Pilkington's Mirage Men was about as good a look into a UFO convention from a documentary viewpoint as one could hope for, complete with interviews with Richard Doty himself. It too is to be released as movie by John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington at some point in the future, and that is one to look forward to.
Another really entertaining look at the more, shall we say eccentric, aspects of UFO conferences is in the form of a Rick Wood podcast from the 2010 X Conference. His interview with an attendee there manages to encompass, in the persona of this one true believer, just about every aspect of the UFO phenomena that makes you want to cringe and deny that you have any interest in such a field like this. Yet, while it is quite embarassing it's also immensely entertaining at the same time, not unlike convincing yourself you are slowing down by that car crash to make sure everyone's okay rather to see just how really bad it is.
The title, Jimmy Carter, Underground Alien Bases and Talking Velociraptors From Outer Space, is almost worth the price of admission in and of it self. ( Check it out here and here.) But beyond the entertainment value alone, there are some useful points to be pulled out of this interview. One is the incredible mashup of belief that has evolved, or rather is in a constant state of evolutionary flux, a sort of transconceptual miscegenation. The other is that in this ufological/ufoological evolutionary flux, there is not necessarily the survival of the strongest but of the weirdest. Not that any of the old concepts every completely die out, they just wait to be picked up by once again by newcomers unfamiliar with why they were laid aside in the first place.
Which makes one wonder if indeed there is any truly bad publicity other than no publicity when it comes to anomalous phenomena...Anyone remember Bridey Murphy? Thought not...
Friday, December 17, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Some Thoughts on the Etymology and Uses of ‘High Strangeness’
The term ‘high strangeness’ has found widespread acceptance and is currently widely used in ufology and related paranormal fields. But the etymological origins of this phrase are unclear, and not readily discernible through that font of modern wisdom, the internet (at least not with the sort of cursory search that passes for research with persons such as myself). It is often tossed about without much thought given to how it came about in the first place, or what it may mean in relationship to, say, low strangeness, a term which is rarely, if ever used.
The first use of the term that presents itself to this reader is from 38 years ago. Chapter Four in J. Allen Hynek’s The UFO Experience, is entitled On the Strangeness of UFO Reports, and it is here that he mentions the term ‘high strangeness’ some 7 times, primarily in relationship to a “Strangeness Rating” for the “’strangeness-spread’ of UFO sightings.”
“Still, there exist UFO reports that are coherent, sequential narrative accounts of these strange human experiences. Largely because there has been no mechanism for bringing these reports to general attention, they seem to be far too strange to be believed.
They don't fit the established conceptual framework of modern physical science. It is about as difficult to put oneself into a 'belief framework' and accept a host of UFO reports as having described actual events as, for example, it would have been for Newton to have accepted the basic concepts of quantum mechanics.
Yet the strangeness of UFO reports does fall into fairly definite patterns. The 'strangeness-spread' of UFO reports is quite limited. We do not, for instance, receive reports of dinosaurs seen flying upside down, Unidentified Sailing Objects, or strange objects that burrow into the ground…
The Strangeness Rating is, to express it loosely, a measure of how 'odd-ball' a report is within its particular broad classification. More precisely, it can be taken as a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms. A light seen in the night sky the trajectory of which, cannot be ascribed to a balloon, aircraft, etc., would nonetheless have a low Strangeness Rating because there is only one strange thing about' the report to explain: its motion. A report of a weird craft that descended to within 100 feet of a car on a lonely road, caused the car's engine to die, its radio to stop, and its lights to go out, left marks on the nearby ground, and appeared to be under intelligent control receives a high Strangeness Rating because it contains a number of separate very strange items, each of which outrages common sense.”
This concept of a Strangeness Rating is further expounded on by Jacques Vallee in The Invisible College (1975, also published in England 1977 as UFOs: The Psychic Solution). He acknowledges Hynek’s discussion of the subject, which certainly has received less widespread acceptance as the Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kind heuristic model found in the same book.
Vallee also proposes a ranked series of Strangeness Categories that, though useful in grading the phenomena and even helping to understand why, where and to whom they are reported, has generally been overlooked. I quote it at length here because it helps expand on the possible meaning of high strangeness by contrasting it with incidents of lesser strangeness. It also exhibits the low key humor which makes Vallee such an enjoyable writer.
“A basic characteristic of the confrontation with a UFO is the strangeness of the occurrence. Dr Allen Hynek, in his book The UFO Experience, proposed a study of the strangeness in connection with the reliability of a report Is it necessarily true, he asked, that the strangest reports (such as the landing cases with occupants) always come from the least reliable sources? He found that such was NOT the case, and that many reports existed in his files with both high reliability and high strangeness.
Let us take this idea one step further and discuss the probability that a given witness will report seeing a UFO. Assuming ten people have seen a strange object in the sky, how many of these reports will I be able to obtain? This depends, of course, on how willing each of the witnesses will be to tell anyone about his experience, and also it will depend on the person to whom he relates it. On this basis I have defined seven categories of strangeness and I have constructed for each category an appropriate scenario, as follows:
Strangeness Category 1: You see a flickering light as you come out of the garage. It reminds you of a firefly, but you have never observed fireflies under quite similar conditions. Result: You are unlikely to call the police or the Air Force to report this! If you do tell someone about the sighting, it will probably be a friend or associate: “I didn’t know there were fireflies at this time of the year.”
Strangeness Category 2: As you come out of the garage you see a flaming object that plunges behind the hill. Perhaps you have read somewhere that meteors and fireballs often appeared to be quite close when in fact they were hundreds of miles away. However, you call the police to report it because the summer has been very dry and you are afraid the phenomenon, whatever it is, may cause something to catch fire.
Strangeness Category 3: You put your car away and come out of the garage in time to see a luminous object giving off a blue glow that plunges behind the hill. It looks like a large, circular aircraft and seems to have some windows but no tail or wings. Could it be that the Russians are up to something? You call the nearest Air Force base to report it, out of a feeling of civic duty.
Strangeness Category 4: You park the old Chevy by the side of the barn and as you walk toward the house you suddenly see a large disk with lighted portholes that comes down with a gentle rocking motion and touches the ground near the pen where the pigs are kept. It makes a humming sound that turns into a high pitch whistle and it takes off again. You think of calling the police, but it occurs to you that the neighbors will be intrigued and the story will be all over the town the next day. You realize that the Air Force might be interest, but you think better of it when you wife tells you she read an article in a magazine explaining how the Air Force paid some big university to study those things and it came out negative. ON the other hand, Joe down the street has lots of books on the subject and gets a little journal from a private UFO group in Indiana. Perhaps he would pass along the information to them. This way you could at least tell someone about it without being ridiculed.
Strangeness Category 5: As you lock the garage to make sure no vandals will scratch the pain on the new Corvette you are suddenly confronted with a dwarf wearing a silvery diving suit. It has no visible arms but its oversized eyes glow with a strange orange light. It turns around and walks stiffly away into the bushes. A moment later a round object takes off from behind the hedge. At first you are too shocked to move, but you come to your senses and go into the house. You tell your wife you don’t feel like going on that camping trip next weekend. She wants to know why and you reluctantly tell her about what you’ve just seen, after she promises not to tell her mother.
Strangeness Category 6: You are lying in bed, wondering whether there is enough gas left in the car to drive to church and back tomorrow, when suddenly a light appears in the backyard. At the same time the baby starts crying in the next room. Your get up in your pajamas to check the screen door and a large blue object comes into view, hovering six feet away. A beam of light appears underneath. It sweeps along the ground with a small white spot and comes toward you. When it hits your face thousands of thoughts come into your mind. You become “locked” within the strange light. A torrent of ideas seems to be transferred into your consciousness at a high rate. It suddenly stops and the blue object vanishes on the spot. You lean against the door wondering whether it was of God or the devil. Your mind is filled with burning questions. Could life exist on other planets? What if what we call God was only one of millions of higher beings who exist throughout the cosmos? You develop a throbbing headache. You take a sleeping pill and go back to bed without awakening your wife. The baby seems to have gone to sleep.
Strangeness Category 7: You are driving a truck at fifty miles an hour around a bend in the road when you become aware of a large, dark object that blocks the whole highway. There seems to be no possibility to avoid a collision but an invisible force appears to take hold of the fifteen-ton rig and bring it to a stop within a few feet of the object. A ring of smoke extends from the base of the dome-shaped craft and you start choking as it reaches the truck. The next thing you remember is that you are driving around another bend in the road fifty miles to the south. You look at your watch and it is an hour later than you thought it was. “
Although as a tool it might not necessarily be picked up, dusted off and used again, but at least because by understanding the proposed use of Strangeness Categories we can gain some insight as to why it was developed in the first place and to what purpose such models can be put in helping to sort out unexplained phenomena.
