Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 5 of 5.

2012-03-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

On Friday evening I watched The Montauk Chronicles, a documentary on supposed sinister paranormal experiments carried out on innocent boys by the U.S. military at Montauk, Long Island, NY. (See p. 124-126 of my book Pyschic Vibrations). Supposedly tens of thousands of young boys, if not hundreds of thousands, were taken off the streets, imprisoned, tortured and molested, all for the purpose of unleashing hidden paranormal powers. The project ended when one of the youngsters was able to manifest a Big Scary Monster that ran amuck attacking people. By some accounts, the monster still runs amuck at night, when the moon is full and the fog sits upon the moor - wooo. The movie is quite well made. I met the writer and director, Christopher P. Garetano, who seems like a nice fellow but apparently lacks the gene for critical thinking. He cannot decide whether this huge, bloated, absurd tale is true or not. Good Lord!

David Sereda and Stan Romanek test that the laws of electromagnetism are still working

The Saturday sessions began with Ben Hansen, host of the SyFy channel's Fact or Faked, on the Interplay of Media, Technology, Hollywood, and Validating Evidence of ET Contact. He raised the question of how to tell, given all this technology, which photos and videos are genuine, and which faked. Technology, he said, is our best friend, but also our worst enemy. It seemed to be more "enemy" that morning as many of his video excerpts were unable to be played. The genre of "found footage," he said is now so popular that if real footage of ETs is ever found, it might not be believed. He decried the "wolves" who damage the credibility of UFO research by making sensational claims for their own fun and profit. Unfortunately, he did not name any names.

Whitley and Anne Strieber

When I first saw the celebrated mega-best selling author Whitley Strieber and his wife Anne seated on a panel, I remarked to myself how their demeanor reminded me of the couple in the famous painting American Gothic. I had not seen Anne before; however I had written up an account of Strieber's very odd behavior during my previous Close Encounter with the Great Confabulator. For his talk, Strieber promised he would be Solving the Communion Enigma, but somehow never quite did. He did promote his website The Unknown Country, especially the paid subscribers' pages. Anne read some letters they had received, telling of peoples' highly-emotional experiences with "the visitors." In mankind's struggle for political and personal freedom, he said, we CE-ers are on the cutting edge.However, it is common for CE people to have a "tragic background." A wave of "strange sounds" around the world, mentioned earlier by Maussan, were discussed.

I got out of my seat to get photos of the speakers, without flash so as not to disturb the video being made. I was looking at the photos as I returned to my seat. The fellow next to me asked "were there any orbs above them?" No, not this time. Streiber returned to the theme of contact with the dead that he first began to promote in his book The Key (see my Review, "He Sees Dead People," in the Skeptical Inquirer, July/August, 2011). Dead people, he says, dress in a brown monk's cowl, "Jesuit clothing." Some of the visitors think it is possible for mankind ro Evolve, while others apparently are not so optimistic. That is why the visitors are so cautious and stealthy. Afterward, mankind will be changed completely, and come face-to-face with the dead. Strieber still says he does not know exactly who "the visitors" are, but he knows that The Dead play a large role.

Whitley Strieber signing autographs

General Ricardo Bermudez spoke about Chile's Official UFO Agency. I didn't hear much of his talk. He was having serious Audio-Visual problems. He spoke about UFO reports that were being received in Chile.

Next the celebrated Steven Greer of CSETI (not to be confused with real SETI) spoke on Contact: Countdown to Transformation to his largely-credulous and adoring crowd. "Disclosure has already happened," said Greer unexpectedly, borrowing a line from John Alexander, who Greer normally disagrees with about everything. Greer didn't explain that remark. Greer showed a photo of Bijou, an ambassador from the Andromeda Galaxy whose acquaintance was made in one of CSETI's desert Skywatches at Joshua Tree, CA. Bijou has now become like a sort of pet alien for Greer, often playing peek-a-boo when it's least expected. It takes a great deal of imagination to see Bijou in the original photo at left, even after they have helpfully cut away his outline (right) - more imagination than I have, I'm afraid. Greer also has equally-fuzzy photos of blips that he says are alien spaceships, many of them only partially materialized in our dimension. Every time they go out, says Greer, they spot UFOs. Every time. This confirms my suspicion that no matter what light they see in the sky, they think it's a UFO.

Greer says there's an alien hiding out in this photo


Voila! It's Bijou, Greer's alien familiar

Greer claims that electro-gravitic devices were built by as long ago as the 1950s. Alien technology, he says, offers us free energy so that we won't need oil or coal any more. However, this is being opposed by the greedy oil companies, and the military-industrial complex. Greer said that he was offered a bribe of $2 BILLION by the conspirators to stop investigating UFOs, which he bravely and selflessly declined. (Me, I'd sell out for a mere two million, but then I don't make as much money as doctors do). He said the only reason the conspirators had not yet killed him is because he is too well-known. He accused the conspirators of "murder" in the cancer death of his friend Sheri Adamiak, and in the non-fatal cancers of other researchers, including his own. Apparently they have some sort of 'cancer ray' that they use against UFOlogists who get too close to the truth. Which brings us to this Rambo guy that I saw with Greer Friday night when Greer first arrived. He was dressed in black combat fatigues, and appeared to be wearing a bullet-proof vest. I thought this was odd, but I didn't pay much attention to him. Arizona is a state where people carry around guns the way people in other states carry umbrellas, although there are "no weapons" signs posted all around the facility. I heard later that Greer has taken to traveling with bodyguards, undoubtedly for the theatrical effect. Rambo, however, was not to be seen on Saturday when Greer spoke, and especially when he went into the hallway to sign autographs, which is when Greer would need protection the most. I heard an unconfirmed rumor that Rambo may have gotten himself into trouble bringing guns onto the Indian Reservation. For whatever reason, Rambo wasn't there, leaving poor Steven Greer defenseless. I am happy to report that Greer survived his stint at the UFO Congress.

Steven Greer is embraced by one of his many admiring fans. But where is Rambo?

Colin Andrews, the world authority on Crop Circles, spoke on that subject.He said that it really doesn't matter which of the crop circles are man-made, and which are real. (I'm still trying to wrap my head around that!). There are profound changes coming, as a "switch" will be thrown on December 21, changing, well, something really important.

As is well-known in UFOlogy, in the 1990s Laurence Rockefeller donated a significant sum for the study of UFOs. Less well-known is that he also donated money to fund a two-year study of Crop Circles, and that Colin Andrews was chief investigator. Rockefeller's people said they wanted the "best assessment" possible. They had enough money to buy the newest equipment, and even use helicopters. When it was completed, the conclusion was that 80% of the Circles were made by people, but 20% were unexplained. This conclusion was very controversial in UFO and Crop Circle circles; many people thought of it as a "debunking" study, and turned against poor Colin.

I first met Andrews two days earlier, when I was returning to my seat after my mini-confrontation with Steve Pierce and Travis Walton during the Q&A. He stopped me, introduced himself, and asked me for my card. I guess he wanted to find out what this was all about! I replied that I knew who he was, and we agreed to meet later and chat. When we did, I pointed out that some of the statements he'd made earlier about 2012 "alignments" were rather confused. I was surprised to see that he was trying to figure this out by himself using planetarium software, but not really understanding the parameters his maps were so broad as to be very confusing. I told him I'd written quite a lot on those "alignments," and I sent him by email the links to the three Blog entries I did a year ago about that (http://badufos.blogspot.com/2011/02/2012-peter-gerstens-leap-of-faith.html and the two following it), for which he thanked me.

At that point I had to get back home so I could go to see the final performance at the San Diego Opera of Jake Heggie's west coast premiere opera Moby Dick., which was amazing.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 4

2012-02-27T13:11:00.003-08:00

Written after the Friday sessions:

The Friday sessions began with Rosemary Ellen Guiley - ETs, Shadow People, and Djinn. Of those three types, Shadow People are seen the most. They are shadowy forms and often move in and out of children's closets (see Monsters, Inc. ). Stan Romanek has them in his home. They are allied with the Djinn, who are fighting ETs when they're not stopped up in bottles or lamps. The Djinn are seeking hybrids who have staying power in our dimension. Unfortunately, all three groups harass whoever investigates them. If you haven't already had enough of this twaddle, Guiley's website is www.djinnuniverse.com .

Bryce Zabel - Life After Contact. Bryce is the producer of the UFO conspiracy-oriented TV series Dark Skies. Contradicting those who say that government agents are promoting alien-themed shows as part of some "disclosure" project, he says Hollywood loves aliens because they sell tickets.

Zabel says that future calendars will be labeled "A. D.", meaning "After Disclosure," because the inevitable disclosure of the alien presence will have world-changing consequences. He compared the disclosure movement to the civil rights movement, and urged UFOlogists to avoid highly-controversial and sensational claims that will alienate people from the main cause, which is disclosure. Zabel is obviously a very intelligent man, and an excellent speaker, although in my view he suffers from insufficient skepticism of verbas. He says that After Disclosure, there will be hoarding and panic buying, civil unrest, Congressional hearings, lawsuits, etc., as people seek damages from all the government deception. If such a conspiracy exists, and if it ends, then Zabel's scenario is probably farily accurate. But that assumes a whole lot. Zabel should talk to John Alexander, who strongly believes in ET UFOs, but believes there is absolutely no government conspiracy.

Randall Nickerson - Researching the Ariel School incident. This refers to an incident occurring in Africa on Sept. 16, 1994. In Zimbabwe 62 children ages 6-12, both black and white, claim to have seen a landed UFO with "strange beings" during morning recess. Unfortunately while all of the children apparently saw it, no adult did. Nickerson and the late Dr. John Mack went there to investigate the incident, which was actually a very brave thing to do, as travel to that area is quite dangerous. Some of the children got 'images' of man's destruction of the environment, saying this must end. Nickerson's talk was self-absorbed and introspective, and frankly boring. It took him 30 minutes to get to the UFO part of the story. I don't know why those children are telling that story, and I agree that episodes such as this ought to be studied by psychologists. Perhaps somebody hoaxed the children? However, there is ample historical precedent for episodes of what appear to be mass-delusion: Father Gill's 1959 UFO sighting, day-care molestation stories, and historical episodes of witchcraft mania. In the final analysis there is no evidence that anything actually happened, just the stories told by the children.

Stan and Lisa Romanek

Stan and Lisa Romanek (substituting for Bruce Maccabee): Stan is the guy who became famous when he posted to YouTube a video of an alien peeping in his window. Soon others were posting alien Peeping Tom videos of their own, many of them better than Romanek's. He told about how he started to have sightings of UFOs a few years back, and soon they were following him around. Before long, big-headed aliens are playing peek-a-boo in the windows of his home. Then the ETs were replaced by as many as nine alien hybrid little girls, who intrude upon his telephone calls, and also play now-you-see-me-now-you-don't. One of them is Lisa's daughter from a previous UFO abduction. Stan gets a few not-quite-clear photos of strange-looking little girls, whose images probably have been Photoshopped to give them ET features.

Stan injured himself falling off a ladder, and was going to get corrective surgery. However, before the operation he was abducted by ETs, and his injury was miraculously healed, to the astonishment of his doctor. Before finishing his talk, he mentioned in passing that someone had anonymously mailed him actual photos of the true Roswell crash debris, and he flashed them tantalizingly on the screen. Stan Romanek is a one-man paranormal factory, and I suspect these wild claims will just keep piling up for many years.

Afterward while Romanek was at his table in the vendors' room (he and his wife now have three books of wild UFO claims), I introduced myself to him, and gave him my "Bad UFOs" card. I asked him why the aliens were following him around. We chatted very briefly when somebody (probably his wife) must have whispered, "don't talk to that guy." Suddenly it was, "I can't talk to you. You just bad-mouth people. Go away." I attempted to get a photo of him and his wife (others were doing so), but he turned his face away from me (how I regret not getting that image of Romanek avoiding the camera!). He said he'd have his lawyer sue me if I took a photo; I replied that was ridiculous, since he was a public figure in a public forum. So much for "UFO research!"


It's true: the Sun will be "aligned" with the Pleiades during the Annular Eclipse of May 20, 2012. So what?

Jaime Maussan, Imminent Contact. Mexico's main UFO man gave his usual wild and implausible talk. He showed a photo of what might be a baby alien, or else a baby Chupacabra. Fleets of UFOs, he said, were watching the recent Tsunami in Japan. The annular solar eclipse (when the moon passes directly across the sun, but appears too small to cover it completely, living a bright ring around the moon's rim) that will occur on May 20, 2012 (and is visible from the southwestern U.S.) will occur with the Sun aligned with the Pleiades. Actually, that part is true. The Sun "aligns" with the Pleiades (M45) every year around May 20. So what? "Alignments" mean nothing, astronomically speaking, but they can be very pretty.

Maussan showed the famous "spiral UFOs" that were failed Russian rocket launches. He insisted that he and his colleagues did a "complete investigation" of them, and found they were authentic. The Jerusalem UFO video(s) are also completely authentic. A new wrinkle at this conference: Maussan and a few other speakers talked about "mystery sounds," usually hums, being heard at various locations around the world. Sounding like a low, distant trumpet (like in the movie Red State), these have been said by some to be Gabriel's trumpet. Or else created by UFOs.

One vendor doing a great business was A&S, "Alien and Scalpel Research," promising "scientific analysis of alien implants and UFO crash debris." I do not know how much they are charging to "scan" a person for alien implants, but I heard complaints from those who signed up about the long wait. One woman described to me her experience with A&S: they took her into the little tent at right, and "scanned" her several times with different electronic instruments. They found three implants. They also told her that she was an alien hybrid, but also had 'angelic" DNA as well. I am truly amazed at what science can learn these days. I invited her to post her experience on this Blog.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 3

2012-02-24T06:59:00.000-08:00

Written after the close of the Thursday sessions:

The Thursday sessions began with Peter Robbins, who was the personal assistant to the late Budd Hopkins, giving "A Personal Appreciation" of the late abductionist. He read from some of Hopkins' publications, and gave his own as well as others' recollections of Hopkins. He related the highly-dubious tale of how Linda Napolitano, Hopkins' favorite abductee, supposedly used a stun gun to escape a guard trying to keep people inside the WTC towers after the first plane hit, dashing out amid the broken glass. I didn't hear the whole talk, so I don't know if he mentioned the criticisms of Hopkins' methodology and integrity from his ex-wife Carol Rainey. I suspect not, and I suspect he also did not mention James Moseley's anecdote of how when he walked by Hopkins at a UFO conference, Budd gave him the finger. He did say that Hopkins "did not suffer fools gladly." The problem was, anyone who disagreed with Hopkins in any significant way was branded a 'fool.'


The Matreyia's "Gathering Circle of Light."

David Sereda told us all about the "Breakthrough" in "Faster than Light Communication with ET." It's easy when you use the "hidden harmonic codes of the universe." The secret? It's all done with crystals. The Great Pyramids are also "crystal oscillators," since they're made of stone, and stone contains crystals. They were used to send faster-than-light messages to the stars in Orion's belt. Sereda has discovered more about electricity and magnetism just using magnets and a voltmeter than did Faraday and Maxwell combined. You can buy the CD of Sereda's Harmonic Contact with the Pleiades for just $25.

In the vendor's room I enjoyed hearing a bunch of double-talk about the Matreiya, the World Teacher, who is living in the world today, but who has a secret identity, like Batman. I was told that in recent years, the Matreiya had done numerous TV interviews, but without revealing who he is. So you might see some guy on TV talking about UFOs or whatever, without ever realizing that you are seeing the enlightened one. British author Benjamin Creme, who plays a sort of John the Baptist heralding the new savior, says that a bright "star" that mysteriously appears and disappears all over the world heralds the Matreiya's "immanent public appearance." They have lots of implausible photos of "the star" (one is obviously the Norway spiral UFO, a failed Russian rocket launch). If you see a bright star that you can't identify - it's his!!

Roberto Pinotti runs Italy's equivalent to MUFON, CUN. He showed many photos of UFOs from Italy and nearby countries, many of them Golden Oldies in black-and-white, including flying cigars, and Mother Ships. He seems especially fond of USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects). It almost felt like I had fallen into a Time Warp and was listening to a talk by Major Keyhoe in the 1950s. This was a good talk for a nap.

Lynne D. Kitei, M.D., gave a very scatterbrained and rather emotional talk about the Phoenix Lights, which she seems to have adopted as her very own Cause Celebre. She told Indian legends about the area. She has seen the "orbs," or "lights," numerous times, as well as the famous mass sighting. What I never understood was why she keeps peddling the second sightings of the Phoenix lights, the Maryland Air National Guard flare drop, as if it were unexplained. It turns out that Bruce Maccabee found that the lights she had photographed were in a different position than others'. So while everyone else photographed flares, Lynn Kitei apparently photographed Real UFOs. Some of her orbs appear to be not airborne, but lights on the ground. When she is not photographing orbs, she is seeking Entanglement, atonement, AT ONE MENT, an UP, and a transformation. Can you say "New Age?"

Steve Pierce (left), Travis Walton, John Goulette

Travis Walton brought out, for the first time, two of the guys who were present when he was "abducted," Steve Pierce and John Goulette, although 25 minutes was squandered watching video clips from TV programs, and from the movie version of Travis' yarn Fire in the Sky, so they didn't have to exert themselves too hard. Travis said that it wasn't far to the 'abduction' site from the work site, as the movie makes it seem. When they saw the UFO it was less than 100 feet away. Steve described the sound it made: beep, beep, and said it lit up the sky. He said he didn't go out the next day with the police to look for Travis, he hid in his girlfriend's house. (The police, when told that Travis had 'disappeared' in the woods with a UFO, naturally assumed these guys had killed him and were making up a ridiculous alibi. Of course, Travis was hiding out someplace for five days, while his mother urged the police not to look for him.)

Travis made a big thing about the accusation that Philip J. Klass had offered Steve a bribe of $10,000 to say that the 'abduction' was a hoax, that I recently wrote about. That accusation originated with Travis' pal Mike Rogers back in 1978. When Klass read the book where that claim was made, he phoned Pierce, who told him that he thought the abduction was a hoax, but he could not prove it. Klass recorded this phone interview, as he did every significant interview, and later sent a copy to Karl Pflock upon request. Pflock quoted other comments made by Pierce suggesting a hoax. But that was not Steve's story today: absolutely yes, Klass tried to bribe me. He flew out to Texas to wine and dine me and try to persuade me. He kept following me, I had to move to like three different states, to get away from him. Of course, there is no proof that this 'new version' of Pierce's story is correct, no photos of Klass and Pierce together, no documents of any kind to back up this implausible tale.

Walton returned to the theme that Klass was a paid government disinformation agent (an idea the audience readily applauded and obviously believed). He read from the purported FBI files released about Klass, which I believe to be genuine (more on that in some later Blogging). The FBI considered prosecuting Klass on two occasions for unauthorized release of secret information. Klass was a longtime senior editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, and not for nothing was it knows as Aviation Leak. Walton told another implausible tale about a guy who contacted him claiming to have witnessed the UFO abduction from another ridge, but this guy turned out to be some sort of government agent in cahoots with Klass.

During the Q&A, my voice will be heard on the session recording, relating Pierce's earlier suspicions that the case is a hoax, and asking him why he changed his story. He claimed he didn't. Pierce explained that what happened was, he got into a feud with Mike Rogers, and so in anger he grumbled it about that the case was a hoax, but that was not true.

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 2

2012-02-22T23:25:00.000-08:00

(Another posting in near-real time from Fort Macdowell, Arizona.)

The sessions began Wednesday morning with Chuck Zukowski talking about the joy of slicing up dead cattle that the aliens have already sliced and diced - that way, he can study their handiwork. He showed some gruesome photos, adding that he always brings his three kids when he investigates a mutilation, so that they can help out. He claims to sometimes detect substantial EMF fields emanating from mutilated cows, and speculates that it is a residual field from some alien device. I am wondering why the field does not dissipate away at the speed of light.

Zukowski explained that his website is www.ufonut.com, because this is what people call him. He said that mutilations seem to follow the cattle of certain ranchers, even if the rancher moves. I would think that what follows a rancher is the propensity to attribute slightly unusual predation patterns to extraterrestrials. He has discovered that mutilations and paranormal events are most common at 37 degrees north latitude, creating a belt of weird stuff running clear across the country. In the Q&A session, the question came up as to whether the aliens might be abducting cattle to create a race of "hybrid fetuses." Chuck thought that might be true. Can this be the explanation for the aliens' bizarre obsession with the nether parts of cattle - the creation of an alien/cattle hybrid? Now that truly bends the mind! If there are any cartoonists reading this, feel free to submit your conception of what a Bovine-Reticulan would look like, so it can be published. And somebody please suggest one reason why the aliens are so keen on breeding with cattle!


Two nice young ladies selling alien art. "Anubis" (right) is 14 years old, and draws the beings she says she sees.

Clifford Clift recently retired, or else was booted, as International Director of MUFON. Because I heard much grumbling about him at last year's MUFON Symposium, I suspect the latter. I saw him in a restaurant last night, and introduced myself. He seemed quite jovial, and frankly relieved to not have to worry about running MUFON any longer.

He began his talk by reviewing some MUFON statistics. About four entity sightings are being reported each month. Diving deeply into MUFON's treasure trove of Golden Oldies, he regaled us with another account of the famous Captain Mantell tragedy of 1948, one from a prison guard who saw a 450-foot wide craft hover right over the prison, and a UFO landing in a Kuwaiti oil field in 1976. Nullius in Verba, Clifford. "Take no one's word for it." That's what separates the science from the pseudo.

Yvonne Smith does hypnotherapy of people who think they have been "abducted" by a UFO. Old-style "abductology" as in Hopkins/Jacobs/Mack isn't completely dead - there is still Yvonne Smith, and Barbara Lamb (who is here, but won't be speaking). Smith showed us lots of drawings made by children of "monsters" and such that come into their bedrooms. Of course, we're sophisticated: we know they're really not "monsters," they're extraterrestrials. At least the 'alien hybrid race' Smith talked about doesn't involve cows.

We learned that the alien implant supposedly removed from one Ron Noel by podiatrist Roger Leir is made up of the 'hardest material ever seen.' If that is true, and can be confirmed (which I doubt), they might just have something. (Note to self: check whether it's legal in California for a podiatrist to do surgery on a person's arm.)

Smith gave tantalizing hints about a supposed 'mass UFO abduction' in 1994 at the posh Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, while the people were attending a UFO conference she organized. I got the feeling she's going to be promoting that as a major UFO case, and I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more about it.

Are these Alien Video Cameras? No, wait - cameras that took videos of aliens!

Antonio Huneeus spoke on the "Best UFO Cases: from Ancient time to 2012," which covers a whole lot of ground, so I guess it's no surprise that he ran way over time. I felt like I was listening to Erich von Daniken, or maybe even Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. This talk frankly bored me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to nap. In the past Huneeus has written some very sensible and balanced articles, but there was no hint of that circumspection today.

The last speaker of Wednesday, and in my view the most interesting of the day, was UFO journalist Lee Speigel, now with Huffington Post/ AOL News. Speigel cautioned the audience not to "believe everything they read, or see, or hear, about UFOs," and gave several examples showing exactly that. He recounted his own 1973 sighting of a UFO during a flap in North Carolina that he went to investigate for CUFOS and J. Allen Hynek. That's what set him strongly on the UFO path. Concerning the famous 1978 UN UFO kerfluffle involving Sir Eric Gairy, prime minister of Grenada, J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, and astronaut Gordon Cooper, Speigel explained how he organized it! I knew he was involved (he is in some of the photos), but didn't realize his critical role. He also provided laughs about how, when he did a regular UFO program for NBC radio in New York City, he was forced to go around the city as "the alien," looking vaguely like Marvin the Martian as he trundled across New York City to promote the show.

It was announced that Bruce Maccabee will not be able to speak as scheduled on Friday, owing to illness. So he will be replaced by Stan Romanek, who became famous when he posted on YouTube a video of an alien peeking in his window. The result of that was, of course, that several other people posted even better videos of aliens peeping into their windows. Stan and his wife Lisa will be talking about their new book. Maybe they can even help you take a video of an alien peeping in your window?

A Skeptic at the 2012 International UFO Congress - Part 1

2012-02-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

I am here at the 21st Annual International UFO Congress near Scottsdale, Arizona. The sessions begin tomorrow morning. Lots of major UFO personalities will be here. When I wrote up my visit to the MUFON Symposium last summer, I did it after getting home. I suspect I won't have much time to Blog in near-real time these next few days, but I'll do what I can, and try to fill in the rest later.

The UFO Skywatch on Feb. 21

When I picked up my badge tonight, there were only two things going on: a movie, and a Skywatch. The Skywatch is organized by the UFO Skywatch Club of Fountain Hills, Arizona (a.k.a. "right here"). They use very powerful night-vision equipment to look at the night sky for objects that move. The gentleman seated at the computer has a camera pointing straight up, more or less. He moves it around a bit. It shows a lot more stars than can be seen with the naked eye, displayed on the big screen. If you want to lie back in the reclining "zero-gravity chair" and look through the night-vision binoculars for yourself, that will cost $20 (although the price soon fell to $10, that being all the market would bear). They saw several airplanes and satellites. They also saw objects that fluttered about and changed directions. Those are either owls, bats, or even possibly moths. The camera has an extremely wide-field and tremendous depth-of-field - when the operator walked up to dust something off the lens, his finger was almost in focus, as were the stars. So there is no way to tell how far away an object might be, just looking at the display. "We're seeing a lot of UFOs tonight," one of the Skywatchers said. Pretty much whatever they see, it's a UFO.

The evening movie was The Truth is Out There

Directed by: Phil Leirness
Dean Haglund is an actor, artist, improv comic and investigator. Best known as one of the Lone Gunmen from “The X-Files”, Dean continues to be closely identified with the paranormal realm and the conspiracy field. An epic that is equal parts comedy, consciousness and conspiracy, “The Truth is Out There” follows Dean Haglund as he travels the globe hoping to discover what it means to search for the truth in a world where conspiracies, conspiracy theories are everywhere.

This was one of those movies where the director apparently could not afford a camera tripod. Or else he thought that the movie would be more "authentic" if the audience watched the hand-held camera wobble for two hours and twenty minutes. In any case, the wobbly camera was making me seasick, and I didn't see any reason to care about what Dean Haglund said, so I didn't stay more than about a half hour.

Jacques Vallee, J. Allen Hynek, and the "Pentacle Memorandum"

2012-02-18T16:24:00.000-08:00

I have just finished reading Jacques Vallee's diaries from 1957-69, published as Volume I of Forbidden Science. It tells the story of his life from childhood in France, his education and early career, his developing interest in UFO reports, etc. The book is very literate, very personal, and in places even poetic. It is a good read.

J. Allen Hynek (left) and Jacques Vallee (from Wikipedia)

Perhaps the most significant new issue discussed in this book is the matter of the so-called "Pentacle Memorandum." In June of 1967 while Hynek was away on vacation in Canada, Vallee went over to Hynek's empty house to organize (with permission) and sort Hynek's disorganized UFO-related files. He found one document, a two-page typed memo, that he believed to be extremely significant. Dated January 9, 1953, it was stamped "SECRET - Security Information" in red ink. Vallee refered to it as the "Pentacle Memorandum," in order to not identify the author. "Pentacle" was later revealed to be H.C. Cross of Battelle Memorial Institute, Battelle's liaison with the Air Force for Blue Book-related matters. A good account of the memorandum's discovery, Vallee's claims about it, and the text of the memorandum itself, are here.

