The 2014 International UFO Congress, Part 5 (last)

Glenn Steckling

The fifth day of the International UFO Congress was Sunday, February 16, 2014, with a shortened schedule. The first speaker was Glenn Steckling, the head of the Adamski Foundation, and today's spiritual heir of the great Baloney-master. "Glenn Steckling, the Director of the George Adamski Foundation, one of the oldest & longest standing UFO organizations, will join us to discuss George Adamski, moon anomalies and his concerns regarding varying agendas participating in the revisionism of UFO history. Mr. Steckling’s father, the late Fred Steckling, was a close friend & associate of George Adamski, considered by many to be the pioneer in the early contactee UFO field." I had heard Steckling speak more than once before to San Diego MUFON. "His discussion will including re-mastered original Adamski motion picture footage, and newly released rare Adamski home movie footage. He will also share a number of first-generation copies of NASA photographs of the Moon, along with movie footage of an array of UFOs taken by his father in 1966, while he was traveling through Germany by train." If you always wanted to see home movies showing George Adamski, as well as some ludicrous 'daylight disks,' then you missed something good.

Steckling explained that Adamski's saucer photos, supposedly taken through his 6" telescope (which I doubt very much), were amazingly clear. This caused some people to assume that they had been faked (!). Adamski was given this telescope by the mother of the man who did "mapping" for the site of the observatory at Mt. Palomar, a Mrs. Johnson. As soon as Adamski had set up the telescope, saucers began to appear. Steckling explained that his father was the one responsible for getting Adamski's saucer photos on the postage stamps of Grenada (see my book Psychic Vibrations, page 5).

David Marler

Next was the final speaker, David Marler, the former head of Illinois MUFON, now living in Albuquerque, NM. I spoke with him at some length before his talk. Marler is a very serious researcher. He showed me photos of the huge UFO research library he has been accumulating, in part from acquiring the collections of retired or deceased UFOlogists. He describes himself as an archivist and historian. If you're a serious researcher, digging into an old case, I'd recommend that you contact Marler to see what info he might have on it.

Marler's talk was titled "Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation," which is also the title of his book. "For years, serious researchers have known that triangular-shaped UFOs are increasingly one of the most common types observed. The phenomenon has sparked intense debate among many and excited the imagination of many others. But until now, there has never been a comprehensive analysis of triangular UFOs. Marler has collected, collated, and analyzed hundreds of reports over the last thirteen years. In the process, he has created a detailed profile of these objects and written a rich narrative of their history."

He talked, of course, about the famous Belgian triangle UFOs of 1989-90. He acknowledges, however, that the famous one and only photo supposedly showing the triangle UFO, from Petit Rechain, is indeed a hoax. There is very little good video or radar data concerning the Belgian triangles, but lots of eyewitness testimony. He also spoke of several little-known triangle UFO sightings from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, back when the genre of the "triangle UFO" was not yet well-established. One of  these was by none other than the man who started it all, Kenneth Arnold, who reported seeing a triangle UFO on July 27, 1966. Sometimes, Marler remarked, the triangle is reported to be flying flat-side first, with the point trailing behind. This makes no sense from a standpoint of aerodynamics, he noted. He left the audience with no grand conclusions, just lots of information.

There remained one event on the schedule, a panel on "Abductions and Alien Contact," featuring Kim Carlsberg, Mike Clelland, and Kewaunee Lapseritis. I didn't stay to hear this, as all three had given their opinions earlier. I heard just one brief snippet, when Kim Carlsberg was saying that her alien hybrid son had visited her briefly in her living room, but just once. However, he has stayed in regular contact with her, telepathically. And I thought, he's a good boy, even though he's off orbiting around the Pleiades or someplace, he's still thinking about his Mom.

The National Atomic Testing and UFO Museum in Las Vegas at the UFO Congress.

In the Dealers' Room, the The National Atomic Testing and UFO Museum in Las Vegas had a table. In September of 2012 I wrote about this Smithsonian-Affiliated Museum's descent into UFO advocacy. Well, things have only gotten worse, as you can see from this photo at the UFO Congress. I'll have more to say about this later.

A possibly alien organism, and a possibly alien shoe

This display at Art Campbell's table contains a bunch of stuff that might, or might not, be alien artifacts.

