientific community is organized in much the same
fashion as the modern communication tool which grew directly out of
applied science: the Internet. The Internet is a system which exists as a
collection of independent cooperating centers or nodes, each of which
is administered locally. On the basis of a strictly voluntary
cooperative organization, each node is configured so as to be able to
pass messages through the entire complex system to any other node, and
each node can also act as an intermediary for the transmission of
messages from one node to another.
But like the users of the
Internet, the scientific community is really a collection of
sub-communities which for the most part recognize each other's
legitimacy, within the specialized domains of knowledge they claim for
their own. And, as with the special interest groups on the Internet, it
is rare that ongoing work within one scientific sub-community is
commented on or participated in by workers in another sub-community.
Scientific guilds. The independent sub-communities of science have
another trait in common with those honored and medieval social
organizations, the guilds, which were in some sense the progenitors of
the very universities that now support many of the scientists. The
guilds were professionally exclusive and jealous of their privileges. In
the Middle Ages, work produced by non-guild members was proscribed and
rejected. In the modern world, a relevant scientific advance which is
reported from outside the research sub-community is likely to suffer
the same fate. In the Middle Ages, there were political wars between
the guilds and non-guild craftsmen, whose products were driven outside
the towns where the guilds held power, into the countryside, where a
non-guild worker could sell unlicensed products to customers who might
later smuggle them back into the town.
Scientists who produce
work outside their specialties, or in areas of research that are not
recognized as legitimate by their own sub- community, risk having their
work proscribed or rejected by scientific guild members. The modern
form of proscription is simply the refusal of scientific journals to
publish the results. Occasionally the examples of guild behavior are
egregious and informative. John Garcia, a researcher who specialized in
radiological research, discovered in 1955 that rats could be taught in
one trial to avoid the novel taste of a food which gave them a
delayed, but very severe, stomachache (the food contained a nonlethal
dose of poison which made them very sick). Garcia's work was
technically exemplary, but because his findings directly challenged two
cornerstones of the current theoretical position on learning -(1) that
all learning was incremental, and (2) that delay of consequences
reduced the effectiveness of learning - his work was kept out of major
psychological journals for years.(5) While Garcia's findings, and
Garcia himself, are now completely accepted some forty years after his
initial work, the hostility and rejection he experienced are object
lessons in the resistance of scientific sub-communities to outsiders
who trespass on their intellectual territory.
Fear of
scientific failure. Scientists are afraid of mistakes. The
public-inquiry structure of science, which proceeds by public
replication or refutation of previously published findings, is the
usual antidote to the persistence of unsubstantiated empirical claims
and unverifiable theories. But it seems that unsubstantiated claims
arise in every generation, and persist long enough to be an
embarrassment to science as a whole. N-rays in the 19th century,
polywater in the 1960s, and cold fusion in the 1980s are examples of
scientific discoveries which generated a bad press for science because
they persisted long enough to raise the public's expectations before
those expectations were doused by the necessary skepticism. They were
in fact examples of the successful application of the public-inquiry
structure of science. Since each of these empirical errors was refuted,
they represent successes, not failures, of this system.
But
the cost, both to individual reputations and to the public's image of
science, of these forays into unsuccessful empiricism is very damaging.
When you combine scientists' real and justified fear of embarrassment
over mistakes with the traditional hostility and conservatism of
scientific sub-communities to new ideas introduced from outside the
specialty, you begin to understand why the entire panorama of UFO and
abduction evidence presented by part-time scientific amateurs like
historians, painters, psychiatrists, and social workers, not to mention
even less scientifically qualified white- and blue-collar contributors
(military and commercial pilots, policemen, air traffic controllers,
and just plain folks) is simply ignored by scientists when it is not
being actively derided by them.
Almost all scientists accept
the judgment of publicly recognized experts in fields of work to which
they are strangers. As a part of both the specialized character of
science and the guild mentality of scientists, each scientist respects
only the authority of the recognized experts in his or her field. This
raises some important questions: What qualifications fit someone to
pass judgment on evidence concerning UFOs and related phenomena? Whose
judgment can be trusted to evaluate the evidence? What is the evidence?
And what conclusions can be drawn from it?
Practicing
scientists often assume that all science is about work on problems
whose boundaries are well-prescribed and on which there exists a
consensus about method and goals. This is true of the massive efforts of
institutional science to advance knowledge in areas where it is clear
that more knowledge, or better techniques, may lead to impressive gains
in control of nature. I am thinking particularly of molecular biology,
solid-state physics, and nuclear physics, where advances in
understanding the construction and maintenance of organisms, the
organization of communication and information, and the release of power
are important, immediate goals.
But this assumption about the
scope of science is not entirely correct. People who work on even
harder problems like the nature of abductions, or the existence of
extraterrestrial life, can also be perfectly respectable scientists,
whatever their background or training: history, sculpture, psychiatry,
social work, sociology, atomic physics, clinical psychology or
experimental psychology, to name the occupations of just a few
practitioners in the field. The important thing is that they respect the
rules of scientific communication. They may not gain immediate respect
from other scientists for doing so, but if they do respect the rules
of scientific inquiry - if they do make clear how they have defined
their terms, how they have gathered their data, what precautions they
have taken to avoid error in the data, and how they have interpreted
the data - then, eventually, what they report will be respected by
other practitioners of science. And if it is ultimately respected by
the other practitioners of science, then the larger public will come to
respect it as well.
When will science pay attention? The
answer to this question is important, because when science pays
attention, both the influential public (legislators, newspaper
columnists, TV commentators) and the ordinary person in the street will
also pay attention. Thomas Kuhn, the famous contemporary philosopher
of science, pointed out that scientific revolutions seldom succeed by
convincing their older opponents; instead, the younger generation is
usually instantly converted, while the older generation, which cannot
deal with the innovations as flexibly, simply dies off and the
resistance ceases as they leave the field.(7) Abraham Pais, Albert
Einstein's intellectual biographer, points out the same thing with
respect to the acceptance of special relativity by older scientists of
stature when Einstein proposed his theory in 1905.(8) Pais also points
out that Einstein himself, who was one of the founders of quantum
theory, himself never accepted quantum theory as it was developed by
his own contemporaries. Einstein preferred classical certainty because
he believed until the end of his life that "God does not play dice with
the universe."
Does this mean that regardless of what the UFO
community does, as long as strong and convincing data about UFOs and
abductions accumulate, the public will eventually accept that these
phenomena represent the activities of extraterrestrial intelligence?
Certainly not - if within the community, there is disagreement about
what standards should be used to study it. The younger generation of
intellectuals, scientists, and political leaders, which is supposed to
be converted while the elders die off, is too sophisticated to be
converted to a world-view which cannot or will not differentiate
between psychological aberration and extraterrestrial visitation.
I
cannot say what the "core phenomenon" of ET abductions is, and it
really doesn't matter that much. There is always, even in so-called
normal science, a halo of less-clear phenomena and less-accepted
findings which represents the cutting edge of investigation into the
controversial issues. The existence of these controversial questions is
not itself a fundamental problem - so long as the methods of science
provide an ultimate means for their resolution. Typical issues of this
kind in the abduction field are: what are the "Nordics?" What is the
meaning of the "staging"? Are there missing fetuses? These issues are
amenable to investigation and to ultimate resolution. It seems to me to
be important that there be a consensus in the UFO and abduction field
that controversial problems must be resolvable - and resolvable using
those refinements of ordinary common sense investigation which go by
the name of scientific method.
SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF THE ABDUCTION PHENOMENON
Obstacles
to acceptance. The "general UFO hypothesis" which encompasses the
existence of extraterrestrial spaceships and the abduction of people
into them has to overcome a series of barriers to credibility. Each
barrier is actually the threshold of acceptance among technically
educated people for a series of isolated ideas which cannot be easily
assimilated into the current coherent picture of the world. The
unassimilated picture presented by the UFO hypothesis is much too rich
for the average scientist's taste. It includes telepathy, movement
through solids, craft maneuvering at what are for us unattainable and
dangerous g-forces, and propulsion with no apparent reaction against the
atmosphere.
The average scientist falls back on a much more
plausible psychological explanation for this rich diet of
impossibilities. Memory can be biased or faulty; perception is ambiguous
and unreliable; social pressures and social gain motivate convincing
lies; hypnotists can influence susceptible witnesses. By relying on any
one of these alternatives, the over-rich banquet of UFO-related
phenomena can be dismissed as a combination of individual and social
psychological aberration. When theory is overtaken by data. Pausing to
look back just a few years to the time when physics was experiencing
great upheavals provides an interesting perspective on the problem of
interpreting UFO and UFO abduction data. After 1895 physicists could no
longer use the mathematics of continuous physical displacements to
model the universe. Quantum theory required what were then radical
changes in assumptions about causality. Atoms did or did not emit
radiation on a probabilistic, not a deterministic, basis; the basic
constituents of matter and energy were either particles with wavelike
properties or waves with particle-like properties, depending on how and
when you measured them; position and momentum could not be
simultaneously measured to any degree of accuracy; the state of a
particle is only determined when you measure it, and that measurement
also immediately determines the state of a related particle which is so
far away that information cannot travel to it from the first particle.
These difficulties do not mean that quantum theory is inaccurate; it
is highly accurate. But, unlike relativity theory, it does not explain
the universe in a classically deterministic way.
One of the
problems that physicists had in understanding and assimilating quantum
theory was based on the fact that the interpretation of all measurement
is wholly bound up in theoretical assumptions about those measurements.
If the assumptions one made about measurement at the microphysical
(quantum) level were classical assumptions, the measurements made no
sense. Eisenbud (8) said that
Ultimately, theory becomes so
familiar that we hardly realize its importance in the interpretation of
observation.... When theory fails, however, the familiar connections
between its constructs and what is observed are broken. We must then
return to naked observations and their observed interrelations, and try
to build from them new and successful theoretical structures.
The
UFO community is faced with the same dilemma. The data of abduction
research cannot be interpreted in a simplistic way as veridical
descriptions of experience which fit our available theoretical
framework. We are now forced to "return to our naked observations" and
develop a new and comprehensive theory to explain the general tendency
of these observations, and reduce the exceptions to a sufficiently small
number to justify our confidence in the "naked observations and their
observed interrelations." If we can build this confidence in ourselves,
based on an adequate theoretical understanding, then we can certainly
build it in at least the younger members of both the scientific public
and the larger public who follow our investigations and our work with
interest, but who are waiting for us to clarify our own understanding
before committing themselves to accept it.
I cannot, myself,
overcome all of the obstacles to comprehension of the UFO phenomenon
from a technical point of view. Explaining how people can be moved
through solids and explaining UFO propulsion are beyond my competence.
These observables clearly require a better understanding of nature than
is provided us by current publicly available knowledge in the fields of
physics and engineering. But with respect to the psychological
phenomena, some comments to the general scientific public, as well as to
colleagues in the UFO field, are in order. They concern the
plausibility and current scientific status of various events which are
described in UFO and abduction investigations. Some of these phenomena
are by no means as empirically far-fetched as they might first appear to
be.
The psychology of some reported abduction experiences:
Hypnosis and memory. Hypnosis has a long and colorful past, and has
been, in its day, as controversial a scientific topic as UFOs are at
present. It is still a controversial phenomenon. The most radical - or
skeptical - view of the phenomenon is that it is nothing but acting,
suggested by the hypnotist and willingly and knowingly carried out by
the patient. On the other hand, there are many phenomena of hypnosis
which are very unlike those which can be produced by voluntary acting.
The removal of crippling hysterical symptoms with the aid of hypnosis
was the clinical discovery which triggered Sigmund Freud's interest in
the mental bases of what were thought to be neurological symptoms, and
so led to the development of psychoanalysis.(9)
A great deal of
serious research effort has gone into the study of hypnotic phenomena,
in an effort to determine to what extent there are genuine changes in
consciousness as a result of the hypnotic process. The simplest
description of the present evidence is this: hypnotic induction in a
highly suggestible subject produces a mental state in which external
instructions (the hypnotist's) can alter the subject's conscious mental
content, to the extent that both memory of past events and perception
of the current environment can be influenced in ways that cannot be
duplicated by suggestion, unaided by hypnosis. It must be stressed that
not everyone is equally hypnotizable. Highly suggestible people need
less effort to produce the radical changes of conscious content which
are characteristic of hypnosis, while some very un-suggestible people do
not ever experience the extreme changes of conscious experience which
characterize highly suggestible, deeply hypnotized subjects.
Most
of the controversy about the use of hypnosis in abduction research is
over the question of whether recall facilitated by hypnosis is
necessarily true. It is not. Extensive experimental evidence
demonstrates that confabulation is as possible under hypnosis as it is
in ordinary unaided memory; in some cases, while fluency of memory is
increased under hypnosis, so is the inclusion of verifiably inaccurate
recall.(10) However, as students of the UFO and abduction phenomenon
already know, not all UFO abduction accounts depend on information
gained through hypnosis. Frequently there is recall, even extensive
recall, without hypnosis.
Equally extensive experimental
evidence demonstrates that hypnotic techniques can both induce and
remove amnesia. When memories have been blocked either by trauma or by
previous hypnotic instruction, they can be recalled by later,
appropriate hypnotic counter-instruction. (11) It is possible to
establish "hidden experience" in a hypnotically susceptible person so
that a real experience is actually concealed from the experiencer until
he or she is later instructed to remember it. This is a stock in trade
of stage hypnotists: the person who is made to bark and run around on
all fours, pretending to be a dog, will have no memory of that
experience if instructed not to remember; the hypnotist may provide a
cue for later recall of the following kind: "you will remember nothing
of this session when you wake up, until I place my hand on your
shoulder." The result is that the hypnotized person undergoes
experiences which he or she cannot remember until later. So long as the
hypnotist does not provide the cue, the experience is not available to
conscious recall. Once the cue is provided, recall occurs.
Imagine
if a hypnotist were to say to a subject under hypnosis: "Under no
circumstances will you remember this experience," and then simply
disappear from the subject's life. (12) The hypnotized subject would
have a gap in his or her memory. Careful questioning might reveal that
he went to a hypnotist's performance; that he remembers being in a seat
with his friends who encouraged him to go on stage; and then he came
home. When asked to account for the show, or his part in it, he would be
unable to consciously recall his own participation. There would be
"missing time." Under these circumstances, a second hypnotic session
with another hypnotist might remove the memory block and reestablish the
continuity of experience and memory. Or alternatively, the experience
might simply be recalled after a sufficiently long time.
Since
we know that hypnosis can be used to block experience from conscious
memory, and since we know that re-hypnosis is one tool by which that
experience can be made accessible to voluntary recall, therefore we also
know that the recovery of blocked UFO abduction memories by hypnosis
is not an impossibility. We do not know that the recovered memories are
accurate; great pains must be taken to avoid leading the hypnotic
subject, because hypnotically recovered memories, as mentioned earlier,
are not necessarily more accurate than memories which are recalled
unaided.
Telepathy. Humans can transmit information
telepathically. The empirical evidence for this is cumulatively
overwhelming. Neither current psychological theory nor current
physiological theory has an explanation for the data, but the data are
sound. There is too little space here to review the history of
experimental psychical research, which dates back over a century. The
evidence for telepathy does not depend on trusting mediums, which is
always a dangerous business. Starting with the experimental work of J.
B. Rhine,(13) the experimental reliability and repeatability of
telepathy has been established by many researchers.(14 - 16)
For
the most part, the experimental demonstrations of telepathy are
statistical and relatively crude. The best of them involve remote
viewing of complex scenes, which are then reproduced visually by the
telepathic subject in more or less complex detail. Statistical analysis
of the agreement between scenes and drawings, under experimental
conditions which preclude collusion, cheating, or biasing the results,
shows results that are sometimes quite striking and over the long run,
far, far better than could be ascribed to chance.
Therefore it
is within the realm of current scientific knowledge to expect that
information can be transmitted telepathically to a human being. The
descriptions of telepathic communication made by alleged abductees are
not, then, without a reference in human experience as defined by
scientific experiment. Visual illusions. Virtual reality is created by
using two or three-dimensional visual images which give the illusion of
objects in space. This can be done with wide-screen sound and motion,
it can be done holographically or it can be done stereoscopically.
While holographic images currently lack solidity, they do not lack
detail. Therefore it is within the realm of our current scientific
knowledge to be able to construct an alternative visual reality (sound
effects were accomplished long ago) which gives the illusion of
solidity. This is already done cinematically, and large-screen
projections like I-Max are quite convincing in conveying the experience
of motion. Virtual reality is created in aviation simulators; its
success is indicated by the fact that emotional reactions in simulated
situations of danger mimic, if they do not actually duplicate,
emotional reactions recorded in real situations of danger. Therefore
the experiences of staging as described in the abduction literature are
not without a reference in human experience as influenced by human
technology.
Hallucinations can be induced in an uncontrolled
way through the use of psychotropic drugs, sensory deprivation, and
hypnosis. Remember that hypnosis is a powerful hallucinogen. A subject
under hypnosis can be made to react to hypnotically induced sensory
experiences. The very suggestibility that defines the earliest stages
of trance induction ("your eyelids are getting heavier, your hands are
together and you can't move them apart, your arms are sluggish and you
can't lift them off the chair") are all hypnotically induced
sensory-motor experiences. Other, more complex experiences can be
introduced by a skilled hypnotist. Therefore the induction of
hallucinatory experiences, as reported in many abduction cases, is not
unknown to ordinary human experience.
Abduction reports
include illusions, hypnosis and telepathy. The characteristic abduction
experience described in books by Hopkins and Jacobs and in articles by
Carpenter may include elements of telepathy, hypnosis, and illusion.
An alien being communicates telepathically; using some form of close
physical contact, the same being induces an altered state of
consciousness in the human, and the human experiences ambiguous scenes
either as a hallucinatory "virtual reality" or as hypnotically induced
interpretations of real events in which alien actors play a role. As
explained in the previous few paragraphs, this apparently implausible
combination of experiences - telepathy and illusions or hallucinations -
is by no means beyond the realm of human experience. All of the
phenomena are known individually, and under certain circumstances can be
induced or controlled by humans in other humans.
The
reliability of UFO and abduction witnesses. All of science is based on
observation; and ultimately all science is based on human observation
and interpretation of even the most sophisticated data from the most
sophisticated instruments. It is instructive to remember that about one
hundred and fifty years ago, science was being conducted with much
simpler instruments, and may fewer of them; that natural science like
that practised by Charles Darwin required a only notebook and a
sketchpad; and that however complicated the mechanical or electronic
gadget into which the scientist peers, the human observer is always
present to interpret what is seen or recorded. If UFO (and UFO
abduction) witnesses are intrinsically unreliable reporters, then all of
the evidence is suspect, because it has been obtained with unreliable
instruments, whose distortions or biases may be responsible for the
seeming abnormality of the reports. As a case in point, Bartholomew, et
al. (17) reported that a study of self- reported biographical material
from 152 alleged UFO abductees or contactees demonstrated an incidence
of fantasy-proneness which was higher than the population average. The
biographical data used in this study were drawn from l6th-century
sources as well as from current data, and no distinction was reported
between what UFO investigators would recognize as contactees and more
credible reporters of abduction experiences. But the best UFO and
abduction evidence is not suspect. Spanos, et al.,(18) Bloecher, Clamar
and Hopkins,(19) and Rodeghier, et al.(20) have made it clear that UFO
reporters and abduction reporters do not suffer from psychopathology;
therefore there is no a priori reason to reject their reports because
their personality characteristics make them less reliable than other
reporters of phenomena.
Ordinary precautions have to be taken
in obtaining reports about external events from anyone. Good reporters
and good scientists know how to listen; how not to lead; how to
encourage reluctant or emotionally upset witnesses without putting words
in their mouths; and in general how to avoid biasing the source of the
information they are recording. The same thing applies to
extraordinary methods for obtaining data, like hypnosis. Proper use of
hypnosis in the forensic field as well as the UFO investigation field
is necessarily subject to stringent precautions. Good hypnosis data
will be presented with evidence that appropriate precautions were
taken; the work of Carpenter and Haines(21-23) is exemplary in
providing evidence that the requisite precautions have been taken.