1. Vallee Finds a Secret Large-Scale UFO Research Program

The Memorandum begins,

This letter concerns a preliminary recommendation to ATIC on future methods of handling the problem of unidentified aerial objects. This recommendation is based on our experience to date in analyzing several thousands of reports on this subject.

ATIC was the Air Force's Air Technical Intelligence Center. Vallee writes, "This opening paragraph clearly establishes the fact that prior to the top-level 1953 [CIA] Robertson Panel meeting somebody had actually analyzed thousands of UFO cases on behalf of the United States government." (Vallee 1996, p. 284. Emphasis in original.) This is supposed to reveal the existence of a huge and secret UFO investigative program, other than Blue Book, somewhere within the U.S. government.

The plot thickens when Vallee finds out a short time later that "Pentacle must indeed have worked at Battelle [Memorial Institute]." (Vallee 1996, p. 294). Gasp - you mean that in January, 1953 there was someone working at Battelle who had analyzed "thousands" of UFO reports for the U.S. government?? And this was a secret program????????

Earth to Vallee: The Battelle Memorial Institute began working on Special Report #14 for Project Blue Book in March, 1952 This was a statistical analysis of UFO reports in the Blue Book files, the first to use newfangled computers and punched cards.A total of 3200 cases were analyzed. The report was completed and published in 1954. Blue Book Special Report #14 is well-known to UFOlogists. In fact, Stanton Friedman hardly ever stops talking about it.

Of course there were people working at Battelle in January, 1953 who had analyzed "thousands" of UFO reports for the U.S. government. They were working on Blue Book Special Report #14. They finished the following year.

Congratulations, Jacques! You've found indisputable proof of the existence of the team writing Blue Book Special Report #14! Which has never before been doubted. Just ask Stanton Friedman.

2. Vallee uncovers the Manipulators Manipulating the CIA's Robertson Panel

One of the most controversial sentences in the Pentacle memorandum reads,

Since a meeting of the [CIA's Robertson] panel is now definitely scheduled we feel that agreement between Project Stork and ATIC should be reached as to what can and what cannot be discussed at the meeting in Washington on January 14-16 concerning our preliminary recommendation to ATIC.

According to Hynek, White Stork was a former Air Force project name encompassing the Blue Book project. Vallee suggests that Project Stork was keeping the soon-to-meet Robertson Panel in the dark and would decide what they would be allowed to learn. Vallee writes that the memorandum seemed to dictate "a key determinant in what the panel could discuss – and what not, i.e. what would be kept away from the panel. By preselecting the evidence, the conclusion the scientists would reach could thus be known in advance."

Vallee should read that sentence more carefully. It does not talk about UFO sightings or evidence. He is interpreting that sentence as if it said "agreement between Project Stork and ATIC should be reached as to what can and what cannot be discussed at the meeting in Washington on January 14-16." But the sentence does not end there. It continues with "concerning our preliminary recommendation to ATIC." In other words, not to decide what subjects are off-limits to discussion by the Robertson panel, but to decide what to tell that panel about plans involving Battelle and ATIC. Or, in plain English, "How much should we tell the Robertson panel about what we've been proposing to ATIC?" I realize that English is not Vallee's first language, however his mastery of English seems to me to be so complete that I am surprised to see him misreading that sentence so badly.

3. Vallee finds evidence of a huge covert UFO deception project

In this passage Vallee finds evidence of a huge and alarming military-sponsored project intended to deceive the public about UFOs:

we recommend that one or two of theses areas be set up as experimental areas. This area, or areas, should have observation posts with complete visual skywatch, with radar and photographic coverage, plus all other instruments necessary or helpful in obtaining positive and reliable data on everything in the air over the area. A very complete record of the weather should also be kept during the time of the experiment. Coverage should be so complete that any object in the air could be tracked, and information as to its altitude, velocity, size, shape, color, time of day, etc. could be recorded. All balloon releases or known balloon paths, aircraft flights, and flights of rockets in the test area should be known to those in charge of the experiment. Many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area.

About it, Vallee writes, “the Pentacle proposal goes far beyond anything mentioned before. It daringly states that ‘many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area’. It is difficult to be more clear. We are not talking simply about setting up observing stations and cameras. We are talking about large-scale, covert simulation of UFO waves under military control.”

Pentacle's proposal seems to be this: Let's identify an area where people are making a large number of UFO reports. Let's set up an extensive monitoring system so that we know everything flying in or out of that area. Then we'll try a controlled experiment: we will cause the people to see balloons, unusual aircraft activity, etc., and then monitor UFO reports we get from that area. We will see how a known stimulus is reported as an unknown object, and thereby better understand the UFO reports we receive.

This sounds like an excellent idea from a standpoint of science, although from a standpoint of law or ethics it may not pass muster. It also sounds rather expensive, and not easy to keep under wraps, which would defeat its purpose. Interestingly, as a result of several passive (not active) experiments of this kind, UFOlogist Allan Hendry, one of Hynek's chief investigators during the 1970s, became far more skeptical about eyewitness reports. As detailed in his book, The UFO Handbook, Hendry examined the reports being received originating from a known stimulus (advertising aircraft, balloons, etc.) and found many of them so wildly in error that he cautioned against taking such reports at face value. To other UFOlogists, Hendry seemed to be guilty of horrible blasphemy (even though he believed some UFO reports to be unexplainable), and they began to denounce him. Understandably embittered, Hendry withdrew from UFOlogy some thirty years ago, and has refused to discuss it since then.

A frequent theme in Forbidden Science is Vallee's commentary about the rigidity of bureaucracy, in government and in science, in France and in the U.S. He gives one example after another of seemingly good proposals being rejected or even ignored by a bureaucracy unwilling to accept change. What is surprising is that here Vallee, of all people, seems to be confusing a proposal with a project. He must surely realize that, merely because Pentacle is proposing some grand and new UFO investigative project, the odds of that proposal being actually implemented by a rigid Air Force bureaucracy (which clearly had little enthusiasm for UFO investigation) were slim to none. This passage does not in any way establish that such a controlled experiment involving UFO stimuli was ever carried out.

Commentary

I was very interested to read this book not only for its historical aspects, but also because his path in certain ways parallels mine. We both were interested in astronomy from childhood - and also in UFOs. Many of the people and the places he writes about during his years at Northwestern are familiar to me. I learned that Vallee left Northwestern to go back to France just two weeks before I arrived there as a freshman, interested in science and astronomy - and UFOs - except that I was a skeptic even then. I lived in Sargent Hall, right next to the Technological Institute where Vallee earlier had his office - on the opposite side of that building from Dearborn Observatory, which housed the astronomy department offices. His description of Hynek exactly matches my own recollections: disorganized, witty, charming, and obviously quite pleased to be in the media spotlight for UFOs. Hynek would eagerly recount his meetings and his travel, and newly-received UFO reports, never quite sure what to do about them. Later Vallee and I each moved to California's Silicon Valley because of the outstanding career opportunities there at that time.

However, even more striking are the differences in our world-views, and in the way we think. Surprisingly, Vallee writes quite seriously about matters such as

Rosicrucianism: They claim that their 'Ancient Wisdom' is thousands of years old, but there is absolutely no proof of that. "I find their documents to be an interesting spiritual complement to my scientific training. Every month I receive a set of course material through the mail. It includes both theoretical reading and instructions for simple rituals, promising insight into higher realities" (Vallee, p. 39). He later explains that the Rosicrucian order he belongs to is "AMORC, which is headquartered in San Jose." If you've ever seen that Rosicrucian Museum with the awesome mummies interspersed with cheesy claims of ancient mysteries, that's the group he was talking about. When I was a kid, they used to regularly have ads on the back page of comic books. Hynek was also interested in Rosicrucianism (p. 233).
Astrology: Vallee, and later Hynek, became friends with Michel and Francoise Gauquelin, who were attempting to put astrology on a scientific basis. "Yesterday Hynek went back to see the Gauquelins to discuss astrology and destiny" (p. 341). Vallee claims he was responsible for his publisher Regnery accepting Gauquelin's book on astrology, The Cosmic Clocks. In the early days of CSICOP, there was a big stink when the skeptics challenged Gauquelin's "Mars Effect" data, which apparently was (in that one instance) correct. However, the correlations he claimed to find could not be replicated.
Mystical and psychic realms: "In recent discussions with Hynek, I pointed out that the saucer question may well be part of a complex series of scientific realities, but it also plunges deep into mystical and psychic theories. I found him very receptive to this idea" (p. 88).
Alchemy, elementals, homunculi.......seriously!!

As for myself, I cannot see how any intelligent person can, upon clear reflection, take any of those subjects seriously. I have never felt that there was some 'alternate' or 'hidden' realm of being, at least not since I figured out that the Catholic Catechism I was being fed was a load of codswallop.

Their Huge Mistake

Ultimately, the case for UFOs as promoted by Hynek, Vallee, and their followers boils down to what Hynek termed "credible persons reporting incredible things." Now exactly how "credible" is that, especially if it is supposed to serve as a foundation for a radical revision of science?

The Royal Society of London for Improving NaturalKnowledge, invariably shortened to The Royal Society, isthe oldest and probably the most prestigious scientific body in the world.Founded in 1660, over the years its Fellows have included such luminaries asRobert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Humphry Davy, Charles Darwin, andpractically every other British scientist of any note, as well as a number offoreign ones.

Theintellectual world of the mid-seventeenth century was very different from ourstoday. Learned men disputed not only about the properties of gases and themotions of the planets, but about witches, miraculous apparitions, and otherapparent violations of the natural order. How to sort out what is real from what is not?

The RoyalSociety selected for its motto, Nullius in verba, which serves as a sort of Razor for scientific claims. The Latin phrase translatesliterally as “on the word of no one,” or, more colloquially, "takenobody's word for it". If you have some kind of proof for what you are claiming, then it can be investigated. But if all you have are words, it cannot.

The Royal Society, the world's oldest modern scientific organization -
"Take Nobody's Word For It."

In our day,we still get reports from seemingly credible persons of things we are fairly certain do not exist: UFOs, Bigfoot, angels, and miracles of every kind. Thepopular press and the mass media are very fond of such claims. They make goodratings. But they make very bad science.

The UFOproponent’s motto, on the other hand, would seem to be something like Omniusin Verba, or “words are all we’ve got.” In fact, Hynek was honest enough toadmit that directly: we possess no actual UFOs, he said, only reports of them.Hynek was surprised and genuinely hurt when the scientific establishmentreplied to him, as it had to in order to remain true to its centuries-oldfoundation, “we take nobody’s word for it.” Give us a piece of a UFO, or someindisputably authentic, clear and detailed photos, or some instrumental data.But if all you have to offer are stories about sightings of UFOs, we are notinterested. Nullius in verba, Allen.

Vallee wrote that, concerning UFOs, “the scientific world is as close-minded asan old pig” ( p.184). Jacques, you’re a very bright fellow. Youshould know that Nullius in verba has been the rule in science since1660. Since then, the scientific world has embraced Newton’s laws of motionand of gravitation, electromagnetism, evolution, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics,plate tectonics, and the Big Bang. These are just a few of the major paradigm changes occurringin science since that time. Not bad for a close-minded old pig. Now exactlywhat kind of evidence do you have to offer, Jacques? Words?

Thatis the big mistake of Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, and more recently of Kevin Randle, John Alexander, LeslieKean, and so many others: Nullius in verba, folks.

Travis Walton vs. Philip J. Klass

2012-02-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

One of the best-known UFO abduction stories is that of Travis Walton. He claims that on Nov. 5, 1975, as he and six others were returning from a day's work cutting logs in Arizona's Sitgreaves National Forest, he was zapped by a beam of light from the UFO, and taken aboard the craft for five days. His story won $5,000 as the Best UFO Case for 1975 from the National Enquirer, has been the subject of several books, as well as the Hollywood movie Fire in the Sky (1993).

The best-known and most influential of all UFO skeptics was Philip J. Klass (1919-2005), longtime Senior Avionics editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine in Washington, DC, and one of the founding fellows of CSICOP. Klass wrote many letters and made many phone calls to people involved in the story, including Travis' family, the local Sheriff's office, polygraph examiners, etc. He found strong reasons to brand the entire story a hoax. His conclusions were written up in great detail in chapters 18-23 of his book UFOs The Public Deceived (Prometheus, 1983). Fortunately, there is a Kindle edition of this book for less than $10, and used paperback copies can also be purchased on-line. Still, the skeptic's case against the Walton abduction claim is not being widely read. For several years I have had a Travis Walton page on my Debunker.com website, containing some of the best anti-Walton arguments, but not nearly as much information as Klass provides.

Philip J. Klass (left), and Travis Walton

On a website promoting the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina as a UFO "hotspot," Sky Ships Over Cashiers, there is a page titled Debunker's $10,000 bribe to stop UFO truth. This claim is now making the rounds of UFO-related Forums. Someone shouts on the Outpost Forum on February 5, "BRIBE BOMBSHELL! STEVE PIERCE WHO WAS WITH TRAVIS WALTON WHEN HE WAS ABDUCTED CLAIMS THAT HE WAS OFFERED A $10,000 BRIBE FORM THE LATE DEBUNKER PHIL KLASS TO STATE THAT THE ENTIRE TRAVIS WALTON ALIEN ABDUCTION CLAIM WAS A HOAX!"

Travis Walton himself quickly replied, "Yes, it is true. I even mentioned this in the1996 edition of my book. But all I knew then was that Deputy Click had taken Steve the message when Steve still lived in this area. I didn't know then that Klass had also flown to Texas and spent hours taking Steve out to dinner and trying get him to accept the bribe. And followed Steve to another state or two. Very curious, since in my first edition I had criticized Klass for being "an armchair investigator" who, unlike Dr J. Allen Hynek, the Lorenzens and Stanton Friedman, had never personally contacted anyone involved nor ever bothered to visit the site." If Walton thought that Klass was an "armchair investigator," then he obviously knew nothing about Klass, and had not read any of Klass' UFO books. Walton continues, "All this strongly supports the belief that Klass was a paid government disinformationist."

Travis Walton gets 'zapped' by a UFO

This charge is, of course, absurd and unfounded, and left me amazed to see that Walton would stoop so low. I went back to Klass' 1983 account in UFOs The Public Deceived, and to my surprise found that same accusation there being discussed. In Bill Barry's 1978 book about Travis Walton, Ultimate Encounter, it says

According to Mike Rogers, "Steve told me and Travis that he had been offered ten thousand dollars just to sign a denial. He said he was thinking about taking it." (p. 160)

However note that the accusation does not come from Pierce, but instead from Mike Rogers, Travis' best friend, and future brother-in-law. Barry does not directly accuse Klass of offering a bribe, but hints it is so.

Klass, however, notes that Rogers told Pierce "Then you'll spend the money alone, and you'll be bruised." Klass writes, "The latter suggests that Rogers was threatening Pierce with physical harm if he recanted." If you read A Profitable Nightmare of a Very Unreal Kind on my Travis Walton page, you would see that such a threat of violence should be taken seriously. Klass continues, "had Barry checked with me, I would have assured him that I never made such an offer to [Deputy] Click or to anyone seeking to 'buy off' a member of the Rogers crew." In the wake of the bribery accusation, Klass did locate and speak with Steve Pierce (but not until after the accusation had already been made!). Note that Klass did not travel to Texas or anywhere else to meet with Pierce, or take him out and entertain him - those are lies made up by the Walton crowd.

One of the most convincing arguments in favor of the Walton abduction has always been that the five woodcutters sitting in the back of the pickup truck, who did not know each other well and had only come together recently to work on Roger's contract with the Forest Service, all told compatible stories about the incident, and all passed a polygraph exam, more or less. They would have no incentive to go along with a hoax. Klass, however, insisted that they were all in collusion.

The late Karl Pflock was a pro-UFOlogist who was nonetheless skeptical of a number of major cases, including this one. One day Karl and I were discussing the Walton case, and he made what was, to me, a novel suggestion: the five woodcutters in the back of the truck knew nothing about any UFO hoax. Only three people were behind the hoax: Travis himself; Mike Rogers, who drove the truck; and a confederate in the woods, very likely Travis' brother Duane. Pflock wrote in the Jan. 15, 2000 issue of James Moseley's UFO gossip sheet Saucer Smear (Vol. 47 Nr. 1) , disagreeing with Klass:

I thought Walton and his best friend Mike Rogers could have rigged up something convincing enough to make the other five think they'd seen a hovering, hostile UFO. * Properly primed with flying saucer talk by Walton and Rogers, with clever theatrics by the duo during the sighting/zapping, with Rogers whisking the crew away after but a few seconds exposure, it wouldn't have taken a "Day the Earth Stood Still" saucer to fool them. After the fact, in the forest gloom, with Walton and the UFO mysteriously gone, their impressions easily could have been further molded by Rogers continuing his act and repeating his version of the saucer and what it had done to Walton.
Experienced investigators know eyewitness testimony frequently is unreliable, a point often made by Klass in criticizing the work of ufologists. They also know people are highly suggestible during and in the wake of dramatic unexpected events. Yet, in pooh-poohing my suggestion, Phil implicitly accepts the accuracy of the Walton witnesses' publicized descriptions of the UFO.
Phil also ignores some very important testimony he obtained from witness Steve Pierce during a June 20th, 1978, tape-recorded telephone interview (a dub of which he kindly supplied me in early 1998), testimony which to my knowledge he's never revealed in any of his writings about the case:
Klass: What did you see?
Pierce: Uh, well, I thought it was something a deer hunter, you know, rigged up. You know, 'cause it was deer season, you know, so he could see. You know? And, uh, and, but I couldn't see the bottom or a top or sides, all's I could see was the front of it, you know. You couldn't tell if it had a bottom to it or, you know, or a back to it or anything...
Hmmmmm... A "Plan Nine from Outer Space" saucer, perhaps?
* I hasten to add that, while I think a hoax is possible, I have not made up my mind about the case.

Klass writes that Pierce told him that, on the day of the "UFO abduction," Walton did no work at all, claiming to be ill. During the afternoon, Mike Rogers disappeared from the work site for about two hours (perhaps to prepare the UFO light show). They usually left the work site about 4:00, according to Pierce, but on that day they remained until about 6:00, thus they were uncharacteristically driving home in the dark. If they drove home in daylight, the UFO light show would not be visible.

Klass says that when he told Pierce that he believes Walton's story to be a hoax, Pierce replied, "Me too. If I could ever prove it was a hoax I'd damn sure do it." (Klass 1983, p. 221). Which suggests that Pflock's hypothesis is correct: the five woodcutters in the back of the truck were not perpetrators of a hoax, but its first five victims. It also shows the absurdity of supposing that Klass would offer such a bribe: even if Pierce did claim that the case was hoaxed, he would not be believed unless he had had proof of a hoax. Plus, he might get "bruised."

So, because of Travis Walton's slanderous new charges against Philip J. Klass, I have performed a major Document Drop of papers in my files on Travis Walton. Added to my page of historical UFO information is a 47-page PDF file of Klass' writings and related material concerning the Travis Walton UFO story. Among the contents of that file:

"Walton Abduction Cover-Up revealed": NICAP reveals, using Klass' research, that APRO and the National Enquirer were complicit in covering up "inconvenient facts" about Walton's claims, and lying about it.
A 17 page 1976 White Paper by PJK laying out the case for a hoax.
Point-by-point refutation by PJK of APRO's claims.
Evidence of Mike Rogers misrepresenting facts about the case. Why Mike Rogers engineered a UFO hoax to get out of an unprofitable Forest Service contract.

A second file contains contemporary news clippings, interviews, memos, and other "real-time" information about the construction of the Walton UFO hoax.

Happy Reading!

Rex Heflin, 1965: a Classic UFO Photo, now in 3-D!

2012-01-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

The first of Rex Heflin's UFO photos

In Santa Ana, California on August 3, 1965, highway worker Rex Heflin got three photos of a supposed UFO out the window of his van, using his Polaroid instant camera. This series of photos has long been touted as a “classic” by NICAP and many prominent UFOlogists. This object supposedly flew right over the Marine Corps El Toro Air Station, plus the Santa Ana freeway (Interstate 5) in broad daylight, but no one else saw it. (Sheaffer 1998, p. 91-93). In these photos, distant objects are hazy because of the Los Angeles smog, while the UFO is not, probably because it is tiny, and very close to the camera. For many years the original prints could not be investigated, because Heflin claims that they were confiscated by an investigator who came to his house, flashing an ID supposedly from NORAD. At least Heflin did not claim that the Men In Black came for his prints, or that the dog ate them. He blamed NORAD. So all we had left were copies made from the originals. The Air Force's Project Bluebook listed the Heflin photos as a "hoax." However, "In 1993, Heflin’s Polaroid originals surfaced unexpectedly under mysterious circumstances." Heflin died in 2005.


Dr. William K. Hartmann replicated Heflin's photos for the Condon report (case 52), using a suspended lens cap.

Skeptics have argued that Heflin’s UFO appears to be a tiny model, just a few inches in size, hanging from something like a fishing pole propped up over the cab of his van.

Enkidu created this stereo pair from Rex Heflin's UFO photos

However only in 2006 did a still-anonymous person, using the alias Enkidu, make an extremely important finding. In a discussion thread on the conspiracy-oriented website AboveTop Secret, Enkidu argues that Heflin unintentionally created a 3-D photo of his UFO. Assuming that the UFO was attached in some way to the truck, by moving the camera a few inches between the exposures, Heflin has produced a near-perfect stereo pair, as can be seen in stereo viewers. The photos above are reversed by Enkidu to allow easier viewing of the 3-D effect without a stereo viewer by simply crossing one’s eyes. And when you do that, the UFO is seen to be tiny. It’s clearly farther away than the truck’s mirror, but much closer than the roadside vegetation, or the distant trees. Responding to criticism, Enkidu writes, “Yes, it's possible that the UFO moved between the time the first photo was taken and the second. But it would have to move exactly horizontal to the way the camera moved, because there's no apparent difference in the size of the top part of the ship. It could only tilt forward. It didn't go up or down, and it didn't get nearer or closer. The odds of that happening are pretty slim.” Great work, Enkidu! (I think I have figured out who Enkidu is - we've corresponded before. But don't worry, Enkidu, I won't "out" you!)

Enkidu also created this Red-Blue stereo image for viewing using Red-Blue 3-D glasses

The RB-47 Encounter of 1957 - UFOlogy's Best Evidence?

2012-01-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

In the early morning hours of July 17, 1957, a U.S. Air Force crew aboard an RB-47, a plane loaded with the most sophisticated state-of-the-art surveillance and electronic countermeasures gear, reportedly encountered and was followed across several southern states by one or more UFOs, seen visually as well as on radar. Some UFOlogists consider this the best UFO evidence of all time. It was investigated as Case 5 of the University of Colorado's Air-Force-sponsored Condon Report, which cited the absence of an official report supposed to have been written on the incident, and concluded "Evaluation of the experience must, therefore, rest entirely on the recollection of crew members ten years after the event. These descriptions are not adequate to allow identification of the phenomenon encountered."

A U.S. Air Force RB-47, carrying then-state-of-the-art electronic surveillance and countermeasures gear.

The UFO Casebook says, "An Air Force RB-47, equipped with electronic countermeasures (ECM) gear and manned by six officers, was followed by an unidentified object for a distance of well over 700 miles, and for a time period of 1.5 hr., as it flew from Mississippi, through Louisiana and Texas and into Oklahoma.
"The object was, at various times, seen visually by the cockpit crew as an intensely luminous light, followed by ground-radar and detected on ECM monitoring gear aboard the RB-47.
"Of special interest in this case are several instances of simultaneous appearances and disappearances on all three of those physically distinct "channels," and rapidity of maneuvers beyond the prior experience of the aircrew."

There is a brand new in-depth investigation of this case by Tim Printy, just published in his WebZine SunLite, January/February, 2012. It is one of the most complex cases in all UFOlogy. I cannot possibly give more than a brief summary here; Printy's analysis runs over thirty pages, and is enormously significant in the history of this major case, and thus in the ongoing debate over the reality of UFOs.

Printy begins by making what is, to me, a crucial observation: "It does seem rather odd that the UFO would decide to use an S-band radar signal to track or test an Air Force RB-47. It is this clue that seems to have been glossed over/down played by those presenting this case as the best evidence." In other words, the UFO seems to have been sending out (but only in this case) S-band radar signals with exactly the same characteristics as those used by the U.S. Air Force at that time. How strange is that if the UFO is sending out exactly the same kind of radar signals we do? So isn't it likely, then, that the source of the signals was not an extraterrestrial craft, but instead a misidentified terrestrial one?

The path of the RB-47 during its supposed "UFO encounter."

Printy notes how the late atmospheric physicist and Ufologist Dr. James E. McDonald interviewed the RB-47 crew and wrote a paper on this case. "McDonald’s stamp of approval had immediately made this case a “classic.”" The famous UFO skeptic, the late Philip J. Klass, "took on the case in 1971 and wrote a rather extensive study on the incident. Klass suggested that it was equipment malfunction, a bright fireball, an airliner, and reception of ground radar signals that made the event appear mysterious to the air crew." This analysis can be found in Chapters 19 and 20 of Klass' 1974 book UFOs Explained.

In the 1990s, UFOlogist Brad Sparks, who styles himself as "the “RB-47 expert” in his email address, re-evaluated the case. Sparks concluded that Klass had erred, most especially in asserting that the RB-47 had, because of an equipment malfunction, erroneously picked up signals from the radar station at Kessler Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi, which was a training facility for radar operators and repairmen. That radar, said Sparks, was not operating at the time of the incident! Sparks wrote, "Since it was a nine-month course it was apparently run during the normal academic term from September to June approximately. In other words, there would not have been a class in session to operate the CPS-6B even in the daytime, let alone nighttime, in the midst of summer vacation, on July 17, when the RB-47 incident took place."

Sparks simply assumed that, since this was not during the "academic year," the training radar would have been turned off! But Printy looked into the matter very closely of whether or not the Kessler radar was operational at the time in question. He found (as he, a retired Navy submariner, already surely knew), that military training schedules bear no resemblance at all to those of colleges! In fact, Printy found that the Kessler facility had been operating at maximum training capacity in July, 1957, and that some classes were indeed scheduled between midnight and 6AM.

Overall, Printy found that while Klass' analysis contains some errors, his overall conclusions still stand. If you have any interest in the RB-47 c ontroversy, or if you want to read one of the very finest research papers ever published about any UFO case, then I encourage you to read Printy's paper, and come to your own conclusion about this important and controversial UFO case.

Join the Boycott to Protest the CIA Coverup of President Obama's Trips to Mars

2011-12-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

You just couldn't make this up:

For the past few years I have been reporting from time to time on the absurd claims of a group of UFOlogists calling their study Exopolitics, "political implications of the extra-terrestrial presence." Alfred Lambremont Webre claims to have been the founder of Exopolitics, although in reality Michael Salla can probably claim that dubious honor. Webre has the website exopolitics.com, while Salla has exopolitics.org .

