November 4, 2012 — Margie Kay

[Apocalypto]

Good show. I do have a couple of critiques, though.

Gene, you once again brought up the idea of how if the government has high-tech weapons and craft, why don't they use them in current wars? I've heard you make this argument in the past, and I believe I've already posted my thoughts on this but you brought it up again with Margie so I'll go ahead and repeat myself:

War is a racket.

I don't want to offend, but your perspective on this topic is naive. War is about money. It's about making money. And you don't make money in war by going in and wiping out your enemy with one or two shots from a secret weapon. You pick away at the enemy. The military-industrial complex runs on having a stream of income. Weapons, ammunition, the military itself, it's all a racket and a huge business. The U.S. government keeps millions of people employed through the construct. Lobbyists and good folks like The Carlyle Group make billions of dollars from having the opportunity to sell the government light arms, ammunition and tools of the trade.

It's such a great racket many people don't even have a clue who some of the players are, yet these players are making billions of dollars in the industry. For example, if I mentioned ATK, how many of you folks would even know who they are? Well, that would be Alliant Techsystems Inc., a $2 billion behemoth that supplies all those boys (and girls) in Afghanistan and Iraq with (among other things) their ammunition. Now you know.

The secret military craft and weapons exist, just look at nukes. They've been around for decades. So why don't they just use those and get these wars over with in a few minutes instead of months, years, decades?

Frankly, I'm just not sure how some people can't figure this out by now. War is a racket, and you can only make money in that particular racket if you've got a nice steady, trickling stream of death and destruction to work with.

One more topic made me cringe a bit on this show. When Margie brought up the "Columbus" example, and natives not seeing the ships, then Chris corrected her and said it was Cortez... well, that whole thing is a pile of bunk. It never happened. It's a myth. There is no secret blockage that occurs within humans as a rule of thumb when they see something new. It's just silly.

I believe this notion was a main theme in a movie recently. Let me look it up...

Ah yes, it was in the rather silly documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know?" At any rate, there is no record anywhere that says the natives didn't see Columbus' ships.

This fact along with many others from that documentary are false. Take a look at Wikipedia's page on it (this site mentions the natives/Columbus incident): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bl…

More info on the topic here:
Questioning perceptual blindness | Science | Strange Days | Fortean Times UK

Anyway, don't like to be too critical but I call them how I see them. Otherwise, great show and lots of interesting sighting info. I dig that.

 

[Randall]

It's not my intent to become the resident skeptic here, but I have to call it like I see it.

• Although a stealth fighter ( F-117 Nighthawk ) might have generated some UFO reports, an investigation containing sufficient information for an analysis would still have identified it as an aircraft. Why? Because it is obviously an aircraft with wings and a tail and aircraft performance characteristics. As such it would not be classed as a UFO. AFR 200-2 clearly states:
  • Unknown Aircraft:
    (1) Flying objects determined to be aircraft. These generally appear as a result of ADIZ violations and often prompt the UFO reports submitted by the general public. They are readily identifiable as, or known to be, aircraft, but their type, purpose, origin, and destination are unknown. Air Defense Command is responsible for reports of "unknown" aircraft and they should not be reported as UFO's under this regulation.
• There are some things that clearly differentiate UFOs from manmade or natural objects, especially at the dawn of the Modern Era in ufology. It doesn't matter if our secret technology was allegedly "50 years ahead" at that time ( which historically it hasn't been anyway ). Instant acceleration & deceleration to and from hypersonic speed, instantaneous high speed sharp angular turns, high performance in near silence, mother ships the size of carriers moving at high speed ... These things were not within our technical capability at the dawn of the Modern Era and there is no evidence we can duplicate that technology and performance even today.
• That the natives couldn't see the European ships is a junk psychology myth: Native American Indians Couldn't See Columbus's Ships Myth - debunked

Summary of Issues that in my mind raise doubts ( not in order of importance ):

1. Psychic woo ( e.g. feeling the "energy" or invisible "entity" )
2. The belief an object identified by a telescope as Arcturus was actually a UFO.
3. The conveniently missing and erased videos and photos.
4. Belief in junk or contentious psychology ( hypno regression & psychological blindness )
5. Tenuously related circumstantial evidence ( helicopters, noises, TMJ, hearsay ).
6. The likelihood that most sightings are probably the usual mundane things most UFO reports turn out to be.
7. The added likelihood of exaggerations, misidentifications, or fabrications due to all the media attention.
8. The lack of corroborating simultaneous witness reports of an object that could be positively identified as a UFO and not just some scintillating object or light in the distance.
9. Conflicting witness reports ( One person can see it but the other person can't ).
10. Contactee claims that stretch the imagination.

