Now that said, despite whether or not there is record for anything proving an individual’s involvement in what are presumed to be secret projects, we cannot proceed, I maintain, merely by proceeding with the assumption that no records exist for a given subject, operation, individual, etc. I hope that what I’m saying isn’t being misconstrued as saying there must be evidence for such things… while that may not be the case, we can’t know until we look.

Then there’s the entire bit about “extraordinary claims,” but that’s another argument in itself.

i’ve spent my life in an urban area (SF Bay), so a lot of stars and such get blocked from view by light pollution, not to mention advection fog and the dreaded, deadly radiation fog. But even around here you can see more satellites than you can shake a stick at (i was *born* in a fairly rural agricultural area, the central valley-Fresno, thus the corn pone sayings). We also have tons of airports, large and small, civilian and military, so we get to see many types of aircraft at distances near and far, in day and night, fog and rain…..

It’s completely obvious that metallic surfaces glint and flare according to how they interact with the light source they are reflecting. This is easy enough to watch during the daytime. At night you can see objects two ways: they are self illuminating or they are reflecting light from the sun. In either case, if the object is in motion you’ll see variations in the light you perceive as your position relative to the object and thus any reflections or source light changes. I pegged Micah’s description of the Ir Sat as clearly a satellite immediately, and figured that some part of the sat was picking up a strong reflection. But then i’ve watched more than a few sats beetling across the firmament in my time……

A favorite sky watch was during the 1993 Jewish High Holy Days. Jewish astronaut Richard Wolf was in the space shuttle and took up a shofar (ram’s horn) to blow in the New Year……many news outlet published info on how to view the SS right after sunset at the beginning of the holiday. I was living with my mom in a neighborhood with a number of observant Jewish families who were always inviting us for Passover seder, BBQ in the sukkot, cookies on Purim (yum, i have such a sweet tooth!) and so on.

Ma and i stood outside on a blessedly clear evening, watching the shuttle tumble through the heavens as we heard our neighbor kids blowing the shofar…..it sent chills down my spine as i felt the ritual new year being welcomed in so many places and times over the generations.

Watch The Skies!!! steph

Jonahh: “I’m using a lot of speech marks as I’m convinced one major problem in the discussion is the lack of appropriate language. We just don’t seem to have the right words to describe and explore phenomena that (still) lie beyond comprehension, or the words we use have too many different meanings to too many different people.”

oh boy, that’s a cana worms in itself. It’s the reason why the last decade i’ve focussed on looking at a number of indigenous religious/spiritual/mystical practices (yoga, Haitian Voudoo, the various forms of shamanism) in search of what they think/find needs names and how they categorize the various aspects of this range of experiences. I’ve found a number of overlaps with commonly reported ‘paranormal’ phenomena.

Hi Jack – the trouble i find with modern psych ideas re: paranormal phenom is that much of what psych does is mere labeling. ‘Syndromes’ like mass hysteria or folie a deux are brought up as ‘explanations’ with tedious regularity, but neither has any proposed mechanism for how the phenomena manifests or proposed criteria for predicting when they will ‘pop up’ and when not, any factors which protect against thee symdromes manifesting, etc. Mass hysteria and folie a deux are way way far from the gold standard of experimental repeatability, yet because they are ‘psychiatric’ names they supposedly offer an ‘explanation’.

Other psych explanations like sleep paralysis do have a proposed mechanism (REM paralysis not shutting off at the end of the dream). I do think that SP can account for some strange experiences, but materialist explainers tend to stretch this phenomenon to cover anything that happens when a person is in bed or sleepy, at which point in my eyes it starts to lose any explanatory power.

Frankly i could give a hoot about anyone’s ‘world view’. All i care about is that they refer strictly to the facts as best we can know them (quotes, footnotes, and etc.). I’m also continually amazed at the number of people so completely ignorant of the history of science – given that our current theories, powerful as they are, have no grasp of what lies behind the forces of gravity and time, it only stands to reason that any theory which can account for both is going to be wild as hell compared to current thinking. Happy Saturday! steph

I appreciate your comments. I particularly relate to the final paragraph. I am strongly of the opinion that rather than suspension of judgment, suspension of _attention_ is in order at this point for a high percentage of the perpetual conference staples. Should they ever actually present some of the conclusive evidence they keep claiming to possess, I would revisit the issue.

If a majority of members of the UFO community call that closed-minded, so be it. The professional research community calls it rational.

