God vs. ET

In the campaign for President that is underway south of the border right now, it seems that none of the remaining candidates can go a single day without religion being injected into the conversation in some way, shape or form, even if subliminally. The latest brouhaha, which involves Senator Barack Obama's pastor, is a good case in point, as was Mitt Romney's pandering to the Christian right, who were suspicious of his Mormonism. The candidacy of Mike Huckabee was all about religion, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Contrast this with the question of UFOs and ET. To the best of my knoweldge, it was only brought up once - when Tim Russert asked Dennis Kucinich his UFO sighting in a debate, and Kucinich replied that he had indeed seen a UFO, and then proceeded to apply any number of apologetic caveats.

Ask someone about UFOs, or ET, and people start to get embarassed. Ask them about God, and they stand up tall and take the question seriously. Indeed, they will often bring it up themselves.
It's not that there is anything wrong with religion - I'm a healthy but hopeful agnostic on the question of whether or not there is a God. It's also not that there is anything inherently right about asserting that ET has visited planet Earth - I'm a healthy but hopeful agnostic about that as well. The problem comes from the fact that one of these propositions is treated far more seriously than the other, and it's not the one for which there is actual evidence from the modern era.

When Hillary Clinton, or John McCain, or Barack Obama talk about God and how important He is to them, they are talking about a concept that cannot be proved in any rational way. Religion is a belief based on ancient stories that have been changed over the centuries in ways that would probably make them unrecognizable to the people who were actually there at the time. If I were to try and prove the existence of God to a jury of twelve reasonable people beyond a reasonable doubt, I couldn't do it. I seriously doubt anyone else could. It would still be a tricky proposition to do on the less onerous civil standard of the balance of probabilities.

UFOs as ET? I still couldn't do it beyond a reasonable doubt, nor could anyone else (hence the healthy agnosticism), but I would have a much better case, in terms of evidence, on the civil standard, than I would with God. For one thing, the evidence is fresher (Book of Luke vs. RB-47, for example). I could definitely prove that UFOs are an unexplained objective phenomenon; I think I could even swing the majority of a jury in favour of the proposition that at least some of them were likely extraterrestrial spacecraft.

This is why I have some sympathy for the exopolitics types, even though, as with people who believe in God, I think they have it wrong. They look around and see a world where in most countries religion goes hand in hand with political power, none more so in the democratic world than in the supposedly secular American republic (somewhere Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave). And yet they sit at the fringes of polite society, despite the fact that they can make a stronger case for their belief system than the religious people can.

Honestly - St. Paul on one hand, and, say, Philip Corso on the other hand. Is there really a difference between the two, other than two thousand years, and the fact that Corso was properly vetted?

Paul Kimball

UFO Looney Tunes - Classification System

There are some serious, intelligent people studying the UFO phenomenon.

And then there is Ed Komarek, one of the leading lights of the so-called Exopolitics movement / cult.

In the most recent installment of Mr. Komarek's assault on common sense, he writes:

I now believe that the U.S. Air Force is dog fighting with ETs in several areas of the U.S. and the same seems to be going on with other Air Forces around the globe.

As loony as that sounds, it gets even loonier, as he explains why this is supposedly happening:

I believe that these dogfights are ET initiated and are designed to put exopolitical pressure on national and world leaders through their respective militaries to openly disclose UFO/ET reality.

Wow.

Here's a question for Mr. Komarek - if ET wants disclosure, why don't they... well, just land on the White House lawn, or some other place where the media might be gathered, and let us know themselves?

Stuff like this has inspired me to develop a new system for rating UFO looney tunes and / or things they say and do, in much the same way as Vallee and Hynek developed systems for classifying UFO sightings and encounters.

The system is as follows:

Porky Pig - a UFO looney tune who is more or less connected to reality; they are functional, can operate in the real world, and occasionally might even contribute something useful to the overall discourse on the UFO phenomenon. In terms of ideas or conclusions, Porky Pig status indicates something that just might have at least a veneer or plausibility, if not quite probability. However, they are naive and far too trusting.

Bugs Bunny - A UFO looney tune who is connected to reality, but says ridiculous things. However, they do so knowing that what they say is ridiculous, just to have some fun with people. This applies to the ideas they put forward as well. This form of looney tune is generally harmless, and even serves a useful purpose.

Yosemite Sam - A UFO looney tune who may or may not be connected to reality, but who says and does ridiculous things regardless in order to make money. Fully capable of making stuff up if it furthers their end goal of profit. If this class of looney tune is doing it solely to make money, then they are a Yosemite Sam looney tune (sub-class I); if they are doing it to make money but they also seem to genuinely believe what they are saying (but money remains the primary motive), then they are a Yosemite Sam looney tune (sub-class II).

Daffy Duck - A UFO looney tune that is completely off the deep end. They have little or no connection to reality, and will do or say anything to buttress their single-minded belief system. They are extremely unpredictable, argumentative, and occasionally capable of stalker-like behaviour, but are not dangerous.

Tasmanian Devil - A UFO looney tune that is completely off the deep end, and dangerous. They have the capacity to harm themselves, and possibly others.

There you have it. From this point on, I intend to use this system when I run across folks like Mr. Komarek and ideas like the one noted above (classification: Daffy Duck). It should make sorting the wheat from the chaff in UFO looney-ville that much easier.

Paul Kimball

Physics 101 - Roswell Explained

Note the hands that go up in response to the professor's question at the beginning - whatever else you can say about Roswell, you can't deny the cultural penetration the tale has made over the past twenty-five years or so.

Fascinating stuff, even for that ever-dwindling group of people who don't buy Mogul as the explanation for Roswell. If only physics in high school had been like this, I might have paid more attention!

Paul Kimball

The Hypocrisy of Edward Condon

There is so much that is wrong with the University of Colorado Project for the Scientific Study of UFOs, aka The Condon Report, and in particular Dr. Edward Condon's conclusions, that it is hard to pick the single most egregious example. However, if I had to choose, it might be this passage from Condon's conclusion:

The subject of UFOs has been widely misrepresented to the public by a small number of individuals who have given sensationalized presentations in writings and public lectures. So far as we can judge, not many people have been misled by such irresponsible behavior, but whatever effect there has been has been bad.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to write this paragraph, lambasting civilian UFO researchers, when you consider the ones that came just before and after it:

Before:
It has been contended that the subject has been shrouded in official secrecy. We conclude otherwise. We have no evidence of secrecy concerning UFO reports. What has been miscalled secrecy has been no more than an intelligent policy of delay in releasing data so that the public does not become confused by premature publication of incomplete studies of reports.

