Jacques Vallee - Implications of the UFO Phenomenon

The Unified Field Theory of the Paranormal

My best friend was a master at the "come hither" look. He could sit in a bar, stare at a girl in a certain way, and in most instances he would establish a contact that often led to... well, let's just say that it led to "something". I remember once betting him a pint beer that he couldn't get a particular girl to notice him. He went even further.

"Make it a pitcher of Stella Artois," he said, "and I'll have her and her friend at our table in ten minutes."

That seemed to be too good a deal to pass up, because while I didn't think he could do it, the girl's friend was cute and I had no problem playing wingman, so I took the bet. Seven minutes later, I was ordering him a pitcher of beer... and buying a couple of drinks for the girls, who had come over to our table without my friend saying a word to them, or motioning, or anything like that. He just looked at them in that certain way of his, and by doing so he changed the course of events. I could never do it myself - I would almost always look away at the pivotal moment, and even if I didn't look away, I could never quite read the "signs". Indeed, years later I wrote a song about the experience (and other related things).

This is, in its own way, akin to the observer effect - when you observe something, you invariably change it.

The theoretical physics of all of this is far beyond my proverbial "pay grade", so I'm not going to use the word "quantum" here - it's something that's tossed about far too frequently by people who don't understand what it truly represents in all its facets (including me). But we can see the basic principle that observation changes behaviour in the real world, without getting into theoretical physics. The example of my friend in the bar is amusing, but a far more concrete and pervasive example comes from my own work as a documentary filmmaker, and "reality" television, where the first rule of thumb is that as soon as you point a camera at someone, you will almost invariably change their behaviour. People react to being observed.

Many documentary filmmakers tend to look down on "reality" television as some kind of abomination on the grounds that it's not an accurate representation of reality, because such shows are often heavily scripted, and even if they're not, how can you expect someone like Gene Simmons tor Rick Harrison to behave the same way he normally would without a camera crew following him around. But here's the question that needs asking: what is reality, and what is normal? We change our behaviour all of the time, in both big ways and small ways, based on our interactions with others, or based on being observed. All that "reality" television does is create a different reality than the one which might have existed had the cameras not been there, but either reality would have largely been structured according to people dealing with other people in some way. It is an observed reality regardless, just as any "traditional" documentary is based on an observed reality, and the filmmaker's ultimate presentation and interpretation of that reality.

History shows us that you don't even need other people to have an observed reality where behaviour is constantly influenced and changed. All one has to do is read the diaries of Christians throughout the years to see that even the belief that they were being observed by God was enough to significantly influence their actions (indeed, an atheist might posit that the whole idea of God was introduced as a behavior control mechanism, but that's a debate for another day). In essence, a God that observes, and from time to time interacts in some way with humanity, as many people believe happens, is no different than a camera crew and writer working on a "reality" television series. What was Jesus and the crucifixion but the ultimate plot change in the "story"? Indeed, if it all happened now, it would probably look something like this:

In short, we live in an "observed reality", where our actions are constantly influenced by the awareness of being observed, whether this "awareness" is conscious, or unconscious (it's worth noting that the observers are increasingly artificial in nature, like the pervasive video cameras that we see on almost every street corner in most North American cities these days).

The tricky bit, as my friend knew was the case with women, is whether one can actually control the change induced by the observer effect, and therefore control people's behaviour, as opposed to generating a random effect that just changes their behaviour in unpredictable ways. My friend didn't just want anything to happen when he looked at the girl in the bar - he wanted a particular result. Accordingly, he looked at her in a particular way. If it had been someone like me, who was less adept at "the look", the likelihood of getting the desired result would have been much lower (trust me on this one).

All of which is to say that I think Jacques Vallee was essentially right. Vallee proposed that there is a genuine UFO phenomenon which has been active throughout human history, and which  appears in various forms to different cultures. In his opinion, the intelligence behind the phenomenon has been engaged in social manipulation by using deception on the humans with whom they interact. In essence, we have been living in their reality show. 

I would go further than Vallee, however, and suggest that all paranormal phenomena are interrelated, and a manifestation of the same non-human intelligence. Thus, ghosts and UFOs, for example, are simply different ways of trying to achieve the same effect. Sometimes this has taken a "world historical" form, as in the appearance of a "cross in the sky" to Constantine the Great at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, or Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting in 1947, but most of the time it takes the form of little moments in the day-to-day lives of people, some of which might be noticed, but most of which are not, at least not on a conscious level (something like "deja vu" or a string of coincidences falls into the latter category). But somewhere, deep inside all of us (even the atheists), I think there is a feeling that we're being "watched", and an awareness that there is something out there which for whatever reason is influencing us to some degree, and for some unknown reason.