The first use of the term that presents itself to this reader is from 38 years ago. Chapter Four in J. Allen Hynek’s The UFO Experience, is entitled On the Strangeness of UFO Reports, and it is here that he mentions the term ‘high strangeness’ some 7 times, primarily in relationship to a “Strangeness Rating” for the “’strangeness-spread’ of UFO sightings.”
“Still, there exist UFO reports that are coherent, sequential narrative accounts of these strange human experiences. Largely because there has been no mechanism for bringing these reports to general attention, they seem to be far too strange to be believed.
They don't fit the established conceptual framework of modern physical science. It is about as difficult to put oneself into a 'belief framework' and accept a host of UFO reports as having described actual events as, for example, it would have been for Newton to have accepted the basic concepts of quantum mechanics.
Yet the strangeness of UFO reports does fall into fairly definite patterns. The 'strangeness-spread' of UFO reports is quite limited. We do not, for instance, receive reports of dinosaurs seen flying upside down, Unidentified Sailing Objects, or strange objects that burrow into the ground…
The Strangeness Rating is, to express it loosely, a measure of how 'odd-ball' a report is within its particular broad classification. More precisely, it can be taken as a measure of the number of information bits the report contains, each of which is difficult to explain in common-sense terms. A light seen in the night sky the trajectory of which, cannot be ascribed to a balloon, aircraft, etc., would nonetheless have a low Strangeness Rating because there is only one strange thing about' the report to explain: its motion. A report of a weird craft that descended to within 100 feet of a car on a lonely road, caused the car's engine to die, its radio to stop, and its lights to go out, left marks on the nearby ground, and appeared to be under intelligent control receives a high Strangeness Rating because it contains a number of separate very strange items, each of which outrages common sense.”
This concept of a Strangeness Rating is further expounded on by Jacques Vallee in The Invisible College (1975, also published in England 1977 as UFOs: The Psychic Solution). He acknowledges Hynek’s discussion of the subject, which certainly has received less widespread acceptance as the Close Encounters of the First, Second and Third Kind heuristic model found in the same book.
Vallee also proposes a ranked series of Strangeness Categories that, though useful in grading the phenomena and even helping to understand why, where and to whom they are reported, has generally been overlooked. I quote it at length here because it helps expand on the possible meaning of high strangeness by contrasting it with incidents of lesser strangeness. It also exhibits the low key humor which makes Vallee such an enjoyable writer.
“A basic characteristic of the confrontation with a UFO is the strangeness of the occurrence. Dr Allen Hynek, in his book The UFO Experience, proposed a study of the strangeness in connection with the reliability of a report Is it necessarily true, he asked, that the strangest reports (such as the landing cases with occupants) always come from the least reliable sources? He found that such was NOT the case, and that many reports existed in his files with both high reliability and high strangeness.
Let us take this idea one step further and discuss the probability that a given witness will report seeing a UFO. Assuming ten people have seen a strange object in the sky, how many of these reports will I be able to obtain? This depends, of course, on how willing each of the witnesses will be to tell anyone about his experience, and also it will depend on the person to whom he relates it. On this basis I have defined seven categories of strangeness and I have constructed for each category an appropriate scenario, as follows:
Strangeness Category 1: You see a flickering light as you come out of the garage. It reminds you of a firefly, but you have never observed fireflies under quite similar conditions. Result: You are unlikely to call the police or the Air Force to report this! If you do tell someone about the sighting, it will probably be a friend or associate: “I didn’t know there were fireflies at this time of the year.”
Strangeness Category 2: As you come out of the garage you see a flaming object that plunges behind the hill. Perhaps you have read somewhere that meteors and fireballs often appeared to be quite close when in fact they were hundreds of miles away. However, you call the police to report it because the summer has been very dry and you are afraid the phenomenon, whatever it is, may cause something to catch fire.
Strangeness Category 3: You put your car away and come out of the garage in time to see a luminous object giving off a blue glow that plunges behind the hill. It looks like a large, circular aircraft and seems to have some windows but no tail or wings. Could it be that the Russians are up to something? You call the nearest Air Force base to report it, out of a feeling of civic duty.
Strangeness Category 4: You park the old Chevy by the side of the barn and as you walk toward the house you suddenly see a large disk with lighted portholes that comes down with a gentle rocking motion and touches the ground near the pen where the pigs are kept. It makes a humming sound that turns into a high pitch whistle and it takes off again. You think of calling the police, but it occurs to you that the neighbors will be intrigued and the story will be all over the town the next day. You realize that the Air Force might be interest, but you think better of it when you wife tells you she read an article in a magazine explaining how the Air Force paid some big university to study those things and it came out negative. ON the other hand, Joe down the street has lots of books on the subject and gets a little journal from a private UFO group in Indiana. Perhaps he would pass along the information to them. This way you could at least tell someone about it without being ridiculed.
Strangeness Category 5: As you lock the garage to make sure no vandals will scratch the pain on the new Corvette you are suddenly confronted with a dwarf wearing a silvery diving suit. It has no visible arms but its oversized eyes glow with a strange orange light. It turns around and walks stiffly away into the bushes. A moment later a round object takes off from behind the hedge. At first you are too shocked to move, but you come to your senses and go into the house. You tell your wife you don’t feel like going on that camping trip next weekend. She wants to know why and you reluctantly tell her about what you’ve just seen, after she promises not to tell her mother.
Strangeness Category 6: You are lying in bed, wondering whether there is enough gas left in the car to drive to church and back tomorrow, when suddenly a light appears in the backyard. At the same time the baby starts crying in the next room. Your get up in your pajamas to check the screen door and a large blue object comes into view, hovering six feet away. A beam of light appears underneath. It sweeps along the ground with a small white spot and comes toward you. When it hits your face thousands of thoughts come into your mind. You become “locked” within the strange light. A torrent of ideas seems to be transferred into your consciousness at a high rate. It suddenly stops and the blue object vanishes on the spot. You lean against the door wondering whether it was of God or the devil. Your mind is filled with burning questions. Could life exist on other planets? What if what we call God was only one of millions of higher beings who exist throughout the cosmos? You develop a throbbing headache. You take a sleeping pill and go back to bed without awakening your wife. The baby seems to have gone to sleep.
Strangeness Category 7: You are driving a truck at fifty miles an hour around a bend in the road when you become aware of a large, dark object that blocks the whole highway. There seems to be no possibility to avoid a collision but an invisible force appears to take hold of the fifteen-ton rig and bring it to a stop within a few feet of the object. A ring of smoke extends from the base of the dome-shaped craft and you start choking as it reaches the truck. The next thing you remember is that you are driving around another bend in the road fifty miles to the south. You look at your watch and it is an hour later than you thought it was. “
Although as a tool it might not necessarily be picked up, dusted off and used again, but at least because by understanding the proposed use of Strangeness Categories we can gain some insight as to why it was developed in the first place and to what purpose such models can be put in helping to sort out unexplained phenomena.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
How I Almost Became a True Believer
I can’t really remember when I first became fascinated with the concepts of UFOs and flying saucers, but it is firmly embedded with images of the library branch where I read everything I could on the subject. This was back in the early ‘60s so it was almost exclusively nuts and bolts related, though by this time there was also a healthy dose of contactee material sprinkled in. Okay, healthy may not be the right analogy, but it was certainly a heady mix, especially when supplemented by the very real fact that we were also travelling into outer space at the time, reinforced by a steady ongoing diet of rockets and space suits in the press.
This fascination with flying saucers didn’t go unnoticed by my family. My siblings came to me all excited and told me that there was one outside, an excitement which was contagious and sparked me to come running out to finally see the visitors from beyond for myself. What I found there was their hilarious derision and laughter at my credulity, as well as healthy respect for the very real human capacity for deceit in the pursuit of a hoax, as well as an appreciation for a degree of skepticism about the claims of nonbelievers.
I cut my teeth on the Condon Report when it was published, which I took to imply that although there is much going on in the sky which can be misinterpreted, which when sifted through leaves a residual amount of strange phenomena which is still beyond our current understanding. Eric von Daniken was all the rage in high school, but following through in studying the cultural, anthropological and archaeological backdrop he was drawing made clear the height of the conclusions he was jumping to and supplied an Occam’s razor which cut like butter through most of his conclusions.
But it was the whole Bill Moore and Aquarius affair that put the subject to bed for me for almost three decades. With so many conflicting theories and what was clear even then as massive amounts of disinformation the field of ufology was becoming so muddied I put aside the subject. Oddly enough it this same affair which has sparked renewed interest in the whole field of ufoology (thanks to Jim Moseley for that oh so perfect term!) when Greg Bishop’s Project Beta added some much needed perspective on that truly bizarre episode. For me it closed one window but opened up a door onto what the late Robert Anton Wilson called maybe logic, that blessed state of being able to consider everything while believing in nothing.
It was in that same period that another formative event occurred, which has not only helped me understand the nature of becoming a true believer, but the emotional commitment and psychological burden such a belief system entails.