Prior
conditions for accepting the abduction phenomenon. Most of us take for
granted something which our scientific colleagues have neither the
background nor the confidence to take for granted: that reports of UFOs
are reports of extraterrestrial vehicles. It is impossible here to go
into the detail which supports this conclusion. When the evidence is
assembled and presented coherently, it is overwhelming. It is rarely so
assembled and presented. Classic works by Jacobs, Hynek, and NICAP on
the extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis, which precedes the abduction
phenomenon, are twenty years old. They are respected but not widely
read, and certainly not known to the scientific world outside the UFO
community.
It follows that uncertainty about the existence of
ET UFOs precludes acceptance of the UFO abduction phenomenon. If I'm not
sure that ET UFOs exist, how can I accept the evidence for UFO
abductions? In this case, the additional evidence about UFO abductions
does not strengthen the ET UFO evidence; instead, the uncertainty about
the UFO evidence weakens the acceptance of the abduction evidence. This
is a classic application of what is known to statisticians as Bayes'
theorem. The probability of some event, given supporting evidence,
depends not only on the current supporting evidence, but on the prior
probability of the event: in other words, how probable - before the
supporting evidence - was the event in question. If the ET UFO evidence
is either unknown or rejected, the prior probability that any reported
experience has to do with UFOs is bound to be low. This immediately
prejudices acceptance of the abduction evidence, because it is read in a
context where the a priori assumption is that UFOs themselves are
highly unlikely, and therefore so is a UFO-related explanation for the
abduction evidence. The answer to this problem, to the degree that we
can solve it, is to present the UFO evidence and the solid UFO abduction
evidence together in an intellectual context-book, course, or visual
medium - in which the UFO evidence establishes the a priori probability
for the UFO abduction phenomenon. The tendency - certainly reasonable,
in light of the importance of the phenomenon - has been for recent work
to concentrate on the abduction phenomenon alone. But the extensive
and well-investigated body of UFO cases deserve equal time with the
abduction evidence, because the ET interpretation of the classical UFO
data is the a priori basis for allowing an ET interpretation of the
abduction evidence.
CONCLUSION: A SYNTHESIS IS NEEDED
So
where are we? We lack certainty in dealing with evidence elicited by
hypnosis or recall alone. We need corroborating evidence: other people's
testimony to an observer being abducted (e.g., the Linda case),
missing or found in a disordered state after a hypnotically recalled
abduction experience. Or else we need corroborating physical evidence
of an abduction: evidence that something has been around to confirm the
abductee's report of being abducted into something. This is no more or
no less than the kind of evidence we need to corroborate UFO reports.
After all, a UFO report is no less a report of personal experience than
is an abduction report.
Even book-length compendiums of
single or multiple cases need to respect the scientifically educated
public's requirement that the methods of investigation be explained
clearly enough so that the techniques can be both criticized and
repeated by others. Understandably but unfortunately, the current
practice (for obvious financial and personal reasons) has been for each
serious and productive investigator to present his or her own findings
in a maximally attractive public package, in order to reap the
personal rewards for the effort made, since there are absolutely no
academic or "establishment" financial or social rewards for being a
conscientious and intelligent UFO or abduction researcher which would
compensate anyone for the time and effort expended. There is now,
however, both a place for and an intellectual demand for a
methodological and empirical synthesis of current good abduction
research, just as there is a similar need and demand for an equivalent
review and synthesis of the past thirty years of UFO research. Such a
synthesis would have to address the methodological issues raised in
this essay, as well as the rich store of excellent abduction and UFO
data which have been collected, weighed, and evaluated by the current
generation of UFO and abduction researchers.
REFERENCES
1. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged (New York: Random House, 1987).
2. Elizabeth Loftus. Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1979).
3.
Gilda Moura, "A Transpersonal Approach to Abduction Therapy," in
Andrea Pritchard, David E. Pritchard, John Mack, et al., eds. Alien
Discussions: Proceedings of the Alien Abduction Study Conference
(Cambridge, Mass.: North Cambridge Press, 1994), 485- 92. See also
Loftus, I 95.
4. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations [l776] (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 4-5.
5. John Garcia, "Tilting at the Paper Mills of Academe," American Psychologist 36, no.2 (1981): 149-58.
6. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962).
7. Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
8. L. Eisenbud, The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold,1971 ).
9. Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York: Basic Books, 1953), 1:226-230.
10. Jane Dywan and Kenneth Bowers, "The Use of Hypnosis to Enhance Recall," Science 222 ( 1983):184-85.
11.
M. E. Miller and Kenneth Bowers, "Hypnotic Analgesia: Dissociated
Experience or Dissociated Control?" Journal of Abnormal Psychology I02,
no.l (1993): 29-3 8.
12. Or, as is possibly the case with some abductees, to reappear regularly and repeat the instruction.
13. J. B. Rhine and J. G. Pratt, Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1957).
14.
Charles Honorton, "Relationship between EEG Alpha Activity and ESP
Card-Guessing," Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
63 (1969): 36574.
15. William G. Braud, "Relaxation as a Psi-Conductive State," Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 3, no2 ( 1974): 115-18.
16.
H. Eisenberg and Don C. Donderi, "Telepathic Transfer of Emotional
Information in Humans," Journal of Psychology 103 ( 1979): 19-43.
17.
Robert E. Bartholomew, Keith Basterfield, and G. S. Howard, "UFO
Abductees and Contactees: Psychopathology or Fantasy Proneness?"
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 22, no.3 ( 1991 ): 215-
22.
18. Nicholas Spanos, P. A. Cross, K. Dickson, and S.
DuBreuil, "Close Encounters: An Examination of UFO Experiences," Journal
of Abnormal Psychology 102, no.4 ( 1993): 624-32.
19. Ted
Bloecher, Aphrodite Clamar, and Budd Hopkins, Final Report on the
Psychological Testing of UFO "Abductees" (Mount Rainier, Md.: Fund for
UFO Research, 1985).
20. Mark Rodeghier, Jeff Goodpaster, and
Sandra Blatterbauer, "Psychosocial Characteristics of Abductees: Results
from the CUFOS Abduction Project,"Journal of UFO Studies, new ser. 3 (
1991 ): 59- 90.
21. John S. Carpenter, "Double Abduction
Case: Correlation of Hypnosis Data,"Journal of UFO Studies, new ser. 3 (
1991 ): 91-114.
22. Richard F. Haines, "Multiple Abduction
Evidence - What's Really Needed?" in Andrea Pritchard, David E.
Pritchard, John Mack, et al., eds. Alien Discussions: Proceedings of
the Alien Abduction Study Conference (Cambridge, Mass.: North Cambridge
Press, 1994), 240245. See also Richard F. Haines, "Novel Investigative
Techniques," in Alien Discussions, 468-69.
23. Richard F.
Haines, "Hypnosis: Problems and Techniques." Paper presented at the
National Conference on Anomalous Experience, Temple University,
Philadelphia, 1990.
Summary: The purpose of this
essay is not to demonstrate the validity of the "ancient astronauts"
school of thought. As that branch of UFOlogy has several flaws, and is
dependent on the ETH, I am not inclined to back up its presuppositions.
What I am trying to demonstrate is that there have been encounters
between UFOs and UFO entities throughout history, long before 1947.
The purpose of this essay
is not to demonstrate the validity of the "ancient astronauts" school
of thought. As that branch of UFOlogy has several flaws, and is
dependent on the ETH, I am not inclined to back up its presuppositions.
What I am trying to demonstrate is that there have been encounters
between UFOs and UFO entities throughout history, long before 1947. The
character of those earlier encounters was, I suspect, much as UFO
encounters are today: paradoxical, enigmatic, and misunderstood. I do
not think any "ancient astronauts" stepped out of their spaceships and
gave the human race everything it needed for civilization on a silver
platter, or that they genetically engineered the human race. This being
said, I do believe that the UFO phenomenon has played a role in human
history, and that it is at the nexus of much of our religion, magic,
myth, and legend. It is possible that, in part, the evolution of human
consciousness may have been shaped at various intervals by the UFO
enigma in its various guises. But I believe that we are in the same
position regarding the UFO phenomenon as our ancestors: despite our
prevalent belief that
are "somebody else's spacecraft," we don't know what UFOs are, period.
Just because we believed that the UFOs were chariots of the gods then,
and that they are spaceships now, does not mean "the chariots of the
gods were spaceships."
In short, UFOs remain to us what they
were to our ancestors: a complete unknown. What I will try and
demonstrate is that many of the patterns found in the modern UFO
phenomenon, including its manifestation in 'flaps' or waves, has
occurred in the past. Some of these incidents are beter authenticated
than others. I should point out that almost every society has legends of
mysterious objects seen in the sky. I have left out the Native American
thunderbirds, Constantine's aerial chi-ro, Chinese sightings, Arab
djinni stories, and those of many other cultures, in the interest of
brevity, though perhaps I might examine those in detail in another
essay. These examples show that UFOs have not only appeared to, but have
interacted with, humanity, on numerous occasions in the past. The fact
of encounters with Others resulted in a whole branch of Islamic law,
regulating such things as human-djinni marriages, which dealt with those
situations. By demonstrating the continual presence of UFOs on our
planet - i.e., showing them to be "as much a feature of life as the
weather" - I wish to challenge the assumption that they are coming from
somewhere else out in space. If they are 'ultraterrestrial' in nature,
they may be here all the time. And the games they have played with
humanity may have gone for millenia.
Persian Gulf, 4th millenium BCE:
Sumerian
legends tell of the god Oannes (Ea) rising from the Persian Gulf in
something that seems much like a diving suit. Ea is often depicted as an
amphibious being, half fish and half man. These same legends state
unequivocally that Oannes came from under the sea. In that case, Ea's
vessel may have been an early USO (unidentifed submarine object.) Ea is
the culture-bearer for the Sumerian civilization, who is said to have
brought them the arts of writing, agriculture, toolmaking, etc.
Suprisingly enough, one of the first people to advance the theory that
Ea may have been an 'ancient astronaut' was Carl Sagan, long before Von
Daniken started searching for his chariots. There was a fabulous
supernova right around this time, according to Michanowsky, and it
appears to have coincided with Ea's visit. Zechariah Sitchin believes
that Babylonian legends state 'unequivocally' that Ea came from the 12th
planet of our solar system, which is yet to be discovered by our
astronomers.
Bronze Age Discs, 3rd millenium BCE:
F.W.
Holiday discusses the appearance of the disc symbol in early Bronze Age
iconography in Britain. It often appears in conjunction with a
depiction of the 'pestie' or dragon. Holiday notes the prevalence of the
so-called "sun wheel" in pre-Celtic iconography, and the discoid
appearance of many barrows and mounds. He points out that what many
scholars have called a "sun wheel" is, in fact, often depicted as a
winged disc - much like the purported layout of the Avebury stones. (He
also points out that many cultures have a custom of setting wooden disks
and hurling them through the air to repel evil, usually at night...)
The wheel is often named for Taranis, the thunder-god, who rumbled and
boomed as he moved through the sky. (Sound familiar? "skyquakes"?) It
also often seems to have legs as well as wings. The Eye symbol, related
to the one-eyed god Odin and the eye-god Horus, is also prevalent in the
Bronze Age culture, and there are numerous reports of so-called "Eye"
discs in UFOlogy. Other UFO designs, such as the conjoined discs, 'cloud
cigars,' and the dome, appear replicated as curious Bronze Age
artefacts from Britain.
In many cases, the Disc is depicted in
battle against the serpent, which Holiday assumes means the disc
represents the forces of the sky (which are good) battling against the
forces under the earth (which are bad.) This design appears in numerous
forms in mythology, with the dragon or 'pestie' coiled around the base
of the world-tree, and the thunderer in the disc above the tree
descending to battle it. Yet in pre-Christian and pre-Norse legends, and
in China, the "Wyrm" is not seen as evil. While it is blamed for
toothaches and other misfortunes in many cultures, in its earliest
appearances in iconography it is a symbol of fertility and renewal.
Holiday seems to think that lake monsters and the "dragon" in general
are evil, malevolent forces. Yet they do not become thought of in these
terms until the first sky-religions (and the sky-discs) arrive. The
reason for this sea-change in mythology is discussed by Gimbutas, who
thinks Old Chthonic Europe was overrun by
sky-and-thunder-god-worshipping nomads from the north (the Kurgans.)
This mystery is worth more examination...
Tulli Papyrus, 15th century BCE:
This
papyrus from the reign of Thutmose III, translated from hieratic
Egyptian, describes "flaming circles" seen in the sky during the New
Kingdom era of Egypt. These "circles" emitted a foul odor, and after
they departed, there was a rain of fish and 'volatiles' (meteorites?)
The scroll was originally the property of Alberto Tulli, who managed the
Vatican Museum's Egyptological collection. (Inquiries to the Vatican
have cast some doubts on the authenticity of the manuscript.) The
Intermediate periods in Egypt (between the Old and Middle, and Middle
and New Kingdoms) were marked by multiple cataclysms and strange aerial
occurences. Indeed, there are many parallels between the strange events
and the plagues described in the Biblical Book of Exodus.
UFOs in the Bible, 13th-6th centuries BCE:
The
three most well known stories in the Bible that suggest UFO-like
encounters are the stories of the Exodus, Ezekiel, and Enoch. But there
are others. Many researchers, such as Morris K. Jessup, have discussed
the "pillar of the Lord" seen leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and
pointed out its UFOlike properties. Others have discussed Jacob's
heavenly ladder as a possible sighting. Yet others are convinced that
the four 'living' beings who 'moved like wheels' and 'burned like
bronze' seen by Ezekiel were UFOs. (The eagle/lion/ox/man symbolism of
these beings is found in other depictions of the so-called kerubim in
the Middle East, and reappears in conjunction with the Four
Evangelists.) The story of Enoch is perhaps the most curious, for he
claims (like Elijah) to have been 'taken' up into the heavens and shown
the Earth from above, which he describes as a sphere. His book in the
Bible is apocryphal (and hence its authenticity disputed.) Some people
think that the Star of Bethlehem and the cloud which descended upon
Jesus on Mount Tabor may have been UFOs as well, and some daring authors
declare his parentage may have been extraterrestrial, rather than
divine.
Von Daniken and some others reach even further for
evidence of ETs in the Good Book. They attempt to explain the Ark of the
Covenant as an 'electrical condenser' and 'manna machine'; the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as an atomic explosion; the legend of
the "sons of god" descending on "the daughters of men" as an early
interbreeding program; and the "burning bush" as a landed saucer. They
also attempt to explain the 'heavenly chariot' or Merkabah that Elijah
saw, and which plays such an important role in Qabalistic mysticism, as a
UFO. Melchizidek is said to be a space being, and various visits of
"angels" are interpreted as meetings with space travellers. Numerous
"channeled texts" like Oahspe make a similar attempt to explain
incidents in the Bible through an extraterrestrial lens. In many cases,
these explanations are definitely only for the highly credulous and
overly literal scholars that inhabit UFOlogy.
Dogon People, pre-European contact:
The
Dogon people of Mali claim that before Europeans came, they had met
with "Nommos," or people from the invisible companion star of Sirius.
Two French anthropologists who encountered the tribe in the 1920s were
amazed to find out that they had knowledge of this 'dark star,' since
astronomers had only recently discovered it. Robert K. Temple, who wrote
about this tale in The Sirius Mystery , thinks it is pertinent to some
of the more curious myths about the god Osiris (who is identified with
"Sothis," the heliacal-rising star that signalled the annual flooding of
the Nile: our Sirius or "dog star") such as the initiation where
priests learned that "Osiris is a dark god." Numerous occultists stress
the importance of Sirius in occult cosmology, and Kenneth Grant insists
that Crowley's "genius" Aiwass was an alien being from the star Sirius.
"Magonia", late 9th century CE:
Agobard
of Lyons, a bishop during the Carolingian Era in France, wrote about
the various "superstitions" he encountered among the peasantry. One such
tale was that beings ("slyphs" or air elementals) travelling in
sky-sailing ships were stealing farmers' crops and abducting people.
Many people claimed that anchors of these sky "ships" had become lodged
in the rooves of buildings and showed them to the clergy. Agobard heard
the rumor that four of these sylphs had been captured, and that they
claimed to be from "Magonia," a land high up in the clouds. These four
beings were apparently stoned to death by an angry mob. Agobard
dismissed the rumors because they contradict the Bible, which has no
mention of such an aerial kingdom.
Fairy encounters, Middle Ages CE:
That
the fairy-faith survived well into the 20th century is described by
Evans-Wentz, who discovered that people still claimed to see the Gentry
in places like Wales, Scotland, and Brittany. According to the Reverend
Robert Kirk, who is thought to have been "taken" by the fairies, the
Gentry are not a dimunitive race, but they are in fact tall, luminous
beings, "fair in countenance and mighty." Offerings were left for the
Gentry - who never ate the food itself, only its "invisible" portion -
moreso out of fear than respect. People did their best not to build
their houses on the numerous "fairy paths" crossing the countryside. The
Gentry were widely blamed for stealing human children and leaving
"changelings" or fairy children in their place, and like our UFOs of
today, often left "fairy rings" in the woods where they danced, where
nothing could grow, except exotic fungi. Rev. Kirk noted that fairies
often took human spouses, but that in almost every case those marriages
often ended with the fairy leaving the relationship because the human
companion failed to abide by its terms.
The most common legend
was that the fairies were those angels which refused to take sides
during Lucifer's rebellion: hence they were neither damned nor admitted
into paradise, but instead dwelt in Fairyland, a mystic Otherworld which
existed parallel to our own world. People often needed the "second
sight" or gift of mystical vision to find their way into the fairy
world, but a special anointment for the eyes or potion often conferred
this gift, as did the eating of fairy food. But there were stern
warnings against travelling to Fairyland, for time passed differently
there: a day spent with the fairies might mean several months' passage
in our own world. Indeed, it was cautioned that some who went there
never returned. The fairies also enjoyed, like the "gremlins" of WW II,
playing complex games and tricks on people, but would reward them
handsomely afterward if they put up with them. That many of these things
are similar to features of the modern UFO phenomenon has been pointed
out numerous times by various researchers.
Black Plague, 1347-50:
Reports
from this period feature strange cigarlike objects flying low through
the sky and dispersing noxious mists. Soon after these objects passed
by, plague would break out in that area. Other features from this period
similar to modern UFO reports include sightings of mysterious MIB-like
scythe-wielding "reapers" clad in black hoods & robes, and
mysteriously slaughtered cattle and other animals. One year before an
outbreak of plague, a "column of fire" was seen over the Pope's palace
at Avignon. A monstrous "whale" was cast ashore at Egemont shortly
before another plague outbreak, and numerous times during this period
"rumblings like thunder" were heard even when there were no storms.
Blazing "comets" were seen numerous times in the heavens - some of which
may have been real celestial objects frightening an omen-crazy populace
- of which numerous were said to be accompanied by "flames" (aurorae?)
hanging low in the sky.
Renaissance witch-craze, 15th century CE:
There
were many incidents of aerial lights seen in this period, but most were
interpreted as witches flying through the sky, with lanterns hanging on
the ends of their brooms. People who claimed to spy on the "sabbats" of
the witches often saw a Black Man (not a brown-skinned Negroid, but a
perfectly velvet-black man) or "demons" consorting with the witches,
often carnally. Many of the arguments about the witches' covens parallel
the debate about UFO abductions today. Many persons argued that the
witches never travelled anywhere physically, but that their "soul" was
brought somewhere to intermingle with othe spiritual entities. Whether
the witches' experiences were physical or not, like UFO abductees, they
often discovered strange marks on their bodies afterwards (the "witches'
teat," said to be midway between the vagina and anus), reported very
odd sexual probings by the "incubi" (such as one with a split penis,
whose semen was said to be "very cold"), and claimed that the "Devil"
taught them magical arts and secret knowledge.
Many Renaissance
engravings or woodcuts found from this period show discs, "cigars" with
portholes giving off rays of light, and other aerial objects. These
include the 1561 woodcut showing the "Nuremberg Sundogs" and the 1566
one of the "Basel Blackspheres." The "demon" outbreaks of this period
may have been caused by an outbreak of ergotism on grain: people eating
the ergot-infected rye may have experienced 'St. Anthony's Fire,' which
involved vivid visual hallucinations and torment by demons. During the
Renaissance, the Copernican cosmology was advanced by heliocentric
Hermeticists like Giordano Bruno, who claimed (heretically) an infinity
of worlds, and was burned at the stake for that belief. Others, like
John Dee, who claimed to have contacted celestial intelligences which he
called Enochian "angels," helped advance the progress of the
Rosicrucian movement and the beginnings of science with the advent of
the Royal Society.
