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Tuesday, 20 November 2018

Ufology: This Is How It Goes

A good few years, 1040 posts and what comments and discussions have there been? Zero.  A blog for discussion and debate has to have more than the blogger to work.  IF anything interesting pops up I will post but other than that I give up.

My attitude is explained below.
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   Two reported incidents of alleged actual landings and entities and who turns up afterwards -the press. There were people claiming to be flying saucer investigators but that amounted to noting down a news item on the radio or adding a newspaper clipping to the scrapbook. Why leave the armchair? From the news clipping these people could pontificate and waffle on over pages and for years.

   I understand that there was no funding for flying saucer research but most of these people involved in the subject knew each other one way or another. There was a very real attitude, not just in France, that even if a report came from a mile or two away -why go investigate when the newspapers had all the information?

   I actually almost choked on a swig of coffee when I read Italian investigators, who had not once even attempted to go and investigate Rosa Lotti's encounter in 1954 until the early 2000's, complaining and criticising newspapers and journalists for leaving out information and not doing a thorough investigation  job. Well, at least the reporters got off of their arses and went to see her.  There are literally hundreds of cases like the one above.

   Writers -'Ufologists'- are making money out of including these cases in their books and worst of all in their "data" or "sightings breakdowns" that make them look so good.  The truth is that they are producing nonsense: they have no data other than “he wrote what so-and-so wrote who got it from whatshisname who found it mentioned in a newspaper clipping”. This is, then, the ‘solid data’ used by people like Jacques Vallee who does not actually seem to check anything himself. 

   The period 1947-2018 has literally achieved nothing when it comes to ufology other than over-hyped hysteria, bunko-men and...literally, huge volumes of trash.  Graham F. N. Knewstub's British Flying Saucer Bureau Technical Report No. 1 was published in the 1950s, we all thought that we were seeing real science (I was fooled, too) when Vallee published his work on UFO Waves, Flaps and so on.  He included well known hoaxes, misidentifications of aircraft, meteors, weather balloons and much more in amongst the not investigated UFO cases. If I wrote “Today I was a disc-shaped flying saucer land in my back garden then take off after one minute” it would be included in Vallee’s list: the data was useless.

   Then we saw Ted Bloecher Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, published in 1967; this was an actual attempt at analysis and to piece events from that year together.  Published work that could be peer reviewed. It was as early as 1956 that Bloecher became intrigued by the growing number of “UFO occupant” reports and along with researcher David Webb, started to work on what would become the Humanoid Catalogue –HUMCAT: a collection of early “humanoid” sightings. I prefer not to use the term “Humanoids” as an all-encompassing term but the important thing is that the work began.

   Ted Bloecher’s major interest was always in occupant reports or Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K), as they would be called after J. Allen Hynek set out his categorisation of UFO sighting reports.  Bloecher had been one of the top thinkers in the Civilian Saucer Investigation group and after that became active with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and when  NICAP became “moribund”, Bloecher moved on to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).  He was still concentrating his efforts on investigation of CE3K reports with David Webb. In 1978, CUFOS published his and Davis's Close Encounter at Kelly and Others of 1955, based on the investigation of the Kelly-Hopkinsville report and others in the U.S. that year.

   Bloecher could well be called the top authority on these cases in the United States by the 1970s and though he did everything he possibly could (see UFO Contact?) to get the Euporia, Mississippi landing/entity case prioritised and investigated it never was –presumably due to the prejudices of the two investigators.

   But being the top man does not come with a university grant or even financial funding and to keep records complete Bloecher filed away press reports.  This should have been the data base used for thorough investigation of the cases. Instead, ufologists just quoted Bloecher and that he, himself, was referencing newspaper reports.

   Then came the big excuse of the “Grey Abduction Paranoia” –if a case did not involve Greys then it was a fake or misidentification or Budd Hopkins and David Jacob’s saw these reports as “screen images” hiding the ‘fact’ that Greys were involved.  No need to bother. Or to use the much criticised US Air Force ‘excuse’ used so well by MUFON today: the amount of time that has passed negates any fruitful investigation.  Even the Betty and Barney Hill case has been cited as featuring “Greys”: it did not.

   Ufology does not “get the respect deserved”?  You earn respect.

  Two cases from recent years I have tried to get more information on –one was from 2017 so in 2018 should be easy- so I went to the site owners who reported on the cases.  In each instance I was told “I picked that up from (website) –best you contact him” and so I did: “I read that on (name of website) because it seemed interesting” came the response along with advice to contact the “original source”. This original source turned out to have copied the item from some newspaper item and he could not remember which (or even whether it was a newspaper or magazine) or the date. This is the most common response I get when following up old reports and today I more or less expect it.