It must have been well over thirty years ago, walking back from a friend’s apartment on a road alongside Saint Edwards in Austin, one with an incredible panoramic overview of the city. It was late at night when I notice a light in the sky approaching from the west. It grew closer and brighter, and as it became clear that it was a series of moving lights. Coming ever closer it began to resolve itself as a series of colored lights that seemed to be moving horizontally beneath a solid surface.
I began to get quite excited about this, visualizing it in my minds eyes as lights rotating around the bottom of a classic disc shaped flying saucer. The implications of this were beginning to reshape my sense of what this implied, that the world would change for me as I went from being someone who had always had an interest in the subject to becoming a full blown believer, one of many of what was sure to be a widely viewed phenomena that would perhaps not only precipitate a major flap but mark the beginning of a mass landing. There was an emotional excitement of anticipation mixed with fear mixed with wonder, a waterfall of feelings running over me, drowning out whatever doubt the inner skeptic could muster because there it was before my very eyes. My whole world view was changing right there and then, some inner element of my psyche welcoming it as a childhood dream finally come true.
And still it grew closer, the lights and their apparent rotation clearer. At one point, however, it became clear to me what was really going on. I could now hear the drone of a small private plane's engine drone, and see that it was pulling behind it a lighted advertising banner with still unclear words scrolling across it.
And so my world changed again. It was, and remains clear to me now, that I have to be careful about allowing my preconceptions and residual belief systems guide my perceptions into seeing what I want to or expect to see. That much is clear, and it applies every bit as much when reading or hearing about the anomalous experiences of others.
But there is another, more frightening aspect to this experience. If that plane had turned sooner, before I'd been able to make out what it really was, I would now be one of those poor fools who run around trying to tell everyone about the UFO I saw, wondering why no else had reported it (or why the sighting was being suppressed) and getting sucked into the bizarrely puzzling world of a true believer in visitors from another world. That is scary.
But it has also helped guide my views on the UFO phenomena. Over the past couple of years I've returned to a fascination with that phenomena, though I feel compelled to say without the true believer's psychological baggage. But high strangeness has an attraction all its own, if for no other reason that as a social and cultural phenomena that may even have distinct applications by the military as a tool of misinformation in psychological operations.
One very clear example of this is covered in Greg Bishop's book, Project Beta, which has implications well beyond Kirkland Air Force Base using intelligence officers to feed a believer’s investigations of covert operations there, leading not only to his mental disintegration but feeding the UFO community a new mythology of underground bases at Dulce Mesa well away from the air base in Albequerque to divert attention. Another recent addition to the field is the fascinating Mirage Men, by Mark Pilkington, which is one of the most delightful, readable, and enjoyable accounts of the military's involvement in attempting to understand as well as manipulate the public's focus on unknown aerial encounters and belief in aliens over the past 63 years. And H.P. Albarelli’s A Terrible Mistake, about as well documented a book on MK-ULTRA as can be found, makes clear the degree to which government will go to hide its motives and methods, especially during the early days of the Cold War when its paranoia reached a degree that was not only pathological but bordering on the sociopathic.
But make no mistake about it, there is every bit as much paranoia and as many attempts to guide public opinion by true believers as well. What it is that the true believers believe in spans as wide a gap as the diehard skeptics on one side and the wide-eye New Age Naïf’s, Nazi nut-and-bolters, extraterrestrial exponents, ultraterrestrial underlords, transdimensional time travelers, abduction victimologists and far more evolving even as the anomalies emerge.
There is a cultural meme associated with this phenomena that is continually morphing and endlessly fascinating. The cost of admission to this freak show is minimal, but one must be endlessly cautious once inside the tent to remain part of the audience, for it is not always clear where the sawdust ends and the stage begins.
This fascination with flying saucers didn’t go unnoticed by my family. My siblings came to me all excited and told me that there was one outside, an excitement which was contagious and sparked me to come running out to finally see the visitors from beyond for myself. What I found there was their hilarious derision and laughter at my credulity, as well as healthy respect for the very real human capacity for deceit in the pursuit of a hoax, as well as an appreciation for a degree of skepticism about the claims of nonbelievers.
I cut my teeth on the Condon Report when it was published, which I took to imply that although there is much going on in the sky which can be misinterpreted, which when sifted through leaves a residual amount of strange phenomena which is still beyond our current understanding. Eric von Daniken was all the rage in high school, but following through in studying the cultural, anthropological and archaeological backdrop he was drawing made clear the height of the conclusions he was jumping to and supplied an Occam’s razor which cut like butter through most of his conclusions.
But it was the whole Bill Moore and Aquarius affair that put the subject to bed for me for almost three decades. With so many conflicting theories and what was clear even then as massive amounts of disinformation the field of ufology was becoming so muddied I put aside the subject. Oddly enough it this same affair which has sparked renewed interest in the whole field of ufoology (thanks to Jim Moseley for that oh so perfect term!) when Greg Bishop’s Project Beta added some much needed perspective on that truly bizarre episode. For me it closed one window but opened up a door onto what the late Robert Anton Wilson called maybe logic, that blessed state of being able to consider everything while believing in nothing.
It was in that same period that another formative event occurred, which has not only helped me understand the nature of becoming a true believer, but the emotional commitment and psychological burden such a belief system entails.
It must have been well over thirty years ago, walking back from a friend’s apartment on a road alongside Saint Edwards in Austin, one with an incredible panoramic overview of the city. It was late at night when I notice a light in the sky approaching from the west. It grew closer and brighter, and as it became clear that it was a series of moving lights. Coming ever closer it began to resolve itself as a series of colored lights that seemed to be moving horizontally beneath a solid surface.
I began to get quite excited about this, visualizing it in my minds eyes as lights rotating around the bottom of a classic disc shaped flying saucer. The implications of this were beginning to reshape my sense of what this implied, that the world would change for me as I went from being someone who had always had an interest in the subject to becoming a full blown believer, one of many of what was sure to be a widely viewed phenomena that would perhaps not only precipitate a major flap but mark the beginning of a mass landing. There was an emotional excitement of anticipation mixed with fear mixed with wonder, a waterfall of feelings running over me, drowning out whatever doubt the inner skeptic could muster because there it was before my very eyes. My whole world view was changing right there and then, some inner element of my psyche welcoming it as a childhood dream finally come true.
And still it grew closer, the lights and their apparent rotation clearer. At one point, however, it became clear to me what was really going on. I could now hear the drone of a small private plane's engine drone, and see that it was pulling behind it a lighted advertising banner with still unclear words scrolling across it.
And so my world changed again. It was, and remains clear to me now, that I have to be careful about allowing my preconceptions and residual belief systems guide my perceptions into seeing what I want to or expect to see. That much is clear, and it applies every bit as much when reading or hearing about the anomalous experiences of others.
But there is another, more frightening aspect to this experience. If that plane had turned sooner, before I'd been able to make out what it really was, I would now be one of those poor fools who run around trying to tell everyone about the UFO I saw, wondering why no else had reported it (or why the sighting was being suppressed) and getting sucked into the bizarrely puzzling world of a true believer in visitors from another world. That is scary.
But it has also helped guide my views on the UFO phenomena. Over the past couple of years I've returned to a fascination with that phenomena, though I feel compelled to say without the true believer's psychological baggage. But high strangeness has an attraction all its own, if for no other reason that as a social and cultural phenomena that may even have distinct applications by the military as a tool of misinformation in psychological operations.
One very clear example of this is covered in Greg Bishop's book, Project Beta, which has implications well beyond Kirkland Air Force Base using intelligence officers to feed a believer’s investigations of covert operations there, leading not only to his mental disintegration but feeding the UFO community a new mythology of underground bases at Dulce Mesa well away from the air base in Albequerque to divert attention. Another recent addition to the field is the fascinating Mirage Men, by Mark Pilkington, which is one of the most delightful, readable, and enjoyable accounts of the military's involvement in attempting to understand as well as manipulate the public's focus on unknown aerial encounters and belief in aliens over the past 63 years. And H.P. Albarelli’s A Terrible Mistake, about as well documented a book on MK-ULTRA as can be found, makes clear the degree to which government will go to hide its motives and methods, especially during the early days of the Cold War when its paranoia reached a degree that was not only pathological but bordering on the sociopathic.
But make no mistake about it, there is every bit as much paranoia and as many attempts to guide public opinion by true believers as well. What it is that the true believers believe in spans as wide a gap as the diehard skeptics on one side and the wide-eye New Age Naïf’s, Nazi nut-and-bolters, extraterrestrial exponents, ultraterrestrial underlords, transdimensional time travelers, abduction victimologists and far more evolving even as the anomalies emerge.