Woman of the Wilderness, 1694:
The
"Woman of the Wilderness" sect was a group of German Pietists with
Rosicrucian leanings who settled in one of the early communes on the
American continent. On June 24th, St. John's Day, on the one year
anniversary of their arrival in America, a luminous "angel" descended
before the group, which validated their belief that an eschatological
period of judgement was coming soon. Scholars believe that this Utopian
commune, like the many others being founded in the 18th century, may
have influenced much of the early ideology of the American settlers.
They are known to have written one of the first volumes of music in
America.
Joseph Smith and Moroni, 1820s:
Joseph
Smith, at the young age of 14 or 15 in his hometown of Manchester, New
York, reported that a "cloud of darkness" descended over him, but then a
"pillar of light" suddenly appeared and two luminous beings stepped out
of it. One of these visitors was the angel Moroni, who returned several
times, and eventually led Smith to a set of golden plates which he
translated through a pair of spectacles he called "Urim and Thummim."
These plates formed the basis of the Book of Mormon. The "angel" Moroni
reported that there were many inhabited worlds in the cosmos, and that
the God of the Bible was really a being which dealt near the star Kolob.
Mormonism has a strange obsession with genealogy and some curious
doctrines about the afterlife, and it also suggests that there may have
been ancient advanced civilizations in the Americas which were destroyed
in a cataclysm. Recently, some documents have come to light - many of
which may have been forgeries - that suggest that, before he became a
religious prophet, Smith may have been involved in "scrying" for gold
(e.g. 'gold-digging'), alchemy, occultism, and Freemasonry.
Early Modern Sightings 1873-85:
Not
surprisingly, during this pre-flight period of time, UFO sightings were
minimal. Strangely, this period is marked by a large number of USO
(Unidentified Submarine Objects) sightings, such as 'lightwheels' and
strange metallic craft seen at sea. This was a period when many nautical
advances were being made - and the first practical submersible craft
were being built and operated. Most of the aerial sightings reported
during this time - many are discussed by Charles Fort in his books -
were reported by astronomers, such as Camile Flammarion and Jose
Bonilla, who saw luminous objects cross the face of the moon and sun,
respectively. It was also during this time that the features of Mars -
especially the "canals" reported by Perceval Lowell - led to fervent
discussion of the possibility of life there.
Great Airship Wave, 1896-7:
An
amazing series of sightings, stretching from the East to the West coast
of the U.S., occurred in 1896 and 1897. Many newspapers carried
sightings of "airships" seen travelling through the air. These
mechanical contraptions often shone spotlights on the ground and made
lots of clanking and other noises as they moved through the sky.
Speculation about the "airships" focused on a series of "inventors" who
were testing these new craft and would soon be making them commercially
available for the public. Some people claimed that the airships landed
and that they met these "inventors." Some airship pilots claimed to be
from Mars; others insisted they were "from a place where it never
rains." Yet others claimed the airships were being built in rather
mundane workshops on the East coast. Some witnesses protested that the
airships were dropping ballast or cargo on them. (H.G. Wells wrote a
short story about this time, Master of the Air , about a man named
Robert L'Conqueror, who conquers the world through his secret
lighter-than-air airship technology and various weapons.) Not
surprisingly, shortly after the airship "wave," the first terrestrial
zeppelins and dirigibles began being built and used commercially, as if
the UFO was always one step ahead of our own technology. There would be
some repeat airship encounters during the so-called "Christmas Wave" of
1909-10, when airships with 'searchlights' were seen over New England.
One
of the most curious episodes of the whole Airship wave - which, like
many of the others, was thought to be a newspaper hoax - was a story of
an airship which crashed into Judge Proctor's windmill in Aurora,
Illinois. A body of a small "martian" was said to be recovered and
buried with some of the wreckage. In 1972, rumors were sparked anew as a
man appeared and claimed to know the whereabouts of this wreckage. This
man, a Frank Kelley of Corpus Christi, said he was a treasure hunter,
and produced several pieces of metal found with his metal detector,
which turned out to be mostly aluminum. No body was ever found by UFO
investigators, and, like so many other weirdos in the UFO world, this
guy with a fake address and phone number disappeared as abruptly as he
turned up. Not unsurprisingly, in late 1972 the U.S. was already
experiencing the beginnings of the massive UFO wave of '73, which
shattered post-Condon report complacency.
Welsh Revival, 1904-5:
During
this religious revival in Wales, the revivalists were seen to be
engaging in rather fanatical behavior. Revivalists would march in
processions through the streets carrying coffins and beating on the
houses of Catholics. They would beat each other with sledgehammers and
other instruments, and claimed that by the power of faith they were not
injured - something that was observed by many outsiders. Others handled
blazing coals and demonstrated an imperviousness to fire. During the
revivalists' outdoor meetings, blazing lights were seen to hang
overhead, and one of these luminous apparitions followed the carriage of
the prophetess of the movement, Mary Jones. Charles Fort noted that
during this period, there were a large number of SHC (spontaneous human
combustion) incidents and poltergeist incidents. Elsewhere in Europe
during this period, mostly on the Continent, animal corpses were found
drained of all blood, and an outbreak of "vampirism" was widely
suspected.
Fatima, 1917:
This is one of the more
unusual of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) incidents, because over 70,000
witnesses reported at Fatima that they saw the sun "change color and
spin in the sky." A small handful reported that during one BVM episode,
they saw a small sphere hanging in the sky, with some men climbing on
the outside. The girls who were "channeling" the BVM (who was never seen
by anyone besides them) supposedly delivered a prophecy to the Pope
which caused him to weep upon reading. The prophecy predicted the
downfall of communism, but supposedly also claimed that the Papacy would
cease by the end of the century as well. Though no one has ever seen
the prophecy, it is rumored to have predicted the outbreak of World War
II, the reclaiming of Jerusalem by the Israelis, and many apocalyptic
events culminating near the end of the millenium. Like many other BVM
episodes, there were people at Fatima who claimed to receive miraculous
healings by being there.
Charles Fort's "Superconstructions," 1890-1930:
Charles
Hoy Fort, from whom Forteans take their name, described various early
UFO-type phenomena in his books New Lands, Lo!, and the Book of the
Damned. Fort transcribed various reports that he took from serious
scholarly journals of astronomy which described lights crossing the
surface of the moon and other lights seen in the sky. Fort theorized -
but never offered proof - that these lights were attached to gigantic
"superconstructions" which came here from other planets, and mused that
various falls of matter may have come from these ships. Fort, in one of
his quasi-philosophical discussions, raised the assertion that we might
be the "property" of the pilots of these ships, "all others warned off."
Tiffany Thayer, the president of the Fortean Society (which Fort never
joined), was one of the first to suggest during the 1947 wave that the
mysterious UFOs might be extraterrestrial in origin. During this period,
it was widely reported that mystic Nicholas Roerich had encountered a
strange disclike object in the Himalayas, during his trip there in 1926.
"I AM" Movement, 1930s:
During the 1930s, a
sect was founded by Guy Ballard called the "I AM" movement. This sect is
thought to have influenced the beliefs of Adamski and the early
"contactees" and to have ties to the "Silver Shirts," who were a
homegrown American fascist movement. Its other (distantly related)
descendants include the Church Universal and Triumphant of Elizabeth
Clare Prophet, and the Church of Scientology. Ballard claimed to have
met the 'Ascended Masters,' one of which was the mysterious 17th-century
Comte de-St. Germain. More interestingly, he claimed to have met a race
of "Lemurians" which travelled around in "aerial boats" and lived
underneath the mysterious Mt. Shasta, which features so significantly in
the tales of the "Dweller on Two Worlds," Phylos the Tibetan. Mt.
Shasta still seems to feature prominently in UFO lore, and the weird
"hollow earth" cosmology of Richard Shaver and Ray Palmer which
dominated UFOlogical thought for several years.
World War II, 1942-6: (foo fighters and ghost rockets)
During
World War II, numerous American pilots reported that their planes were
often trailed by blazing balls of fire which they called "foo fighters."
(That name came from a Lil' Abner cartoon, where one character
exclaims, "Where there's foo, there's fire!") The common belief at the
time was that these balls of light were some secret Nazi experiment.
Shortly after the war, in 1946, numerous people in Sweden reported
curious incidents where "rockets" would sail through the sky, plunge
into icy lakes, and never be seen again. These "ghost rockets" were also
thought to be left-over V2s or some other German invention being tested
by the Allies. It was well known that Viktor Shauberger had tried to
design some type of saucer-shaped craft for the Nazis, and the Air Force
experimented with some "hover" designs of this kind after the war as
well. Not unsuprisingly, the idea that UFOs were a secret government
experiment lasted into the 1950s, until "hollow earth" and
extraterrestrial theories pushed it to the margins.
Conclusion
I
do not know if we are the UFO entities' property, as Charles Fort
suggested. They certainly have done their level best to encourage that
belief. It is possible that they have been taken to be our 'gods' in the
past and have exploited our superstition and gullibility. In any case,
their great Cosmic Phonograph keeps sending messages of apocalypse and
catastrophe. The UFOnauts are probably not our custodians or rulers, as
some have claimed, but they have been willing to accept that mantle.
There is very little that can be said with certainty about what role the
UFO has played throughout history. It is not the role of either
benevolent Space Brother or malevolent Hidden Directorate, but rather a
role more befitting of a cosmic Trickster. I do not know what the
ultimate purpose of the UFO phenomenon is, and I have come to no firm
conclusions regarding its intentionality or origin. But on this much I
am certain: it has guided human history at certain critical junctures.
And it has manipulated human beliefs. Whether for good or for ill - and
from whose perspective - I am not sure. It does seem that the UFOnauts
are not strangers, but rather Visitors, as Streiber suggests. They have
come in the past, and will continue to be coming for a long time. It is
why they are here that is the $64,000 question, and it is one in which
we are in no better position than our predecessors. Solving it, however,
may affect the destiny of the human race.
Special Features/Characteristics: Animal Reaction, Witness Photo, Group Sighting
Source: NUFORC report:
Summary:
A team of forestry workers allegedly had been witness to an incident on
Thursday, February 25, 1999, during which time an elk was lifted off
the ground and carried away by a very peculiar, disc-shaped object.
Full Report
Rendition by Robert Fairfax, UFO researcher, of elk abduction. (credit: FATE Magazine)
One of the witnesses, "Augustine", points toward where he saw the craft carry the elk. (credit: MUFON Journal)
Diagram of UFO by Robert Fairfax. (credit: FATE Magazine)
UFO Elk Abduction Said Witnessed In Washington State
On Monday, March 01, 1999, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC)
received a call over its telephone Hotline (206-722-3000) from an
individual who identified himself as an employee in the forestry
industry in Washington State. The individual left a message, in which he
reported that a team of forestry workers allegedly had been witness to
an incident on Thursday, February 25, 1999, during which time an elk was
lifted off the ground and carried away by a very peculiar, disc-shaped
object. [*Click here to hear an excerpt from the hotline recording.]
Peter B. Davenport, Director of NUFORC, contacted several of the
individuals whose names and telephone numbers had been provided by the
first contact. Based on those telephone conversations, he elected to
initiate a preliminary investigation of the incident.
Because NUFORC traditionally does not serve as an investigative body,
Mr. Davenport contacted Mr. Robert A. Fairfax, Director of
Investigations for the Washington State Chapter of the Mutual UFO
Network, which does conduct investigations of alleged UFO sightings.
Messrs. Davenport and Fairfax traveled to the location of the alleged
incident, and jointly have been conducting an investigation of this elk
abduction case since Friday, March 05.
Their investigation to date has included a trip to the site of the
incident, an interview of three of the alleged fourteen witnesses to the
actual abduction, and several conversations with individuals who work
with the eyewitnesses. In addition, the investigators inspected the
carcass of an adult elk, a pregnant cow, which was found dead beside a
logging road on March 01 by other forestry employees within a few miles
of the principal event.
The investigation and collection of facts surrounding the case will
continue. This preliminary summary of their findings to date is
submitted jointly by Messrs. Davenport and Fairfax.
Incident Summary:
On Thursday, February 25, 1999, at just a few minutes before noon,
three forestry workers, who were planting seedling trees in the
mountains of Washington State, witnessed a small, disc-shaped object
slowly drift over a nearby ridge to their south, and descend into the
valley to the north of their position. The object descended silently
with what seemed to the witnesses a purposeful manner, exhibiting a
slight "wobble" to its flight.
The three workers at first thought the object was some kind of
parachute that was drifting and descending, but they quickly realized
that their initial impression was not correct. Hence, they shouted to
their eleven co-workers nearby, who were working on the north-facing
hillside, and all fourteen members of the work crew watched the object
for an estimated 3-5 minutes.
Within seconds of their first observation of the object, the witnesses
became aware that the object was travelling generally in the direction
of a herd of elk that they had been watching all morning. They continued
to watch as the object proceeded toward the herd until it succeeded in
getting quite close to the animals. The animals apparently remained
unaware of the objectís presence until it was within a very short
distance of the herd.
Suddenly, the animals bolted, most of the them running up the slope to
their east. However, one adult animal was seen by the witnesses to
separate itself from the herd and run or trot to generally to the north,
perhaps along a logging road. The witnesses report that at this point,
the object quickly moved directly above the lone elk and seemed to lift
it off the ground, although no visible means of support of the animal
was evident to the observers.
[Photo of incident site and reported path of craft (graphic by Robert Fairfax)]
The witnesses added that shortly after lifting the elk off the ground,
the object seemed to begin to "wobble" to a more pronounced degree than
it had exhibited earlier. In addition, as the object appeared to
increase its altitude, the elk, which was suspended upright below the
disc, rotated slowly beneath it and appeared to be getting closer to the
ventral surface of the disc. They also commented that the object seemed
to increase in size slightly after it had picked up the animal.
With the elk suspended below it, the object began to ascend slowly up a
clear-cut slope to the east. However, the witnesses watched it
apparently brush the tops of nearby trees to the east, at which point it
reversed its course and proceeded to the west. It executed a 360-degree
turn to the left and may have gained some slight altitude in the
process, the witnesses thought.
After the object had completed its turn and was once again proceeding
in a generally easterly direction, it began ascending very quickly at
what seemed to the witnesses to be a rather steep angle. It continued to
ascend, and simply disappeared from sight of the witnesses.
The witnesses stated that once the object had started to ascend and had
climbed to an altitude above their vantage point, they no longer could
see the animal suspended below the craft. Their presumption was that the
animal had somehow been taken into the craft, although the witnesses
could discern no "door," or any kind of aperture through which the
animal might have been conveyed into the craft.
The witnesses also stated that following the incident, the herd of elk
remained in the same general area, although remained more closely
huddled to one another than had been the case earlier in the morning.
The workers added that they, too, had remained closer to one another
until their departure from the area at the end of the work day.
_______
Investigation summary prepared by Peter B. Davenport, Director,
National UFO Reporting Center, and Robert A. Fairfax, Director of
Investigations, Mutual UFO Network, for the Washington State
---------------------------
By Low Lawhon
The Washington State Elk Abduction
February 25, 1999
11:58 A.M.
On this winter morning, fourteen forestry workers, employees of a
large, unnamed company, were planting trees in the Cascade Mountains of
Washington State about 20 miles west of Mt. St. Helens. Three of the men
had been watching a nearby herd of elk in the valley below them all
morning.
Suddenly, a heel-shaped object with two stripes on its back appeared
over a nearby ridge and began drifting in a northeast direction.
Initially, the three men thought it was something like a parachute, but
it maintained a steady altitude, following the contours of the terrain
below it.
As the object began to move toward the herd of elk, the three men
called out to the other eleven members of the work crew. All fourteen
men stood on the hillside and watched as the object floated down into
the valley towards the elk.
The silent object was able to get quite near the elk before the animals
noticed it. When they did notice it, most of the herd ran to the east,
toward a densely wooded area. One elk, though, trotted off toward the
north, down a logging road. It was to this lone elk that the object
flew. The amazed workers watched as the object floated above the elk and
then appeared to lift the elk off the ground with some sort of
invisible force. The object then moved off, with the elk slowly rotating
beneath it. It moved up the ridge, barely clearing the trees, and then
down into the next valley, out of sight of the forestry workers. After a
few minutes, the object then reappeared, apparently without the elk,
and rose at high speed until it disappeared into the sky.
The case was reported to NUFORC, and Peter Davenport of NUFORC and
Robert Fairfax of MUFON Washington traveled to the site and interviewed
the witnesses. For their report go to NUFORC. They also examined the
body of a female elk that was found to the north of the site. It could
not be determined if this was the same elk. Many of the witnesses had
been with the company for years and they were generally deemed to be
reliable.
Summary:
In November 1975, a group of six tree-trimmers were driving home from
work. The driver stopped the truck when he noticed that a flying saucer
was hovering above some nearby trees. Travis Walton approached the
craft. He was then knocked to the ground by a blue and white light.
Full Report
Photo of Travis Walton circa 1975.
Artistic depiction of the UFO.
Introduction
On November 5th, 1975, one of the more persistently controversial UFO
events in history took place in northeastern Arizona. A work team
consisting of seven individuals reported encountering a reflective,
luminous object the shape of a flattened disc hovering close to their
truck on a remote dirt road in the
National Forest. According to the crew, one of their members, Travis
Walton, exited the truck and approached the object on foot, at which
time he was allegedly struck by a brilliant bluish light or flash and
hurled to the ground some distance away. In fear, the other crew members
fled the scene, returning after a short period of time to find no trace
of the UFO, or of Walton.
The driver of the truck was Mike Rogers, the crew foreman and a
personal friend of Walton's. While fleeing the scene, Rogers reported
looking back and seeing a luminous object lift out of the forest and
speed rapidly toward the horizon. He, along with the other five
witnesses, would eventually be subjected to polygraph (lie detection)
examinations regarding the event, the successful outcomes of which
catapulted the case into the national spotlight.
Walton turned up five days later, confused and distraught but with
fleeting memories of alien and exotic human entities. He was also
subsequently subjected to a number of controversial polygraph
examinations (Image caption: Travis Walton).
As the first seriously investigated UFO event to involve the
disappearance of an individual in conjunction with a UFO sighting, the
Walton incident put the honesty of UFO claimants, as well as the
validity of lie detection evidence, squarely in the spotlight. A total
of thirteen polygraph examinations have been conducted in association
with the case, tests which have been the subject of considerable
discussion and acrimonious debate.
The Circumstances
An assessment of the Walton case begins with the chronology of the
initial encounter on November 5th. The seven witnesses described the UFO
as a "large, glowing object hovering in the air below the treetops
about 100 feet away" (Mike Rogers) which was "smooth and giving off a
yellowish-orange light" (Dwayne Smith). Other descriptions by the
various witnesses included "unbelievably smooth", "flattened disc" with
"edges clearly defined". Rogers and Walton estimated an overall diameter
of about twenty feet.
As Walton approached on foot across the clearing, the "UFO began to
wobble or rock slightly", and then emitted a "bluish light [that] came
from the machine", "a blue ray shot out of the bottom of that thing and
hit him all over", "that ray was the brightest thing I've ever seen".
This light sent Walton "backward through the air ten feet", "hurled
through the air in a backwards motion, falling on the ground, on his
back", "flying -- like he'd touched a live wire". "The horror was
unreal."
Here are two narrative descriptions of the encounter from two of the
crewmen, Mike Rogers and Allen Dalis, as told by polygraph examiner Cy
Gilson in his summary of test results in 1993. First, Dalis' testimony:
"During the pretest interview, Mr. Dalis related the following events
that occurred on that day. Mr. Dalis said they had finished work for the
day and were heading home. It was almost dark. He saw a glow coming
from among the trees ahead of them. As they came to a clearing, he saw
the object he called a UFO. Mr. Rogers was slowing the truck down to
stop as Travis Walton exited the truck and began to advance towards the
UFO in a brisk walk... Mr. Dalis described the UFO as being a yellowish
white in color. He said the light emitting from it was not bright but a
glow that gave off light all around itself. Mr. Dalis saw Walton reach
the UFO, stop and look up at it. He said it looked as if Walton was
standing there, slightly bent over, with his hands in his pockets. Mr.