No evidence of official secrecy about UFOs (which is different than saying there had been a massive coverup of something like a crashed flying saucer)? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but even I recognize that this statement is absurd on its face, given that there was plenty of evidence that the subject had been subjected to official secrecy. I'm not talking about bogus materials like MJ-12 (which, if it had been real, would have been in place at the time Condon was writing), but rather real secrecy, like the Robertson Panel (which was specifically referenced in the Condon Report), or even the cover-up of the Roswell Incident, which is undoubted, whether you buy the alien spacecraft explanation, Project Mogul, or something else - whatever it was, it was not a "weather balloon".

So, no official secrecy, and the government is perfectly clean - rather, it's the civilian UFO researchers, authors, lecturers, and so forth, who are the problem according to Condon. What to do about that?

A related problem to which we wish to direct public attention is the miseducation in our schools which arises from the fact that many children are being allowed, if not actively encouraged, to devote their science study time to the reading of UFO books and magazine articles of the type referred to in the preceding paragraph. We feel that children are educationally harmed by absorbing unsound and erroneous material as if it were scientifically well founded. Such study is harmful not merely because of the erroneous nature of the material itself, but also because such study retards the development of a critical faculty with regard to scientific evidence, which to some degree ought to be part of the education of every American.

Therefore we strongly recommend that teachers refrain from giving students credit for school work based on their reading of the presently available UFO books and magazine articles. Teachers who find their students strongly motivated in this direction should attempt to channel their interests in the direction of serious study of astronomy and meteorology, and in the direction of critical analysis of arguments for fantastic propositions that are being supported by appeals to fallacious reasoning or false data.

Whatever you might think of the UFO phenomenon, this section should anger any thinking, rational individual (particularly given the erroneous conclusions offered by Condon just before). If these children for whose welfare Condon was seemingly so concerned had read the data in his own study, the hypocrisy of this conclusion / recommendation would have been clear. There was evidence, there was data - in other words, there was something that was worthy of serious scientific study, as opposed to the virtual censorship advocated by Condon. Children would not be educationally harmed by reading about UFO reports; they were educationally harmed by the people who took Condon's conclusion as gospel, and acted on his erroneous and unscientific recommendations.

Whether intentional or not - and reasonable people can debate the motives that underlay the Condon Report - the effect was to achieve exactly what the Robertson Panel recommended in 1953: the debunking of the UFO phenomenon. The ultimate irony is that the Condon Report, when it discussed the Robertson Panel, concluded:

So far as we can determine, no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and "debunking" recommendations of the Roberston panel. A private effort was not to be expected, since such a program would not be commercially attractive and would conflict with books that were beginning to make money by exploiting popular confusion about the ETH and alleged government conspiracies.

Of course, who needed a "private" debunking effort, when you could get one funded by the United States Air Force, and directed by one of America's most respected and accomplished scientists, who, in chastising teachers for allowing their students to look into the UFO subject, ignored the data contained in his own report, which showed the subject of the UFO phenomenon to be one of the great unsolved scientific mysteries of the 20th century. Or, as the conclusion to the study of the Trent photos case (1950) found:

This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses. It cannot be said that the evidence positively rules out a fabrication, although there are some physical factors such as the accuracy of certain photometric measures of the original negatives which argue against a fabrication. (p. 407)

This should leave any reasonable observer with only one conclusion: that the real danger to the sound education of not just children, but all Americans, came from Edward Condon, and those in the mainstream who bought into his debunking, hook, line and sinker. Unfortunately, the effect of his unscientific debunking is stronger than ever today - and citizens are that much poorer because of it, whatever the UFO phenomenon may represent.

Paul Kimball

Best Evidence - 2008 EBE Award Winner

So, here I am in sunny Los Angeles, hanging out with my good pal Greg Bishop - not a cloud in the sky! Hurrah!!

The end of the International UFO Convention and Film Festival was great - super banquet, lots of nice folks, some very good films (and therefore some great competition), and a WIN for Best Evidence, in the category that probably meant the most to me, as a guy with a history degree - Best Historical Documentary. Lovely statue!

I can't remember what I said in my stumbling "aw shucks" acceptance speech, other than thanking my Mom & Dad in particular, and ending with "God Save the Queen", which was a running joke all week between we Canucks and Brits on one side, and our southern cousins the Yankee Doodles on the other. I thanked everyone in general who worked on the film, or who helped get it made, but the list of names was too long to be specific. However, here are some I absolutely should have mentioned, and who I wish had been there to see their hard work pay off:

Findlay Muir - DOP
John Rosborough - Post Audio & Music
Zan Rosborough - Post Audio
Jim Kimball - Co-Producer / Production Manager
Kris Lee McBride - Narrator
Thor Henrickson - On-Line Editor

Also, of course, Linda Wood and Ann MacKenzie at Film NS, which invested in the film, Andrew Mark Sewell at B7 Media in the UK (our distributor), and Charlotte Engel at Space: The Imagination Station, which commissioned it. Can't forget Nan MacDonald and Linda Kearney at the RBC. Finally, everyone who appeared in the film, including our chief consultant Brad Sparks, as well as Stan Friedman, Nick Pope, Don Ledger, Dick Hall, Bruce Maccabee, Mac Tonnies, Lt. Col. Bruce Bailey, Capt. Robert Salas, Col. Charles Halt... it's a very long list!

The EBE belongs to them as much as me... but I get to keep it! ;-)

Thanks everyone, for making me look good!

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop at Giant Rock

In this clip I shot in September, 2007, author / researcher / historian Greg Bishop talks about Giant Rock and the Contactee Movement.

Of course, while there, I couldn't resist offering my own quick take on someone that more than a few people believe represents the modern version of contactee-ism:



In my opinion, Dr. Greer makes the original Contactee leaders look like paragons of humility and virtue (no easy feat in some cases).