There is a cultural meme associated with this phenomena that is continually morphing and endlessly fascinating. The cost of admission to this freak show is minimal, but one must be endlessly cautious once inside the tent to remain part of the audience, for it is not always clear where the sawdust ends and the stage begins.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Jacques Vallee in BoingBoing
Dr. Jacques Vallee is one the finest and most well respected researchers on UFOs, and his body of work is not only prolific but captures the evolution of his thought on the subject quite succinctly. Starting with his early observation of an unidentified object as an astronomer and the cover-up of that sighting by the bureaucrats above him, his viewpoints evolved from a nuts and bolts viewpoint (Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space – A Scientific Appraisa(1965)l and Challenge to Science: The UFO Enigma(1966)) through to his exposition of the similarities of the phenomena with other anomalistic phenomena throughout written history in Passport to Magonia: From Foklore to Flying Saucers(1969). His take on the subject is often at variance to that of the general public and usually well ahead of it; hence his books The Invisible College: What a Group of Scientists Has Discovered About UFO Influences on the Human Race (1975) and Mesengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (1979). But after a trilogy published from 1988 to 1991 (Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact, Confrontations – A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact and Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception) he published little on UFOs and began to focus more his work as a venture capitalist. He worked with DARA in the early development of what was to become the internet, and recently has begun to reemerge as a iconic figure in the ongoing history of the scientific study of anomalous phenomena.
Crop Circles, Part Deux: Alien Glyphs, Human Myths, Blogging BlissJacques Vallee at 8:47 PM April 8, 2010 http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/08/crop-circles-part-de.html
In Search of Alien Glyphs (or are they microwave blasters?)
Jacques Vallee at 11:12 AM March 23, 2010
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/23/in-search-of-alien-g.html#previouspost
Of Flattened Flora and Expulsion Cavities: The crop circle controversy continuesJacques Vallee at 11:21 AM April 28, 2010 http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/28/of-flattened-flora-a.html
Crop circles themes on ufologie.net, with a particularly nice collection of pictures, including obviously fake, poorly executed circles and exquisitely beautiful patterns and links to wide variety of web articles http://www.ufologie.net/htm/cropthemes.htm
Links from comments section are quite interestingSand Art: A New Kind of Land ArtExquisitely beautiful, reminiscent of crop circles and hauntingly ephemeralhttp://theswedishbed.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/sand-art-a-new-kind-of-land-art/
BLT Research Team, Inc.PURPOSE: The BLT Research Team Inc.'s primary focus is crop circle research - the discovery, scientific documentation and evaluation of physical changes induced in plants, soils and other materials at crop circle sites by the energy (or energy system) responsible for creating them and to determine, if possible, from these data the specific nature and source of these energies. Secondly, our intent is to publish these research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals and to disseminate this information to the general public through lectures, mainstream articles and the internethttp://www.bltresearch.com/
Crop Circles: Artworks or Alien Signs?National Geographic article, unfortunately lacking photographshttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0801_020801_cropcircles.html
The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making, by Rob Irving and John Lundberg, from the publisher of Strange Attractor Journalhttp://strangeattractor.co.uk/fieldguide/
And the authors website, Circlemakers.orghttp://www.circlemakers.org/index.html
How Crop Circles Work, on HowStuffWorks.com, well researched and pretty well balancedhttp://science.howstuffworks.com/crop-circle.htm
There are two interesting things about crop circles from the viewpoint of The Anomaly Agnostic; the need for people to hoax others, in the sense of making crop circles and crowing about it afterward, and the need of people to believe in other explanations in spite of the clear evidence of hoaxers operating in the field.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Podcasts of interest
One of the benefits of the internet doesn't require being tied down to a computer anymore. I was a little late coming to the joys of listening to them, and am now just gobsmacked with the tremendous amount of information that can be carried around and listened to, anytime, anywhere.
Here are some of interest to both budding young anomalists and crusty old skeptics still invested with an interest in the odd and unusal...
Adam Gorightly’s Untamed Dimensions --- Although only in operation from 2006 to 2008, these are some truly entertaining shows to go back and revisit. Gorightly is also a prolific, self labeled ‘crank historian’ (with an unspecified emphasis on crank or historian) whose works on Kenneth Thornley and Charles Manson are some of the best out there, and in Thornley’s case about the only one out there. But the podcasts are a downright hoot, where one will find information that supplements his written work and often goes off onto even more bizarre tangents. His interviews with the clear cut crackpots are especially appealing in that he doesn’t judge them and gently guides them into their own particular brand of eloquent craziness. And this is your go-to guy for the latest low down on Charles Manson, a case long far richer than that presented to the public by Vince “Helter Skelter” Bugliosi.
Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso --- Bishop is another author who has brought his skills and background into the podcast realm. This is an author who has done plenty of footwork in his investigation of the Paul Bennewitz case, which has imbued him with a deep and firmly grounded understanding of the depth and breadth deception that government disinformation programs can engage in.
Binnall of America --- A relative newcomer to anomalies (the mid 2000s), Ted Binnall has put together an impressive collection of interviews (well into its fifth year now) that is definitely worth the hundreds of hours they encompass. If you’re into baseball, don’t miss his annual baseball show with a wide range of other podcasters and investigators (including Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop) expounding on another favorite subject of theirs.
Paratopia --- Lots of interesting programs here, though often tucked in between lots of banter and emotional outbursts with the feel of broadcast flame wars. But there is a healthy dose of skepticism and the hosts make no secret of their opinions, which they wisely hold back until after their interviews, so I don’t feel too bad about opining on their own personal vagaries. Expect a heavy dose of ghost hunting and odd excursions into personal grow here.
Eerie Radio --- Interesting material out there, though the back and forth banter at times makes it, well, on some of their own descriptions that own up to this and recommend not downloading them. I did feel, along with the hosts, a certain amount of embarrassment for the Hessdalen Project scientist Erling P. Strand they interviewed, especially if he listened to their post show wrap up, although the interview itself was pretty well done. But if you’re looking for that feeling of sitting around shooting the shit with a bunch of old friends with names like DK and Fizz, this could be your show. Heavy emphasis on ghost hunting here too.
Out There Radio --- This is another now defunct podcast that bears many rewards for the listener willing to go on through all 50 episodes. These are well researched and reach well into “the world of conspiracy theories, the occult, hidden history, and the counterculture” that stand as excellent introductions to many different areas that are too often presented in a more hysterical fashion. This was originally a college radio show where the intellectual background of the hosts shines through.
Welcome to Mars! --- This series of 12 half hour longs podcasts presents a cultural history of the 50’s that should not be missed. It is not only well researched and presents the mindset that gave rise to the idea of the past’s idea of the future, but the background music (with theremin) by Simon James creates an eerie aural ambience that captures the nature of the 50's beautifully. Anyone who wants to get a clearer understanding of the anthropoloical setting that the flying saucer phenoma arose should check this one out!
Conspiracy Skeptic --- It’s not only the true believers that warrant a listen. There are so fairly complete synopses of conspiracy memes here that offer a counterbalance to overly open minds, the kind where the brains start falling out. I particularly liked the one on the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s as an example of how unquestioning acceptance of conspiracy theories have led to witch hunts with horrendous casualties in modern day America.
PsiOp Radio --- This is an Austin based podcast which took me a while to warm up to due to its decided parapolitical leanings. But SMiles Lewis and Mack White do make a pretty good team and do offer some pretty good guests. Mack is a good old boy cartoonist with a delightfully anomalistic bent to much of his work, and SMiles is the mastermind behind the Anomaly Radio network of shows. Unfortunately, many of the downloads are burdened with some lengthy commercials that haven’t been edited out.
Blue Rose Radio --- This is an earlier and now discontinued podcast from SMiles Lewis, but still available if you dig deeply enough through the Anomaly Radio backlists. Drawing its title from a Twin Peaks reference, the earlier numbers are pretty dad gummed interesting and well worth the time.
There are some podcasts that I’ve come across because of interviews they’ve done, usually of authors of interesting books. Mitch Horowitz (Occult America), Peter Levenda (the Sinister Forces trilogy) and H.P. Alberelli (A Terrible Mistake) are examples of such authors. Adam Gorightly (The Shadow over Santa Susanna, The Beast of Adam Gorightly) and Greg Bishop (Project Beta) are authors have not only have (or have had) podcasts of their own, but are often interviewed on other podcasts, which make them worth a listen and further consideration.
Gnostic Media --- I can’t really say a whole lot about this podcast, though I can heartily recommend the interviews with Horowitz and Levenda that can be found there. There is a strong emphasis on psychedelic related research in many of these podcasts, with many interviews with very serious investigators, including Dr. Stanley Grof.
Red Ice Radio --- A Swedish podcast in English that has presented some in depth programs with Albarelli and Levenda here. This is good, straight forward interviewing with a peculiarly non-American spin that is refreshing in its own right. An update on Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain) research is an excellent introduction to a concept that probably offers more insights into the study of anomalous behavior than is generally recognized. Most of the shows are broken up into two hour long parts, the second only available to subscribers, but if you look hard enough some of the more interesting second halves can be found out there.
Here are some of interest to both budding young anomalists and crusty old skeptics still invested with an interest in the odd and unusal...