Michael Salla's "Exopolitics" banner

Lately Webre's claims have gotten so bizarre (the war between the Andromeda Council and the Reptilians, Americans being teleported to a secret base on Mars to meet with aliens) that even others in exopolitics became alarmed, and began distancing themselves from him. (This recalls the old joke about the tenor who was so stupid that even the other tenors noticed it.) As Salla recently wrote, "Webre is a marginal and controversial figure in the network of exopolitics researchers and activists that has formed around the world. Webre's writing and behavior is seen as too bizarre and controversial for most credible exopolitics researchers to use." Nonetheless, Webre's far-out articles on the Examiner were being read by as many as 400,000 people each month. Until recently, that is, when Examiner.com gave him the boot.

Webre's colleague Jon Kelly, "a world-famous expert in the application of voice-based disclosure technology for revealing UFO secrets" (WTF?), writes

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Judge and founder of Exopolitics Alfred Lambremont Webre is calling for consumers to occupy an immediate boycott of pay-per-impression advertising funded news website Examiner.com.... Examiner.com’s corporate publication ban against the Seattle Exopolitics Examiner is an Illuminati agenda-inspired media hit targeting the columnist who revealed President Barack Obama’s participation in the CIA’s secret Mars visitation program."

Pieces on Examiner.com are presented to make you think you're reading a news story. One time a colleague and I were discussing one of Webre's absurd columns in Examiner.com claiming that NASA was promoting (not debunking) fears of an "extinction level event" from Comet Elenin, and he asked me "What kind of newspaper is publishing crazy stuff like this?" I replied "I don't think it's actually a newspaper, it's more like this guy's blog." Well, in his feud with Examiner.com, Webre spelled out Examiner.com's business model:

During 2009 many of the writers were receiving $0.01 per page view. Examiner.com later offered a variety of pay scale options to their writers. Examiner.com now bases compensation on variables such as subscriptions, page view traffic and session length.... Examiner.com derives the bulk of its revenue from consumer (reader) click-throughs. Every time you as a reader click through to read an article on Examiner.com, the company is paid a royalty by its advertisers.

Let's see, one cent per page at 400,000 pages per month gets you $4,000 a month, although Webre suggests that was only in a good month. So the formula for success as a UFO writer seems to be: make up the most outrageous claims you can think of and put it on Examiner.com, then sit back and collect the coins dropping into the hopper. And here am I, stupidly wasting my time and effort writing a skeptical Blog! Webre does not say exactly what happened to get him kicked off Examiner.com. It cannot be that they are concerned about their journalistic credibility, for they have none. Webre does say, "Examiner.com has been criticized for its lack of verification and fact-checking of stories published on the site, including accusations of plagiarism."

Webre's request is simple: "Please let your friends and networks know you are boycotting Examiner.com because it is promoting the CIA’s Obama on Mars cover-up, and its direct assault on the Truth movement and Truth movement journalists like Alfred Lambremont Webre." How would that be for a Facebook status?

New : Historical UFO Documents (Klass, Hynek, others)

2011-12-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

On my website http://www.debunker.com, I have recently began scanning and posting PDF files of some of the more significant correspondence and other historical documents in my private collection. (That's one reason I haven't posted much here recently). These papers involve such well-known UFOlogists and UFO witnesses as Philip J. Klass, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. James E. McDonald, Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr. Thornton Page, Dr. David Jacobs, Lonnie Zamora, Capt. Lawrence Coyne, etc. I first began corresponding with Philip J. Klass in 1968, and we stayed in touch until his death in 2005. Klass' papers were then donated to the American Philosophical Society, where they can be requested by researchers willing to travel to Philadelphia to see them, or to pay the associated fees to have copies sent. My intention is to post all of the most significant UFO related papers, especially Klass' "White Papers," on my website.

Philip J. Klass

At present, here are some of the more interesting and significant papers:

My paper recounting a talk that the famed UFOlogist J. Allen Hynek gave at Northwestern in 1969 as "freshman orientation."
While I was at Northwestern in 1970, Dr. J. Allen Hynek allowed me to read a chapter of the book he was working on, The UFO Experience. Here are my comments to him about it, Hynek's reply, Klass' comment on it, and the note Hynek inserted in his book to answer my critique.
Klass' highly-controversial "White Papers" about atmospheric physicist and UFO proponent Dr. James E. McDonald (1968). Many pro-UFOlogists have accused Klass of unfairly 'hounding' the poor Dr. McDonald (most notably, Anne Druffel in her book Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science), implying that Klass had a role in driving McDonald to his tragic suicide in 1971. For the first time, Klass' own papers on the subject are now available to researchers.
Klass' letter to "Plasmarians" complaining about the pro-ETI 'stacked deck' of the forthcoming AAAS-sponsored UFO Symposium in Boston (Nov. 18, 1969). Note that Klass includes Carl Sagan among the pro-ETI panelists. This is not a mistake. In testimony to the 1968 hearings before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Carl Sagan said: "I might mention that, on this symposium, there are no individuals who strongly disbelieve in the extraterrestrial origin of UFO's and therefore there is a certain view, not necessarily one I strongly agree with -- but there is a certain view this committee is not hearing today, along those lines."
Klass' talk to the Maryland Seminar on Science and Technology, UFOs, "N-Rays" and Pathological Science (Dec. 18, 1969). Discusses Blondlot, Hynek, Socorro, James E. McDonald, Heflin, Father Gill, Trent.
The Socorro UFO Case, and its "Multiplying Multiple Tourist Witnesses" (Aug. 29, 1976). Examines inconsistencies in the claim that one or more unnamed tourists also witnessed the UFO allegedly seen by Officer Lonnie Zamora in Socorro on April 24, 1964.
Capt. Lawrence Coyne's Views on UFOs and his own experience before he and his crew won the "National Enquirer" best case award of $5,000 (Dec. 31, 1976). There's nothing like fame and money to cement a UFO witness' story.
PJK critiques of Hynek's perceived inconsistencies (1975-83). Hynek's ever-changing "UFO Invariant."

There will be more papers to follow, that I will post as time permits

White House replies to the "Disclosure Petition" - No ETs!

2011-11-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

When the Obama administration launched its "We the People" petition program, they probably never expected to get a petition like this. Signers were promised that the administration would give a formal response to any petition gathering 5,000 signatures within 30 days. One of the very first petitions to qualify for a response was the so-called disclosure petition, whose title says "we petition the obama administration to: formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race - Disclosure."

The petition was written by Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group, who also proclaimed July 8 to be World Disclosure Day. It states,

We, the undersigned, strongly urge the President of the United States to formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and immediately release into the public domain all files from all agencies and military services relevant to this phenomenon.

This goes well beyond a request for simple "disclosure," to release all documents. It presupposes that the U.S. government is involved in ongoing contact with extraterrestrials, and demands that the Obama administration acknowledge that fact. However, the petition quickly gathered enough signatures to qualify, creating a dilemma for the White House. All they can do is deny that they are meeting with extraterrestrials on a daily basis, and the denial further inflames the conspiracy flames. For a government agency to address UFO claims in any way is an automatic no-win situation. If you say they're not a real mystery, and you get a controversy over that. On the other hand, if you say that they are mysterious and challenging, you stir up an even bigger controversy, and many people suspect (quite correctly) that you have been nibbling peyote or something. Read Lee Speigel's Huffington Post article on the petition dilemma.

On Nov. 7, the White House finally issued its response to the Disclosure Petition, which reads, in part:

Thank you for signing the petition asking the Obama Administration to acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.
The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye.

As far as I can tell, this response is 100% correct and accurate. However, as you might imagine, this is not going down well in certain places. PRG states simply, "The response was unacceptable." They promise to have more to say about it soon.

The White House's threshold for a petition response has since been raised to 25,000, but the change is not retroactive. However, Bassett was urging his followers to raise the signature count over 25,000 anyway, as a demonstration of their strength. The final signature count was 12,078.

The Phoenix Lights Return

2011-11-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

On March 13, 1997 the Phoenix Lights became a sensational UFO story, when bright, slowly-falling lights were seen in the sky across the Phoenix metropolitan area, and across much of southern Arizona. They were determined quite definitively to be flares dropped by A-10 Warthog aircraft, in a training exercise at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona. This was actually the second UFO incident reported that evening across Arizona. The first incident, involving a V-shape of lights, may have been aircraft lights, but is in any case not relevant to this discussion. Some UFO promoters deliberately confuse the two, showing the video of the second incident (dramatic but easily explained) while describing the first (less certain identitfication, but no good photos or videos).

On the evening of Friday, Oct. 28, four bright lights in the sky were reported and photographed at a high school football game in Scottsdale, Arizona (Phoenix metropolitan area). The lights were shown by broadcaster Mark Mancuso on Accuweather. The video used to be at
http://www.accuweather.com/video/1805489410/ufo-sightings-in-scottsdale-ariz.asp , however that video has apparently been pulled (probably because it made Accuweather a laughingstock, and the broadcaster is now in the woodshed). However, as Ian Ridpath notes in a comment below, you can still find that video on the Accuweather website if you search for it another way: http://www.accuweather.com/video.asp?search=scottsdale

You can also see the "UFOs" in another video below:

It's not hard to see the similarity to the parachuting flares of the Phoenix lights. There was a lot of speculation that these might be flares attached to sky divers, but can we do better than just speculate?

Sometimes a little investigation goes a long way. SkyFOX helicopter pilot Rick Crabbs (Fox Channel 10 in Phoenix)said, "I was at the location where those skydivers were coming in ... Friday night, so that's exactly what happened -- there were some skydivers," he said. "And they did have pyrotechnics on their ankles. There were four of them, and if you look at the video, you can see four different lights."

The skydivers were at an event called the "Halloween Balloon Spooktacular" at the Salt River Fields. Looking at the schedule of activities for that event, we find:
•9:00pm Arizona Skyhawks performance with sky divers in lighted suits and pyrotechnics

The Arizona Skyhawks are indeed a professional skydiving team that sometimes uses pyrotechnics.

But for some "journalists," wild speculation is more gratifying than a little bit of actual research.

Mr. (and Mrs.) Hills' Wild Ride

2011-10-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

The alleged "UFO abduction" of Betty and Barney Hill on Sept. 19, 1961 was the first such report of its kind in the United States, and one of the most famous alleged UFO encounters of all time. I will not attempt to relate in detail this extremely complicated story. For a detailed account of it, see chapter five of my book UFO Sightings. For even more details and all kinds of viewpoints on the case, pro, con, or simply confused, see Encounters at Indian Head .

I just recently happened across a very interesting paper written in 2007 by James D. Macdonald, a former Navy navigator and science fiction writer who lives in Colebrook, New Hampshire (not to be confused with the late atmospheric physicist and UFO proponent Dr. James E. McDonald.). He lives right along the path of the Hills' famous journey, on U.S. Route 3. Performing a careful line-by-line analysis of the account of the Hills' Wild Ride in John Fuller's Interrupted Journey and also scrutinizing the recent book Captured by Kathleen Marden and Stanton T. Friedman (Marden is Betty Hill's niece), Macdonald notes that "the real reason why they were making a forced march is revealed. They didn’t have enough money for a motel so they’d decided to pull an all-nighter." Exactly.

As quoted by Fuller, Barney Hill told Betty while in Colebrook, NH shortly after 10 PM, “It looks like we should be home by 2:30 in the morning—or 3:00 at the latest.” Macdonald says, "That’s a wildly optimistic estimate. But they’d already decided that they were going to drive home that night. They were on the tail end of a twelve-hundred-mile trip, had run out of money, and were committed to pushing on." In fact, "By the time they reached home they’d been driving for around twenty-one hours. They’re lucky that being abducted by space aliens was the worst that happened to them: Others who’ve tried similar trips have run into trees." Or a deer. Or a moose. In fact, the National Sleep Foundation has proclaimed November 6-12 as Drowsy Driving Prevention Week® 2011. The AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety lists as the top "warning sign" of the driver who is too drowsy to drive safely as "The inability to recall the last few miles traveled." The Hills could be the poster children for this traffic safety crusade.

The moon, Jupiter, and Saturn (bottom) as seen from the White Mountains at midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1961 (moon and planets enlarged, not to scale)

I was the one who suggested, back in the 1970s, that Betty Hill's description of the "UFO" and a "star" near the moon matched up quite well with the known positions of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. (It was much more difficult to calculate celestial positions for a specific time and place back then, without computers, than it is today.) This was published in the now-classic Official UFO magazine in 1976. But I knew that this was not the whole story. As the Hills passed by tall peaks like Cannon Mountain and went though the Franconia Notch, the Moon and Jupiter would have been too low to see in the west behind the mountains. So surely they must have been looking at something else. But what?

The light at top of Cannon Mountain: is this the "UFO" that abducted the Hills? (Photo by James D. Macdonald)

Driving the route late at night, Macdonald noted that "the Cannon Mountain tramway runs 365 days a year, and has been doing so since 1938 when it became the first aerial tramway in North America." A bright light on the lookout tower at the top of the mountain was installed in 1959, and shines all night long. Macdonald says,

Betty would have lost sight of the moon and its accompanying planets as the car went up hill along the side of Mt. Prospect, heading nearly due south. As they crested the rise, the moon and planets would reappear, only now there were two lights to the left of the moon. The light on Cannon Mountain, at that range on a clear night, is as bright or brighter than Jupiter. On a clear night stars appear below the peak of Cannon Mountain to the right and left. Up above we heard the Hills, in a different interview, relate, “it first appeared to be a falling star—only it fell upward.” Immediately after cresting the shoulder of the mountain, Route 3 plunges down a 9% grade for the next half mile. The road is pointed directly at Cannon Mountain at this time. Subjectively, at night, I can report of my own direct observation, the light appears to head rapidly straight up...the light on top of Cannon Mountain is visible at various points along this entire route—sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes to the right of the road, and sometimes to the left... One question that you’d have to answer in order to show this was a flying saucer is, “If what you saw was a space ship, where was the light on Cannon while all this was going on?”

The Hills reported what appears to be a second Close Encounter with the light atop Cannon Mountain on April 2, 1966: "As we were returning through the Franconia Notch in the general area of the tramway and Cannon Mountain, one [UFO] moved around the mountain about 50 feet from the ground, in front of us. Its lights dimmed out and we could see the row of windows before it became invisible. It just faded out of sight and then just reappeared with different lighting behind us... On the opposite side of the highway was a second one, which also faded out. ” (Marden, p. 208-209).

The final spot where the Hills stopped and had a "close encounter" (where Barney says he saw "Nazi" spacemen in his binoculars) was just south of Indian Head. Barney and Betty took UFO researcher Walter Webb to that spot to re-enact the sighting in 1964, and in 2000 Betty Hill took those of us participating in the Indian Head conference there. It's near the location of the now-defunct Mountaineer Motel on Rt. 3 in Lincoln, NH, whose sign stands just north of Exit 33 of I-93 (which was not yet built in 1961). After they drove off from that site, in something of a panic, they never saw the UFO again. Macdonald notes, "2.1 miles south of Indian Head is the last time the Lookout Tower Light is visible from Rt. 3."

Macdonald continues:

" There's another possible object they may have seen: the Jack O'Lantern Resort in Woodstock which, at the time, had a large billboard with their logo (a stylized jack-o-lantern) down by the road. That would certainly appear to be a "large, luminous moon-shape, which seemed to be touching the road, sitting on end under some pines." This is well out of town; no other features are nearby."

That is a very interesting suggestion. As Kathleen Marden describes it, at this point the Hills vaguely remembered "seeing a huge fiery red-orange orb resting upon the ground." I was not able to find any photo of the Jack O'Lantern resort's giant, unlighted billboard, but I did discover some old postcards with photographs of the giant orange pumpkin that used to sit on the motel roof. Judging from the cars out front, the photo would seem to be from the 1960s. And if the pumpkin were illuminated but the motel lights were out, the "orb" might seem to rest on the ground. In any case, the Hills must have driven past this giant pumpkin on Rt. 3, just minutes after they were frightened out of their wits near Indian Head.

Could this be the "huge fiery red-orange orb" that the Hills remembered seeing as they sped away from the "Close Encounter" site, just a few miles away?

Macdonald concludes:

What do they remember south of Indian Head?
a) The Lincoln/Woodstock road marker
b) Downtown North Woodstock
c) (Possibly) the billboard for the Jack O'Lantern Golf Course & Resort in Woodstock
d) Downtown Plymouth
e) Downtown Ashland
f) Entering the superhighway
g) Concord
h) Portsmouth

In short, they remember every single town they passed through. The rest of the trip is past dark lakes, rivers, fields, and woods. I’ve driven that route more than once, and I don’t remember much more than that myself. Not only isn’t there any missing time, there aren’t any missing memories.

Exactly!

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: Toutatis Threatens Totally, 2004

2011-10-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

From my column Psychic Vibrations in the Skeptical Inquirer,

Volume 28.4, July / August 2004

Toutatis Threatens Totally

Heads up—the End of the World is coming again! This time it’s the asteroid 4179 Toutatis, which, according to no less an authority than the celebrated Swiss UFO contactee Billy Meier, is in danger of slamming into Earth on September 29, 2004 (see http://archives.zinester.com/40491/15876.html). According to NASA, Toutatis will make a close approach to Earth on that date, passing within approximately one million miles, which is nothing on a cosmic scale (see http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/ 4179_Toutatis/toutatis.html).

But Meier is in contact with the space people from the Pleiades (he calls them “Plejarans”; I suppose that “Pleiadeans” sounds too unwieldy). And according to Michael Horn, who says he is the officially authorized media representative of Meier in the United States (which so far as I know Meier has never disputed), the Plejarans have warned that when Toutatis is closest to Earth, it will suddenly veer off course and head straight toward us. Horn says that it will require a “pre-emptive nuclear strike” to keep this multi-kilometer-sized asteroid from slamming straight into Earth. Before you dismiss this prophecy as the ravings of a demented man, be forewarned that Meier claims a long list of successful predictions (no doubt selectively culled from a much longer list of unsuccessful ones—Meier reportedly has written thousands of pages of predictions). Horn says that Meier predicted back in 1987 that Islamic fanatics would destroy the World Trade Center in New York. If true, this information will be of great interest to the current Congressional investigation into the September 11 attacks: What did Meier know, and when did he know it?
Others are also starting to sound alarm bells. The Web site of the conspiracy-oriented radio host Jeff Rense carries similar warnings (see www.rense.com/general50/sep29th2004.htm). There is even a claim of a secret government missile program to save us from disaster on September 29. And the biblical prophecy expert Arnie Stanton suggests that the encounter with Toutatis indicates that the Second Coming will be just a few months away. Stanton also warns that a larger, as-yet undiscovered asteroid will definitely smack into Earth sometime in 2006.
This is the first time to my knowledge that the world is ending in 2004. The world most recently ended in May of 2003, when a mysterious Planet X, inhabited by Zetans, was reported to be on its way to a disastrous close encounter with Earth, moving the poles and flooding entire countries. The Web site www.zetatalk.com is still there. It talks a lot about the disasters expected in 2003 but says nothing about there being a year 2004; as near as I can tell, their claim is that a disastrous planetary encounter did occur in 2003, but was covered up by NASA. Before that, the “planetary alignment” of May 5, 2000, was threatened as a trigger for all manner of earthly havoc. And of course, society as we know it ended on January 1, 2000, when every major computer system in the world not only failed, but became contagious, infecting even computers that did not suffer from the Y2K bug. The next scheduled major world-ending is in 2012, when, according to a number of reliable experts, the Mayan Calendar simply “runs out,” apparently making it impossible for time to continue.

Are You Going to CSICon in New Orleans?

2011-10-07T12:20:00.000-07:00

It's coming up in just a few weeks: the first CSI(COP) conference in several years, to be held in New Orleans on Oct. 27-30: http://www.csiconference.org/ .

"The conference dedicated to scientific inquiry and critical thinking.

Separate history from legend and science from voodoo by joining the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) for four days of fun, mystery and reason, in New Orleans's famous French Quarter."

I will be there to speak about UFO Conspiracy Theories, on a panel with astronomer and UFO skeptic James McGaha, moderated by physicist Leonard Tramiel. I will be discussing how UFO conspiracy theories are put together, from the most plausible-sounding, to the most extreme. James will be talking about new developments in the claimed UFO landing at Bentwaters AFB / Rendlesham Forest in the U.K.

So, please come and spend Halloween with us in New Orleans, meet some skeptical celebrities like James "The Amazing" Randi, Eugenie Scott, Phil Plait, and chat about really interesting stuff. And don't forget to bring your Halloween costume! I won't tell you yet what mine is going to be.

Comet Elenin "Self Destructs"

2011-09-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry to disappoint those who were expecting Mayhem and Destruction from puny Comet Elenin this fall. However, Sky and Telescope magazine has just reported "Comet Elenin Self Destructs." This is not exactly surprising, as the same thing has happened to many small comets before. As astronomy writer Kelly Beatty reports, "Within the past week the comet's brightness has declined by 50%, dropping a half magnitude between August 19th and 20th... images show Comet Elenin's bright core becoming elongated and diffuse — the telltale signs that its icy nucleus has either broken in two or disintegrated altogether. One veteran comet-watcher who's not surprised is John Bortle. Four months ago, based on Elenin's performance to that point, he cautioned, 'The comet may be intrinsically a bit too faint to even survive perihelion passage.' "

According to some, Comet Elenin was a giant menacing object that was going to zap earth with lightning bolts

As noted in my Blog posting of April 17, "Another Doomsday Coming this Year in September," Comet Elenin was proclaimed by many to be a destructive force headed toward Earth, where it will (somehow) cause something Truly Awful to happen to earth. Those who would not believe the descriptions of Comet Elenin as a feeble, puny visitor to the inner solar system now must contend with the fact that the comet's icy core has simply melted as it got closer to the sun.

But I can guarantee you that the Conspiracy claims will not end there. Soon we'll be hearing how NASA blew up Comet Elenin. Or maybe friendly Space Aliens did it, to save earth. Or maybe the comet has faded to near-invisibility to better sneak up and surprise unsuspecting earthlings? But I think the claim that will win out is one that emphasises the comet's alleged dangerous and destructive nature. Like, "that comet was so radioactive that it blew itself up!". Or possibly, "Its weapons of mass destruction accidentally triggered prematurely!"

Some Comments on the History Channel show "UFOs On The Record"

2011-08-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, August 25 the History Channel premiered a UFO documentary titled "Special Access - UFOs On The Record." It was based upon the best-selling book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean. This is not intended to be a comprehensive commentary on the contents of that show. I have already written a long review of Kean's book in the March / April 2011 Skeptical Inquirer, from which the show's content is taken. The review's title is " ‘Unexplained’ Cases—Only If You Ignore All Explanations." Most of the cases that Kean proclaims "unidentified" have already had explanations published. Kean deals with this problem exactly as her UFOlogical mentor, the late Budd Hopkins did: she simply ignores it. SI Editor Ken Frazier told me that I was way past the length of a book review, and he'd have to cut back. That's the way things are with magazines. Most of the omitted material is included here, where I can post as much as I want. This posting, and my review of Kean's book, together address most of Kean's major "evidence."

The 'strongest evidence' presented was the Belgian UFO wave. In my book review I mention the strange lack of photographs given thousands of reported Close Encounters in a densely-populated country, a lack for which Kean offers a weak apology. There was, however, exactly one photograph purporting to show a structured craft, a 35mm slide, said to have been taken at Petit-rechain in Belgium in April of 1990. Much is made of this photo, both in the book and the show. In the latter, Kean calls the Petit-rechain photo "one of the most convincing" pieces of evidence for the existence of UFOs.

Let us be charitable and assume that this show was filmed prior to July 26, 2011, which it probably was. Unfortunately for Kean and Co., the Petit-rechain photo is now a confessed hoax! I noted this in my Blog post of July 26. On July 26 the hoaxer appeared on Belgian TV, confessing that "The UFO of Petit-rechain is not a spaceship from a distant galaxy but a panel of painted styrofoam with three spots affixed." And what about those scientists with impressive university positions, who supposedly 'validated' the photo? Piffle!

Worse yet for Kean, the Belgian UFOlogist Patrick Ferryn, who is featured prominently on the program proclaiming the validity of the Petit-rechain photo, now acknowledges that it is a hoax. Ferryn also appeared on Belgian TV on July 26 to argue that the bogus UFO photo from Petit-rechain does not in any way invalidate the Belgian UFO wave that began in November of 1989. (True enough, but it does remove the sole supposed photographic evidence for thousands of reported sightings.)

No word from Kean yet on her reaction to having one of the main pillars supporting her edifice suddenly kicked out from under her (and it's been more than a month). If she's honest, she'll admit she was wrong, and disavow the photo. However, that kind of honesty is extremely rare in UFOlogy. When I talked to Stanton Friedman at the MUFON symposium last month, he still would not give up on the "Zeta Reticuli" Star Map, even though he agreed with me that the star positions in the new Hipparchos catalog are far more accurate than in the forty-year-old catalog used to create the famous Map (and whose supposed 'one-in-ten-thousand' matching is now blown to smithereens). What Kean will do about the Petit-rechain hoax, time will tell. One thing is clear: Patrick Ferryn is an honest investigator, who is willing to acknowledge an error.

At the beginning of the segment about the Phoenix lights, it seemed to me that the program was deliberately confusing the two separate incidents, using photos of the flares dropping (Phoenix Incident 2) to support claims of the sightings earlier in the evening (Phoenix Incident 1). For information about Phoenix I, see The Great UFO Cover-up by Tony Ortega. Later in that program segment, Kean acknowledges that Phoenix 2 was a flare drop, in which case the photos of them are completely irrelevant to supporting any UFO claim, unless the aim is to confuse the viewer with good photos of a bad UFO, in lieu of bad or no photos of a presumably better one.

Former Arizona governor Fife Symington is one of Kean's favorite witnesses (although exactly how he became a "former governor" is never spelled out). He now claims to have 'held back' UFO information, and now claims a UFO sighting of his own. How credible is Fife Symington? This news story tells you all you need to know: Arizona Governor Convicted Of Fraud and Will Step Down. Seven felony counts! Sure, I believe everything this guy says. He'd never make up a story for fun and profit.

Little has been written about the “Incursion at O’Hare Airport” on Nov. 7, 2006, which is a major case for Kean. Several employees of United Airlines reported seeing a “strange object hovering just under a cloud bank… the metallic-looking disc was about the size of a quarter or half dollar held at arm’s length.” Unfortunately, no photographs exist of this supposed “metallic-looking disc” hovering over one of the world’s busiest airports in daytime, and nothing showed up on radar. Even more surprising, we learn in the program that the UFO hovered over gate C-17 at O'Hare. Apparently it was not seen by anyone at Gate C-15, C-16, or anywhere else.