Paul Kimball

Skylab III

There has been an interesting discussion at UFO Updates as of late about the little-known Skylab III case, so I figured I would make the segment on that case from Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings available. Here it is:



Paul Kimball

X-Conference photos

In September, 2007, I traveled with actor Kris Lee McBride to Washington, D.C., to screen Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings at the 2007 X-Conference (Kris narrates the film). Here are some photos.

The closing panel. Next to me is radio host Rob Simone.

The opening night reception. Kris and I look properly skeptical, but we were treated as VIPs, which was great.

The speakers at the closing party. Renowned British ufologist Nick Pope is in the back, and seems to have spotted a UFO! As usual, I'm ignoring everything around me as I mug for the camera!

Paul Kimball

Doing Time - The Coast review

It appears that we're a hit! All credit to Mac for coming up with a great story, and three great actors - Nick, Kris and Christina - for making it come alive.

Paul Kimball

Make Time for a Great Play
Semaphore Theatre Company's sci-fi hit
by Kate Watson
November 30, 2007 09:27 AM
[Original article here]

Time is running out to see Doing Time, a highly entertaining mystery based on a sci-fi short story by Kansas City author Mac Tonnies and adapted by the play's director Paul Kimball. It is staged in the tiny basement room of the Wired Monk Coffee Shop, which makes for a surprisingly effective space for this particular play.

The story is classic sci-fi, but you don't have to be a fan of the genre to enjoy Doing Time.

Three terrific actors elevate this play to must-see status. Kris Lee McBride anchors the work with an entirely convincing performance as the prisoner Leda. Christina Cuffari is controlled without being stiff, and does a fine job of showing the warmth beneath her character's frosty exterior. Nick Lachance is charming and funny and injects the last part of the show with a great energy.

In a season that has already had a banner crop of shows, Doing Time still manages to stand out.

Doing Time runs until Dec. 1st at the Wired Monk, corner of Hollis and Morris, at 7:30. Tickets are $8, $6 for students.

Doing Time - Review

Doing Time A Breath Of Fresh Air
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.28.07 at 7:03pm. [original here ]

There’s something genuinely thrilling - and unsettling - about Semaphore Theatre’s world premiere of the play Doing Time. First off, it’s unapologetically hard-core sci-fi. Second, it’s a stage piece more interested in ideas that character.

For audiences who despair of the contemporary theatre’s capacity for endless navel-gazing, Doing Time is like a breath of fresh air. Adapted by director Paul Kimball and Kansas City author Mac Tonnies from Tonnies’ short story, the play dispenses with the all those self-conscious notions about the relationship between audiences and players to simply present a space-time mystery that rockets along like a great 1950 pulp sci-fi paperback.

At about one hour in length, the play follows a single young female named Leda as she is held prisoner on some kind of spacecraft. With a single unadorned set, we’re spared any attempt to visualize the ship; instead, a few hung sheets, chairs, and bed establish her cell. She’s accompanied by an aggressively chirpy attendant - Chistina Cuffari in neatly robotic role - who keeps Leda’s questions at bay for the first half of the play.

When Nick Lachance enters - as John, the ‘manager’ - Doing Time’s action picks up considerably. Lachance also injects a great deal of wry, unexpected humour into the play with his quizzical delivery and dry asides. He’s clearly having a great deal of fun with the role, defining it as a kind of slightly off-kilter existential space delivery man.

Kris Lee McBride - in the central role of Leda - modulates her performance in the central role of the piece to underplay her growing rage and exasperation. At the end of the play she achieves a striking sense of resignation that translates into a glimmer of hope, especially since she’s faced with the ultimate unknown.

Kimball’s raw, no-nonsense direction often sacrifices delicacy in order to accelerate the plot; a couple of pantomime scenes that illustrate Leda’s boredom with the voyage reflect a cinematic rather than a stage background, with brisk fade-up-and-back-to-blacks.

The only drawback to the production was the odd use of rather well-worn Bob Dylan songs (All Along The Watchtower, Lay Lady Lay) over the scene transitions. Some Tangerine Dream or Portishead might have provided something a bit more appropriately mysterious and futuristic for a show that seems suspended in some other time and space.

The inanimate basement performance space at The Wired Monk coffee shop at the corner of Hollis and Morris proved to be a surprisingly effective place to stage a play. Hanging on the walls is a rather neat series of sci-fi-like paintings that resonate with the show and warrant a separate visit by themselves.

Doing Time is small but smart production that reveals Semaphore Theatre as a substantial new player on the indie theatre scene. Aimed at wider genre-loving audiences rather than the usual jaded theatre crowd, the company has made a serious stride into a totally new direction for theatre in Halifax.

2007 Zorgy Awards - Let the Voting Begin

The nominations have been received (dozens of e-mails - thanks, folks!), and here are those categories which received at least four nominees.

Top Podcast
	Strange Days... Indeed
	Binnall of America
	Culture of Contact
	The Book of Thoth Podcasts
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best Paranormal Blog
	Posthuman Blues
	UFO Mystic
	The Debris Field
	Odd Things
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best UFO / paranormal "trouble-maker"
	Alfred Lehmberg
	Jeremy Vaeni
	David Biedny
	James W. Moseley
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best Ufologist
	Stanton T. Friedman
	Jerome Clark
	Nick Redfern
	Nick Pope
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best website [forums]
	Department 47
	Book of Thoth
	The Paracast Forums
	Above Top Secret
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best website [news summary]
	The Debris Field
	UFO Review
	The Daily Grail
	The Anomalist
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Top UFO Story of 2007
	Kucinich sees a UFO
	O'Hare UFO story
	Roswell's 60th anniversary
	Walter Haut affidavit
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best publication [print]
	Saucer Smeared
	UFO Magazine
	Fate Magazine
	Fortean Times
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best Cryptzoologist
	Loren Coleman
	Jonathan Downes
	Nick Redfern
	Dr. Karl Shuker
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Best UFO Conference
	2007 X-Conference
	2007 International UFO Congress
	2007 Crash Retrieval Conference
	2007 MUFON Symposium
Free polls from Pollhost.com