I think this is the "Unified Field Theory" of what we call the "paranormal". Shakespeare said it best: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."



If all of this is true, however, then the question that remains: why would a non-human intelligence would engage in such activities. Are we simply actors, playing a particular role set out for us by the NHI... or are we also the writers and directors, and the NHI is the producer, providing us with the stage so that we can exercise our own creativity in our own way.

It's a question of being controlled versus free will, and it's the central existential question of human history. it's also the fundamental question that anyone interested in the "paranormal" needs to be asking.

Paul Kimball

2011 Global Competitiveness Forum - Contact Learning From Outer Space

Here are the presentations from the recent Global Competitiveness Forum held in Saudi Arabia, which featured a panel about ET life ("Contact Learning From Outer Space"), from various perspectives.

Stanton Friedman



Nick Pope



Michio Kaku



Zaghloul El Naggar



Jacques Vallee



Not quite the same as being there, but a fascinating and thought-provoking cross-section of views nonetheless.

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings - Opening and 1561 Nuremberg case

The opening and the #10 case, the 1561 Nuremberg case, from the documentary Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings.



A note: the top 9 cases were voted in as described by the narration. As I've made clear in a number of interviews since the film was released, I exercised my editorial discretion to bump the case that came in at #10 in the voting, and replace it with the Nuremberg report, as an avatar for all of the cases that pre-date the modern era of UFO sightings, which dates from 1947 and the Kenneth Arnold sighting. As researchers like Jacques Vallee have pointed out, the phenomenon has been with us much longer than the past six decades.

Paul Kimball

The Cryptoterrestrials - A Review

When you exclude the peripherals, from the table of contents and acknowledgements, to the foreword and afterward written by Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop respectively, The Cryptoterrestrials, the final work by the late Mac Tonnies, comes in at a slim 98 pages. However, in a prime example of quality over quantity, Mac has left us with an impassioned and thought-provoking clarion call for a new way of thinking, not just about the UFO phenomenon or even the paranormal in general, but about ourselves.

The UFO phenomenon is the focus of The Cryptoterrestrials, at least on the surface. Mac takes direct aim from the beginning at the purveyors of ufological orthodoxy, namely those people who are convinced that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis is the Extraterrestrial Fact (a subject I've written about here). He pulls no punches, skewering the majority of ufology both for their blind adherence to the ETH, and for their willing self-marginalization.


"The ufological 'community' suffers from creative anemia," he writes. "While its luminaries might noisily claim otherwise, ufology collectively wants to be marginal. With the lamentable exception of a few spokesman who feel the need to 'explain' the phenomenon's intricacies to a wary public (often in the guise of would-be political discourse), the ostensible UFO community remains afraid of stepping into the rude glow of widespread public attention. And it has a right to be afraid." (p. 25)

It's not that Mac rejected the ETH - indeed, in the book he writes that it remains a viable, if shopworn, hypothesis. What he rejected, and what people like Nick, Greg and I reject, are those who say that the ETH is the only answer, or even the best answer. After all, how can one say any hypothesis is the "best" hypothesis when faced with something as weird as the UFO phenomenon? With the ETFacters, it isn't a matter of science anymore, or logic, or following the evidence to where it leads - it's become all about the perpetuation of their belief system within an ever-shrinking community of flying saucer evangelicals. People like Stan Friedman have done more to undermine the cause of the ETH within the broader public than a hundred Seth Shostaks or James McGahas, not necessarily because they are wrong, but because they are so convinced that everyone else is wrong. Mac rejected, as Greg, Nick and I do, their intellectual rigidity, as well as their lack of any true sense of wonder, or appreciation for the mystery of it all.

If Friedman et al have spent the last few decades hunkered down in the ufological equivalent of an intellectual Jericho, then Mac is the guy standing at the walls with the trumpet, and The Cryptoterrestrials is the blast that should bring the whole decrepit edifice of certainty crumbling down. In his foreword, Nick compares Mac to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, the brash and liberating antidote to what had become a stale status quo. It's a perfect metaphor, for there will indeed be more than a few people who read The Cryptoterrestrials and think Mac is the ufological version of the Anti-Christ. But if anything could use some anarchy, it's ufology.



In the end, however, it doesn't matter whether people within ufology "get" what Mac is saying, because he was aiming his sights a lot higher. Rather than just reinforce existing views, or rehash old ground, Mac takes the foundations that have been built by writers and researchers as diverse as Jacques Vallee, John Keel, Whitley Strieber and David Jacobs, and expands upon them, even as he points out the flaws in their theories. His goal is not to find a definitive answer, or to create an alternative orthodoxy, but rather to ask as many questions as he could, and try to come up with some ideas about where we may find the answers. He was a true revolutionary, a New Light for the paranormal.