There was one guy who seemed believable who said he saw an unusual orange colored orb, but it reminded me of a Chinese lantern. Margie's own UFO sighting involving the objects that merged and then flew off also sounds good, but then again so do some of the other sightings she described until asked things like, "how fast did it move away". There is just so much noise in this case that although it's interesting to listen to, it's not possible to come up with any sufficiently objective evaluation other than that Arcturus was almost certainly the explanation for a portion of the sighting reports. The best case I've seen out of this flap is an unverified MUFON - Pilot Report:

"As called in to ASD by phone: (witness wishes to remain anonymous) I am the pilot of a regularly scheduled commercial aircraft flight from St. Louis to Kansas City and was on approach to KCI when my co-pilot said he saw an unidentified object to the right of the aircraft that appeared to be following us. It was not yet in my range of view, so I asked him to confirm that and the object remained. I radioed the tower and asked for radar confirmation but there was none. Then the object came into my view to the right front of the aircraft. At that point we were approximately 35 minutes out from the airport. The object was a silver/gray color and had three blue/white lights on the bottom and one on the top. It was a disc-shaped craft with a low dome on top. It was approximately 300 feet from our aircraft and NNE of our position. Then the object suddenly moved underneath us and to the left, and continued at the our same rate of speed. I discussed this with my co-pilot and we decided not to tell the tower what we saw because of what happens when reports like this are made. The tower then asked us to confirm an unidentified object and I said it was no longer in view. I was concerned, however, that it might be a problem. The object stayed with us for approximately 22 minutes. When I decreased aircraft speed for approach, the object slowed as well, then went directly south of our position at a very high rate of speed - faster than any aircraft I've ever seen. I was a military pilot for 14 years and know what type of aircraft we have. It was definitely NOT a man-made aircraft. Some pilots have lost their jobs when they report a UFO, and I would like to keep mine so am not providing my name or contact information. Some of the passengers were discussing this as they left the plane but we did not discuss it with them. Other crew members saw it as well, but did not report it. I just wanted to tell someone about it."​

 

[wwkirk]

Another entertaining and informative episode.

 

[Roro]

I always enjoy a good old fashioned UFO flap with high strangeness and MIB.
Parts of it reminded me of Close Encounters with the community out waiting for the lights to appear.
Ufology makes good points above. I think we can all understand that letting a person tell their story doesn't mean Gene and Chris are accepting it at face value.

 

[SpaceCowboy]

Agreed - enjoyable show loaded with questionable, but interesting stories.

 

[nameless]

great show, really entertaining and if I do say a great guest who speaks from actual investigative experience and field work. I always thought mufoners were behind the times stuck in a paradigm but Margie was a breath of fresh air. Its definitely the way to go, investigating the context and revisiting the experiencers, looking around the sightings. Gene pulled her up where need be and got her to clarify. I dont think there was that much woo at all and it is easy to confuse that with the nature of phenomena that in itself doesnt fit into normal reality. The guest showed much broadmindedness and insights around such a wide field and seemed not to be afraid to mix fields and not be pigeonholed.

I would like to know if the sound that Margie heard was similar to this;
Binaural beats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea that some people can see a phenomenon and others cant is again not woo at all.
Ask anyone who has done the gorilla test or seen a hypnosis magic show. Perceptual blindness is a psychological reality.

 

[Randall]

The idea that some people can see a phenomenon and others cant is again not woo at all.
Ask anyone who has done the gorilla test or seen a hypnosis magic show. Perceptual blindness is a psychological reality.

Blindness caused by psychological interference or perceptual ambiguity is an entirely different concept from normal people simply not seeing what is plainly there ( and yes I spotted the gorilla first time around ). It's a myth plain and simple that people don't see what they don't fully comprehend. Just think about it, if it that were actually the case, half the scenes in science fiction movies would look like blank screens. The first time Star Wars or Aliens hit the theaters, unless the audience was already familiar with the story line they didn't have a clue they were looking at a Star Destroyer or alien bioengineering ... but that didn't mean they didn't see it because that's not how our sense of perception works.

