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Whitley says: "There may be no aliens here at all"


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No one should take anything said on Coast to Coast at face value. That radio program is about entertaining an audience, it's not about getting at the truth.

Noory lets his guests ramble on without him questioning anything dubious.
 
DaveM said:
No one should take anything said on Coast to Coast at face value. That radio program is about entertaining an audience, it's not about getting at the truth.

Noory lets his guests ramble on without him questioning anything dubious.
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I have yet to run into ANYONE ON THIS FORUM who takes C2C seriously, behind mere entertainment value.
 
George Wingfield said:
There is an unwritten, unspoken rule that speakers at UFO conferences or, maybe, on Coast to Coast are not meant to diss or cast doubt on what fellow speakers have to say. That’s probably one of the reasons that I’m not asked to speak at such events any more. But would you believe someone like Bob Lazar, or Ed Dames, or Robert Dean or, for that matter, Whitley Strieber? Billy Meier? Linda Howe? Jaime Maussan? It’s a very long list that I have. I fear that most of you Americans are far, far too polite and too trusting with some of these people.
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I understand the entertainment industry aspect of ufology as one of its sociological byproducts: the construction of the entertainer, the clown & the trickster. Any enticing sociological phenomenon will create a stage, and where there's a stage there's those that would step out into its lights. There's a healthy amount of North American doubt about what constitutes ufology.

What i'd like to know is if you think the more serious and quiet investigators will ever establish a network, or body that legitimizes the study of the phenomena, or if in fact a more skeptical and/or despondency has crept into the ranks due to such little progress combined with a greater awareness of the true depths of deception.
 
Burnt State said:
What i'd like to know is if you think the more serious and quiet investigators will ever establish a network, or body that legitimizes the study of the phenomena
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How would you suggest they do so without university sponsorship of teaching and research programs concerning the subject of UFOS/UAPS, which lack of sponsorship was itself guaranteed by the constant negations of the reality of the phenomena by the government specifically effecting the refusal of sponsorship (funding) of research concerning ufos in the universities? Most science programs in universities rely on government funding through government agencies. If the government and its agencies will not fund ufo research in the academy, the academy will not pursue the subject. In the circumstances, the resulting marginalization of ufo research cannot be the fault of the individual serious researchers of the last 65 years. It's obvious where the problem lies.

or if in fact a more skeptical and/or despondency has crept into the ranks due to such little progress combined with a greater awareness of the true depths of deception.
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It's seems clear from many of your posts that you think skepticism and despondency saturate ufo research by now, but I do not see that as the case among the serious researchers. It is also, in my view, not the case that "little progress" has been made in serious privately conducted ufo research. The 'deception' you refer to is readily understood as primarily government-generated disinformation produced and propagated for the purposes of discouraging serious researchers and keeping the general public in a state of confusion about ufos. In itself disinformation plainly demonstrates the effort to hide the seriousness of the modern ufo phenomenon. What's the problem?

Times like this I want to, and do, commend the efforts and accomplishments of serious ufo researchers against immense obstacles over the last six decades. Those who talk up the notion that the effort is all played out and that nothing has been accomplished speak from a limited base of knowledge of the serious research, and though their potshots at the research won't stop it, they themselves are discouraging to both the serious researchers and the public that follows their work. I wonder about the motivations of these people. I even wonder who some of them might be working for.
 
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Constance said:
How would you suggest they do so without university sponsorship of teaching and research programs concerning the subject of UFOS/UAPS, which lack of sponsorship was itself guaranteed by the constant negations of the reality of the phenomena by the government specifically effecting the refusal of sponsorship (funding) of research concerning ufos in the universities? Most science programs in universities rely on government funding through government agencies. If the government and its agencies will not fund ufo research in the academy, the academy will not pursue the subject. In the circumstances, the resulting marginalization of ufo research cannot be the fault of the individual serious researchers of the last 65 years. It's obvious where the problem lies.



It's seems clear from many of your posts that you think skepticism and despondency saturate ufo research by now, but I do not see that as the case among the serious researchers. It is also, in my view, not the case that "little progress" has been made in serious privately conducted ufo research. The 'deception' you refer to is readily understood as primarily government-generated disinformation produced and propagated for the purposes of discouraging serious researchers and keeping the general public in a state of confusion about ufos. In itself disinformation plainly demonstrates the effort to hide the seriousness of the modern ufo phenomenon. What's the problem?

