George Bush and the UFO Phenomenon

[ed. note - No, it's not quite what some of you might be thinking given the title...]

President George Bush the Younger has spent his entire term looking at the world in black and white, at least on the major issues of the day. This Manichean outlook on things (which is not unique to Bush - see Ted Kennedy) is one of the biggest single failings of the political leadership in the United States today (ditto in Canada, but to a slightly lesser extent), because it's just not an "us vs. them", "good vs. evil" world out there. Things are usually more complicated than that.

In many respects, ufology suffers from the same the same "you're either with us or agin' us" attitude. This is particularly true of die-hard ETH believers and disbelievers (the Bush and Kennedy, or vice versa, of what passes for ufological discourse).

As with modern politics, so too in ufology does the moderate centrist feel left out. There often seems to be no room for what Greg Bishop has called "The Excluded Middle".

What's this? You agree with Phil Klass on something?? Then you must be one of "them"!

Huh? You think that Stan Friedman made a good point? Then you must be one of "them"!

A pox on the Manichean outlook, I say. It's high time for "The Excluded Middle" in ufology to reassert itself, just as it is for "The Excluded Middle" in society as a whole to reassert itself.

People need to recognize that:

a. they're not always going to be right;

b. people make mistakes; and

c. reasonable people can disagree reasonably over just about any issue.

But it takes two to tango. So, if you run into someone who comes from an "us vs. them" perspective, my advice would be to ignore them (ed. note - in other words, do as Paul says, not as he always does). Find people who keep an open mind, and are willing to listen to what you have to say. Then, if they disagree with you, don't beat them over the head with a rhetorical bat (or any other kind) - counter their arguments, have a dialogue, and, if necessary at the end of it all, agree to disagree (preferably over a beer or several).

That's what Nick Redfern (Roswell theory - "boo, hiss"), Greg Bishop (remote viewing - "I don't buy it"), Mac Tonnies (Whitley Strieber - "Ugh") and I all manage to do on a regular basis. It's what Kevin Randle did recently with his balanced look at the controversy over Jesse Marcel's record, which isn't as cut-and-dried as either Marcel's detractors or his defenders would make out.

Kevin wrote:

... it seems that which ever side you decide to come down on, you’re going to run into some trouble. Marcel apparently embellished his record, though it seems only a single time and that he was who he said he was in July 1947. [Sheridan] Cavitt, it seems, changed his story on a number of occasions and then never explained why he’d never told Marcel or Blanchard it was a balloon if he knew the truth. So, as in so much of the Roswell case, you can look at the spin of the researchers and skeptics, look at the records of the soldiers, and still not know, for certain, where the truth lies.

None of this means that you can't have strongly held opinions, and express them just as strongly. Rather, it means that you should try not to label other people as "them" simply because they disagree with you, and you should always recognize that history may show that "they" were right and "you" were wrong... or, even more likely, you were both partly wrong and party right, and the truth was somewhere in the middle.

It's a valuable lesson I've learned from first-hand experience over the years, and try to always remember to put into practice.

Paul Kimball

The Human Factor

An interesting observation by "Skeptical", the moderator of the UFO forum at X-Planet (here):

The real constant in the paranormal is not the phenomenon itself - it is the human observer. Hydrogen is hydrogen, regardless of whether a person sees it. But what is a ghost if there isn't a person there to swear it's the shade of dear, departed Uncle Ned? What is a meandering light in the night sky if there is no person there to label it an interplanetary spaceship? Do paranormal events have any life beyond what is observed or interpreted by people?

An interesting question, along the lines of the old "if a tree falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound" conundrum - to which I have always answered, "well, d'uh - of course it does", although I recognize that philosophy students need questions like this to justify the tuition that they've shelled out for their undergraduate degrees.

"Skeptical", who was inspired by a recent post at Kevin Randle's blog, concluded:

To quote Agent Mulder, I want to believe. But the vast majority of what I've seen lately actually leads me away from that conclusion. I've seen nothing but chicanery, muddled thinking and mysticism. It may be fun to think about, but at the end of the day, it appears that it is truly a tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

That seems to be an apt description of public ufology, but it isn't necessarily an apt description of the serious study of the UFO phenomenon, particularly the work which goes on sub rosa.

Still, I can understand and sympathize with Skeptical, with the caveat that I neither want to believe, nor disbelieve. I'm just curious.

Paul Kimball

A Prince Edward Island UFO case

I'm often referred to as a UFO investigator, which always makes me uncomfortable. Yes, I've done archival research, and yes, I've interviewed witnesses and experts for documentaries, so in a sense I suppose you could call me an investigator, but I'm not the guy who goes out in "the field" and starts an investigation from scratch.

With one exception, that I've kept under my hat so far.

A couple of years ago, I was told a story by some folks I know on Prince Edward Island, one of them a very nice and thoroughly honest lady in her late 80s at the time, and the other her son, who is in his 40s. Let's call them Mrs. X and Mr. Y.

One of my favourite UFO cases is the Vins-sur-Caramy case from France in 1957. Why? Because in many respects it mirrors exactly the story that these two people, who I know to be very credible, told me.

Mrs. X and other members of her family, including her husband, a civil servant of impeccable reputation who is, alas, deceased, saw an oval-shaped object descend down into their field one afternoon in the mid-1960s, which Mrs. X and her son, who related what he had been told by people who were there, described pretty much exactly the way the Vins-sur-Caramy witnesses described the object they saw in April, 1957.

The object seen by Mrs. X and other members of her family hovered over their field, perhaps a hundred yards away from their house, and then moved away at a high rate of speed (this part is a bit different from the Vins-sur-Caramy account). It had made what can only be described as a small crop circle in the field - my term for what Mrs. X described (she did not use this term to me, nor did her son).

Mr. Y said that this incident had a profound impact on their family over the years, which Mrs. X confirmed, as have others. Mrs. X, a religious woman, called it a "forerunner" - a sign from God that something was going to happen (indeed, someone they knew was killed in a car accident a couple of days later). But it's clear that what they saw was a UFO.

I have kept the details vague as to exact date, place and persons involved because I'm still looking into it. But when people ask me why UFOs interest me, one of the reasons is because of this story, which was told to me by credible people who did not want to talk about it until I pressed them. I need to stress - I heard about it second-hand, and then went to these folks to talk about it. They did not come to me.

At any rate, as more information becomes available, I'll post it here.

Paul Kimball

Seth Shostak, Bad Science, and UFOs

If you want to hear some bad science, tune into the December 20th, 2006 episode of Are We Alone, SETI's weekly radio program, with Seth Shostak, which is about UFOs.

If there are really aliens out there listening in, I hope they don't hear this. They'll think we're still stuck in pre-Enlightenment days.