Adam Gorightly’s Untamed Dimensions --- Although only in operation from 2006 to 2008, these are some truly entertaining shows to go back and revisit. Gorightly is also a prolific, self labeled ‘crank historian’ (with an unspecified emphasis on crank or historian) whose works on Kenneth Thornley and Charles Manson are some of the best out there, and in Thornley’s case about the only one out there. But the podcasts are a downright hoot, where one will find information that supplements his written work and often goes off onto even more bizarre tangents. His interviews with the clear cut crackpots are especially appealing in that he doesn’t judge them and gently guides them into their own particular brand of eloquent craziness. And this is your go-to guy for the latest low down on Charles Manson, a case long far richer than that presented to the public by Vince “Helter Skelter” Bugliosi.
Greg Bishop’s Radio Misterioso --- Bishop is another author who has brought his skills and background into the podcast realm. This is an author who has done plenty of footwork in his investigation of the Paul Bennewitz case, which has imbued him with a deep and firmly grounded understanding of the depth and breadth deception that government disinformation programs can engage in.
Binnall of America --- A relative newcomer to anomalies (the mid 2000s), Ted Binnall has put together an impressive collection of interviews (well into its fifth year now) that is definitely worth the hundreds of hours they encompass. If you’re into baseball, don’t miss his annual baseball show with a wide range of other podcasters and investigators (including Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop) expounding on another favorite subject of theirs.
Paratopia --- Lots of interesting programs here, though often tucked in between lots of banter and emotional outbursts with the feel of broadcast flame wars. But there is a healthy dose of skepticism and the hosts make no secret of their opinions, which they wisely hold back until after their interviews, so I don’t feel too bad about opining on their own personal vagaries. Expect a heavy dose of ghost hunting and odd excursions into personal grow here.
Eerie Radio --- Interesting material out there, though the back and forth banter at times makes it, well, on some of their own descriptions that own up to this and recommend not downloading them. I did feel, along with the hosts, a certain amount of embarrassment for the Hessdalen Project scientist Erling P. Strand they interviewed, especially if he listened to their post show wrap up, although the interview itself was pretty well done. But if you’re looking for that feeling of sitting around shooting the shit with a bunch of old friends with names like DK and Fizz, this could be your show. Heavy emphasis on ghost hunting here too.
Out There Radio --- This is another now defunct podcast that bears many rewards for the listener willing to go on through all 50 episodes. These are well researched and reach well into “the world of conspiracy theories, the occult, hidden history, and the counterculture” that stand as excellent introductions to many different areas that are too often presented in a more hysterical fashion. This was originally a college radio show where the intellectual background of the hosts shines through.
Welcome to Mars! --- This series of 12 half hour longs podcasts presents a cultural history of the 50’s that should not be missed. It is not only well researched and presents the mindset that gave rise to the idea of the past’s idea of the future, but the background music (with theremin) by Simon James creates an eerie aural ambience that captures the nature of the 50's beautifully. Anyone who wants to get a clearer understanding of the anthropoloical setting that the flying saucer phenoma arose should check this one out!
Conspiracy Skeptic --- It’s not only the true believers that warrant a listen. There are so fairly complete synopses of conspiracy memes here that offer a counterbalance to overly open minds, the kind where the brains start falling out. I particularly liked the one on the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s as an example of how unquestioning acceptance of conspiracy theories have led to witch hunts with horrendous casualties in modern day America.
PsiOp Radio --- This is an Austin based podcast which took me a while to warm up to due to its decided parapolitical leanings. But SMiles Lewis and Mack White do make a pretty good team and do offer some pretty good guests. Mack is a good old boy cartoonist with a delightfully anomalistic bent to much of his work, and SMiles is the mastermind behind the Anomaly Radio network of shows. Unfortunately, many of the downloads are burdened with some lengthy commercials that haven’t been edited out.
Blue Rose Radio --- This is an earlier and now discontinued podcast from SMiles Lewis, but still available if you dig deeply enough through the Anomaly Radio backlists. Drawing its title from a Twin Peaks reference, the earlier numbers are pretty dad gummed interesting and well worth the time.
There are some podcasts that I’ve come across because of interviews they’ve done, usually of authors of interesting books. Mitch Horowitz (Occult America), Peter Levenda (the Sinister Forces trilogy) and H.P. Alberelli (A Terrible Mistake) are examples of such authors. Adam Gorightly (The Shadow over Santa Susanna, The Beast of Adam Gorightly) and Greg Bishop (Project Beta) are authors have not only have (or have had) podcasts of their own, but are often interviewed on other podcasts, which make them worth a listen and further consideration.
Gnostic Media --- I can’t really say a whole lot about this podcast, though I can heartily recommend the interviews with Horowitz and Levenda that can be found there. There is a strong emphasis on psychedelic related research in many of these podcasts, with many interviews with very serious investigators, including Dr. Stanley Grof.
Red Ice Radio --- A Swedish podcast in English that has presented some in depth programs with Albarelli and Levenda here. This is good, straight forward interviewing with a peculiarly non-American spin that is refreshing in its own right. An update on Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Brain) research is an excellent introduction to a concept that probably offers more insights into the study of anomalous behavior than is generally recognized. Most of the shows are broken up into two hour long parts, the second only available to subscribers, but if you look hard enough some of the more interesting second halves can be found out there.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
A Terrible Mistake Indeed...
Late last year I finally made it to Brave New Books, a bookstore I'd been hearing about for some time. The variety was pretty surprising, and actually more far out in some of its selections than my tastes tend to run. But one book caught my eyes, a new release on Frank Olson's death. This was a subject that was still fresh in my mind after reading Jon Ronson's Men Who Stare at Goats, which devotes a chapter to the subject.
The book was H.P. "Hank" Albarelli's A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiements. This is a relatively massive tome at 900 pages that I'm still working on due to my habit of reading multiple books at the same time. I've been wanting to review it here for some time but felt that compulsion to finish it first, largely due to the tremendous amount of material it encompasses. This book is not one of the best books on the subject of the MK ULTRA LSD connections, but a hell of a good read as well, especially considering the depth and complexity of the subject covered.
But the book is now making bigger waves in the mediasphere than has been seen since the Church Committee's hearings in the mid-70s, and not only in the US. One of Albarelli's contentions is that the CIA was involved in a mass exposure of the small French town of Pont St. Esprit to LSD to test its biological warfare potential.
Ah, now this was something I knew about, having assiduously read John Fuller's account of the affair, published in 1968 as The Day of St Anthony's fire.
This "suspenseful, true account of a medieval plague in modern times, and of the scientific detective work that traced it to a surprisign cause" now seems to have a new epilogue. Albarelli, fitting together the bits of pieces of FOIA releases on the subject (large amounts of which have been redacted from the original government documents), puts together a plausible argument that not only was the CIA involved in causing the incident in which 5 died,, but that Frank Olson was there to follow up. (Albert Hoffman, the 'father of LSD', was also on the ground shortly after the event.)
His death, Albarelli argues, was due to his beginning to speak to others about the matter, though it is unclear rather his cryptic reference to "a terrible mistake" prior to his death refers to the Pont St. Esprit event or his mention of it to others outside of the security framework it was enmeshed in.
Excerpt from John Fuller's The Day of St Anthony's Fire
French Government Queries USA re 1950s Secret LSD Experiment, from Infos independantes d'Anne Nony
A more skeptical approach from The Atlantic Wire, Did the CIA Really Dose a French Village With LSD?
Reason.com's Hit &Run skeptical take, CIA Doses French Bread With LSD?, which has some humorous comments and others which clearly reflect a lack of reviewing Albarelli's documentary trail, though raising other relevant objections
Another sketical take from GlobalDashboard.org, The Telegraph on acid - France, the CIA, and a touch of plagiary, with a nice little movie from 2004 entitled LSD a GO GO
A French news story from France24.com, Did the CIA poison a French town with LSD?
LSD a GoGo, produced in 2004 with assistance from Albarelli, is an interest primer on the subject of Frank Olson's death.
The book was H.P. "Hank" Albarelli's A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiements. This is a relatively massive tome at 900 pages that I'm still working on due to my habit of reading multiple books at the same time. I've been wanting to review it here for some time but felt that compulsion to finish it first, largely due to the tremendous amount of material it encompasses. This book is not one of the best books on the subject of the MK ULTRA LSD connections, but a hell of a good read as well, especially considering the depth and complexity of the subject covered.
But the book is now making bigger waves in the mediasphere than has been seen since the Church Committee's hearings in the mid-70s, and not only in the US. One of Albarelli's contentions is that the CIA was involved in a mass exposure of the small French town of Pont St. Esprit to LSD to test its biological warfare potential.
Ah, now this was something I knew about, having assiduously read John Fuller's account of the affair, published in 1968 as The Day of St Anthony's fire.
This "suspenseful, true account of a medieval plague in modern times, and of the scientific detective work that traced it to a surprisign cause" now seems to have a new epilogue. Albarelli, fitting together the bits of pieces of FOIA releases on the subject (large amounts of which have been redacted from the original government documents), puts together a plausible argument that not only was the CIA involved in causing the incident in which 5 died,, but that Frank Olson was there to follow up. (Albert Hoffman, the 'father of LSD', was also on the ground shortly after the event.)