Dalis said the UFO began to wobble or rock slightly and he began to
become afraid. He put his head down towards his knees. As he did so, a
bright light flashed that lit up the area, even the inside of the truck.
He immediately looked towards the UFO. He saw a silhouette of Walton.
Mr. Walton had his arms up in the air... Mr. Dalis turned towards Mr.
Rogers who was in the driver's seat and yelled for him to 'get the hell
out of here'..."
And as related by Mike Rogers:
"...Mr. Rogers was on the opposite side of the truck from the UFO. He
had to bend over slightly to view it in its entirety through the truck
windows. He described the UFO to be glowing a yellowish tan color. He
could not say if the light emanated from within the UFO or was a
lighting system outside, that lit up the UFO. He did say he could see
the shadows of the trees on the ground, around the UFO. He said it was
round and about 20 feet in diameter. He said the UFO was about 75 to 100
feet from the truck... As Mr. Rogers started to move the truck a
brilliant flash of light lit up the entire area, even inside the truck.
It was described as a prolonged strobe flash. He did not see a beam of
light emit from the UFO and hit Walton. As the flash occurred, Mr.
Rogers turned around in his seat to look at the UFO again and saw Mr.
Walton being hurled through the air in a backwards motion, falling on
the ground, on his back. At this time, Mr. Dalis and someone else yelled
to get the hell out of here..."
According to the story, upon returning to the scene, the crewmen
searched briefly through the woods, calling Walton's name. They then
proceeded down to the main road and, after some debate, decided to call
the police and ask for assistance. They were first met by a Deputy
Ellison and subsequently by Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, who would later
describe the crewmen as apparently sincerely distressed. The officers
and crewmen went back up the hill and searched again with flashlights,
eventually calling off the search and making plans for a more thorough
manhunt beginning early the next morning.
The next several days were marked by unsuccessful searches for the
missing Walton, including some use of helicopters and dogs. Temperatures
dropped below zero the first two nights of the search, dimming hope
that he was alive. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials were looking for
alternate explanations of the event, including the possibility that
Walton had been murdered.
In their initial reports, the six crewmen had indicated a willingness
to undergo any kind of lie detection test to establish their
truthfulness. After the second day of searching, law enforcement
officials brought in Cy Gilson, a polygraph examiner from the Department
of Public Safety (associated with the state police,) to test all six.
Five of the witnesses passed this polygraph examination, while for the
sixth, Allen Dalis, the test was ruled inconclusive (unable to assign a
reading).
While the successful tests fueled media interest in the case, the
inconclusive result for Dalis put some heat on him personally. While
some of the crew members, such as Rogers and Walton, had been friends
long before the forest service brush-clearing contract, others were only
acquaintances, and in the case of Allen Dalis, he and Walton were said
to have had some personal animosities.
However, some questions were answered -- and others raised -- when
Walton suddenly returned, apparently confused and distressed, phoning
his sister from an Exxon station near the small town of Heber just after
midnight the night of November 10th.
In his book "Fire in the Sky", Walton would later describe his
perceptions as he allegedly first regained consciousness: "I regained
consciousness lying on my stomach, my head on my right forearm. Cold air
brought me instantly awake. I looked up in time to see a light turn off
on the bottom of a curved, gleaming hull... Then I saw the mirrored
outline of a silvery disc hovering four feet above the paved surface of
the road. It must have been about forty feet in diameter because it
extended several feet off the left side of the road... For an instant it
floated silently above the road, a dozen yards away. I could see the
night sky, the surrounding trees, and the highway center line reflected
in the curving mirror of its hull. I noticed a faint warmth radiating
onto my face. Then, abruptly, it shot vertically into the sky, creating a
strong breeze that stirred the nearby pine boughs and rustled the dry
oak leaves that lay in the dry grass beside the road. It gave off no
light, and it was almost instantly lost from sight. The most striking
thing about its departure was its quietness..."
Besieged by media, Walton's brother Duane reportedly tried to
discreetly provide Travis with medical and scientific attention. The
Walton brothers would eventually permit the case to be handled by the
UFO investigative organization APRO, led by Jim Lorenzon. This resulted
in an exclusive relationship with the National Enquirer, which was
seeking the "scoop" on the Walton abduction and helping to bankroll
APRO's investigation. The Enquirer, advised by Dr. James Harder of the
University of California at Berkeley, arranged for psychological
examinations and a polygraph test for Travis. The Enquirer would
eventually run a large feature, and APRO touted the case as one of the
most important events in UFO history.
Lie Detection Evidence
A total of thirteen polygraph examinations would ultimately be
administered in conjunction with the case, a prodigious one as far as
the use of polygraph evidence is concerned. A total of nine individuals
were tested, including the seven primary participants as well as
Walton's mother and brother. Eleven of the tests were passed, one (the
original Dalis test) was inconclusive, and one -- the first test of the
primary actor Walton -- was failed.
In evaluating this polygraph evidence, it is important to back up and
consider the validity of lie detection tests in general. Do they work at
all? In the domain of applied psychology, lie detection is referred to
as the psychophysical detection of deception (PDD). The most common PDD
technique is the polygraph, a general term describing tests which
measure and correlate a variety of physiological activities (sweat and
gland, cardiovascular, respiratory activity) using analog
("conventional") or computerized instruments.
The polygraph has always been a controversial topic, and much of the
public -- and many introductory textbooks in psychology courses -- treat
the matter with considerable skepticism. However, the more strident
criticisms of the polygraph were spurred by inadequate earlier
techniques, long since soundly rejected by academic scrutiny.
Contemporary studies have found moderate but significant validity in the
most common of modern techniques, the "Control Question Test" (CQT).
A recent article in the Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness
Psychology reviews the empirical and review literature concerning CQT,
and concludes that, "when the ecologically valid laboratory studies and
the high quality field studies are considered, both indicate high
validity for the CQT." [1]
The Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in its decision in the
U.S. vs. Posado in 1995, overturning "per se" exclusion of polygraph
evidence, gave the following overview of the state of the evidence for
polygraph:
"There can be no doubt that tremendous advances have been made in
polygraph instrumentation and technique in the years since Frye. The
test at issue in Frye measured only changes in the subject's systolic
blood pressure in response to test questions. ... Modern instrumentation
detects changes in the subject's blood pressure, pulse, thoracic and
abdominal respiration, and galvanic skin response. Current research
indicates that, when given under controlled conditions, the polygraph
technique accurately predicts truth or deception between seventy and
ninety percent of the time. Remaining controversy about test accuracy is
almost unanimously attributed to variations in the integrity of the
testing environment and the qualifications of the examiner. ... Further,
there is good indication that polygraph technique and the requirements
for professional polygraphists are becoming progressively more
standardized. In addition, polygraph technique has been and continues to
be subjected to extensive study and publication. Finally, polygraph is
now so widely used by employers and government agencies alike."
And according to another court opinion:
"The predominant format employed in the field of polygraphy is the
'control question' technique ... There is no dispute in this case that
the 'probable lie' version of the control question technique, when
properly employed, is a highly accurate method for detecting deception
and possesses the type of scientific validity that satisfies the
reliability prong of Rule 702. Through numerous field and laboratory
studies, researchers have determined that polygraph examinations using
this technique produce results that have an accuracy rate of
approximately ninety percent. ...
"The most thorough treatment of polygraph admissibility issues can be
found in two district court opinions from Arizona and New Mexico
[Galbreth and Crumby] ... both courts found that polygraph theory and
technique had been tested by the scientific method and repeatedly
validated in field and laboratory studies, subjected to stringent peer
review and extensive publication, shown to have a remarkably low error
rate when properly applied by a skilled polygrapher, enjoyed substantial
acceptance within the scientific community, and was widely used within
government and industry." [2]
Significant, and probably appropriate, obstacles remain before
polygraph evidence finds a widespread and well-defined place in the
courtroom, most notably with respect to the required standardization of
examiner training, and in the ratification of techniques that are
demonstrated proof against any physical and mental "countermeasures"
that may be attempted by fraudulent claimants. However, a picture of
significant validity and progress emerges.
It appears that there is sufficient evidence of the validity of
polygraph testing to justify its careful use as one form of supporting
evidence in the evaluation of UFO and other "extraordinary" claims.
Polygraph results have the possibility of being most effective when used
in multiple witness situations, where test error can be minimized
across multiple subjects, and the possibility of "gross hoax" (i.e. the
probability that the witnesses as a whole are lying about an event) can
be rejected to a potentially high degree of confidence.
However, the responsible use and evaluation of lie detection evidence
requires a careful consideration of which kinds of tests are
well-grounded in scientific validity and which are not.
Overview of the Walton Polygraph Evidence
The initial tests of the six witnesses, performed by Cy Gilson while
Walton was still missing, were CQT-format examinations. The questions he
asked primarily addressed the possibility of some non-extraordinary
foul play at work, but pointedly questioned the witnesses regarding the
veracity of the reported UFO event. As mentioned previously, five of the
six passed, with the one inconclusive result.
In the next test to be performed, a private investigator named John
McCarthy was hired to test Walton relatively soon after his
reappearance. McCarthy ruled Walton deceptive, and the test results were
regrettably suppressed by APRO and the National Enquirer. (This test
will be discussed in detail below.)
A follow-up examination of Walton by George Pfeifer ruled Walton
truthful. After allegations aired by critics, Walton's mother and
brother also took and passed polygraph tests administered by Pfeifer.
Twenty years later, in 1993, Cy Gilson retested key participants Travis
Walton, (foreman and Walton friend) Mike Rogers, and Allen Dalis (the
original "inconclusive" result), using a state-of-the-art
computer-scored CQT methodology. All three passed.
The significance of the unanimous passing of competently administered
CQT examinations by all six witnesses is considerable. Assuming
independent tests, the odds of gross hoax (all participants lying about
the UFO encounter) is less than one-tenth of a percent using the
reasonably conservative figure of 70% for test accuracy, and on the
order of one in a million using the 90% figure suggested by field tests.
In short, relatively strong evidence that some kind of real event took
place. On the basis of such evidence, APRO praised the case as one of
the most important in history.
The Debunker Strikes Back
Media attention attracted both supporters and critics of the UFO
phenomenon. One of the most well-known UFO skeptics, Phil Klass, became
deeply involved in the case, and vociferously denounced it as a hoax.
Klass published numerous white papers on the case, criticizing
witnesses and attributing damaging comments to key players. He would
eventually present his completed criticisms in his books "UFOs -- the
Public Deceived" and later in "UFO Abductions -- A Dangerous Game".
Some of the negative evidence publicized by Klass is worthy of
attention and, at the very least, a raised eyebrow. Most memorably,
Walton's brother Duane made a number of curious comments during an
interview with ufologist Fred Sylvanus during Walton's disappearance,
suggesting that he was convinced Travis had embarked on a great
adventure. For example, when asked if he believed Travis would be
returned, Duane replied: "Sure do. Don't feel any fear for him at all.
Little regret because I haven't been able to experience the same thing."
(Supporters would later characterize this as Duane's attempt to defuse
the popular notion of Travis as a victim, lab rat or hunting trophy.)
But Klass frequently pushed the evidence well past where it was willing
to naturally bend. For example, in his discussion of the Sylvanus
interview, which took place at the search site and involved both Duane
and Mike Rogers, Klass wrote of Rogers (underlined, and in all caps):
"BUT AT NO TIME DURING THE HOUR-LONG INTERVIEW DID ROGERS EXPRESS THE
SLIGHTEST CONCERN OVER WHETHER TRAVIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN INJURED OR
KILLED".
The actual tape includes such comments as these from Rogers: [Recalling
event:] "...we're going to have to go back. I agreed, you know, we
couldn't leave him over there if he was hurt, which he certainly looked
to me like he received some kind of [pause] something, some kind of
injury, I don't know if it just stunned him or hurt him. Since we
haven't found him we don't know but [big sigh, pause]..." And: "...no
tracks, no pieces of clothing, no blood, no nothing. I mean there was no
trace of it, and there was no trace of him. Some of the guys started
crying; I remember I started crying..."
Klass aggressively tried to characterize Walton as a "known" "UFO
freak", while Walton denied any unusual interest in the subject prior to
his abduction. For example, Klass wrote in his June 1976 paper: "...I
asked [Dr. Kandell] whether Travis or Duane had indicated any previous
interest in UFOs during his November 11 discussions and examination. Dr.
Kandell replied: 'They admitted to that freely, that he [Travis] was a
'UFO freak', so to speak ... He had made remarks that if he ever saw
one, he'd like to go aboard.'"
Walton was eventually able to obtain and present Klass' original
transcripts of the conversation, which presents a different picture than
that suggested by Klass' cut and paste quotation: Kandell: They
admitted to that freely, that he was, you know, a "UFO freak", so to
speak. He's interested in it. Klass: Which one? Kandell: Travis. He had
made remarks before that if he ever saw one, he'd like to go aboard,
this and that. So, yes, that was mentioned. That was out. Klass: When
was that? Was that when you and Dr. Saults were there or when more of
the people were there? Kandell: No, that was, I think, subsequently, it
came out. I don't know whether it was that Friday night, or it could
have been that I, that it was in the newspapers, that somebody else
might have mentioned it. Klass: But you heard it from their own lips?
Kandell: I think so. I think so. I can't be 100-percent positive. But if
I didn't, it was discussed. They didn't deny that. That wasn't denied.
Continuing to pound out a negative characterization of key participants,
Klass writes in "UFOs: The Public Deceived":
"Clearly Rogers feared that at least one member of his crew would fail
[a follow-up polygraph] test, regardless of who was accepted as the
examiner. [Investigator Bill] Barry's book quotes Rogers as saying,
"[Witness] Steve [Pierce] told me and Travis that he had been offered
ten thousand dollars just to sign a denial. He said he was thinking
about it... So I told him, 'Then you'll spend the money alone, and
you'll be bruised.'" The latter suggests that Rogers was threatening
Pierce with physical harm if he recanted."
Klass' presentation suggests a hoax organized by Rogers and Walton and
held together with raw physical threats (although the reader is left
with some confusion as to why Rogers would be admitting this to
investigators.) But again, this citation appears in a rather different
light when contrasted with the original passage from which Klass is
quoting (from Barry's book:)
"According to Mike Rogers, 'Steve told me and Travis that he had been
offered ten thousand dollars just to sign a denial. He said he was
thinking about taking it. We asked him, 'Even though you know it
happened, would you deny it just for the money?' He said maybe he would;
he was thinking about it. So I told him, 'Then you'll spend the money
alone, and you'll be bruised.'' "
Klass' creative use of ellipses artfully shifts the context of the
comments. Klass also deceptively injects the term "recant" (with its
connotation of a public confession of error), when clearly Pierce was
talking about falsely denying the event in return for money.
(Bill Barry, whom Klass is quoting, offered a blistering review of
Klass' investigative demeanor, for the record: "His method of dealing
with their evidence was harsh, smug, superior, unfair, and sometimes
worse. And when push came to shove, and evidence could not be impugned,
he simply ignored it and omitted it from consideration.")
Klass eventually focused on his "forest contract theory" for hoax
motive, wherein Walton and Rogers were staging the hoax as a way to get
out of the forest service contract via an "act of God" provision.
According to all parties, Rogers was in fact close to defaulting on the
contract. Klass documents this, citing Forest Service Contracting
Officer Maurice Marchbanks.
However, Klass failed to relay Marchbanks' opinion of the plausibility
of such a motive, as Marchbanks is reported elsewhere stating flatly,
"There was no way such an alleged hoax could benefit Rogers." Forest
Service Contract Supervisor Junior Williams concurred: "He had no reason
-- I didn't see that he had anything to gain, as far as his contract
was concerned, or anything else, to conjure up a story of this kind."
Klass on the Polygraph Evidence
Klass attacked the original Gilson tests on the grounds of insufficient
questioning regarding the UFO incident. He quoted Gilson as saying,
"That one question does not make it a valid test as far as verifying the
UFO incident."
This, however, contradicted Gilson's written word at the time. And in
1993, in preparation for retesting, Mike Rogers asked Gilson to state
for the record whether his opinion of the original tests had changed.
Gilson replied:
"Today, in 1993, I am still of the same opinion that they were valid
examinations and the results were conclusive on the five. Even though
there was only one question asked that related to the UFO sighting, it
was a valid question and the results proved none of you were lying when
stating you saw an object that you believe was a UFO. ... I hope this
letter will satisfy you, and anyone else, that my beliefs in the results
of those examinations, are the same today as they were in 1975."
But however lackluster Klass' case on all these counts, the crown jewel
of his campaign was clearly the discovery of the initial, failed
polygraph test of Travis Walton. On a tip, Klass tracked down John
McCarthy and found himself in the possession of a genuine scoop: a
polygraph test failed by the primary actor Walton and suppressed by the
ufological group APRO and the National Enquirer.
APRO's advisors, such as Dr. James Harder, had felt the test was
inconclusive as a result of Walton's emotional instability. The Enquirer
accepted this and ordered the followup Pfeifer test. Yet such excuses
would ring hollow to the ears of many observers.
In fact, Klass' discovery of the McCarthy test turned many ufologists
and much of the public against the case. For example as recently as
1997, popular ufologist Kevin Randle panned the case as a hoax in his
book The Randle Report, arguing that, due to its proximity to the
original events, the McCarthy test "spoke volumes" about Walton's
truthfulness.
The test would also achieve a sort of urban legend status among UFO
skeptics. For example, Anson Kennedy of Georgia Skeptics was quoted on
Robert Sheaffer's web site as saying:
"But the real 'bombshell,' as Klass describes it in his book, was the
fact that Walton had failed an earlier polygraph examination miserably
and this information had been suppressed by APRO, which had been
proclaiming the Walton case 'one of the most important and intriguing in
the history of the UFO phenomena.' This test was administered by John
McCarthy, who with twenty years of experience was one of the most
respected examiners in the state of Arizona. His conclusion: 'Gross
deception.' Proponents of the Walton case never mention this
examination."
The story, including the embellishments (McCarthy "with twenty years of
experience was one of the most respected examiners in the state of
Arizona") could be traced directly, of course, to Klass.
The McCarthy Test and Polygraph Methodology
Unfortunately, neither Klass nor modern critics such as Randle
seriously address the issue of polygraph methodology. John McCarthy in
1975 was still using what is called the "Relevant/Irrelevant" (RI)
examination format. Test transcripts were forwarded by Allan Hendry of
CUFOS to Dr. David Raskin, a published scholar and recognized authority
on the polygraph, who described the technique as "unacceptable" and
"thirty years out of date".
A cursory examination of the literature readily confirms the degree to
which the RI technique is held in low regard. The aforementioned
academic review of polygraphy states brusquely, "Of the three techniques
discussed in this paper, there seems to be general agreement in the
scientific literature that the Relevant-Irrelevant Test lacks validity".
Crucial is the issue of why, specifically, RI tests have been found to
be unreliable. The same court review that praises CQT as "a highly
accurate method for detecting deception" explains that:
"The relevant/irrelevant technique has been determined by researchers
to produce an unacceptably high number of 'false positive' errors
(because even an innocent subject will recognize the significance of the
relevant question and may react to it) and has generally been discarded
in favor of other techniques that have been shown to have a higher
degree of reliability." [3]
Dr. Charles Honts, another heavily published scholar of PDD techniques,
and also an authority who has testified as an expert witness in key
court cases involving polygraph evidence, concurs that "the
relevant/irrelevant technique has been conclusively shown to be an
invalid technique in published scientific research." [4]
Specifically, "the relevant/irrelevant technique is known to produce a
large number (80+%) of false positive errors (the truthful fail the
test). A failed RI test should be given no weight for any purpose."
In other words, under the right conditions, you would want to bet --
and bet heavily -- that a truthful respondent will fail a RI polygraph
exam.
And the conditions of the McCarthy test are not particularly ideal.
Descriptions of Walton's extreme agitation are universally available,
even from cynical skeptics such as Enquirer reporter Jeff Wells: "Our
first sight of the kid was at dinner in the hotel dining room that
night. It was a shock. He sat there mute, pale, twitching like a
cornered animal. He was either a brilliant actor or he was in serious
funk about something... The kid was a wreck and it was all the
psychiatrist could do to get him ready for the lie-detector expert we
had lined up."