After approximately five to fifteen minutes, “the suspended disc suddenly shot up at an incredible speed and was gone in less than a second, leaving a crisp, cookie-cutter-like hole in the dense clouds. The opening was approximately the same size as the object [I would suggest that the opening was in fact the object], and those directly underneath it could see blue sky visible on the other side.” She ridicules an explanation offered by an FAA spokesman that the observers saw a “hole-punch cloud,” an unusual weather phenomenon where a large, dramatic circular hole is formed in a cloud layer. She cites a report by NARCAP, a pro-UFO investigative team, showing that temperatures were too high for a hole-punch cloud to form at the 1,900 foot elevation of the ceiling, which is probably correct. (Kean has no difficulty referencing investigations by other researchers, so long as their conclusion agrees with hers.) But then she bizarrely suggests that “this just happens to fit the witnesses’ explanation of what they saw: a high-energy, round object very likely to be emitting some form of intense radiation or heat while cutting through the cloud bank.” Now, one cannot simultaneously argue that a hole-punch cloud could not have formed because the temperatures were above freezing, but a UFO formed one anyway. In any case, the low ceiling might easily have briefly opened up to reveal a much higher cloud layer, where a hole-punch cloud already existed. It is interesting that the photo used on a NOAA website to illustrate the phenomenon of the hole-punch cloud was taken exactly eight days after the O’Hare Field “incursion,” from nearby Wisconsin.

On the positive side, the program featured a short segment on the UFOTOG project of Douglas Trumball, the special effects wizard who worked on 2001 - A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and many other films. Putting serious money into state-of-the-art cameras to detect and record anomalous moving objects is exactly the right way for someone who believes that UFOs might be real to prove he is right. Should a clear image of an unknown structured craft appear in a consistent manner across several different instruments, there would be no 'splaining it away. Of course, that has never happened, and I suspect it never will. But I will applaud Mr. Trumbull if he is able to prove me wrong. And I would admit it, unlike Lesile Kean, Stanton Friedman, or Budd Hopkins.

Physicist Michio Kaku, who is well known for attempting to rationalize the physics of UFOs and of Time Travel, is quoted on the cover of Kean's book declaring it filled with “eye-opening information” that would “set the gold standard for UFO research.” Skeptics should note how easily Kaku has been dazzled by Fool’s Gold.

Hilary Evans (1929-2011) Fortean author, "PsychoSocial" Theorist

2011-08-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hilary Evans, a leading British Fortean author and researcher of “marginal human experiences,” died on July 27, 2011. He was the author of many books including Visions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors (1984) and Gods, Spirits Cosmic Guardians (1987). Evans was a founder of what is called the "psychosocial" hypothesis. It attributes the perception of anomalous phenomena such as UFOs, apparitions, etc. to a sort of psychodrama occurring inside the percipient’s head, shaped by society's expectations and beliefs. It is very influential today among British Forteans, many of whom are quite skeptical of the literal truth of paranormal claims.

Hilary Evans chats with Betty Hill

Evans and his late wife Mary operated the Mary Evans Picture library in London, a major repository of over one million images. Their private collection of esoteric books and of Victoriana was legendary, and Hilary’s knowledge of “anomalistic” subjects was extraordinary. He met frequently with colleagues, and was responsible for much sharing of information. I met Hilary at the Encounters at Indian Head conference in New Hampshire in 2000, organized to scrutinize the Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction story. He compared the Hills’ novel (at the time) narrative to earlier accounts of otherworldly beings and religious visions, finding many common themes and formulations in both, and suggesting that a “life-crisis” of the percipient was likely the cause. Whenever the trite phrase “a gentleman and a scholar” is used, there can be no better illustration of that ideal than Hillary Evans.

Budd Hopkins (1931-2011) - Pioneering UFO Abductionist

2011-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

The famous UFO Abductionist Budd Hopkins succumbed to cancer in New York City on August 21, at the age of eighty (http://www.intrudersfoundation.org/inside.html ). The "UFO abduction" scenario changed significantly after the publication of Hopkin's book Missing Time in 1981. Prior to that time, UFO abductions were supposed to occur only when people ventured out to lonely, deserted places late at night, and encountered aliens (Betty and Barney Hill, Travis Walton). Hopkins' contribution was to entirely sever the connection between UFO sightings and UFO abductions. Hopkins wrote of a new "abduction scenario that is, if anything, even more disturbing to contemplate. Many people have simply been taken from their homes while they were either asleep, or engaged in some quotidian activity, like watching television or reading" (Missing Time, p. 79). Often the aliens, and their helpless prey, simply float through closed windows, or even walls. In such cases, the Law of Gravity and all of Newton's Laws of Motion seem to have been repealed. To explain why nobody ever sees or photographs somebody else being abducted, Hopkins suggested that the aliens have the ability to make themselves, and their abductees, invisible during this process.

Just watch the first part of this lecture, and you'll learn all you need to know about Budd Hopkins.

Hopkins was a member of the famous Troika of UFO Abductionists during Abductology's heyday in the early 1990s, along with Dr. John Mack, M.D., and Dr. David Jacobs (Jacobs is now the only survivor of the three). Hopkins was the founder and Executive Director of the Intruders Foundation, taking its name from his 1987 best-selling book Intruders, which in 1992 was made into a prime-time miniseries on CBS-TV. Hopkins was one of the organizers of the 1992 Abduction Study Conference at MIT, sponsored by physicist David Pritchard, which I attended.

I met Hopkins several times, and attempted to engage him in a substantive discussion. He would have none of it, and his attitude toward me was always hostile (just like David Jacobs, Walt Andrus, and many others). Hopkins was not one to discuss or debate. He was right, you were wrong, and you were probably stupid as well - it was that simple. His ex-wife Carol Rainey became disillusioned with his carelessness and duplicity, concealing flaws he knew about in cases he was proclaiming to the world as ironclad proof. She turned into one of his most severe critics. For more about Rainey contra Hopkins, especially the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction ("Levitated Linda"), see my "Abductology Implodes" (Blog posting of Jan 19, 2011, expanded as "Psychic Vibrations" in the Skeptical Inquirer, May/June, 2011). "Levitated Linda" is in my "Psychic Vibrations" column of Spring, 1993, reprinted in the new book Psychic Vibrations (click on book icon, above).

Just Published! My "Psychic Vibrations" - Skeptical Giggles from the Skeptical Inquirer

2011-08-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

Just Published! My first new book in 13 years: Psychic Vibrations - Skeptical Giggles from the Skeptical Inquirer. So new that the review copies have not even gone out yet, so there are no reviews or reader comments yet. Be among the first to see it!

At Last – A Skeptical Book that’s not just Informative, but FUN to read! For more than thirty years, Robert Sheaffer’s Psychic Vibrations column has been entertaining readers of The Skeptical Inquirer, while keeping them informed of weird developments in the “science” of UFOs, psychic research, Cryptozoology, etc. Those columns are gathered together here, organized by subject, to inform and amuse the reader. With 150 humorous illustrations by cartoonist Rob Pudim. But it's not "just humor." It’s all true (meaning that the author didn’t make it up).

You can download a Preview of Psychic Vibrations (PDF) at https://www.createspace.com/pub/community/give.review.do?id=1086247&rewrite=true

The link for book information and for orders is here: https://www.createspace.com/3630764 . And if you enter the Discount Code UJR6KB8R your order will be 15% off.

A Skeptic does the MUFON Symposium - Part 5 of 5

2011-08-13T00:12:00.000-07:00

The Sunday afternoon session started off with Major George A. Filer (USAF Retired), MUFON's Eastern Regional Director, who says he worked as an Intelligence officer. His talk was titled "Mars the Living Planet." Filer is a well-known figure in UFOlogy owing mostly to his weekly Filer's Files, a "kitchen sink" compendium of UFO claims, where no claim is too absurd to receive a respectful hearing. Sometimes when I'm short of material for Psychic Vibrations (that doesn't happen too often), I know I can go to Filer's Files to find something entertaining to write about.

Filer says that when he was stationed with the Air Force in England, UFOs were seen on many of their flights. Sometimes fighter jets were sent up to look at them. However, the fighter jets often didn't return from this mission, so they sent up the tanker aircraft (in which he flew) instead. Because the tankers were unarmed, the UFOs didn't attack them.

Mars, according to Filer, used to be teeming with life until it was mostly wiped out in a nuclear holocaust some 180 million years ago. He showed NASA photos of Mars that purport to contain tubes (possibly water pipes, or trains) that extend for miles, as well as underground cities. There are numerous faces on Mars, and some of them look similar to Egyptian Pharaohs. But some life still exists among the ruins. The green colors on Mars represent growths of moss and algae.

Kathleen Marden, Stanton Friedman, and yours truly

I spent some time chatting with the Flying Saucer Physicist, Stanton Friedman, who I hadn't seen in about fifteen years. Klass and I had a friendly rivalry with Friedman. He's a decent guy when you get to know him. Still he's way off base about those UFOs.

At Friedman's table, before his talk, I asked him about the Marjorie Fish interpretation of the Betty Hill "UFO star map." ( I doubted, correctly it turns out, that I'd have the opportunity to try to nail him during his Q&A.) A detailed response to Friedman's standard lecture is in my Psychic Vibrations of September / October, 2009. Quoting from that piece:

For at least thirty-five years, Friedman has been claiming that researcher Marjorie Fish’s supposed identification of the dots Betty Hill drew as being potentially habitable nearby stars proves the extraterrestrial nature of the Betty and Barney Hill “UFO abduction.” He has made the Fish Map one of the central points of his lectures and writings. The similarity between the Hill drawing and the Fish Map was actually never very good, but folks who were so inclined could point to a number of points of correspondence between the two. (For a detailed discussion, see my paper “There Were No Extraterrestrials”in Encounters at Indian Head).

But today the Fish Map is no longer viable. In her research beginning in 1966, Fish made the wise choice to use the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars, which was then the most accurate available. But that was over forty years ago, and science never stands still. Astronomical researcher Brett Holman recently checked out what the Fish Map would look like if it were built using the most accurate astronomical data available today. His answer is in his article in the British publication Fortean Times (242, November 2008): “Goodbye, Zeta Reticuli” (the supposed home solar system of the UFOnauts). Holman writes, “In the early 1990s the Hipparcos satellite measured the positions of nearly 120,000 stars ten times more accurately
than ever before—including all of those that appear in the Fish interpretation." ... Fish excluded all variable stars and close binaries to include only supposedly habitable solar systems—but the new data reveals two of her stars as suspected variables and two more as close binaries. So there go four of her fifteen stars. And two more are much farther away than earlier believed, removing them comletely from the volume of space in question. Six stars of that supposedly
exact-matching pattern are definitely gone, excluded by the very criteria that once included them using the forty-year-old data. Goodbye, Zeta Reticuli.

Friedman agreed 100% that the Hipparchos data is an order of magnitude more accurate. But of course Stanton wanted to have his cake, and eat it too. He agreed that the Fish map has problems, but he still claimed we have identified "the base": Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli, even though the data that identification was based on is now known to be inaccurate. This is like Linda Moulton Howe Googling a misinterpreted character string, and finding the correct UFO Drone Conspiracy anyway.

Friedman's talk was titled "Are We Ready for Contact?". Much of it was the same tired old Friedman lecture of the past forty years. The "Cosmic Watergate" of a UFO coverup, and some jabs at Carl Sagan and Philip J. Klass. The supposed treasure-trove of authentic UFO cases in the 1954 Bluebook Special report 14, which he claims skeptics ignore. True, we skeptics do mostly ignore it, because it contains little of interest: see Tim Printy's comments at http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/Bluebook.htm . There is other scattered commentary as well. J. Allen Hynek is supposedly ignored by the debunkers. I guess he's never read any of my writings, or those of Phil Klass.

Freidman claims that ET societies are peaceful, and regard Earthlings as a menace because of our warlike ways. "If you were an alien you'd probably worry about the people on that planet (Earth)". In his talk he showed the Fish Map briefly, but obviously it's been downgraded from the Prime Numero Uno status it once had. Friedman is big on nuclear propulsion for space ships, claiming that you can get close to the speed of light, that time will slow down for the travelers, etc. He does not provide any mathematics explaining how this propulsion will be accomplished, because when you work out the numbers the fuel requirements are absurd, even assuming 100% efficiency. See "The Physics and Metaphysics of Unidentified Flying Objects" by William Markowitz (Science 1967 Sep15;157 (3794): 1274-9). Friedman says that there's a movie soon to be made about him and UFOlogist Donald Schmidt (an odd couple indeed, since they're often been at odds concerning Holy Roswell). The movie will be titled Majic Men, and will be completed as soon as $10 or $20 million can be raised.

In the closing session, MUFON demonstrated its brand-new smart phone App. It has three main functions. Two allow the user to stay in tough with MUFON messages and its database. The third, however, is potentially more interesting. It allows the user to receive real-time notifications whenever anybody in the same area reports sighting a UFO. This opens the possibility that large numbers of people might be notified of a UFO visitation, and provide additional witnesses and photos. If there is such a thing as a "real UFO," this app should help identify it. More information at www.UFOconnect.com .

Next year's MUFON Symposium will be in northern Kentucky, across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. For me, I'm thinking that's too far to go.

A Skeptic does the MUFON Symposium - Part 4 of 5

2011-08-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

(See Lee Speigel's Huffington Post article on the MUFON Symposium )

The next speaker Sunday morning was Ted Loder, PhD, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, whose title was "The Science of Tomorrow." He talked about the efforts of the UFO group CSETI to "contact" ETs using flashing lights, lasers, etc. He played "crop circle tones," sounds recorded from inside crop circles and played back greatly amplified. None of this is new, CSETI has been doing it since the mid-90s. They see a light in the sky that they think is a UFO. They shine a light at it, and if it appears to flash or wink back, that is "ET contact." He also showed pictures of "falling flashes," which I think most people would call "meteors," and told of seeing bright flashes from a stationary source, apparently geosynchronous. Since nothing in geosynchronous orbit would flash, or be that bright, he suggested this was a true UFO. After his talk, I told Loder about Geosync Flashers, out-of-control satellites in near-geosynchronous orbit whose tumbling causes them to flash when the sun angle on their solar panels is just right. The brightest of them is Superbird A (NORAD 20040), a tumbling Japanese communications satellite that flashes brightly with a period of about 12 seconds for a few minutes each day when it is above the horizon at your location.


Travis Walton

One interesting vendor was none other than Travis Walton himself, who was supposedly abducted by a UFO back in 1975, and was "missing" for five days. His case was made into the Hollywood movie Fire in the Sky. Philip J. Klass investigated this case extensively, and found a lot of evidence suggesting a hoax (see Klass' UFOs The Public Deceived (Prometheus, 1983). I have a Walton Abduction page on my website.) Walton seemed to attract very little interest among the MUFON participants, almost as if they did not know (or care) who he is. UFOlogically speaking, Travis Walton is a "one trick pony," even though his "trick" was a mighty big one, one of the biggest in UFO history. But it was 36 years ago, and (apart from the promotions and debunking of it), nothing has happened since then. I have always felt uncomfortable around Travis Walton (our paths have crossed a few times), and he apparently with me as well. We did chat just a bit, but nothing of substance. What's the point? He knows that I call his case a hoax on my website. He and I both know perfectly well that his "abduction" was staged, apparently with the help of his friend Mike Rogers and his brother Duane, and that he was hiding out (likely at a property in the woods) while he was supposedly "missing." I can comfortably discuss UFOs with a MUFON investigator who, in my opinion, is seriously mistaken, but I can still respect him as a person of integrity. That is not so easy with Travis Walton.

As I was standing near Walton's table, one fellow, tall, thirtyish, dressed in a nice suit, came up to tell how he had evidence of a UFO crash in Idaho, with lots of debris scattered over a large area. He didn't just see the debris, he saw the UFO crash. He had photos, all kinds of proof. Can we see it? "The photos are on a flash drive. I left it in the other hotel when I came here in the taxi." At first his story was that all that was needed was to go back in a taxi to get the photos and bring them here. But soon he was objecting that he was going to be writing a book about it, and he didn't want anyone to steal his discovery. The objections came swifter and stronger. It felt strange for me to be joining Travis Walton in critiquing a preposterous claim, but that's what happened. Apparently Mr. Idaho Crash told his story to a lot of people there, but offered absolutely no proof. I reflected to myself, "Why does this man crave attention so desperately to keep telling a story like that?"

(to be continued)

A Skeptic does the MUFON Symposium - Part 3

2011-08-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Following John Alexander, I forgot to mention Joe McMoneagle's talk, titled "How Will Full Contact Impact our Science and Society." He calls himself "Remote Viewer 001 of the U.S. Army Star Gate Program." His talk started out as a very boring one explaining supposed "remote viewing," so I didn't stay to hear the rest of it. I still don't know how "full contact" would impact us, and I suspect that McMoneagle doesn't, either.

The final speaker of Saturday evening was Jim Sparks to tell people "Time Travel is Fact." He claims to have had well over 100 ET abduction experiences since 1988, some of which involved time travel. The aliens showed him "holograms" of various historical (and pre-historical) eras, in which he claimed to see himself. For me, a talk of this kind is among the most boring and annoying kind, because it consists entirely of Content-Free Confabulation. The man has been given seventy-five minutes to simply spew out whatever fact-free delusions may exist within his imagination, and so we hear seemingly endless prattle about how the aliens did this, then they did that, and so on. Other talks at least tell of the experiences of different people, and of events that may be distorted or even imaginary, but at least it comes from something other than the speaker's rich imagination. Lord deliver us from speeches whose only content is the free-form recitation of the speaker's own delusions.


New Age Minister and Herbalist Kat King shows off a photo of an ET that was peeking through the trees in her back yard

The talks ended at 10:00 PM, and people leaving the room were somewhat furtively handed a slip of paper from a "Committee to Reform MUFON" to meet in a suite upstairs. Actually, I'd gotten mine earlier. I was asked if I was a member of MUFON, I replied no. "That's OK, you can come anyway," I was told. I went up to hear what this was about. It consisted mostly of MUFON investigators, state and regional directors, etc. The complaints were fairly typical from what I'd heard in any other organization I'd ever belonged to. MUFON's international director, Clifford Clift, only took over the job in February of 2010 but he has already alienated many of the people MUFON depends on, specifically those in that room. His actions are seen as arbitrary, appointing and removing officials at whim (I knew that already), and it was (endlessly) debated whether MUFON members ought to vote for officials and by-laws, instead of only the Board. They didn't like the way cases were sometimes handled in the MUFON database. Some cases seemingly disappeared soon after being entered, causing some to worry that government agents were hacking into the database. But others hinted that certain MUFON officials had removed some cases for unspecified reasons, and didn't tell anyone.

ET Art on display

The first speaker on Sunday morning was UFO journalist and Linda Moulton Howe, on "ETs, Time Travelers and Self-Activating Machines." She was Miss Idaho way back in 1963, and still looks really good. She began with her standard talk about the cattle mutilations she investigated mostly in Colorado and Wyoming. The aliens supposedly use lasers to remove body parts from the dead animals, but for some reason they seemingly remove only soft tissues like the lips, udder, etc. No alien laser has yet been seen to slice through bone. As she was describing this pattern, it occurred to me that this probably tells us less about the aliens' scientific research than about their culinary preferences.

The "Classic" drone photo allegedly from Capitola, CA

Howe next got started on the famous UFO "drone photographs," spindly highly-implausible looking things that for a time in 2007 were turning up (always anonymously) in a number of places, but nearly all in northern and central California (see my Psychic Vibrations of January/February 2010 ). When I first saw a drone photo, I thought that somebody had dismantled an old fan, and stuck some radio parts on it. But when I saw on YouTube an admittedly faked "Drone UFO" looking just like the "real" ones, not just as a still frame, but rotating and flying, I realized that all the Drones are pure CGI. Somebody Howe was working with managed to supposedly decipher some symbols along a drone's wing, starting with a number 7. They then Googled that string, which brought up a network address on some internal NASA page from the Clementine lunar orbiter project. This is perfect for a nice conspiracy, because Clementine was a joint project between the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization ("Star Wars") and NASA. Better still, Clementine failed after completing only part of its mission - but maybe it didn't fail, and it was actually spying on alien activity? So Howe was suggesting that the Drones had something to do with Clementine, although she ultimately determined that the "7" wasn't really a "7", or any of the others supposed ASCII-represented characters. They were alien symbols. So they googled the character string that wasn't a character string, and found the correct Conspiracy, anyway. Hmmmm.

Supposed alien symbols from Project Caret

Then somebody sent Howe (again anonymously) some supposed documents from Project Caret, a supposed alien research project being carried out in top secret in Palo Alto, CA. It also is drone-related. It purports to tell of several different alien "sources" (races) behind all the UFO activity. I am really impressed with the effort that the hoaxer did to create all this stuff. Since all of the Drone-related photos and documents originate from northern and central California, I suspect that just one individual is behind the entire Drone/Caret hoax. Just one very talented, very patient, and very bored individual. If he is reading this (and I suspect he will), I'd love to hear from him. It was a big story when the Belgian hoax photographer recently confessed. This should be a bigger story still.

Howe closed her talk with an extremely implausible claim from a man who says he checked out the 1962 book "Ancient Greek Gods and Lore Revisited" from a library, and who was visited soon afterward by Government agents demanding that he surrender the book. Apparently the ancient Greek gods had something to do with aliens, and this all needs to be covered up. It's even more dubious because the only pages I can find mentioning that book also mention Howe and Drone UFOs, so it looks like government agents have been extremely successful in covering it up.

(to be continued)

(to be continued)

A Skeptic does the MUFON Symposium - Part 2

2011-08-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'd say that the most interesting talk was the first one on Saturday afternoon, retired Army Colonel Dr. John Alexander. He is among the most skeptical of UFO believers, and because of this he excited (or more properly, inflamed) the audience more than anyone else. His heresy was not that there are not real ET UFOs, but merely that there is no government coverup, or secret UFO-related program. Alexander stated that "disclosure has already happened," pointing to a few mostly-ambiguous statements by world leaders (such as Jimmy Carter, or Prince Philip) that suggest a belief in UFOs. Alexander claims that the government already knows that UFOs are real and interplanetary, but they simply don't care. They have so many more pressing problems - the economy, wars and terrorism, health care, etc. - that they simply have no time or inclination to deal with UFOs.

Mostly, Alexander's talk was a recital of what he does not believe in: Alien Reproduction Vehicles, MJ-12 papers, antigravity drives, underground UFO bases, and (worst of all) no Grand Coverup, no 'secrecy police' (Men in Black). Even the Holy Roswell Crash was doubted. To those who claim to have been harassed or silenced because of UFO sightings, Alexander said, "come to me, I will protect you and defend your case." According to Alexander, "the UFO community" has become its own worst enemy, and it is necessary to make the study of UFOs intellectually respectable.

In case they come across a crashed UFO, MUFON investigators are totally prepared with this "Evidence Collection Kit."

The next talk was by Dr. Paul LaViolette, on "Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion" and "Superluminal Space Travel" (faster-than-light). He has invented a Unified Field Theory called "Subquantum Kinetics." This is a better theory than Einstein's, because it explains more things. It embraces Anti-gravity and Free Energy. It's based in part on the theories of T. Townsend Brown, a strange 20th century physicist who claimed to be able to prove that electric fields can overcome gravity (and who later founded the influential UFO group NICAP). Brown, like Tesla, is a favorite icon in the woo-physics of today. Using Brown's electro-gravitics, one could travel to Mars for just $25 worth of energy. LaViolette acknowledges that electrogravitics violates Newton's Third Law, but does not seem too concerned about that. His most interesting theory is that Pulsars are artificial beacons, set up by ETs for use during their superluminal travel.

During dinner break, the options for food weren't terribly good, so I ended up in the bar munching appetizers and nachos and chatting up some New Age types. In situations like this, one must always remember (as Phil Plait would say) "DBAD". I tell folks "I'm skeptical, but I've come here to see if there might be anything to it." Mostly they're OK with that. Strictly speaking that is a true statement, but after 40 years as a skeptical UFO researcher (I started young), I have virtually no expectation of finding any "good" ET-UFO evidence, and especially not in a place where the likes of Richard Dolan or Linda Moulton Howe are taken seriously. Still, keep reminding myself that I could be wrong.

UFO Abductionist Barbara Lamb (left) with New Age astrologer Linda Berry of San Diego MUFON

The first evening talk was by the UFO Abduction researcher Barbara Lamb. She has been a regular speaker at the International UFO Congress for many years. With the recent setbacks for the traditional leaders of UFO Abductology (see my earlier Blog posting, Abductology Implodes) and with Budd Hopkins now reported to be seriously ill, Ms. Lamb is sort of the Last Woman Standing among "serious" UFO abductologists.

Lamb has hypnotically regressed almost 800 supposed UFO abductees. She has found that ETs enjoy having sex with earthlings, and not necessarily just in a saucer. Indeed, we heard much about some peoples' fantasy sex lives involving these latter-day incubi and succubi. She has been researching the matter of ET-human "hybrids," many of whom according to Lamb are already living amongst us. Indeed, she has interviewed some of them (many do not realize they are hybrids, and still think themselves human). Others embrace their ET heritage as a sort of badge of distinction.

Why are the aliens doing this? There is some suggestion that they are a dying race, possibly polluted by nuclear energy, and they need our genes to survive. The early-stage hybrids look very much like ETs, and cannot live on earth, although they may pop through the wall for a brief visit. Medium-stage hybrids possess a greater mixture of human DNA, and might more readily pass as human, but they still cannot live on earth for long periods of time. However, late-stage hybrids can live on earth and pass for being fully human, except for their odd, somewhat angular appearance. She showed many pictures of glamorous fashion models, mostly female, whose odd expressionless face and angular features suggest to Lamb not anorexia, but extraterrestrial ancestry.

(to be continued)

A Skeptic does the MUFON Symposium - Part 1

2011-08-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

MUFON's 2011 International Symposium was held in Irvine, California, not so far from where I live in San Diego County, after several years of being held in Colorado. I hadn't been to a UFO conference in about eight years, and had never been to a MUFON Symposium, so I decided to go up there to see it. Phil Klass used to attend the MUFON Symposium regularly, so I figured that somebody has got to do it.

I didn't hear the Keynote Speaker on Friday night, veteran astronaut Story Musgrave. Last year he had been quoted in some news stories making wild UFO claims, but he had been badly misquoted. Musgrave's message was, I was told, that "the universe is very, very big," and so extraterrestrials must exist somewhere. However, he does not believe that there is any evidence that they have arrived on earth. Or as Musgrave earlier told reporter Billy Cox, “Life is everywhere in this universe, there is no evidence that it has visited earth.”

One of the first things I saw upon entering the hall Saturday morning was a vendor table peddling a lot of amazingly dubious stuff. Glenn Steckling is the coordinator of the George Adamski Foundation. I expressed surprise that anybody was still interested in the fables of Adamski, who claimed to be good friends with the people from Venus, and took lots of cheesy, fake-looking UFO photos. Steckling said that there was a lot of interest in Adamski, and that he had known Adamski personally. Knowing that Adamski had been dead for 46 years, I told him, "you must have been just a kid when you knew him." "I was," he replied, "I have been doing this all my life. My mother and father also knew Adamski." It's good to keep it in the family, I suppose. At the same table, Maurice Osborn (below, wearing glasses) was providing lots of useful information, like "Alien Abduction resistance" and "Beware of the Grays and Human Slavery."