2008 Hall of Fame inductees (top 2 selected)
	Richard Hall
	James Moseley
	Gray Barker
	Jerome Clark
	Edward Ruppelt
	Brad Sparks
	Kevin Randle
	Philip Klass
	Nick Pope
	Long John Nebel
	Art Bell
	John Keel
	Ray Palmer
	Corel Lorenzen
	Brad Steiger
	Errol Bruce-Knapp
	Dr. Bruce Maccabee
	Dr. Peter Sturrock
	Nick Redfern
	Paul Hill
Free polls from Pollhost.com

2008 Hall of Shame Inductees (2 inducted)
	Alfred Webre
	Frank Scully
	Richard Doty
	Frank Scully
	Philip Corso
	Linda Moulton Howe
	Silas Newton
	William Moore
	Ray Santilli
	Frank Kaufmann
	Gerald Anderson
	Michael Horn
	George Van Tassel
	George Adamski
	Ed Walters
	Dr. Seth Shostak
	Jaime Maussan
	Kal K. Korff
	William Cooper
	Bob Lazar
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Let the voting begin!

Polls will be open until 12:01 AM (AST), 1 January 2008.

Paul Kimball

WTF

Words fail me.

Watch this.

Paul Kimball

Kucinich, UFOs and the Media

Mac Tonnies is angry about how the Kucinich UFO question was handled at the Democratic debate. He writes:

This sad excuse of a "debate," in which Kucinich is essentially asked to apologize for seeing an object in the sky he didn't understand, typifies the mainstream response to a phenomenon that, by all counts, qualifies as a genuine scientific enigma. (For his part, Obama diverts attention from the subject at hand with consummate finesse, his condescension greeted by applause.) [entire post here].

Actually, I see it differently, and here's why:

1. The question itself wasn't looking for an apology. It was straight-forward, with the usual moderator run-on intro. If it seemed like Russert was looking for an apology, I would suggest that ufologists are a bit too touchy. They want people to ask questions, and here was a question. If there was a little bit of smarm on Russert's part (and honestly, I didn't really detect any more smarm than normal from TR), that's a small price to pay.

2. Kucinich has no hope of ever being President, but I thought he answered the question about as well as time and circumstance allowed (remember, this was a "rapid fire" round in the debate). He mentioned that a UFO is simply a UFO, and by extension not necessarily an alien spacecraft. He also got in the good line about more Americans having seen a UFO than support the president - catchy, if not quite true, at least according to the statistic Russert countered with, i.e. 14% of Americans have reported seeing a UFO. Is that stat true or not? I don't know, but as Kucinich indicated at the end, it's an awful lot of people regardless. He also name-dropped Jimmy Carter, although most people accept that Carter saw Venus, and not a genuine UFO. Still, not bad - if he was better informed, he would have added a few other names and occupations, including Kelly Johnson, Senator Richard Russell, Paul Hill, and any dozen of the scores of top USAF personnel who have reported UFOs. Better yet, he would have told people to purchase a copy of "Best Evidence" when it's out on DVD next year (yes, that's a shameless commercial plug!).

3. Mac also takes a dig at Barrack Obama's comments when he said, in essence, that we should focus more on problems down here, but what does Mac suggest that Obama (who no-one should confuse with presidential material at this point in his career - experience should count more than sound-bites and a good back-story), should have said, given the circumstances, i.e. he's trailing Clinton in the polls, and he had about fifteen seconds to answer? Besides, I happen to agree with the gist of his answer, which was "who knows what's out there, but we should focus on fixing our own myriad problems down here, which is what I'm going to do if elected President". I would probably have given the same answer, given the circumstances, and the priorities of a candidate trying to gain his party's nomination. Save the talk for manned missions to Mars, or the question of whether or not there's life out there, for another day, when you have more time, and when you might actually be in charge.

So, I think, all things considered, the debate was a good thing for "ufology" (and even for people interested in the serious study of the UFO phenomenon). Yes, there was some laughter from some in the audience, which just shows that there are Democrats who are as stupid as Republicans (did anyone who lived through the Carter presidency really doubt this?). Still, you have to walk before you can run, which in the case of the UFO phenomenon means that you're still going to have to put up with some chuckles every now and then. The way to silence the chuckles is to use facts and figures, and to point out that some very bright people have seen UFOs over the years, along with a pretty significant number of their fellow Americans.

That's not a bad place to start the process of re-building the public image of the UFO phenomenon.

I never thought I'd say or write this, but good for Dennis Kucinich.

Paul Kimball

Humanity vs... humanity?

Will the human race eventually divide into two different species, one far more advanced than the other? Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry at the London School of Economics seems to think so (see article here).

While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat for humanity over the next millennium, there is the possibility of a monumental genetic hangover over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other. After that, things could get ugly, with the possible emergence of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots'.

If you've ever watched the Jerry Springer show, you might be tempted to conclude that the process described in this article has already begun!

Seriously, leaving aside the genetic angle, technology is already rapidly creating an even greater divide within humanity - those who have it and understand how to use it, and those who do not. A divide may be coming - faster than we think - where the former group begin to merge in a meaningful way with their technology, and leave the latter group well behind... at which point the world becomes a vastly different place.

That I-Pod of yours, or that cell phone, or Blackberry, or X-Box 360, or ___________________ (fill in the blank) is taking us further and further away from the rest of the human race, bit by bit, at an ever accelerating rate. I'm not suggesting that we should give them up - rather than slowing ourselves down, we should be working harder to make sure that everyone else keeps up. Most of all, in our rush to have all of the latest gadgets, including those that may become part of our own bodies, we must not forget those who don't have access to them.

The alternative to maintaining an awareness of the growing divide within humanity, and trying to do something about it, is a bleak future for us all.

Paul Kimball

What Would ET Do?

One of the most annoying phrases I hear from Christians comes when they ask the question, in response to some dilemna (whether it's a biggie, like whether or not to go to war, or a small one, like whether or not to buy Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops):

What would Jesus do?

My answer is usually, "what a stupid question to ask".

However, in my current friendly "blog-war" with Mac Tonnies re: alien contact, I'll ask the same question, in a slightly different way, with regard to whether or not humanity is ready for knowledge of ET's presence.