Shostak et al manage the unholy trifecta of bad science - they distort facts, they ignore other facts, and they make mistakes about the facts. For example, at one point Shostak manages to conflate the MJ-12 documents with the legitimate CIA and NSA documents that Stan Friedman and others got through Freedom of Information Act requests. In the process, Shostak shows that he knows nothing about the subject he's chosen to bash.

Note also that Shostak et al tie the UFO phenomenon directly to the ETH, never once mentioning any other possibilities. The open mind that Dr. Michio Kaku urged people to keep with respect to the UFO phenomenon at the end of Seeing is Believing is nowhere to be found on Shostak's show.

In the meantime, SETI continues to search the skies for the ET equivalent of "I Love Lucy" or "The Honeymooners", while pumping out, in the form of radio shows like this, the scientific equivalent of bad pro wrestling - phony, derivative (nary a new thought pops up in this episode), and just plain boring.

I've finally figured it out - Seth Shostak is the Vince McMahon of ufology.

Which means it's time for... a head-to-head showdown with...

The Easter Bunny!

Who Has More Scientific Credibility on UFOs
	The Easter Bunny
	Dr. Seth Shostak
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Yet again, I find myself compelled to cast my vote for The Easter Bunny!



Look out Seth!

Paul Kimball

P.S. For some reason, this hilarious video reminds me of Easter during my fourth year at Acadia. Hmm...

Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter: Not MJ-12, but not completely honest either

The few remaining proponents of MJ-12 would have you believe that both Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter and Dr. Howard Menzel were members of that supposed super-secret UFO cover-up group.

As I, and many, many others have shown over the years, MJ-12 didn't exist, and the MJ-12 documents are bogus beyond any reasonable doubt (google MJ-12 in this blog's search engine to read past columns on this subject).

But that doesn't mean that Hillenkoetter and Menzel were unacquainted, or that Hillenkoetter wasn't playing games with members of the UFO community.

On 13 December, 1964, Major Donald Keyhoe, of NICAP, sent a letter to his old freind and former Annapolis classmate Hillenkoetter, who was a former member of NICAP's Board of Directors (1957 - 1962). In it, Keyhoe asked about information he had been given that Hillenkoetter, among other things, had discussed NICAP and UFOs with Menzel, and had commented favourably on one of Menzel's anti-UFO books.

Hillenkoetter replied on January 8, 1965, that Keyhoe had been misinformed. Hillenkoetter wrote:

I saw Dr. Menzel at a dinner in December but other than saying 'Good Evening - Merry Christmas' there was no conversation and I have never carried on any conversation with Menzel about NICAP or UFO. He did send me a copy of his book for which I thanked him but took no posiiton on the statements he made. (emphasis added - PK)

This was a lie.

On September 19, 1963, Hillenkoetter had written to Menzel:

Thank you very much for your book. To my mind, it was very well done and I enjoyed it and found it of great interest. I should say that you have effectively put to rest all surmises about flying saucers being from 'outer space'. You have done a thorough and praiseworthy job."

He continued:

As I told you at the last 'Ends of the Earth', I resigned from NICAP about 20 months ago feeling that it had degenerated from an organization honestly trying to find out something definite about possible unknowns, into a body bickering about personalities.

He concluded:

At all events, you have done a fine job and I am very grateful you were so kind as to send me your book Again with thanks and the hope of seeing you at the next 'Ends of the Earth'.

In this letter, Hillenkoetter does indeed discuss UFOs and NICAP with Menzel, and also offers high praise for his anti-UFO work.

One could say that there was a difference between "carrying on a conversation with Menzel", as Hillenkoetter stated in his letter to Keyhoe, and "writing him", but, all things considered, that is a distinction without a meaningful difference in this instance.

So, what can we glean from this?

First and perhaps foremost in the context of MJ-12, Hillenkoetter's letter to Menzel is not the kind of letter that one MJ-12 member would have written to another, as I noted here.

However, it does reveal a fair bit about Hillenkoetter's character, little of it good, and leads one to wonder just how sincere he was about his involvement with NICAP in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

After all, if he would lie to Keyhoe about matters as relatively trivial as this, what else might he have lied to him about?

It's a question worth asking, even without the bogus MJ-12 connection.

Paul Kimball

An Interview With Mac Tonnies

Mac Tonnies interviewed here.

An excerpt:

I’ve never seen a UFO or made contact with aliens — although I have an incredibly rich dream life, which perhaps amounts to the same thing.

Ouch - that ought to get a few people's dander up!

Paul Kimball

P.S. Mac - you can have your cake and eat it too.

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

Sagan on the Hill Abduction case

And now, the real Carl Sagan, as he discusses the alleged abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by aliens.



Regardless of what one thinks of Sagan's analysis of the Hill case (and that should be the subject of some interesting comments here over the next few days), there are things he says here that ring true in a more general sense, and with which I wholeheartedly agree.

For example, when talking about lights seen in the night sky, Sagan states:

"If we can't identify a light, that doesn't make it a spaceship."

Exactly so. Brad Sparks made the same sensible comment to me a while back.

Sagan was cautious, and skeptical, and that's a good thing. To believers, he was too cautious; to disbelievers, he was too willing to consider "weird" possibilities, even if he rejected them in the end. I look at Sagan as one of the good guys - yes, maybe he ducked some of the harder questions about the UFO phenomenon (to my knowledge, he never looked into the RB47 case, and certainly never explained it), but he also kept an open mind, and I always got the impression when I was younger that he left the door open to the possibility that there was "magic" in the world, or beyond it. He just hadn't seen the proof that he needed, but he went further in looking for it than most scientists have.

If that isn't enough for the ETH believers, and too much for the disbelievers, it rings true to me, even when I disagree with his conclusions.

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

The Shag Harbour UFO Incident - Sui generis?

As I was putting together the segment on Shag Harbour for the Best Evidence film (yes, there's another case that made the cut), this statement by Don Ledger really made me think:

What’s different about the Shag Harbour incident, the UFO incident, is that the witnesses, the laypeople, claimed they saw an airplane crashing into the harbour. They thought it was an airplane. And it was the military who classified it as a UFO. Usually it’s the other way around, the laypeople call it in and say they saw a UFO, and the military will say, “well, it’s just a misinterpretation of a prosaic object in the sky. It could be an airplane, or a planet, or a star, or something like that.” So this was different – it was completely switched around from the usual concept.

Unlike most, if not all, other so-called crashed UFO cases, Shag Harbour has a multitude of credible witnesses, and an investigation by two governments (Canadian and American) that is officially documented in the public record, and freely available.

And, as Don said, it wasn't the witnesses who said it was a UFO - it was the military, after investigation ruled out (as the CAF memo above shows) the more prosaic explanations on offer.

