PHOTOGRAPH: CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK
After watching Erica Lukes chat (well, her guest did all the talking!) last night (see previous post) it was interesting to see yet another person querying Jacques Vallee. ImDB lists Vallee as also being an actor (I write nothing!). You go to Wikipedia and it states:
"Jacques Fabrice Vallée; born September 24, 1939) is an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California and Paris, France."
In case you are wondering what a venture capitalist or sometimes simply capitalist, it is a person who makes capital investments in companies in exchange for an equity stake. The venture capitalist is often expected to bring managerial and technical expertise, as well as capital, to their investments. A venture capital fund refers to a pooled investment vehicle (in the United States, often an LP or LLC) that primarily invests the financial capital of third-party investors in enterprises that are too risky for the standard capital markets or bank loans. These funds are typically managed by a venture capital firm, which often employs individuals with technology backgrounds (scientists, researchers), business training and/or deep industry experience
Basically, Vallee puts up his name to, say, Skinwalker Ranch, and he makes cash out of it. Everyone has to make a living and research cannot be carried out without finances (tell me about it). Hey, Vallee has done pretty good out of thois since the 1960s. He's a good self publicist and a very poor researcher. Proven.
Let's look at the facts here. Vallee has a claim to fame that he was involved in tracking what we call the Black Knight satellite in the 1960s and he wrote up the data and presented it to his boss. His boss, for a reason that makes no sense. Remember: the French have always been at the forefront of science which is why in the past you mention the Frenchj Academy of Sciences and people were in awe. The French, military, scientific and Space agency have all been at the forefront when it comes to UFOs as well and that goes back to the early 1950s. Yet, here we have Vallee stating his boss was not going to get invbolved in the UFO business and destroyed all the evidence (the report). Here is where I have to call bull shit.
You are a scientist/researcher. You make notes, copies of any photographs or other materials such as maps, etc and you keep them in a raw data file. From that you have a Working Data File which is where you are defining and tidying up, referencing material. this leads to THE finished file. Every scientist, working researcher does this (and any with brains keep paper files because ifg the computer blows...). But here, Vallee, this genius, had a report. Nothing else. No copies. I first read about this in the early 1970s when Vallee's first two books (Challenge To Science and Anatomy of a Phenomenon) were must reading for Ufologists since, after all, he was French and a scientist! I even discussed the story with Franklyn Davin-Wilson who thought there had to be more to the story as he, too, wondered about "standard back up files".
We then had Vallee's various 'analyses' of UFO landings and Franklyn pointed out date discreprancies three times for just one case. Hey, any researcher can miss one thing until it us pointed out and corrected. Vallee never correctsa the record. Vallee is above the menial tasks. When I was going through UFO books and publications looking to catalogue UFO sightings I found that, outright, Desmond Leslie and George Adamski (pardon the language) book The Flying Saucers Have Landed was so full of faked and badly reported incidents (reports of meteors became "disc shaped object" and so on). Then I found that the Vallee books were not trustworthy. Believe me I spent a couple weeks trying to double check everything because I had this stupid belief that Vallee as a scientist had -must have- researched everything. I really was jhust sitting there in disbelief and still thinking either I had misinterpreted (!) or others had reported inaccurately. In the end I realised that Vallee was a poor researcher.
Well known hoaxes have been included in his data base as well as in his books. Vallee was in a position as a "scientist" to simply check official archives or have someone check for him. Did he even lift a finger to check his data? No. Vallee does not have to do the menial. We have, thanks to his sham research still got reports of a UFO crash/occupant case in France in 1790 that never happened as well as the Quimper-Corentin UFO/occupant account -again fictitious (you can read Some Things Strange and Sinister or look for the accounts on this blog).
Others use Vallee's data for their own -Ted Phillips' Physical Trace Data Base (anyone seen it?) that you can find online is very basic and full of known hoaxes, misidentifcations and includes Vallee data. As Franklyn onc e told me: "Bad Data In = Bad Data Out".