   Ufology is basing all of its claims on such cases –including plain old “UFO” sightings— that were never investigated because it was much easier to sit in a chair and say “the evidence is all there” –it is not.


   In the United States, France and Belgium I think there are enough ufologists with some credibility who can open cold case investigations on old CE3K/Alien Entity reports.  Once the witnesses, now in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s are gone then so are all of the facts that they can tell us and to ascertain which, if any, of the CE3K/AE reports is genuine could provide us with the valuable data we need.

   I am undertaking this work in the UK (though some prominent ufologists appear to not want this –I wonder why?) and I just hope and pray that someone out there will do likewise in their own country.  In Spain, for instance, it appears that “certain prominent Ufologists” were constantly at work faking complex Close Encounter cases with the deliberate intention of undermine and hoaxing other Ufologists.  When it comes to CE3K/AE reports from Spain the list of fake reports is high. Only by personally investigating reports did I find this out and it seems that Spanish Ufologists were quite happy to not expose the hoaxers (“the intentions of the Ufologist involved is not known”) or to even report openly and widely that these cases were Ufological hoaxes.

   The same applies in the UK where Ufologist Andrew Roberts (who focussed the attention of Ufologists on the fictional Berwyn Mountains “UFO crash”) and associate of David Clarke, admitted at a UK UFO conference that he and other well known Ufologists had planted fake reports going back many years.  When confronted after making this semi-forced confession, Roberts stated that the hoaxing was for the “purposes of a study”, however, he could give no details of what this study was and refused flatly to identify which reports were faked.  This, in effect, means that any research findings by UK researchers are negated because bad data creates bad data –any results are a waste of energy, time and paper.

See for instance:

and


   98% of UK Ufologists spend their time in childish spats, hoaxing and worse.  In the last three weeks I have twice been targeted by attempts to steer me into looking into fake reports and testimony –I know certain prominent Ufologists are involved and I have made it clear that if it happens again not only will they be publicly exposed and named but I will also take legal action –including reporting breaches of their Terms of Service to their internet providers.

   It is not a question of free speech –as in the United States we are dealing with “limited free speech” and you cannot just aim to say whatever you want to get free press coverage.  If you go to the Press and make remarks then, even if slightly misquoted, they are yours.  In the UK it seems no one expects to get sued for insulting a fellow’ Ufologist.

   Here is part of an item from the New Scientist’s Daily Newsletter of 16th June, 1990, and refers to an event that Stanton Friedman was to speak at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12617216-700-ariadne/

   “Friedman continues to publicise the MJ-12 story, and in October last
year was scheduled to address a public meeting in Manchester about it. The
meeting was announced in The Manchester Evening News and caught the eye
of Jenny Randles, a Stockport author and investigator who has written several
books on the topic of UFOs, landings, abductions, mysterious aliens and
purported conspiracies by governments to cover up incidents. She contacted
the newspaper and in an interview made plain her opinion of the MJ-12 papers,
once saying that they were ‘about as factual as a Steven Spielberg movie’.
She also made some remarks about the bizarre stories circulated from time
to time about UFOs, such as extraterrestrials’ fondness for strawberry ice-cream
and the US government’s making agreements with aliens about a quota for
future abductions.

   “A report of Randles’s remarks appeared in the newspaper on the day of
Friedman’s meeting, though the interview had taken place several days before.
Jenny Randles had some complaints about it; for instance, it applied the
comment about the MJ-12 papers to the meeting instead and mention of the
wilder stories about UFOs might have been taken by some to refer to Friedman
himself.

   “The upshot is that Friedman and the organiser of the meeting, Harry
Harris, have issued writs against the newspaper and Jenny Randles. They
are demanding Pounds sterling 500 from The Manchester Evening News, but
from Randles Pounds sterling 10,000, money which she does not have. Friedman,
in suing her, is alleged to have suffered damage to his scientific reputation,
such as it is, and to have had his public meeting sabotaged by an attack
in the newspaper timed for the same day by her”.

