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February 7, 2016 — Eric Ouelett


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
Unified theories have been problematic in the UFO field. Sometimes they fit facts, sometimes they do not. Eric Ouelett makes a compelling case for his attempt to link UFOs and paranormal events in his book, "Illuminations."

How well did he do? Listeners you decide.

We continue this discussion on this weeks episode of After The Paracast, an exclusive feature of Paracast+ at: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio
 
Honky the Horse
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NOTE: Any mischievously posted soft toys/references to After the Paracast/etc are not meant to derail or discourage thread discussion. I agree with Chris's observations on ATP about Ouelette's work, so I don't have much to add.

PS Get well guys.. No Chris one week no Gene the next.. Like having one hamburger with only mustard and one with only ketchup :eek:
 
Great interview Gene and Chris. Thoughts on the 'collective theory' having not read the book yet does it have footnotes? On the interview about the paranormal events that humans are the creator of these paranormal encounters maybe a part of our mind might be a[ signal[ to attract the paranormal? However, the physical encounter and burn marks don't answer this would happen to everyone on a constant bases instead UFO encounter seem to happen on rare occasion's. Another part of the crazy puzzle of paranormal theory.
 
Eric was an interesting guest. His ideas were a refreshing respite from the ETH.
I understand where you're coming from but my problem is is that some people come up with stuff that is just so out there and so hard to wrap my head around I feel like we're all just walking around shrugging our shoulders. Because nobody knows what this phenomena is. It seems like people are throwing sand up into the air, hoping that it comes back down on the ground and spells "this is what it is" ... I know that ETH Has lost its luster but it's a little easier to wrap my head around that parapsychological events. Then again maybe it's all about leprechauns?
 
One thing I have to say about that show is this and, I am a little surprised... The CIA apparently released documents last week that haven't been seen? I'm little fuzzy about that by the way. I guess I was surprised you guys didn't start of talking about that even, if it was to make jokes about it or something. It's the most recent newsworthy thing that's happened about UFOs. I'm not expecting anybody to go "oh my God smoking gun" "we have the answers" but, I was still curious about your thoughts on what the CIA stuff is all about. (I admit I haven't listened to all three segments yet, so maybe you talked about it later?)
Hey Gane get well soon!
 
While there were some gaping holes in Ouelett's discussion, as Chris pointed out in ATP, this was still a very important episode in relationship to the past Kirby Surprise episode and the Streiber one to come. Talk about a straight line connecting three disparate psychosocial dots. Aime Michel eat your heart out.
michelmap1011octl.jpg

Kirby says we see what we want to see.

Ouelett says we see things because of how we are feeling.

Strieber will say we see things inside our mind's eye.

These three ways of seeing collect together to form some basic building blocks of culture. How we feel, what we want to or expect to see, and how we reflect on these 'visions' are the essential components of UFO culture and paranormality in general. This is the sociological phenomenon that is UFO culture.

However, where Ouelett's argument broke down was on the issue of physical trace evidence, radar reports, table tipping as confirmation of psi phenomenon & the power of belief. At times I could not tell if Ouelett was a critical sociologist or a strong proponent of psi phenomenon. The discussion around Conjuring Philip needed more critical in depth analysis, especially around how it was the group could tip the table collectively using physical prowess and nothing psi at all. Like a morphogenic field, psi was defined as an invented idea to be a placeholder for validation of paranormal occurrences. As stated by him: when believers measure the phenmenon there are strong results, when skeptics show up the phenomenon disappears and those who are neutral get neutral results. Doesn't sound like much of a mystery at all, just people finding exactly what they expected to find.
Michalak.jpg

So when something physical does take place I am less inclined to consider the sociological answer. There are always issues regarding biology and psychology in terms of how we process anomalous, external stimuli and the strange results that follow. There is still the issue of physical objects defying our known laws of physics. Perhaps that's why we keep inventing placeholders in order to talk about UFO's?

But the one thing that rang loud and true in this episode was how we regard witnesses and the need to study them much more closely, as Bruce Duensing advocated. I'm surprised there's not much dialogue about these alternatve ways of thinking about paranormality. Like Jacobs, It seems the definers of UFO culture such as Strieber, will carry more weight.
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@Burnt - I agreed in that Eric's theory completely ignored physical evidence of landings, photos and films and things like radar. Photos of ufos have been captured completely independently and geographically removed from people who witnessed the same object. With Eric's argument, the human witnesses are somehow co-creating the UFO but surely for a camera to be able to capture an image, there must be a solid object there for light to reflect off of. Where would the energy/mass of the object come from. Whatever I may believe about advanced technology I would still doubt something that has reasonable mass can just be conjured up out of nothing - it would at least have to be reformed matter from a real-world source?

However, I do these days think there is a huge consciousness factor in UFOs, though I don't know if it factors in all cases or only some. I think there may be something to people who claim to be able to 'call' UFOs, or at least get a strong urge to go outside and look for one, prior to an actual sighting. It's so damn complicated!
 
@Burnt - I agreed in that Eric's theory completely ignored physical evidence of landings, photos and films and things like radar. Photos of ufos have been captured completely independently and geographically removed from people who witnessed the same object. With Eric's argument, the human witnesses are somehow co-creating the UFO but surely for a camera to be able to capture an image, there must be a solid object there for light to reflect off of. Where would the energy/mass of the object come from. Whatever I may believe about advanced technology I would still doubt something that has reasonable mass can just be conjured up out of nothing - it would at least have to be reformed matter from a real-world source?