So, what are the cryptoterrestrials? In Mac's hypothesis, they are a race of indigenous humanoids who share this planet with us. Technologically superior in many ways (but not, perhaps, all ways), they are on the decline, even as we continue to ascend - they are, if not a dying race, then one whose time has passed. And we are the noisy, and in many ways dangerous "new" kids on the block. Unlike Vallee or Keel, Mac does not sidestep the physical reality of the UFO phenomenon - in his hypothesis, they exist in this world, literally.

I interviewed Mac in Kansas City in 2006 about a number of subjects while filming Best Evidence, including the cryptoterrestrials.







Does the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis make any sense? Anyone who reads The Cryptoterrestrials will be hard pressed not to admit that it makes as much sense as any of the other theories on offer, and perhaps even more. What began as a thought experiment for Mac (I know, because I was there when he first started thinking about it seriously, on a trip to Los Angeles) became in the end a thorough review of the evidence and the literature, and some pretty grounded speculation about what it all points to. But it wasn't Mac's intention to write a definitive conclusion to the discussion about the UFO phenomenon, or the paranormal; rather, it was his intention to get that discussion started again, and to get people thinking, for the first time in a long time, about what really might be going on - including the possibility that we are being visited by beings from another world.

Unable to disprove a negative, I have no choice but to concede that some UFO encounters may originate in space. And it would be the height of arrogance to proclaim that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis are mutually exclusive. And of course, cryptoterrestrials don't preclude "inter-dimensional" travelers either. (p. 52)

What was important to Mac, at least at this stage, was to ask the correct questions, because only then might we be able to get back on the road to finding some answers, if not about the phenomenon itself, then about ourselves, and our almost symbiotic relationship to it. "If we're dealing with a truly alien intelligence," Mac concludes, "there's no promise that its thinking will be linear. Indeed, its inherent weirdness might serve as an appeal to an aspect of the psyche we've allowed to atrophy. It might be trying to rouse us from our stupor, in which case it's tempting to wonder if the supposed ETs are literally us in some arcane sense."

Earlier in this review, I called Mac the "New Light of the paranormal." Most readers won't understand the reference. Let me explain. In the late 18th century, in the Maritime colonies, religion was dominated by the Congregational Church, which maintained a rigid, Calvinist orthodoxy. In 1776 a young preacher, Henry Alline, began to travel amongst the communities of the colonies, talking about a better way - free will, an almost mystical view of faith, and a personal experiential relationship with the divine. Most important, he rejected all of the man-made conventions that he called "non-essentials," over which various denominations argued incessantly, as nothing but hindrances to the central message - the redeeming love of God. Like Mac, Alline died far too young (in 1784, at the age of 36). He was derided by the guardians of the old order, who called him the "ravager of churches," in much the same way as I suspect Mac will come to be viewed as the ravager of the ET orthodoxy. Finally, like Mac, he presented a simple, concise, and transformational message. He was a true "New Light" - and so was Mac, who insisted that we must not lose sight of the central message: that we are dealing with a non-human intelligence which remains a mystery. Amidst the noise, that is the signal.



In a world where hyperbole has become the lingua franca, The Cryptoterrestrials is that rare work which merits the appellation "a must read." It represents a true paradigm shift in our understanding of the mysteries of the paranormal. This is a book that deserves to be read and discussed far and wide, and which offers up an opportunity to revitalize the UFO subject, and make it relevant again - but only if we are courageous and intellectually honest enough to embrace it.

Paul Kimball

The Myth of the ETH as ETFact

The last column I wrote for Alien Worlds before it folded.

Paul Kimball

Above and Beyond
The Myth of the ETH as ETFact

Of all the non-terrestrial theories that have been offered to explain the UFO phenomenon, the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has always seemed the most plausible one to me. I don't think it's been proved, but I think it's a better bet than the others on offer when one looks at the evidence, and the science.

The evidence seems to indicate that at least some UFO cases represent a non-human intelligence at work. The science now tells us that there are almost certainly other intelligent beings in the galaxy, and if they are more advanced than us, there's a reasonably good chance that they could make their way here.

However, it’s critical to remember that the key letter in ETH is the "H" - it's still just a hypothesis, and anyone who tells you that they can prove that aliens have visited Earth beyond a reasonable doubt, or even on the balance of probabilities, is putting the cart well before the horse.

