UFOs In the Desert, Part 3.

Friday was the third day of the International UFO Congress in Fountain Hills, Arizona, the largest UFO conference in the world. My previous Blog posting covers the second day.  Here is a link back to the first posting about the conference.

Dr. Michael Dennin

The first speaker Friday morning was Dr. Michael Dennin, professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine. He explained many basic physics and astronomy concepts to the audience, such as light years, conservation of energy, general relativity, etc. Putting it all together, the prospect of interstellar travel looks pretty implausible for any society, no matter how advanced, so long as it must obey the laws of physics. Given how difficult interstellar travel is, Dennin said it is hard to imagine secret visits.

But he did throw a few bones to the pro-ET crowd, that he admits to be "pure speculation."

1. A "warped highway" might permanently warp the space between objects by putting mass between them. He didn't say how many solar masses this might require.

2. We might find a wormhole. (There is no evidence whatever that wormholes are real vs. merely theoretical, and a lot of good of physics to say they are virtually impossible.)

3. Some societies may become relativistic nomads, and take extremely long interstellar voyages at relatively low speeds. Such voyages would be measured in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years.

Richard Dolan

Next came UFO author  Richard Dolan, speaking on "UFOs for the 21st Century." He mused about the past twenty years that he has been investigating UFOs. The internet, he says, has raised the noise-to-signal ratio, and he also noted the rise of non-physical, non-ET theories. (I've been investigating UFO claims for over forty years, and I know that non-physical theories were popular back then - Vallee's Passport to Magonia, Jerome Clark, John Keel, etc.) UFO "Disclosure" would truly rock our world.

Dolan managed to bring in just about every loopy idea that has come up in recent years: ancient pyramids, crash retrievals, reverse-engineeered alien technology, a "secret space program," alien hybrids, telepathic alien contact, and mind control. Mention this the next time somebody refers to Dolan as a "conservative UFOlogist." The reason for the UFO cover up, he suggested, is because the secret of the UFOs' alien propulsion system threatens petroleum interests, the same claim that Steven Greer makes in the wild conspiracy movie Thrive.

Are you ready for another 'alien encounters' TV series?

Marc Dantonio

The next speaker was the very interesting Marc Dantonio on "Photo and Video Anomalies: 2013 Update." He is MUFON's chief photo/video analyst, and president of FX models. His company makes UFOs and other implausible things - for TV. Dantonio has upset some people in the UFO field, simply because his investigations of purported UFO photos and videos are so good. As an expert in special effects, it would be extremely difficult for a hoaxer to fool him. As I mentioned in Part 2 concerning the Thursday panel, Huffington Post Weird News reporter Lee Speigel receives many purported UFO photos and videos. He sends the interesting ones to Dantonio, who told Speigel that he had not yet sent over anything that's unidentified.

He showed us photos and videos that show lens flares, aircraft operation, solar balloons, the blinking lights on a vehicle, a reflection on a windshield, blowing snow, a flock of geese, digital skywriting, a butterfly, and views of a tower from Google Earth, directly above it.

Dantonio says that the testimony of the witnesses often does not match the submitted photo or video, so the witnesses often are unwilling to accept his analysis, insisting "I know what I saw!" He resolves the dilemma by explaining that his comments pertain to the photograph, not to the observation. "The purpose is not primarily to debunk the footage, but to illustrate that we must be very hard on the data in order to find the holy grail of UFOlogy." Amen, brother!

This might make it sound like Dantonio is a skeptic, but he is not. He said that about 15 years ago, he had a traumatic encounter event, in which he awoke at night, paralyzed, and was menaced by terrifying creatures. I regret that, when I spoke to him later, I forgot to mention the well-known phenomenon of sleep disorders and hallucinations, which his experience describes to a "T." Wikipedia says, "Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are symptoms commonly experienced during episodes of sleep paralysis." However, we did discuss some other weird science ideas that he suggests make interstellar travel possible, like the Alcubierre Drive, that supposedly moves space out of the way, and pushes it behind the craft. This supposedly would enable us to effectively travel faster than light.