Glenn Steckling promoting the books and fables of George Adamski

The first speaker of Saturday was Richard Dolan, author and TV producer who has been keeping a pretty high profile lately. His talk was titled, "A Secret Space Program : From Rumor to reality After Disclosure." (Read my earlier Blog posting on "World Disclosure Day", the UFOlogical equivalent of the Second Coming, fervently rumored and eagerly anticipated but never occurring.) Dolan gave the audience what it wanted to hear: lots and lots of wild, unsubstantiated claims, mostly about UFOs in outer space. Like UFOs supposedly following the space shuttle missions STS-96, STS-106, and STS-111 - little blurry blips of light that might have been anything. There is lots of alien activity going on on the Moon, says Dolan, but NASA airbrushes its photos to keep them hidden. Those objects that astronomers call "shepherd moons" that keep Saturn's rings sharply-defined are actually UFOs, too. Frankly, I felt that Dolan was scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of the credibility of his claims, but later on Linda Moulton Howe and George Filer gave him some very serious competition in that regard.

The next speaker, Dr. Ted Peters, asked "Will ET Contact End World Religions?" He and a colleague did a survey of many different religious groups concerning a possible ET religious crisis. The short answer is, practically nobody said that an official announcement of the existence of ETI would cause them a serious crisis of faith. MUFONers consider this very good news, because one common argument against "Disclosure," possible social upheaval from the breakdown of religion, appears to be a non-problem. Interestingly, Peters found that religious non-believers, however, seemed convinced that ET disclosure would cause religious believers to lose their faith!

(To Be Continued)


This fellow was bored by all those long-winded speakers.

"Classic" UFO Photo from Belgian Wave - the Hoaxer Confesses

2011-07-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

For more than twenty years, UFO believers have been citing the 1989-1990 wave of UFO sightings in Belgium as an unexplained mystery. For a period of several months, people in Belgium were reporting sightings of a triangular-shaped craft. It was one of the major chapters in Leslie Kean's recent best-selling book, "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record" (see my review of it in the March/April 2011 Skeptical Inquirer). Even Michael Shermer's review of Kean's book suggests that the Belgian sightings represent a "residue of anomalies" (Scientific American, March 28, 2011).

One big problem with the Belgian wave has always been the lack of photos or movies showing the object, despite hundreds of claimed sightings. Indeed, Kean seeks to dismiss the lack of evidence by noting that "twenty years ago, cell phones and relatively inexpensive, consumer-level digital and video cameras were not yet in use" (true, but film cameras were plentiful and widespread). Indeed, only one photo claiming to show this supposed 'triangular craft' has ever been seen (above). It was said to have been taken in Petit Rechain, Belgium in April, 1990 by a twenty-year-old man known only as "Patrick," although it was not released until four months later. The Belgian UFO investigative group SOBEPS investigated the photo and found it to be authentic. So did many other "experts". Kean writes,

A team under the direction of Professor Marc Acheroy discovered that a triangular shape became visible when overexposing the slide. After that, the original color slide was further analyzed by Frangois Louange, specialist in satellite imagery with the French national space research center, CNES; Dr. Richard Haines, former senior scientist with NASA; and finally Professor Andre Marion, doctor in nuclear physics and professor at the University of Paris-Sud and also with CNES. (p. 30)

UFO skeptics have long supplied reasons why this photo is not credible. For one thing, it shows nothing in the background to allow its size or distance to be ascertained. It could as easily be a tiny model seen close-up as a giant hovering craft. In the 1990s the Belgian skeptic Wim van Utrecht showed that the photo could easily be reproduced using a small model. In a recent issue of Tim Printy's WebZine Sunlite, an article by Roger Pacquay notes several inconsistencies about the photo.

Now we have a confession. The Belgian news organization RTL is reporting that the hoaxer has given his "Mea culpa" and now "lifts the veil": The reporter interviewed "Patrick" in his home, where he showed them many slides and prints. "l’OVNI de Petit-Rechain n’est pas un vaisseau spatial venu d’une lointaine galaxie mais un panneau de frigolite peint et équipé de trois spots" ("The UFO of Petit-Rechain is not a spaceship from a distant galaxy but a panel of painted styrofoam with three spots affixed.")

http://www.rtl.be/info/belgique/faitsdivers/812149/le-mystere-du-celebre-ovni-des-annees-90-elucide-une-supercherie

"Patrick" explaining that once he showed his hoax photo to his colleagues, he could no longer hold back the photo's march all across the world.

"On arrive à tromper tout le monde avec une bête maquette en frigolite".
("One has managed to fool the whole world with a silly model made of styrofoam.")

[The formerly anonymous hoaxer is now known to be Patrick Marechal. See http://tinyurl.com/KeanBe ]

Happy World UFO Disclosure Day!

2011-07-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, UFO activists have declared today, July 8, as the first-ever "World Disclosure Day". This date was chosen because it's the anniversary of what they see as the beginning of the supposed Roswell crash cover-up. According to AOL Weird News, Stephen Bassett is "a registered lobbyist who runs the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee, an organization that since the late 1990s has been demanding Congress release information about the presence of aliens as soon as possible." He says "There was an arms race, a space race, and now we have a disclosure race. There are a dozen or so countries that might well effect disclosure tomorrow. It is hoped the Obama administration will become aware of this and take action." However, the Big Oil companies are pressuring the government to keep secret the free energy that alien technology offers us. So here we are, sixty-four years later, and the U.S. government still has not "disclosed" the presence of aliens all around us.

In honor of Disclosure Day, let me quote a few of the optimistic "disclosure" predictions of the past:

"Vatican UFO disclosure Soon", 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWt_JS-H3TY

" It is my analysis that the ending of the official government's UFO cover-up began August 7, 1996... we may expect further announcements related to UFOs and extraterrestrial life, after the November 5 election." UFOlogist Dr. Richard Boylan, http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/newsb/boylan.html

“Before the year is out, the Government perhaps the President—is expected to make what are described as 'unsettling disclosures' about UFOs” - U.S. News & World Report, April 18, 1977.

“Aliens... will begin transmitting their secrets to us no later than August, 1977” - Jeane Dixon, 1976.

“We predict that by 1975 the government will release definite proof that extraterrestrials are watching us.” - Ralph and Judy Blum, in Beyond Earth: Man's Contact with UFOs (1974).

“The time is getting near when the U.S. Air Force will have to end its longstanding tactic of concealment.” - Syndicated columnist Roscoe Drummond, 1974.

“FLYING SAUCERS—THE REAL STORY: U.S. BUILT FIRST ONE IN 1942. Jet-propelled disks can outfly other planes ... By choosing which [jet] nozzles to turn on or off and the angle of tilt, the pilot could make the saucer rise or descend vertically, hover, or fly straight ahead, or make sharp turns… a big advance in the science of flying... No official announcements are being made yet, but about the only big secret left is "who makes them." Evidence points to Navy experiments... ” - News “scoop” in U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 1950.

Happy World Disclosure Day! (But don't hold your breath waiting for it.)

"UFO Mothership & Fleet over London"

2011-06-30T12:07:00.000-07:00

Another implausible video showing UFOs has gone viral, spawning a flurry of news stories in the major media.For example, the Daily Mail in London asks "Are aliens getting less camera shy? UFOs filmed above BBC building in London." The Huffington Post reports, "London UFOs: Multiple People Capture Odd Occurrence Over British City" (although not at the same place and time). Here is the video that started it all, posted by a photographer known only as alymc01:

One has to admit that this looks pretty cheesy. The big "Mothership" looks a bit like a lens flare, but it does not act like a lens flare, its movement unrelated to that of the camera. At first I thought that the small UFOs were birds, but on closer examination they appear to be generated artifacts as well.

Actually, that is Alymc01's second UFO video. His earlier video doesn't look nearly as impressive, so it was largely ignored:

So far, "expert" commentary has not gone beyond comments like 'this looks like a computer-generated fake'. And strictly speaking, that's enough. After all, the burden of proof is not on the skeptic to show that a video is fake. The burden of proof is on someone who claims it shows unknown crafts, to rule out all prosaic explanations.. Using the terminology of Mythbusters, that is enough to call this video "busted."

But also in the spirit of Mythbusters, let's not stop there. Let's see if we can really blow this thing apart.

British UFOlogist Nick Pope isn't buying it. That's bad for this video, since Pope, currently on tour to promote the DVD release of the Hollywood space alien movie Battle: Los Angeles, buys a lot of dicey things. But apparently this video looks unimpressive even to him. Interestingly, Pope adds "The slightly suspicious thing, though, is it's a part of London where it just so happens that a large number of film companies and visual effects companies are based. And some of the people do look a little bit self-satisfied. So I suspect this is a CGI hoax, and that someone is showcasing their skills." Good comment!

Surprisingly, the most useful commentary on this video was found on the UFO and conspiracy-oriented website, Above Top Secret. The forum participants, mostly anonymous, dug deeply and turned up facts that the 'experts' seem to have overlooked.

"C-Buzz" commented "100% CGI. 1:18 - 1:22 the object doesn't actually go behind the clouds, it fades out. Not only that it looks like he stuffed up creating this animation because if you have a look at the bottom left there is actually a lighting effect which probably isn't supposed to be there & a RED orb moving across the building." It's hard to see, but it's there. There's also a brief "green flash" on the building, as well as a suspicious-looking red color on the "mothership." I'm not enough of an expert on digital processing to know what this means, but it reeks of digital tampering. Sharp eyes, C-Buzz!

"LiveEquation" posts "The video is a scam right and i have evidence. if you start watching the video at 1:21 you will see two artificial bubble glares and then delay of the UFO glare. The UFO vanishes into the clouds first. Then you see 2 fake bubble glares and the ufo glare moving in the same direction after the ufo has already vanished. delay of about 1 second. Its actually weird that the UFO cast a glare. That's a giveway. The person who made the video doesn't know jack about optics."

"GiftOfProphecy" adds "This video is clearly fake. You can prove it by watching the video starting at 1:00 and after, and stabilizing the video. You can see they did a horrible job motion tracking the camera movement... probably because they have a rolling shutter camera. If you watch the UFO you can see it is not shaking with the camera perfectly, it is shaking independently. However the "UFO" is shaking the same rate and nearly the same magnitude, it's direction and position are just not synchronized. That to me indicates several bad motion track points. In order to insert a fake UFO into the video they had to track certain pixels as they move and shake around, then apply that tracking to the UFO so it moves exactly the same as the camera (match moving). Sometimes the pixels will move say 10 pixels in one direction, yet the computer detected the pixels move 12 pixels, and that creates a bad tracking point. Normally you can fix bad tracking points by hand, but when there is about 30 tracking points per second, it becomes very time consuming. If you apply the motion tracks to the UFO when it has bad track points, it will wobble and shake around similar to what you see in the video."

"charlyv" noted "Fake, stop action in frames shows no motion blur, Impossible for such recorded speeds in any consumer digital camera, regardless of make or resolution."

Then "davespanners" opens up a whole new angle of investigation:

This is filmed outside coral bookmakers in clipstone / great portland street in London. If you google search that building You will eventually find this page, which is a tv production company that is in the very same building.From their web site

The Mill creates pioneering visual effects for the advertising, music, television and film industries. We craft commercials, music videos and generate compelling film and TV. We build installations, projections, applications and create multi-media content and experiences.

"EnigmaAgent" replies with a photo of Managing Director Mike Smallwood, taken from that company's website, who appears to be the same guy seen smiling in the video, apparently enjoying this incident 'way too much.

"Heliocentric" dug further, and found a link from the The Mill's website to a particular commercial for Sony. And that same Sony commercial is a "favorite" on the YouTube page of Alymc01, who photographed the "UFOs." The noose tightens!

Chillingly, "GiftOfProphecy" observes that video hoaxers are now using claims of "copyright infringement" to make YouTube remove videos showing that the original video was a hoax: " the hoaxer "50nFit" is claiming copyright infringement on the video that proves his Jerusalem video is a hoax... Now the videos that prove his London UFOs are a hoax were removed to avoid complete suspension [of his YouTube account]. The "HOAXKiller1" channel may be suspended anyway because YouTube doesn't understand Fair Use laws, and allows the deceptive scumbag hoaxers to retaliate and claim copyright on videos that are for research and analysis." In other words, if you place a video on YouTube showing how a UFO video was faked, the hoaxer will contact YouTube to force you to remove your analysis, claiming "copyright infringement."

Of course, many of the comments in this very long thread are credulous and foolish, and I don't want to imply that all of the participants are credible researchers. But I am definitely impressed with a few of them!

That "Ghostly Mirage City" in China

2011-06-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

Once again, the mass media is filled with breathless nonsense about a "Ghostly mirage City" allegedly seen from Huanshan City in the eastern part of China over the Xin'an River. The phenomenon went viral starting with this dreadful piece in the London Daily Mail, which proclaims, "Ghostly apparition of entire city appears over Chinese river... but is it just a mirage?" In fact, it's neither, as we will see. This story was accompanied by an equally dreadful video:

Now these are obviously actual buildings that are being seen. The details are quite sharp. Mirages are very different. Mirages are not something imaginary or dream-like. They are a perfectly real phenomenon of meteorological optics: the behavior of light in the atmosphere, where temperatures can often vary dramatically, resulting in different indices of refraction, and hence non-straight light paths. Think "fun house mirror." Mirage images are never as detailed as these Chinese images, because the different atmospheric layers are not stable enough to produce details like that, and also mirage images always bring into view something many miles distant, not close-up like this.

There are two different kinds of mirages, superior and inferior. The inferior mirage is caused by cooler air overlaying much warmer, creating images that appear lower than they actually are. It is by far the most common. Usually it results in a strip of the sky being bent downward below the horizon. It's often seen on highways on hot days, looking like distant water. The superior mirage is more interesting, and rarer, as objects appear higher than they actually are, resulting in things becoming visible that are normally beyond the curvature of the earth. That Chinese "Ghost City" is neither. Typically with a superior mirage you will see a double horizon: a false horizon, often slanted, is on top, with the actual horizon below it. The region between them represents a mirage image of distant water. The Weather Doctor has a pretty good explanation of mirages. When I was a student at Northwestern University I had a dorm room facing Lake Michigan. The double horizon and the superior mirage was actually a fairly common sight in the springtime, when warmer air would blow in from the south over the still quite frigid Great Lake. At night, images of lights of cities in Indiana and Michigan would become visible, normally below the horizon. Somewhere I have some pretty good photos I took of these mirages. If I can only find where I put them, I'll post them!

Any reporter worthy of the name would have followed through and determined exactly what was being seen: which buildings those were in the video, and their location. Certainly at least some people who live in that area would be able to identify those buildings, and show on a map exactly where each building is. If you are in Huanshan City, and you speak Chinese or have an interpreter, how difficult would it be to interview people and find out exactly which buildings are being seen in the video, where those buildings are located, and solve the "mystery?" Well, the Australian photographer and film producer Auki Henry did exactly that. He says

" the reality was bad Chinese translation combined with hyper-sensationalist reporting. All the buildings in the footage are real buildings, not visions, mirages or illusions, they actually physically stand exactly where they were filmed. The only thing out of the ordinary here is they are surrounded by floodwater and mist."

Mr. Henry has nailed down every significant detail. He gives us a map showing the location of each of the "ghost" buildings. And so far as I can tell he did it without even going to China, or interviewing anyone there! The Xin'an River was at flood stage, and the waters generated fog that obscured the bottom parts of the building, making the tops of the buildings appear to float in air. Wooooo - big mystery!

Why is it that no reporter bothered to do his or her job and get to the bottom of this story? News reporters don't want to get facts, they want to get ratings. And why let mere facts get in the way of a great story?

More "Night Vision" UFOs : A Squadron of UFOs flying over Oakland?

2011-06-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

"Is this a squadron of UFOs flying over California?", asks the London Daily Mail, adhering strictly to the First Law of UFOlogy: any unidentified object spotted must be presumed to be an alien spacecraft until conclusively proven otherwise. And there were other stories in the press. What they had in common was: somebody photographs something in the sky that he doesn't understand, and thousands of people jump to conclusions about alien craft.

In brief, an anonymous photographer known only as "KevinMC360" took two videos of unidentified (to him) objects, using an image intensifier ("Night Vision") device, one that (unlike the human eye) is sensitive to infra-red light. He posts them to YouTube with the suggestion that these are objects visible only in the infrared, and unknown to science. Then thousands of viewers, including "serious" journalists who should know better, think they are seeing something extraordinary, but all it means is they don't understand how these "night vision" devices work. In some cases, the anonymity of the photographer creates the strong suspicion of a hoax, but I don't think that is the case here. The video looks absolutely unmodified. This is what you see when you look into Night Vision devices. I wrote a recent "Psychic Vibrations" column about the uses (and misuses) of Night Vision devices by UFOlogists (Skeptical Inquirer, September/October, 2010), and here we see another instance of that.

In this video, the interesting objects are the three that fly in a triangular formation. These look very much like the triad of NOSS satellites operated by the U.S. Navy for reconnaissance (see http://www.satobs.org/noss.html ). However, most information about these satellites and their mission is classified for security reasons. According to that website, there are still two such configurations of three satellites in orbit, NOSS 1-7 and NOSS 2-1. I have seen these myself, using binoculars, and this looks very much like what I saw. Notice that the three objects keep the same position with respect to each other, except that the configuration flattens as the objects move further away. This is exactly what you would expect to see as the configuration recedes to the horizon. The single object that brightens is not too interesting, it is probably just a satellite moving into a position where its sun angle is more favorable toward the observer.

In the second video, the objects do not behave the same. There are four of them, and they do not stay in strict formation. Probably they are birds. The problem is, however, that in low-resolution devices such as this, practically any object is simply a white dot. The argument that these UFOs must be giving off infra-red, because his wife could not see them with her naked eye, doesn't wash. The night vision device amplifies available light, infra-red or otherwise, making faint objects become visible. Had she been using binoculars, she probably would have seen them better than he did. The video also shows the lights of a jet aircraft. Is the jet using infra-red lights? Of course not.

Night-Vision UFO watching is becoming a popular activity. The leader of this pack is Ed Grimsley, who claims to have videos of "Objects in Earth's space shooting it out," which he is happy to sell you. He even has a Meetup Group in San Diego, where for a mere $20 you will be taken out to dark skies to see these amazing night vision UFOs yourself. As I noted in my column, I was present when this group brought its night vision equipment to a star party of the San Diego Astronomy Association. What none of these intrepid explorers seemed to realize was that the "mysterious" objects they thought were visible only in their green goggles were also visible to anyone who has a pair of binoculars - and the binoculars show the objects in better detail.

Commie Nazi Saucer Crashed in Roswell

2011-05-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

Just when you think that the credibility of the mass media can't get any lower (see Major Media Reports 60-year-old Eighth-hand Rumor as Proof of a Crashed UFO. ), they fall for this one. According to a new book by Annie Jacobsen, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," what crashed at Roswell was not an alien saucer, but instead a collaboration between Stalin and ex-Nazi Mengele to cause panic in the U.S.

This absurd claim was presented in all seriousness by many of the major media, including the Huffington Post. The Albuquerque Journal (May 22) headlined, "Stalin, Nazi Implicated in Roswell Incident." The story was also reported in the Boston Globe, AP News, etc. Practically the only news outlet to show any proper skepticism was Bloomberg's review of the book, "Roswell Martians Might Have Been Nazi Kids From Mengele’s Lab."

No reporter worth his salt should ever have given credence to this preposterous claim, even for a minute. Any one who did belongs in some other profession. There are so many things wrong with this claim, one hardly knows where to start. But I'll give it a try:

First, the first publicized sighting of a disc-shaped craft was that of Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947. The Roswell incident occurred TEN DAYS LATER. Did Stalin and Mengele put this hoax together in just ten days? That's laughable. (Interestingly, Arnold described the objects he saw as boomerang-shaped, but the press reported "flying saucers," so that's what people said they saw. See Martin Kottmeyer's "The Saucer Error." )

Second, how did this thing fly? Its propulsion system would be immediately recognized by U.S. experts as conventional and terrestrial. Its electronics would also be immediately recognized as Soviet in origin, years behind the best U.S. made systems. The idea that Stalin could fool U.S. experts into thinking that they were examining an extraterrestrial craft is simply absurd. Stalin was indeed devious and evil, but he was not stupid.

Third, the children who had allegedly been deformed by the cruel Dr. Mengele to look like extraterrestrials reportedly did not all die in the crash. Surely their Soviet handlers knew that if any of them survived, they would immediately be screaming for help in Russian or German, and would reveal the deception at once.

Fourth, this is an attempt to explain something that does not need explaining. Jacobsen's wild claim attempts to explain the origin of a disc-shaped craft that allegedly crashed at Roswell, containing alien-looking beings. But there is no credible evidence whatsoever that this is what was actually found there. The man who actually found the Roswell debris, Mac Brazel, described it as looking like "large number of pieces of paper covered with a foil-like substance and pieced together with small sticks much like a kite." In other words, like the debris of a balloon's radar reflector, probably from Project Mogul (see my book UFO Sightings, chapter 4). There is no credible evidence that what was recovered at Roswell was ever anything bigger than tinfoil and sticks. It is not wise to invoke extraordinary explanations for ordinary phenomena. This is the Fallacy of Misplaced Rationalism, when the "rational" explanation is even more implausible that what it is supposed to explain (see my "Psychic Vibrations" column in the Skeptical Inquirer, July/August, 2008. Reprinted in Science Under Siege, Kendrick Frazier, ed.).

Fifth, as anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago surely realizes, Stalin never gave anyone who might have some information embarrassing to the Soviet state a chance to tell it. For example, millions of returning Soviet prisoners-of-war were sent to the Gulag for the "crime" of having first-hand knowledge of the outside world. We know that Mengele was hiding out in Bavaria under an assumed name from 1945 to 1949, and escaped to Argentina soon afterward - all while Stalin was still living. Thus the known facts of Mengele's life contradict this preposterous tale - at no time was he ever living in the USSR, or even in the USSR-occupied sector of Germany. If Stalin ever held Mengele, he would have placed him in the Gulag, probably in the "First Circle" (see Solzhenitsyn), where scientific and technical prisoners were held, but compelled to work for the Soviet state. Stalin never would have let him escape, and Stalin lived until 1953, by which time Mengele had been in Argentina for several years.

But when did the major media ever let common sense get in the way of a sensational story?

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: God in a Flying Saucer, March 31, 1998

2011-05-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

From my "Psychic Vibrations" column in the Skeptical Inquirer, September/October, 1998:

As you might have heard, approximately 150 members of a Taiwanese UFO cult called Chen Tao (“Perfect Way”) came to the U.S. in 1996 expecting to meet God, who they said would arrive in a flying saucer. They first settled in San Dimas, California, a state where cults seem almost normal. Then suddenly they moved to Garland, Texas, the sort of town where a large crowd of foreign-speaking cult weirdos would not exactly pass unnoticed. A group of homeowners in Garland wrote the mayor and City Council complaining that this bizarre group was ruining their neighborhood. The mayor replied that these people were simply exercising their rights to free speech, and there wasn’t anything he could do. However, what he should have replied was, “Don’t worry, these people won’t bother you for long. They say they’re going to be carried away on flying saucers on the morning of March 31.” For according to the group’s leader Hon-Ming Chen, God was going to arrive at his house on that date at 10:00 AM Central Time with a whole fleet of flying saucers, swooping all of them up from the earth to rescue them from the coming Great Tribulation. Authorities, suspecting that the saucer fleet might not materialize, feared another mass-suicide like the Heavens Gate UFO cult last year, especially since many members carried neatly-packed backpacks with identical white clothing and sneakers for their anticipated heavenly rendezvous. The Taiwanese media had been reporting that Chen was encouraging newcomers to kill themselves so their bodies could be picked up by flying saucers. However, the church members denied having any thoughts of suicide.

cartoon by Rod Pudim

Large numbers of reporters, in addition to Chen’s followers, gathered at the appointed place and time but, alas, nothing happened. Chen had an explanation: God had already arrived, invisibly, and entered their souls. As soon as things quieted down a bit, Chen announced that God would not be gathering people up from Texas after all, but instead from the area of the Great Lakes. He and a small group of the faithful set off for Buffalo, New York. Many of the others returned to Taiwan. While in New York, Chen had a vision of the numbers seventeen and eighteen, which he interpreted as a divine instruction to move his followers to the town of Olcott, where those two numbered road routes intersect. Should anyone care about Chen’s remaining prognostications, he sees Armageddon occurring in August of 1999. Of course, with the year 2000 fast approaching, if the Apocalypse does begin, the doomsayers will be lined up for blocks trying to get credit for the prediction. (For more information on the Chen Tao cult, see http://www.anthroufo.info/un-chen.html).

I should note that I'm currently working on a book of my Psychic Vibrations columns. Rob Pudim has kindly agreed to let me use his cartoons from the Skeptical Inquirer - and there are a lot of them! I expect to have the book electronically published, and it should be available on Amazon.com and elsewhere by the end of the year, if not sooner. I'll keep you posted.

Also, I am this week's guest on CFI's Point of Inquiry Podcast, hosted by Karen Stolznow (http://www.pointofinquiry.org/robert_sheaffer_its_a_conspiracy/ ). Have a listen!

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: Harold Camping - Rapture in September, 1994

2011-05-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

From my column "Psychic Vibrations" in The Skeptical Inquirer, March/April, 1995:

1994 was a great year for the world ending. Indeed, the world ended more times in 1994 than in any other year in recent memory. Harold Camping, president and general manager of a 39-station network of religious radio broadcasters, proclaimed that before the end of September, 1994, the dead would be arising from their graves for their final judgment. Camping explained to the San Jose Mercury News (Sept. 4, 1994) that he had arrived at his prediction by a laborious and careful process of counting off significant dates in the Bible. Furthermore, his math has been checked by a nuclear physicist and “a number of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore lab,” as if errors in arithmetic were the only way such a prediction might go awry. Mainstream religious scholars, of course, suggested Camping was seriously mistaken. Fortunately, Camping exhorted his listeners, “Don't do anything bizarre. Just live the way you should have been living all the time.” His stations are still on the air, and seem to have found something else to talk about.

A current Harold Camping billboard in Stockton, CA. Photo by Michael Fitzgerald

June 9, 1994 was another date on which the world ended. Various fundamentalist prognosticators somehow settled upon that date, and started warning ominously that “June ninth is coming,” the day on which God would supposedly “rip sin out of the world.” Warnings were issued for a major destructive earthquake somewhere along the Pacific “ring of fire,” supposedly only the first event in an eschatological progression. So widespread was the expectation that it was even mentioned on the 700 Club [evangelist Pat Robertson’s popular TV program], although with the clear disclaimer that it would not be the start of the Rapture. When a large underground earthquake, which caused little or no damage or casualties, struck on this date, it was hailed as fulfillment of the prophecy. The last we checked, the world still had plenty of sin.

But don't give up on the eschaton merely because the world has survived into 1995. Dr. Leland Jensen of Missoula, Montana says that he is the Second Coming, and that during 1995 the earth will suffer great meteor impacts, earthquakes, and major planetary changes. Those lucky enough to survive all this will enjoy Heaven on Earth. And according to a story in the Washington Post (March 12, 1994), followers of the Institute of Divine Metaphysical Research expect the world to end in an instant, by 1996. So the end may come while you are reading this page. Fortunately, even if these people are right, they won't be in a position to gloat about it!