In other words: what would ET do?

Let's assume for the moment that ET exists. Let's further assume that ET is here, and has been for some time. Finally, let's assume that ET is more or less benevolent (and if they weren't, I probably wouldn't be writing this). That's a lot of assumptions (all of which remain unproven to me, but as I said, "let's assume), but they're ones made by the supporters of the ETH as the ETFact, and those who advocate the government come "clean" about ET's presence on Earth.

Given those assumptions, and given the state of affairs vis-a-vis ET (i.e. no public revelation), one can but assume that ET agrees with me. In other words, by not yet revealing themselves publicly for all of the world to see, ET has indicated that, in their view, we're not ready for contact.

Perhaps they have some version of Star Trek's "Prime Directive". Who knows?

What I do know is that they show more common sense, and understanding of the state of affairs on Earth, than the "disclosure" advocates.

Besides, if ET is smart enough to get here, and wise enough that people are willing to pin their hopes for a better future on contact with them, who are we to argue with them when it comes to the question of when that contact should take place?

In other words, if ET is out there, we'll meet them on their terms, when they figure we're ready to do so, and not a moment sooner.

Good for them.

Paul Kimball

Are We Ready for "Contact"?

My good friend Mac Tonnies has responded to my recent post "Truth Embargo? Good" at his blog (read it here).

He writes, in part:

A large part of me is convinced that we need our paradigmatic bars rattled -- and if that means enduring the sociological sea-change likely to occur in the wake of ET "disclosure," I think it's worth the ride.

I understand where he's coming from, but I think on this issue he's naive, and wrong. I replied:

Mac:

You and others view "contact" through that Western, educated, middle-to-upper class point of view I discussed. The vast majority of the world does not share that point of view, including many in the West. A "contact" event would, in my opinion, be disastrous in the short term, with unpredictable consequences in the long-term. We just aren't ready for it as a species, and it is the height of cultural imperialism and hubris for us to suggest that because some of us may be ready (indeed, may even want that change), the rest of the world is, or at the very least should be forced along for the ride.

If I was in charge, and knew about ET on Earth, and could keep it secret, all the while slowly seeding the technology into society as well as the "knowledge", through the media (i.e. films), I wouldn't hesitate to "cover it up".

I'm pretty sure the Aztecs would have done the same if they could have.

Does anybody really think that the global reaction would be one of universal joy, where people who have hated each other for centuries would suddenly toss down their weapons and embrace each other as brothers and sisters? I don't.

Perhaps the aliens, should they prove to be benevolent, would enforce peace upon the world. They would no doubt have the means to do so, at least in broad strokes. But is that how we really want to solve our problems? And where would that lead us?

How would radical religious zealots (of any faith) react?

Does anyone for a second believe that the established order would just slip away - or is it far more likely that it would further entrench itself, paritcularly if the "contact" event was not a landing, but simply a signal that confirmed what Mac and I already suspect, i.e. that we're not alone?

The one thing I am certain of, as I look around, is that we're not mature enough as a species to face that future, at least not yet.

Maybe, someday, when we grow up and solve our own problems, we'll be ready for admission into the Cosmic Kindergarten. But for now we're still stuck in the crib.

Guys like Mac, and Stan Friedman, and Steven Bassett all mean well. They all want the best, and that's truly admirable. The problem is that when they say they would welcome a landing on the White House lawn, or that they want "disclosure", they are looking to the skies for salvation, when we should be looking to ourselves. We're the problem, but we're also the solution.

To think otherwise is to be no different than the people who have spent two thousand years waiting for the return of Jesus to save us from ourselves.

Paul Kimball

Truth Embargo? Good!

You often hear pro-ETH UFO researchers in the West state something along the lines of, "It's time to end the cover-up of the ET presence on Earth - it might have made sense 60 years ago, but we're a more mature society now, and we could handle the news". Stan Friedman has said words to that general effect at almost every lecture I've ever heard him give, for example.

I think that they're wrong. I think if we were really faced with certain proof of the existence of ET (like a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn), things would pretty much go to hell in short order. The view that things would be just fine (a few hiccups, perhaps, but we would adjust quickly) is informed by an educated, middle to upper class, very Western way of looking at the world - in other words, guys like Stan. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the planet's population is not educated to the degree someone like Stan is, and they're not members of the middle or upper classes, and they don't live in the relative comfort (both physical and ideological) of postmodernist and largely secular Western society.

The view of people like Stan that we're ready for the knowledge of ET's existence (should ET exist and be here) is also at odds with human history, where every time an advanced society came into contact with a less advanced society, there was chaos, with the end result that the less advanced society suffered greatly as a result of that contact.

I think Stuart Miller, in a recent post at his blog Alien Worlds Magazine, hits upon the more likely outcome. Here is an excerpt:

My opinion is that there would be substantial elements of world wide hysteria which couldn’t be ignored, for it would inevitably impinge on the calmer elements. The most un-endearing quality within the psyche of the human spirit is arrogance. Our world is full of strutting little despots, be it militarily, politically, administratively, the religious realm, or even in our personal lives. People full of their own self importance and power, without humility or empathy, who would seize the opportunity to terrify and manipulate. Martial law in some quarters would be a real possibility. After all, this would be an event of a life time. [Full article here]

Bingo - and as Stuart notes later in the column, this is what would probably happen if we just got a signal from SETI. It would be far worse if ET was actually here, and even worse again if ET was hostile.

Guys like Steven Bassett talk about a "paradigm shift" should the "truth embargo" ever be lifted. They're absolutely right, but for the wrong reasons. They see a sunnier future for humanity - a leap into a brave new world, where we would happily walk hand in hand with our space brothers and sisters, and all would suddenly be fine on Planet Earth.

Like Stuart, I see a different result, because I've spent years studying the world and its people, not as we might like them to be, but as they actually are. If the "government" is really covering up the "truth" about an ET presence here on Earth, I say "good - keep it up". Because as I look around, the truth is that we're not ready for it. We're not even close. And to reveal it now would be as disastrous as it would have been sixty years ago - perhaps more so.