If Shag isn't quite sui generis in the annals of UFO cases, it's pretty darn close.

Paul Kimball

The UFO Phenomenon - ETH, CTH, EDH, TDH, NH??

Whenever I do an interview on radio, or when I'm talking to someone about UFOs, the question always comes up - what do I think they are?

Extraterrestrial in origin?

Extradimensional?

Are they time travelers?

How about cryptoterrestrials (i.e. another race that inhabits Earth) as Mac Tonnies speculates?

Or, can they all be explained away in relatively mundane, terrestrial terms (hoaxes, atmospheric phenomena, misidentifications, etc. etc.) - the "null hypothesis"?

I asked that question over at "The Other Side of Truth" discussion area on Facebook, which can be found here. (you have to join Facebook to join the group).

One of the members of the group replied:

Perhaps we should ask ourselves what it is that we know about them. It maybe very little but it would be the place to start. What can we gather from the credible sightings and encounters that have taken place? What are the things these cases have in common?

A good question.

Here is my answer:

Here are a couple of commonalities I have noticed in what I would consider the best cases:

1. The witnesses are usually military, often pilots, and always highly credible (i.e. not likely to be making up a tall tale).

2. The military is made aware of the cases, and the witnesses are always debriefed, usually by people they do not recognize (i.e. not their regular debriefers).

1 & 2 indicates to me that:

a. The military is aware of something strange in the skies

b. They don't know what it is (otherwise they wouldn't be asking so many questions).

Now, as to the UFOs themselves, again, from the minority of excellent cases out there, we almost always see the following reported:

1. The UFO moves in ways that no conventional aircraft can move (at least none that the witnesses are aware of, and considering that in some cases the witnesses are top aerospace engineers and designers, and test pilots, that's good enough for me).

2. It is often observed as a bright light, or series of lights (the 1957 RB47 case, for example, or Rendlesham, or Malmstrom, or Shag Harbour... the list goes on).

3. The UFO often seems to be "playing" (for lack of a better word), i.e. "showing off" (as Mac Tonnies has said) for the witnesses. A display of some sort.

4. There is almost no form of recognizable communication, unless you consider the colours and movements a form of communication (the RB47 case is a notable exception - here some sort of signals were allegedly received from the UFO).

Those are the things that the "best" cases of which I am aware seem to have in common.

What conclusion do I draw from this?

Well, I certainly can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but it seems that if 1 - 4 above are true, then there is some sign of intelligence present. That is as far as one can go, I think.

Which leaves us with the original question, although it makes the null hypothesis less likely for at least a few UFO cases, unless they are some sort of psychological experiment being run by someone down here to observe people's reactions to things like this, or to distract attention away from top secret programs, which I don't think we can completely rule out.

I still think that the vast majority of UFO cases have prosaic explanations (whether we have figured them out yet or not is another story). But there remain enough truly anomalous cases that the "null hypothesis" seems untenable as an explanation for the entire UFO phenomenon - which leads me to conclude that at least some cases have a paranormal, i.e. beyond our experience, explanation.

And that's as far as I'll go, because at the moment that's the only conclusion one can make based on the available evidence (and even this conclusion is one I make on the balance of probabilities, not beyond a reasonable doubt).

In the past, some have accused me, and others, of "cowardice" for only going this far.

To them I would say that the real courage lies not in accepting as a proven fact something in which you want to believe, but in having the intellectual honesty to admit that you don't know the answer, and the curiosity to keep looking.

Paul Kimball

Roy Wimmer Passes Away

I just learned from Brad Sparks that Roy Wimmer, one of the key witnesses from the 1953 Santa Barbara Channel case, passed away last week (on the 12th, I believe).

I may be wrong, but I think he was the last surviving witness.

The info on the case can be found here.

In his report on the incident for Lockheed, Wimmer, a top test pilot, wrote:

I was watching it all the time so I was able to see it for several seconds after the rest of the crew had lost sight of it. Right up until the time it disappeared it maintained its sharp outline and definite shape so I know it was not a cloud that dissolved... I am convinced this was a large object some distance away.

Of course, the United States Air Force, in one of their most bone-headed explanations ever (and that's saying something), concluded that what Wimmer and other top Lockheed personnel (including Kelly Johnson) saw that day was a lenticular cloud.

Yeah, right.

My condolences to Mr. Wimmer's family.

Paul Kimball

How is it that we can "see" Extraterrestrials?

While one can argue endlessly in favor of a literal extraterrestrial interpretation, a holistic approach leads us to consider that the UFO intelligence not only wants to perpetuate itself via dramatic encounters with ostensible "occupants," but intends to discredit its own machinations: it stages exciting UFO events that infect both the research community and the popular imagination, knowing that the phenomenon's inherent absurdity will eventually undermine attempts to arrive at an indictment.

Interesting stuff as always from Mac Tonnies.

One question that doesn't get asked enough by ufology is this: if the UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, with all of the advanced technology that this would involve (memo to the ETHers: it isn't as easy as you think it is to travel between the stars), why do they allow themselves to be seen, as surely they must, given their technological prowess?

Are we the equivalent of rats in a lab experiment, with our reactions being studied by alien scientists? If so, how long does this experiment last? Shouldn't they be done with it at some point or another?

The typical answer - Stan Friedman uses it all the time - is that "they're aliens, so we can't presume to know why they're here, or why they do the things they do."

Which is no different than a religious person who, when asked why God lets good people die in horrible ways, answers, "well, it's God, so we can't possibly understand His will. We must just accept it."

The more you look at the various aspects of the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, the less likely it seems - both technologically and, perhaps more important, sociologically and anthropologically. Like the traditional mainstream view of God (i.e. the one drilled into the heads of kids at "Jesus camps"), the ETHers view of extraterrestrial life is more a reflection of their view of themselves than the potential reality - and complexity - of an extraterrestrial visitation.

Of course, as Jason Gammon and others maintain, ET could really be a form of AI. In that case, all bets are off, because who knows how sentient machines would behave.

Unless you think that human beings are really just meat-based machines... which brings us back to Mac, and his idea that the explanation for the UFO phenomenon may lie closer to home (like many other, non-ETH explanations). Who knows - it may well lie inside of us.

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - The 1967 Malmstrom AFB Case

Clips from interviews I conducted about the Malmstrom AFB UFO case for the upcoming documentary "Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Cases", which ... all » premieres in Canada on Space on May 10, 2007.

Featured here are ufologists Stan Friedman and Richard Hall and Captain Robert Salas (ret'd), one of the USAF officers involved in the incident forty years ago, and co-author (with Jim Klotz) of Faded Giant.