Beyond that, however, I think the biggest problem with the ETH supporters within ufology is that they're so... "limited" in their outlook. They are convinced that aliens have visited Earth, and in many cases they are convinced that they are still visiting Earth, and interacting with humans in all sorts of ways, some good and some bad. They are of the "nuts and bolts" school of thought, i.e. Joe Alien made his way to Earth in a flying saucer, in much the same way that Captain Kirk and all of our other science fiction icons make their way about the galaxy.

This is what I call "Keyhoe-ian" ufology, because it is based directly on the way of thinking that Major Donald Keyhoe first put forward in the 1950s. It is out-of-date, and badly out-of-touch with modern science. It presumes that aliens are only a few decades, or maybe one or two hundred years or so more advanced than us, which is highly unlikely. It presumes that the aliens are preoccupied with us, and that we are somehow important to them, which is also highly unlikely. In short, it is a point of view that is based on what people who grew up in the pioneering days of sci-fi and the space race expect of their aliens, and not the point-of-view that modern physicists and astrobiologists take.

The pro-ETH as ETFact stance of people like Keyhoe and his successors, the most prominent of which has been the flying saucer physicist, Stanton Friedman, is a relic of a different time and place, which is ironic when one considers that these people often criticize scientists for not being open-minded about the UFO phenomenon, and for being stuck in the past.

If aliens are here, it is probable that they are far more advanced than we are, by an order of thousands of years, not hundreds. We would be to them as ants are to us - beneath their notice. This might well explain the inherent weirdness of many UFO sightings - things that appear to us almost as magic, or something that in a different era would have been framed in religious terms. As physicist Michio Kaku has noted, there may well be a galactic conversation going on, but in a "language" that we are thousands of years from being able to truly comprehend.

Of course, ETFact ufologists would quickly point out that there are at least a few humans who do indeed study ants - entomologists, which is true enough. But for them I have the following question: How many entomologists spend 60 years - or longer, if you are a proponent of the notion that ET has been coming here for centuries - studying the exact same ant hill?

That idea strikes me as ridiculous. It's a desperate attempt to force fit our own way of thinking onto potential life forms that would be far more advanced than we are - and they would have to be much more advanced in order to get here from there (ignore someone like Friedman, who will try to tell you about how it's actually relatively easy to get to our local galactic neighbours, if only we would try harder, and spend more money).

Again, I'm not saying that the ETH isn't a good hypothesis... indeed, as I noted before, I think it's the most plausible one amongst the various paranormal hypotheses on offer. It's the claim by nuts-and-bolts ufologists like Friedman and Keyhoe - and hucksters like Billy Meier - that ET is making his way here aboard flying saucers and acting like we do that I take issue with, because that contention is far more science fiction than science fact.

ETFacters Friedman and Keyhoe who try to convince you that aliens are basically just like us are no different from religious fundamentalists who portray God as a kindly, white-haired anglo saxon. Such portrayals tell you a great deal about the people who put those images and beliefs forward, but absolutely nothing about the possible entity or entities under discussion. The ETFacters are flying saucer fundamentalists, and in their own way they have done as much damage to the serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon as people like Dr. Edward Condon, Dr. Donald Menzel, or Philip J. Klass.

By focusing on the idea that little green / grey men have been coming here in nuts and bolts spaceships, ETFacters have done a grave disservice to the search for truth about the UFO phenomenon, and its possible alien origins, in the same way that thousands of years of religious leaders have undermined the search for the true nature of God by force-fitting it into a limited paradigm that simply served to reinforce their own worldview. They have not sought wisdom, nor understanding - they have simply proclaimed an "answer" which has been no answer at all.

The reductionist approach that has been adopted by the ETFacters, which seeks to make potential alien life over unto our own image, lacks vision. It is more concerned with what they see as the destination, and their need to get there now, when what we should really be focusing on is the journey, and the wonders we may discover along the way. That's the real signal in all of this. Everything else is just noise.

The worst thing about all of this, however, is the hypocrisy that you find with many of the supposedly more serious members of the “ETFact group”. They are convinced that aliens are here, and interacting with humanity, but they are vocal critics of “exopolitics”, which simply takes the ETFact position to its logical conclusion.
Exopolitics, according to Dr. Michael Salla, one of its best known proponents, is:
“is the study of the key individuals, political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life... exopolitics focus[es] on the political implications of an extraterrestrial presence known to clandestine quasi-governmental entities that keep knowledge of this presence secret from the general public, elected political officials & even senior military officials. The supporting evidence is overwhelming in scope and shows that decision making is restricted on a strict 'need to know' basis.”