In fact, Vallee has the habit of citing the same cases and also telling us of a report (a story in fact since it has nothing that would make it a "report") "from a person I know" and we have to take his word for it that this actually happened -no real date or time and in some cases no accurate date. That is not the work of a scientific researcher but someone putting a book together to make money.
I know whgat readers are thinking: "Well why has no one else pointed this out?" They have. The problem is that Ufology, particularly in the United States where Hynek introduced Vallee, there is this attitude of bending the knee in reverance when the name "Jacques Vallee" is uttered. When someone writes online or states in a You Tube video: "He's a scientist and a cool Frenchy guy looking into UFOs!" it ought to result in a hand out of vomit bags.
Here is another point...in fact it is a major point: 18th February, 2022, Vallee told Wired that "after six globe-trotting decades" he still doesn't know what UFOs are:
https://www.wired.com/story/jacques-vallee-still-doesnt-know-what-ufos-are/
What the actual **** has he been doing for sixty years?? If -if he partook of such a menial task- Vallee would have been abvle to easily categorise reports into a natural (unknown phenomenon -UNP) and what appear to be constructed craft (UFOBs). He would have also had the thgird category of Insufficent Reports (over 50% of reports). This man, this genius, this pioneer after 60 years has not found that out? What's he been doing -opening a camembert ranch full of paranormal activity??
For over four decades in fact, Vallee has been selling books, lecture tickets, getting air time on radio, podcasts and TV telling everyone that (apologies for the phrase) "flying saucers" are not real. Not physical. It's all multi-dimensionbal and intermixed with the same (made up) phenomenon that brought humanity fairy folk of all types. He thinks the idea that UFOs might be extra terrestrial "boring" and looks to the multi-dimensional theory.
Again, I ask wtf sort of scientist is Vallee?? The multiverse is a fantasy theory. There is no hard or even anecdotal evidence of any such thing. It is good for sci fi TV, movies and comic books but not when it comes to real science. And what sort of scientific mind thinks that actually finding evidence of extra terrestrial life visiting our planet is soboring thatb they have to sit back, sip their cammomile tea nad yawn.
Also, if it is all non-physical, not real then wtf is this piece of metal Vallee is selling people on having come from a flying saucer? Oh, not many people have seen this item and the fragment Vallee takes on tour is "a replica".
I corrected some of Vallee's work and sent it to Flying Saucer Review the journal of Ufology so that accurate data was out there. Charles Bowen felt that "readers might not accept that Dr Vallee was wrong" and Gordon Creighton.. well, Vallee's work basically backed up his own personal theories and when I spoke to him by phone he emphasised "Dr Vallee" and "Mr Hooper". I tried similar with the MUFON Journal in the 1990s but word was passed along to a MUFON associate who was a friend that "We will leave Dr Vallee's research to speak for itself" (yeah, Vallee puts bums on lecture room seats).
There are others who have tried to point out faults in the data offered, it's what they call peer review in science -it does not exist in Ufology and never has- but all such 'attacks' on Vallee's credibility were stifled. We are talking polite, referenced articles here and not debunking attacks. Ufology is about money making, socialising and entertainment. All the "portals" opening and locations actually started wiuth the fictional real life paranormal TV shows and then it got picked up by the Bigfoot fringers and now it has settled as a Ufology thing.
As I have stated before, Vallee's book Messengers of Deception could be easily retitled Vallee: Messenger of Deception.
Do not get me wrong on this; in the past I emailed and even wrote to Vallee to (politely) point out various problems in his data. I somewhat foolishly thought that as a scientist he might well respond. Not once. I ain't gonna earn him a dollar.
Now, if he ever wanted to respond to any of my criticisms then I would publish them, unedited and without comment to correct the record. I am willing to be proven wrong based on the presentation of facts. That is how research works.
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