His death, Albarelli argues, was due to his beginning to speak to others about the matter, though it is unclear rather his cryptic reference to "a terrible mistake" prior to his death refers to the Pont St. Esprit event or his mention of it to others outside of the security framework it was enmeshed in.
Excerpt from John Fuller's The Day of St Anthony's Fire
French Government Queries USA re 1950s Secret LSD Experiment, from Infos independantes d'Anne Nony
A more skeptical approach from The Atlantic Wire, Did the CIA Really Dose a French Village With LSD?
Reason.com's Hit &Run skeptical take, CIA Doses French Bread With LSD?, which has some humorous comments and others which clearly reflect a lack of reviewing Albarelli's documentary trail, though raising other relevant objections
Another sketical take from GlobalDashboard.org, The Telegraph on acid - France, the CIA, and a touch of plagiary, with a nice little movie from 2004 entitled LSD a GO GO
A French news story from France24.com, Did the CIA poison a French town with LSD?
LSD a GoGo, produced in 2004 with assistance from Albarelli, is an interest primer on the subject of Frank Olson's death.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Peruvian earthquake lights and one possible explanation
Here is a nice collection of earthquake light videos followed by an attempt to explain them in spanish, based (as far as I can tell) on energy release causing an ionization effect and subsequent plasma discharge phenomena. I haven't been able to connect to the web page they allude to.
Earthquake lights from 2007 Peru earthquake
This is getting interesting!
The more one looks, the more videos of earthquake lights there are on YouTube, and their veracity seems to lie in the sheer amateurishness of some. They also get much more televised press down in South America, no doubt having to do with the fact that so many people, including the media see them and have a much more vested interest.
This a screen grab of a much longer news segment from an August 15, 2007 earthquake in Peru.
The more one looks, the more videos of earthquake lights there are on YouTube, and their veracity seems to lie in the sheer amateurishness of some. They also get much more televised press down in South America, no doubt having to do with the fact that so many people, including the media see them and have a much more vested interest.
This a screen grab of a much longer news segment from an August 15, 2007 earthquake in Peru.
More Chilean earthquake lights
Another video of the earthquake lights in Chile from the 2/27/2010 quake. There are several different versions of this one out there, but this repeats the illumination of a large apartment building to give a sense of the magnitude of energy that must has been released.
Earthquake lights in Chile!
Earthquake lights have long been talked about, offering some seeming confirmation of tectonic forces under stress inducing piezoelectric phenomena in the lithic substructure and manifesting as lights in the sky.
The possibility of earthquake lights in the area first came to my attention during the early hours of coverage when I overheard Cecilia Lagos on a CNN broadcast describing the incredible lights in the sky she saw in Santiago on the morning of the quake. What with the ground shaking underneath one's feet and the skies lighting up in the middle of the night, it must have felt like the world was coming to an end, and this is how many did describe it.
There is now video from the Februrary 27 2010 earthquake in Chile which seems to have captured this phenoma in a rather spectacular fashion. Check out this segment!
It is often difficult to tell what's going on, lots of black space, but with a little bit of patience there is often quite a bit well worth watching!
I've tried to enclose local source material as much as possible, though a lot of it is coming out in English versions trying to pin the blame for the earthquake on HAARP and chemtrails. I just wish I could translate some of the material a little better to understand the original material and further refine searchs.
Some comments on the posted video are trying to play down the phenomena as well. In places I've seen it posted that this whole series of lights are little more than transformers blowing out. This last video with the incredibly localized ground level (?) lights makes me wonder a little too, but they are much larger than expected. Some of the other films show transformers blowing and they bear no resemblence to the over all size and otherworldly intensity of the lights that are actually playing out in the sky.
The possibility of earthquake lights in the area first came to my attention during the early hours of coverage when I overheard Cecilia Lagos on a CNN broadcast describing the incredible lights in the sky she saw in Santiago on the morning of the quake. What with the ground shaking underneath one's feet and the skies lighting up in the middle of the night, it must have felt like the world was coming to an end, and this is how many did describe it.
There is now video from the Februrary 27 2010 earthquake in Chile which seems to have captured this phenoma in a rather spectacular fashion. Check out this segment!
The more one looks the more you can come across. It seems like everyone with a video camera at hand was capturing footage and a surprising amount of earthquake light phenomena was captured. This is one of the best (and most reposted) videos I've seen over hours of looking for relevant material, with a wide variety of color and sense of the overall scope of the lights playing over the sky. It does resemble a very short lived aurora borealis sort of light.
It is often difficult to tell what's going on, lots of black space, but with a little bit of patience there is often quite a bit well worth watching!
I've tried to enclose local source material as much as possible, though a lot of it is coming out in English versions trying to pin the blame for the earthquake on HAARP and chemtrails. I just wish I could translate some of the material a little better to understand the original material and further refine searchs.
Some comments on the posted video are trying to play down the phenomena as well. In places I've seen it posted that this whole series of lights are little more than transformers blowing out. This last video with the incredibly localized ground level (?) lights makes me wonder a little too, but they are much larger than expected. Some of the other films show transformers blowing and they bear no resemblence to the over all size and otherworldly intensity of the lights that are actually playing out in the sky.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Bomb dowsing for dollars to continue in Iraq
After numerous complaints that the ADE651 bomb detector is little more than a high tech, very expensive ($16-60k) dowsing rod, an investigation by the Iraqi government has determined that the problem is that half of them were defective or fakes. Their solution is to not only keep using them, but to replace those they found to be be non-functional.
According to an article in the February 23 Washington Post, "...an investigation ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki found the devices - used primarily at Iraqi checkpoints - generally work, though some were fake or ineffective. Those would be withdrawn from service and replaced with new versions, according to a statement by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.
"Iraq is still investigating individuals involved in the procurement and import of the devices and plans to sue the manufacturer over those that did not work, he said.
"The statement did not say exactly how many of the wands would be withdrawn from service, but al-Dabbagh later told The Associated Press that only 50 percent of the gadgets were operational"
But The National, a United Arab Emirates online paper, has a slightly different take on the story in an article posted last month.
"Aqeel Turaihi, the inspector general of the ministry of interior’s anti-fraud watchdog, said he had raised concerns that the ADE-651 bomb detectors did not work and had been purchased as part of a corrupt contract.
“There are strong indications of corruption in the deals to buy these explosives detectors and I submitted a report to that effect to the minister of interior and the parliamentary integrity commission,” he said in an exclusive interview.
“I referred [in my report] to a buying process marred by suspicions over the equipment and the efficiency and value of the contracts. There were senior officials involved in these transactions."
“These detectors are not working well. There is something seriously wrong with their performance and now Baghdad is facing more bomb attacks.”
Since there are separate anti-fraud units in each Iraqi ministry, it's unclear, at least to yours truly (who is admittedly unschooled in the ways of this newly established and often byzantine bureaucracy) who has the say over how this will come out. But since this contract was for some $85 million one wonders just how much obscurity was built into it.
Perhaps the Iraqi government needs to invest in a fraud detection wand I've been developing. The BS651, expected to retail for $23k, is still in the development stage and requires special training, but a newer model with flashing lights and perhaps even batteries, is coming out as soon as anyone complains that the original model is less than totally effective.
(Apologies to the reading audience for using the suffixes k and million on prices; but this is due less to sticker shock than the fact that in dealing with such large figures my word processor is running low on zeros.)
According to an article in the February 23 Washington Post, "...an investigation ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki found the devices - used primarily at Iraqi checkpoints - generally work, though some were fake or ineffective. Those would be withdrawn from service and replaced with new versions, according to a statement by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.
"Iraq is still investigating individuals involved in the procurement and import of the devices and plans to sue the manufacturer over those that did not work, he said.
"The statement did not say exactly how many of the wands would be withdrawn from service, but al-Dabbagh later told The Associated Press that only 50 percent of the gadgets were operational"
But The National, a United Arab Emirates online paper, has a slightly different take on the story in an article posted last month.
"Aqeel Turaihi, the inspector general of the ministry of interior’s anti-fraud watchdog, said he had raised concerns that the ADE-651 bomb detectors did not work and had been purchased as part of a corrupt contract.
“There are strong indications of corruption in the deals to buy these explosives detectors and I submitted a report to that effect to the minister of interior and the parliamentary integrity commission,” he said in an exclusive interview.
“I referred [in my report] to a buying process marred by suspicions over the equipment and the efficiency and value of the contracts. There were senior officials involved in these transactions."
“These detectors are not working well. There is something seriously wrong with their performance and now Baghdad is facing more bomb attacks.”
Since there are separate anti-fraud units in each Iraqi ministry, it's unclear, at least to yours truly (who is admittedly unschooled in the ways of this newly established and often byzantine bureaucracy) who has the say over how this will come out. But since this contract was for some $85 million one wonders just how much obscurity was built into it.