Take the word "exopolitics" out of the equation, and that sounds like something Friedman would say. Indeed, if you've heard Friedman speak as many times as I have, you'll note the similarity in the main themes - aliens are here, government is covering up the knowledge of that fact, and we the people have a right to know the truth. At Salla's website for his "exopols courses", he even uses the motto "preparing for our cosmic graduation", which directly echoes Friedman's decades-old mantra that perhaps someday we will be ready to qualify for the cosmic kindergarten.

Friedman's biggest issue with exopolitics, at least in public, seems to be the fact that they are not terribly fussy about vetting their so-called witnesses and whistleblowers. In that respect, he's quite right. However, as more than one exopol has pointed out to me, Friedman has a history of touting his own very flawed witnesses (Gerald Anderson pops to mind right off the bat, followed closely by Glenn Dennis), and cases (Aztec, Flatwoods, flying saucer air wars in the 1950s, perhaps even Roswell).

Frankly, while I disagree with the very premise that underlies the exopolitical belief system (that at least some UFOs have been proved to be alien spacecraft), the more I think about it, the more I find the exopols to be more intellectually honest than people like Friedman, who agree with them on the big picture, but have done little or nothing to try and effect actual political change. The exopols have it right - if you believe aliens are here, and the government is covering it up, then that is a political issue of the highest order, and no longer a scientific one.

Friedman is the de facto Godfathers of Exopolitics - in large part, he created the "family" that is modern ETFact, "Cosmic Watergate" ufology, but like Vito Corleone, he is incapable of taking what he has created and moving it into its next logical phase. Indeed, like the Don, it is a phase that he wants nothing to do with, even as others around him, whom he has inspired, recognize the logical and inevitable implications of what he has been saying all of these years, and are prepared to act on it, no matter how much he protests.

The real scandal, however, is that Friedman, like other serious ETFacters, employs a double standard with absolutely no sense of irony when they run into people who question their position. Anyone they favour who is subjected to critical examination is a victim of “character assassination”, while people the ETFacters don't like, or whom they don't support, like Bob Lazar, or Philip Corso, or even Dr. J. Allen Hynek, are fair game (in Friedman’s universe, Hynek is "an apologist ufologist"). When you mention Dr. Jacques Vallee to them, they become even more desperate in their attacks. Anything that threatens to undermine the belief system they have constructed results in the ufological equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.

People looking for the real scientific approach to the UFO phenomenon, the kind that was championed over the years by Hynek, Vallee, and Dr. James McDonald, should look elsewhere. Why? Because Hynek, McDonald and Vallee left us with myriad case investigations, new theories and ways of looking at the UFO phenomenon, sighting classification systems, and other important legacies. Even people like Friedman’s old classmate, Dr. Carl Sagan, left us with a sense of wonder about the prospect of ET life, even though he was no proponent of the ETH. On the other side, the ETFacters have left us with Roswell, MJ-12, Aztec, tales of massive flying saucer wars between the USAF and UFOs, and other stories that belong in a science fiction anthology, not a serious discussion of what the UFO phenomenon might or might not represent.

The shame is that someone like Friedman could have done so much more – if only he, like his ETFact fellow travelers, had not let their will to believe overwhelm their critical faculties. Those people who want the old time flying saucer / conspiracy gospel will feel right at home with them, because what they offer is comfortable, and provides a sense of continuity and familiarity, and even fraternity. What it does not offer, however, is an honest search for the truth about the UFO phenomenon.

It never did.

Vallee interview

Greg Taylor of the The Daily Grail, which has just re-published Jacques Vallee's classic book Messengers of Deception, has a new interview with Vallee available that makes for very interesting reading. My favourite quote, which could be applied to the remaining defenders of MJ-12 is Vallee's observation that

"Many erstwhile ufologists don’t want the deceptive reports exposed, just as the Catholic Church long denied instances of abuse in its ranks... the best way to gain the respect of the intellectual community is to expose hoaxes, sloppy research and manipulation whenever we encounter them."

A few more choice bits:

"The evidence for an “undercurrent” of deceit behind some alleged UFO cases only becomes visible when you spend time in the field interviewing witnesses and tracking down the evidence. It became annoying to me because it represented a waste of time and a distraction from studying genuine observations. Researchers who collect reports only through books or media accounts would not necessarily encounter this level of the phenomenon and would understandably resist the suggestion that the belief in extraterrestrial intervention is being manipulated to serve political or cultist goals."

"If we do not establish a high standard for the data we publish, the entire field suffers. Then it becomes easy for skeptics to claim that the phenomenon only appears before “cranks and weirdoes,” as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking recently stated in England. This is exacerbated by the increased credulity of the public and its blatant exploitation by the media. It seems that people – including some highly educated folks – are ready to believe almost anything they see on the Internet or on Larry King."

