It Is All In The Spin

Let's not fool ourselves: people want monsters to exist.  That goes back to probably... well,even before man became more "sophisticated" -an alligator was probably a monster to some and our early ancestors who fell victim to giant birds no doubt saw those predators as monsters.

But the imagined ones are based less on actual threat to life and more imagination.

Old Crugh left the camp to go and gather some fresh mushrooms, herbs or whatever. Everyone heard loud noises from the forest. By dusk, Old Crugh had not returned. He had a spear and bow as well as a flint knife and he was a tough old bird -where was he?  Next day the group looks for him...not a sign.

These people would know the signs had a cave lion or wolf attacked and killed their group member but they found nothing.

Three days later two of the group's young men go off to hunt. One returns and tells how he heard sounds that he, as an experienced hunter, had never heard before.  Everything in the area had then gone quiet.  He called out to his companion -no response. He searched but nothing yet they had only been separated by a few yards. Something had taken him silently.

We know that when a predator appears on the scene there is an eerie silence as nothing wants to draw its attention in their direction. So the sudden silence would be eerie to people used to walking about with birds and insects making their noises.

It might just be that Old Crugh and the young hunter had both fallen into concealed cave holes in the ground.  Archaeologists have found remains of many animals that fell into these and died.  Old Crugh and the young man, stepping onto "nothing" could have been taken aback or speechless with shock -perhaps striking their heads so that they fell unconscious.  

It could be that a predator was involved that they were unfamiliar with and that, being an isolated group, had never heard of.  It could even be down to scouts from another group.

It does not matter.

The group say their prayers or incantations and move off knowing that some mysterious silent killer -some unknown monster- had killed two of their group. If they meet up with another friendly group the story is told and, perhaps embellished a little in the retelling.

We have examples of similar events throughout our history such as an arrow proof dragon killing sheep and the odd villager...an escaped crocodile from some rich person's menagerie. Sheep killed by a bite to the neck and "the blood drained" -yet the killer was silent.  Some huge beast killing sheep that eluded traps, was bullet proof and the likes of which had never been seen before. Cryptozoologists who tend to do no real reading or tracking down of original documents (if they do they tend to out-rightly lie and cover over facts): was it a thylacine brought over to England?  Was it a tiger that escaped from some menagerie?  Was it (really, they need to stop using this one as it makes them seem even more ridiculous) a Dire Wolf?!

In over 40 years of looking into all these sort of things I have found answers and some mysteries but what I have come to accept is that, no matter how many detailed references and even statements from the witnesses themselves, that you present, people will still believe the charlatans who publish trash books because "they are on TV. They are experts". 

I presented one person with a copy of my Girt Dog of Ennerdale paper -fully reference, full original quotes. No doubt as to the conclusion.  "No" I was told. What? "I think that the Centre of Fortean Zoology has it right and that it was more likely a thylacine".  

Oh well. 'Gospel' then?

And I know ufologists like to sit back and giggle at cryptozoologists and give all sorts of reason (not good ones) why UFOs are serious and scientific while Sasquatch is "just plain silly". It also works vice versa no matter what field you go into this happens: "Our subject is a proper Scientific study -theirs is plain silly season stuff!".

The mess really starts when you have nincompoops -present company and myself (I have written books!*) excluded, mix up all the false reports -known hoaxes, misidentifications and so on- and add them into reports of "strange creatures", UFOs, ghosts et al and come up with absolutely ridiculous theories and some, hidden amongst the dross, may be pointing towards a solution but ignore that or do not see it. Or, see it but where is the future money making in explaining something?


I have covered the fact that ufology is not a science. There are people who investigate reports thoroughly but we know, as with the expose of MUFON over recent years, some are 'asked' to alter conclusions and even ifd they do not someone else "higher up" will. There is no real scientific investigation.

Over the last decade or so much talked and written about "Scientific based catalogues" have appeared online.  These are catalogues that we took on trust -because of who was compiling them- and one after another after scrutiny have been far from explosive...more like very, very damp squibs.

Jacques Vallee's UFO Landings (Type I Reports) Catalogue -includes hoaxes (many), many known misidentifications and misinterpretations to the point that we know -because they have said so at public lectures and shrugged it off as normal- fellow ufologists have told him "it's a hoax" but it still gets included.  