Notice that the paper on the table references a supposed analysis by "scientist Steve Colbern." Colbern has been working with Dr. Roger Leir to supposedly authenticate alleged 'alien implants' that are removed from under peoples' skin. The Colbern/Leir "Alien & Scalpel" table, with the big black tent behind it, was absent from this year's UFO Congress, after being present several previous years (you can see one such 'alien scan' in this YouTube video). It had been announced that A&S would be there. Quite likely this change was in response to complaints received from some women concerning alleged 'improprieties' inside the tent. Yvonne Smith announced that Colbern would still be doing 'alien scanning,' but in his hotel room.

Finally, adding glamor to the surroundings once again was Leda Beluche, a resident of New York City who works in the entertainment industry. She informs us that she is now a "Reverend," as well as a "healer," and she sends out Light and Love to all. Leda says that she has been contacted by producers of a TV Reality Show, who are interested in doing a show about her, documenting her life as an alien hybrid. Some people might call this an Unreality Show, but that would make it no different from a lot of what is already on TV today. As they say in show business, Break a Leg, Leda!

The 2014 International UFO Congress, Part 4

The fourth day of the UFO Congress was Saturday Feb. 15, and the day of the highest attendance. Starting off the proceedings with a Bang was Dr. John Alexander, retired Colonel in the U.S. Army, and longtime leader in the Pentagon's foray into Weird Science: ESP, remote viewing, etc. Alexander appears on 18 different pages of the book The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson (but not in the movie), where he is portrayed as a sort of shadowy behind-the-scenes figure giving direction to all of the Pentagon's weird studies.

Col. Alexander (left) with Lee Speigel of the Huffington Post

Life, Alexander said, may have originated somewhere in the universe 9 billion years before it did on earth. He went through the usual brief history of U.S. government involvement with UFOs. He mentioned a few UFO cases that he thinks are especially good:

• Bentwaters/Rendlesham. Highlights the testimony of Halt and Penniston. He did not mention how the testimony of each has significantly changed over the years. He is aware of this - I've mentioned it to him more than once - but it's something he prefers to ignore.
• Phoenix lights. They were certainly not A-10s with flares. (When I asked him afterward about this, he claimed that he didn't say anything about flares!)
• Gulf Breeze photos. Good grief!
• Coyne helicopter case. See Klass, UFOs the Public Deceived, chapters 16,17.
• B-52 radar picks up a visual UFO, Minot AFB, 1968. (Has anyone done any recent research on this case?)

What sets Alexander apart from most other UFOlogists is that he does not believe that there is any U.S. government coverup of UFOs, or any secret program. He accepts that the "Roswell crash" was actually a spy-balloon program, Project Mogul. UFO enthusiasts, he explained, do not know how the system works.  Even secret or "black" projects need to compete with each other for a fixed pool of money, and to justify those expenditures with results. Concerning UFOs, this is simply not happening.

As for the UFO coverup claims of British UFOlogist Nick Pope, Alexander pointed out that Nick's father, Geoffrey Pope, was a leading aerospace engineer who, upon hearing his son's claims about the British government having captured a UFO, remarked "it would have been in my hanger!" As for the MJ-12 papers (the second set, at least), he pointed out that Tim Cooper, the man who supposedly (and inexplicably) received these documents in the mail, has as of 2009 disavowed their validity.

Alexander is also a big believer in 'alternative healing' that supposedly cannot be explained, especially the faith healer John of God in Brazil. He also believes the recent claims of "Proof of Heaven."

Alexander mentioned the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah purchased by Robert Bigelow, where many strange incidents have been reported, some involving UFOs. "The Phenomenon" is "in control," he concludes. It knows how you will react to it. If you're having trouble deciding what to make of Alexander (and many people are), think of him as Jacques Vallee in a military uniform.

Jaime Maussan

Next was the well-known Mexican UFO promoter Jaime Maussan. I didn't hear this talk, but the description says, "Hear Jaime Maussan present the most recent evidence demonstrating that the UFO phenomenon is closer than ever before. The new technology and new techniques used by skywatchers around the world is allowing us to know how “close” we are to establishing some kind of contact or communication with other beings. While we do not know for sure yet, it is clear that contact will be sooner than expected." He showed a lot of videos. James McGaha told me that they all looked pretty fake.