BTW being snarky doesn’t do the inquiry much good either.

“What is it about UFOs that drive so many people to believe they exist despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?” And in the same paragraph, quoting Mack, “such visitations ‘contradict virtually all of the basic laws of physics, chemistry and biology on which modern science depends’.”

I wonder what “overwhelming” evidence there is that UFOs do not exist? Is the “reasoning” that they’d contradict basic laws of science alone evidence already? But Mack says it himself – they contradict laws “on which modern science depends”.

In the end, it’s maybe much about those dependencies, and ultimately Dewey and like-minded people depend on established worldviews delivered by (mainstream) science, forgetting science itself has always been an error prone and highly self-correcting enterprise…

(As a side note, in 1903 mainstream scientists and press claimed the first flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk were hoaxed, after all the flights contradicted scientific dependencies at the time).

I think modern psychologists are having a field day with the “believers” but in the end the “believers” are just one more practical example for them to contemplate the trait of the human mind to “cry for meaning”. I think the psychological “explanations” for any paranormal beliefs are just the same – a cry for meaning, only at the other end of the spectrum. But it might be a while before psychology will implement “Obsessive Debunking Disorder” as a serious condition…

I’m using a lot of speech marks as I’m convinced one major problem in the discussion is the lack of appropriate language. We just don’t seem to have the right words to describe and explore phenomena that (still) lie beyond comprehension, or the words we use have too many different meanings to too many different people.

Not sure though if we can actually draw a line between “fear-driven” and “pure drivel”. Isn’t it just one more divider where we’d have to overcome boundaries? Those phenomena are too complex (on both sides) and their exploration may not be possible by drawing even more lines. Fear as well as drivel are words with highly subjective connotations…

So while I commend your approach in UFO Singularity, I can’t help but wonder if anyone is on the “right path”. Perhaps we really and totally have to unlearn everything we’ve learned first before we can understand what’s going on. Personally I “believe” we haven’t even begun to grasp the realities behind UFOs.

Nice to see you guys

So I generally regard these marginal figures as being autonomous and not a part of some official apparatus to add more befuddlement to the field of UFO research and the business of UFO promotion. Loners…

Off the top of my head, other similar figures would be Bob Dean, ‘Colonel’ Willingham, Doty and even Clifford Stone. Sure, they all have some form of military pedigree, but that isn’t necessarily an assurance of honesty, morality or even sanity is it?

The ‘fingerprints of the myth-makers’ are seen in the classics like Montauk, Philadephia Experiment and MJ-12 documents; the Holloman AFB landings plot a similar course too.

If we cast our net even wider, we see these fantasists wearing other people’s war medals and claiming honours. Every year, we see fake doctors and fake pilots in the news. I’ve even met a wedding photographer who claimed to have been part of the team working on the Arpanet and also helped to crack the Enigma machine. Intrinsically, they are lonely on the inside and seek attention and approval.

A lot of people will believe French’s stories and others will see him as an agent of deception from the powers that be. I can dig that; it’s what makes those who are interested in UFOs so appealing to the fantasists in the first place.

For a small community I think we are vastly over-represented by the credulous and the overly-tolerant. Just looking at the annual roll-call of UFO conference speakers leaves me cynical. Year in and year out, a shady bunch of long-ago discredited liars and hoaxers are invited back to speak. We don’t do ‘second chances,’ we entertain them in perpetuity and quake at the risk of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater.’

If the mental health community is to offer understanding & insight into this issue, then I humbly suggest they consider shifting from the materialistic framework which simply neglects any kind of transcendental or visionary experiences, dismissing them as simple aberrations of the mind. Like the late John Mack used to say, ours is a particularly peculiar society in its refusal to acknowledge spiritual experiences.

That refusal might the origin of many of the syndromes & maladies the mental health community is seeking to treat in the first place. Once we realize this, we might be able to extract that annoying splinter in our mind that is driving us mad.

The mental health community can offer much understanding and insight into the principle isuues. While such understandings do not provide conclusive explanations for all reports of paranormal phenomena, it is negligent of us to collectively deny such circumstances ever apply. Perhaps most concerning, when we completely omit mental health concerns from the pursuit of learning more about alleged aliens, as is currently commonly the case, we do everyone involved a disservice. Truth suffers, witnesses suffer, the UFO community suffers and, of course, those who would be much better served by mental health services than by overly enthusiastic hypnotists suffer.