Times like this I want to, and do, commend the efforts and accomplishments of serious ufo researchers against immense obstacles over the last six decades. Those who talk up the notion that the effort is all played out and that nothing has been accomplished speak from a limited base of knowledge of the serious research, and though their potshots at the research won't stop it, they themselves are discouraging to both the serious researchers and the public that follows their work. I wonder about the motivations of these people. I even wonder who some of them might be working for.
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Who do you consider today's serious ufo researchers?
 
Who do you consider today’s serious UFO researchers?


At the top of the list must surely be Jacques Vallee. Unfortunately MUFON and those UFO celebrities like Budd Hopkins, Linda Moulton Howe and Whitley Strieber who eagerly accepted the highly dubious and sensational testimony of various abductees and contactees turned away from Vallee and took most of the so-called mainstream of US ufology with them.

Vallee wrote as follows at the time of the MUFON Symposium in Albuquerque in 1992:-

As a scientist I have come to the conclusion that a genuine UFO phenomenon exists. It is physical and it is unexplained. Therefore I continue to investigate the sightings in the field and I claim that they represent an opportunity and a challenge to science. I 'speculate', although I cannot prove, that a non-human form of intelligence is involved. In saying so I am something of an irritant to the skeptics. At the same time, however, I refuse to align myself with the extraterrestrial party line. I realize that my position is unpopular. If I was so blind as to ignore it I would be reminded of it immediately, because believing in extraterrestrials has become a matter of faith, not a subject of scientific debate.

You may not agree with everything that Jacques Vallee says but here is an honest researcher who has a greater understanding of the UFO subject than anyone else I can think of. For 65 years and more the subject has been permeated with hundreds of false claims of alien contact and all manner of UFO fantasy, fiction, falsehood and fraud which needs to be stripped away before any serious consideration of what’s left can be addressed in a scientific manner. I don’t know if that is even possible but, like Vallee, I believe there is a genuine UFO phenomenon which humans must and, one day, may be able to comprehend.
 
When Vallee published “Messengers of Deception” in 79’, everyone in the UFO community thought he went off the deep end. Now, 36 yrs. later, his research is still pertinent, as demonstrated with this last weekend’s guest.
 
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ok, so aside from Vallee who else gets that "serious researcher" marker? I really like Rutkowski and his team for their dedicated approach to data collection. All the American organizations appear to be in mostly states of disarray. Vallee himself seems to have settled on more sociological explanations and musings about the phenomenon. Those who continue to dig into the phenomenon always seem to become less and less believing in nature and more suspicious of the hoaxers, tricksters, and those who would practice deception for political and militaristic purposes.

I would also cite James E. McDonald as a serious researcher but that selects three figures from three different eras. One is dead, another doesn't really actively participate any where near the level that he did before, and I would say that Rutkowski is even more low key than Vallee as far as getting an audience, despite his incredibly consistent and solid approach to data recording. Vallee continue to mine libraries, letters & old diaries for the collected UFO narratives, and appears to have settled on the role of narrative as a primary investigative feature of the phenomenon.

Isaac Koi seems to be doing a lot of important work in terms of cataloguing and that act of cataloguing the data/story is something those three all have in common. He also has been amassing more and more access to the various records that debunk, document the culture and carves off some of the invented aspects of the ufological phenomenon.

The other part that is tricky with this field is that there is no overseeing body to keep the environment and history professional and structured so that people can build off of each other. Consequently a lot of people get given the title of "serious researcher" but what yardstick is there to use for this? When I look at the majority of abduction research I do not see a serious approach in figures such as Hopkins & Jacobs. In fact if you're not getting more skeptical about Ufology as you dig deeper into it then i think you might be digging a little too shallow in soft ground.
 
Constance said:
Times like this I want to, and do, commend the efforts and accomplishments of serious ufo researchers against immense obstacles over the last six decades. Those who talk up the notion that the effort is all played out and that nothing has been accomplished speak from a limited base of knowledge of the serious research, and though their potshots at the research won't stop it, they themselves are discouraging to both the serious researchers and the public that follows their work. I wonder about the motivations of these people. I even wonder who some of them might be working for.
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So i'm also curious as to who you define as the serious researchers, especially in the modern era. Aside from Micah Hanks' herculean solo effort to provide new perspectives, Chris O'Brien's big book of CM, there still isn't a lot of new traction. My suspicion is that most of the serious discussion is all underground in the face of the downfall of the major ufo agencies and the mainstream entertainment dominance of the field. Most of the intelligent research work appears to be more sociological than core phenomenon investigation. (Gulyas)

I would also like to know just what it is that we have learned about the phenomenon since we first started to aggressively study it? Most common discussion around the hallowed halls of ufology always seems to moan and drone about the fact that very little about the phenomenon has been gained since the early decades of study.