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: Rapture on October 28, 1992

2011-04-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

Billboard near San Diego, CA, May 2, 2011

In honor of the next scheduled Rapture, coming on May 21 From the Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1993. News and Comment item by Erik Vaughn, "Where's the Rapture?":

"In case you missed it, Wednesday, October 28, 1992 was the Rapture, the day faithful Christians dead or alive ascend to heaven. The Rapture kicks off the last days: the appearance of the Antichrist, Armageddon, and the Second Coming.

"Lee Jang Rim, leader of the Dami Mission Church in Seoul, South Korea, spread the prophecy. Followers quit their jobs and sold or destroyed their property in anticipation, even as Rim was arrested for allegedly bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from church members. The hysteria created a near crisis in South Korea.

"Members of Korean churches in South Korea, Hawaii, Los Angeles, and New York held marathon prayer vigils....

Another Doomsday Coming this Year in September

2011-04-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

As many of my readers already know, the Rapture and all that end-of-the-world stuff is supposed to start on May 21, only five weeks from now. And of course, there is the biggie on Dec. 21, 2012, when a whole lot of manure is supposed to hit the Great Celestial Fan (different accounts vary, but all agree that something Really Significant is supposed to happen then). However, I just learned that the world is ending (or at least getting all messed up) at least one more time this year, probably in September, when Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1) comes to Perihelion (its closest approach to the sun).

animation of Comet Elenin's motion from Gustavo Muler, Observatorio Nazaret (Lanzarote, Canary Island):::

This information (more accurately, misinformation) comes to us from one Laura Knight Jadczyk, who channels messages from the Cassiopeans . Superficially this looks very similar to Nancy Lieder, who channels doomsday messages about Planet X from the Zetas . However, Ms. Jadczyk emphasises that Comet Elenin is not Planet X, and it is not going to collide with earth. The Cassiopeans explain that they are not strictly speaking extraterrestrials, but rather in some way our "future selves."

This is a faint comet, now visible only with difficulty in large amateur telescopes but expected to become visible in binoculars this fall. Why is it of so much interest? For some conspiracy-oriented websites, it's primarily that the media has been strangely silent about the comet. For Ms. Jadczyk, it's because the Cassiopeans told her that the outburst of 596 Scheila, an object believed to be an asteroid that began outgassing and revealed itself to be a comet, was related to Comet Elenin in some unspecified way. She also ties this in with James McCanney's Plasma Theory of comets, and similar "electric universe" theories about comets being "electric."

Just as you don't find "Creation Science" any more, just "Intelligent Design," you also don't find "Velikovskian" theories - it's now the "electric universe." As I understand it, all comets are filled with electricity according to these latter-day Velikovskiians, and so when Comet Elenin reaches the inner solar system, supposedly it's going to zap all of the planets with big lightning bolts. Ms. Jadczyk thinks that the greatest danger to earth will be on Sept. 27 and Nov. 23 of this year, although the comet will never get closer than about 21 million miles from the earth. This is indeed closer than the Earth ever comes to Venus or Mars, but still about 100 times the distance to the moon.

From a standpoint of science, of course this "electric universe" stuff is all nonsense. There are no regions of "positive charge" and "negative charge" in our solar system, and the sun does not produce its energy from electricity. (According to these guys, the sun and other stars are not nuclear furnaces, but rather electric heaters, heated up by supposed massive electric currents circulating across the Milky Way, energy apparently from nowhere.) In any case, Comet Elenin will have about as much effect on earth as did Halley's Comet, which is none at all. And the Comet Elenin Doomsday will be as destructive as was Nancy Lieder's Doomsday from the imaginary Planet X in May, 2003, or that of the asteroid Toutatis in 2006.

Major Media Reports 60-year-old Eighth-hand Rumor as Proof of a Crashed UFO.

2011-04-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

I was tempted to make a posting a few days back when the major media made such a big thing out of the 1950 memo written by FBI Agent Guy Hottel, repeating a yarn he'd been told. For example, see this piece from The Telegraph, The International Business Times, etc. But by the time I was ready to get started, several of my colleagues were already producing some excellent pieces so there was really nothing much I could add.

Ben Radford pointed out in his Livescience blog that the FBI Memo was far from new, and that it had nothing to do with Roswell. Dave Thomas of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason sent around email to many active UFO skeptics and researchers, sharing what he had found so far, and requesting a copy of a report done by Bill Moore on the memo's origin. Dave has produced a really fine analysis telling the complete story of the Hottel memo's origin, and of others' attempts to exploit it. In my files I found this 1983 newspaper article showing how MUFON's Director, Walt Andrus, was shamelessly trying to exploit the Hottel Memo:

I also created a new web page about the Frank Scully / Silas Newton UFO Crash hoax at http://www.debunker.com/Scully.html . On it, you will find a three-part MP3 recording of J.P. Cahn giving a talk to the Bay Area Skeptics in 1984. So far as I know, this is the only recoding of Cahn discussing his research into the Scully Crash hoax. You might enjoy hearing Cahn tell the story in his own words. He was a very entertaining speaker.

By the way, in his talk Cahn relates how he was contacted by UFOlogist William L. Moore, who was one of the first promoters of the Roswell Crashed Saucer story. Moore phoned his house and introduced himself on the telephone. Moore said "I'm an investigative reporter, and I've been looking for you for three years." Cahn questioned Moore's investigative skills, saying "you'd think he'd pick up a phone book," because Cahn had always been listed in the San Francisco White Pages.

The lesson of this whole fiasco is: the next time you hear the major news media reporting some major development supposedly proving the reality of extraterrestrial UFOs, remember how they sensationalized the sixty-year-old, eighth-hand information in the FBI memo. And remember that they're in the business of grabbing readers and customers first, and only secondarily of reporting the news in factual and actual manner.

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: The Zetas and "Planet X", 2003

2011-03-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

With the earth now scheduled to end twice in the near future, once on May 21 of this year, and again on December 21 of 2012, let us look at at some of the previous times that the world ended. We will turn to the Zetas and the great Pole Shift that was going to be caused by a supposed "Planet X" in May of 2003.

The "Zetas" are a supposed alien race whose messages are allegedly channeled by one Nancy Lieder of Wisconsin, seen here. (Usually she just goes by her first name). She began posting on the internet her messages from the Zetas in 1995, and soon acquired a considerable following among New Age, UFO, and Conspiracy believers. When the giant comet Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995, Nancy proclaimed that it didn't exist - it was a disinformation campaign to distract people from the coming doom of Planet X.

According to Nancy's website, "The inbound Planet X was sighted at the coordinates given by the Zetas in early 2001, imaged in infrared twice in January, 2002, tracked by CCD images in late 2002 to early 2003, and thereafter photographed by amateur astronomers around the world. That a middle aged woman with a high school degree, who does not even know which end of a telescope to look into, could pinpoint the RA and Dec of the brown dwarf, Planet X, is astonishing, and speaks to the validity of ZetaTalk." This is, of course, pure nonsense. A few photographs were produced purporting to show Planet X, but there was so little information provided that it was impossible to say what they really were. Nancy boasted of a 68 percent success rate for seeing Planet X during April of 2003, but only for “those educated, who had done their homework and followed the imaging session, noted our words as to what to look for, and oriented themselves in the sky.” Apparently other people didn't see anything. She further informs us that MJ12, the supposedly ultra-secret crashed UFO panel, has “committed suicide to prevent itself from being misused.” Ten years after its alleged "discovery," no reputable astronomer, amateur or professional, has ever confirmed any sighting of the supposed "Planet X."

According to the Zetas, Planet X was approaching earth in early 2003, to cause a “pole shift” and massive destruction on or about May 15. “The 12th Planet will be visible to the common man some 7 weeks prior to the shift, without the use of telescopes,” says Nancy, meaning that it should have become visible around the end of March. “Planet X will have a distinct red appearance, with a roiling tail full of moons, that are more concerned with the dance between them than any affect the solar wind might have upon them. Thus, they swirl, and look like a dragon approaching, not a straight line tail at all. Nevertheless, we anticipate NASA will explain the Planet X complex as any number of things, or rather their lackeys, who will natter the word on every Internet or media source that allows their nattering - asteroid bunch, passing comet, unusual comet, Mars closest pass in many eons, or whatever.” In other words, by May of 2003 “Planet X” would be huge and impossible to miss, but the government will attempt to convince you that you are actually seeing something else. Nancy noted on her website that in December of 2002, the popular late-night radio host Art Bell interviewed Sylvia Browne, “the well-known psychic and author. And she disclosed she is no longer able to see the future beyond the summer of 2003.” Bell also interviewed Ed Dames, who claims to have been a “remote viewer” employed by the CIA. Dames said that “he and his remote viewing team are no longer able to remote view the future beyond next summer.“ From this, Nancy deduces that there will be no future beyond the summer of 2003. The close approach of the mythical Planet X was supposed to cause a Pole Shift on the Earth, with massive accompanying destruction.Of course, it never happened.

During June of 2003, Nancy posted numerous accounts of supposedly bizarre phenomena such as unexplained booms, sunspots, a ring around the Moon, and the Sun “rising and setting in the wrong place.” These were labeled as “signs of the times,” and were attributed to the proximity of the dangerous Planet X. Nancy insisted that Earth’s rotational stopping and flipping was indeed still going to occur, but she refused to specify the hour or date. Her followers were carefully noting the times of sunrise and sunset, and the position of the Sun going down, to see if Earth’s expected careening might have already begun. But when these disasters failed to occur, most of her followers turned their attention elsewhere, to different weirdness.

Global Competitiveness Through UFOlogy

2011-03-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

The Global Competitiveness Forum is a meeting of the world's top Movers and Shakers, held each year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Industry leaders and sheiks rub shoulders with political leaders and intellectual leaders (or at least that's how it's supposed to work - http://www.gcf.org.sa/ ). This year Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were there, as well as Andy Bird, the Chairman of Walt Disney International. And this year, these movers and shakers were treated to a panel (mostly) on UFOlogy, featuring Stanton Friedman, Jacques Vallee, Michio Kaku, and Nick Pope (http://www.gcf.org.sa/en/Program/Program/Welcoming--Networking--0800---900112112/ ) .

When I first saw this in an email sent around by the far-out Bohemian physicist Jack Sarfatti, I scratched my head and muttered "WTF?!!!". Here these (presumably) very hard-headed, results-oriented global leaders have paid a reported $4,000 each, not counting expenses, to attend this seminar in the Middle East, and what they get for their money are tired old claims of extraterrestrial contact that have been kicking around for decades. Even more astonishing, these talks are only about ten minutes each. I forwarded this to several of my skeptical buddies, and they also scratched their heads and muttered "WTF?!!!"

The panel was held on Sunday, January 23 (a workday in Saudi Arabia). The videos are now up on YouTube, saving both you and I $4,000 each, plus airfares and hotel, to learn about how Contact from Outer Space will boost our Global Competitiveness.

Zaghloul El Naggar is a Professor of Earth Sciences of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (the guy apparently has a real PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Wales). His talk was the most interesting from my perspective, as it was not something we ever hear in the West. He explained that one needs "divine guidance" if one wants to maximize competitiveness, and that the best source for Divine Guidance is of course the Glorious Koran, whose "divine purity" has never been sullied or compromised.

He discussed two Koranic verses that appear to describe the Big Bang: "And the Firmament we have built with might, and verily we are (currently) expanding it." No one asked him if the use of the term "firmament" implied that the stars were attached to a solid sphere, as was believed in Medieval Cosmology. (Indeed, the audience was astonishingly quiet throughout the panel, even when funnyman Stanton Friedman cracked jokes. Maybe nobody actually attended this session, since we can only see the speakers). He then described the Koranic process of "creation, destruction, and re-creation" of the universe, and tied it in to a "Big Crunch" that would occur when the expansion phase of the universe peters out, to be followed by another Bang. Too bad that Dr. El Naggar is a decade or two behind in his knowledge of Cosmology. According to all of the latest evidence, the expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down, an acceleration hypothesized to be caused by "dark energy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy ). So if he's going to claim that science supports the Koran, he at least ought to know what science currently says. But that is not his claim: rather, he says, "We are supporting science with the Koran, not vice-versa." The Koran, he explains, contains over 12,000 verses that have been proven to be absolutely scientifically precise. For example, the Koran tells how Allah formed the heavens and the earth out of "smoke." And "this smoke has just been photographed by satellites that have passed the zone of pollution and the zone of clouds surrounding the earth." It's worth paying $4,000 to get information like that.

Good old Stanton Friedman calls himself "The Flying Saucer Physicist", because he worked in physics about fifty years ago, and hasn't stopped talking about it since. Friedman's lecture covered largely the same subjects he has been covering since the 1970s, but held to under ten minutes, long-winded Stanton was clearly vexed. He proposed the use of nuclear fusion for rocket propulsion, without explaining the absurd fuel requirements to get anywhere even near the speed of light (see for example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17737431 ). He suggests that the most likely place our visitors are coming from is the star system Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli (not mentioned by name, but clearly described, and a regular part of Friedman's UFO lectures). This is interesting, because recent satellite data has completely invalidated the so-called "UFO Star Map" drawn up by Marjorie Fish from the map the late Betty Hill drew after her supposed UFO abduction (see my Psychic Vibrations column in Skeptical Inquirer, Sept/Oct 2009, for the full story). Since Friedman endlessly claims to be a scientist, he is obligated to abandon an earlier hypothesis when newer data contradicts it. This has absolutely happened, but not a peep from Friedman about abandoning the tired old Fish Map.

Nick Pope is a British author and journalist who used to handle UFO reports for the Ministry of Defense. He talked about the various ways that researchers are currently searching for extraterrestrial life: through SETI, through the search for exoplanets, and through UFO reports. He was the only one whose talk was actually on-subject, that is, how ET Contact can make you "competitive." He suggested that the discoverer of ET life would presumably own the naming rights, which could be extremely valuable if sold. He also suggested that the information contained in an ET signal might have great commercial value.

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist at the City University of New York and science TV personality, who wrote the appropriately-titled Physics of the Impossible, "A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel." Kaku urged his listeners to "open their mind" to the prospect that some day we will make contact with ETI. In fact, he predicted that by mid-century we "might" make such contact, a bold prediction that is in no danger of being falsified.

Kaku described three types of advanced civilizations: a Type I civilization controls the resources of an entire planet, which includes controlling earthquakes, and the weather. A Type II controls the resources of a solar system, which includes moving planets around at will. Type III controls the resources of an entire galaxy. (These classifications were actually created by the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, who was not credited). Kaku did not explain how that could be possible, given that it takes light approximately 100,000 years to cross an average-sized galaxy, meaning that orders from Galactic HQ will be already tens of thousands of years old before they even arrive at the frontiers. But Kaku has never taken speed-of-light limitations very seriously. He even speculated that there might be a Type IV civilization, harnessing the energy of the entire universe! He predicted that our own civilization would become a Type I civilization in about 100 years, meaning that we would become like gods in controlling our planet. I pity whoever has to fill out the Environmental Impact Report for that transition.

Longtime UFO investigator and theorist Jacques Vallee repeated his usual claim that UFO reports are a 'challenge to science,' and are "potentially leading to technology breakthroughs." The problem is, we have no actual data about UFOs, just anecdotes, and the reason that the Royal Society in London adopted the motto "nullius in verba" ("on the word of no man," i.e. words alone count for nothing), is that there were plenty of guys like Vallee back in the 17th century presenting similar "evidence" without tangible proof. Of course, in those days claims were usually about alchemy, religious miracles, or witchcraft. In fact, a serious effort was set forth in the 1660s to prove the reality of witchcraft on purely empirical, not religious, grounds, by appealing to credible eyewitness testimony, exactly as UFOlogists do today. See Chapter 7 of my book UFO Sightings. The Royal Society's 17th Century decision to ignore anecdotes is at the very cornerstone of the modern scientific method. It is what separates "science" from "pseudo".

Vallee served up not the usual long-debunked UFO cases, but some golden oldies that nobody is talking about any more, from the files of France's UFO investigations, supposedly so well-witnessed as to leave little or no room for doubt. One was an aircraft sighting near Dijon, France on March 7, 1977 around 20.30. (Thanks to Jim Oberg for helping with this one). Actually, there were several UFO sightings in France and the U.K. around that time, suggesting that it was likely a meteor high overhead. Unfortunately, so little information has been published about this case that it is impossible to say anything about it with much confidence.

Another sighting was from Orleans in 1956. Perhaps Vallee was relying on the very obscurity of these cases to protect them from refutation.

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988"

2011-02-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

In honor of the approaching Mayan Calendar Doomsday in 2012, I am presenting an occasional series of "Doomsdays of Yesteryear," to show how often the world has ended in the past, entirely without effect.

The former NASA engineer and self-taught Biblical scholar Edgar C. Whisenant attracted many followers in the Evangelical Christian community with his confident prediction that the Rapture would occur in 1988, probably to coincide with Rosh Hashana. Over four million copies were sold, and many others distributed for free. He confidently stated, "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong," and we know that isn't possible. He also predicted that a nuclear war would break out between the US and the USSR on October 4, and the Final Judgment occurring in November, 1995. When the world failed to end in 1988, he issued more rapture predictions for 1989, 1993, and 1994, but these did not attract as much attention.

How Whisenant calculated the date of The Rapture

According to religious broadcaster Harold Camping, The Rapture is set to begin in less than three months, on May 21, 2011. But I would not forego any sinning on that account. Camping's earlier prediction of The Rapture in September, 1994 was likewise a bust.

This Looks Like Fun!

Doomsdays of Yesteryear: "The Jupiter Effect," 1982

2011-02-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

With so many people getting worked up over Doomsday predictions for 2012, I think it's instructive to look at some previous End-of-The-World hysterias. That should help put such claims into perspective.

In 1974, the book The Jupiter Effect by John Gribbin, PhD and Stephen Plagemann was published. It became a huge best-seller. Its argument was simple: in March of 1982 there will be an "alignment" when seven planets (six if we correctly ignore Pluto) will be lined up on the same side of the Sun. And "lined up" is used in the rough sense: they're within an arc of 95 degrees, or in other words, all within one quadrant, more or less. Somehow this was going to affect the Sun, which would then affect the Earth by the solar wind, and trigger a catastrophic earthquake along the San Andreas Fault near Los Angeles. I don't know why the solar wind wanted to single out Los Angeles and not Tokyo or Lisbon, but it clearly had sinful California in its sights, where the book sales to easily-frightened flakes, fruits, and nuts could be maximized. There were other catastrophes that would occur as well. Probably about as many people were then frightened about 1982 as are now frightened about 2012.

And of course, 1982 came and went without any of the predicted catastrophes occurring. In February of 1982, these same two authors published The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered. They didn't even wait for March to come and go before they started writing their apologia. They claimed that, even though the alignment didn't cause any major earthquakes in 1982, it was responsible for triggering the giant eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 (two years before the "alignment" had occurred). "Psychics" do this all the time, re-interpreting their failed predictions as successes. If a "psychic" predicts A, which doesn't occur, but B does, the prediction will be re-interpreted to have meant B.

Surprisingly, neither Gribbin nor Plagemann has ever been tarred-and-feathered for their journalistic malfeasance. And what was Isaac Asimov thinking when he agreed to write the Foreward to this book, and sound almost like he agrees with them? Probably the same thing as the authors: big Dollar Signs.

2012: The "Cosmic Alignment" and the Maya Birth Canal

2011-02-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

Two postings ago I wrote about Peter Gersten's planned "Leap of Faith" from Bell's Rock in Sedona, Arizona at the precise moment of the December solstice in 2012. He thinks that some "trans-dimensional event" will occur, sucking him into it, where he will probably meet the late members of the Heavens Gate cult, still wearing their sneakers, as well as Jimmy Hoffa and Judge Crater. I said there was no unusual "alignment" occurring at that time. Gersten disagreed, and pointed me to some information about a supposed alignment of the Sun with the Galactic Equator, at the moment of the solstice. I then wrote another posting, pointing out that this supposed alignment actually took place in 1998, and in any case is "signifying nothing." Gersten disagreed again, and pointed me to the Really Good stuff: Thomas Razetto's claims about the supposed alignment of the solstice point with the Great Rift of the Milky Way, also (allegedly) known as the Maya Birth Canal. This, says Razetto, constitutes "The Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun."

The "Great Rift" or "Dark Rift" of the Milky Way is simply big old cloud of dust and gas along the Galactic plane that obscures the stars behind it. Many galaxies have this, not just ours. Since we have seen in the last posting that the Sun is not aligned with the Galactic Equator at the time of the 2012 winter solstice (although it would make no difference even if it were), if you look around hard enough, you'll find something that the Sun is aligned with. In this case, it's the Milky Way's Great Rift. Throw a few planets into the mix, and you can fashion up a "Sacred Tree." Razetto apparently doesn't care that Pluto has now been (quite properly) downgraded to the rank of the minor planets. Is he going to include Ceres, Vesta, Sedna, and Chiron in his "alignment" as well?

I think any rational person can see that this "Sacred Triple Rebirth" of the Sun and the "Sacred Tree" is a load of horse manure, especially when it comes from a website calling itself "infinitely mystical." I could make up a similar "cosmic alignment" story for practically any equinox or solstice, throw in a few planets, and invent some high-sounding reason why it signals the beginning of a Cosmic New Age. Most people don't realize that the inner planets Mercury and Venus spend a lot of time (from the earth's perspective) hanging out in the vicinity of the Sun, and since Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun from us at that time, it appears to move more slowly than at other times, and thus, yes, also seems to loiter for a long time in the vicinity of the Sun. To find any significance whatsoever to having Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the vicinity of the Sun at some random time requires one to be ignorant of planetary orbits. But forget all these facts: this is astrology, plain and simple, and astrology is ancient superstition, nothing more. It doesn't matter where this planet is, or that planet. It's all humbug.

Since Gersten finds Razetto's claims to be convincing, so convincing that he is willing to risk almost certain death because of it, there is nothing more for the rational person to say. When Faith clashes with Reason, Faith wins out nearly every time. I can only wish him well, and hope that he acquires at least a little bit of common sense on this subject in the next 675 days (the "countdown" is on his website) and not go through with his mad plan.

And I've said enough about the supposed "Cosmic Alignments" of 2012. This posting and the one before it lay out what the case is supposed to be for the 2012 solstice to be something cosmically special. As you can see, there is absolutely nothing unusual or special occurring at that time. It's just the same old "when the Moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars." I suggest that anyone who has gotten even a little worried by all the Doomsday talk about 2012 read these postings carefully. If you realize that you've gotten all worked up over a "Sacred Tree" superimposed over the "Maya Birth Canal," you're going to feel rather silly about it. Or at least I would.

2012: A "Cosmic Alignment'?

2011-02-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

We keep hearing from "New Age" folks and many others about an major "cosmic alignment" that is supposed to occur on the date of the Winter Solstice in 2012, on December 21. In the previous post, I described how UFO lawyer and New Age guy Peter Gersten plans to take a "leap of faith" off huge Bell Rock at precisely 4:11 AM (Mountain Time), the time of the solstice, which he expects will open up a "cosmic portal" and take him to some other plane of existence, hopefully a better one than this.

I said "from an astronomical standpoint, there is nothing special or even a little bit unusual going on in December of 2012. Nada." Gersten posted a comment disagreeing with that statement, containing a link to one of his web pages, which in turn has a link to "What is the Galactic Alignment" by John Major Jenkins. And he has a point. There is an alignment - however, it has no significance, and it actually occurred in 1998.

To understand what this is about, you will need to visualize the celestial equator, the ecliptic, and the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. It's hard to visualize this, because hardly anyone studies spherical geometry any more (navigators of old knew it solidly). Let's use an earth globe to represent the "celestial sphere," which of course isn't a real object, but it looks like a sphere, and it can be modeled as one.

First visualize the equator. The equator makes a "great circle" around the earth, meaning that its center is the center of the sphere. (Lines of longitude are Great Circles, but parallels of latitude are not.) Then visualize the ecliptic, which is inclined to the equator at an angle of 23.5 degrees. This is the plane of the earth's orbit projected into the sky, and it also a Great Circle. Imagine it stretching on the globe from the Tropic of Cancer in Morocco to the Tropic of Capricorn in Australia. But there is yet a third Great Circle we need to be concerned with: the plane of the Milky Way, which is inclined about 60 degrees to the ecliptic.

The Sun at the "Alignment Time" in 2012: close, but no cigar

Remember that all Great Circles intersect at two points, so it's not a question of if they cross, but where. And the Grand Cosmic Alignment of 2012 is illustrated by the above illustration I made using Skychart (Cartes du Ciel, a free Open Source program that I highly recommend). It shows the Sun at the time of the December Solstice on Dec. 21, 2012 at 11:11:11 UT. The ecliptic is the line that's level, on which the Sun appears to be moving from right to left. The inclined line shows the plane of the Milky Way. There is your alignment.

"But wait," you say, "they're not really aligned." True enough. The actual "alignment," such as it is, occurred in 1998, when the center of the sun aligned as closely as possible with the plane of the galaxy at the time of the solstice. In fact, since the Sun has an apparent diameter of a half-degree, as seen from Earth, "alignments" such as these began in 1980, and will continue until 2016.

John Major Jenkins' illustration of "alignments" in 1998 and 2012

So there you have your "Grand Alignment," which actually occurred in 1998 and was meaningless even then. Why this supposedly has any connection with the 2012 solstice is anyone's guess.

The Sun "Aligns" (?) with the center of the Galaxy ("X") on Dec. 21, 2012

As for the talk about the Sun "aligning" with the center of the galaxy, well, it never happens. The galaxy's center does not lie on the ecliptic, so the sun never reaches it, although each December Solstice the Sun passes only about six and a half degrees from it. Wow! In fact, as you can see the Sun actually passes closer to the galaxy's center several days before the solstice, as it appears to move eastward along the ecliptic. But is that dramatic? Naah?

So if I were Peter Gersten, I'd wait for a much better "alignment" than this before leaping off a cliff.

2012: Peter Gersten's "Leap of Faith"

2011-02-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

Lawyer Peter Gersten has been a well-known figure in UFOlogy at least since the 1970s. He filed suit against the CIA in U.S. District Court in 1977 for release of documents concerning UFOs. This resulted in over 900 pages of documents being released, although there was little in them that wasn't already known. There were 57 pages that were held back due to "national security" concerns. UFOlogists made a big stink about this, claiming it's proof of a government cover-up. However, the files were held back because they might allow other nations to gain information on U.S. capabilities in electronic and signals intelligence. For example, there was one document where the CIA listened in on a Cuban pilot discussing a UFO sighting. The problem wasn't the UFO sighting, it was that we didn't want the Cubans to know we'd been able to hear their pilots' conversations.

Now retired to Sedona, Arizona, a center of a supposed 'New Age energy vortex', Gersten says that he plans to take a "leap of faith" from Bell Rock, a well-known vortexy place in Sedona, at the moment of the solstice: 11:11 UT on Dec, 21, 2012. This will be 4:11 AM in Arizona, and according to a reference I checked (http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/seasons.html target=BLANK ), is within 1 minute of the time of the actual solstice.