All of that stated, of course there are some seemingly intriguing UFO reports, and everyone who thinks so is indeed not schizophrenic. I nonetheless think the professional mental health community should be offered more consideration in the course of ufology than is currently the case, and I do not see how sincere truth seekers could think otherwise.

I suspect, however, that many would say it would not really matter because the CH was clearly never an attempt to provide a moderate and balanced perspective, but to lead viewers to a predetermined – and yet to be substantiated – destination. That considered, the credibility or degree of accuracy of anyone involved is rather beside the point and only serves for conversation and discussion topics.

BTW It’s very telling how Warren was NEVER mentioned by Clarke in that lengthy article. Also, it’s a shame how he never asked Conrad about Halt’s assertion –as revealed by Robbins & Warren in their book– that the UFO’s lights ‘adversely affected’ the nuclear ordnance kept in the Woodbridge RAF base by the US Air Force.

Oh, but that’s right! Bringing up the nukes is a big No-No, because they were a major violation to international treaties

Binnall of America is definitely entertaining, and, while I very much enjoy UFO enthusiast media, as a matter of personal policy I ignore any fact-assuming assertions made by those outlets. The history of poor source verification (see: Phil Imbrogno, etc.) is too rampant to ignore.

Though it seems it’s been a while since witnesses reported little UFOnauts wearing special equipment and/or breathing apparatuses.

http://binnallofamerica.com/BoAclassic/boaa10.29.5.html

It should also be reminded that it was because of Warren that the story became public in the first place.

Whitley Strieber had a pair of cats when he had his fateful cabin abduction in the 1980s.

Thanks for making this information available. As someone who has been interested in Keel’s work a number of years and is currently involved in a re-examination of the Mothman-related events, your article strengthens my belief that though Keel’s research is invaluable, we should definitely question the conclusions he draws with regards to the ultraterrestrials.

I’m of the opinion that wheeling out ‘Military Men’ at these conferences is merely an appeal to authority [in the logical fallacy sense], and that one could argue that Military people are more gullible than civillians, as opposed to less gullible. One could easily, with military resources, create any number of confected situations, with all those dedicated resources and people under oath. Alternatively, they are also more prone to just doing their job, which may well be to spread confusion, an age old military tactic. As we, the population, are the enemy, it should come as no suprise to anyone that one can never trust military folks’ judgements, as they cannot truly trust themselves, as they have been trained to take orders and fit into a very, very potent heirarchy, and they have done this willingly, and for money.
I say that makes for a less than stable mindset, compared to the rest of us.

Ps My cat approves of yr recent comments. He’s a Grayling himself.
I have a question that has been noodling my mind for quite a while; Do people with cats get less abduction experiences / paranormal incidences than people with dogs?

All the very best,

Kieran.

Thanks for contributing such intelligent commentary to this thread. Although I must point out (no longer speaking entirely, woefully in jest here) that if we can’t support our argument with facts, we’re doing no good in our inquiry at all.

That said, allow me to ask you something: by merely presuming, as you have, that French’s “secret” work would be kept off the record, does that in itself constitute “evidence” in your mind? Because last time I checked, the lack of any evidence never served effectively as the answer to a question. Just saying… I also take it you’ve never studied historical research, or for that matter, investigative journalism.

Ah, but there I go making “stupid remarks” again. I guess I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut eventually, and allow the realm of clean, free, and purely unfounded speculation to rule the proverbial roost. I’ve been thwarted again, it seems.

“Mrs. Butler told Keel that French was “about five feet nine inches tall, with an olive complexion and a pointed face.”"

That description doesn’t seem to correspond with the photograph used in the HuffPost article. The young pilot (allegedly French) shows a round face. Not pointy at all.

As for the tone of skin, that’s hard to assess from a b&w photo.

I searched the Blue Book database using the word ‘St. Johns’ & found this:

http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=NARA-PBB88-728

Do we have a list of all the Air Force personnel who were assigned to Project Blue Book until it was shut down?

“Keel seems to be suggesting that French was an extraterrestrial! Or at least an MIB. While I find both suggestions extremely unlikely, the point being made is that French was an “impostor” and did not represent Project Blue Book, although he may have gone around pretending like he did. Is there any documentation to prove that French actually worked with Project Blue Book? A search for “French” in the Blue Book archive returns nothing except references to the country, or its language. By comparison, a search for “Quintanilla” returns 89 hits.”