Perhaps the Iraqi government needs to invest in a fraud detection wand I've been developing. The BS651, expected to retail for $23k, is still in the development stage and requires special training, but a newer model with flashing lights and perhaps even batteries, is coming out as soon as anyone complains that the original model is less than totally effective.
(Apologies to the reading audience for using the suffixes k and million on prices; but this is due less to sticker shock than the fact that in dealing with such large figures my word processor is running low on zeros.)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Chris O'Brien and His Suggested Rules of Investigation
Enough of those pesky dowing rod bomb detectors, since I've been divining that this isn't really where this blog was supposed to be going. After all, fraud, waste and sheer incompetence on the part of governments isn't exactly an anomaly, and I have no doubt about it's existence.
So what's on the bookshelf that I can exert some sort of armchair expertise over?
Well, one subject that's sure to be brought up is the work that Chris O'Brien did in the San Luis Valley and encapsulated in his trilogy of books on the subject. I'm slogging through first of these, The Mysterious Valley, and have to admit that I'm really enjoying it! His experiences have that high strangeness that attracts my Inner Fortean Child, and his experiences investigating some truly odd experiences in the SLV seem to have grounded him in a most admirable fashion.
For instance, he opens the book with his "Suggested Rules of Investigation", which seem to be words to the wise to anyone looking into anomalistic phenomena. I quote these at length (as well as in italics), and will beg his forgiveness later, acting in the spirit that it is easier to ask for forgivenss than permission.
So what's on the bookshelf that I can exert some sort of armchair expertise over?
Well, one subject that's sure to be brought up is the work that Chris O'Brien did in the San Luis Valley and encapsulated in his trilogy of books on the subject. I'm slogging through first of these, The Mysterious Valley, and have to admit that I'm really enjoying it! His experiences have that high strangeness that attracts my Inner Fortean Child, and his experiences investigating some truly odd experiences in the SLV seem to have grounded him in a most admirable fashion.
For instance, he opens the book with his "Suggested Rules of Investigation", which seem to be words to the wise to anyone looking into anomalistic phenomena. I quote these at length (as well as in italics), and will beg his forgiveness later, acting in the spirit that it is easier to ask for forgivenss than permission.
- Rule #1 Controversial subjects generate polarized responses.
- Rule #2 Record or write down everything as soon as possible, no matter how inconsequential or inconsequential it might seem at the time.
- Rule #3 Always credit your sources and respect requests for anonymity.
- Rule #4 Always be ready for anything, anytime. Look for coincidences when investigating claims of the unusual. Often, there may be a synchronistic element at work.
- Rule #5 It is impossible to be too objective when scientifically investigating claims of the unusual.
- Rule #6 Always assume there is a mundane exlanation until proven extraordinary.
- Rule #7 Appearances can be deceiving. There may be more happening than meets the eye.
- Rule #8 If you publicize claims of the unusual, choose your words wisely, for your "spin" may have tremendous influence.
- Rule #9 Media coverage of the unusual, becasue of its sensational nature, is often inaccurate and cannot be accepted as totally accurate by the investigator.
- Rule # 10 The human mind, when faced with the unknown, revert to basic primal symbols to rationalize its experience.
- Rule # 11 When investigating claims of the unusal, one cannot reach conclusions based on intuition alone.
- Rule #12 There is a possibility that the (sub)culture itself may cocreate manifestations of unexplained, individually perceived phenomena.
- Rule # 13 We must be extremely careful not to perpetrate our own beliefs, suspicions, or actual experiences into the minds of those who desperately want to have a "special" event happen in their lives.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
More on high tech, high dollar dowsing rods
I really hadn't expected to make this a blog exclusively on the scam by ATSC Ltd. to sell high tech dowing rods, but when starting out a blog the only story becomes the exclusive topic!
Digging into the story a little has produced interesting additions. Of course, trying to contact the ATSC website is futile. Or rather, "website is under repair..."
However, thanks to the miracle of the interweb and the use of multiple marketing sites, it is possible to get a little peek at their marketing and claims at ecplazaglobal ("More Trade Chances for You").
There are apparently four different devices (the ADE 650, 651, 101 and 750), with the picture at right showing one being used in the Niger desert for landmine detection. The 650 and 651 are decribed as "Advanced Explosive and Narcotic Detection Equipment", features such as both "Non-Vapor" and "Non-Vapour",
"Overt or Covert operation," "Detection range exceeding 100- metres!*(in ideal conditions)", "Land-Mine detection" and able to "...detect all current known drug & explosive based substances" (or "..all know substance in the Narcotic or Explosives field."
The applications listed are "Government, (Police, Army, VIP's, etc;), VIP/Presidential Protection, Airport Authorities, Hotels, Wildlife Reservse, Private Security, Secure Premises/Shopping Malls". No price is given, though under payment the entries range from "terms negotiable" and "CALL or email" to "CIP". (The only acronym for this cryptic reimbursement method I can find that would seem to apply here is "Classical Internet Protocol Over ATM" from The Free Dictionary.)
Now I don't know a whole lot, but I do know that when I start coming across such blatant errors in spelling, grammar and syntax, reflags start going up. Of course, this is not the official website of ATSC, and judging from the overall quality of this site and wide variety of items offered (food stuffs, handbags, bust massagers, used engine oil recycling machines, cement mills, tool kits, Ugg boots, unlicked iPhones, skid loaders, flash drives and so very much more) it doesn't seem like the best place to be buying critical materials to protect the lives and limbs of military and police personnel, to say nothing of civilians.
But wait, there's more! So very much more!
Pro.Sec ("A World of Security") is a Lebanese based "Professional Security S.A.R.L." (I couldn't even find an acronym for that one) that also lsits the ADE 651, described as a "PORTABLE EXPLOSIVE DETECTOR. This equipment detects traces and particles of explosive substances, narcotics or any other that are same substances of the cards used in the card box holder. It works on nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR)or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). It can detect substances at long range to levels as low as simple contamination. The range of detection is around 50 meters with obstacles and up to 600 meters in outdoor areas, the unit can also detect explosives submerged in water or buried underground. Detection from a hovering helicopter is also possible." There's even a nifty little mpeg "add" link there as well, complete with explosions and a fellow pulling out a bundle of sticks explosives with wires coming out of it, which surely is what most explosives look like these days.
Okay, so enough of this selling of wishes to a gullible fear ridden security marketplace with more dollars than sense. As I delved into this story from the comfort of m'armchair, more starts to come about. This is not a new story, but actually the subject of an earlier NYTimes article, Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless. Back in November of 2009 they were being described by a retired USAF officer as little more than "an explosives divining rod", even though over 1,500 were in Iraq, at most police stations and many military checkpoints, largely at the instigation of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives, Major General Jehad al-Jabiri. He's quoted saying "Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs...I don't care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them. I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."
The NYTimes did a little testing of their own, and drove right through 9 police checkpoints using the ADE-651 and was stopped at none of them, despite the two AK-47s and ammunition in the car. When they later interviewed Jabiri in his office, they were offered an opportunity to use the device to detect a weapon and grenade sitting out there. While a policeman there was able to detect those weapons hidden in plain sight, the reporter failed to get it to work for him after several attempts, leading the general to chide him that "You need more training."
After all, backers of the ADE-651 "...often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device. Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them. If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth. "
Oh, but I weary of such back and forth, and this little debacle is not really about what this blog is supposed to be about, aside from the insight it offers into the malleability of human belief systems. Someone is always out there waiting to capitalize on your most fondly held notions.
There are several much better sites on the ADE-651 issue than this. Jon Starbuck's ADE651 - the milliion - dollar bomb detector scam, which led me to the Pro.Sec site, was posting on this back in early November of 2009, and the comments section has a number of links that should be followed up on by anyone with an interst in this subject. (My favorite comment on one of those links was "What happened to the days when you can buy a divining rod for $100?")
There's also Questions About Sniffex, ADE651, GT200, H3 Tec, HEDD1, and Other Explosive Detectors, which was questioning similar devices back in April of 2008, as well as on a surprisingly large number of divining rod type detectors. There are links to a official US government test of a similar device that was brought to light by The (Not So) Amazing Randi, comments by Randi, and an update on similar problems being encountered by the Thai government.
The depth to which governments through out the world (and the depth of their pockets) are accepting an anomalistic mode of detection once relegated to the paranormal is truly astounding, to say nothing of the abysmal depths to which individuals hiding behind corporate facades are willing to cash in on such openmindedness.
Consider everything, but beleive nothing, especially when large amounts of cash are operating behind the scenes. And when it comes to corporations, rest assured that their fiduciary feasibility comes before the common good.
Digging into the story a little has produced interesting additions. Of course, trying to contact the ATSC website is futile. Or rather, "website is under repair..."
However, thanks to the miracle of the interweb and the use of multiple marketing sites, it is possible to get a little peek at their marketing and claims at ecplazaglobal ("More Trade Chances for You").