The basic questions:
  • what are ufo's?
  • where do they come from?
  • what powers them?
  • what are they made of?
  • what do they want?
  • are they friend or foe?
  • what is their relationship to this planet?
Most of these we still know very little about. For none do we have any certain answers. All we still have is a lot of speculation and some really interesting theories.
 
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Burnt State said:
So i'm also curious as to who you define as the serious researchers, especially in the modern era. Aside from Micah Hanks' herculean solo effort to provide new perspectives, Chris O'Brien's big book of CM, there still isn't a lot of new traction. My suspicion is that most of the serious discussion is all underground in the face of the downfall of the major ufo agencies and the mainstream entertainment dominance of the field. Most of the intelligent research work appears to be more sociological than core phenomenon investigation. (Gulyas)
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Didn't we have this exchange a year ago, maybe less? I also remember providing a new poster with a long list of researchers whose books I recommended. I'll keep it short this time. I admire the research of Robert Hastings, Richard Dolan, the French Cometa group and their successors, Michael Swords and his colleagues in the production of UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry (Robert Powell. Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Jan Aldrich, Barry Greenwood, and Richard Thieme). Also Jerome Clark, Stanton Friedman, Kevin Randle, Ray Stanford, Richard Hall, Don Berliner, and others whose names I'm forgetting at the moment.

I would also like to know just what it is that we have learned about the phenomenon since we first started to aggressively study it? Most common discussion around the hallowed halls of ufology always seems to moan and drone about the fact that very little about the phenomenon has been gained since the early decades of study.
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That the early researchers were astute does not mean that all further research efforts have been insignificant. It's a continuing confirmation of the actual presence of advanced technologies within earth's envelope that we cannot account for and that are operated or guided by minds that appear to be intentional, purposeful. It's significant enough for me that we've learned that a percentage of ufos are real, intelligently operated, technologically advanced beyond terrestrial capability at the time they were witnessed and interacted with, and plainly "not ours."

The answers to the particular questions you ask in your post are still ambiguous, and it is not the fault of citizen researchers who must work outside compartmentalized military research and development projects involving ufos that they know less than one reasonably supposes has been learned inside those black projects. This is unfortunately just the way it is in the circumstances in which we exist. I don't like it either.
 
If you REALLY want a show about audience entertainment masked as investigation, try:
Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis.
Occasionally, he has some interesting guests but imho just goes for the "woo woo" factor.
 
Burnt State said:
I would also like to know just what it is that we have learned about the phenomenon since we first started to aggressively study it? Most common discussion around the hallowed halls of ufology always seems to moan and drone about the fact that very little about the phenomenon has been gained since the early decades of study.

The basic questions:
  • what are ufo's?
  • where do they come from?
  • what powers them?
  • what are they made of?
  • what do they want?
  • are they friend or foe?
  • what is their relationship to this planet?
Most of these we still know very little about. For none do we have any certain answers. All we still have is a lot of speculation and some really interesting theories.
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*******************************************************************************************
Returning to the thread from earlier this month we are asked by Burnt State “what has been learned about the phenomenon since we first started to aggressively study it?” Maybe what some of us have learnt is about the psychological and sociological aspects of the subject rather than it being established that UFOs are actual physical objects. What has become increasingly clear is that a very large proportion of what passes for UFO fact belongs in what I call the 7F Basket of Ufology (Fantasy, Fiction, Fraudulent claims, Fakery & hoaxes, False memory, Folklore, and Flapdoodle).

Some obvious examples of this are as follows:

(1) George Adamski’s claims of contact with Venusians & travel on board a UFO (1950s).

(2) Billy Meier’s megahoax involving Semjase, ETs from the Pleiades” + faked UFO photos.

(3) Bob Lazar’s false claims of ET flying saucers & aliens at Area 51/S4 + Element 115 (1989).

(4) Whitley Strieber’s horror fiction “Communion –A True Story” (1987)

(5) Ray Santilli’s fraudulent “Alien Autopsy” scam (1995).