"I don’t believe a UFO observation makes anyone “psychic,” to use the popular terminology, but the phenomenon comes in an environment of manifestations that include heightened awareness of synchronicities, paranormal sounds and lights and occasionally absurd coincidences similar to those described in the poltergeist literature."

You don't have to adhere to Vallee's particular conclusions about the nature of the UFO phenomenon to admire his way of thinking, and to appreciate his observations not just of the phenomenon (or "phenomena"), but of the people who study it as well.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Paul Kimball

Jacques Vallee on UFOs

Vallee on UFOs, then...



And now...



Great stuff.

Paul Kimball

High Strangeness in Halifax - Retro UFO 3 clip

A clip from yours truly at Retro UF0 3, which was held in April 2008 at the Integratron in Landers, California. Here I recount the story of a UFO case investigated by the RCMP and later Canadian researcher Chris Styles that took place in Bedford, Nova Scotia.

Paul Kimball

UFOs: Too Weird to be Extraterrestrials?

Mac Tonnies has a well-written and interesting new post at his SETI blog titled Reconciling UFOs and the Singularity: Part I.

One of the points he raises, however, which is a reflection of what Dr. Jacques Vallee has been saying for decades now, is problematic. Mac comments:

As noted by acclaimed researcher Jacques Vallee, the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) typically embraced by ufologists fails to account for the phenomenon's enduring weirdness.

I have to admit, while I remain a healthy agnostic on the question of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth, I have never understood this particular reason for rejecting the ETH as the most logical of the non-prosaic explanations.

Yes, many UFO sightings are weird in terms of our understanding of what is happening. One of my favourite of the "high strangeness" types of cases happened here in Halifax (see: High Strangeness in Halifax). But that weirdness is not a reason for rejecting the ETH, unless one is viewing possible alien life and through the prism of human understanding. By doing so, both Tonnies and Vallee evince a very 1950s / 1960s sci-fi outlook of what alien life would be like. In short when they state that the weird behaviour of some UFO cases seems to rule out ET as the cause, they are assuming that aliens will more or less act like us, or at least in ways that we can understand. Since the UFOs are not acting in a way that makes sense to us, as aliens presumably would, then they must be something else - extradimensionals, or cryptoterrestrials.

The problem is that this assumption flies in the face of our own human experience when different cultures meet each other. For example, when the first European explorers reached the south Pacific islands, neither they nor the natives even remotely understood each other. History is replete with similar examples.

This happened on a frequent basis when it was different cultures coming in contact with each other, where one was more technologically advanced than the other, but not by a significant degree - decades, or perhaps centuries, but in either case, a drop in the bucket where development is concerned. Even after prolonged exposure to other cultures, profound differences of understanding and perception would remain, which in part would explain the not infrequent colonial disasters that would befall European military expeditions when led by men who had no understanding of the local terrain, or how the natives waged their own style of warfare.

And that's just a difference in understanding and perception between cultures within the same species, all of whom are singing from the same proverbial hymn book, if not the same page. What about differences between different species of vastly different levels of intelligence? How do cats perceive humans, for example, or how do ants perceive humans? Can they understand our behaviour; can we understand theirs?

The point is that just because UFOs might behave in ways that we cannot understand is no reason for concluding that they are too weird to be extraterestrials on the grounds that an extraterrestrial would never behave in such a weird manner. The truth is that we have no idea how an extraterrestrial would behave, or what their motives would be for coming here. This works both ways - they might not be able to understand us, in the same way as we don't fully understand what's going in with various animals when they do certain things. In fact, I would argue that any alien life is likely to be so different from us that we should expect that it will behave in a manner that is completely... well, alien to us.

Does this mean that UFOs might not be extradimensional beings, or cryptoterrestrials? Of course not. But when one tries to determine which of these explanations seems more likely, one should always be careful of basing their conclusions, whether in whole or in part, on the anthropomorphic assumption that because UFOs sometimes behave in ways that seem "weird" to us, it is less likely that they are extraterrestrial beings that cryptos or extradimensional beings.

Paul Kimball

Jacques Vallee on "Abductionology"

In his book Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact, Dr. Jacques Vallee had some eminently sensible things to say about research into the alien abduction phenomenon. While pointing out that blanket dismissals like those of the late Phil Klass go too far, he was extremely critical of the "methodology" of leading abductionologists like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs.

I recommend that anyone who has not read Confrontations find a copy somewhere and read it. In the meantime, I'll provide a few well-thought out excerpts which should resonate today more than ever.