Gersten writes, "On the Winter Solstice of 2012 at exactly 11:11 UT a cosmic portal will open in Sedona Arizona and a leap of faith - from the top of Bell Rock - will propel me through its opening.... My two principal beliefs are: 1) that our reality is an intelligently designed cosmic holographic program and 2) that on the Winter Solstice of 2012 at exactly 11:11 UT – a Trans-Dimensional Event (T-DE) will occur... an article on my web site discussing the Mayan calendar end-date states that: There is no reason not to take a leap of faith imagining what may be in store (10). So by now you must have an idea of what I plan to do on the Winter Solstice of 2012 at exactly 11:11 while on the top of Bell Rock – a place only a few miles from my home.... Most of you will think that I am delusional and that my insane act will certainly result in my death. Death is inevitable - at least nowadays - and 100 years from now it won't matter whether I died in 2012 or 2013 or even 2020. But I believe that some type of cosmic portal will be opening at that time and place and that an opportunity will present itself. I fully expect that it will either lead to the next level of this cosmic program; freedom from an imprisoning time-loop; a magical Martian-like bubble; or something equally as exotic. In March 2012 I will reach 70 years of age and nine months later we arrive at the cosmic coordinate. I think it will then be time for me to move on - in one form or another. I'd like to see what else our Cosmic Computer has to offer." (http://www.pagenews.info/commentary/wintersolstice2012.php )

When I first read about this, I could not believe that it was true. Perhaps somebody with a grudge against Gersten made this up? Yet in the YouTube video above, we see and hear Gersten telling, in his own words, about his plan to (hopefully) leap into the portal that he believes should be opening up. He explains that, even if he dies in this leap, it is probably good Karma to die at such at the time of such special cosmic energy.

Bell Rock, Sedona, AZ

What Gersten and so many others do not seem to realize is that from an astronomical standpoint, there is nothing special or even a little bit unusual going on in December of 2012. Nada. There will be a Transit of Venus across the Sun on the afternoon of June 5, 2012 (the morning of June 6 in Asia and Australia), which is a really special and rare celestial alignment (the next one won't occur until 2117), but clearly that is not what the hoopla is about. No "alignments" are going to happen around the 2012 winter solstice that do not also happen every other December. Supposed "Bible Codes" and "ancient calendars" simply don't cut it. No matter how many times nonsense is repeated, it still remains nonsense. Echo chambers do not contribute to truth.

I've briefly met Gersten a few times, and he is a pleasant fellow. I hope he is not serious about this, and finds reason to change his mind. If he's in good health at age 70, he can easily live at least another ten or twenty more years. I hope he doesn't give up the rest of his life because of babblings about "ancient calendars" and "trans-dimensional effects."

Jerusalem UFO Video - Digital Processing Effects Prove the Hoax

2011-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

My Blog post of Feb. 3 contains my initial comments upon seeing the sequence of videos of 'balls of light' allegedly photographed over the Dome of the Rock, atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount. At that time, a hoax was strongly suspected, but not demonstrated, except in the case of the "Mississippi" close-up video, which uses a well-known photo as a background.. "Why bother?", the philosopher might ask. "The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Unless it can be shown that there is practically no way such a video can be faked, it doesn't prove anything, and so it doesn't need to be debunked." True enough, but when dealing with the public, it helps to be able to go from "this video proves nothing" to "this video is shown to be a hoax."

We can now state with great confidence that the original video, seen above and posted to YouTube on January 28 by user "eligael," is a hoax. When examined by expert eyes, those who are familiar with video editing software (unfortunately, not me), point out the effects of the digital processing software, proof that the video clip has been through a program to modify it from its original state. Using such a program, the knowledgeable user can insert more or less anything into the video, and make it look at least somewhat convincing.

The proof is fairly easily seen the the video above,posted to YouTube by user HOAXKiller1 on Feb. 5. This user had posted several earlier videos attempting to make this point, but they were not so useful in showing exactly what the problem was. I refer to one of them in my earlier post. But with this video, I think that HOAXKiller has succeeded, showing quite clearly the effects from the editing.

The hoaxer has used something called "Motion Tile" effects in the processing of this video. An artificial camera shake is introduced, to make it look like the video was taken using a hand-held camera. But what do you show, say at the extreme left edge, when the camera moves to the left? You don't have anything at all to the left of the left edge of the picture (although you would if the camera were really shaking). I'm reminded of a time when I was singing in a choral rehearsal of Puccini's Tosca in a small opera house. In the Second Act, the chorus is offstage singing a religious hymn, when Scarpia suddenly slams the window, cutting off the sound. One bass had a problem: "What do we do if he's late closing the window?" (A reasonable concern in live theater, perhaps). The director smiled and said, "Then you keep singing." The joke is, of course, that the choral part ends at that point, so even if Scarpia doesn't close the window, you still have nothing to sing.

You might solve the problem of "nothing to show" by filling in with blank space, but that would not look realistic. So a "mirroring" effect is generally used. You create data beyond the edge of the frame by mirroring data at the edge of the frame, along all four sides. Watch HOAXKiller1's video above, and you will see this happening. First, we are clearly shown where the mirroring occurs, in the first minute of the video. Next, we see an excerpt from an instructional video for using a video editing program. It is a tutorial involved with adding or removing camera shake. It explains how to use "motion tiles," with "mirrored edges." This same process was used during the creation of the original Jerusalem UFO video.

This proves that the video did not go directly from the camera to YouTube, but made a stop in between inside a sophisticated video editing software suite. Which is obviously where it picked up its image of the "UFO."

"Miracle UFO" above the Dome of the Rock? - Initial Comments

2011-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

After the usual "travel time" of 2 or 3 days, the sensational UFO videos from Jerusalem, Israel have finally made their way to the Big Time (the mainstream media). The two videos (originally) appear to show a bright nocturnal UFO flying and hovering over the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount, the point where, Moslems believe, the Prophet Mohammed took his "night journey" into the Heavens (al-Miraj), passing through the Seven Spheres to meet with Allah himself.

For some time, I have been pointing out the lack of consistent UFO videos or photos taken by multiple independent witnesses, who had not been in contact before the incident. That is what we appear to have here, unless the case is a hoax (widely suspected, but not demonstrated).

The first video was posted to YouTube on January 28 by a user called "eligael" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ-bNOy_CKQ ). It has a length of 1:45. It purports to show a UFO hovering over the Dome of the Rock in the far distance. It descends quickly to hover just above the dome, then disappears with a flash some 23 seconds later. Two men are heard discussing it, presumably in Hebrew. One man is seen in the foreground (barely), and appears to be filming it with a cell phone camera. According to a video posted to YouTube on Jan. 30 by HOAXKiller1 titled "HOAX - UFO Over Temple Mount in Jerusalem - Motion Tracked" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHOc35nmUDk ), claims that there is a "parallax problem" where two lines that ought to remain parallel despite small camera motions, don't. Unfortunately, the video is so dark that this is extremely difficult to see.

A second video from this same perspective was posted by Eligael on Jan. 29. It has a length of 1:30. It appears to be consistent with the first.

A third video posted to YouTube on Jan. 30 by 50nFit seems to show the same UFO from a much closer perspective ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2FFEufsuY ). It has a length of 0:48, and features people commenting in English. One woman with a thick Southern accent says, "We've seen 'em in Mississippi like this, but never like that." According to "Mr. Mask" on the Above Top Secret thread, "The third video (though mistakenly called "second" in its title) was of the UFO from a totally different perspective and with what appeared to be many voices. One was a lady from Mississippi. The video was proven to be a moving computer effect added over a still picture easily found HERE . The clip is clearly a Hoax and a bad one at that. Truly the work of a desperate and loathsome huckster."

"Eligael" posted yet a third video to YouTube on February 1, titled "Another night of ufo over Jerusalem - old city" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUYQ8WlLJB8 ).This one has a length of 1:25. It appears to show a single point of light against a dark sky, dropping down, then flying off mostly horizontally to the right. Nothing is seen but the UFO.

A "fourth" video, also in Hebrew, was posted to YouTube on Feb. 1 by Disclosur3. It has a length of 1:15. It shows a UFO hovering over the dome, looking brighter than in the other videos. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u23BiBHvZao&feature=related ).

The UFO and Conspiracy Website Above Top Secret warns, "Due to the possible connection of these clips with a known Hoaxer who is banned from this site, this thread may be 404ed/erased at anytime or thrown in the hoax forum if it is proven that this hoaxer is behind this event" (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread658652/pg1) .

Whoever is responsible for this hoax, it clearly shows that at least a few people are willing to put far more effort into making a UFO hoax than ever before. "Classic" UFO photo hoaxers such as Mr. & Mrs. Trent, the Lucci brothers, and Rex Heflin, probably invested no more than about an hour or two making their now-famous creations. If "Eligael" is indeed the mastermind behind these clever videos, it is obvious that he has been willing to spend hours or even days creating his masterpiece.

Abductology Implodes

2011-01-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

If "Abductology" is the study of alleged UFO abductions, then it can be said that not since the sudden demise of Marxist-Leninism has any subject, real or imagined, self-destructed so suddenly and so completely as Abductology has managed just now to do.

Twenty years ago, Abductology was riding high, led by its Troika of Dr. John Mack, a respected Harvard psychiatrist, Budd Hopkins, artist and amateur hypnotist, and Dr. David Jacobs, onetime UFO historian turned abduction guru. The earliest reported UFO abductions in the U.S. - Betty and Barney Hill in 1961, and a trickle of others including Travis Walton in 1975 - typically involved going outside to some lonely and deserted spot at night, where one allegedly encountered aliens, and was kidnapped. It was Hopkins who severed that connection completely in his cases of the early 1980s. No longer was it necessary to be outside in some scary place at night for a UFO abduction to occur: in the new Hopkins-style abductions, the aliens would come right into your bedroom and snatch you up, often passing through solid walls in the process. "Mommy, there's a monster under my bed." "No, Dear, that's just a Gray alien, that has been stalking and abducting the women of our family for several generations. It won't hurt you."

So "credible" did Abductology become, not only did CBS-TV produce a 1992 prime time mini-series based on Hopkins' writings, but there was even an "Abduction Study Conference" at MIT in 1992, sponsored by Dr. David Pritchard of the physics department. So confident were the Abductologists that they were ready for Prime Time, they invited journalists, academics, and even skeptics (I attended for CSICOP). However, they went to extraordinary lengths using "non-disclosure forms" to control how the conference was reported (yet violated it themselves under the principle of "sovereign immunity").

The conference, however, did not unfold as smoothly as its organizers planned. Many academics, even those inclined toward UFO or paranormal belief, objected mightily to the loose "methods" of the Troika. In one of Budd Hopkin's talks, he described a survey he did of children showing them pictures of unusual things to see which they were familiar with, to tell if they might have been abducted. He was met by an avalanche of objections: you didn't normalize, you didn't validate, etc. In other words, his survey was worthless. Chastened, Hopkins said something like "I'm sorry, I'm just an artist and I don't understand all that technical stuff. I thank you guys. That's why we invited you here, to help us." Not long afterward, Mack was speaking and described some sort of test or evaluation he was doing with his subjects. He ran into similar objections. I was waiting for Mack to say, "I'm sorry, I'm just a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University, and I don't understand all that technical stuff." But he did not.

So what happened recently that has left Abductology for dead? In a deadly one-two punch, a woman who was one of Jacobs' subjects is publicly accusing him of unprofessional conduct, and has recordings to back herself up. This was followed by Hopkins' ex-wife spilling the beans about his extreme loosey-goosey "investigative" methods, and showing him absurdly credulous in accepting subjects' obvious fabrications, in fact sometimes actually complicit in helping cover them up!

For some time now, the matter has been simmering of a woman who uses the alias "Emma Woods." She was a hypnotic subject of David Jacobs from 2004 to 2007, all of which took place over the telephone. She has written, and circulated widely within UFOlogy, long and detailed accounts of her complaint against Jacobs. I did not have time to read all of the details of her accusations, but assuming she can document everything she says, Jacobs appears in a sorry light, indeed. This also seems to involve a rivalry-at-a-distance between Emma and another woman in Jacobs' circle, making the matter sound even more unprofessional. She accuses Jacobs of telling her, during hypnosis sessions, that she suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). She also accuses him of "planting" false memories in her of evil aliens abducting her, raping her, and even trying to kill her. She says she felt sick every time she saw the ocean because she "remembered" an alien hybrid holding her head under water. In 2006 Jacobs wrote to her in an email, "I am in a rather severe crisis with the aliens. I will be talking to them tonight about my future and what they will or will not do to me." The alien hybrids were using the other woman's Instant Messenger to communicate with Jacobs (but of course she did not type the messages, they did). Since Jacobs is still living, the aliens obviously didn't kill him. Apparently he reached an agreement with them: he would agree to check their on-line messages frequently, and they agreed not to abduct him and implant a tracking chip. Problem solved.

"Emma Woods" is now considering legal action against Temple University, Jacobs' employer. (Jacobs has no training in medicine or hypnosis - he is a historian.) Her website is at http://www.ufoalienabductee.com/ .

On his website http://www.ufoabduction.com/ , Jacobs has a response to the "defamation campaign" against him. Referring to "Emma" as "Alice," Jacobs says that she appears to suffer from "Borderline Personality Disorder," and that she has been experiencing an "emotional breakdown."

Carol Rainey and Budd Hopkins

The second punch, one I was not at all expecting, comes from Carol Rainey, the ex-wife of Budd Hopkins. Upon reading "Emma's" account, she jumped into the fray: "the trusting and vulnerable patient delivered up to Jacobs his hoped-for narrative of predatory hybrids among us— exactly what he ordered for the book he was writing. However, it’s anything but a typical abductee’s experience: violent sexual encounters with a human/alien hybrid; a request by the good Doctor (Ph.D. in history, non-medical) to send him her panties, unwashed, so they could be tested for alien sperm; and a proposal that she wear a chastity belt with nails across the vaginal opening, which he’d locate for her from (in Jacobs words) “a sex shop that specialized in bondage/dominance, a place that I frequented quite often.” "

An experienced documentary filmmaker in the medical field, Rainey soon realized that "what Hopkins and Jacobs claim as 'the powerful evidence' for alien abductions and hybrids among us is based primarily on the powerful, hypnotic repetition of their own proclamations—and the public’s gullibility in believing whatever unfounded theories these star paranormal investigators punt down the field." She became increasingly skeptical of one of Hopkins' star abductees, James Mortellaro. "Several things about this case were making me increasingly uneasy. It wasn’t just the pills and the pistol [he always kept in his boot]. Or the fact that none of Jim’s claims had been checked or verified. Among his more mundane statements, Jim Mortellaro had earlier told Budd that he had two Ph.D.s (Really? That’s impressive, the skeptical wife thinks from behind the camera. From which universities?) and that he’d been “the Marketing Director for Hitachi” before retiring early. (Really? Was that Regional, National or International Marketing Director?)". But Budd wasn't curious. Later, Hopkins received several phone messages from individuals who called to confirm key portions of Mortellaro's story. Hopkins may have been fooled by them but Rainey wasn't: "I’ve spent twenty-plus years in post-production suites, with the editor or the mixer altering voices up, down, and sideays,” she told her husband. “It’s certainly not rocket science and Jim knows electronics. Listen, that’s his syntax, that’s the way he says ‘very concerned’and drops his ‘gs’on certain words.” But instead of becoming suspicious of his "abductee," Hopkins became angry with his wife.

Rainey assisted her husband in the editing of his book on the famous abduction story of Linda "Cortile": "It was highly dramatic, paced like a thriller— full of otherworldly treachery, forbidden love, UFOs over Manhattan, twenty-two witnesses, a heroine whose red blood cells were immortal, lusty and dangerous Secret Service agents, a Prince from afar, gifts of many fur coats, chases on foot, more forbidden love, an X-rayed alien implant, Linda’s abduction into a spacecraft accompanied by an important world leader, her abduction into a spacecraft with other members of Budd’s abductee support group, and her abduction into a spacecraft accompanied by a famous Mafia don. Then, later, as the story continued to unfold (long after the book’s publication), Linda’s presence in the lobby of the World Trade Center when the planes hit and her bloody, barefoot escape over shards of glass. Although…not all of those events reported above by Linda Cortile had been selected by Budd for inclusion in the book. I knew about them, but they weren’t in the book." The fact that the book had been titled The Brooklyn Bridge Abductions did nothing to enhance its credibility. This story already produced a huge stink in UFOlogy during the 1990s when some UFOlogists tried to independently confirm some of Linda's wild tales, and came up with nothing. Worse yet, Hopkins "continued to tout the major significance of the case long after he knew that Linda had lied to him on multiple occasions," according to Rainey.

Another thing we learn from Rainey is that Leslie Kean, the author of the best-selling book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record is "Budd’s new protege, advisor, and all-round organizer" ( see my review of her book in the Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2011). Now we begin to understand why Kean is so impervious to any facts that contradict her published position: she likely learned this modus operandi from Hopkins. Rainey notes, "In our house, the words “debunkers” and “skeptics” were used very much in the way that devout Christians use the words “unbelievers” and “the unsaved.” "

"The two best-known abduction investigators, Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs, work almost exclusively alone (separately, although with extensive telephone exchanges), without supervision (and are unwilling to accept any), and without any training in medicine or psychiatry or neurology. A bit of comparative religion, anthropolgy, and folklore under the belt wouldn’t hurt, either, in dealing with these difficult-to-interpret human experiences. They’re not required to get authorization for their experimentation on human beings from an
Institutional Review Board (IRB), a clearnce that’s required of every legitimate institutional researcher in the country. It’s peer review of a proposed study using human subjects, it’s strict, and researchers are required to report back to the IRB with their findings. None of this applies to UFO researchers." Carol Rainey's long and revealing article is at http://www.paratopia.net/paratopia_magazine/mag_preview_final.pdf . Her website is at http://www.carolrainey.com/home.html .

In hindsight, this outcome was inevitable. As anyone who ever tried to have a rational conversation with either Hopkins or Jacobs can attest, the two men are extraordinarily smug, self-righteous, even pig-headed. They are correct, you are wrong, and probably stupid as well: it's as simple as that. (I never got a chance to chat with Mack, apart from a quick "hello, how are you?" in passing. The circles he moved in were far too rarefied for me to enter.) In their own circles, each is a god, more or less, and one doesn't question superior beings. There's truth in the old Biblical saying, "pride goeth before a fall." When someone smugly thinks he is invariably correct no matter how foolish his pronouncements (somehow Sylvia Browne comes to mind), sooner or later the Foolish Factor will grow so large that even many of his sycophants won't be able to ignore it.

Wither Abductology? John Mack was struck by a car and killed in 2004. Budd Hopkins has been publicly humiliated by the shocking expose of his foolishness written by his ex-wife. As for David Jacobs, if there were a contest for "stupidest and most humiliating statements," he would be a strong contender. No doubt UFO abduction claims will trickle on for a while, but it's clear that Abductology, as practiced by the Troika in its heyday, is now considered even by many pro-UFOlogists to be an embarrassing chapter in the history of UFOs that should be forgotten as quickly as possible.

Jared Loughner, Conspiracy Fanatic

2011-01-11T23:22:00.000-08:00

Details are slowly emerging about Jared Loughner, the accused gunman in the horrific shootings and murders in Tucson. While much political blame has been assigned, by all sides, the truth seems to be that Loughner did not belong to or sympathize with any organized or even halfway-organized political group. Unlike the Unabomber, Laughner's incoherent political screeds reveal no consistent political vision. But what they do reveal is a mind deeply steeped in conspiracy belief.

Loughner's Youtube videos (actually more like Power Point presentations accompanied by music) clearly reveal this conspiracy mindset. For example, he claims that "government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVBZkeedvfM&feature=fvwk at 3:35 ) . His videos are filled with absurd and pointless syllogisms, such as

If B.C.E. years are unable to start then A.D.E. years are unable to begin.
B.C.E. years are unable to start.
Thus, A.D.E. years are unable to begin.

More ominous is his short video about Mind Control (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZCYhx8YXEI&feature=related ): "I'm able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller."

But it now appears that Loughner has been posting to at least one internet conspiracy site using the name "Erad3" (which would be an anagram of his first name if we substitute "J" for "3"). Erad3 posts some of the very same inane content that we find in the above YouTube videos, such as "infinite currency," and the pseudo-syllogistic style of both writers is clearly the same. It's virtually certain that Erad3 = Loughner (see http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/01/11/loughner-on-war-ufos-and-corporate-prison.aspx ).

On the UFO and other conspiracy-related site "Above Top Secret," Erad3 began a long thread titled, "All aboard with the empty NASA Space Shuttles!" ( http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread593100/pg1 ) In it he argues not that astronauts never went to the moon, but never even went into space at all, using ridiculous "syllogisms" such as

If the design of the NASA Space Shuttle keeps the black body temperature of −454 °F from the outside orbit then the NASA Space Shuttle is at a temperature for human life.
The NASA Space Shuttle isn’t at a temperature for human life.
Hence, the design of the NASA Space Shuttle doesn’t keep the black body temperature of −454 °F from the outside orbit.

To their credit, the other conspiracy aficionados on that site argued with Erad3 fiercely. His conspiracy syllogisms obviously made no sense - this wasn't even a good conspiracy story, just the delusions of some madman.

Erad3 also started a thread claiming that the Mars Rovers likewise were faked (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread592730/pg1):

If NASA creates a mars rover that communicates from mars then the signal reaches from the distance of mars.
The signal doesn’t reach from the distance of mars.
Nonetheless, NASA creates a mars rover that doesn’t communicate from mars.

Space journalist and skeptic James E. Oberg brings up the possibility that this shooting may have been more than just blind anti-government anger. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who Laughner is accused of shooting, is married to NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. Oberg writes, " This raises the disturbing possibility that Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, may not have been a coincidental feature of Laughner's delusions and murderous hatred. If he really had the belief that NASA was faking its space missions, then Kelly would have been one agent of that fakery -- and perhaps in his weird world, so would his wife."

Probably that was not the only reason for Laughner's mad anger, but likely contributed to it. Proximity - simple geography - could well have been the main one. It's easier to be upset with people who are nearby that one sees than those far away that one never sees. And for someone with obsessive beliefs about government mind control, unconstitutional government acts, and NASA space conspiracies, the "power couple" of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who represents his district, and astronaut Mark Kelly, a supposed participant in a huge NASA conspiracy, would represent everything that he opposed.

"Apollo 18": The Moon Hoax Stood on its Head

2011-01-10T15:33:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you're all familiar with claims of a "moon hoax:" that we never went to the moon, the Apollo program was a hoax, filmed on a movie lot, etc., etc. This has all been very ably refuted by many fine researchers - Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, the Mythbusters, James Oberg, etc, and I won't go into the details of this nonsense. Suffice it to say that even Richard Hoagland, the promoter of the "Face on Mars" who believes every whacked-out space conspiracy you can imagine, agrees that the Apollo astronauts did indeed go to the moon. If you want to know more about this stuff, start here: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html .

But who says there's nothing new under the sun? Now a movie called Apollo 18 suggests a new Moon Hoax, but the opposite of previous ones: not only did we go to the Moon, but we went more times than we admitted to - because we found aliens there.

The last Apollo mission was Apollo 17, launched on Dec. 7, 1972. Several more missions had been scheduled, but were canceled due to cost concerns. After Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt blasted off the surface of the moon on Dec. 15, 1972, no human has set foot on the lunar surface, or even entered lunar orbit.

The premise of this movie - admittedly science fiction, but certain to be taken as fact by many - is that there was a "secret" moon mission after Apollo 17, which encountered aliens, and (as seen in the movie trailer), even brought back one to earth, presumably dead. I guess NASA would have to have already known that aliens were there, in order to run the Apollo 18 mission secretly. Maybe Apollo 17 is supposed to have found the alien evidence, but NASA didn't tell us, and went back in secret.

The movie trailer for Apollo 18 has to be one of the lamest things I've seen in a long while. It seems to show an astronaut blasting off from the Moon in a lunar lander, with what appears to be a dead humanoid aboard. The creature's head looks vaguely Mongolian, with a mustache, but it has female breasts. I'll refrain from making the obvious crude sexual comments here, although surely many won't. Indeed, they've already started on YouTube ("space boobs!!!").

The film is supposed to represent "found footage", as in the Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, etc. I don't know if the film attempts to explain how NASA could possibly launch an additional Apollo mission in secret. How did nobody notice the massive Saturn V launch from Cape Canaveral? How did thousands of people worldwide perform their necessary support tasks (which they had done several times before, under great media scrutiny), and the news not leak out?

Well, it's entertainment even if it's lame entertainment. But after the movie premieres on April 22, let's see how many conspiracy theorists insist that the story is actually true.

More "Parachuting UFOs"

2010-12-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

On October 27 I posted a Blog entry titled "Parachuting UFOs", describing "mysterious lights" seen over east El Past, Texas (http://badufos.blogspot.com/2010/10/parachuting-ufos.html ). Well, it's happened again.

This time the location is Los Angeles, CA, on December 1. And the primary witness is San Antonio Spurs star Manu Ginobili, who was in town to play the Clippers. Manu and others spotted glowing objects slowly descending in the sky. He posted this information to his Facebook page, where it attracted a lot of attention, and soon ended up on the website TMZ.com, that deals in celebrity news ( http://www.tmz.com/2010/12/09/manu-ginobili-ufo-video-san-antonio-spurs/ ).

In another classic example of Clueless "Expert" Commentary, the next day TMZ.com had "UFO Expert -- On Board with NBA Star's Theory." UFOlogist Robert Kiviat, the executive producer of "Alien Autopsy (Fact or Fiction?)," was suggesting that "one strong possibility is the UFOs were experimental military craft." Kiviat believes the objects were part of "some sort of military test and farther away from the area than they appear," a conjecture without any facts to support it.

Finally, four days after the "UFO" was first posted, TMZ.com reported, "TMZ has uncovered the truth behind the UFOs he spotted over L.A. earlier this month ... and turns out, Red Bull is to blame!!!" As the website explains, "A rep for the company tells TMZ ... a team of Red Bull Air Force skydivers took the plunge over Santa Monica at around 5:00 PM on December 1 -- the exact time and day Manu was caught on tape watching glowing objects descend from the sky. As for the glowing? We're told the skydivers were carrying powerful flares during their descent." On the website for the Red Bull Air Force, parachutist John de Vore writes, "I was watching the news and I see them reporting on 2 UFO sighting in Santa Monica. The sightings were on Dec 1 & 8. As soon as I saw the videos on the news I busted up laughing. It was us jumping with our night flares." ( http://redbullairforce.com/2010/12/silver-surfer-ufo-red-bull-air-force ). As in the case of the "Mystery Missile" of Los Angeles, the website Contrailscience.com has a full analysis of the photos, including the use of Google Earth to show precisely where the objects were, above the coast in Santa Monica (http://contrailscience.com/manu-ginobilis-santa-monica-silver-surfer/ )

But the longtime UFOlogist Jim Deardorff isn't buying any of it (see http://ufoupdateslist.com/2010/dec/m17-003.shtml ). He still insists they were genuine unidentifieds.

"Public Notice! The Beginning of Judgment Day and the Resurrection.....

2010-12-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

"...will occur on May 21, 2011." So reads a full-page ad in the San Diego Reader of Nov. 18, 2010 (and probably other publications as well).