When I started cataloguing UFO reports for analysis back in 1977 I was shocked that the category with most 'reports' was Insufficient/Hoax.  "A light was seen" is not sufficient enough to be classed as "unidentified" or even as a "space craft"! Original sources checked proved that the authors were discussing comets, meteorites, aurora and other more "mundane" things.

To find Vallee, who was/is aware of this but continuing to use these reports as data for analysis produces nonsense. But ufologists go weak at the knees when Vallee's name is even mentioned.

Ted Phillips Trace Evidence Catalogue with its "science based analysis and data" turns out to be another dubious catalogue with the same type of material as used by Vallee -you cannot pass judgement on 'trace evidence' from the 1800s because of a vague description by someone not even up-to-date on 19th century scientific progress it is not evidence.

The David Webb Humanoid Catalogue (HumCat) seems to be the same thing and looking through it to find that entries are just notes and that even the Centre for UFO Studies (CUFOS) does not have full case files is...sad.

Ufologists hoping to convince people people that "we are science-based" will find they succeed with members of the public/TV viewers but anyone who looks at the "scientific catalogues" will see the mess.

Even I was fooled until I checked. It was quite gutting realising the truth.

Rather as with monsters and other strange creatures, people want to believe that there are "many thousands" of unexplained reports of UFOs -all extra terrestrial space craft of course.

When I first heard of Budd Hopkins abduction research via my friend Travis Whitehurst I was "all ears"!  Travis sent tape recordings of Budd's lectures and I even have an annotated copy of Hopkins' Intruders. What Hopkins came up with seemed to explain a lot of aspects of alien abduction cases. Naturally there were ufologists who did not accept UFO abduction cases let alone Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Then came what I can only describe as a "WTF?! Period".  Hey, there were missing foetus cases...lots of them.  Oh, it turned out that an abductee's family -particularly parents, grandparents and great, great, great grand parents were also abductees. Everyone had mysterious scars.  Guess what? Regressed abductees could even recall seeing 'greys' while in the womb due, no doubt, to some alien procedure. Hopkins led all of this and others built upon his work.

Symbols...yes, real alien symbols were reported by abductees and they all matched. Even ones I sent to Hopkins matched.

Something was not right and I aired -very politely because that is how professionals are supposed to act- my concerns.  Was there independent oversight of Hopkins' work or even the regression hypnosis session transcripts?  How dare I -"who are you to question his work?" I was accused of being envious, jealous -a debunker (now there was an original thing to call me.  'Never' had that before!). Hopkins, like Vallee, made ufologists knees go weak.

Hopkins was bringing a lot of attention to ufology -particularly to MUFON who jumped in where ever it could (I was once told by its director that MUFON's biggest break was getting constant reference on TVs The X-Files as it spring-boarded the organisation into a high media and public profile...it brought in money).

In the meantime Peter Brookesmith launched a rather nasty attack on Dr David M. Jacobs work -as with Hopkins I had supported Jacobs' research.  I countered Brookesmith's claims and accusations one-by-one and fully proving that the article had just been a malicious attack. Fortean Times, which published Brookesmith's article responded (not for the first time when it went against something written by one of their pals) "We don't think there will be any interest". 

Dr. Jacobs received a copy of the response and thanked me and asked whether he could send a copy to anyone referring to the Brookesmith article. I said "yes".

I got a copy of Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (1996) by Hopkins. It is so full of my own post-it notes that queried what was written, 'facts' and what Hopkins was describing.  I actually checked because I thought Hopkins had decided to cash in by writing a UFO abduction novel. I read and re-read pages in disbelief as I began to wonder just what was going on?

I was told that "this is the smoking gun in UFO abduction research" (with ufologists almost any case appears to be "the smoking gun" that will burst open the whole UFO conspiracy) and that "It proves US Government agents as well as the former Secretary General of the United Nations had it proven to them that UFOs were a reality -aliens are here. Now!"

Were these people being serious?

Yes.