We don't need alien "gods" to come down and solve all of our problems - we need to solve them ourselves. Only then, when all people are capable of seeing the world like Stan Friedman sees it will we be ready for First Contact, with any ET species, either here or "out there".

If ET really does exist, and is smart enough to get here from there, and is as benevolent as some people think, then I'm pretty sure they see things the same way I do, and that's why they choose not to reveal themselves. And if they aren't that benevolent, and resemble more an ET version of Cortez, then eventually we're all screwed, aren't we?

Does this mean that people should stop investigating UFO cases? No. Does it mean people should stop writing and talking about UFOs? Of course not. Because at the moment, the idea of ET UFOs are like the idea of God - maybe they exist, maybe they don't, who can say? You can believe if you want, or not. You can believe in one type of alien, or another, or none at all. You can explore other theories if you want. You can ignore the whole subject, as the vast majority of people do. You can even pretend that you're practising "citizen diplomacy" with aliens if you want. To each their own.

You can even pester the "government" for the "truth", but you'll find that it's a pretty futile slog, because they either don't know the "truth" (which is the far more likely answer, in my opinion), or, if they do and the truth is "ET is here", they aren't going to reveal it, for the reasons outlined above.

Good reasons.

Paul Kimball

Nazis, neo-Nazis, and UFOs

Lately on UFO Updates there has been an embarrassing thread going on in which the idea that the Nazis may have been involved in UFO research (or something like that) in Antarctica has been floated (based upon some book that's about to come out). This is all rubbish, and I'm not going to dignify the "debate" by providing any more details, other than to note that the people who seem to put any stock in this notion are people who have no - and I mean NO - knowledge or understanding of the history of the period under discussion (if you're really interested, for some reason, you can subscribe to Updates and check them out yourself). Yes, they occasionally get facts right, but history isn't just about dates and facts - it's about understanding what they mean (that's what makes history interesting, and relevant).

Anyway, my point here is to note that the Nazi meme is not a new one in ufology, but it has been a dangerous one, for reasons that many people have pointed out in the past, including Strange Days... Indeed commentator Dave Furlotte (see here). Neo-Nazis like Ernst Zundel have used the UFO subject in the past to lure the most gullible people into their web of hate and lies on the theory that if a person was willing to swallow the kind of bilge that Zundel and others pedaled with regards to Nazi UFOs, then they were identified as prime targets for a far more dangerous kind of bilge, Holocaust denial (anyone who wants a more detailed examination of the Zundel story should pick up a copy of Warren Kinsella's excellent book, Web of Hate; for Zundel and UFOs, see The Nizkor Project's page here).

Does this mean that all people who support the "Nazi bases in Antarctica claims" that pop up now and then are neo-Nazis? Of course not. But their kind of rank stupidity does demonstrate that there are indeed people out there who are simply incapable of separating fact from fiction - people who are so desperate to believe in UFOs as aliens, or whatever, that they will believe virtually anything else. This is just this kind of "believer blindness" that neo-Nazis like Ernst Zundel, or cult leaders like Marshall Applewhite, always count on, something that anyone interested in the study of the UFO subject should always keep in mind.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop's UFO Platform

Greg Bishop, 3rd party candidate for the Presidency of the United States, has set out his platform as it relates to the UFO-question. Here it is:

Obviously, the UFO subject is not very high on the list of anyone running for public office, and it never will be, unless the phenomenon itself decides to make it important to the vast majority of the public. Elected officials need to work within the structure of military and security establishments to find out what is going on, how much is known, and what the problem would be exposing this knowledge to the public.

The way to force disclosure, I believe, is to convince those who hold those secrets that it would be in their best interests to release the pertinent information. That
would be a tall order indeed–perhaps nearly impossible. For anyone whose life is the custodianship of secrets within secrets, ad infinitum, an open approach is dead on the launchpad.

No, the proper way to do it would be behind the scenes, assuring the parties involved that no one but yourself and the people hired to speak for you would be responsible for revealing whatever could be revealed. Perhaps a political runaround would be in order, where you placed the information in the hands of a political adversary or even an ally, letting him or her take the heat and/or acclaim. Working on elected officials from the outside certainly isn’t paying any fast dividends.

Because I believe (and this is only a theory) that those in charge of UFO information know little more about the origin or purpose of non-human visitors than the rest of us, I also think that a real “disclosure” is not possible, since those in possession of the story don’t really know what to do with it, except scare the rest of us into submission by leaking wild stories and controlling the rumor mill. Perhaps the best way to look into it is on an individual level–using a “bottom-up” approach, rather than asking for official permission to spout the things we claim to know already.

Most people reading this already believe that the human race has had contact with non-human entities, or at least their effects. Why do we need some “authority” to tell us something we already know, except to provide some needed data points?

I stumbled onto that by writing it. Data points (meaning officially sanctioned, reputation-on-the-line data points) may be a key. If the some of the disclosure people (and many other UFO researchers) push their “we told you so” egos out of the way, perhaps what they should really be asking for (quietly and with little fanfare) is more and better info, and not a release of the “truth” about UFOs. What you are looking for defines what you will find, and how you ask the questions.

I will now take questions from the press.

Well, that makes sense. Greg would get my vote, if I had one, and if I thought "UFO disclosure" was an issue worth devoting any serious political time and energy towards.

Paul Kimball

NFOs

Brad Sparks copied me on this post he sent in to Errol Bruce-Knapp at UFO Updates. I think it's worth posting far and wide, so here it is.

Paul Kimball

I suggest naming the category of non-investigated or uninvestigated sightings "NFO's" or Non-investigated Flying Objects (NFO's). This is an indeterminate catchall category for initial incoming sighting reports prior to any Hynek screening or investigation. Most cases will fall into this category and never get reclassified as either IFO's or UFO's. The "NFO" term falls nicely in between IFO and UFO alphabetically which is conceptually where it belongs.

For simplicity I include all conventional explanations within the scope of the term "IFO" including cases where there is no object at all, such as some hallucinations and hoaxes. I don't quibble over hypertechnicalities of the "flying" term, where purists complain that we usually don't know if the object is flying using aerodynamic principles, and celestial bodies are not "flying" at all, etc. The traditional "UFO" term uses the word "flying" and everyone has a rough idea what "UFO" and "IFO" mean and they don't take it so literally. "NFO" nicely and logically alliterates with IFO and UFO so it will suggest the others.