However, I do these days think there is a huge consciousness factor in UFOs, though I don't know if it factors in all cases or only some. I think there may be something to people who claim to be able to 'call' UFOs, or at least get a strong urge to go outside and look for one, prior to an actual sighting. It's so damn complicated!
You all are gonna love our show w/ Whitley! We address these conundrums. Whit was cagey, but some of his comments will be worth noting, to-be-sure.
 
I sincerely hope that whatever the reason behind Whitley not appearing before now, that due to the respectful interview that no doubt took place, he will be happy to appear in the future. I have for a long time now been at the very least suspicious of the sheer number of different experiences Whitley claims and I am undecided as to whether I think he is knowingly committing a fraud but at the same time I think he did indeed have some experiences prior to 'Communion' anyway. I also now think this phenomenon is so strange that it is difficult to rule anything out, however strange.

One thing that is undeniable though is that Whitley is a huge name in Ufology and he reaches many people with his book. Reading 'Communion' is almost a rite of passage for people into UFOs. Whatever your opinion on Whitley may be, he is absolutely a worthy Paracast interview and I'm looking forward to this interview more than any other for quite a while.

Bit off thread topic but much of Whitley and Eric seem to overlap.
 
Hmm Really not sure what to make of this episode. Interesting for sure , but again it's a theory that leaves more question than gives answers ... again!!
 
However, I do these days think there is a huge consciousness factor in UFOs, though I don't know if it factors in all cases or only some. I think there may be something to people who claim to be able to 'call' UFOs, or at least get a strong urge to go outside and look for one, prior to an actual sighting. It's so damn complicated!
If consciousness is a series of culturally socialized memories of our experiences + what we expect to experience through our senses (a predictory mechanism based on past experuence with faulty mechanics) then that person who thinks about seeing the UFO and then sees one is fulfilling both Kirby's & Ouelett's theories.

One person sees exactly what they expect to see and they feel they have called it. And sometimes there may be that echo wave of settings based upon collective expectations as a consequence of media publications. That seems much more likely than the Algerian conflict as a subconscious social source of some mass sightings and sighting waves.

The believer-investigator may also easily confirm paranormal events in support of anomalous perceptions and individual expectations. Look at just how much of paranormal history is in fact based upon both exaggeration from many, many internet retellings, as well as the continued retellings of previously debunked and known hoaxed material. That story has repeated on the Paracast how many times now?

Actual paranormal events are interacting with our consciousness in what may be profound, though is most often mundane, in origin. It's the telling of the tale, however, that keeps getting everyone's attention.
 
Which suggests at one aspect we are dealing with a clever force which holds all the cards.
But we do hold one card or two ourselves for we are both investigator, and storyteller. We are the ones who have defined and framed the story. We are the ones making myths even though we don't understand it. We played the ETH card and keep dealing that game, so in some ways we are also a strong participant in the phenomena. One could argue I suppose that this scenario was also a controlled gambit, but I think we need to give some credit to the human imagination for our own response to the history of the phenomena.
 
While there were some gaping holes in Ouelett's discussion, as Chris pointed out in ATP, this was still a very important episode in relationship to the past Kirby Surprise episode and the Streiber one to come. Talk about a straight line connecting three disparate psychosocial dots. Aime Michel eat your heart out.
michelmap1011octl.jpg

Kirby says we see what we want to see.

Ouelett says we see things because of how we are feeling.

Strieber will say we see things inside our mind's eye.

These three ways of seeing collect together to form some basic building blocks of culture. How we feel, what we want to or expect to see, and how we reflect on these 'visions' are the essential components of UFO culture and paranormality in general. This is the sociological phenomenon that is UFO culture.

However, where Ouelett's argument broke down was on the issue of physical trace evidence, radar reports, table tipping as confirmation of psi phenomenon & the power of belief. At times I could not tell if Ouelett was a critical sociologist or a strong proponent of psi phenomenon. The discussion around Conjuring Philip needed more critical in depth analysis, especially around how it was the group could tip the table collectively using physical prowess and nothing psi at all. Like a morphogenic field, psi was defined as an invented idea to be a placeholder for validation of paranormal occurrences. As stated by him: when believers measure the phenmenon there are strong results, when skeptics show up the phenomenon disappears and those who are neutral get neutral results. Doesn't sound like much of a mystery at all, just people finding exactly what they expected to find.
Michalak.jpg

So when something physical does take place I am less inclined to consider the sociological answer. There are always issues regarding biology and psychology in terms of how we process anomalous, external stimuli and the strange results that follow. There is still the issue of physical objects defying our known laws of physics. Perhaps that's why we keep inventing placeholders in order to talk about UFO's?

But the one thing that rang loud and true in this episode was how we regard witnesses and the need to study them much more closely, as Bruce Duensing advocated. I'm surprised there's not much dialogue about these alternatve ways of thinking about paranormality. Like Jacobs, It seems the definers of UFO culture such as Strieber, will carry more weight.
jaques-vallee.jpg
Excellent summation and analysis. Thanks
 
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