Hopkins and his now collaborator in UFO abduction research, David Jacobs were feted at events, talked all over the world. They became a fixture of any UFO programme or podcast made.

By this time I definitely knew ufology had lost its collective head and that Hopkins and Jacobs 'research' was extremely flawed.  Symbols from UFO abductees sent to me by Eric Morris who turned out to be one of the biggest liars and hoaxers (deliberately) were admitted fakes.  He told me -boasted openly at UFO events to faking abduction accounts (but was still invited to talk at events) and how he had fed me a "crock of s---!"  These faked symbols matched those provided by  "genuine abductees" and held by Hopkins?

We now know, after his death when things are being revealed, that Linda Cortile (the subject of Witnessed) was faking it all -material sent to Hopkins by a third party actually came from Cortile.  Hopkins even told his wife at the time that a phone call he had just received from a relative of Cortile's was "Linda pretending to be her cousin" -yet he used all of this as genuine evidence.

What was going on? 

Was Hopkins doubting the result of his own abduction work to the extent that he was fooling himself -grasping and holding on to anything?  

Not if you listen to what ufologists say -he and Jacobs were almost evangelical about their business. Hundreds abducted by aliens? Thousands? Heck no -millions upon millions were being abducted. Not just the all powerful Greys were involved either -just as Hopkins work had proved false memories implanted had hidden the fact that these Greys were behind abductions, things escalated so that there were lizard/reptile aliens, preying mantis types and it grew from there.

In UFO Contact? I went into this in far more details and I have no idea where it went so wrong but David Jacobs has left reality and credibility so far behind now....but ufologists still fete him and invite him to events and to give talks but never ever openly criticise or analyse his work.  In fact, they tend to quote it whenever they can because "its scientific".  Jacobs name is another ufological knee weakener.

Every year we hear that it is 100% confirmed that "official UFO Disclosure will happen"  -that year or the next. Since 2000.  A joke can only go so far but, I hear from the most reliable of ufologists that "Disclosure is scheduled for late 2019 or 2020".

Can I point out that you should never ever take the word of anything you hear or see on You Tube...or from ufologists it seems. Nor ghost hunters. And not cryptozoologists either. In fact, you should only believe what you find out from personal research (no, not googling something) by contacting the witness/percipient or going to the original referenced source.

We all fell for the False Credibility at some point. Ufology is exactly where it was in the 1950s. It has not progressed in investigation or research.

People want to believe that there are millions of abductions being carried out by a multitude of aliens every year.  That there are near imbecilic humanoid-alien hybrids ready to take over the Earth after generations (and who do not know what music, a country, currency or most other things are).  That every mountain, wood and forest -and swamp- is full of demonic gnomes, huge, hairy humanoids, goat-men, lizardmen and more. Every American home has a portal/gateway to hell and is under attack from Satan, demons or the spirit(s) of a little girl -who might just be a demon in disguise. 

People WANT to believe that our world is a mixture of Dr Who, The X-Files and any other sci fi and fantasy TV/movie world you can name. To be fair, 99.9% of those believers have never seen anything themselves but they "heard about it on TV so it's true".  That includes the 'fact' that two men in black had turned up at RAF Bentwaters following the Rendlesham Forest incident and interrogated USAF personnel and even drugged some.  The penny did not drop until I saw an episode of the TV series UFO Hunters and realised the the MIB were none other than myself and my driver! It was all a fantasy. or "fact" as ufologists call it.

People should have advanced to a point where we look atreal  facts and analyse things -we have a wealth of knowledge at our finger tips.  But in truth most of us have not progressed any further than Old Crugh's group: no evidence for anything but that just 'proves' there was something unknown, right? Unidentified. Sinister.  Weird. Very likely one of Them out to Kill US!

Seeing old, explained (decades ago) "classic UFO cases" being rebooted by new ufologists so that they can be cited as "Completely unexplained" -with "by Science" often added. Why? Because they are not investigators and researchers. As with "Bigfooters" and "ghost hunters" they are in it for the celebrity and money and no matter how many past ufologists proved a case a hoax or down to natural causes it does not matter: it is all in the spin world of Google, copy and paste no matter how inaccurate the source is.

*just in case, that was very tongue-in-cheek!