In reviewing Maussan's talk last year to the UFO Congress, I wrote:

Maussan said that worldwide UFO sightings have increased dramatically recently because of December 21, 2012, and aliens are now sending us messages by creating meteorological formations in the sky. He showed what were supposedly "vortexes" in meteorological charts, "messages" he says of "the new time."

He showed many blurry photos and videos. There was a huge black sphere sucking energy out of the sun - probably a Mothership, he suggested. NASA's Spirit rover photographed a human figure on Mars, and also a "little house." We saw objects (probably satellites in low earth orbit) crossing the face of the moon. Russia, he says, now has the greatest number of UFO sightings of any country, and he showed Russian videos of supposed "motherships." He also played videos having very low-pitch "unexplained" sounds or hums. Maussan's talk was loony, but the audience loved it.

Rob Simone

After that came Rob Simone, "an award-winning media personality, TV host, author and for the last 3 years, guest host of the nationally syndicated talk show, Coast to Coast AM." His speech was "UFOs In The Headlines - Real Reporting on a Real Phenomenon." He showed the headlines, and discussed the cases, from newspaper coverage of UFO sightings and claims from all around the world. Most of them were cases that practically nobody has heard of, and go back to the 1950s, mostly in Europe. Actually, he did a fine job of locating and presenting these cases, several of which sound as if they were significant at the time, but since forgotten. This information needs to be recorded in a form that is searchable on-line.

Timothy Good

The well-known British UFOlogist Timothy Good, long known for promoting dubious claims, gave an even wilder talk than I expected: "Earth - An Alien Enterprise," in which he  promised to reveal "the shocking truth about the greatest coverup of all time." He reviewed some old claims of ET contact going back to the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. He showed some of Adamski's photos (Good has long been a low-key supporter of Adamski's claims.) Supposedly Adamski was given a special access card that got him into all military bases, the White House, etc. Adamski supposedly met with JFK twice. Good even showed a letter supposedly received by Adamski from an alien, written in alien-ese. He spent several minutes discussing Amicizia ("friendship"), a long-running Italian contactee case.

He also claimed that Neil Armstrong had revealed to a friend, long after his lunar landing, that other craft were already on the moon when he got there.

Good's new book, with the same title as his talk, promises to reveal:

• Genuine photographs of aliens and some of their craft
• A crashed alien craft and bodies stored in the U.S. Capitol in 1939
• Contacts with military personnel and several presidents
• Over 100 witnesses encounter two landed flying discs in a London suburb

 The final speaker on Saturday afternoon was George Noori, the longtime host of the late night, all night, paranormal and conspiracy radio show Coast to Coast AM, which he claimed to be the highest-rated show in the history of broadcasting. His talk consisted mostly of gossip, jokes, and chat (and his jokes were rather gross and gruesome). "Big foot = little penis," he said (which might come as a surprise to readers of Bigfoot porn).

Noori brought up on stage Lee Speigel of the Huffington Post, who talked about the Dead Bigfoot touring show, which was supposed to open in Phoenix that same weekend, but the arrangement fell through. (Speigel actually worked very hard on a last-minute plan to have the Bigfoot carcass show open right then, right there at Ft. McDowell, right alongside the UFO Congress. But that plan also fell through.)

During the question & answer time, an obviously disturbed man calling himself "the Reincarnated Christ" delivered a rambling, confused statement about how there is a conspiracy to conceal that the earth actually curves upward, and there is a glass sky 100 km above us. Noori ignored the boos and groans from the audience, and played with the guy like a cat with a mouse. (This is what he often does on his show.) Finally somebody grabbed a cane, and yanked the guy away.

After his talk, people lined to to meet George Noori (wearing sports coat), and have their picture taken with him.

Hang on, just one more posting to go!

The 2014 International UFO Congress, part 3

The third day, Friday Feb. 14, began with Robert Schroeder, a retired engineering manager, spoke on "How Modern Physics is Revealing the Technology of UFOs," a subject that might be more convincing if he were a physicist.

