Ufology Unplugged - Rev. Barry Downing: The Bible and Flying Saucers

The third episode of Ufology Unplugged features an interview I conducted with Rev. Barry Downing in 2001. Downing is best known as the author of The Bible and Flying Saucers, one of the earliest and most influential works in the "ancient aliens" ouevre. In this interview he discusses his work and his theories, particularly the idea that the stories of the Bible may not be supernatural in nature but rather may represent tales of human contact with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.

Paul Kimball

The Shag Harbour UFO case - What the people involved thought it was

Most people within ufology have seen the headline in the Halifax Chronicle Herald from Saturday, 7 October 1967, which read: "Could Be Something Concrete in Shag Harbour UFO - RCAF," largely because it is the more sensational one. But here is the follow-up reportage a few days later - still rife with speculation and uncertainty (understandable all things considered), but also showing that an ET spacecraft was the furthest thing from anyone's mind. The explanation that most people credited was a secret American craft of some sort... which is what Laurie Wickens, the first person to see the UFO and report it, still thinks it was, all these years later - and I agree.

Paul Kimball

The New York Times' Roswell coverage in 1947

I was doing some archival research today on non-UFO related history at Acadia University, and I took the opportunity to check the New York Times on microfilm for their version of the Roswell "crash"... and here it is. What I found particularly interesting was the coverage the "flying disc" phenomenon was getting in the week before the Roswell incident, stemming from the Kenneth Arnold sighting in June, 1947. Flying saucers were certainly in the news, and imaginations were working overtime, which is probably the biggest reason why the people who jumped the gun and released the press release about the "Roswell crash" got it wrong... and then had to retract their error shortly thereafter and use the weather balloon cover story for what they had really found - the top secret Project Mogul. Anyone who thinks those kinds of things can't happen to even the best of us just doesn't understand human nature.

Paul Kimball

Ufology Unplugged - Steven Greer: Disclosure

The second episode of "Ufology Unplugged" consists of a 2001 interview I conducted with Steven Greer, the controversial founder of the Disclosure Project, intermixed with a clip of Greer speaking at the 2001 MUFON Symposium press conference. Greer talks about the disclosure of what he claims is the cover-up of the reality of ET visiting Earth and reverse-engineered free energy that is being withheld from the human race by a secret cabal of government and corporate insiders. 

Paul Kimball

The Bookshelf

Most of my "weird" books are in boxes in a storage locker (at over 150 paranormal-related ones, it's just too much for my apartment) - these are some of the ones I have on hand. It's an eclectic bunch, that's for sure.

Paul Kimball

Ufology Unplugged - Randy Barnes: Contact Experiences

In this episode of "Ufology Unplugged" I present a 2003 interview I conducted with American contactee Randy Barnes in Aztec, New Mexico. Barnes describes his long history of what he claims are "contact" experiences with extraterrestrials, and offers some thoughts on what it might all mean. Besides his "contact" experiences, Barnes was one of the key research partners of Scott Ramsey in his re-investigation of the 1948 Aztec UFO hoax.

Paul Kimball

Rob Swiatek - FUFOR and "Final Report on Operation Majestic 12"

Rob Swiatek of the Fund for UFO Research talks about the early days of MJ-12 research and how FUFOR came to fund Stan Friedman's "Final Report on Operation Majestic 12" in the late 1980s. An excerpt from an interview I conducted with Rob in Aztec, New Mexico, in 2003. 

Paul Kimball

Dr. John Mack - Alien Reality and Humanity

From my video vault - John Mack speaking at the 2001 MUFON Symposium press conference about the media and UFOs, and anthropocentric humanism and how an alien reality would change the way we view ourselves, and the society that we have created. Stan Friedman makes a cameo appearance at the end. 

 Paul Kimball

Ufology Unplugged - Episode 1.2: Kevin Randle - Cattle Mutilations

UFO researcher / author Kevin Randle (The Abduction Enigma, The Government UFO Files, Case MJ-12, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell) discusses the cattle mutilation phenomenon, which he investigated in the 1970s for APRO.

Having looked into the cattle mutilation stories myself several years ago, I agree with pretty much everything Randle says here. The more interesting take-away for me from all of this is that most of what Randle says about cattle mutilation investigations, and investigators, is equally applicable to every other type of ufological investigation, whether it be "alien abductions" or crop circles... or Randle's own bread and butter, crashed flying saucers. His great failing is the blind spot that he has always had when it comes to that latter subject.

But as Karl Pflock always said, and it is a sentiment that Randle ironically echoes in this episode - belief can be a powerful thing.

Paul Kimball

Ufology... Unplugged - Pilot Episode

Feature films are my thing now, and I really enjoy it (my two latest films just screened at the Atlantic Film Festival last month to a great reaction and after a couple minor tweaks we'll have done by early November they'll be headed out to the broader festival circuit), but a small part of me remains fascinated by the subculture of Ufology. Fortunately, I've got hundreds of hours of interview footage that I accumulated over my years making documentaries, and I have some free time, so... behold - Ufology... Unplugged! A project I've been meaning to get to for some time. 