Additionally, the Walton brothers experienced McCarthy as hostile and
disbelieving, which (if true) can also increase the risk of false
positive error. On tape, McCarthy interrupts Walton 28 times, for
example berating him when he is clearly confused about dates, snapping
"Where have you been, in a vacuum?"
In the context of an RI test, these issues simply establish that we
have exceptionally good reasons to discount the results. Klass'
heralding of the "bombshell" McCarthy results, as well as Kevin Randle's
contemporary argument that the McCarthy test "speaks volumes" about
Walton's truthfulness, are in striking contrast to Charles Honts'
comment that a "failed RI test should be given no weight for any
purpose".
The 1993 Gilson Tests
Of the remaining polygraph tests, the most significant are those
administered by Cy Gilson, including the 1993 CQT exams of key players
Walton, Rogers and Dalis. Critics have floated a number of reasons as to
why these tests should (also) be considered suspect. For example, Kevin
Randle cites the opinion of a polygraph examiner who believes that
Walton could have become comfortable with his fraud in the retelling,
and thus passed the followup tests in 1993.
I asked Charles Honts to comment specifically on Randle's suggestion
that the tale gets easier in the retelling. He replied, "I know of no
scientific evidence that suggests that the passage of time, per se,
would affect the validity of the polygraph. In fact the available
research fails to show such effects, but no study has looked at time
intervals in terms of years. ... I think the suggestion that telling a
story over and over would make you comfortable with the story and enable
you to pass the test is most unlikely."
Others have suggested, based on McCarthy's feelings in 1975 that Walton
was trying to consciously "distort" his breathing to beat the test,
that Walton has trained himself in countermeasures to beat polygraph
examinations. To this possibility, Honts replies, "Possible, but very
unlikely. Research has shown that under the proper conditions there are
techniques that people can learn to enable some of them to beat
comparison question test. However, this research also shows two
additional things: Sophisticated training is necessary for the
countermeasures to work, and the computer analysis that Gilson used is
very hard to beat, much harder than the numerical scoring used by
polygraph examiners. In fact the CAPS/CPS computer scoring is THE BEST
COUNTER-COUNTERMEASURE known." (emphasis original.)
Honts was able to provide additional background on the examiner and
technique employed in the tests in question: "The computer analysis
program that Gilson used has been the topic of peer-reviewed scientific
publication and has been shown to be valid see, Kircher and Raskin
(1988) J. Applied Psychology."
"I have known Cy Gilson for about 14 or 15 years. He was a respected
police officer and polygraph examiner while he worked for the State of
Arizona. I have seen his polygraph work in other cases and it has been
of high quality. My impression of Cy Gilson is that he is not given to
wild flights of fancy. I know of nothing that would suggest to me that
he is anything but an honorable and honest man."
Gilson's letter of summary regarding Walton's test can be viewed online at: http://www.anw.com/ fire/CyGilsonReport.htm
Dalis and Rogers received even higher confidence scores, with statistically derived p-values of 99%.
Epilogue
The Gilson tests were conducted during preparation for the 1993 film
adaptation of Walton's experiences, also titled Fire in the Sky,
produced by Paramount Pictures. The tests had been sponsored and
monitored by a skeptical investigator named Jerry Black, who initially
contacted Paramount demanding to know why they were making a movie about
a known hoax. Black reopened an independent investigation into the
case, interviewing such key participants as George Pfiefer, John
McCarthy, Sheriff Marlin Gillespie and the Forest Service officials.
On the heels of the film and the Gilson tests, Walton was able to
present a summary rebuttal to his critics in his 1996 book release (most
notably in the form of an 85 page appendix dissecting his primary
accuser, Klass.) In it he quotes Jerry Black on his eventual assessment
of the case:
"There's no question in my mind that the clincher, as far as Travis
Walton himself is concerned, was his agreeability to take the polygraph
in the face of realizing that he had really nothing to gain and
everything to lose at this late point and date. The film was already
made, he had his money; if he was really lying he would have been a
fool, under the circumstances, to take the test with nothing to gain and
everything to lose. [This] showed me that he had nothing to fear, that
in his mind he knew, he *had to know* that in his mind he was telling
the truth as he knew it. He knew full well that it was going to become
public record. The questions were tight. Everything in the polygraph
just confirmed my total investigation."
So what happened to Travis Walton in the mountains of Arizona in 1975?
The horrific on-craft alien encounter depicted in the 1993 Paramount
film is almost entirely a fictional presentation, although the bulk of
the film, pertaining to the human drama, is broadly accurate and well
presented. Walton's actual memories of his experience include a
frightening but brief and unviolent confrontation with large-eyed alien
beings (with pupils, as opposed to standard abductee "greys",) followed
by an encounter with silent and seemingly bemused humans of exotic
appearance who escorted and tranquilized him. Are these memories -- some
assisted with hypnotic regression -- an accurate and literal reflection
of reality? Like the UFO problem itself, the ultimate explanation of
the Walton disappearance remains a protracted mystery.
1. The Journal of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology, 1997,
Vol. 1, No. 1, 9-32, "Truth or Just Bias: The Treatment of
Psychophysiological Detection of Deception in Introductory Psychology
Textbooks", by Mary K. Devitt, Oklahoma State University, Charles R.
Honts, Boise State University, and Lynelle Vondergeest, University of
North Dakota. Numerous citations and sources.
A fuller excerpt:
"The most commonly used test in the field is the Control Question Test.
We will focus most of our analysis on validity studies of the CQT. ... A
recent review (Honts & Quick, 1995), found four field studies of
the CQT (Honts, 1994b, now in press; Honts, & Raskin, 1988; Iacono
& Patrick, 1991; and Raskin, Kircher, Honts, & Horowitz, 1988)
and two of the CKT (Elaad, 1990; Elaad, Ginton, & Jungman, 1992)
that were able to meet the stringent requirements for a useful field
study described above. Three of the field studies (Honts, 1994; Honts
& Raskin, 1988; Raskin et. al., 1988) produced accuracy rates above
90%. The independent evaluators in the third study (Iacono &
Patrick, 1991) produced a high false positive rate, although the
accuracy rate of the original examiners exceeded 90%.
[...]
"Laboratory Studies Concerning Forensic Settings. A recent
meta-analysis of 15 laboratory studies (Kircher, Horowitz, & Raskin,
1988) of the Control Question Test indicated a wide range of validity
estimates. One study found near chance results, while six of the studies
produced moderate validity estimates, and eight of the studies report
validity coefficients of 0.7 or better. In four of the studies, the
validity coefficients exceeded 0.8. The Kircher et al. meta-analysis
noted that these laboratory studies differed widely in their ecological
validity. Some studies used mock crimes and procedures that closely
modeled field conditions while other studies were very artificial and
used unrealistic procedures. Moreover, the Kircher et al., meta-analysis
indicated that those laboratory studies that most closely modeled field
conditions produced the highest accuracy rates.
[...]
"Although there is controversy, the empirical and review literature
concerning PDD suggests the following conclusions: There is little
support for the Relevant-Irrelevant Test, but this test is in frequent
use only in employment settings. The laboratory and field data
concerning the Control Question Test are mixed. However, when the
ecologically valid laboratory studies and the high quality field studies
are considered, both indicate high validity for the CQT."
2. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, U.S. vs. Posado, citing in particular:
Kircher, J. C., Horowitz, S. W., & Raskin, D. C. (1988).
Meta-analysis of mock crime studies of the control question polygraph
technique. Law and Human Behavior, 12.
Raskin, David C., The Polygraph in 1986: Scientific, Professional and
Legal Issues Surrounding Application and Acceptance of Polygraph
Evidence, 1986 Utah L. Rev. 29, 72 (1986)
3. U.S. District Court, Southern District of Georgia, U.S. vs. Gilliard.
4. Honts suggests a related article on the topic of the
relevant-irrelevant method by Horowitz et al in the first issue of the
1997 vol of the scientific journal Psychophysiology. A selected listing
of Dr. Honts' professional publications and reports on the polygraph is
available online at http://truth.idbsu.edu/honts/cv2.html
More Articles on this Case
Travis Walton
The Walton experience is unequivocally the best documented case of
alien abduction ever recorded. This is the official website of Travis
Walton, and about his UFO abduction case.
APRO Bulletin, Vol. 24 No. 5 (Nov 1975)
On the morning of the 6 th of November, 1975, Arizotians were
electrified by the news that, on the night before, a young Northern
Arizona woodcutter had "disappeared in a flash of light emitted by a
UFO". It is the main attempt of this presentation to set the record
straight on behalf of Travis Walton, who has been harrassed and lied
about by some individuals in the media and UFO buffs as well.
Summary:
Immense, triangular shaped object hovering motionless and silently,
witnessed by four hunters camping in Idaho. The triangle was estimated
to be at least the size of a football field, several hundred feet on all
sides. The object then moved away silently, and was seen to have a
white light at each of its corners and a red strobing light from the
middle.
Full Report
The following recent UFO case comes from Skywatch International, and
the National UFO Reporting Center. A very detailed investigation was
done on the experiences of four hunters camping out in the state of
Idaho. These four men would encounter a huge UFO, turning a restful,
enjoyable hunting trip into a night of terror.. a kind of terror that
still haunts them to this day. This unusually frightening experience
occurred on September 27, 2000 in the central part of Idaho. The four
hunters were old friends, who had visited the same region for over
twenty years, and always looked forward to their Autumn trips.
The actual event began at 9:45 P.M. on a cold evening, as one of the
hunters made a short walk from camp to his pick-up truck to get some
food from his storage chest. As he approached the truck, he was overcome
with a strange feeling..a feeling from above like something was just
not right. Only a few moments would pass before his realized that his
strange feeling had a basis. As he reached into the bed of his truck,
his flashlight illuminated the night sky above him. He was startled to
see something extremely large right above him, where it should not have
been. He fell to his knees from the shock of the sight of the bottom of
an immense, triangular shaped object. The object was filling the dark
sky above..silently and motionless.
His first estimation of the object was that it was at least the size of
a football field, several hundred feet on all sides. The corners were
slightly rounded, and its exterior exhibited a distinct texture. The
size of the object was so immense that it seemed to hide the entire sky
above him. The frightened 43 year old hunter began to yell for the other
three to come outside, and verify that he was not seeing things. The
other three would vividly remember the sound of his voice, a hysterical,
scared voice, calling for help. At first, they thought that a bear was
upon their camp, and was attacking their mules, or worse, their friend.
They rushed to the door of the camper. Nothing could prepare them for
what they were about to see.
Two of the hunters were able to reach outside in time to see the object
overhead, as it slowly began to move away. It moved without a sound
toward a nearby mountain. The two remembered a faint whining sound,
which occurred simultaneously with the glow of lights on the underneath
of the craft. They would then observe a white light, which was visible
at each of its three corners. A red light strobed from the middle of the
belly. Two of the hunters grabbed their binoculars to get a closer
look. They were almost transfixed as they watched the unworldly object
for at least 60 seconds. As the object began to ascend and move up a
narrow canyon in the nearby mountain, the men stated that the craft
moved "like a hockey puck gliding over ice,--very smooth and
unwavering," according to the NUFORC investigative reports.
After the event, one of the hunters who was a pilot would remark that
the craft was "not moving through the atmosphere the way an aerodynamic
body would." Totally stunned by their experience, and frightened to the
point of moving to a motel, three hours away from their campsite. The
NUFORC report would state, "One of the two, the first to witness the
object, spent a very uncomfortable night, lying awake and thinking about
the object he had witnessed hours earlier. He felt keenly on edge, and
startled dramatically on one occasion, for example, when the electric
heater in their room suddenly came on," said NUFORC.
The next morning, the hunters contacted local government authorities,
and the NUFORC offices. They gave all the details of their experience,
including the coordinates of their campsite. As to be expected, nothing
was forthcoming from local government, but NUFORC was on the scene
immediately, and made a full and detailed report. The triangular shape
of the object has been reported many times during UFO sightings, and has
been captured on photo and video. What was the source of this strange,
eerie object which moved across the mountains of Idaho that night? The
case is still listed in the "unexplained" category.
This is an article taken directly from my book, The Love Bite.
One the hallmarks of an abductee is the pattern of emotional
isolation. This behavior can be explained as a result of conditioning,
learned adaptations from the abductee's family members, or reinforced by
the alien handlers. The abductee usually learns early in life not to
talk about "the little people" who come into their bedrooms at night.
The child may talk about their abduction experiences only to be told
that they are just "nightmares". Children often describe the alien
intruders as monsters, who come out of the closet or through the walls.
The children are immediately invalidated when their parents or siblings
tell them there is no such thing as monsters, or aliens for that
matter.
Emotional Isolation and the Maintenance of Secrecy
Some abductees have discovered that the aliens instructed them not
talk about their encounters. It is apparent that aliens go to great
lengths to maintain secrecy, instill false or screen memories into their
victims to cover their true motives.
Our social structure--especially in the Western world--reinforces the
precept that "aliens do not exist" or is only science fiction. The
result of these negating and isolating conditions forces the abductee to
turn inward or act out in rebellion against parents, school, religion
or social structure. The abductee who has been denied validation of
their experience will have a tendency to not trust their own feelings,
stay in denial and even act out in anger. Those who have turned anger
inward will become depressed or even suicidal depending on the extent of
trauma endured.
Post Traumatic Stress
Post traumatic stress disorder is common in those who have had alien
encounters throughout their lives. If a particular event was extremely
traumatic, the characteristic symptoms will be: intense fear, terror,
helplessness and partial or complete amnesia. This may include
re-experiencing the abduction, recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, and
avoidance of stimuli associated with the event and an emotional numbing.
The person may develop insomnia, increased arousal to stimuli (i.e.,
noises in the night), fear of the dark and sleep disorders such as
insomnia and night terrors. In young children, they may re-experience
the trauma through repetitive play. They may exhibit a marked change in
orientation toward the future, for example, a foreshortened future
whereby they do not expect to have a long life, career or marriage. The
psychic numbing or diminished responsiveness to stimuli usually begins
soon after the traumatic event. This emotional anesthesia causes the
abductee to feel detached and estranged from other people.
Other symptoms for traumatized abductee children are angry outbursts,
rebellious acting out behaviors and promiscuity. Extreme phobias of
going to the doctor or dentist, or even preoccupation with horror scenes
(blood and guts) have been reported.
Dissociation and Addictions as Coping Skills
At very young ages the abductee is likely to develop dissociative
coping skills if the trauma or abuse was severe. Oftentimes abuse
already occurs in the abductees' family, compounding the issues of alien
abduction. If the parents are in denial of their own
and their children's, the abductee has a higher probability of
developing unhealthy coping skills such as, emotional isolation,
rebelliousness, tendency toward violence, drug or alcohol addictions,
co-dependency and early promiscuity. Low self- esteem is a natural
by-product of being invalidated from an early age.
Severe forms of personality damage may be later evidenced in
perfectionistic, self-hating, violent, narcissistic tendencies, and
psychopathic or dissociative disorders. (These do not all appear
together and are exhibited in varying degrees) Egotistical grandiosity
is also a symptom of early trauma that has remained unresolved. This is
also seen in some mind control victims who have been programmed into
being "super soldiers". Persons who are extremely sensitive to criticism
have been narcissistically injured and often display symptoms of
grandiosity.
One element that is difficult to work with is the alien mind-control
induced amnesia of the abduction event. The compartmentalized,
dissociated memories of alien encounters are not necessarily trauma
induced as in other human inflicted trauma. This factor makes treatment
difficult unless the therapist, hypnotist or counselor is experienced
in working with such modalities.
Secret Keeping Behavior in Relationships
Unresolved emotional, mental and physical trauma of alien abductions
manifests itself in a myriad of ways. The most common is through
dysfunctional families and relationships. Dysfunctional can be defined
as any behavior that results in unhealthy relationships. Secret keeping
behavior and the covert "no talk" rule about alien encounters forces
the abductee to live a false double life. The avoidance of open and
honest communication and a natural inclination to distrust one's own
feelings thrusts the abductee into dysfunctional relating patterns.
Many abductees have coped quite well considering the forces against
them. I do not want to give the impression that all abductees are in
dysfunctional relationships, but rather the denial and enforced secrecy
of these issues are the culprit that leads to family problems.
Contrary to what one may believe, most abductees have not undergone
hypnosis to recover their memories of alien encounters. Few can afford
professional counseling or hypnosis and even if they can, they usually
avoid it because of the mainstream psychological and medical opinion of
alien abductions. Often going to such professionals who misdiagnosed
them caused greater damage to the individual.
Co-Dependency Issues and Emotional Isolation
One of the most common dysfunctional patterns is co-dependency. This
term was first coined to describe relating patterns of spouses or close
family members of alcoholics, substance abusers or child abusers. The
main tenet of co- dependent behavior is to avoid feelings and open and
honest communication. This behavior is acted out in ways that
perpetuate the abusers' addiction and maintenance of secrecy. These
behaviors include protecting the addict or abuser from his or her
feelings and avoidance of core issues.
Co-dependent persons living with abusers and addicts live their life
as if they were walking on eggshells. They live with a constant fear or
unconscious anxiety not to rock the boat or confront core issues,
which will elicit strong emotions. Very often co-dependents are people
pleasers who go to great lengths to be friendly and liked by all. The
downside of co-dependent relating is the attraction of unhealthy
partners or spouses. (This is reported in a majority of abductee
relationships.)
The unhealthy aspect is the inability and avoidance of being honest
with oneself and others. This is evident by the direct avoidance of
emotional issues or the tendency to skirt around issues. It is as if
they have blinders over their eyes. Without total honesty, a lack of
intimacy ensues; creating an unfulfilling, empty relationship that
perpetuates the vicious cycle of emotional isolation.
This same theme can be addressed to abductees, who enter into
dysfunctional relationships that maintain the secrecy and denial of
abduction issues. The blinders serve the purpose of maintaining secrecy
and avoidance of the emotional pain of the core abduction issues. The
deep and sometimes dark inner truth of their experience--begging to be
heard and healed.
Multigenerational Abductions and Family Issues
Unhealthy coping skills may involve addictions of various types.
Addictions can be the abuse of any substance or repetitive behavior that
serves to keep the person in denial of unresolved psychological and
emotional issues. In this case, avoidance of abduction related trauma,
pain, terror, fear, grief, abandonment and despair of rejection.
When alien abduction occurs multigenerationally, dysfunctional family
issues are compounded. These issues comprise all levels of being;
physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. All levels must be addressed
before healing and integration can occur. I've come across professional
psychologists who claim that the majority of post traumatic stress and
dysfunctional family issues in abductees are not from alien
abductions, but from other more "easily explained" psychological
theories. That may be true in part, but in families where abductions
have occurred for several generations, the denial and trauma of hidden
abductions compounds--and even creates the dysfunctional behaviors.
Resolution and healing of alien abduction related issues can only be
complete when false and misleading psychological "swamp gas" theories
are put to rest and hopefully, disproven.
In many of Barbara's cases where many hypnotic regressions were
conducted, the therapeutic process of the individual extended into many
years. Sometimes daily phone calls were necessary to keep the client
stabilized during extreme emotional processing. Aftercare of hypnotic
regressions is necessary for the complete recovery of the abductee
especially if reality shattering trauma was uncovered.
The Alien Control Factor and The Stockholm Syndrome
The main difference between alien abduction trauma and versus other
trauma- based problems is the added factor of the aliens continued
perpetration of such victimizing activities. Not only do the aliens
continue to contact and abduct the individual, but they also will often
act in ways to prevent the abductee from getting the factual
information they need to heal from these issues. Often abductees change
their attitude concerning their abductors from anger and helplessness
or critical thinking to adoration and compliance, similar to the
"Stockholm" syndrome.
UFO researchers, abduction therapists, psychological and medical
professionals dealing with abductees often overlook this alien "control"
factor. Core issues of abductees cannot fully be addressed until the
control factor of the alien presence is acknowledged. (This includes
acquisition of evidence of alien abductions.)
Health Issues of Abductees
Health issues are a frequent complaint of abductees. The most common
medical anomalies are in the area of gynecological and sexual organs,
severe back pain, miscellaneous allergies, skin rashes, autoimmune
disorders, migraines and endocrine abnormalities. Some abductees are so
affected by their health problems that they are on permanent
disability, not able to work a regular job.