 

[Apocalypto]

The idea that some people can see a phenomenon and others cant is again not woo at all.
Ask anyone who has done the gorilla test or seen a hypnosis magic show. Perceptual blindness is a psychological reality.

Perceptual blindness may be a reality at some level, but the idea that the natives did not see Cortez's ships has been debunked.

I posted this link and if you actually read it you'll probably be convinced of that fact:
Questioning perceptual blindness | Science | Strange Days | Fortean Times UK

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Perceptual blindness may be a reality at some level, but the idea that the natives did not see Cortez's ships has been debunked.

Debunked? I don't think so... According to Bernal Diaz's account of being anchored off what is now Veracruz aboard one of the three ships, I seem to recall (it's been 10 or more years since I read his account of Cortez's conquest of Mexico) that they sat for 3 days right off shore and it wasn't until the morning of the third day that they were recognized and responded to. It was later that they launched boats and headed toward shore. Diaz (again, if I recall correctly) mentions that it was as if the natives couldn't see the ships off-shore over the course of the first two+ days. FWIW.... Sure, it's more likely that they were being ignored, but it didn't seem that way to the Spanish who experienced the event—not your Monday-Morning quarterbackin "debunkers."

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Is it possible that the locals didn't actually think the ships were ships due to the size and completely different design? Depending on how far out the boats may have been, perhaps all they saw from shore were these huges wooden objects and they didn't initially see them as a threat, more a curiosity?

I liked this episode with Margie - when she couldn't back something up she didn't try to fluff it but would happily say she didn't know when asked, or give out that caveat initially. That's pretty much all I expect from anyone in the ufo field cos we already know obtaining proof is very difficult.

Contrast Margie's attitude with Steven Greer - he would never, ever respond in the way she did. Seems like there have been really interesting sightings going on around Kansas City.

There were pictures mentioned, some taken by Margie herself if I heard correctly - now that does need to be followed up cos that is a pet hate in this subject, people mentioning evidence exists but it never materialises.....over to Gene and Chris on that one....

 

[nameless]

i dont know about the cortez thing but in the case of a witness or witnesses seeing something and others not should not be ruled out as a fantasy in the mind of the observer because its not part of a consensus reality based on a majority view. Masses of people can be conditioned or "persuaded" not to see things which are in plain sight and others may not be effected.

 

[nameless]

MUST...HAVE....BREADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

 

[Apocalypto]

Debunked? I don't think so... According to Bernal Diaz's account of being anchored off what is now Veracruz aboard one of the three ships, I seem to recall (it's been 10 or more years since I read his account of Cortez's conquest of Mexico) that they sat for 3 days right off shore and it wasn't until the morning of the third day that they were recognized and responded to. It was later that they launched boats and headed toward shore. Diaz (again, if I recall correctly) mentions that it was as if the natives couldn't see the ships off-shore over the course of the first two+ days. FWIW.... Sure, it's more likely that they were being ignored, but it didn't seem that way to the Spanish who experienced the event—not your Monday-Morning quarterbackin "debunkers."

The key phrase here, Chris: "it was as if" That is conjecture and not fact.

Not sure you can say this silly "can't see those ships out there" nonsense wasn't debunked while you're still claiming that "Sure, it's more likely that they were being ignored". The two concepts can't exist together.

I'll repeat myself: The theory was debunked, and debunked well. Just read the article I posted. If you're not convinced after reading that then there's nothing I can do for ya.

It's a classic mythology here, complete with multiple variations on the story (some tell the story referring to Columbus and the Indians, like Marge, whilst others refer to Cortez, and yet others refer to Captain Cook and his landing in Australia in April 1770.)

Whatever. I give up.