Robert Schroeder

He briefly reviewed modern quantum physics, especially the concept derived from String Theory about membranes, or separate universes. We live, he suggested, in a 4-D Membrane in a 5D Bulk (or aggregation of membranes); in our Bulk there is one other 4D membrane, the Gravity Membrane. That's the reason that gravity is so much weaker than the other three fundamental forces - most of it is over there, not here.

Schroeder's theory is that the UFOs have devised a way to get over to the Gravity Membrane, where gravity is 10¹⁶ times stronger. They generate KK Gravitons, which induces the creation of micro black holes, which somehow gets them over there. Why the UFOs don't get smushed by all that gravity, he did not explain. Because of the time and distance dilations associated with a powerful gravitational field (the same effects as acceleration), this reduces the distance to Alpha Centauri to just 25 miles. A nice trick, if you can make it work.

Patty Greer

Next up was Patty Greer (no relation to you-know-who), "a.k.a. the Croppie Girl." Her title was "Crop Circles & the Real Circlemakers." She is a film maker and crop circle researcher, who had her first UFO abduction back in 2001. "Patty Greer was a professional musician for decades, playing the harp and piano and singing with bands. In 2004 she trusted the wrong dentist and was poisoned severely by mercury fillings. For years she was seeking a healing miracle, and when everything failed she headed to the UK Crop Circles. Laying in Crop Circles day after day she developed (what appeared to be) a telepathic communication with the Circlemakers." With no previous training or experience in film making, she says that she became a filmmaker when she had an out-of-body experience in a crop circle in 2007, and she has visited over 100 crop circles. She later found out that the first Crop Circle she visited was fake, but she had extraordinary experiences in it, anyway.

She was "taken" from a Crop Circle in 2007, and her eyes were "re-calibrated" so that she could see "plasmas," which, it turns out, are everywhere. Crop Circles are made by orange orbs that fly around. They like that region of England because of the many Ley Lines there.

She says that the photos she takes in her home always show "orbs." Some people would call these orbs "reflections." 

Jeffrey Bennett

Next was astrophysicist and science educator Jeffrey Bennett, speaking on "Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for our Future."

He related how he once saw an extremely brilliant light suddenly appear in the sky, lasting only about ten seconds, then fading out. He believed it to be stationary, although his son who was with him thought it was moving to the right. It might have been an alien space ship, he said. Or possibly something else, like the rare case of a meteor heading straight toward him. Dr. Bennett, have you ever heard of an iridium flare, a brilliant reflection of the sun off the near-perfectly reflecting solar panel of an Iridium satellite? You've described one perfectly, and your son appears to be correct in that the satellite moves slowly while the flaring occurs. Don't go mystery-mongering about "alien spacecraft" when there exist much simpler and more likely explanations (although Stanton Friedman insisted that when you see an unexplained light in the sky, an alien spacecraft is the most likely explanation).

Bennett ran through the usual 'numbers game' concerning the number of stars in our galaxy, the number of galaxies in the universe, the percentage of stars having potentially habitable planets (apparently a large fraction, based on the findings of the late Kepler orbiting telescope), etc. Any intelligent beings capable of traveling here across interstellar distances must be far in advance of us, based solely on the fact that they can make the journey. Running some more numbers, he estimates they would be likely to be at least 50,000 years more advanced than us in term of technology.

Aaron Sagers

Next was Aaron Sagers speaking on "Celebrity UFO Encounters."  Sagers is "a TV personality, journalist and entertainment pundit who has covered everything from zombies, ghosts and aliens to geek culture for CNN, MTV and on his Travel Channel show “Paranormal Paparazzi,” where he serves as host and co-Executive Producer." He is a glib, fast-talking entertainer type of guy.

Sagers expressed concern that many claims about alleged Celebrity Encounters can not be verified, and that he was only interested in the authentic ones. However, he began with a few that he knew to be not confirmed, such as that alleged of Elvis and Jackie Gleason. Soon these celebrities were joined by Reinhold Messner, Christopher Columbus, Shirley Maclaine, Dennis Kucinich, Buzz Aldrin, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Muhammad Ali, and Sammy Hagar. While JFK was president, he was taking a group of friends out on a boat ride in Massachusetts to show off his new boat. Suddenly, a formation of daylight disks appeared, and everyone saw them. When they returned to land, Secret Service agents swarmed all over the boat, and the passengers were ordered not to reveal what they had seen. That's a great story, I hadn't heard that one before.