   And out of court settlement was apparently reached. Of course, one of Randles supporters was none other than Andrew Roberts who wrote, rather childishly in “Ufologists Suing Ufologists –Friedman”: http://www.ufoupdateslist.com/2001/jun/m14-019.shtml

“Y'all,
 Stanton Friedman may squeal and squawk in trying to justify his
 pointless legal persecution of Jenny Randles over her opinions,
 but no-one has yet put the case in any context from a UK ufology
 point of view. I was heavily involved in the scene at that time
 (indeed we put Stanty on at a gig in Leeds and made a healthy
 profit out of _his_ opinions!)”

   You can read the American side of this at another online site which shows that American researchers are also, as an old time British copper might have put it: “at it!”

   This is without referring to Whitley Streiber’s legal action against Jenny Randles:

   “Strieber had been looking into a book called Science and the UFOs by Jenny Randles and Peter Warrington, which describes a "classic" UFO experience... and then, mere hours later, he was supposed to have had the strangely similar experience which was so profitably immortalized in his Communion. Badly drawn aliens with enormous eyes and faces made of putty removed his underpants and thrust their video cameras where no man had gone before. Or something like that.

   “Jenny Randles, who's a professional UFO author and researcher, made the mistake of joking about this suggestive sequence of events when speaking on the radio. Having been sent a tape of the programme by his UFOlogical colleague Stanton Friedman, Strieber immediately threatened a libel action. Randles lacked the funds to resist and had to grovel in public. Nobody messes with Whitley Strieber”.

   As with this current article, you will notice that all of my books –“World Mysteries” or Ufological- are fully referenced. This is so that the work can be peer reviewed by anyone interested; scientific journals tend not to want to feature items about UFOs unless it fits what they are looking for.  It is so easy to fall into the line given by debunking “sceptical Ufologists” or the die-hard “Everything is Unknown” lobby. I look into reports in as much detail as possible.  I look at what debunkers write and say and I look at what Ufologists say and will also look into a report from sources outside of both groups.

   Regarding UFO Contact? (aka: High Strangeness) I knew that I had to, as always, stand by my conclusions –in other words I gave my conclusions and I am quite open to new theories or evidence that might prove me right or wrong: peer review and open mind –what Science is supposed to be.

   Dr. Mark Rodheiger from the Centre for UFO Studies gave my book high praise: 

     "I’ve been browsing through it and find it to be an impressive body of work.
     I appreciate your lively writing, use of original sources as much as possible,
    and forceful opinions about the cases, investigators, etc. And I concur with
    your  evaluations of cases that have been pushed aside, such as Kelly, or  
   Pascagoula."

   It is important to emphasise that “forceful opinions about the cases, investigators” should not be thought of as debunking in some way. When I first started in Ufology (I was willing to call myself a “Ufologist” back then) back in 1973 there were people I held in high esteem: Donald E. Keyhoe, author and founder of the National Investigations Committee of Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), James and Coral Lorensen, founders of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation; Ivan T. Sanderson, founder of the Society for the Investigation of The Unexplained (SITU). John A. Keel.


   Sanderson’s theories were his own based on the data he gathered and also on what we knew back in those days.  He was a field naturalist and zoologists and one of the few who heard of a strange report and got off his ass to investigate. He was one of the first investigators to get to Flatwoods and talk to the witnesses and gather local information.  As a writer for popular publications he could put a “spin” on a case but if that is how you earn a living and fund your work it is what you do.

   John A. Keel I still enjoy reading and it was his Strange Creatures From Time & Space that made me realise that there was more out there than just lights in the sky. His work also made me realise why everything needed to be checked, double checked and triple checked as well as the importance of going to the source or witness if possible. Whether Keel really believed all he wrote only he knows but it earned him a good living and even a movie based on his Mothman work.

   I have not included Charles Hoy Fort, the man whose work so many quote endlessly but very few appear to have read, judging by all the misquotes (showing just how “copy and paste” has become so prevalent these days). I found a good few sources Fort quoted did not in fact contain any such report –my work on the “Wild Dogs/Wolves of Cavan” is covered in The Red Paper: Canids.  In fact, Fort, rather like Keel, tended to play with facts and though both did a lot of research I found it was never to be trusted 100%.

   Keyhoe was another who, I have absolutely no doubt, believed in the reality of flying saucers.  However, Keyhoe was a writer and as former US Air Force Project Blue Book head and friend of Keyhoe’s, Edward J. Ruppelt once said that Keyhoe, given the facts, then decided what the facts were.  And I need to be fair here because the material we take for granted today from Freedom Of Information requests or simply released by the US Air Force simply was not available to Keyhoe as most of it was classed as secret.