Trying to replace the term "UFO" because of quibbles over the word "flying" will simply lose 99% of the people who have an interest in the UFO subject.

The Hynek screening process is explained in his basic textbook of UFO science, The UFO Experience, published in 1972 and endlessly reprinted in numerous editions ever since. You can buy paperback copies on Amazon.com for less than the cost of shipping so there is no excuse for serious UFO researchers not have it and read it.

No sighting report according to Hynek should get the "UFO" label until after a scientifically competent investigation has eliminated IFO's and other conventional explanations.

Whenever it is unclear what we mean by "UFO" or if there is a possibility of some confusion then simply say UFO Unknowns or "real UFO" or Unexplained UFO's or the like, just as we now do anyway.

With this new terminology the AF Project Blue Book statistics would transform to something like this (these are extremely rough approximations subject to refinement and more thorough statistics after Will Wise's BlueBookArchives can get all the BB files online so a more thorough analysis can finally be done):

NFO's - 10,500 (approx.)
IFO's - 1,500 (approx.)
UFO's - 3,000 (approx.)
Total - 15,000 (approx.)

I am being very conservative on the number of UFO Unknowns, as 20% of the total, whereas it is more likely as McDonald estimated, about 30% to 40% or about 4,500 to 6,000 Unknowns.

UFO's thus outnumber IFO's by at least 2 to 1 when we stop bastardizing the statistics by including non-investigated NFO's. Using Hynek's definition an investigation must be scientifically competent, hence very few BB investigations would qualify in his opinion and in the estimation of McDonald and others who have reviewed BB's work.

Brad Sparks

Greg Bishop for President

I've been having a friendly little tete-a-tete with Alfred Lehmberg in the comments section to the post Dear God - I'm a Lefty!. The jist of it, at least from my side of the aisle, is that there is a marked lack of bi-partisanship on both sides of the political fence in the United States (and, sadly, in Canada as well these days).

My suggestion is simple - the United States needs a third party along the lines of the United Kingdom's Raving Monster Loony Party.

Now, the obvious candidate for President for such a party in the United States would be Nick Redfern, the king of off-the-wall cryptozoology currently living in that country (apologies to Loren Coleman, but he's from Maine, a state with no electoral clout). Alas, Nick wasn't born in the United States, so he can never be President.

Fear not, intrepid readers, for there is a perfectly good candidate waiting in the wings - Greg Bishop!

Unlike Coleman, Greg is from a state that matters when it comes to the electoral college - California.

Unlike Redfern, Greg is an American citizen, born and bred.

Like both Coleman and Redfern, Greg has spent a fair amount of time studying monsters, and he's certainly hung out with plenty of loons.

Best of all, Greg takes a truly bi-partisan point of view when it comes to all things paranormal. He keeps an open mind, and is willing to listen to all arguments, after which he generally makes an informed decision that, even if you disagree with it, you can still respect it.

Thus do I officially nominate Greg Bishop for President of the United States of America.

Now all we need is a party name, and a running mate, and the campaign can begin in earnest!

Let's start with the running mate...

Who should be nominated as Greg Bishop's running mate for President?
	Mac Tonnies
	Alfred Lehmberg
	Lesley Gunter
	Timothy Binnall
	Richard Dolan
	Jim Marrs
	James Moseley
	Kenn Thomas
	A. J. Gulyas
	Royce Myers III
Free polls from Pollhost.com

And thus begins a paradigm shift in American politics!

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern's "Memoirs of a Monster Hunter"

My good friend Nick Redfern has a new book out, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter: A Five Year Journey in Search of the Unknown, that is a must-read for anyone who thinks a paranormal travelogue is a great idea. As always, Nick's breezy writing style engages the reader, and whisks them off to all sorts of strange places where Nick has tried to track down all sorts of strange creatures, from vampires to lake monsters. My favourite section is, of course, Chapter 15, which is about Nick's trip with yours truly and the Redstar crew to Puerto Rico in September, 2005, in search of the legendary chupacabra.

That was an exciting trip, with all sorts of twists and turns, witnesses, weird stories, odd coincidences, and so on (in the book Nick recounts a truly eerie MJ-12 story from his trip to Puerto Rico). As with all of his stories in the book, Nick brings our adventures alive for the reader, and makes it seem as if they were along for the ride.

I sometimes refer to myself as the "Jack Kerouac of the paranormal". If that's the case, then Nick is the "Hunter S. Thompson of the paranormal"... with perhaps a bit of Ernest Hemmingway thrown in for good measure. His writing informs and entertains in a field where authors tend to do one or the other, but rarely manage to do both at the same time (my pals Mac Tonnies and Greg Bishop are also welcome exceptions to this general rule).

In a brief passage in the aforementioned Chapter 15, Nick sums up nicely why he and I do what we do:

"That evening, we met in the bar for an evening of food and revelry... 'Life's never dull in this game, is it?' I asked Paul, in what was really a statement rather than a question. He heartily agreed. We toasted to a continued, productive week, and thanked God that we didn't have to work in the real world of 9-to-5. The conversation then turned to music, beer, gambling, and more, and bloodsucking vampires were forgotten about for the rest of the night."

Nick is one of those guys who gets exactly what Kerouac was talking about when he wrote:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

There are plenty of "mad ones" in Memoirs of a Monster Hunter, an engaging journey through the strange world of the paranormal... and the sometimes even stranger world of Nick Redfern. Don't miss it.

Paul Kimball

2007 Zorgy Award nominations now open!!

Nominations for the 2007 Zorgy Awards are now open (you can see the 2006 results here). You can send your nominations for any of the following categories to Rear Admiral Zorgrot (seen above with Canadian actor Kris Lee McBride at the San Diego Zoo) at ZorgrotOnEarth@aol.com:

1. Best UFO / paranormal website [Magazine]

2. Best UFO / paranormalwebsite [forums]

3. Best UFO / paranormal website [news summary]

4. Best UFO / paranormal blog

5. Best UFO / paranormal radio show [non-Internet]

6. Best UFO / paranormal "Trouble-Maker"

7. Best UFO Podcast

8. Best UFO / paranormal publication (print)

9. Best UFO / paranormal research website

10. Best Ufologist

11. Best UFO documentary [released in 2007]

12. Best UFO conference

13. Best UFO book [released in 2007]

14. Top UFO story of 2007

15. Top Paranormal story of 2007

16. Best cryptozoologist

17. Best cryptozoology website

Nominations for The Pelicanist of the Year Award and The George Adamski Memorial Award will be determined by Zorgy and yours truly.