The afternoon ended with a panel on "Science and SETI," consisting of Richard Hoover, Jeffrey Bennett, and Ted Peters. Hoover speculated that life could exist on Mars in the water underneath a melting icecap. Life on earth, he said, may have arrived here on meteorites. The panelists generally agreed on the likelihood of plentiful extraterrestrial life, of panspermia (life spread from one planet to another), and of life existing, or even thriving, in what we would consider very difficult places.

Ben Hansen looking for UFOs with an image intensifier

In the evening was a demonstration, just like last year, of some very expensive low-light cameras and telescopes that use electronics to amplify very low light images. This allows you to see much fainter objects (but not as faint as the objects you can see using good binoculars!). Leading the demonstration, once again, was very tall guy Ben Hansen, host of the SyFy channel program Fact or Faked?

As was the case last year, no actual "UFOs" were seen. They did detect a stationary flashing object that appeared to flash about once every 80 seconds. Hansen suggested that it might be a defunct and tumbling geosynchronous satellite reflecting the sun, and this is probably correct. I set up a small and highly portable 76mm Celestron First Scope, and showed people the full moon that was rising. My  skeptical buddy James McGaha was there with a low-light camera and a monitor displaying the Orion nebula. It produced a clearer image than those image intensifiers. Both of these views were well-appreciated by visitors.

The 2014 International UFO Congress, Part 2

Kewaunee Lapseritis

Thursday, February 13, the second day of the UFO Congress, began with a talk by Kewaunee Lapseritis titled Interdimensionalism: The Secret to the Bigfoot/UFO Connection. The summary of his talk is wonderfully descriptive: "In 1979 he was telepathically contacted by a Sasquatch and Extraterrestrial... Kewaunee will be speaking about his in-depth encounters and how both the ETs and the Sasquatch people have helped him numerous times." That about sums it up!

And the Sasquatch people are indeed people, says he, so we must not treat them badly like we did African slaves or Chinese laborers, just because they look different from us. In fact, they are far more highly evolved than us! Lapseritis says he has been "taken" many times both by Sasquatch people and ETs. Their purpose is to raise his vibrational frequency. He lives a mere 30 feet from a Portal in the woods, which the Sasquatch people use to enter other dimensions. He related an elaborate Space Opera of good ETs who Dr. Peters would describe as 'Cosmic Saviors,' and bad ETs who are cannibalistic. He predicted that there would be three Superquakes over the next 15 months. On America's Pacific Coast, he said, sea lions and other animals are dying off because of radiation from Fukushima in Japan. (Apparently he has never visited La Jolla, California, where a thriving colony of protected sea lions has become a huge, smelly nusiance to humans.)

Lapseritis said that he knew J. Allen Hynek, who visited him in his home three times. Hynek related to him a tale about four hunters in the woods who allegedly saw a UFO land, saw a being, and shot it. But somehow the body could not be found. I seem to recall Hynek telling a similar story while I was at Northwestern.

Don Schmitt with his latest book

Next was Don Schmitt, introduced as "the premiere Roswell researcher!" Schmitt says he was a skeptic on Roswell until he investigated the case for CUFOS. He was convinced by the quality and quantity of the testimony about a crashed saucer and ETs. He didn't mention the Inconvenient Fact that most, if not all, of the major Roswell witnesses who claim to have seen ET bodies have been shown to have fabricated at least part of their stories (see Karl Pflock's excellent Roswell book.  For that matter, Schmitt has had his own credibility problems, hopefully not to be repeated).

He quite rightly debunked Annie Jacobsen's crazy claim that the crashed object was actually a Commie Nazi Saucer devised by Stalin and Mengele. 

Schmitt's new book is about The Real Area 51, which he says is, in fact at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. This is where all the crashed saucers & dead aliens end up, not in the Nevada desert. Much of his talk was taken from that book. I won't say much about it here. I have already written a review of the book, to appear in a future issue of The Skeptical Inquirer. 