Dr. Roger Leir

Next were Dr. Roger Leir and Steven Colbern, on "Alien Implants: The Tip of the Iceberg." Leir spoke first. He has performed 16 surgeries to remove implants from alleged alien abductees. His Alien & Scalpel Research is incorporated as a 5013c company, and does not charge for any of the surgeries.

Leir described at length some weird events associated with surgery #15. The man had a small puncture wound on the underside of his toe, although this entry point is hardly necessary as aliens can "disassociate matter" and even move through walls. A&S went into full Ghost Hunter mode at the man's house, with radio frequency scanners, magnetometers, and radiation detectors. Many anomalies were discovered, including a magnetic monopole (something sought more eagerly even than unicorns), and magnetized wood and plastic. The man's wife was in a "constant state of denial" about all this.

During the man's surgery, his implant kept moving away from the scalpel. It broke into twelve pieces; one disappeared. 48 hours after their removal, the remaining pieces reassembled themselves.

Steve Colbern examines Leda Beluche  for alien markings at the Alien & Scalpel table.

Steve Colbern talked about the supposed alien implant removed during surgery #15. It is similar in appearance to a meteorite, and consists of carbon fiber nanotubes, a manufactured nanotechnology device of unknown purpose. 32 trace elements were detected, including iridium, and meteoric iron. One magnetic pole of the object is stronger than the other (which I think makes it a magnetic monopole, as well).

Lee Speigel, David H. Childress, Antonio Huneeus, Dr. Michael Dennin

The last session of Friday was a panel on "Ancient Aliens" with David Hatcher Childress, Dr. Michael Dennin, and Open Minds reporter Antonio Huneeus substituting for Jason Martel. If you've watched Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, you've seen Childress many times. He talked about out-of-place artifacts in rock strata millions of years old. But he said that they might have been planted by time travelers. Huneeus suggested that life on earth may have been seeded from space - deliberately. Dr. Dennin cautioned that round objects in the sky seen in old drawings and paintings are simply "generic" shapes. They are not structured, complex shapes - that would be more significant.

In the evening there was a free Skywatch, hosted by Ben Hansen of SyFy's Fact or Faked?, and sponsored by Night Optics USA, a Bushnell company. Their hope was to sell some very expensive night vision equipment to UFO enthusiasts (their products cost thousands of dollars each). I suspect that they were disappointed.

John Rao, the founder of Open Minds, drives his UFO spotting vehicle to the evening skywatch.

The vehicle has two cameras. One is infrared, the other isn't.

I have written before about the new fad for night-vision devices among UFO enthusiasts. Let's just say that many people are using devices they do not understand, and are making incorrect conclusions about what they are seeing. A good pair of binoculars will show you at least as many objects, and at far better resolution, than a night vision device.

The audience watching Night Optics' displays, hoping to see UFOs.

People stood in line for their turn to personally look through the different night vision devices. Meanwhile James McGaha and I had brought our portable telescopes, and offered views of Jupiter, the Pleiades, and the Orion nebula. On the big screen, a satellite or something was briefly noted but nothing of UFOlogical significance was seen all night.

The cameras of the UFO spotting vehicles was pointed to the south. This ATV has been customized with dual cameras in the back. However, I am given to understand that these are not astronomical cameras, but instead are security cameras as are used by the Border Patrol to look for illegal border crossers, and do not have the resolution that is typical of astronomical cameras.

Electronics in the UFO-spotting vehicle. Note "orb" on the screen.

 In the photo you can see the round object that Rao suggested was an "orb." It slowly drifted from left to right across the screen, and he would repeatedly bring it back to the left side again. It was obviously an out-of-focus star image, moving from east to west because the camera does not have celestial tracking to compensate for the rotation of the earth. Orbs don't usually last this long, he remarked, they disappear quickly. I had a green laser pointer, and laid it against the edge of the camera. The beam pointed exactly to Epsilon Canis Majoris (Adhara), a star of magnitude 1.5 (brighter than the stars in the Big Dipper) due south about 25 degrees up. This was his orb. James McGaha came by, and tried to show him how to focus the image. When that was done, the "orb" shrank down to a pinpoint size.