First, Vallee on the usefulness of lie detectors tests:

As for lie detector tests, which are routinely used by ufologists and the media to "prove" that UFO abductees are "telling the truth," their effectiveness is practically nil, as a long list of scientific references would show... A recent Harvard Medical School study has shown that truthful people flunked polygraph tests more often than actual liars. A possible explanation is that innocent people react to the stress of the test, while the guilty do everything in their power to remain calm. (p. 158)

Vallee went on to talk about the need to understand the overall context of the abduction phenomenon:

There is another very important aspect to the entire abduction problem that has never been considered seriously by American ufology, obsessed as it is with immediate facts and first-order explanations. By ignoring this other aspect, we reduce considerably our chances of understanding the entire question. What I am referring to is the simple fact that abduction stories are not specific to the UFO phenomenon and certainly did not begin with Betty and Barney Hill in 1961. I pointed out in Invisible College that the structure of abduction stories was identical to that of occult initiation rituals. Several years before, I had shown in Passport to Magonia that contact with ufonauts was only a modern extension of the age-old tradition of contact with nonhuman consciousness in the form of angels, demons, elves, and sylphs. Such contact includes abduction, ordeal (including surgical operations), and sexual intercourse with the aliens. It often leaves marks and scars on the body and the mind, as do UFO abductions. Reaction to the publication of these facts was curious. In the United States, many ufologists simply denied them or ignored them. As late as 1988 Budd Hopkins summarily rejected the Magonia data as "folklore of obviously uncertain authenticity." (pp. 159 - 160)

It should be noted that not all American ufologists ignored these facts - Kevin Randle details them in his excellent study The Abduction Enigma, which he co-wrote with Russ Estes and Dr. William Cone. But Kevin is in the minority.

As noted above, Vallee discusses the problems with the use of hypnosis (something I've talked about here in the past - see The Alien Abduction Cult and The Abduction Phenomenon and Hypnosis), but does he dismiss it out of hand? No. Instead, what he does is point out that the real problem is with the use of hypnosis by untrained ufologists like Hopkins and Jacobs who have an agenda to pursue. Vallee's recommendation?

Can help be provided to the traumatized witness who has experienced a close encounter and possibly an abduction? Absolutely. He or she should be directed to a qualified, professional hypnotherapist who is open-minded on the question of the UFO reality and who has reached no personal conclusion regarding the nature and origin of the phenomenon. And the ufologist should only be in the room at the request of, and under the control of, the therapist. Any other procedure, in my opinion, is unethical and unprofessional. Besides, it runs the risk of polluting the delicate, complex abduction database with fantastic and spurious material. It can drive UFO research over a very dangerous cliff. (p. 159)

Vallee wrote this is 1990. Alas, few in ufology listened, and ufology was driven over that dangerous cliff, with predictable consequences: further marginalization by the legitimate scientific community, a withering of public interest as the stories of abductions (and crashed flying saucers, abductionology's evil twin) became commonplace (see Robert Fulford on Abductions for a recent sample of media reaction), and more often outrageous, all of which has led to a loss, as Vallee said elsewhere, of the true "signal" amidst the "noise", while most ufologists in the United States either openly embraced the very things Vallee warned them against, or through their silence signalled tacit acceptance.

Which, unfortunately, for the most part remains the status quo today.

Paul Kimball

UFOs: Wave Babies?

There is no question that UFO sightings over the decades seem to have come in what are known as "waves", which is to say that focused periods, usually several months to perhaps a year or two, yield more reports than at other periods of time. Some commentators in the UFO enthusiast community are suggesting that we are in the midst of one of these "waves" now.

Which leaves us with the question - if "waves" do exist, as they seem to, why do they exist?

Jacques and Janine Vallee addressed this question many years ago, in Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma:

The development of a wave in any given country generally occurs independent of the happenings recorded elsewhere, news of which reaches the public of the country in question only much later. The newspapers are filled with reports once the interest of public opinion has been triggered by the first important cases, but it does not appear that there is any psychological influence of one country over another in this aspect. Frequently, as a wave develops, it is accompanied by an unusual occurrence, something of a "phenomenon" itself, in the press; the subject appears later and last longer in the newspapers than in reality; at first the press is slow to admit it; then it seeks to prolong its existence. (p. 105)

Looking at this analysis, one can examine the current "wave" (if indeed we are in the midst of one), and point squarely at the O'Hare airport sighting in November of 2006 as the trigger event. As the Vallees noted, at first the press (even the Internet UFO community) was slow to latch on to the case, but then it exploded in the mainstream media in January, where it lingered for a week or two. The ripple effects are still being felt, and there will probably be some sort of renewed interest when the NARCAP report is released.