For a second day, Government Agents bombarded the conference with poisonous Chemtrails

The next speaker was supposed to be Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, speaking on Encounters with Star People - An Indigenous Perspective (the Congress takes place on an Indian Reservation). However, she got sick and was unable to come to the Congress. So substituting for Clarke was Yvonne Smith, a well-known UFO Hypnotherapist and Abduction-Finder, a direct disciple of Budd Hopkins / David Jacobs / John Mack.

Smith told about her work with small children, who draw pictures of "monsters," or "spiders," or of three bald men with big heads. This apparently establishes that the children were abducted by aliens. Her new book is Coronado Intrusion. In 1994 she held a small meeting of some of her abduction-clients in the famous Hotel Del Coronado, near San Diego. Amazingly, a mass-abduction of some of these people occurred during the weekend of her meeting.

Richard Hoover

 Next was astrobiologist Richard Hoover, speaking on Is Life Restricted to Planet Earth? He established the Astrobiology Research Group at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center in 1998. He talked about organic molecules found in meteorites, and showed pictures of what he says are microscopic fossils found in them. He says that we can rule out them being contaminated by earth life forms, because of the absence of certain vital bio-molecules found in all earth life forms. If contamination had entered the meteorite, all such earthly bio-molecules would have been present, not just some of them. The Orgueil meteorite that fell in France in the 19th century is rich in such forms. Fossilized diatoms, he said, were found in a meteorite that recently fell in Sri Lanka. He even pointed to what appear to be macro fossils in photos from the Mars rovers.

Hoover obviously has a great knowledge of biology, and the presence of organic molecules in meteorites is uncontroversial. But it would be nice to get feedback from other biologists to these claims.

Timothy Good, Steve Bassett, Robert Powell, John Alexander

The last program of the afternoon was a panel discussion, "Is there a government Cover-Up?" The panel was, interestingly, evenly divided. Timothy Good and Steve Bassett argued strongly for a cover-up, while Robert Powell and John Alexander were not convinced. There is no active government investigation, said Powell.

Steve Bassett claimed that the U.S. Government possesses crashed saucers & ET bodies. Roswell is one of the greatest threats to the "Truth Embargo." As for the supposed MJ-12 papers, their mixture of real and bogus documents is typical of government disinformation tactics. 

Timothy Good said that UFOs are the most important subject facing the government and the military. There was a two-day meeting in 1954 between Sir Peter Horsley, and an ET. Alien technology has been used by the military since the 1950s. Powell objected that any technology greatly advanced beyond ours would be impossible to reverse engineer; we would have no understanding of it at all.

Bassett said so many people were 'coming forward' to give testimony about supposed government UFO secrets. Alexander replied that when you look into the backgrounds of those 'coming forward,' you see problems. Why, he asked, of all of the highly secret documents released by Snowden, do none of them have anything to do with UFOs? Bassett replied that UFO secrets are classified much higher than any documents that Snowden had access to.

The audience, of course, strongly favored the "pro" side. John Alexander told me afterward that several people had approached him privately, to say that they agreed with him, but they didn't want to say so openly! 

The Casino tells Arizonans to leave their firearms back on the ranch.

The 2014 International UFO Congress, Part 1

Well, it's February again, and so here I am once again at at Ft. McDowell, Arizona, not far from Phoenix, for the 23rd annual International UFO Congress, the largest UFO conference in the world. Once again, my resolution is to not Blog extremely long passages, just brief ones - if I can stick to it.

Government agents bombard the International UFO Congress with Chemtrails to try to disrupt the conference, without success.

The Congress began on Wednesday, February 12, and the first speaker was Ted Peters, whose subject was UFO Abductions: Are They Spiritial? In a nutshell, the answer apparently is "yes." Peters is a professor of Systematic Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, a man who obviously knows his religious history and comparative theology. I wrote about Peters' talk at the 2011 MUFON UFO Symposium, where the title of his talk was "Will ET Contact End World Religions?"  The short answer was "no," he did a survey of various religious grouips, and found that practically nobody viewed 'beings on other worlds' as a threat to their faith.