Malmstrom is indeed on the top 10 list. Where? Well, you know how that works... :-)

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - The 1980 Rendlesham Forest Case

Some clips from interviews I conducted for the 1980 Rendlesham Forest case for "Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Cases", which premieres on Space in Canada on May 10, 2007.

Included are UFO Review publisher Stuart Miller, UFO researcher / author / lecturer Stan Friedman, former UK Ministry of Defence UFO investigator Nick Pope, and UFO researcher / author Richard Hall.

And yes, Rendlesham is somewhere in the Top 10.

"Where?" you ask.

You'll have to watch the film to find out!

Paul Kimball

Kaku: The Science of Sci-Fi

Great stuff!

Paul Kimball

Carl Sagan explains the Drake Equation

Part 1



Part 2



Fascinating stuff from a great communicator.

I'm not nearly as anti-SETI as most ufologists are - what's the harm in looking for radio signals? It's not like it costs that much money, and, as I said in a radio interview once, I think ufologists are just jealous that SETI has been more successful in engaging science and the public than ufology has.

But, whether you like Sagan or SETI or you don't, watching him do the calculations is interesting, especially if you accept the possibility that there may be millions of technological civilizations in the galaxy (a number that seems way too high to me; I would always go with a more conservative estimate, based on the principle that it's better to be pleasantly surprised than rudely awakened). It stands to reason, if that's the case, and if they manage to survive what Sagan calls their "adolescence", that they could - indeed, almost certainly would - develop the ability to travel between the stars, if not in person then at least in the form of advanced probes, probably using some form of artificial intelligence. From there it isn't a giant leap of logic to conclude that one or more of those probes, or perhaps even crews, made its way to Earth at some point, and took a look around. Perhaps they're still here. One can't prove that on the available evidence, but it's not an unreasonable hypothesis, even if there had never been a single UFO sighting.

Ironically, given that he was not a supporter of the ETH, Sagan's reasoning, using Drake's equation, should give comfort to those who are supporters of the ETH, and should give pause for thought to those who would dismiss the ETH out of hand.

Paul Kimball

To the Moon... and Beyond!

Pretty cool stuff. I hope I'm still around to see us get back out there!

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies: CTH or ETH... Which Makes More Sense?

Mac Tonnies explains why he thinks the CTH makes as much sense - or maybe even more sense - than the ETH

Here's the funny thing about the CTH brouhaha as it concerns the ardent ETHers - all of the criticisms they level against Mac's hypothesis are the same ones that can be levelled against the ETH, and have been for decades by mainstream science.

For example:

Average CTH critic - "The CTH is preposterous, because there's no evidence of this civilization, and there would surely be some because to become that technologically advanced they would have to leave signs, traces, and they would have travelled to the stars and established bases,etc., etc."

Average ETH critic - "The ETH is preposterous, because there's no evidence to support it, and the problems of interstellar space travel are insurmountable, or for all practical purposes insurmountable. Further, any civilization advanced enough to get here would have colonized the galazy by now, yet we see absolutely no sign of this, etc., etc."

Average CTH or ETH proponent's answer?

"Well, they're obviously more advanced than we are, so they can do things we can't understand, and that explains everything."

I'm not saying either hypothesis is right - indeed, the ETH still makes more sense to me than the CTH, at least what I've seen of it so far (I remain open-minded, however), and any discussion of just the two of them ignores all of the other possibilities. What I am pointing out is the inherent hypocrisy and irony of much of the knee-jerk criticism of the CTH by the ETHers, at least at this stage.

Paul Kimball

Four Rules for Ufologists

Here are the four major rules for many ufologists (not all, thank goodness, but an ever increasing majority):

1. What the public doesn't know, we certainly won't tell them.

2. Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.

3. If one can't attack the data, attack the people. It's easier.

4. Do one's research by proclamation rather than investigation. It's much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway.

Rules #2 and #3 are collectively referred to as "The Jerry Clark Stratagem".

In terms of #4, you can count the number of ufologists who do actual research - you know, the kind that grad students would be required to undertake (as just one example) - on two hands. And I'm being charitable.

And no, searching Wikipedia doesn't count.

Meanwhile, speaking of Sir Jerome Snark, in a post at UFO Updates today he referred derisively to certain "self-identified ufologists", which is hilarious - are there any other kind, or is there some sort of accrediting body, like lawyers and doctors have, that hands out official "Ufologist" certificates? I must have missed that, in the same way that poor old Jerry consistently misses the boat these days.

Sir Snark, in a comment clearly directed at moi, also states:

"I realized that some nadir had been reached when I was attacked recently for being too concerned about the requirements of science and scientific inquiry."

Just to set the record straight, Sir Snark, you were called out for being too overeager to be seen as respectable by the scientific establishment. That's different than saying you're too concerned about the requirements of science and scientific inquiry, which, need I remind you (ed. - yes, you must), should be about keeping an open mind, i.e. not shouting down a hypothesis (er... perhaps like cryptoterrestrials) without actually having read the author's book, which has yet to be even published (and, for the record, I doubt Mac will convince me, but I'm willing to at least listen to what he has to say before I offer a critique).


Mac Tonnies briefly outlines his CTH in the clip above; somewhere Sir Snark is shaking his head in complete and utter disbelief at the effrontery of this midwestern hick.

I often wonder why guys like Sir Snark give a fig about what the scientific community thinks about them, because they've already established their own elitist ivory tower, with appeals to authority and calls from on high the currency of the realm. It reminds me of some of the dialogue that I wrote for Marat:

"We look up from the street
at the towers of the other estates
watching them as they reach
to the boundaries of Heaven’s Gate
All the gods and the goddesses
look down from inside
they spit
and it rains
they shit
and we stain."

Alas, in the case of most Ufological "gods and goddesses", they're impostors, who have been writing intellectual cheques that their talent just can't cover. They have the egos of the Gods, but that's it. Again, there are exceptions that prove the rule - and, again, you can probably count them on those same ten fingers, give or take.

The people really worth your time are the ones who will admit that they're just marking time, and that what the study of the UFO phenomenon truly needs to move forward are some of those Nobel Prize calibre folks that Brad Sparks is always on about (properly so, in my opinion).


Brad Sparks dishes out some hard truths for ufologists

Because the amateurs - myself included - have taken things as far as they can. From hereon in, we're just hamsters running around a wheel, getting nowhere (although it may be fun to keep on running). One could argue that it's been that way for years, decades even.

The goal should be to convince people further up the intellectual food chain to take a real interest, but it isn't, at least not with ufology, which is the poster child for the "big fish in a small pond" syndrome.

So long as the likes of Jerry Clark rule the roost, that will never happen (ahh... the irony).

Which is why the future study of the UFO phenomenon will have nothing to do with "ufology".

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball: Deluded Fool, or Visionary?

Re: the title above - I'm neither.