I've encountered situations in which the abductee was suddenly struck
ill as a result of "alien instigated" truth detracting and spiritual
warfare tactics. Unusual health problems such as panic attacks and
anxiety, heart problems, severe back pain, migraines, nausea and extreme
exhaustion have resulted from the abductees' efforts to search for the
truth of their experiences. These blatant health issues and
un-coincidental events and accidents are not simple psychological
self-sabotage, but something much more revealing. The important point
here is not the health issues themselves, but the effects that arise as a
result of abductions and "alien manipulation".
In the year 1967 an Italian immigrant (L.R.) was living in .
He lived in a little room in 92nd Street, rented from an Ukraine
family. The room, about mt.3 x 2,70, was beneath the roof and had a
window looking towards the North-East. And it was this window gave him
the chance to witness a strange phenomenon.
It was a cold Saturday of November 4th 1967, but the weather was
otherwise quite good. And it was about 11.30 p.m. when L.R. came back
home after spending the evening with some Italian friends living in .
As soon as he was in his spartanly furnished room, he started to
prepare a cup of coffee before going to bed. He placed the coffee
machine on the gas-ring and waiting for the coffee to come through,
smoking a cigarette, and looking out of his window. He could see the sky
and part of the ,
at that moment iced-up, running alongside the Riverside Municipal Golf
Course far from the window - about 1500 meters as the crow flies.
Just a few minutes of contemplation of the landscape…then, suddenly,
L.R. spotted a brilliant light in the dark sky. It came from the East
headed fast towards the North and moving on, perpendicular to his point
of observation. At first, he thought it was a aeroplane, because the
airport was not far away, but its path and its behavior attracted his
attention.
In fact the brilliant dot started to become lower. Then it stopped,
starting to emit an intense pulsating light. He noticed now its globular
shape. The size was double that of a car’s headlight. The light was now
fixed in the dark sky emanating a pulsating reddish light. Suddenly the
light went off. And the object was no longer visible. But in the
position where the object should have been, a bright blue ring appeared,
becoming bigger and bigger while it was directed towards the ground
until it disappeared. This phenomena of the rings was repeated 3 times.
Then the object re-appeared with its reddish pulsating light.
It remained there for about 10 minutes. It was about 11.45 p.m. when
another extremely faint light came away from the main object and rapidly
moved towards the ground in an oblique path. At this point L.R.
switched off the light in his room, turned off the gas-ring, and full of
fear and curiosity, took his place again at the window.
The little object was now at about the level of 500 meters. It started
to slow down, almost stopping, then started again to slow down, still
headed towards the ground. Now L.R. could see it clearly. It was round,
terribly squashed at the poles. It was a silver color. It emanated a
soft violet light. It rotated slowly on itself and emitted a buzzing
sound like an electric transformer. It flew over the Saskatchewan river
and landed on the grass of the Riverside Municipal Golf Course - far
from his window - about 1.500 meters as the crow flies. There, the light
of the object went out. It remained extinguished for about 5 minutes.
Then it lit up again and took off towards the main object, still fixed
in the same point as before. When the little object reached the main
object, it was literally swallowed by the main object. Then, it started
to move slowly, then fast, at the same time that light became more
brilliant and pulsating, then it disappeared towards the North.
The day after, November 5th, Sunday, L.R. woke up early and looked in
the newspaper for some news about the phenomenon. He couldn't find any
news, so he decided to look at the location of the landing. He needed
about half an hour to find, on the grass, the traces of the landing: a
ring of 5 meters of squashed grass. At a distance of about two meters
from the ring's edge there were some holes in the ground of about 10 cm.
in diameter. He was leaving the spot when a twinkling on the grass
attracted his attention. A piece of metal peeped out among the blades of
grass. It was a square plate like copper, with strange characters and
writing engraved on it. The size of the plate was cm. 17,3 wide by cm.
12,5 high. Thickness: mm 1 about. He took the plate home with him.
In the days that followed he looked again for a story in the
newspapers, but still didn’t find anything. He was afraid and he didn’t
know what was better to do. At last he decided not to declare the
phenomena (would anyone have believed his story ?)to the police because
he was in a foreign country, because he was an immigrant and because he
didn’t wish to have problems with his passport.
Six years later he was able to come back to Italy. And he brought the plate with him.
I think it was approximately in the year 1976 (or maybe 1977) when I
read this story in an Italian magazine. The black & white photo of
the plate published beside the article had attracted my attention. After
some telephone calls to the magazine I obtained the telephone numbers
of Mr. L.R. who was living in Southern Italy. Thus, I got in telephone
contact with him. He confirmed the story and told me he was not
interested in analyzing the plate. It was just like a lucky mascot for
him stored in his strongbox and this interest about his story was
starting to disturb him. Moreover, he didn't have much interest in UFOs
and related matters. So, after this conversation, we agreed, I arranged
to send a friend of mine, living closer to his town, with the task of
taking a photo of this strange plate.
Since then I didn’t have any further contact with him. As far as I
know, no other researchers have ever studied or done research on this
plate. And during all these years no other magazine or newspaper has
ever written a single word about this story.
I can just offer a couple of personal simple terrestrial explanations:
I think that piece of metal could have been left there intentionally.
The UFO occupants wanted someone from this planet to see the event and
investigate the spot. In fact, the finding, without the sighting, would
have not stirred up any curiosity and surely the plate would have ended
in the rubbish sack of the Municipal Riverside Golf Course gardeners.
It is funny to think that whilst on the 4th November in Edmonton this
plate was left on the grass of a popular golf course; a few months
before, on the 3th June, in , a little town in ,
an independent group inaugurated the first UFO platform in the world.
The sign beside the pad reads: "The zone beneath the World's First UFO
Landing Pad was named "international" by the Town of St. Paul as a
symbol of our faith that mankind will keep the outer universe free from
national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for
all intergalactic beings, all visitors from Earth or elsewhere are
welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul." Beautiful,
romantic, full of good intentions and unattainable. I do not think that
today it would be possible to write the same concept somewhere else
easily.
At that time the Minister of the Canadian Defense was Paul Hellyer and
he was a guest of honour at the opening. He attended because he found
the idea of a UFO platform innovative and progressive but he thought the
topic was not important from the political point of view. He considered
it a part of the fantasy world rather than part of reality. But now,
after almost 40 years, Paul Hellyer has drastically changed his mind.
Last year, in fact, he was a guest speaker in Toronto at the conference
“Exopolitics Toronto: A Symposium on UFO Disclosure and Planetary
Direction”. It is not my intention to convince anyone what UFOs are, if
alien life forms exist or are visiting Earth, I am aware this is a
controversial matter between normal people. I am just offering this
story in an attempt to provide unbiased information for research
purposes or for those just interested in the subject.
It must be added here that we earthlings have sent small and large
plaques,(artefacts and even video recordings) into space (1972, 1973 and
1977) with the intention of letting our existence be, and I see no
reason why the contrary shouldn't be the case.
UFO 'tentacles' are propulsion plasma beams, researcher says
Steve Hammons
January 12, 2009
[This article originally appeared on the (link) site.]
The "tentacle" appearance of an unidentified flying object (UFO),
such as one reported over a wind turbine farm near Conisholme, England,
on Jan. 4, 2009, may have been "constantly changing, torque-generating
plasma beams" related to an exotic propulsion system.
An experienced American scientific researcher has proposed that the
"jellyfish" or "octopus" visual effect that some witnesses have reported
in the UK and United States could actually be what is called a
"magnetoplasmadynamic" or "magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)" field.
Ray Stanford, a pioneer in studies of UFOs by use of optical and
electronic instrument systems said that, "Although some UFO-generated
physical phenomena may, through human mind's ever-interpreting 'lens,'
look 'organic' (as though what was observed is something alive), that
absolutely is not the case."
According to Stanford, this tentacle-like effect is "most often and
readily visible when a craft is either slowing down or moving very
slowly over an uneven surface."
And, he prefers the term "anomalous aerial objects (AAOs)" to the more common term "UFO."
JELLYFISH EFFECT
Stanford says there is often a "pulsing" visual effect associated
with some anomalous objects in our skies, but the "jellyfish" appearance
is not the object itself.
He has even seen this effect himself and filmed it on several occasions.
Stanford stated, "The 'jellyfish' phenomenon (contracting and
expanding at a rate highly reminiscent of a jellyfish pulsating in
water) was first filmed (8 mm daylight movie) by me at 12:55 in the noon
hour of Sept. 18, 1956."
He recalled, "Three of us there about ½ mile from 'Giant Rock' [in
southern California's Mohave Desert] each saw the phenomenon surrounding
the descending craft, until two jets from Edwards Air Force Base chased
it away. And even as we watched, we compared it to each other as
looking like a jellyfish pulsing in water."
However, Stanford and his associates felt they knew what it was.
"Fortunately, we had enough background in science that we realized it
was really a pulsating magnetoplasmadynamic (some use the term
'magnetohydrodynamic') field, visible due to light-emitting plasma
(and/or, simply ions) contouring the object's magnetic field."
ANOTHER EXPERT'S VIEWS
He explained, "The pulses, per se, occurred mostly during the aborted
descent. How so? I asked Dr. Jean-Pierre Petit about that during the
1976 CUFOS [Center for UFO Studies] conference in Chicago. I spoke there
about my project's studies of UFOs using optical and electronic
instruments at Dr. J. Allen Hynek's request."
Stanford also noted, "Petit was taking questions during his very
important presentation titled 'Magnetohydrodynamic(MHD) Aerodynes' (See
pages 201-233, Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference). Had UFOlogers
at-large studied Petit's paper, they could be much farther along in
understanding UFO propulsive physics."
Stanford said that Petit "explained that in steady flight, conditions
are such that MHD flow is stabile and shock-free, but in, for example,
descent, this must be constantly altered for several reasons. Resultant
instabilities of the MHD flow create shock disturbances which must be
constantly damped, so we see the pulsed interplay between increasing
instabilities and decreasing instabilities in the MHD flow around the
craft."
Stanford added, "It looks as though a craft is breathing, but that is
only an interpretation the human mind makes in searching for analogs.
In such case, it is a big misinterpretation. Likewise for the
'tentacles,' which are really only constantly-changing,
torque-generating plasma beams. But, they can bend under the 'Lorentz
force' and other forces – see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_force – which are most often and
readily visible when a craft is either slowing down or moving very
slowly over an uneven surface."
MOVING FORWARD
The explanations provided by Stanford and other scientific
researchers go a long way to increase understanding about some aspects
of unusual or unconventional objects or craft observed and reported by
witnesses.
Other elements of the phenomena continue to be somewhat unclear and
possibly subject to national and global security considerations.
For average people, legitimate researchers, the news media, public
safety officials and others, available information that seems credible
continues to help us understand the phenomena of UFOs.
The history, current ongoing activities and future developments
involving UFOs seem to be interesting and thought-provoking for many
people around the world. And, more thorough and responsible reporting by
the international news media is helping clarify the factors involved.
No matter what the levels of knowledge and information available
about this subject, there seem to be indications that the topic of UFOs
will be with us for the foreseeable future.
As more developments occur, and more understanding is achieved, the meanings of the UFO phenomena may become more evident.
NOTE TO READERS: For more information, click here to visit the and sites and have a look around.
When
dozens of people in Erath County, Texas spotted a half mile-long UFO in
the skies above them in January 2008, a couple of area residents turned
to local history books for clues about what happened. Located 80 miles
southwest of Fort Worth, the neighboring towns of Stephenville and
Dublin lie in the very midst of what has been, historically, a hotbed
for UFO activity. In fact, it has recently come to light that 56 years
before the famous Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash of 1947, the tiny town
of Dublin was the site of a Roswell-like event, involving an aerial
explosion of a UFO, followed by the discovery of strange debris
containing mysterious, undecipherable writing.
Saturday,
June 13, 1891, was a quiet summer day in Dublin, which had a population
of just over 2,000 people. One of town’s major industries, the Wasson
& Miller flour mill and cotton gin, had already wound down
operations for the week. As evening came, a number of local residents
were outdoors near the gin, walking and otherwise enjoying the leisurely
summer weekend. Among the persons in the vicinity, the Dublin newspaper
later reported, was an unnamed “gentleman” who witnessed an event like
few others in the history of human affairs.
Front page of Dublin Progress, June 20, 1891
The
unidentified man, described by the newspaper as a generally trustworthy
witness, observed a bright, oblong-shaped object hovering about 300
feet in the sky above the gin. Although referred to as a “meteor,” the
UFO’s strange behavior suggested that it was something entirely
different. Struggling to describe the strange object in the terminology
of an era before air travel, the witness stated that it looked like “a
bale of cotton suspended in the air after having been saturated in
kerosene oil and ignited, except that it created a much brighter light,
almost dazzling those who perceived it.” While the general appearance
was like a cotton bale, the observer gave no indication of the
dimensions or overall size of the object. Apparently, he was so
frightened by the UFO that he hastily withdrew from the scene before
making any sort of guess at the object’s dimensions.
Especially
striking about this account is the extreme intensity of light that
emanated from the UFO. A kerosene-sparked flame would certainly not be
bright enough to be said to “dazzle” viewers who stood several hundred
feet away. This object, hovering in the sky above Dublin, exhibited a
“much brighter light” than a conventional fire. The intense light may
have been a sign that the air vehicle was in some kind of distress.
Perhaps a fire had broken out on board the craft or something had caused
it to overheat and build toward an explosion.
The
observer noted that the dazzling object remained in the sky for an
unspecified length of time and then, with a tremendously loud sound like
that of a bombshell, the UFO suddenly exploded, violently hurtling
metallic fragments of a most unusual character to the ground below and
burning to a crisp all the surrounding grass and vegetation. The sound
of the explosion was so loud that “nearly everyone in that portion of
the city” heard it, according to the newspaper.
A
more precise description of the object prior to the explosion is not
available, we are told, because the observer was so badly frightened by
what he saw that he “hastily” ran away and hid. Embarrassed by his fear
and lack of scientific curiosity, he did return to the area the next
day, but because of the initial instinct to flee, according to the
newspaper account, “it was utterly impossible to obtain an accurate
account of the dimensions and general appearance” of the UFO prior to
the explosion.
The
eyewitness must have had a restless night’s sleep thinking about the
amazing sight his eyes had beheld that evening. He was certainly still
intensely curious, and early on Sunday Morning, June 14, 1891, he
returned to the scene of the fiery explosion he had witnessed. What he
found was perhaps even more frightening to him than the events of the
night before.
Some
historical facts make the believability and extraterrestrial nature of
the Dublin exploding UFO very compelling, even for skeptics. At the
time, people did not have concepts of unearthly beings, space craft, or
even air craft. One must imagine that any type of contact or witnessing
of a possible would be depicted in terms of what people of that time
knew or had previously experienced. Simple folk of that time would have
explained such an event in terms that they knew, floating cotton bales
glowing brighter than burning kerosene or similarly. Such a report would
be akin to the way Ezekiel described the biblical “wheel in the middle
of a wheel” and “like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of
lamps”. This Dublin event was a full seven years before H.G. Wells had
written War of the Worlds, and the first widespread depictions of alien
beings visiting Earth had emerged to the general public. This event was
one year prior to the earliest known version of extraterrestrials first
described in The Germ Growers (1892), by Robert Potter. [Ed. See:
Wikipedia reference, "Notable invasion literature" in Invasion
Literature.]
Strewn
across a field for many yards were “fragments of the most remarkable
substance ever known to explode.” Amidst the completely burned grass,
weeds, and other vegetation around the area were numerous fragments of
what appeared to be metal of a leaden color. In addition, there were
“peculiar stones” resembling the lava fragments thrown out by volcanic
eruptions. Clearly, the physical evidence lying in this debris field
indicated that what exploded here was something other than a meteor.
Still, the most amazing find was yet to be made.
As
the witness combed through the metallic and lava-like debris, he came
across several small fragments of a paper-like substance with printed
writing on them. They almost seemed like scraps from a newspaper, except
for one important difference – the language was of a character unknown
to anyone. Gazing in wonder at the strange writing, the observer became
aware that “the language in both was entirely foreign to him, and, in
fact, no one has yet been found who has ever seen such a language
before.”
Clearly,
this part of the story had a deeply emotional impact on the eyewitness,
as the newspaper reporter said he “worked himself up to such a pitch of
excitement.” In fact, he seemed in a “bewildered fancy” as he recalled
the strange debris that he saw littering the area around the Wasson
& Miller flour mill and cotton gin.
In
a bizarre twist, the newspaper reporter asked to see the scraps with
the mysterious writing on them, but the witness became so emotionally
overwrought that he was unable to comply with the reporter’s request. He
did not even seem to “grasp” the reporter’s desire to be allowed to see
the UFO debris.
Slowly
over time, the excitement surrounding this amazing incident in Dublin,
subsided, and the local residents went back to the harsh reality of
daily life on the Texas plains. Six years went by and then another
unearthly UFO crash occurred less than 100 miles away in the town of
Aurora, Texas, that certainly caused Erath County residents to remember
1891. In the Aurora case, the Dallas Morning News reported, “About 6
o'clock this morning [April 19, 1897] the early risers of Aurora were
astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been
sailing around the country. It was traveling due north and much nearer
the earth than before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order,
for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour, and
gradually settling toward the earth. It sailed over the public square
and when it reached the north part of town it collided with the tower of
Judge Proctor's windmill and went into pieces with a terrific
explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the
windmill and water tank and destroying the judge's flower garden. The
pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard and,
while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been
picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.”
The
Aurora UFO crash has been called the Roswell incident of Texas, and
yet, one could legitimately argue that the 1891 event in Dublin is
likely the oldest UFO crash event ever recorded in modern times. The
Aurora event, along with the Great Texas Airship sightings of the middle
1890s, has been well documented and reported often, but the Dublin
event remains very much a mystery to most UFO researchers and to the
general public.
Some
historical facts make the believability and extraterrestrial nature of
the Dublin exploding UFO very compelling, even for skeptics. At the
time, people did not have concepts of unearthly beings, space craft, or
even air craft. One must imagine that any type of contact or witnessing
of a possible would be depicted in terms of what people of that time
knew or had previously experienced. Simple folk of that time would have
explained such an event in terms that they knew, floating cotton bales
glowing brighter than burning kerosene or similarly. Such a report would
be akin to the way Ezekiel described the biblical “wheel in the middle
of a wheel” and “like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of
lamps”. This Dublin event was a full seven years before H.G. Wells had
written War of the Worlds, and the first widespread depictions of alien
beings visiting Earth had emerged to the general public. This event was
one year prior to the earliest known version of extraterrestrials first
described in The Germ Growers (1892), by Robert Potter. [Ed. See:
Wikipedia reference, "Notable invasion literature" in Invasion
Literature.]
1891 city map section of Dublin, TX showing crash site at W. T. Miller Flour Mill & Cotton Gin in lower left hand corner.
1896 city map section of Dublin, TX showing crash site at W. R. Wasson Flour Mill & Cotton Gin in lower left hand corner.
The
recent sightings near Stephenville and Dublin, Erath County, Texas,
have sparked a new or renewed sense of wonder in many hearts and minds
not only in the immediate area, but across the country and world. Some
of the "old timers" of ufology are a bit amazed that the Erath phenomena
are being taken so seriously by the routine media, whereas twenty years
ago television reporters would have at least given a humorous wink with
their story, if not total ridicule. The times are a changing. The Erath
event in January 2008 was witnessed by many conservative Christian
farmers and folks in a rural community, but also by university
professors, respected business people and law enforcement officers.
There are yet many more that will not go on record as witnesses because
of past connotations associated with being a "UFO nut" for those with
the courage to come forward. However, this latest occurrence could truly
be a turning point in how the general public and mainstream science
begins to perceive the possibility of extraterrestrial or
extra-dimensional visitations, whatever they may turn out to be. In the
minds of many nonbelievers, MUFON has proven to be a scientifically
viable organization, handling the investigation in a professional manner
with no bias and drawing no conclusions as to what it was.