(6) Linda Cortile’s ongoing alien abduction soap opera fed to Budd Hopkins (1990s)

(7) AFOSI disinformation about Roswell, Majestic-12, Ebens from Zeta Reticuli, various UFO crash/retrieval stories, alien underground bases and treaties with the USG allowing for a quota of human abductions, Project Serpo, etc., etc.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and one has to think very seriously whether any claims of alien contact, alien abduction, UFO crash/retrievals, claims of genuine UFO photos of “structured craft”, claims of UFOs making crop circles or being involved in cattle mutilations have any basis in objective physical fact.

So, what’s left for serious UFO study once we have cleared the decks (if that’s even humanly possible)? If we –reluctantly-- acknowledge that UFOs are not actual physical objects, then we should accept that they must be paranormal and belong in the same category as apparitions, ghosts, virtual realities, or perhaps holograms and such moving images.

Jacques Vallee has said that phenomena such as poltergeists and UFOs appear to operate at a level of reality where a “physics of information” needs to be invoked. He believes that such concepts will be developed and will one day become integrated into what we see now as normal physics. Until then most of us will probably remain deeply puzzled as regards the true nature of UFOs.

Perhaps Whitley Strieber is right when he says there may be no aliens here at all......
 
George Wingfield said:
Jacques Vallee has said that phenomena such as poltergeists and UFOs appear to operate at a level of reality where a “physics of information” needs to be invoked. He believes that such concepts will be developed and will one day become integrated into what we see now as normal physics. Until then most of us will probably remain deeply puzzled as regards the true nature of UFOs.
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Of course, realize Jacques is somewhat limited by his computer information background too. Too many computer geeks overcompensate with these ideas. A perfect example is Ray Kurzweil -a "brilliant" ...???... total and complete nutcase of whacky predictions outside his music and voice recognition accomplishments he did mostly in the 1980's-1990's.

Also, Vallee has some physical artifacts he says comes from UFO's. There is nothing special about these items that I'm aware of... can be man made or normally accounted for.

I deeply respect and admire J.V. I just don't know that he can solve these mysteries either. If he can live productively contributing to these interests for another 10-20 years, then he might just do it. He should definitely setup a foundation to "carry on"... is he rich enough to do it? Maybe Bigelow will donate too, but it must be "open source" not a secret < 1% cult.

Btw, George, it's great to see you posting on the Forum again. Please participate as often as you can. I really enjoy reading your ideas and contributions. Thank you sincerely!

George Wingfield said:
What has become increasingly clear is that a very large proportion of what passes for UFO fact belongs in what I call the 7F Basket of Ufology (Fantasy, Fiction, Fraudulent claims, Fakery & hoaxes, False memory, Folklore, and Flapdoodle).
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Skinwalker Ranch is near the top of my list!
 
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Yes, indeed, as Wade says the 8th F is for Forgery --not to mention quite a bit of Foolishness associated with the UFO subject. (Incidentally, by “Flapdoodle” I meant those New Age belief systems that benign ETs are here to assist humans reincarnate on this planet so they can bring Earth to a higher plane of spirituality and that this is what is behind the ET abduction experience.)

Despite the fact there has been a sea change in the perspective of the UFO subject in the US over the last ten years there are still many folk who pay no regard and continue in their UFO belief as if nothing had happened. By a sea change, I mean research by investigators like Greg Bishop (see his book Project Beta) who have exposed the falsity of many of those supposed cornerstones of US ufology like Roswell, and other claims of UFO crash/retrievals, Majestic-12, alien abductions by “grays”, and cattle mutlations by these aliens who supposedly required bovine genetic material for survival of their race. The role of infamous arch-liar Richard Doty in spreading disinformation about UFOs and aliens has recently been brought into much sharper focus. Equally, Carol Rainey and others have exposed the falsity of Budd Hopkins’s alien abduction cases such as the Linda Cortile one (see The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (1996)by Hopkins). Carol’s video documentaries, titled The Co-Creation of the Abduction Phenomenon, Parts 1 – 7, can be found on YouTube.