Nominations close November 10th - voting will commence soon thereafter, and run until December 31st. This year there will be statues for the winners, and an Internet broadcast awards ceremony!

Vox populi!

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part III

As the interview continues, Gersten talks about The Program and free will.

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part II

My interview with Peter Gersten continues, as he expands on his theory of "The Program" and what its end in 2012 will mean for him.

Paul Kimball

Peter Gersten interview - Part I

Part I of an interview I conducted with long-time UFO disclosure advocate Peter Gersten (co-founder of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) in Sedona, Arizona, on 21 September, 2007. In this clip, Peter talks about 2012, and what it means to him.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop at the Integratron

Greg Bishop, Kris McBride and I travelled out to Yucca Valley, California, on the 2nd of October to shoot some footage of Giant Rock and the Integratron. Here Greg gives a brief description of what the Integratron was all about.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop on UFOs and Ufology

Author Greg Bishop (Project Beta, The Excluded Middle) discusses the state of modern ufology and how the study of the UFO phenomenon should be approached in this clip from an interview I conducted with him in his home in Los Angeles, 6 October 2007.

Paul Kimball

Stan Friedman on "working under security"

This is one of my favourite Stan stories. It didn't make it into Stanton T. Friedman is Real, but here it is from the 2000 pre-interview.

Incidentally, I always give my cameraman similar instructions with respect to taking care of the camera.

Paul Kimball

Review of Captured: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience

Stan Friedman gets a nice review from my good pal, Halifax arts & entertainment critic Ron Foley MacDonald.

Paul Kimball

Fredericton UFO Expert Has Hot Summer
by Ron Foley MacDonald

World-renowned New Brunswick-based Unidentified Flying Object expert Stanton T. Friedman is having one hot summer. He just appeared on the widely seen CNN chat show Larry King Live to argue in support the possibility of extraterrestrial visits to earth; the former nuclear physicist has also just co-authored an exciting new book entitled Captured!: The Betty And Barney Hill UFO Experience.

This being the 60th Anniversary of the infamous 1947 UFO crash incident at Roswell in the American Southwest--of which Friedman is the leading civilian researcher--the affable Fredericton resident has been busy all across North America taking part in various UFO-conventions and commemorations surrounding the Roswell anniversary.

I caught Stanton T. Friedman at a Halifax Conference put on by Redstar Films last fall. He was a spellbinding speaker: funny, informed, and positively persuasive. I was looking forward to the new book--co-authored with Betty Hill's niece Kathleen Marden--because it would shed some light on what I think is the most puzzling and prominent UFO case since Roswell.

Captured! updates and deconstructs John Fuller's famous--but now out of print, alas--book The Interrupted Journey, which brought the Betty and Barney Hill story to a wide audience in the mid-1960s. Their tale reached an even bigger public in 1975 when a truly terrifying TV movie version starring James Earl Jones was broadcast on North American mainstream television.

I saw that movie as a teenager and it left an indelible impression. The nuts and bolts of the narrative are initially relatively simple. An inter-racial married couple, Barney and Betty Hill, believed they had an encounter with a UFO in September of 1961 in New Hampshire after driving down from a vacation in Canada.

They told only a few friends at first. After the couple began to experience disturbing nightmares, they contacted a psychiatrist who put them under hypnosis a couple of years later after a long course of preparitory treatment.

Astonishingly, Betty and Barney Hill recounted--under medical-supervised hypnosis--an amazing story of being taken aboard a UFO for some very uncomfortable tests. Betty even engaged in conversation with the aliens, and had them draw a star chart of where they came from. She re-drew the chart under hypnosis; it has become a key part in the controversy surrounding the Hill case.

Friedman and Marden go through the story step-by-step. They identify all of the major and minor players, and shed light on some of the short cuts that John Fuller took in constructing his version of the narrative.

All of this plays to Stanton T. Friedman's formidable researching strengths. He points out inconsistencies, gaps in logic and the many differences between Betty and Barney Hill's own testimony. More importantly, he coolly refutes the many debunkers who have grown up around the Hills' now-iconic narrative.

It's become all too easy to reduce the study of the UFO phenomena to a goofy side-show of crackpots, losers and loose canons. Friedman's lifelong crusade has been to give dignity to the process by treating the examination of UFOs through the compilation of useful and measurable data.

With the direct access to Betty Hill's diaries and other estate material provided by her niece and trustee Kathleen Marden (the other co-author of the book), an incredible amount of detail is now available to consider in what can only be considered the granddaddy of all UFO abduction cases.

And while skeptics can still spin all the metaphors about the case they can dream up--one of the favorites is that the whole thing was generated by the unconscious disturbances of a inter-racial couple in a time of deep discrimination--there's no question that Captured!: The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience represents the definitive statement on one of the great vexing para-normal encounters of our time.

Captured!: The Betty And Barney Hill UFO Experience is published by New Page Books, a division of Career Press, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, USA, 300 pages, paperback, $21.95 Canadian. For more information check out www.newpagebooks.com.

Stan Friedman on Project Blue Book Special Report #14

Another clip from the research interview I conducted with Stan Friedman in 2000 while developing the documentary Stanton T. Friedman is Real - here Stan talks about Project Blue Book Special Report #14.

Paul Kimball

Stan Friedman - Refuting the arguments against UFOs

I recorded a lengthy pre-interview with Stan Friedman in Halifax back in 2000 for the development phase of the documentary Stanton T. Friedman is Real, which we took into production in 2001. In this segment, I asked Stan to imagine himself on the other side of the UFO fence, i.e. as a person trying to poke holes in his various arguments.

Paul Kimball