So
what about the military flip flop on the recent event? It is also a bit
unique for a sighting. Air Force Major Karl Lewis of the 301st Fighter
Wing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Ft. Worth essentially
admitted a short-term cover up of the phenomenon. He initially said that
it most likely was an illusion caused by setting sunlight reflecting
off of two commercial airliners. He stated later that he should not have
said anything like that. Lewis also admitted disinformation when
professing that the Air Force did not have any military operations in
the area at that time. He supposedly wasn't in the loop and later said
that a communications error led him to not know that there were ten F-16
fighter jets over Stephenville that night. How often does the U.S.
military have ten F-16s in an exercise over a populated area? Being a
resident of Stephenville myself for about 25 years, I recall military
jets flying over town about three or four times a year, and then only a
single plane or two at the most. Nothing has been stated why the
military, both large Army helicopters refueling at the municipal
airport, confirmed F-14 Navy Tomcats, confirmed F-16s, a possible B-52
bomber and other military craft continued operations in the area were
heavy for the week or two following the January 8th event. Major Lewis
stated that it was just a military exercise in the Brownwood Military
Operating Area (MOA) on that night, after his official initial denials.
It can be easily noted on an FAA map that Stephenville and the area to
the East toward Selden are well outside the MOA described. This is the
area where, as pilot Steve Allen and others have described, F-16s were
chasing an approximately 2000 foot long craft that traveled around an
incredible speed of 3000 miles an hour, which stopped, turned,
disappeared, then reappeared. It is quite understandable indeed how
military officials could be confused and suffer communication problems
in the wake of something this monstrous and dramatic. Almost half a mile
long, a quarter mile wide, and traveling over Mach 4! That was one
huge, fast vehicle, and “nothing of this world”, as Allen stated.
A
long video of the craft and part of the event has surfaced on the
internet, reportedly taken by David Caron. This video is posted on
Angelia Joiner's website http://stephenvillelights.com. Angelia is the
reporter who broke the story in the local Stephenville Empire Tribune.
She was interviewed and featured in international media including Larry
King Live and major network news programs, along with Allen, the
businessman and pilot who first came forward with the story publicly and
several others. Mainly because of my political office on the
Stephenville City Council, I also was interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning
America and for a future episode of History Channel’s UFO Hunters. At
least fifty other credible witnesses have been interviewed by MUFON at
the time of this writing. Allen and several others state that the Caron
video is a true and accurate depiction of what they witnessed, but that
the craft traveled very fast at one point. The video seems to show the
object prior to the time it was being chased by F-16s and its
disappearance. The multicolored lights appear to be laser or plasma in
nature, but that is left to interpretation, and they look like neon
worms dancing in the night sky. Was this an extraterrestrial craft,
plasma craft from our future, inter-dimensional portal ship, or just a
bunch of laser lights on some type of cloaking device of a military
stealth-type secret weapon? It certainly happened, what ever it was, and
may never be fully disclosed or vetted publicly.
There
are now other reports of Erath county sightings coming in, or being
released to the public. A small, dark oval with multicolored lights
traveling up the Bosque river, then hovering over a group of about
twenty college students by an evening campfire occurred in March of
1982. There was absolutely no noise or wind as would be expected from
even a "silent" helicopter. As the object hovered, it was not an
airplane. The object accelerated at great speed up at an angle after
hovering for over a minute. Another craft, exactly as described by Allen
and the current witnesses, was reported to the sheriff of Erath County
in 1969 by several local residents. Nothing was investigated. Other
events and crafts have been spotted over the years, some relating to the
many diaries in the area (Erath is the largest dairy county in Texas
and seventh in the nation). Some events have been tied to Native
American activities near the border with Comanche County on Erath's West
side, others to the Comanche Peak nuclear plant near Glen Rose, and
even more around abandoned military bases in the area. Is North Texas a
hotbed of activity? If so, why? How long has this been going on? A
follow-up study is being done on events passed down through the ages
witnessed by members of the Comanche and Cherokee tribes in the area.
Sightings are still reported from these Native Americans today. More to
come on this.
The
event recently uncovered about the 1891 crash may be the oldest on
record in modern times (read attached transcription). This craft was
spotted and exploded in Dublin in 1891, a full six years before the
Aurora, Texas crash and subsequent burial of an assumed ET entity. The
Aurora event, along with the Texas Ships of the 1890s, has been well
documented and reported often. It may be surmised by some that the
Aurora incident and other sightings around 1897 are attributed to the
testing of dirigibles. The Dallas Morning News reported in 1897 that
Stephenville farmer C. L. McIlhany (for whom a street in town is now
named) actually spoke with the pilot and engineer of one of grounded
airships. Their names were S.E. Tilman and A.E. Dolbear, and they were
experimenting with the dirigible for an investment group out of New
York. "They are confident that they have achieved a great success and
that within a short time navigation of the air will be an assured fact,"
said McIlhany. Between April 13 and 17, 1897, there were 38 reported
sightings of "airships" in 23 counties, mostly in North Central Texas,
the location of Erath County. The late 1890s were also a busy time for
dirigible invention testing across Europe. The “Golden Age” of airships
did not actually begin until 1900. The bicycle making Wright brothers
first flew in 1903. However, the descriptions of the 1891 incident do
not match any possible connection to dirigible testing, and the Dublin
crash appears to never have been reported, at least on a widespread
scale.
The
year 1891 was a busy time for Erath County. The first Dr. Pepper
bottling plant was built in Dublin, Texas. Dublin had tried to become
the Erath county seat, but the voter began building the courthouse in
Stephenville that year alsox. The Miller grist mill and cotton gin was
nine years old.
Some
other details of interest from the Dublin Progress story need to be
elucidated. The description of “peculiar stones and pieces of metal, all
of a leaden color, presenting much the appearance of the lava thrown
out by volcanic eruptions” is intriguing. The slag description is
similar to other crash site artifacts, such as the one in the crash near
Chihuahua in 1974. Metal slag appearing to be molten and cooled
aluminum was discovered. Should samples of the leaden color metal ever
be obtained from the mill site (and they probably still would be around
somewhere under the soil surface), they could be tested to determine
elemental content, pyrolytic history, and alloy composition.
The
Progress witness described the craft first as a meteor and then as a
cotton bale suspended in the air. It should also be noted that cotton
bales in 1891 were much larger than they are today. Various sizes were
used anywhere from as large as 10 x 10 x 10 feet to much smaller or
larger, but usually big and bulky. A cotton compactor was patented in
1891 to make the standard bale about 55 inches by 22 inches by 33 inches
and about 500 pounds known to farmers later, but this type compacter
could not have been working in Dublin at that time the same year it was
patented. The craft in question was probably several feet wide and long
like the larger bales at the time.
The
mill in Dublin still stands intact at the crash site. The railroad and
depot is no longer on the west side of the mill, but is now replaced by
small livestock field and a small creek. Sackville Street on the maps
attached is now called West Park Street. The Dublin museum curators say
that the mill is schedule for restoration and preservation as soon as
funds are obtained. Should there be any excavation of the soil around
the mill, it would be a good time to get out the metal detector and look
for slag or unusual artifacts. I guess I’ll dig mine out of the garage
and be ready. Perhaps some wealthy benefactor might consider giving a
restoration grant with first archeological rights to whatever is dug up
from the area. Manuscript fragments in the strange language described
would long be dissolved, but may be in someone’s attic chest around
Dublin. In any case, we can all glean from these events that the area
around Erath County has been a source of UFO activity for at least 117
years or more. We’ll keep our eyes on the skies around here.
Transcription of June 20, 1891 Dublin Progress news article (page 4)
METEROIC EXPLOSION
A Meteor Explodes in the City—An Eye Witness Describes the Scene to a Progress Reporter—Scared.
Quite
a little excitement was created last Saturday night by the bursting of
what is supposed by those who were present to have been a meteor, near
Wasson & Miller’s gin. Quite a number witnessed the explosion and
nearly everyone in that portion of the city heard the report eminating
[sic] therefrom, which is said to have sounded somewhat like the report
of a bomb-shell. Our informant (who, though a little nervous at times,
is a gentleman who usually tells the truth, but did not give us this
statement with a view to its publication) says he observed the meteor
when it was more than three hundred feet in the air, before bursting,
and that it bore a striking resemblance to a bale of cotton suspended in
the air after having been saturated in kerosene oil and ignited, except
that it created a much brighter light, almost dazzling those who
percieved [sic] it. The gentleman in question seems to have been so
badly frightened that it was utterly impossible to obtain an accurate
account of the dimensions and general appearance of this rare
phenomenon, but we are convinced from his statements that his position
at the time must have been very embarrassing and that very little time
was spent in scientific investigations. However, on the following
morning he returned to the scene so hastily left the previous night, to
find the weeds, grass, bushes and vegetation of every description for
many yards around the scene of the explosion burned to a crisp, also
discovering a number of peculiar stones and pieces of metal, all of a
leaden color, presenting much the appearance of the lava thrown out by
volcanic eruptions. He also picked up some small fragments of manuscript
and a scrap, supposed to be part of a newspaper, but the language in
both was entirely foreign to him, and, in fact, no one has yet been
found who has ever seen such a language before, hence no information
could be gained from their examination. At this juncture your reporter
requested that he be shown these wonderful fragments of such a
miraculous whole, but the narrator had worked himself up to such a pitch
of excitement that it was impossible to get him to grasp the
significance of our request, and were compelled to leave him a victim to
his own bewildered fancy and to ruminate the seemingly miraculous story
he had just related. Thus was a repotorial [sic] zealot denied the boon
of seeing fragments of the most remarkable substance ever known to
explode near Wasson & Miller’s gin.
P.S.
Since the above was put in type we learn that our reporter was given
the above information by a contributor to the Dublin Telephone, but the
information came too late to prevent its insertion in this paper.
Bibliography and Acknowledgment
Dublin Progress, June 20, 1891.
Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1897.
Dallas Morning News, February 4, 2008.
Stephenville Empire Tribune, January 11, 14, & 20, 2008.
Abilene Reporter News, January 23, 2008.
USA Today, January 23, 2008.
Torres, Noe and Uriarte, Ruben, Mexico’s Roswell, Virtual Bookworm Publishers, 2007.
Chariton, Wallace O. The Great Texas Airship Mystery, Republic of Texas Press, 1990.
Lattimore, Sarah Catherine. Incidents in the History of Dublin: Gathered from
Participants and Eye-Witnesses, Press of the Dublin Progress, 1987.
(original date of publication: 1913).
“Air Force Alters Texas UFO Explanation”, National Public Radio, January 24, 2008.
“A Guide for Cotton Bale Standards”, American Cotton Council, 1982.
Depicted Special Use Airspace (SUA), Brownwood Military Operating Area,
Federal Aviation Administration,
Holy Bible, King James Version, 1611.
Interviews with Clark Field Airport personnel (Stephenville, TX), January 2008,
by Mark Murphy
Interviews with Steve Allen and witnesses wishing to remain anonymous, January 2008,
by Mark Murphy
Interview with Dublin Museum officials, March 2008, by Mark Murphy
One of the better documented cases of a UFO landing, and leaving
evidence of landing occurred in Socorro, New Mexico on April 24th, 1964.
,
debunker turned proponent called it "one of the classics of UFO
literature." On the evening of that day at about 5:45 P.M., patrolman ,
a five year veteran of the Socorro Police Department was involved in a
high speed chase of a black Chevy going north on U.S. 85 when he heard
an extremely loud noise that changed from very high frequency to very
low frequency and then stopped. He then saw a flame in the south-western
horizon and became concerned that perhaps a dynamite shack that was
owned by Socorro's mayor may have exploded. Zamora discontinued his
pursuit, and turned off the road onto a rough gravel road leading to the
direction that he could see the flame. He later described the flame as
blue and orange, from top towards the bottom, being narrower at the top.
Zamora had to travel slowly up a steep incline, but when he reached the
top he saw a shiny object between 150 - 200 yards from his position.
His first impression was that it was an over turned car, but upon
further inspection, he realized it was an egg shaped object that
appeared to be made of aluminum foil or some similar type of shiny
material.
Then he saw two figures standing beside the object.
They appeared normal in shape but diminutive, either "small adults or
large kids." One of the figures turned and looked at the car and
appeared startled, sort of jumping as it saw him. The pair seemed to be
wearing some type of white coveralls. Zamora had to maneuver his car
around the incline to reach the location and lost sight of the two and
the craft for a few moments. When he reached the spot, the craft took
off into the sky, making a roar that was "not like a jet." He was able
to spy markings on the side of the craft, which looked like a stick
arrow pointing up over a horizontal line enclosed in a semi-circle. Much
later, UFO author Jacques Vallee would identify this symbol as the
Arabic astrological sign for Venus.
As the odd colored flames
came shooting out of the object, Zamora ran and hid behind his car.
(Sacorro's finest) I'm joking, but it should be noted that as Zamora ran
for protection behind his car, he lost his prescription glasses, which
may have caused him to misidentify the markings or ensignia on the side
of the UFO. The object lifted vertically to some height, and then took
off horizontally "travelling very fast." Zamora said the craft left
behind a smoldering circle, the burnt plants were oddly cold to the
touch.
Shortly after Zamora was joined by Sgt. M.S. Chavez of
the New Mexico State Police, and they both checked the area where the
craft had rested, finding indentations there. The indentations were
still there when Hynek arrived. "I visited the site several days later
and verified the landing marks and charred plants. Chavez had, he told
me in a long interview, verified the marks and the burned greasewood
plants, which had still been smoldering at the time he first met Zamora
at the site." And while Dr. Hynek was unable to convince the air force
to make an in-depth investigation into the Socorro event, he personally
continued to look into the affair for over a year. "My original
investigations, directed toward breaking apart Zamora's account by
seeking mutual contradictions in it and also to establish Zamora as an
unreliable witness, were fruitless," wrote Hynek. "I was impressed by
the high regard in which Zamora was held by his colleagues, and I am
personally willing today to accept his testimony as genuine,
particularly since it does fit a global pattern."
As
impressive as Zamoras story was, this in no way held back the debunkers
from attacking every aspect of the case. Dr. Donald Menzel, a famous UFO
debunker whose name appears on the infamous MJ-12 list, stated that the
speeding motorist who Zamora had been chasing was a decoy who led the
patrolman to the remote area, then used a walkie-talkie to signal
co-conspirators, who released a phony flying saucer attached to a
balloon. The laughable theory was laid to rest by Hynek, who pointed out
that the craft left travelling west, while there was a strong wind from
the south that day. Phillip Klass, another notorious debunker,
dismissed the entire incident because the landing mark indentations did
not correspond to the symmetrical landing legs of a NASA spacecraft. I
suppose that even this theory made Klass realize how ridiculous he
sounded, as he later suggested that the entire incident was a hoax,
conspired between Officer Zamora and Sacorro's mayor (whose property the
craft landed on) for the purpose that they would try and make the
landing site a tourist attraction.
What the debunkers did not
take notice of, was that two days after the Socorro sighting, the
Orlando Gallego family of La Medera, New Mexico reported almost exactly
the same type of sighting that was reported by Zamora. While the family
declared they had not heard of the Socorro event, and it might be argued
that they could be lying, there is no denying the fact that the police
and later ufo researchers found exactly the same type of charred
vegetation and four landing indentations as what had been found in
Socorro.
To: Friends, colleagues, researchers, ufologists, and people interested on Ufology
Bom dia!
Em dezembro de 1997, tive a satisfação de conhecer pessoalmente o Major
Gilberto Zani de Melo, que foi o chefe operacional do CIOANI, órgão da
Força Aérea Brasileira que pesquisou OVNIs no final dos anos 60 e início
dos anos 70.
Por meio de informações que ele me passou na época cheguei a outro
militar que possuía parte do acervo de pesquisa e que prontamente me
repassou este riquíssimo material em 2001/2002.
Hoje, brindo a Comunidade Ufológica com todo este material INÉDITO que estará disponível no site abaixo para download:
Disponibilizamos também cópia de todo este material para o Arquivo
Nacional – COREG, em Brasília – DF, depois de negociação pessoal com o
Sr. Paulo A. Ramalho, no dia 14 de maio de 2009. Simultaneamente
enviamos cópia do material para a CBU – Comissão Brasileira de Ufólogos,
como forma de somar esforços na Campanha: Ufos: Liberdade de Informação Já. O site da Revista UFO fará a divulgação e possibilitará o donwload do material também.
O material é composto de: 1310 páginas de documentos, 28 croquis
coloridos e 64 fotos e alguns dossiês coloridos (137 páginas de
documentos, 3 croquis e 17 fotos).
Sabemos que a liberação de documentos feita até então pelo Miistério da
Aeronáutica é a ponta do iceberg e que a partir de Agosto de 2009,
possivelmente teremos a liberação dos casos pesquisados na década de 80.
Esperamos estas novas liberações que certamente trarão à luz muitas
comprovações e detalhes esclarecedores de casos antes desconhecidos do
público em geral. Quem viver verá!
Abraços,
Edison Boaventura Júnior
Presidente do GUG - Grupo Ufológico de Guarujá
E-mail: boaventura_gug@hotmail.comThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The great Otto Binder addressed the meaning of alleged symbols seen on in a 1972 article for Saga’s UFO Special magazine:
Fate magazine presented, several decades ago, a piece on messages from alleged extraterrestrial beings that included this:
Lucius Farish (a true UFO investigator) along with Dale M. Titler wrote
about symbols for Official UFO magazine (mid-70s) that included these
representations:
The above symbols were either “photographed” on the UFOs or drawn by those who saw them on a UFO.
Why are there no such representations seen on UFOs purportedly flying overhead today?
Either the space aliens have become illiterate or the military has
wised up and removed such designations from their prototypes.
For the last half of the 20th century, the UFO phenomenon has perplexed
both the public and the scientific community. At the beginning of the
21st century, the overwhelming majority of the American public--about
70%--believes that UFOs are real and that they most likely are guided by
intelligent beings from other worlds or dimensions. The scientific
advances and discoveries that have resulted from our own human space
program have helped shape the views of the American public on UFOs and
extraterrestrial life.
The scientific community, however, remains uninterested in and
scornfully dismissive of the question of the reality of UFOs and the
possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life visiting Earth. Yet,
even as scientists and astronomers discover new planets and solar
systems; find exotic life forms on Earth that thrive in extreme
environments previously thought to be uninhabitable; and uncover
tantalizing hints of life on at least 10 bodies within our own solar
system, mainstream scientists continue to mock and deride those who take
the phenomenon of UFOs seriously.
What is needed to change the prevailing view of mainstream science
concerning UFOs? First, it is essential to present this important
phenomenon to serious scientists in a context with which they are
familiar, namely, the discipline of science as it is practiced today.
Second, it is equally important to show that the tools of science can be
used to investigate the UFO phenomenon and to reach valid conclusions
about it. What is needed to accomplish this? Let's look at what science
itself is and what it requires.
Science is an objective, disciplined methodology for investigating
natural phenomena. Scientists--those having expert knowledge of one or
more of the existing scientific disciplines--use the scientific method
in their efforts to extend and deepen our understanding of the physical
world. The scientific method is defined in the dictionary as "the
principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration that
are characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation." In
general, the scientific method involves the observation of a phenomenon,
the formulation of a hypothesis about the phenomenon, experimentation
designed to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a
conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.
Does the prevailing mindset foster a scientific inquiry into this
subject? Unfortunately not. Despite the widespread public acceptance of
the reality of UFOs, the impression one receives about the phenomenon
from the mass media is that it is not a serious subject worthy of the
attention of serious minds. Rather, as presented on TV or in newspapers
and magazines, the UFO phenomenon is a goofy, fringe subject of interest
only to the uneducated, fans of science fiction and others with
over-excited imaginations, or those who have taken too many drugs or
drink too much. This general attitude presents a substantial obstacle
when it comes to involving scientists in the study of UFOs.
There is an even more serious obstacle in the way of the scientific
investigation of UFOs. The scientific and academic communities in
particular do not take kindly to the investigation of the UFO phenomenon
by their peers and colleagues. There have been significant negative
consequences in terms of career and reputation for those scholars and
scientists who have taken the subject seriously. The story of the
internationally-renowned Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack, MD is a case
in point. After an exemplary 35-year career with Harvard, Dr. Mack was
nearly stripped of his tenure and his license to practice medicine
because of his investigations of UFOs and encounters with intelligent
extraterrestrial beings.
Perhaps the most significant obstacle in the way of scientific research
involves the official secrecy--based on national security claims--that
surrounds the UFO phenomenon. Officially, since at least 1947, the U.S.
government has dismissed UFOs as misidentifications of ordinary
aircraft, planets, stars, or natural weather phenomena. Unofficially,
over the same period, the U.S. government has taken an intense interest
in UFOs, classifying them at a secrecy level higher than that for the
hydrogen bomb. Even the President of the United States does not receive a
full briefing on classified UFO matters. This cloak of secrecy keeps
crucial hard data, collected by the military and a range of intelligence
agencies, out of the hands of scientists, thus critically hampering a
complete investigation of the phenomenon.