Still, those were the broad strokes of the two stark choices on display today at the first session of the NSFDC's Business Issues forum, which I'm moderating today and tomorrow.

This morning, one of the speakers, who is far more successful than I am (although, to be fair, he had a 20 year head start), was bemoaning - in about as pessimistic a way as possible - the future of the Canadian film and television industry. Beware, he warned - technology is only going to concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands (is that possible??), and if you think the small and mid-sized producer will be able to compete, you're deluded.

Now, as moderator, I'm not really supposed to get into it with the featured speakers. But, if you're a regular reader of The Other Side of Truth, you know that I'm not afraid to state my opinion, especially when the other guy is so egregiously, one-sidedly, wrong.

So I did.

Needless to say, Ray Kurzweil got his moment, as I replicated his graph about technological progress and the exponential advances of the last fifty years, and the even more exponential advances likely to come in the next fifty. As I was winging it, I had to go old school, i.e. draw it on a poster board with a marker, but I got it right. Then I said something to the effect of "human history has never seen this kind of exponential change, so fast. It's changing everything." I then added a remark about how, when machines achieve self-awareness in fifty years (which I noted on the graph), we're all screwed anyway, so what does it really matter in terms of foreign markets and distribution deals (that got a pretty good laugh).

Anyway, being a historian, I returned to the podium, and used my bully-pulpit to put things in what I see as perspective. I reminded folks that, prior to the invention of the printing press, the Western world was basically run by the Catholic Church and the monarchial and noble elite. After that - because it made the dissemination of knowledge more accessible - the walls came crumbling down. Sure, perhaps not all the way - the Catholic Church still exists, and elites still exist - but within four hundred years (a drop in the universal time bucket), we had the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions, and the Industrial Revolution, changes that would have been unimagineable prior to the printing press, and the Gutenberg Bible.

Of course, I said, those changes are coming much faster this time, and the mechanism of change is the computer, and all that goes with it. It's changing the way that people communicate, and create, and think, in ways we barely compehend right now. It's definitely changing the industry I'm in, which is, after all, all about disseminating information of various kinds.

Oh, sure, the big conglomerates will no doubt adapt, and survive, just like the Catholic Church did, but they won't be able to dicate content, and conversation, anymore. Rather than something to be feared by small and mid-sized producers, the technological revolution were in the midst of these days is something to be embraced. It's liberating. It's the opportunity for new players to step up to the plate, and carve out their niche.

The people who understand this are the ones who will make their mark in the years to come, in ways and places that the establishment don't fully understand yet - indeed, they may never completely get it. Given the "vox populi" potential of new technologies (just check out YouTube, for crying out loud!), they may not want to get it.

But they won't be able to stop the increasing democratization of human thought, dialogue, and creativity. Some see that as "deluded" - I see it as a fact of life, and I'm not afraid to say so.

After I was done my amusing little rant (Kimball's Law - "If you're going to rant, always do so with tongue at least partially planted in your cheek"), things went back to normal, until the end, when, as moderator, I got the final word. I quoted one of my favourite "philosophers", Stan Friedman:

"Technological progress comes from doing things in different and unpredictable ways."

The same is true of business - including mine.

I welcome it, because where others see threats to the established order, I see opportunities.

Paul Kimball

O'Hare: If Photos or Video Exist, Will We See Them?

Rumours abound that video exists of whatever was seen over O'Hare airport on November 7, 2006, taken by a pilot, and that it may be released soon. But some are wondering if we will ever see any footage or photos.

Over at the UFO Mystic Blog of my pals Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern, for example, one reader, in response to a comment of mine, asked:

You have to wonder, though, if pictures were taken by the pilots, would they be willing to come forward with them given the poor reception UFO reports made by pilots have been given by the airline industry historically.

My response?

I don’t wonder at all - of course they would bring the photos, or video, forward, unless perhaps the photos or footage actually showed something mundane, which would indeed make the pilots (and a lot of other people) look pretty silly. After all, these guys have already come forward and offered their witness accounts (i.e. they’ve taken the most difficult step) - surely offering photos or video that would potentially corroborate those accounts wouldn’t be much of a leap at all (and might actually make them some money, if it was really sensational stuff).

Everybody wants to be vindicated, after all. It's human nature.

Further, to my knowledge, there has never been a pilot fired for making a UFO report, or putting forward pictures. Indeed, if a pilot or other employee was fired for doing so (when the FAA itself states explicitly that any UFO sightings should be reported to organizations like NUFORC, or the police) they would have a pretty good case for unjust dismissal, particularly where they’re unionized.

If photos exist, therefore, I expect we will see them - unless, as I said, they show something that might indeed make the pilots et al look foolish, like… well, nothing anomalous.

However, if video or photos do exist that show something out of the ordinary, then they will be made public, and fairly soon - at which point things could get really interesting.

Paul Kimball

O'Hare: The FAA "Cover-Up"

A commenter here on a previous post wrote:

The fact that bothers me the most about this case/sighting, is that the FAA denied anyone reported a sighting until threatened with a Freedom of Information Act request. Only then did they admit that the sighting had been reported, without the request being filed. Why? Did their files have a memory lapse?

This is not on the face of it an unreasonable question, until you realize a couple of things (that Peter Davenport et al won't tell you). It deserves an answer, before the "cover-up" meme runs out of control, and becomes part of the story that is inseperable from the evidence of the sighting itself.

First, government is not some monolithic entity. Often, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is up to, or what information it might have. The FAA is a large organization. To expect everyone within it to know everything that has gone on everywhere is unrealistic. Further, "government" is staffed not by infallible robot drones, but by people - people who make mistakes, just like you, and me.

I speak from experience, having worked for government in the past. I recall once where a phone call was referred to me at the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation (a much smaller entity, to be sure, than the FAA), and a question asked, and I said, "nope, we don't have that information." Sure enough, we did - the person in the office (i.e. the Director of Marketing) next to me had it. That sort of thing happens all the time. If, instead of trying the Director of Marketing the caller had launched a Freedom of Information request, he would have gotten the information - and, no doubt, if he had been like Peter Davenport et al, he would have accused me of being part of a "cover-up".

Further, look at the FAA reporting guidelines. They state specifically that UFO reports are not taken by the FAA, but rather are to be directed to civilian groups or scientific bodies that study this sort of thing. Here is their policy:

9-8-1. GENERAL
a. Persons wanting to report UFO/Unexplained Phenomena activity should contact an UFO/ Unexplained Phenomena Reporting Data Collection Center, such as the National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), the National UFO Reporting Center, etc.

b. If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department.

It is not unreasonable, therefore, for an FAA employee to mistakenly assume that there was no call to them about a UFO.