Although Budd Hopkins died in 2011, other UFO superstars such as Stanton Friedman, Linda Howe, and Whitley Strieber, will probably carry on regardless and say that anything contrary to what they have been preaching for the last 20 – 30 years is just government disinformation or a conspiracy to discredit them and obscure the truth about the “alien presence”. Linda in particular will not allow anyone to query her claims about extraterrestrials, alien abductions, alien cattle mutilations, and alien technology, and she will again be the leading speaker at the Ozark (Mountain) UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, AR, in April as she has been for the last 25 years.
 
George Wingfield said:
Yes, indeed, as Wade says the 8th F is for Forgery --not to mention quite a bit of Foolishness associated with the UFO subject. (Incidentally, by “Flapdoodle” I meant those New Age belief systems that benign ETs are here to assist humans reincarnate on this planet so they can bring Earth to a higher plane of spirituality and that this is what is behind the ET abduction experience.)

Despite the fact there has been a sea change in the perspective of the UFO subject in the US over the last ten years there are still many folk who pay no regard and continue in their UFO belief as if nothing had happened. By a sea change, I mean research by investigators like Greg Bishop (see his book Project Beta) who have exposed the falsity of many of those supposed cornerstones of US ufology like Roswell, and other claims of UFO crash/retrievals, Majestic-12, alien abductions by “grays”, and cattle mutlations by these aliens who supposedly required bovine genetic material for survival of their race. The role of infamous arch-liar Richard Doty in spreading disinformation about UFOs and aliens has recently been brought into much sharper focus. Equally, Carol Rainey and others have exposed the falsity of Budd Hopkins’s alien abduction cases such as the Linda Cortile one (see The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (1996)by Hopkins). Carol’s video documentaries, titled The Co-Creation of the Abduction Phenomenon, Parts 1 – 7, can be found on YouTube.

Although Budd Hopkins died in 2011, other UFO superstars such as Stanton Friedman, Linda Howe, and Whitley Strieber, will probably carry on regardless and say that anything contrary to what they have been preaching for the last 20 – 30 years is just government disinformation or a conspiracy to discredit them and obscure the truth about the “alien presence”. Linda in particular will not allow anyone to query her claims about extraterrestrials, alien abductions, alien cattle mutilations, and alien technology, and she will again be the leading speaker at the Ozark (Mountain) UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, AR, in April as she has been for the last 25 years.
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Inaccuracies from Carol Rainey’s Video “A Key Witness in the Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case” - The Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case Website

Inaccuracies from Carol Rainey’s Video “Budd Hopkins Hears of New Danger in the Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case” - The Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case Website

New Lies from Carol Rainey Regarding the Linda Cortile Case - The Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case Website
 
Many wonderful researchers mentioned here, it is great to see! I too think the decline of events/the field is overblown. Real work of this type is hard, it will always be scarce.

re: linda Cortile Case as well as serious researchers.

George P. Hansen's work on the sociological aspect of the paranormal, including ufo's, is stellar. You can read his articles on the Linda Cortile case here:
Online articles of George P. Hansen

scroll down to the "Deception and Hoaxes" section to find his three articles.

Jeffrey Mishlove's book "The PK Man" documenting his friendship with and research on Ted Owens is truly remarkable, in both the nature of Mr. Owen's gift, Mishlove's dedication to research and the new avenues for research and theoretical approaches. However, as Mishlove himself predicted, this book has been ignored by the 'community' in the decades since its release.

Vallee is far from alone in noticing the paramount role of information in these events. Loren Coleman is obsessed with the 'name game', John Keel (RIP) and Allen Greenfield have both done much work looking at the role of synchronicities and wayward information surrounding ufo events. Mike Clelland is new on the scene however he fell all the way down the synchronicity rabbit hole (disclaimer: i was a fan of his from the beginning and he did a very beautiful write up of a synch of my own). Mr. Clelland is doing yeomans work on this angle.

IMHO, Vallee's prime role is making the information angle look more 'sciencey' to the science and general publics so that they aren't as scared off of honest study of this aspect of the phenomena. It starts looking too much like 'magic' (obligatory 'sufficiently advanced technology' remark).

Speaking of which, a fantastic new blogger with unique experience to bring to the study of the parnormal just quit blogging because he got zero interest.

monstersandmagic.wordpress.com

My best guess is that, again, he was not sounding 'sciencey' enough so people got scared off. No matter the quality of the work, our culture as a whole still has a nuts and bolts prejudice. OF course, we built a vast nuts and bolts structure - the internet - strictly to support the exchange of information and ideas, so we know on some level information is of paramount import. We just don't like to admit it ;)
 
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