Ted Peters

Peters gave some examples of the parallels between UFO encounters and religious thought. UFO abductee Dick Johnson said he is not religious, but his alleged ET contacts conform to the Celestial Savior model. And, he notes, these days the Celestial Savior often offers Eco-Salvation. Even the statements about ETs by SETI scientist Jill Tartar conform to several of these religious categories. He suggests what is needed is a process of "demythologizing" such religious-tinged accounts. Reject the substance of the myth, but retain the transcendant God behind the myth.

He discussed the history of Hypnotic Regression to help supposed experiencers remember, from Betty and Barney Hill to the Satanic cults of Michelle Remembers to the daycare satanic molestation panic. 

The next speaker was UFO Disclosure-Man himself, Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group (PRG). They are the ones who produced last year's farcical "Citizens Hearing" on UFOs, so ineffective that Google Trends actually recorded a decrease in interest in UFOs as it unfolded. His Disclosure Petition VI, asking for Congressional Hearings on UFOs, goes up on the White House's We The People website in April, needing 100,000 signatures in 30 days.

Stephen Bassett

Bassett insists that his PRG can "checkmate" the government's position within four months (that would be June 12). The Truth Embargo can be ended this year! He is mailing out complete DVD sets of his Citizens Hearing to all members of Congress, and to U.S. Ambassadors. When they see this, they will be astonished. Soon a full media storm will be unleashed, which nothing can resist! Unfortunately, PRG lost a bunch of money that it had invested in silver assets when gold and silver tanked, money they must now get back. What kind of business is it that keeps its working capital invested in silver assets? A foolish one, as any banker will tell you.

Bassett acts and speaks exactly like everybody's image of a paranoid Conspiracy Theorist, which alone is enough to guarantee that he will never be taken seriously by the major media. However, he was extremely popular with the conference audience, who gave him a standing ovation.

Kim Carlsberg

The next speaker was Kim Carlsberg, titled "My Secret Life Comes Full Circle," in which she told of her many, many, many UFO abductions over the years. She showed some video clips from a movie based on Budd Hopkins' abduction-finding, depicting a woman on a table being examined by aliens. "Those tables are really cold," she added. 

Alien fetuses are apparently somewhat smaller than human ones, so that an earth woman carrying one hardly even notices it. She was asked to breastfeed, and to hold, hybrid fetuses, and she talked about her various alien children. In fact, she has seven alien grandchildren!

Once she woke up in a tank of liquid, and was forced to breathe it in. Somehow, she was able to survive. One time she went camping in the California desert, and woke up on another world. 

Mike Clelland and his friend Cynthia. Both report abduction-type experiences.

Next was Mike Clelland, speaking on "Owls, Synchronicity, and the UFO Abductee." He lives in the Tetons, Wyoming, and is a very outdoorsy guy. He described various camping adventures in which he and female companions encountered owls in spooky circumstances. He began looking into UFO incidents allegedly involving owls, and gradually became obsessed with owls, to the point where he even questioned his own sanity. Owls might be, he explained, a "screen memory": what you remember are owls, but what you really saw were aliens. He delved into the mythologies of owls, Jungian archetypes, and all that. 

Driving home from this very same conference last year, at his campsite in a remote area Clelland saw a formation of lights on a hilltop, a round structure, looking exactly like a landed UFO. And there is no structure at that spot. What all this means, he admits he does not know, but if he finds out, he will certainly post in on his Blog Hidden Experience.

Robert Powell

The last speaker of the day was Robert Powell, MUFON's Director of Research since 2007, on "UFOs & Government: The Historical and Changing Role of Government Over Time." He gave a fairly standard history of Project Sign, Project Grudge, Project Bluebook, the Robertson Panel, etc. Most of this is stuff most of us have heard many times, although I'm sure many at the conference have not. Also he talked about his favorite cases, including the RB-47 case, which recent work by Tim Printy pretty well takes apart. He has a theory of why the ET showed up during and after WWII (a recent UFO trend is to try to push back the start of the modern saucer era from Arnold and 1947 to WWII itself): the ETs detected radioactive isotopes in our atmosphere, and came to check it out. If that's correct, the E.T.s must have been hanging out pretty nearby, as the flash of light from the Hiroshima bomb had not even gotten halfway to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, when Kenneth Arnold saw his nine flying boomerangs.