   The Lorensens were, to me, the people who got out there and looked into “UFO Operator” or “Occupant” reports. Again, I believe that the couple were sincere in their beliefs regarding flying saucers but at some point they strayed from the path. Most of their material/reports were sent to them from correspondents and so a great many hoaxes seeped through into the files –unintentionally in some cases: a report of giant humanoids getting out of a landed saucer during a forest fire was reported on and the source was a friend of a Ufologist’s who knew a dentist who had been told about this my a patient.  As is typical with Ufology, the racism sneaked in with “a typical illiterate country person” –this comment designed to indicate the person had not read of flying saucers so could not fake a report. Did the Ufologist go to find the woman and witnesses? No.

   There was the need, as far as the Lorensens were concerned, to get incontrovertible truth by any means. Hypnosis, lie detectors and the reason I came to name the couple “The Scopolamine Kids” –the use of the so-called “truth drug”.  With lie detector tests, either positive or negative the result is down to interpretation by the person using the equipment. 
   Example: I once watched one of these experts who boasted that they were used by law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and “national security agencies”.  His work had convicted people and on and on went the bragging rights –he almost claimed 100% accuracy.  His job on this occasion was to carry out lie detector tests on people who claimed to have seen Sasquatch/Bigfoot.  Oh, he was going to get to the bottom of this.  The results were that the people tested were not lying and he pointed out the results on a graph showing where the question was asked and response given. He looked a tad “miffed”.

  I found a related online article in which this expert, whose work had seen people convicted of crimes, stated that the persons tested must have somehow evaded answering truthfully –which he had claimed they could not do.  It was obvious they had lied or “self deceived” because “there is no such thing as Bigfoot!”

   Scopolamine has many problems that come with its use (as I outlined in UFO Contact?) and these reasons are why this “hundred percent reliable” drug had been dumped by law enforcement bodies and even some intelligence agencies. The Lorensens had this belief that anything said under its influence was fact. I had not seen the use of this drug reported in any of the Lorensen books I had read to when I learnt about it I was appalled.

   It has to be realised that the UFO witness or percipient is good for only one thing: getting the facts then dumping them.  I have seen this attitude over-and-over and rarely reported in Ufological publications or book. The favourite ways of getting an alleged UFO abductee to cooperate when all they want to do is forget what happened and try to get on with their lives are:

1.  “Well, if you cooperate with us we can keep your name out of the newspapers”

2.  Anonymous tip to a local reporter giving witness/percipient details –then they have to cooperate or have the press on their doorstep.

   “UFO investigation costs a lot of money” is the usual excuse given for contacting a publication such as the National Enquirer to sell story rights for a fee to cover costs. It seems that the actual percipient(s) are only told this when it is a fate accompli.

   UFO Contact? was written so that it could be shown how Ufologists had operated and to make this a thing of the past and for that reason every reference was given, including, sadly, to what appears to clearly be a rather racist outlook by some so “forceful opinions about the cases, investigators” means that, rarely for Ufology, the truth was being written.

   If UFOs are all explainable and utter rot then why are the “sceptical Ufologists” still commenting, writing articles and (privately because they are cowards) attacking even their alleged friends?  They need to get out of Ufology and find something else to do.  The same thing applies with the legitimate debunkers who still take the TV and publishing cheques for the same old piece of rope. Either get away from Ufology or look into reports with an open mind -these people claim to be applying the Principles of Science but to be honest I’m not sure they have any idea just what those principles are- and check and counter-check and publish conclusions that are truthful.  If you cannot explain a case you write that and see whether anyone else can find a solution. 

   To simply put down an unsolved case as “probably psychological or a hoax” when it cannot be is cowardice.  How does a farmer in the backwoods go about faking high levels of radiation or other ground traces?  How does an hoaxer report his/her/their encounter without any knowledge that five other people reported the object that they described and that air force radar detected an object in the same location –before the news even breaks or, better still, how do hoaxers get people who have no connection with them or who are just passing though report “There was this massive light hovering over a car on the other side of the fields” or “Our car just stopped and then someone pointed out a big light swooping down on a car about half-a-mile down the road: our engine started up again and we got the hell out of there”.

   Please, if you can explain all of that then I will be very happy. Not “Oh well, they might have…” I want a demonstrable way of proving how this was all achieved and when you get an abduction where people report the very same type of object in the area an hour before the event –reports received by local police- and people living locally observe the described object taking off from a field and there is a car in the same field –please explain that to me.