Finally, and this is the kicker, if there really was this deep, dark cover up to which Davenport and others have begun to allude, do you really think a simple FOIA request by a reporter would be enough to shake the tree?

Hardly.

The simple answer is almost always the right one in cases like this - the FAA employee who answered the initial inquiry (which was probably not a high priority item) made a mistake, and then, when forced to do some more thorough internal checking, the FAA rectified that mistake.

That's not the "sexy" story, but it's the one that makes the most logical sense.

Paul Kimball

Photos from concourse C at O'Hare

Here is some pretty nifty time-lapse photography done at one of the gates (10, I think) on concourse C at O'Hare.



Too bad this guy wasn't at O'Hare on November 7, 2006!

Seriously, I hope someone did get a photo, because without it, all you've got is just another witness case, better perhaps than some (or even many), but not as good perhaps as others (Kelly Johnson, 1953, as an example), of which there are literally thousands over the past several decades, none of which prove anything definitive in terms of the nature of what UFOs may be, and none of which have gotten the study of the UFO phenomenon any further along today than it was almost sixty years ago.

Unless, of course, you believe that the sheer number of reports alone proves something, in which case you should probably start taking witness reports of "miracles" seriously as well, because there have been far more of those over the course of human history than reports of UFOs.

Paul Kimball

Where is the O'Hare UFO Photo - Vol. II

Besides being an ace cameraman, my good friend and colleague Findlay Muir is one heck of a photographer. Like most people these days, he always has some form of camera nearby - unlike most people, he gets really, really good shots (most people settle for average shots).

For example, when he and I were in O'Hare in November, 2005 (sorry, no UFO), Findlay had his camera at the ready, and got all sorts of nifty shots, including the one above on the tramway between terminals.

Here's another one, this time from Blackpool, England, when he and I were there on a day off from filming Best Evidence back in June, 2006. I can guarantee you that pigeons move fast (you would be surprised) - but Findlay was faster.

If Findlay had seen a UFO at O'Hare, or anywhere else for that matter, he would probably have a picture of it - especially if it was hovering before it zipped off.

Now Findlay is a professional, so maybe he moves just a bit faster than your average person. But one look at YouTube, or Google Video, or Flickr, should be enough to convince you that non-professionals can move pretty quick these days, and get the shot. Indeed, we live in the video era.

So, I ask again - where are the O'Hare UFO photos?

Peter Davenport has been all over the media trumpeting this story (good, no doubt, for NUFORC's profile, at least in the short term). Surely he asked the witnesses if they had been quick enough to take a photo (if it was me, this would be the first question I would ask)?

In the two months between when the story was first reported, and when it broke last week, surely Mr. Davenport, or someone else, thought that maybe there should be a photo, and that this would be important, one way or another?

Did it ever cross his mind, before he went to the press, that maybe he should hold off until the story had been properly investigated?

Did it ever cross his mind that perhaps it would have been best to wait, and make sure all the "t's" were crossed, and the "i's" dotted, before making this a big cause celebre? Apparently not.

The O'Hare story, for good or ill, will now define how the public views the UFO phenomenon for the next few months, maybe even years.

Let's just hope that Mr. Davenport hasn't sold us a pig in a poke.

Let's hope he, or someone else, finds that photo that should be there.

Update: Stan Friedman was on the X-Zone this evening (you can catch it in the X-Zone archives). Rob McConnell asked Stan about why there were no photos, and Stan responded - I paraphrase - that it would have been impossible to get a good shot of a relatively small object at a height of 1,900 feet or so (although that appears to be the height of the cloud cover it "shot up through", so "it" must have been hovering at a lower height than that).

This is patently absurd. You can't have it both ways - you can't assert that people can make a perfectly good sighting of an "object" at somewhere under 1,900 feet, and observe details such as whether or not the "object" was rotating, on the one hand, and then say, "but it was too high up to get a decent photo." Especially when the supposed "object" was just sitting there for a prolonged period of time.

Paul Kimball

Where is the O'Hare UFO Photo?

When I was in Rendlesham Forest back in June, 2006, filming for Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Cases, my DOP Findlay Muir and I were suddenly buzzed by an RAF helicopter (I presume it was RAF) - we heard it coming a few seconds in advance, but because it was so loud, and because things echo a lot in the forest, even today (it is actually a pretty spooky place, even in the daylight), we had no idea which direction it was coming from.

Nonetheless, I had my old (six years) digital camera out - it's hardly cutting edge technology, and there is a pause of a second or so when it takes a photo. Still, as the helicopter flew overhead, literally appearing from the treeline, I managed to get a shot before it flew off (it eventually came around again and again - they were seemingly conducting landing exercises on the nearby airstrip).

Findlay, who had his very large, unwieldy and heavy Beta Camera on his shoulder, also managed to get some footage of the quick-moving chopper.

Now, if we could manage this, where are all of the photos from the O'Hare UFO sighting back on November 7, 2006? Remember, unlike our helicopter, which was moving fast (we only has a few seconds to react), the O'Hare UFO apparently hovered for a while, in plain sight, in front of witnesses, at one of the world's busiest airports.

The story is all over the news. And yet not one photo has surfaced.

Perhaps one will - but until it does, I'll go with the official explanation, because if Findlay and I can get a good photo and footage of a fast moving object in the middle of a forest, I find it impossible to accept that no-one got a good, clear photo or footage of a hovering UFO at O'Hare International Airport.

Paul Kimball

The Alien Abduction Cult

I've met both David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins at different UFO conferences. They seem like nice enough people - witty, even charming, until you realize that they, and other "abductionologists" like them, have spent decades spouting absolute nonsense about "alien abductions", and in the process have caused very real trauma to very real people (and created, by the way, a nice little cottage industry for themselves).

Budd Hopkins has written [Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions]:

"Everything I have learned in twenty years of research into the UFO abduction phenomenon leads me to conclude that the aliens' central purpose is not to teach us about taking better care of the environment. Instead, all of the evidence points to their being here to carry out a complex breeding experiment in which they seem to be working to create a hybrid species, a mix of human and alien characteristics."

All of the evidence?

What "evidence"?

Memories induced by hypnosis?

I've written about the usefulness of hypnosis as an investigative technique before, particularly when it's done by self-taught amateurs (see: The Abduction Phenomenon and Hypnosis).

Here's the uncomfortable truth - the abductionologists, feted at UFO conference after UFO conference, are the problem, not the solution. It isn't little green / grey men from some other planet that are causing pain to the people "studied" by Hopkins et al - the pain, the damage, is being caused by the "investigators" themselves, feeding questions, and then answers, to people who may have real problems.

Disagree with me? That's your prerogative, of course, but before you start wailing, and crying "foul", do me one small favour - show me the hard evidence that supports the claims made by the abductionologists.

How about a photo? Let's start with that.