"Overt or Covert operation," "Detection range exceeding 100- metres!*(in ideal conditions)", "Land-Mine detection" and able to "...detect all current known drug & explosive based substances" (or "..all know substance in the Narcotic or Explosives field."
The applications listed are "Government, (Police, Army, VIP's, etc;), VIP/Presidential Protection, Airport Authorities, Hotels, Wildlife Reservse, Private Security, Secure Premises/Shopping Malls". No price is given, though under payment the entries range from "terms negotiable" and "CALL or email" to "CIP". (The only acronym for this cryptic reimbursement method I can find that would seem to apply here is "Classical Internet Protocol Over ATM" from The Free Dictionary.)
Now I don't know a whole lot, but I do know that when I start coming across such blatant errors in spelling, grammar and syntax, reflags start going up. Of course, this is not the official website of ATSC, and judging from the overall quality of this site and wide variety of items offered (food stuffs, handbags, bust massagers, used engine oil recycling machines, cement mills, tool kits, Ugg boots, unlicked iPhones, skid loaders, flash drives and so very much more) it doesn't seem like the best place to be buying critical materials to protect the lives and limbs of military and police personnel, to say nothing of civilians.
But wait, there's more! So very much more!
Pro.Sec ("A World of Security") is a Lebanese based "Professional Security S.A.R.L." (I couldn't even find an acronym for that one) that also lsits the ADE 651, described as a "PORTABLE EXPLOSIVE DETECTOR. This equipment detects traces and particles of explosive substances, narcotics or any other that are same substances of the cards used in the card box holder. It works on nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR)or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). It can detect substances at long range to levels as low as simple contamination. The range of detection is around 50 meters with obstacles and up to 600 meters in outdoor areas, the unit can also detect explosives submerged in water or buried underground. Detection from a hovering helicopter is also possible." There's even a nifty little mpeg "add" link there as well, complete with explosions and a fellow pulling out a bundle of sticks explosives with wires coming out of it, which surely is what most explosives look like these days.
Okay, so enough of this selling of wishes to a gullible fear ridden security marketplace with more dollars than sense. As I delved into this story from the comfort of m'armchair, more starts to come about. This is not a new story, but actually the subject of an earlier NYTimes article, Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless. Back in November of 2009 they were being described by a retired USAF officer as little more than "an explosives divining rod", even though over 1,500 were in Iraq, at most police stations and many military checkpoints, largely at the instigation of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives, Major General Jehad al-Jabiri. He's quoted saying "Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs...I don't care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them. I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."
The NYTimes did a little testing of their own, and drove right through 9 police checkpoints using the ADE-651 and was stopped at none of them, despite the two AK-47s and ammunition in the car. When they later interviewed Jabiri in his office, they were offered an opportunity to use the device to detect a weapon and grenade sitting out there. While a policeman there was able to detect those weapons hidden in plain sight, the reporter failed to get it to work for him after several attempts, leading the general to chide him that "You need more training."
After all, backers of the ADE-651 "...often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device. Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them. If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth. "
Oh, but I weary of such back and forth, and this little debacle is not really about what this blog is supposed to be about, aside from the insight it offers into the malleability of human belief systems. Someone is always out there waiting to capitalize on your most fondly held notions.
There are several much better sites on the ADE-651 issue than this. Jon Starbuck's ADE651 - the milliion - dollar bomb detector scam, which led me to the Pro.Sec site, was posting on this back in early November of 2009, and the comments section has a number of links that should be followed up on by anyone with an interst in this subject. (My favorite comment on one of those links was "What happened to the days when you can buy a divining rod for $100?")
There's also Questions About Sniffex, ADE651, GT200, H3 Tec, HEDD1, and Other Explosive Detectors, which was questioning similar devices back in April of 2008, as well as on a surprisingly large number of divining rod type detectors. There are links to a official US government test of a similar device that was brought to light by The (Not So) Amazing Randi, comments by Randi, and an update on similar problems being encountered by the Thai government.
The depth to which governments through out the world (and the depth of their pockets) are accepting an anomalistic mode of detection once relegated to the paranormal is truly astounding, to say nothing of the abysmal depths to which individuals hiding behind corporate facades are willing to cash in on such openmindedness.
Consider everything, but beleive nothing, especially when large amounts of cash are operating behind the scenes. And when it comes to corporations, rest assured that their fiduciary feasibility comes before the common good.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Men who dowse for bombs
Sometimes the news holds anomalies that aren't always apparent at first, and perhaps it pays to question a little more deeply what's going on, especially when it involves beliefs more deeply cherished than questioned by others. Shades of men who stare at goats!
Yesterday in the NYTimes there was an interesting bit entitled British Man Held For Fraud In Iraq Bomb Detectors. The British company ATSC Ltd. sold the government of Iraq some 800 ADE 651 bomb detectors for at least $85 million, paying between $40,000 to $60,000 each, even though the company is marketing them for $16,000, although ATSC's manufacturing costs from suppliers in Britain and Romania is $250 each. But, after all, the ADE 651s were capable of detecting "minute traces of explosives, drugs or even human remains at distances of up to 6 miles by air, or three-fifths of a mile by land", if one can believe the company brochure. It's decribed as "a hand-held wand with no batteries or internal electronic components, ostensibly powered by the static electricity of the user, who needs to walk in place to charge it. The only moving part is what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel, which swings to point toward the presence of weapons or explosives. "
Okay, so the anomaly is not the 24,000% markup being charged; such exorbitant gouging of governments is not unusual at all. The unusual part is what was being sold. An ATSC "associate" states that “Everyone at ATSC knew there was nothing inside the ADE 651.” Lab tests run by the BBC seem to bear this out, determining that "its bomb-detection component was an electronic merchandise tag of the sort used to prevent shoplifting."
Wait, so just what is this bomb detector after all? Well, the suspect, Jim McCormick, former Merseyside police officer and managing director of ATSC Ltd., who is being held by British police on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation, has spoken out on the subject. He describes the underlying principle as being similar to that used by dowsers for finding water, essentially a tricked out divining rod. The article quotes him as saying “We have been dealing with doubters for 10 years,” he said. “One of the problems we have is that the machine does look primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”
Okay, so it seems that McCormick was able to dupe high goverment officials into accepting questionable remote detection principles that are accepted as somewhat fortean, but there are still critics who were not so willing to be open minded about capitalizing on far sightedness. “I didn’t believe in this device in the first place,” said a police officer at a checkpoint in central Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “I was forced to use it by my superiors and I am still forced to do so.” I guess that not everyone is quite so willing to put their life on the line for someone elses unquestioning beleif in anomalistic phenomena.
Or, as someone else has said, "Consider everything, believe nothing." And don't feel forced to use that which you don't beleive is working, just becauuse someone says it's so.
Yesterday in the NYTimes there was an interesting bit entitled British Man Held For Fraud In Iraq Bomb Detectors. The British company ATSC Ltd. sold the government of Iraq some 800 ADE 651 bomb detectors for at least $85 million, paying between $40,000 to $60,000 each, even though the company is marketing them for $16,000, although ATSC's manufacturing costs from suppliers in Britain and Romania is $250 each. But, after all, the ADE 651s were capable of detecting "minute traces of explosives, drugs or even human remains at distances of up to 6 miles by air, or three-fifths of a mile by land", if one can believe the company brochure. It's decribed as "a hand-held wand with no batteries or internal electronic components, ostensibly powered by the static electricity of the user, who needs to walk in place to charge it. The only moving part is what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel, which swings to point toward the presence of weapons or explosives. "
Okay, so the anomaly is not the 24,000% markup being charged; such exorbitant gouging of governments is not unusual at all. The unusual part is what was being sold. An ATSC "associate" states that “Everyone at ATSC knew there was nothing inside the ADE 651.” Lab tests run by the BBC seem to bear this out, determining that "its bomb-detection component was an electronic merchandise tag of the sort used to prevent shoplifting."
Wait, so just what is this bomb detector after all? Well, the suspect, Jim McCormick, former Merseyside police officer and managing director of ATSC Ltd., who is being held by British police on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation, has spoken out on the subject. He describes the underlying principle as being similar to that used by dowsers for finding water, essentially a tricked out divining rod. The article quotes him as saying “We have been dealing with doubters for 10 years,” he said. “One of the problems we have is that the machine does look primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”
Okay, so it seems that McCormick was able to dupe high goverment officials into accepting questionable remote detection principles that are accepted as somewhat fortean, but there are still critics who were not so willing to be open minded about capitalizing on far sightedness. “I didn’t believe in this device in the first place,” said a police officer at a checkpoint in central Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “I was forced to use it by my superiors and I am still forced to do so.” I guess that not everyone is quite so willing to put their life on the line for someone elses unquestioning beleif in anomalistic phenomena.
Or, as someone else has said, "Consider everything, believe nothing." And don't feel forced to use that which you don't beleive is working, just becauuse someone says it's so.
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