The late Carl Sagan, a proponent of the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) program, which uses radiotelescopes to search for
signs of intelligent life in the universe, was the foremost UFO debunker
of the last 25 years. A statement that Dr. Sagan made regarding UFOs
has been widely quoted, "."
In his view, the claims of those who accept the reality of UFOs are
extraordinary but are not supported by sufficient objective evidence.
Noted UFO expert and best-selling author Budd Hopkins considers Dr.
Sagan's remark to be disingenuous. According to Mr. Hopkins,
"Extraordinary phenomena require an extraordinary investigation." In
other words, the scientific community does not have the proof it needs
because the scientific community is not undertaking a serious
investigation of the UFO phenomenon. Why? Because the prevailing opinion
among scientists is that UFOs do not exist. Since UFOs do not exist,
there is nothing to investigate.
Is a scientific inquiry into this phenomenon worth the effort? Nuclear
physicist Stanton Friedman, a man who has devoted the last 35 years to a
scientific investigation of the UFO phenomenon, believes that if the
mainstream media devoted the same amount of effort to solving the Cosmic
Watergate that they did to solving the political Watergate, the UFO
question could be answered in six months. Recently, Peter Sturrock
authored a scientific study of UFOs that was published in the Journal of
Scientific Exploration which concluded that there exists a significant
body of evidence about UFOs that demands a thorough scientific
investigation.
So what do scientists need to conduct a serious investigation of the
UFO phenomenon? Scientists need: (1) a physical phenomenon to observe;
(2) the formulation of a hypothesis about the phenomenon;
(3) experiments to test the hypothesis; and
(4) conclusions based on the results of the tests that confirm, refute or modify the hypothesis.
The UFO phenomenon meets all four of these scientific requirements:
(1) There is a physical phenomenon to observe. UFOs have been seen
worldwide for over 50 years and captured on still and motion picture
film and on videotape. There are a number of databases available, each
of which contains tens of thousands of documented reports of UFO
sightings.
(2) Hypotheses have been formulated. There are many variations of a
simple hypothesis: UFOs are intelligently-controlled, physical craft not
of Earthly origin.
(3) There is physical evidence that can be scientifically tested.
Physical evidence of UFO operations in and around the Earth's
atmosphere, as well as on the surface of the Earth, exists and has been
studied scientifically (e.g., soil samples, radiation effects,
electromagnetic activity).
(4) Evidence-based conclusions can be drawn by scientists. The results
of the scientific tests will confirm, refute or modify the hypothesis
that UFOs are physical craft not of Earthly origin.
The Best Available Evidence
The wealth of evidence available for scientific scrutiny cannot be
brought out in detail in this brief essay. However, some of the major
areas of research and some of the significant scientific contributions
can be described as a starting point for scientists interested in the
subject.
Contrary to popular accounts in the media, and to many scholarly
articles on UFOs, the phenomenon is quite frequently reported by
scientists, military personnel, police officers, commercial and private
airplane pilots. Also contrary to popular belief, UFO reports are not
limited to rural areas or confined to the United States. The phenomenon
has been reported in about 150 nations and over major metropolitan areas
in the U.S, the U.K, the former U.S.S.R., Germany, France, Spain, all
the Scandinavian countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New
Zealand, throughout Africa and Central and South America, and at both
the North and South Poles. UFOs have also been reported quite frequently
over civilian and military nuclear facilities; at military bases in the
U.S. and worldwide; above and beneath the surface of the Earth's
oceans; and outside the Earth's atmosphere.
In other words, there is scarcely a place on Earth that UFOs have not
been witnessed and reported by reliable people. The best available
evidence for scientists to ponder comes from every corner of the world.
Scientists should be particularly impressed by the evidence presented by
the following professionals:
Astronomers
Astronauts and Cosmonauts
Aeronautical engineers
Air traffic controllers
Airline, military and private pilots
Civil defense and ground corps observers
Government officials
Military personnel other than pilots
Police officers
Professors of engineering, physics, space science
Professional photographers (still, motion picture and video)
Radar operators
The reports made by numerous credible, trained men and women have
provided a wealth of "hard data" that scientists can analyze with known
instrumentation and procedures. In addition, scientists can review
studies of such data that have already been completed by reputable
scientists. Two recent examples are described briefly below.
If a serious study of the physical evidence relating to the UFO
phenomenon--such as the one conducted by Peter A. Sturrock and his
colleagues and described in the book The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the
Physical Evidence--were conducted by scientists, it would not only
raise the level of the debate but also encourage more scientists to
study the phenomenon, develop and test new ideas, and draw their own
conclusions. This could not help but advance our knowledge of this
perplexing phenomenon. Sturrock provides convincing evidence that the
UFO phenomenon is accessible to scientific analysis and that it merits
and warrants scientific study.
In the book, Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis, Paul
R. Hill, a well-respected NASA scientist, has put the UFO phenomenon to
just the kind of rigorous scientific scrutiny that the phenomenon
demands. His research shows that UFOs "obey, not defy, the laws of
physics." Dr. Hill has reported on the basic science and technology that
is at the heart of the near-miraculous performance capabilities that
witnesses describe UFOs as possessing. In precise detail, Dr. Hill shows
how the descriptions of UFO behavior, made by credible witnesses, are
in accord with what we know about physics. Serious scientists cannot
ignore Dr. Hill's important work.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, PhD, a highly respected astronomer, was for years
the leading Air Force consultant for Project Blue Book, the official
U.S. Air Force investigation of flying saucers. The evidence gathered by
the Air Force--which was determined to "explain away" the
phenomenon--changed Dr. Hynek from a UFO skeptic to one of the world's
leading scientific experts on the UFO phenomenon. Any scientific
investigation of UFOs must include the study of Hynek's books The UFO
Experience, The Edge of Reality and The Hynek UFO Report. It is crucial
to keep in mind that, although Dr. Hynek became aware of the dishonesty
and duplicity of the Air Force in its UFO-related efforts, it was the
physical evidence that caused Dr. Hynek to make a radical turn from a
UFO debunker to a UFO scholar.
Even the work of Dr. Edward U. Condon, a man who had prejudged the UFO
phenomenon and determined the results of his investigation before he
began it, provides scientific evidence supporting the belief that UFOs
are a real phenomenon worthy of scientific inquiry. Dr. Condon was
commissioned by the U.S. Air Force to study UFOs. The official goal was
to understand the phenomenon. The unofficial goal was to wipe UFOs off
the public radar screen once and for all. On January 8, 1969, "The Final
Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,"
conducted by the University of Colorado, under contract to the United
States Air Force, was released. Dr. Condon was the scientific director.
The results of the report were used by the Air Force as its
justification to close Project Blue Book and end its official
involvement with UFOs. Ina press release that accompanied the complete
900-plus page report, Dr. Condon claimed that the evidence suggested
that UFOs were not worthy of scientific inquiry, that nothing of further
value would come from such an effort. The media only looked at the
press release, not the actual report, accepted Dr. Condon's claims at
face value, and trumpeted them worldwide. It seemed the scientific case
was closed.
However, serious scientists, such as David R. Saunders (co-Principal
Investigator of the Condon Committee), Stanton Friedman, Peter A.
Sturrock and others have noticed major discrepancies between what the
press release said was in the report and what was actually in the
report. For example, the press release stated that only a few percent of
cases investigated remained unsolved, whereas, in fact, about 30
percent of the cases investigated remained unexplained. This is a very
high figure indeed, one suggesting the need for further scientific
study. In addition, a reading of the text of the report clearly shows
that UFOs present a significant challenge to contemporary science. Even
the work of a determined debunker such as Dr. Condon revealed that the
UFO phenomenon is in urgent need of scientific evaluation and
comprehension.
Carl Sagan was the co-editor, along with Thornton Page, a professor of
astronomy and NASA research associate, of a very useful book for
scientists intrigued by the UFO phenomenon, UFOs: A Scientific Debate.
The book is the result of the proceedings of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. Scientists with divergent views from
different disciplines--e.g., astronomy, physics, meteorology,
psychiatry, psychology, sociology--applied the scientific method to the
study of this controversial topic.
The scientists analyzed photographs, radar evidence, physical traces of
UFOs, witness credibility and psychology, natural phenomena often
misidentified by layman as UFOs, popular belief in UFOs and the role of
the mass media in the phenomenon. It should be clear to any scientist
reading this book that UFOs are a serious subject and that most major
questions about them remain unanswered.
Richard M. Hall is the editor of The UFO Evidence, a report put out in
1964 by the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP). This volume is valuable both historically and in terms of
useful scientific information. NICAP focused its research efforts on
credible reports from qualified witnesses that showed strong,
identifiable patterns and consistencies in the data from one source to
another. Later scientific investigations have confirmed the findings of
this 1964 report and contributed important new information as well. The
UFO Evidence, a reference that has been cited in nearly every major
study of UFOs in the past four decades, is an important summary of the
evidence of UFO reality compiled in the early days of the "modern era"
of UFO studies. It provides scientists with sample cases that show
general features of UFO reports; cases indicating that UFOs are
intelligently controlled; reports of sightings by Air Force pilots,
navigators, and other personnel; observations by airline, military and
private pilots; reports from professional scientists, engineers,
astronomers and aeronautical engineers; as well as police officers and
credible civilians. In addition, the report contains evidence relating
to the electro-magnetic effects of UFOs, radar cases, physical and
physiologic effects of UFOs, photographic and acoustical evidence;
statistical analyses of patterns of UFO maneuvers, appearance, flight
characteristics and recurrent observations; and details about many other
important aspects of this phenomenon. The UFO Evidence makes a strong
case for both the reality of UFOs and the great value of a scientific
study of the phenomenon.
In December 1995, the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS); the Fund for UFO
Research (FUFOR); and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) produced an
exciting and important publication, Briefing Document on Unidentified
Flying Objects: The Best Available Evidence. Although it presents only
the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the scientific and military
evidence available worldwide concerning UFOs, this publication is
especially valuable to scientists because it offers readers the most
carefully documented information available.
As it makes its case for UFO reality, and for the extraterrestrial
origin of UFOs, the briefing document presents radar evidence, visual
evidence, physical evidence, descriptions of the shapes of UFOs and of
their performance capabilities. All of this information can be evaluated
scientifically. The document details prime examples of UFO reports made
around the world from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. This briefing
document may be the most convincing report yet compiled suggesting that
UFOs are real. It definitely makes an undeniable case for further
scientific investigation into the UFO enigma and should be required
scientific reading.
There are many other valuable scientific books and papers that have
been published over the past 50 years, all of which provide evidence
that UFOs are not misidentified natural phenomena or man-made objects,
the products of the minds of highly imaginative or delusional people, or
the malicious hoaxes of merry pranksters around the globe.
In addition to the substantial body of evidence available for
scientists to review, there are many astronauts, cosmonauts, scientists
and prominent government and military officials from many nations around
the world who accept the reality of UFOs. This information has come
from either direct public statements or from classified documents that
have been released to the public. These individuals include such U.S.
military, intelligence and political figures as:
General Nathan D. Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1957-1960);
J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI;
General Walter Bedell Smith, Director of the CIA (1950-1953);
General Douglas MacArthur;
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, Chief of project Blue Book;
Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, first Director of the CIA (1947-1950);
General Curtis LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff;
Major General E.B. LeBaily, U.S. Air Force Director of Information;
General George S. Brown, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff;
Lt. Col. Lawrence J. Coyne, U.S. Army Reserve helicopter pilot;
Victor Marchetti, CIA official;
President Harry S. Truman;
President Gerald Ford;
President Jimmy Carter;
President Ronald Reagan;
Senator Barry M. Goldwater;
Representative John W. McCormack, Speaker of the House;
Representative Jerry L. Pettis;
Representative Steven H. Schiff.
If military, intelligence and political figures do not impress
scientists when it comes to UFOs, perhaps American astronauts will.
Among the astronauts who have either witnessed UFOs themselves, or are
aware of UFO reality, are Gordon Cooper, Donald "Deke" Slayton, Edgar
Mitchell, Al Worden, Eugene Cernan, and Story Musgrave. They are joined
by the Soviet cosmonauts Yevegni Khrunov, Vladimir Kovalyonok, and Major
General Pavel Popovich.
Scientists who are aware of UFO reality include Dr. Clyde W. Tombaugh,
the American astronomer who discovered Pluto; Dr. Frank B. Salisbury,
professor of plant physiology at Utah State University; Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, Chairman of the Dept. of Astronomy at Northwestern University and
scientific consultant for Air Force UFO investigations from 1948
through 1969; Dr. Leo J. Sprinkle, professor of psychology at the
University of Wyoming; Dr. James E. McDonald, Senior Physicist at the
Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona; Dr.
Robert M.L. Baker, Jr., President of West Coast University; Stanton T.
Friedman, nuclear physicist and UFO researcher; Dr. Margaret Mead,
world-renowned anthropologist; Dr. Richard Haines, psychologist for the
Ames NASA Research Center; Dr. Peter A. Sturrock, Professor of Space
Science and Astrophysics and Deputy Director of the Center for Space
Science and Astrophysics at Stanford University; Dr. Jacques Vallee,
astrophysicist, computer scientist and UFO author; and Dr. John E. Mack,
Professor of Psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical
School.
In addition to these eminent figures, equally impressive military,
intelligence and political figures have come forward with information
and evidence about UFO reality in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Britain,
Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel,
Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Zimbabwe and many other
nations.
Scientists can also avail themselves of the hard data about UFOs that
are contained in a wide range of databases that are available to
researchers. Among them are:
UFOCAT--a computer catalog of raw UFO reports of sightings from around
the world, started in the 1970s by Dr. David Saunders. There are over
50,000 reports from five continents. UFOCAT is maintained by the Center
for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
GROUND TRACES--a catalog of UFO cases where plants and soil were affected is maintained by CUFOS.
PILOT CASES--NASA scientist Richard Haines has a computerized catalog
of UFO sightings by military, commercial, private and test pilots that
has more than 3600 cases going back to the early 1980s.
These are just a few of the databases that are available to scientists
who want to investigate the evidence that has been collected concerning
UFOs.
Obstacles in the Way
The valuable scientific books and papers that have been published over
the past 50 years, and the worldwide UFO reports made by highly credible
people, cannot be glibly dismissed as errors, fraud or malicious
hoaxes. The body of evidence that diligent researchers have compiled
cannot fail to convince any open-minded scientist that UFOs are real and
worthy of scientific study.
Yet few scientists look at the evidence and there is no major
scientific exploration of this phenomenon by mainstream science. How can
this be? What are the obstacles in the way?
In the 1950s, the Brookings Institute issued a report entitled, "The
Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life." The report
suggested that out of all groups in society "scientists and engineers
may be the most devastated by the discovery of relatively superior
creatures." Is the finding that the discovery of intelligent life would
be devastating to human scientists still true today? In a recent survey,
75 percent of scientists said they would like to learn more about UFOs.
In 1976, Peter A. Sturrock conducted an small survey of members of the
American Astronomical Society. He found that most of the respondents
were curious about UFOs. However, while scientists express interest in
the question of UFOs and extraterrestrial life in anonymous surveys,
they still remain, in general, derisive and dismissive in their public
statements about UFOs.
Michael E. Zimmerman, a professor of philosophy and former Chair of the
Department of Philosophy at Tulane University believes that many
scientists refuse to discuss UFOs for three reasons: (1) fear of loss of
social status through ridicule; (2) superior non-human intelligence
threatens personal psychology and worldview; and (3) fear of social
chaos in the face of ET superiority. However, Prof. Zimmerman also sees
signs of change. He notes that at least some scientists are now
beginning to take the UFO and the related ET-abduction phenomena
seriously and to study them systematically. Zimmerman even suspects that
some scientists and government officials are slowly, carefully leaking
information to the public about UFO reality and ET presence to prepare
the public for the revelation that extraterrestrials are visiting our
planet.
In the opinion of Peter A. Sturrock, the lack of public funds to
support UFO research is a major obstacle in the way of significant
scientific investigation. Like Prof. Zimmerman, he notes that UFO
research is not considered respectable in academic and scientific
circles and that this keeps people from pursuing serious work in the
area. Dr. Sturrock is of the opinion that, if scientific progress is to
be made in this field, public opinion must be galvanized to demand that
UFO research be supported with significant funding from the Federal
government. The recent study directed by Dr. Sturrock concluded that (1)
the UFO phenomena is complex and not likely to be solved by one simple
universal answer and (2) the scientific investigation of the unexplained
observations that characterize the UFO phenomenon will most likely lead
to important new knowledge.
Conclusion
Sturrock and others have observed that scientists are interested in
UFOs but unwilling to become involved publicly. Scientists say "show me
the evidence" but do not study the reams of evidence available. Carl
Sagan has said that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence." Mainstream scientists often quote Sagan to defend their
reluctance to look into the question of UFOs. However, today's
scientists are like the scientists of Galileo's day who refused to look
into the telescope to see the moons of Jupiter with their own eyes.
What is needed? We do not need objective evidence. There is plenty of
hard data about all aspects of the UFO phenomenon just begging for
scientific evaluation. What is needed on the part of science today is a
radical shift in its worldview, in its mindset. What can bring about
this profound change, which some call a "mindshift"?
Perhaps scientists will only change after encountering the UFO
phenomenon directly, through a sighting of a craft in the sky, a craft
on the ground with entities nearby, or even more dramatically, through a
direct, personal encounter with non-human intelligences. Such an
experience would most certainly transform even the most die-hard skeptic
and debunker. Or perhaps scientists need to undergo the kind of
transformative event that Edgar Mitchell experienced on his return
voyage from the moon to the Earth, when he intuitively perceived that
the universe is self-aware and that everything is interconnected.
It may take more than objective, physical evidence alone to convince
scientists that UFOs are real and worthy of scientific investigation.
But a start has to be made somewhere. It can be made with the evidence
now at hand, evidence that grows daily as UFO reports continue to come
in from around the world. The data gathered by dedicated researchers
over the past 50 years await a new Galileo or Newton to synthesize into a
worldview that is broader and deeper than today's reigning paradigm.
Too many scientists today are demanding proof, instead of doing the hard
work needed to demonstrate the reality of UFOs and to uncover the
incontrovertible proof of the existence of intelligent life beyond
Earth.
In 1956, in his last published work, Contact with Space, the pioneering
scientist Wilhelm Reich wrote, "What do they want for proof? There is
no proof. There are no authorities whatever. No President, Academy,
Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth has the knowledge or
power to decide what will be the knowledge of tomorrow...Only the good
old rules of learning will eventually bring about understanding of what
has invaded our earthly existence. Let those who are ignorant of the
ways of learning stand aside, while those who know what learning is,
blaze the trail into the unknown."
Where are the scientists who will lead us in our search for the
knowledge of tomorrow? The tools needed are at hand; the information we
need is there, waiting to be discovered. The UFO phenomenon, dismissed
and derided today, may prove to be the key to the lock that will open
the door to our cosmic future.
Bibliography
Berliner, Don Briefing Document on Unidentified Flying Objects: The Best Available Evidence
Condon, Edward U. The Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects
Hall, Richard M. (ed.) The UFO Evidence
Hill, Paul R. Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis
Hopkins, Budd Missing Time; Intruders
Hynek, J. Allen. The UFO Experience; The Edge of Reality; The Hynek UFO Report
Mack, John E. Abduction; Passport to the Cosmos
Reich, Wilhelm Contact with Space
Sagan, Carl and Page, Thornton (eds.) UFOs: A Scientific Debate
Sturrock, Peter A. The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Scientific Evidence
Just like the mermaids (Discovery channel) first they have
found one or several now they say it's a hoax. So, what is
it....................maybe they don't
Good day Dear Brothers and Sisters, Its Monday, July 16th 2012
The Shiva Linga and its Meaning Editorial The sexual symbolism of
Tantra, like the subject of
Taking down the bird feeder This is the best analogy yet! Leave
it to Maxine to come up with a solution for the mess that America is
now in economically. I
Traductor de Google
Ok Humans,lets see how many Ufos can you spot in the video. Hint: there are several odd shapes in the background.