I mean, we have UFO photos - most fake, but some, like McMinnville, perhaps authentic - so why not photos of an abduction?

How about witnesses to an abduction - not hypnotically regressed ones, mind you, but independent witnesses who actually saw an abduction happen.

Where are they? I mean, we have myriad UFO cases with multiple independent witnesses.

Why not abductions?

Kevin Randle, Russ Estes and William Cone got it right in The Abduction Enigma when they wrote, at p. 359:

"Here's what it all comes down to. There is not a single shred of physical evidence that alien abductions areaking place other than the tainted testimony of the abductees. The physical evidence to support the claims is nonexistent. What has been offered as proof has been eliminated through testing by objective scientists or additional research by unbiased investigators. The scars, the missing fetus, or the implants do not carry the proper medical documentation to make a strong case, and in fact, suggest something else altogether."

I'll go further than Randle, Estes and Cone, who confined their critique to stating that the abductionologists had simply not proven their case. In my view, this has become an Alien Abduction Cult (of personality), aided and abetted by some in ufology who should know better. The abductionologists themselves are beyond irresponsible - they are dangerous, causing real pain and suffering to people who in at least some cases no doubt need real help.

Perhaps it's high time that the proper authorities take a closer look, not at "alien abductions", but rather at those who claim to be investigating them, because, with one or two notable and courageous exceptions like Kevin, "ufology" has proven itself wholly unwilling to confront the creators and purveyors of the Alien Abduction Cult.

Meanwhile, the ultimate irony for anomalists is that, should there really be a paranormal element to a few of these "abduction" cases, the Alien Abduction Cult has so muddied the waters with their bunk that it will be almost impossible to ever chart a different course.

Paul Kimball

Clouding The Issue

You'll often hear ufologists dismiss out of hand the possibility that some UFO cases might be misidentifications of clouds. Indeed, on your average day, should you glance up at the sky, you'll see average clouds, and think to yourself, "well, no-one could ever mistake those for a UFO."

And you would probably be right.

But what about a cloud like the one pictured below, perhaps seen from a distance?

Lenticular clouds like this one (and others you can see at this really nifty site - a few remind me of Cylon baseships!) can indeed be mistaken for a UFO - particularly of the very large, slow moving "mothership" kind.

Does that mean that all UFOs are clouds?

Of course not. It just means that the idea that some UFO's are clouds is not as silly as it might at first seem.

Addendum: By the way, New Scientist had a short article with the same title, about the same subject, back in October. I didn't know that when I first posted this - a weird synchronicity.

Paul Kimball

November, the Midwest United States, Weather, Holes in the Sky, and UFOs

For those who have quickly dismissed the weather explanation for the November 7, 2006 O'Hare UFO sighting, that is all the rage these days in the world of ufology (and has even made a mark in the mainstream media), you might want to have a look-see at this, which was sent to me by a pilot friend of mine. You can see plenty of "fallstreak cloud" pictures here.

You can go here as well.

And here.

And here - scroll down to the question "how do holes form in clouds?" Note the answer, and then consider where the UFO was sighted on November 7th.

An interesting analysis can be found here (scroll down to January 3rd).

Again, I don't know if what the O'Hare witnesses saw was a weather phenomenon, but before one brushes aside official explanations in favour of aliens, or whatever, one should at least wait to hear from meteorologists and other experts, and examine all the evidence - including what appear to me to be sharply conflicting witness reports (6 feet in diameter to 24 feet in diameter, spinning / rotating vs. not spinning / rotating), which are always problematic.

Or is it too much to ask people to just calm down, and proceed rationally?

Meanwhile, I hear that Dr. Richard Haines is quietly investigating the O'Hare case, as opposed to popping up all over the media like Peter Davenport, making unsubstantiated claims of a cover-up. Indeed, all this media coverage is hardly conducive to convincing witnesses to come forward.

There is a right way and a wrong way to proceed with a proper investigation.

Paul Kimball

The Singularity & ET - Is "It", and are "They", near?

If even ten per cent of what Kurzweil predicts happens in our lifetimes, we're in for a wild, wild ride!

As it relates to UFOs, however, given where we may soon be going (or we may already be there), do you really think aliens hundreds, or thousands, of years more advanced than us are visiting Earth as biological entities?

It just doesn't make sense. AI? Possibly. Biological beings? Hard to believe.

In the end, it might not matter. But consider this - in terms of "contact", what if the "aliens" are simply waiting for us to take the leap - not into space, but into our own future, where we become like them?

The more one stops to think about it, the very notion of extraterrestrial biological entities visiting us borders on the ridiculous when compared with the prospect of some form of AI.

Food for thought.

Paul Kimball

2006 Zorgy Awards

"Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite, there will be a show tonight..."
- John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Ladies and gentlemen, aliens, extra-dimensional creatures, cryptoterrestrials, temporal travellers, and ultraterrestrials, welcome to the 2006 Zorgy Awards presentation ceremony.

The votes have been cast, over a two month period, and the results are in. Thanks to the hundreds of people who popped by to vote.

There were no hanging chads, and the Supreme Court of The Other Side of Truth (where Kal Korff has never testified as a witness) has certified the results. You, the people, have spoken. Without further ado, I know turn proceedings over to Rear Admiral Zorgrot.

Hello earthpeople - Happy New Year (well, it's a new year for you at any rate - back on my planet, it's the middle of what you would call summer).

I am proud to lend my name to these august awards... well, not really, but Earthman Kimball paid me, so here I am. After all, an alien explorer has to eat!

Here are the results:

Best UFO / paranormal website
[Magazine]

2006 Zorgy Winner
Sub Rosa - 251 votes (59%)

Book of Thoth - 98 votes (23%)
UFO Review - 76 votes (18%)

Best UFO / paranormal
website [forums]

2006 Zorgy Winner
Book of Thoth - 149 votes (65%)

Binnall of America Forums - 43 votes (35%)
UFO Planet - 36 votes (16%)

Best UFO / paranormal website [news summary]

2006 Zorgy Winner
The Daily Grail - 319 votes (76%)

The Anomalist - 57 votes (14%)
UFO Review - 41 votes (10%)

Best UFO / paranormal blog

2006 Zorgy Winner
Posthuman Blues (Mac Tonnies) - 69 votes (46%)

A Different Perspective (Kevin Randle) - 47 votes (32%)
The Orange Orb (Regan Lee) - 33 votes (22%)

Best UFO / paranormal radio show

2006 Zorgy Winner
The X-Zone (Rob McConnell) - 255 votes (58%)

Coast 2 Coast (Noory, Bell, Punnett) - 147 votes (34%)
Strange Days... Indeed (Errol Bruce-Knapp) - 35 votes (8%)