 

[Randall]

“The True History of the Conquest of New Spain” was written in the 16th century by
Bernal Diaz, a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of
Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés. To quote:

"... We arranged that the two vessels which drew the least water should go ​

in as near as possible to the Coast, to examine the land, and see if there was​

an anchorage near the shore. On the morning of the 4th March, we saw​

ten large canoes, called piraguas, full of Indians from the town, approaching​

us with oars and sails ... They approached quite fearlessly and more than​

thirty of them came on board the flagship, and we gave them each a present​

of a string of green beads, and they passed some time examining the ships ..."​

Sounds to me like they could see them quite well. There is no scientific evidence
or firsthand accounts that make it reasonable to believe this type of blindness is
possible, let alone that it has ever actually happened to any normal healthy person.

 

[ottoatom]

I would like to say that I agree with apocalypto and ufology. I remember seeing that documentary "what the blip do we know" and thinking that that theory didn't make any sense at all. One thing is see and not understand, the other is not see at all. I mean, I get their point, but come on, whole ships over the water?! Big black ships over the bright blue sea and they can’t see them? That the brain chooses to ignore certain objects as they are not part of our everyday life ok, but to erase a whole object as to only see a flat sea? What about basic survival instincts?

The only reason why they maybe only saw the ships when they were close to them was because in that time, enemies only came from land or close shore so they didn’t care to look at the sea. And If those Indians were by any chance looking at the sea at that time, they would have seen a big black thing coming for them and as it came near, they would have seen that that big black thing carried men, so maybe it was something of a floating transport, similar to the pirogues and other rafts they had but way larger and much more complex. The ship is a different object than a pirogue but it carries the same purpose, so it is not something completely alien to the Indians… Also, the idea of the gorilla test has nothing to do with this. That's your brain not being able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time (unless you are a woman and in that case you can).



Regarding the rest of the show with Margie Kay, I also thought it was entertaining, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed about MUFON. The way I see it, MUFON should be the most UFO skeptic organization in the world in order to debunk all fake reports and only accept the ones that could be real. If not, what good are they? To gather every wacko’s supposed sighting over the world? That’s what youtube’s for.

I thought the show was entertaining and her stories interesting but I’m afraid I did not believe most of what she talked about and I don’t even know where to start. ufology did a good job at summing up in 10 points where she lacked credibility, let me try to remember some more…

1 – The part where she has a light in the sky following her, well couldn't that just be an helicopter? It doesn't have to be a visitor from Mars or a super top secret USAF new weapon. Maybe just a silent helicopter, like the one they used to catch Osama. You guys in USA are living troubled times right know with all that terrorism and all, and from what she was telling there was a lot of sightings, so, maybe, some military or national security event? That would justify some helicopter to follow her since she maybe was close to where she shouldn’t (in their point of view)?

2 – She claims to have good pictures of some kind of a UFO, but she “will try to send them later” ?! She has the holy grail in her laptop and she’s not eager to put them online?! What is she waiting for, another convenient electrical storm to erase her hard drive? I mean come on, if you work at MUFON you are more than an enthusiast, and if you have a good quality picture of a flying saucer you WILL put it online as soon as you have a broadband connection.

3 – I really don’t care much about persons that claim to be able to sense things… Spiderman is the only one that can sense things and that is because he was bitten by a super spider. He also doesn’t exist in real life.

4 – That whole thing about the selective blindness.. The fact that she is gullible enough to believe in such a theory, just maybe because it was on discovery channel, makes me think about other events she supports.

5 – I have some difficulty giving credibility to a researcher that uses documentaries from the discovery channel to backup her theories. Discovery channel is a good family channel, sometimes entertaining, and now and then interesting but if you are a serious researcher, you should know better than to quote from the discovery channel… It’s like crediting Wikipedia on your PhD thesis.


I did not listen to all the show as I lost interest after all those credibility accidents. You can’t trust once you can’t recognize the truth anymore so what's the point. That’s how it works.
Cheers!
Ottoatom

 

[Ezechiel]

I'm gonna make myself a sandwich

.... was it white or brown bread ?

 

[Polterwurst]

Brown's healthier. Note to self: always have some bread ready and never flash the fibonacci sequence at strange objects in the sky.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

What's this gag about the bread? Was it in the show - if so I musta missed it?

Anyone care to let me in on the joke? Pretty pleeeeeze?

 

[Ezechiel]

Aliens love our bread.... every single alien race... even the ones labelled bad

They'd probably have an orgasm over some of our Ruby Rach sandwich !!

Now I'm really hungry )

 

[Ezechiel]

Almost looks like the 'Communion' alien )