In the pilot episode I pull excerpts from two separate interviews with Stan Friedman. The first was in September, 2001 - Stan discusses his thoughts on Steven Greer and the Disclosure Project, which was the "big thing" in ufology at the time (and one could argue that it still is). In the second, which was conducted in 2003, Stan talks about his relationship with his former research partner William Moore.

Lots of interesting nuggets in here, but there are three that stand out for me. The first is Stan's line in the Greer interview that "I think that there should be plenty of secrets in the world," which might come as a surprise to some (particularly the forcefulness with which he delivers it here),. Second are his remarks about his disagreements with Moore about UFO Cover-Up Live and the failure of Moore to honour his commitments to people who ordered things from him via mail. Both point to Moore's intrinsic dishonesty (as does Stan's admission that Moore could be "tricky"), and yet he continues to maintain, in the face of everything we know about Moore and Doty, that the MJ-12 documents are bona fide because Moore could not have faked them. Finally, Stan offers a firm denial of the charge leveled against him over the years by Karl Pflock, Kevin Randle, and Brad Sparks, that Stan had discussed the prospect of faking documents with Moore and Shandera.

Paul Kimball

Stanton Friedman - William Moore and MJ-12

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in 2003, Stanton Friedman talks about his relationship with fellow ufologist William Moore, who was his research partner on Roswell and MJ-12 for a decade from the late 1970s through the 1980s.

Much grist for the mill here, most of it centering on the cognitive dissonance of what Stan says about Moore's honesty - "Bill was a tricky guy," "He liked to float proposals, run them up the flag pole and see how people would react," he was committing mail fraud - and his blithe brushing off of the prospect that Moore created the MJ-12 documents by saying that Bill couldn't have know certain details so he couldn't have created the documents. What Stan ignores is the probability that Moore was working with someone else (or a small group of people) who could have found all the needed information, namely Moore's other "partner" in the 1980s - Rick Doty.

As for a motive, Stan details that as well, even as he ignores its implications - Moore's financial problems in the 1980s. Nothing like some fake documents to gin up interest in his cash-cow story (Roswell) which was starting to grow cold.

The MJ-12 story really is that simple. Stan has all the facts at his command, but he just can't see the forest for the trees - a triumph of belief over reason and common sense.

Paul Kimball

Kevin Randle - Alien Abductions

Kevin Randle (co-author of The Abduction Enigma) outlines his views on the "alien abduction" phenomenon in this short clip from an interview I conducted with him in 2001.

Paul Kimball

Kevin Randle - Ufologists as part of the Roswell story

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in September 2001, UFO researcher Kevin Randle responds to the assertion by anthropologist Dr. Benson Saler that ufologists have inserted themselves into the Roswell story and therefore become as much a part of the story as the witnesses themselves.

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern - MJ-12 and the FBI

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted in 2003 with my good friend, author Nick Redfern, he talks about the interest that the FBI had in the MJ-12 documents, and the possible reasons for it.

Paul Kimball

Stanton Friedman - UFO frauds: Bob Lazar and Philip J. Corso

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with Stan Friedman in 2001, he discusses frauds in UFO research, and focuses on two of the most egregious examples in the past thirty years - Robert Lazar, and Philip J. Corso.

Paul Kimball

Karl Pflock - The creation of the MJ-12 documents

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in 2003, my friend the late Karl Plock (author of Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe) discusses the MJ-12 documents, and who he is convinced was responsible for faking them.

Paul Kimball

New Billy Meier "beamship" photo!!

This just in - a new "beamship" photo from Billy Meier!

Clearly this is further indisputable (and tasty) evidence of the Plejaren reality!

Paul Kimball

Bruce Maccabee - The UFO Cover-up

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted in 2003 with Dr. Bruce Maccabee, author of The UFO - FBI Connection, he talks about why he is convinced that the government knows more about the UFO phenomenon than it has told the public.

Paul Kimball

Karl Pflock - UFO photos and government interest

My good friend, the late Karl Pflock, who served in a variety of posts in the US government before he entered the private sector (including the CIA and the Department of Defence), is seen here talking about some of the conversations he had with people during his time in government about the UFO phenomenon. This footage was shot at the Meet & Greet session at the 2003 Aztec UFO Conference in Aztec, New Mexico, where I was filming a documentary.

Paul Kimball

Rev. Barry Downing - The Religious Implications of the UFO Phenomenon

In this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in 2001 in Irvine, California, Rev. Barry Downing (the author of The Bible and Flying Saucers) talks about how various Christian religious traditions view the UFO phenomenon, and how they might react if UFOs were proven to be extraterrestrial.

Paul Kimball