Some folks have gotten themselves all bent out of shape worrying about December, 2012. You optimists - if this Prophecy is correct, we won't even make it to 2012!!

Nobody's name is given to credit (or blame) for this prophecy, but we know it's Harold Camping, 89, of Oakland, CA. Not only is the prophecy familiar, but his organization Family Radio is credited. I wrote about Camping's prophecy in my Psychic Vibrations column in the Skeptical Inquirer, May/June, 2010. Camping, "whose Family Radio broadcasts from Oakland, California, are carried on fifty-five radio stations in the U.S. and are translated into forty-eight foreign languages—says he has scrutinized the Bible for almost seventy years and developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within it. He noticed that particular numbers appear in the Bible at the same time particular themes are discussed. This led him to conclude that certain themes are represented by certain numbers. For example, 5 represents “atonement,” 10 is “completeness,” and 17 represents “heaven.” His predictive formula involves taking the date of Biblical events and adding to them numbers derived from these themes... the date of Jesus’ crucifixion, to which is added (Atonement × Completeness ×Heaven), squared and multiplied by the number of days in a solar year, gives us the year 2011! With a bit more tweaking we get May 21 of that year."

It's interesting that in the recent ad, the calculation of the date of the start of Rapture is entirely different, although he reaches the same conclusion: " 'one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' So then 7,000 years from the 17th day of the 2nd month 4990 BC [the time of the Flood] is May 21, 2011 (or the 17th day of the 2nd month, 2011, of the Biblical calendar)." Note that this calculation doesn't involve "atonement" or "completeness", the date of the crucifixion, or the days in a solar year: only "heaven." Whatever. Either this guy is the greatest Biblical Numerologist who ever lived and has formulated multiple independent arguments leading to the same conclusion, or else he is just making this stuff up as he goes along.

However, this isn't the first time that Camping has cried "Rapture." Quoting again from my column, "He announced in 1992 that the date would be September 6, 1994. (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=y-syAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-gkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2740,1259997&dq=harold+camping+1994&hl=en ) On that date, several dozen of Camping’s followers, Bibles in hand, gathered in a hall in Alameda, California, to await the Rapture." I would love to have seen the look on their faces as they slowly made their way home late that night.

I am also rather amused to see that Camping has chosen my birthday as the start of the Beginning of the End Times. That would be my last birthday for sure, and I won't have to worry about getting older!

If the Rapture does begin as Camping expects, I'm sure I won't be among those taken up. Not only have I been a lapsed Catholic since I was about eleven, but I'm quite sure that Jesus won't cut me any slack after what I wrote in my book The Making of the Messiah (Prometheus, 1991), and especially what I wrote about his mother. One of the chapters is titled "Immaculate Fornication," in which I nail down all of the reasons that "unless Mary's pregnancy is of supernatural origin, she is an adulteress." So it's obvious why they made up the Virgin Birth yarn, to solve the very serious problem of Jesus not having a proper father, not (as is often said) to make Jesus seem more like a pagan god. There have been several other proposed solutions to Jesus' paternity problem, as well. The Marcionite "heresy," very influential in the Second Century, taught that Jesus simply 'fell to earth,' like David Bowie. That would fix the problem, too. If the followers of Jesus admitted that he had been born a bastard, there is no way they could then claim him to be the Messiah, who had to come from the illustrious line of David. So they make up a story claiming that Jesus comes from this line through Joseph, even as they tell us that Joseph was not actually his father. This makes no sense, but then logic never was one of the strong points of early Christianity. Remember Tertullian's famous dictum: credo quia absurdum est, "I believe it because it is absurd."

If any of my Christian friends do find themselves flying up into the air on May 21 next year, at least I'll know that they were right and I was wrong. I would then accept the Bible as the revealed word of God, on solid empirical evidence. But until that happens, I'll assume that the Second Coming and the Rapture are among the hundreds, if not thousands, of mythological beliefs from around the world. And I expect to be around not only on May 22, 2011, but also on Jan. 1, 2013.

The Famous 1946 "Ghost Rockets" in Sweden - Were they Contrails?

2010-11-15T09:08:00.000-08:00

The sightings of what were called "ghost rockets" in Europe, mostly in Sweden, in the aftermath World War II, is well-known to students of UFOlogy, if not to the general public. They were "ghost rockets" in the sense that people reported seeing objects they described as "rockets" or "missiles," yet no evidence of the actual existence of such objects has ever turned up. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_rockets ) Some of the objects were reported to crash into lakes (why was it never a forest?), but despite numerous searches no rocket parts were ever recovered from any lake, or anywhere else.

While I was reflecting on the current epidemic of sightings of "mystery missiles", not only in California but elsewhere, it occurred to me that people were actually reporting "ghost rockets" today. After all, a "mystery missile" is no different from a "ghost rocket." Indeed, it seems likely that some future book about UFOs will contain a sentence along the lines of, "Sightings of 'ghost rockets' began occurring in the U.S. and Canada around 2010." Thus far, all of these North American Ghost Rockets appear to be attributable to high-altitude contrails from jet aircraft.

Were there any high-altitude aircraft capable of creating contrails flying around Scandinavia in 1946? Large planes flying at high altitudes, such as the B-17 or B-29, will typically produce contrails when meteorological conditions are favorable. There is no need for them to be jets. A dispatch from the U.S. Naval Attache in Stockholm, dated Aug. 16, 1946 and formerly classified "Top Secret," talks of "civilian observers reporting jet fighters, contrails and meteors as rockets" ( http://www.project1947.com/gr/grchron2.htm ) The U.S. used the high-altitude B-29 bomber for reconnaissance in the arctic following World War II, as well as in Europe.

Some of the "ghost rockets" were surely meteors, especially those seen at night, described as fast-moving and only seen for a few seconds. Still others were probably astronomical objects, described as bright lights hovering in the night sky. People tend to scrutinize the heavens more than usual when they have heard that unusual objects are zipping about. But other "ghost rockets" were described as moving much more slowly, and flying horizontally. These sound much more like contrails. The single "classic" photo of a Swedish "Ghost Rocket," seen in the Wikipedia article, is usually attributed to a meteor, but looks very much like a high-altitude contrail. Notice the cirrus clouds above it. "Contrails are a form of cirrus cloud," ContrailsScience.com reminds us. Indeed, the meteorological conditions that produce contrails are the same as those producing cirrus clouds. If cirrus clouds cannot be produced, then neither can contrails.


The "classic" 1946 photo of a "ghost rocket" in Sweden. Isn't this a contrail?

ContrailScience.com has several very interesting incidents of contrail hysteria in the U.S., going back as far as 1950. ( http://contrailscience.com/contrail-confusion-is-nothing-new/ ). That's getting awfully close to 1946.

It has often been suggested that the Swedish "ghost rockets" of 1946, reports of which were carried worldwide, played a role in creating the "flying saucer" excitement that broke out over Kenneth Arnold's sighting the following year. And thus, in creating the entire UFO scenario. So, what I'm suggesting is that the "ghost rockets" excitement of the present year seems to be a replay of the earlier Swedish excitement. We know from present experience that jet contrails can fool even some very sophisticated people into believing that they are seeing rockets or missiles, and this in a time when contrails are already a very familiar sight.

Thus it seems very likely that the main stimulus behind the "ghost rockets" of 1946 was the presence of contrails in the sky, in a time when that phenomenon was new and not at all familiar. World War II had ended just the previous year, and it was known that the U.S. and the USSR were both frantically pursuing missile development, using captured German rocket scientists. Everybody knew that the Cold War could turn into a "hot war" at any moment, and on several occasions it nearly did. Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia were literally in the middle of it, between the allies US/UK/France, and their adversary, the Soviet Union. It is no wonder that, in such an atmosphere, people in Sweden, seeing the unfamiliar new phenomenon of high-altitude contrails, sometimes perceived them as menacing rockets launched by one great power or another.

Those in the U.S. and Canada today, however, who make up conspiracy stories in the same vein, even in situations where "ghost rockets" would have to have been fired on land, do not have the extenuating circumstances that the Swedes had sixty-four years earlier.

Conspiracy Theorists Continue to Flog "Mystery Missile"

2010-11-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

The so-called "mystery missile" photographed off Los Angeles on Monday (see previous Blog entry) was quickly identified as an aircraft contrail by responsible investigators, but apparently it has morphed into a "mystery" that's too good to give up. No matter that ContrailScience.com has explained the phenomenon in great detail, no matter that earlier instances of "contrails scares" have been identified and explained not only in California, but elsewhere in the world, going back as far as 1950, no matter that the exact flight responsible for the contrails has apparently been identified - it was UPS flight 902 from Hawaii to the Ontario Airport in California (see http://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures/ - an earlier hypotheses that it was U.S. Airways Flight 808 from Honolulu to Phoenix doesn't match the track as well as the UPS flight), no matter that a nearly-identical contrail from that same daily flight was recorded exactly 24 hours later on a webcam in Newport Beach - irresponsible and irrational conspiracy theorists simply will not let the "mystery" die. This story has apparently reached critical mass, so like Roswell, the JFK assassination, etc., it no longer matters what the facts are. The facts are out in plain view for all to see. But conspiracy theorists reject facts that are public and demonstrable, and substitute their own.

For example, an article in today's conspiracy-oriented publication The Los Angeles Times proclaims "Puzzling lack of answers to 'Mystery Missile' " ( http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1110-mystery-missile-20101110,0,1077349.story?page=1 ) . In a piece worthy of Erich von Daniken, the Times reports "Military and aviation authorities deny any knowledge of a scheduled launch off the coast of L.A. The Pentagon says only that it is looking into a report of an 'unexplained contrail' left by an aircraft." Well, if the Pentagon says only that it might be a jet contrail, then they're obviously covering something up. "Some aerospace experts who reviewed the footage said the size of the plume hinted that it was a government operation." (More uninformed "experts" blubbering nonsense.) "It can't belong to anyone but the military," said Marco Caceres, an analyst with Teal Group Corp., a Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace research firm. The appearance of such a massive rocket contrail near military bases that are known for regularly testing missiles is unlikely to be a coincidence, Caceres said."

Meanwhile, the comments on various internet Blogs, forums, etc. weighs in heavily in favor of the "they won't tell us the truth" persuasion. The favorite explanations are an "accidental launch" from some U.S. ship, or else a Chinese or North Korean submarine. Here's a high-octane conspiracy page about the supposed "mystery missile": http://theintelhub.com/2010/11/11/missile-expert-raided-in-late-october-connected-to-california-launch/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

And in the classic manner of UFO-contagion, Contrail Hysteria is now spreading to New York City. A CBS helicopter there filmed a "bizarre, glowing red-hot streak in the sky — right at sunset Wednesday — moving briskly behind the Manhattan skyline." ( http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/11/10/did-you-see-the-fire-in-the-nyc-sky/ ). And that one isn't even very impressive, as it's horizontal not vertical, but hey, it's glowing a fiery red color at sunset -ooooh! Soon, "Mystery Missiles" will be sighted everywhere, and conspiracy tales about them will abound.

Mystery Missile Launch near Los Angeles - or an Aircraft Contrail?

2010-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

This morning the news media are filled with reports of a "mystery missile" fired off the California coast near Los Angeles. At this moment, the Drudge Report headline screams "MYSTERY MISSILE FIRED OFF CA COAST; PENTAGON 'NO CLUE'. CBS News in Los Angeles is reporting, " A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS's cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile. CBS station KFMB put in calls to the Navy and Air Force Monday night about the striking launch off the coast of Los Angeles, which was easily visible from the coast, but the military has said nothing about the launch." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/09/national/main7036716.shtml

Here is the news video of the object:

It certainly looks like a missile launch! But is it? The Pentagon denies all knowledge of any possible launch, and if a foreign country were to fire a missile so close to our shores, it would be an act of war.

Well, as surprising as it may sound, the object seems to have been simply an aircraft contrail, with tricks of perspective making it look like a missile flying away from you, when in fact it was an aircraft flying toward you! This is not the first time such a thing has happened. On Dec. 31, 2009, much the same excitement occurred off the coast just south of Los Angeles in Orange County. This blog from ContrailsScience.com lays it all out with impeccable logic: http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/#more-4 .

First, it depends on an effect of perspective. The aircraft's path must be directly toward, or away from, the observer. Second, even though the contrail is five miles above the ground, as it recedes into the distance it appears to touch the ground, because of the curvature of the earth. As shown by the daytime photo of the vertical contrail on ContrailsScience, we know that the aircraft that made it was not flying straight up like a rocket, but when seen directly straight-on, that is what it looks like. And for viewers a few miles away, getting a different perspective, all they see is an ordinary-looking slanted contrail.

Nor is the California Coast the only place where this same illusion has been sighted, and reported. As I wrote in my Psychic Vibrations column (Skeptical Inquirer, July/Aug., 2010), in January, 2010 residents of the tiny Canadian coastal town of Harbour Mille, Newfoundland reported seeing exactly the same 'mystery missiles' as was photographed near Los Angeles yesterday (see http://www.tinyurl.com/rocketsNL ). One Canadian politician went to far as to blame the French for launching missiles so close to Canadian territory. But the French replied that they had not launched anything on that day. But the Finnish UFO investigator Bjorn Borg explained how the Newfoundland "missiles' are simply contrails seen at just the right angle (see http://www.tinyurl.com/rocket-illusion ). "Every year this comes up in the news," he said.

And the award for Best Pompous Pontification by an Uninformed Ass goes to former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Ellsworth, also a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, who was happy to appear on TV and speculate that, because President Obama is in Asia, "It could be a test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine … to demonstrate, mainly to Asia, that we can do that." As if anyone in Asia seriously doubted that the U.S. could launch missiles from a submarine! Ellsworth added that ICBM testing was carried out in the Atlantic to demonstrate America's power to the Soviets during the Cold War, but he says doesn't believe an ICBM has been tested by the U.S. over the Pacific. I have two words for him: Vandenberg and Kwajalein. Such ICBM tests over the Pacific occur on a regular basis (see http://www.krsjv.com/Pages/Mission.aspx ). So much for seeking "informed comments" from a former Deputy Secretary of defense.

(Be sure to also see the following post, "Conspiracy Theorists Continue to Flog 'Mystery Missile' ".

Denver's "Extraterrestrial Affairs Comission" Loses Big!

2010-11-03T01:27:00.000-07:00

Probably you've seen the recent news stories about "Denver initiated Ordinance 300," an initiative to "require the creation of an extraterrestrial affairs commission to help ensure the health, safety, and cultural awareness of Denver residents and visitors in relation to potential encounters or interactions with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles, and fund such commission from grants, gifts and donations." This proposal is even crazier than it sounds. On the website for Yes on 300 http://www.extracampaign.org/Home_Page.html , we find many astonishing claims, such as that NASA routinely removes images of UFOs from its space photos, that the U.S. government not only covers up evidence of UFOs, but also of "clean energy technologies of extraterrestrial origin, that could replace fossil fuels." And by way of a FAQ, the measure's chief promoter, Jeff Peckman, offers a new Ebook in which an "extraterrestrial being answers fifty questions," channeled "neuro-biologically via tele-thought communication" by one Lavendar, "a master astrologer" as well as "a Pleiadean contactee, emissary and scribe"( http://www.examiner.com/ufo-in-denver/extraterrestrial-being-answers-fifty-questions-new-ebook ).

Perhaps it will restore your faith in human reason to learn that this whacked-out measure has lost big, approximately 84% against vs. just 16% in favor. Or perhaps it will cause you concern to learn that approximately one in six voters thought this "extraterrestrial affairs" twaddle had substance. I suspect, however, that many voters - espacially younger ones - voted "Yes" on this measure largely as a joke. Let's hope that's all it was.

The movement for an "Extraterrestrial Affairs Comission" has its roots in "The Disclosure project," a group of conspiracy-oriented UFOlogists headed up by physician Dr. Steven Greer. It began with a big press conference on May 9, 2001 in the National Press Club in Washington, DC, with twenty persons making sensational UFO claims. No doubt Greer and his pals thought that the red-meat journalists inside the Beltway would jump on these sensational claims of government cover-ups and secrecy. But none of the speakers had any proof of what they were claiming, and seasoned reporters largely ignored them. Surely Greer's claims about "super-luminal" (i.e., faster-than-light) UFOs being reverse-engineered in the U.S. serve as a red flag for all sane persons to ignore him. But the Disclosurists did snag one reporter in their UFO net - just one - Leslie Kean, best known for her work on KPFA, Radical Public Radio from the Peoples' Republic of Berkeley, and now the author of a best-selling pro-UFO book, "UFOs On the Record". I'll have much more to say about her, but later.

Now "Disclosure" is slowly morphing into "exopolitics," and this is precisely what Ordinance 300 is about. The idea behind exopolitics is simple: Since extraterrestrials are obviously here, we should do our best to make friends with them. A noble sentiment, to be sure, but one resting on a highly dubious premise. I've written quite a lot about Exopolitics in my Psychic Vibrations column. Every time you turn around, exopolitics has some hilarious new absurdity, such as Alfred Webre's claim that people are being teleported back and forth to a secret American base on Mars. Ordinance 300 was essentially an attempt to implement the concerns and goals of Exopolitics within the existing political framework.

Speaking of Dr. Greer, from Oct. 2-4 his organization CSETI held a seminar in Rio Rico, Arizona, where for $495 (room fees not included) he promised to teach conference registrants his techniques of how to signal ETs to be contacted. (Greer is not a popular figure within establishment UFOlogy. They think he's giving them all a bad name, which he is.) According to one participant, the contact sessions were supposed to take place from 8:00 to 12:00 nightly, but the ETs failed to show. One might think that such embarrassing failures would make it hard to get people to sign up for future seminars, but Greer has confidently scheduled another seminar in Joshua Tree, California for Nov. 7-13. He knows that there's one born every minute.

Parachuting UFOs

2010-10-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

On October 15, TV viewers in the area around El Paso, Texas were titillated with the following video: Mysterious Lights over East El Paso, News Channel 9
http://www.ufocasebook.com/2010/elpasolights.html

TV news reporters described seeing a bright light that suddenly broke into three pieces, then four, and then seemingly hovered in the air. Comparing the El Paso lights (at night) with the balloon UFOs seen (midday) over Manhattan shortly before (see previous Blog entry), their 'triangular patterns' were described as "eerily similar." (Hint to UFOlogists: any three points define a triangle, unless they are all on a straight line.)

Commenters on the website of KTSM-TV, Channel 9 in El Paso, made comments like "I saw then thinking it was an airsho[w] drill, but planes cannot stay still that long and then a fourth one appear. This is the stuff government won't tell us," or "Planes of any kind, we would have been able to see then. Definitely UFO's!!" ( http://www.ktsm.com/mysterious-lights-over-east-el-paso ). Somebody made the obligatory (and utterly irrational) comment "This universe is far and beyond! What makes us think that us humans are the only ones here?" (The universe is indeed vast, but just because ET intelligence probably exists somewhere does not mean that they must be here right now!) Then the same fallacy surfaces a second time: "Amazing footage! But to say their [sic] airplanes....c'mon! I don't believe anyone is going to buy into that. It's selfish to believe that we're the only one's in existence. Fact of the matter is, it's a UFO."

Sorry folks, but we know exactly what this "UFO" was. The Golden Knights is the Parachute Team of the U.S. Army, that does performances at air shows all around the country.Team member Rachel Medley wrote "Black Team performed a night jump last night into the Amigo Air Show evening social event, then did two mass formations with the beautiful desert and mountains as a backdrop." ( http://armygk.com/2010/10/hola-el-paso-black-teams-in-town/ ) She added, "I was actually on that jump as the team videographer and have performed many night jumps as a member of the Golden Knights. We are commonly mistaken as UFOs or meteors," because they jump out of airplanes with pyrotechnics strapped to their ankles. Many people refused to believe that they could have been seeing pyrotechnic parachutists, but Ms. Medley simply replied by inviting them to witness forthcoming shows by the Golden Knights elsewhere in Texas.

So the moral of our story is: when you're looking skyward, all that glitters is not UFOs.

Again, a "UFO" Closes an Asian Airport - Venus Once Again?

2010-10-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Probably most of you have seen the story about how on July 7 the airport in the Chinese city of Hangzhou was closed because a UFO was allegedly hovering over its runway (see http://www.tinyurl.com/273h68h ). I wrote about this in my Psychic Vibrations column in the just-released issue of Skeptical Inquirer (Nov/Dec, 2010). And I suggested that the "UFO" that concerned them may well have been Venus. The explanation of all this is in the column, I won't repeat it here.

I also noted in that column how in January of 2001, the Siberian airport of Barnaul was also closed for an hour and a half because of a "UFO." And how the French UFO investigator Eric Malliot discovered that the position of the reported UFO matched exactly the known position of Venus.

Well, now we have a third incident where a "UFO" has closed an airport, and once again, Venus is a prime suspect. The incident occurred on Sept. 11 in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, but wasn't reported until several weeks later. As reported in The Telegraph (U.K.), "An airport in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, was forced to shut to prevent passenger jets crashing into a UFO, according to reports. Starting around 8 PM, three flights to Baotou from Shanghai and Beijing were reportedly forced to circle the airport until the UFO disappeared. Two other flights were diverted away from Baotou and to the nearby cities of Ordos and Taiyuan. The airport was shut for around an hour "to guarantee safety" according to a spokesman." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8043055/UFO-closes-Chinese-airport.html . Also see http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90782/7138663.html

On Sept. 11, Venus was setting about 1 hour 20 mins after the sun, from the latitude of Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Notice that the airport was closed for "around an hour" until the object disappeared.

We cannot say with certainty that the "UFO" was Venus, because we do not have information about the object's apparent elevation and direction. But past experience creates the suspicion. At first it might seem impossible that educated and sane people would mistake the bright planet Venus, then near maximum brilliance, for a hovering UFO, but it has happened over and over again, all over the world. As the well-known pro-UFOlogist Jacque Vallee wrote in his book Challenge to Science back in 1966, "No single object has been misinterpreted as a 'flying saucer' more often than the planet Venus. The study of these mistakes proves quite instructive, for it shows beyond all possible dispute the limitations of sensory perception and the weakness of accounts relating shapes and motions of point sources or objects with small apparent diameters."

Breaking News - Balloons Seen over Manhattan!!!

2010-10-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you saw the news stories: "A mysterious shiny object floating high over Manhattan's West Side set off a flurry of reports and wild speculation Wednesday that a UFO was flying over the city. Police and the FAA said they began getting flooded with calls starting at 1:30 p.m. from people reporting a silvery object hovering high over Chelsea."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/13/2010-10-13_mystery_shiny_objects_floating_over_manhattan_spark_ufo_frenzy.html

"It's been hovering there for a while. I'm just kind of baffled," said Joseph Torres, 49, of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, who spotted the object after leaving a movie. "How can it be ordinary? There is something going on."

Come on, folks. Have we been fed so many UFO promotions that every time we see some little thing in the sky, we immediately jump to the conclusion that it's some mysterious phenomenon?

Then some people remembered an obscure prediction by retired Air Force officer Stanley A. Fulham, who predicted that huge ships would be seen hovering over cities worldwide on Oct. 13, and began tweeting this sighting widely. Obviously, balloons seen in the sky = a fleet of spaceships.

On one of the videos posted of the object, an observer can actually be heard saying repeatedly, "they're balloons." And balloons indeed they were, according to

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/14/2010-10-14_ufo_nyc_kids_say_no_mysterious_floating_orbs_were_escaped_balloons_from_teachers.html

"A Westchester elementary school believes the puzzling orbs floating over Chelsea were likely a bundle of balloons that escaped from an engagement party they held for a teacher... A parent was bringing about 40 iridescent pearl balloons to the school for language arts teacher Andrea Craparo when the wind spent a bunch away around 1 p.m."

But some commentators, like this guy on extraordinaryintelligence.com, aren't buying the balloon explanation: "I was there. It was very unsettling to watch. There’s no rational explanation to that spectacle in the sky. They stood together, in the same relative position to each other – you could call it a formation – and in the same spot in the sky, with very minimal movement for a long time. Small bright perfectly formed dots, against a perfectly blue sky. Surreal."

And remember the First Rule of UFOlogy: any time you see something in the sky that you can't immediately identify, assume it's an alien spaceship until conclusively proven otherwise.

Welcome to my Blog, Bad UFOs.

2010-10-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to my new Blog. In the skeptical spirit of Bad Astronomy, Bad Science, and Bad Language, I bring you - Bad UFOs!

my photo of a UFO made from a cottage cheese container and an aluminum plate

My name is Robert Sheaffer, and I'm skeptical about UFOs. I have been a fellow of CSICOP (now CSI) since 1977. I have been a regular contributor and columnist for their magazine, The Skeptical Inquirer, since its second issue of publication (Spring/Summer, 1977). I have also been a member of Mensa for over ten years.

My photo of a UFO made from two aluminum plates

I have been interested in UFOs since I was a child in the 1960s. Reading the widely-published misinformation of authors such as Donald E. Keyhoe and Frank Edwards, I was persuaded that 'there must be something to it.' When I became older and a little wiser, I read other, more skeptical, UFO authors such as Dr. Donald H. Menzel. I realized that the UFO proponents were not being careful, reliable, or accurate in their statements on the subject. I began to correspond with the late Philip J. Klass in 1968, and we met the following year. We've been good friends until Phil passed away in 2005. I first met James Oberg in 1975. I met Gary Posner in 1977, and James McGaha in 1987.

When I attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, I majored in mathematics, and also took many astronomy classes. I got to know the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986) quite well, I found him to be a most interesting character. He was the U.S. Air Force's chief astronomical consultant for the celebrated Project Bluebook . While a man of great personal integrity, he was also gullible in the extreme. He believed himself able to determine the sincerity, and even the reliability of an individual, simply by his intuition as he listened to their story. He was valuable to Northwestern for fundraising in his role as Astronomy Department Chairman. Hynek's skills were primarily political and personal, rather than scientific. He did not generally teach advanced-level astronomy courses, he made few if any tangible contributions to the science of astronomy during his decades at Northwestern, and was primarily known for his interest in UFOs. His presentations and media appearances on the subject of astronomy were first-rate. Hynek was a great popularizer of astronomy. However, he was not greatly esteemed by his fellow astronomers - in fact, he was frequently the butt of their private jokes. Hynek envisioned himself as "The Galileo of UFOlogy", (see, for example, Newsweek magazine, Nov. 21, 1977, p.97.) but unlike the original Galileo, Hynek had no demonstration that could be made to believers and unbelievers alike to allow them to evaluate his claims. If the original Galileo had no more solid evidence to offer than did the Galileo of UFOlogy, his name would be forgotten today.

my triple-exposure UFO photo

My skeptical website is at www.debunker.com . I have a page with a lot of UFO information at http://www.debunker.com/ufo.html . My first UFO book was The UFO Verdict in 1981, significantly revised and expanded in 1998 and published as UFO SIGHTINGS - The Evidence (Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, cloth, 1998, $25.95. ISBN 1-57392-213-7).

I've said enough about myself, so enjoy this blog. I intend to keep it interesting, chatty, and informative. I won't have all the answers, but I hope to discuss all the right questions.


My photo of a UFO made from a banana-split dish and modeling clay (from UFO Sightings)