(http://badufos.blogspot.com/2013/05/that-citizens-hearing-on-ufo-disclosure.html)

The tragic death of Dr. Mack robbed the alien abduction field of its most creative and innovative prime mover. A decade later, this area of endeavor remains trammeled, apparently content to chase its own tail in a trite and tired circle. With time the abundant hypotheses sprouted from abduction accounts have grown far more florid, yet none are demonstrably factual. No matter, secure in their elaborately constructed world, the select circle of confidants can refuse any challenge to their standard, comforting paradigms.

Whether cloistered in a Newport mansion for a meeting or bound by their own limited vision, the accidental inheritors of Dr. Mack’s legacy have failed to recognize crucial changes in the outside scientific world and/or their critical implications. New genetic analysis technologies now empower investigators to answer once totally unapproachable questions regarding human-alien hybridization with concrete, experiment-acquired data. Apparently that would be news to some alien abduction investigators slavishly employing the same methods as always while blithely ignoring the potential of the technology to contribute reliable answers.

The evidence suggests that Dr. Mack would have recognized the new genetic analysis technologies offer the potential to penetrate significantly deeper into the alien abduction mystery than ever before possible. More important, he would have seized the opportunity to confirm or refute hypotheses understanding full well that strategy represents the focused ways and means to force scientific progress in a static field.

Subsequent to Dr. Mack’s departure, the sole, collective accomplishment tallied by alien abduction investigators has been an unintended, but convincing, self actualized demonstration that zombies really exist. Perhaps someone will finally take command of new genetic analysis techniques and restore positive investigative momentum in a long stagnant field.

May i be permitted a wee rant?

Certainly not! Here at the Gralien Report we demand a full-fledged rant, or none at all!!

I’ve just listened to another news reports stating that the three Cleveland women were ‘discovered’ and/or ‘rescued’.

I don’t think it counts as ‘being discovered’ when you call 911 and tell them ‘I’m Amanda Berry…I’m free…” and where they can come get you and your captors. Those ladies *** escaped *** from their captors with the help of their awesome neighbors. Give credit where it is due!!!

This especially impresses me because i was approached by would-be child molesters in cars several times while growing up in 1970′s California suburbia. The one guy who had me truly worried looked and especially sounded just like the guy who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and kept her captive in Antioch, just a few miles from where i now live. Fortunately for me a classmate’s mother noticed what was going on and gave me a ride to safety. And the guy that took Jaycee Dugard was active in the area in which i lived at the time of the incident, the car he was driving was similar to ‘my’ guy’s, and i was a pretty girl with blonde wavy hair like Ms. Dugard.

That warped snake. I am so glad those Cleveland ladies never gave up!!! Thanks for the ‘ventilation’, steph

The recent emergence of a nasty H7N9 influenza virus reveals something interesting – early detection of dangerous new flu viruses is predicated far more on the appearance of severe disease in humans and animals than keeping an eye out for any specific virus type such as H5N1 (bird flu).

The knowledge gained by the new study was minimal at best. The improvement it provided to surveillance efforts nill. Was the risk worth it? Before making your decision, check for possible conflict of interest.

hmmm. the overall point of the filmakers seems to be that there’s a lot of just flat out lies and falsities being presented by formerly reputable media outlets. But the reporter writing the article zeros in on the ‘ufo and ghost’ angle, as does the headline. This does a couple of rotten things all at once: it further stigmatizes the paranormal while defacto acknowledging that ‘the paranormal sells’. I doubt a headline reading “Nat Geo Fact Checking Downsized To Increase Profits” would draw the same readership.

And that tow truck driver…….either making a bad joke or they’ve never heard of calling 911? Dum dum dum dum, indeed. steph

…And ATA was his final creation –a homunculus

And I’d assume that after that he no longer has any fears about death

As always, very enlightening perspectives you bring here. I too find it interesting that Greer has reached out to secure academic help with the study of his “humanoid,” which I suppose it still is, by definition. And, based on what I’ve now read at various places online, there do seem to be a few anomalous facets that this little creatures possesses, despite appearing to be human.

Now, if this does, as you point out, go on to be studied more in depth, peer reviewed (I agree, the most important facet of the research), and taken into serious consideration as an anomaly (Human or not), I will be amazed. While this has not yet occurred, perhaps, as you’ve said, the verdict should remain out, at least until we are armed with more information.