Add to this the fact that 2007 is the major anniversary year for two very famous cases, Roswell (1947) and The Phoenix Lights (1997), which have already triggered media attention (as has the re-appearance of former Governor Fife Symington III), and you can see that we might be headed not just for a "wave", but a UFO tsunami in 2007. The advent of the Internet has added an extra level of exposure to these events that was not present when the Vallees wrote Challenge to Science.

The Vallees continued their analysis:

Naturally, both on the local and the global scene, a big story disturbs the law of variation; it encourages the witnesses of recent sightings to make their reports public, and, of course, it creates an ideal market for hoaxes of all kinds. (p. 105)

This effect can be expected to more pronounced in the modern era than it was when the Vallees wrote Challenge to Science, simply because the Internet makes the distribution of both witness accounts and hoaxes and frauds much easier (see the Serpo hoax, which achieved meme status quickly, and which some people still think was either real, or some form of disinformation).

The key, as the Vallees were quick to point out, is to distinguish the "signal" from the "noise".

For example, while one might think at first blush that UFOs "waves" are important events, and point to them as a sign of an impending "revelation" (as Whitley Strieber has recently done), they are giving in to the "noise" when they do so.

To use a sports analogy, hockey became much more popular in Los Angeles when Wayne Gretzky was traded there back in the 1990s. Suddenly there was a true superstar in the city, and the media took notice. However, when Gretzky left, things went back to normal - a small fan base, and apathetic media, and a team that was going nowhere fast.

Gretzky was the NHL equivalent in Los Angeles of an O'Hare-type sighting - an event that triggers a paroxysm of interest that builds upon itself, but which cannot possibly sustain itself indefinitely. When memory of that incident fades, or has played out (or, as in Gretzky's case, moves on to another team), things go back to the status quo.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing, at least as far as the UFO phenomenon in concerned, because the sudden interest of the media can detract from the real research being done, usually behind the scenes by dedicated researchers and investigators most people of whom the vast majority of people are unaware, even within "ufology". They don't get distracted by the "noise" (which is - thanks to the Internet and radio shows like Coast 2 Coast more like tinnitus these days) because they understand that it is the "signal" itself which is really important - and the "signal" is there, year in and year out, regardless of whether a major case spawns a "wave" that captures the attention of the general public and the mainstream media for a short while.

After all, there's still NHL hockey in Los Angeles, years after Gretzky moved on. It might not be great hockey these days (the Kings had a lousy year in 2006-07), but its still there, with a small but loyal group of fans, and some good young players, working away at building a team that may one day make another run for the Stanley Cup.

And they still have the memories of the day when the plucky Kings, through hard work, grit and determination to not give up, came back from a 5 - 0 deficit after two periods in the Stanley Cup playoffs to beat... Wayne Gretzky and the mighty Edmonton Oilers!



So too the serious study of the UFO phenomenon.

Paul Kimball

Where Have You Gone, Jacques Vallee?

Paul Simon wrote:

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you,
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away."

In the context of the study of the UFO phenomenon, I would paraphrase that as follows:

"Where have you gone, Jacques Vallee?
Ufology turns its lonely eyes to you."

Why does Jacques Vallee, who hasn't been involved, at least publicly, in "ufology" for years now (notwithstanding one conference appearance a year ago), still inspire a great deal of respect and admiration amongst people who take the UFO phenomenon seriously, and engage their imagination?

Because he took it seriously, because he was thoughtful, because he was articulate, and because he always kept an open mind. He was - indeed, is - one of the "giants", along with Hynek, McDonald, Friedman and Keyhoe.

In Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma (the title says it all) he wrote:

The "UFO Phenomenon," with all its disturbing aspects, presents a most unwelcome challenge to the physical and philosophical conception of the universe painstakingly formed in the course of many centuries of civilization on this planet. But it is there; we cannot forever refuse to study it. And it could well be that, in the final analysis, our own existence will be dependent upon the sincerity with which we conduct this research.

He's been described as a "heretic amongst heretics." I asked him to participate in Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Cases, because I have a tremendous amount of respect for his work and his insights, but, alas, he very politely declined, although he provided some keen insight to a couple of questions I had.

If Vallee would ever agree, I would love to do a documentary on his life and times, much like Stanton T. Friedman is Real. That's one UFO-related film that would still interest me.

Until that far-off, probably-never-going-to-happen day, I, like many others interested in the UFO phenomenon, wish that "Joltin' Jacques" would come back, and engage our imaginations once again.

Because the serious study of the UFO phenomenon needs more "heretics" like him, and is poorer for his public absence.

Paul Kimball