   I have heard every silly little theory from debunkers/sceptical Ufologists over four decades and where there is even a possibility it might answer an aspect of a case I have looked at those theories.  Debunkers do not help their case when they are caught out trying to bribe secondary witnesses to say they lied or take statements out of context or actually just downright lie.

   The question is whether, in the UK, the “Government” employs sceptical Ufologists to debunk cases/events. No.  These people operate for their own reasons and some of those reasons and mindsets would be great for a psychological study. Berwyn Mountain and its UFO crash –fiction and created as a deliberate hoax rather like the ‘scary’ Aerial Phenomena Enquiry Network (APEN) was created by Ufologists and the names of those involved are known because Ufologists like to back-stab one another or tell people about this “great gag”.

   Sceptical Ufologists paid to “explain away” the Redlesham Forest incident –no government department is going to waste money doing that since the whole case is known around the world and been reported on in books (John Hanson’s The Halt Perspective being the best), magazine articles, podcasts, You Tube videos, TV and whatever else you can think of.  Mention Rendlesham Forest and the UFO incident and most people might know what you are talking about but mention David Clarke or Jenny Randles or any other sceptic on the case and you will draw blank looks.

   These would be the worst (paid) “government mouthpieces” ever because no one knows who they are or really cares what they say.  If the Rendlesham object was described as “looking like Donald Duck but green” –people will accept that if they decide it is true.   Ufologists seem to be full of themselves and their 15 minutes of fame but no one else cares –have they been on the X Factor or Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here?  No?  Who are they then?

   William Moore in the United States took ,money to basically spy on Ufologists and report back to a faction in the US Air Force. He got caught out and so admitted it at a UFO convention and he was ostracised –rightly so- from Ufology.  Moore was not the only person involved with UFOs who took the money to snoop and plant stories but those people covered their asses quickly.  Even Dr. Hynek continued to do some work after he ‘retired’ as US Air Force consultant.

   We find Vallee carrying out incompetent at best research –he becomes a ufological hero!  The late Eric Morris in the UK actually told Ufologists at a UFO event that he had faked abduction reports and so on. He was never ostracised but invited to other events. Andrew Roberts admits faking reports with other Ufologists whom he refuses to identify (but are known) and will not even come clean on what reports are faked. Ostracised?  No –he continues to ply his trade. 

   There are others and to be honest I do not care.  More time has been spent over 70 years at these ‘games’ than carrying out serious research into UFOs. Unless a UK report has been validated by others anything coming from certain Ufologists needs to be ignored and if these people write books those should be black- listed by genuine Ufologists. 


   I get angry seeing how much time has been wasted and it is why I work alone and when I find fake cases those will be reported on.  We need truth not lies.

Brad Steiger

I have been asked several times to put a question to Brad Steiger about a report he wrote about. Two "sceptical ufologists" expected me to put their rather insulting questions to him.  This seems a trait of the "sceptical (debunker) ufologist" -they do not have the balls to put their own questions to people they have criticised.

There is, of course, some stupidity involved since these 'learned ufologists' are so self absorbed in their own egoes and little cliques that they do not even know that Brad Steiger is dead.

I quote from FREE (Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial & Extraordinary Experiences):

Brad Steiger: Brad was a dear friend of FREE, and even though he was very ill, Brad completed the “Conclusion” for our book weeks before he passed away on May 6, 2018. Brad was considered a legendary prodigious author and investigator in the “paranormal” field. Brad authored more than 175 books, with over 17 million copies in print. His titles include: Mysteries of Time and Space; Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits and Haunted Places; Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier; Touched by Heaven's Light; American Indian Medicine Power; Strangers from the Skies; Project Bluebook; The Rainbow Conspiracy; Real Encounters, Different Dimensions and Otherworldly Beings; and many more. Brad first began publishing articles on the unexplained in 1956; since then, he has written more than 2,000 paranormal-themed articles. From 1970-73, his weekly newspaper column, "The Strange World of Brad Steiger," was carried domestically in over 80 newspapers and overseas from Bombay to Tokyo. He was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on February 19, 1936. He is survived by his lovely wife, Sherry Hansen Steiger, author and co-author of over 22 books. They have two sons, three daughters, and ten grandchildren. Brad and Sherry’s website is www.bradandsherry.com.

I do my own research so might I suggest that if you are a sceptical ufologists who contributes nothing to actual real research, or if you call yourself a "ufologist", that you do similar.

I may be good, admittedly, but I cannot communicate with the dead.  No one can.