Best UFO / paranormal "Trouble-Maker"

2006 Zorgy Winner
Alfred Lehmberg - 91 votes (49%)

Nick Redfern - 62 votes (34%)
"Arthur" - 32 votes (17%)

Best UFO Podcast

2006 Zorgy Winner
Binnall of America - 96 votes (45%)

The Paracast - 87 votes (41%)
Jerry Pippin Show - 28 votes (14%)

Best UFO / paranormal publication (print)

2006 Zorgy Winner
Fortean Times - 104 votes (56%)

UFO Magazine - 49 votes (26%)
Saucer Smear - 33 votes (18%)

Best UFO / paranormal research website

2006 Zorgy Winner
The Black Vault - 79 votes (54%)

The Project Blue Book Archive - 58 votes (39%)
Project 1947 - 10 votes (7%)

Best Ufologist

2006 Zorgy Winner
Stanton T. Friedman - 122 votes (53%)

Linda Moulton Howe - 62 votes (27%)
Nick Redfern - 47 votes (20%)

The Pelicanist of the Year Award

2006 Winner
Michael Shermer - 50 votes (45%)

Rod Brock - 24 votes (22%)
John Rimmer - 15 votes (14%)
Aaron Sakulich - 14 votes (13%)
John Harney - 4 votes (4%)
Tim Printy - 3 votes (2%)

The George Adamski Memorial Award

2006 Winner
Richard C. Hoagland - 68 votes (40%)

Dr. Steven Greer - 46 votes (27%)
Michael Horn - 21 votes (12%)
Dr. Michael Salla - 21 votes (12%)
Dr. Richard Boylan - 16 votes (9%)

There it is folks - your 2006 Zorgy award results. Congratulations to the winners, and well-played by the rest of you.

I now return you to Earthman Kimball!

Quack!!!!

Zorgrot,
Rear Admiral

A few final thoughts:

The closest vote was for the Podcast award, between the early front-runner BoA, and newcomers The Paracast. I expect that both shows will be nominated again next year.

The folks at The Daily Grail / Sub-Rosa and the X-Zone are the Karl Roves of the paranormal world, i.e. they know how to get the vote out. Impressive.

Exopoliticians might get a lot of ufological press, but Hoagland, the "science advisor" for Coast 2 Coast, still rules. George Adamski would be proud (who knows - maybe George dropped off the robot head on the moon during one of his visits).

Alfred Lehmberg won the "Trouble-maker" award. Is that good or bad? Depends on how you define "trouble-maker", but for me it means the person who stirs things up, and gets under people's skin. You could easily substitute "agitator" for "trouble-maker". Regardless, Mr. Lehmberg is a deserving winner - and I mean that, more or less, in a good way!

And that's it, folks. Thanks again to everyone who voted, and we'll do it all again a year from now!

Paul Kimball

Lorenzo Kent Kimball - Update

Back in March, 2005, I wrote a post about Captain Lorenzo Kent Kimball, a participant in the Roswell incident - or, to be more precise, a non-participant, but in a way which made his story worthy of consideration (you can read it here). I took Stan Friedman, Kevin Randle and others to task for ignoring Kimball's story, or at the very least not giving the story its due.

Kevin replied to me privately at the time, but now he's put a public reply up at his blog, A Different Perspective (which you should put on your reading list, if you haven't already). You can read it here. I replied in the comments section.

Kevin remains one of my favourite UFO researchers out there, and I appreciate him taking the time to answer my questions about Captain Kimball (who was not a relation of mine).

Paul Kimball

The CTH - On the Other Hand...

I think a few people have misunderstood me lately, and assumed that by discussing the difference between proven fact and an unproven but valid hypothesis with Stan Friedman, I am somehow a supporter of the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis. I'm not - I simply think that people, like Jerry Clark, should suspend judgment until they read Mac's work in its entirety. That's what I'm doing.

However, as Mac is happily blogging away some of his CTH ideas, I feel free to comment on them, particularly as it relates to the general commentary on my general commentary on the ETH lately.

Recently he wrote:

I've always been intrigued by the essentially clumsy methods employed by the purported aliens. Their induced amnesia has a way of crumbling over a curiously brief period of time. Their craft -- which proponents of the ETH would have us believe are arbitrarily more advanced than our own -- tend to leave incriminating scars on the terrain, if not crash with worrisome frequency. Coupled with their occupants' human mannerisms, such seeming anachronisms suggest that we rethink an extraterrestrial origin; instead of dealing with beings wielding technology "indistinguishable from magic," UFO files reveal beings with surprisingly limited capabilities.

Indeed, their arsenal of gadgets, while impressive, is only a few decades in advance of our own. This observation, culled from a near-inexhaustible catalog of close encounters, hints that the phenomenon is at least partly physical, yet extraordinarily unlikely to represent ET visitation.

The same logic that applies to Stan Friedman applies to Mac here with the use of the term "extraordinarily unlikely". Indeed, here Mac comes perilously close to doing to the ETH what Jerry Clark did to the CTH (although, to be fair, at least Mac is familiar with the ETH) - he presents an absolute conclusion, or one pretty close to it, instead of a more nuanced, "who knows?"

I see nothing "extraordinarily unlikely" about the ETH based on the various reports. Let us suppose, for example, and just for the sake of argument, that the aliens are perhaps no more than 30 or 40 years more advanced than us. This is not unreasonable, at least as a hypothesis. Who knows where we will be in 30 or 40 years? Perhaps we will discover a technology that allows us to travel to the nearest stars within a reasonable period of time, but not to solve all of our other problems. In other words, we will be a significantly improved version of ourselves in terms of technological knowledge, but not so significant as to be unrecognizable as human.

And here's a thought about supposed crashes - Murphy's Law probably applies to any alien space travellers, should they exist, just as it is likely to apply to us (indeed, it does - just ask NASA). That may seem trite, but it covers a host of possibilities - indeed, probabilities, although I admit that I find it unlikely the aliens would just leave a crashed spaceship lying around for humans to discover it, a la Roswell, especially as they supposedly have huge motherships (just ask Stan).

The point is, I wouldn't rule it out. Indeed, I still think it more likely than the other paranormal explanations on offer. But unlike some, I don't rule those other explanations out, because I genuinely understand that we are still dealing with an enigma here, in all respects. That leaves all options open (although some are, logically, more open than others) - including the option that it can all be explained prosaically.

In presenting a theory that competes with, or questions, the ETH, however, one should always be careful not to do what the ETH as ETF advocates do - overstep the evidence, and dismiss the possibilities. Including the ETH.

Further, one should make one's case stand or fall not on the weaknesses of other possible explanations, but on the strength of their own.

Which is, the slight hiccup above notwithstanding, what I expect Mac is going to do.

Paul Kimball