October 28, 2012 — Gene and Chris Talk Shop

[Christopher O'Brien]

Well, if you happen to be writing about [an antique, yellow whirlybird] and it shows up over your house, I guess I'd call that strange at least. While I don't think it's impossible that a museum piece of a helicopter could be flying around during some airshow or maybe as part of a movie shoot, I guess two of them a long time apart (not sure how long Chris said it had been) and never been seen before or after would make me scratch my head too. So if it wasn't just a strange coincidence, it's probably what some people call a synchronicity and equate to a consciousness or paranormal phenomenon. Could still be ET, but why should they even bother...?

First off, my sighting was 150 months after the original sighting and mute, second, I called every conceivable person and place in the region that might be able to ID the craft in an effort to track down the mystery mustard-yellow antique helo... I was laughed at by some and ridiculed by others... "you saw what? ... what have YOU been smoking," They only have a range of 90 miles and no one has operated them for decades, etc., FWIW: the following spring someone reported an old, yellow helicopter flying at very low altitude pacing a camoe'd army truck that was heading north up State Highway 17. Go figure... As to the "ETH" yeah, aliens are reading my mind and following me around figuring out ways to blow my mind and dazzle me w/ inconceivably weird synchronicity, yup--that must be it! Oh crap! The smiley face is mustard yellow, AAArrggghhh, they're after me-eee-ee....

 

[Randall]

First off, my sighting was 150 months after the original sighting and mute, second, I called every conceivable person and place in the region that might be able to ID the craft in an effort to track down the mystery mustard-yellow antique helo... I was laughed at by some and ridiculed by others... "you saw what? ... what have YOU been smoking," They only have a range of 90 miles and no one has operated them for decades, etc., FWIW: the following spring someone reported an old, yellow helicopter flying at very low altitude pacing a camoe'd army truck that was heading north up State Highway 17. Go figure... As to the "ETH" yeah, aliens are reading my mind and following me around figuring out ways to blow my mind and dazzle me w/ inconceivably weird synchronicity, yup--that must be it! Oh crap! The smiley face is mustard yellow, AAArrggghhh, they're after me-eee-ee....

Chris, helicopters ( antique & yellow or otherwise ) do not qualify as UFOs in the first place. So there's no need to invoke anything alien ( ET or otherwise ). Just because its owner remains unidentified and you experienced a coincidence is not sufficient evidence to conclude it wasn't simply an antique yellow helicopter. For all we know it may have been purchased at some army surplus auction and maintained in some barn where it was flown on rare occasions by someone who kept it to themselves. There are people who like to maintain old cars and other machinery. Who knows for sure? I don't. But it makes more sense than invoking aliens from who knows where, and a helicopter is not a UFO, no matter what you want to make of the coincidence. The only thing that puzzles me is why you are so sure it represented something so extraordinary as to be beyond the reality that your senses identified to be?

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Chris, maybe you missed the part about helicopters ( antique & yellow or otherwise ) not qualifying as UFOs in the first place.

No, I didn't miss it... reread my post...

 

[Randall]

No, I didn't miss it... reread my post...

OK let's rephrase that then. Helicopters ( antique or otherwise ) aren't UFOs, and coincidences and/or unidentified owners don't turn them into UFOs. Why else are you so certain that what you saw wasn't really just an old yellow helicopter?

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Why else are you so certain that what you saw wasn't really just an old yellow helicopter?

I never said I thought it was anything different! I (however) find it very interesting that after calling everyone and anyone (2 days of phone calls, btw) related in any way to regional flight operations, choppers, rental companies, mechanics, airfields, etc about the possibility of an antique helicopter flying around the SLV (either in June 1980) or almost 13 yrs later (when I saw one), I was literally laughed at by some and told by most that I "must have been mistaken..." about what I witnessed... Its that simple, yet is still perplexing to me to this day. Except for some sort of "tricksterish" element, I'm not factoring anything in or out!

 

[Randall]

I never said I thought it was anything different! I (however) find it very interesting that after calling everyone and anyone (2 days of phone calls, btw) related in any way to regional flight operations, choppers, rental companies, mechanics, airfields, etc about the possibility of an antique helicopter flying around the SLV (either in June 1980) or almost 13 yrs later (when I saw one), I was literally laughed at by some and told by most that I "must have been mistaken..." about what I witnessed... Its that simple, yet is still perplexing to me to this day. Except for some sort of "tricksterish" element, I'm not factoring anything in or out!

You certainly indicated that you believed the helicopter was a UFO when you cited the experience as a significant factor in your step back from the ETH, which I'm sure we both recognize as a theory for the origin of UFOs. Or how else should we interpret that?

 

[RenaissanceLady]

I haven't been able to spend as much time on this forum as I would have liked and have also missed the last several shows, simply due to some problems on my end. Having said that, I can't begin to describe how thoroughly I enjoyed this last show. It was like a breath of fresh air hearing the inside stories behind The Paracast. Thank you, Gene and Chris.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I KNOW JUST KIDDING!

Did that go completely over Gene's head or was he bluffing?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

The thing about the yellow chopper is that if there are any still being maintained, I would imagine mechanics who could maintain such a machine are few and far between. Point being, considering it's very limited range etc, someone in the industry would likely know. Also if it only has a range of ~90 miles then it would no doubt have to have set off or set down within a 90 mile radius of where Chris was at the time. There can't be too many airfields to check out and I'm sure someone at these airfields would have known if such an old chopper had landed/re-fuelled at their field? I mean, there is no reason it could not have taken off and landed 'off the grid' but if it was a genuine vintage chopper - I'm sure it would need constant maintenance and parts etc so it's just not something that someone can roll out of a shed to do nefarious things and put it back once done - such a chopper would need constant TLC.

I have lot of experience flying choppers, both in the military but mostly working offshore, being that it was the mode of transport to and from rigs. A friend who is a maintenance engineer on choppers once told me that 'a helicopter is basically a million mechanical parts desperately trying to come apart constantly'!! I know for a fact that the choppers I used to take going offshore and constantly checked and maintained and despite that, we had yet another ditch just last week.
Every single night they have certain maintenance (lots of things need tightening up due to the severe vibrations) and at slightly longer intervals they are far more fully serviced.
Point being that an old thing like Chris reported would be like a dying man in ICU. You just could not bring it out for use whenever you wanted. It just doesn't work like that. Remember, it was sighted on two occasions as well - weird squared.

In a way, a bit like the classic cars of the MIB?

And Chris - your profile pic is becoming like a scramble suit!

 

[mike]

Since its one of Genes favourites

I actually have the full uniform to go with this, black T shirt ,cargo pants and web belt with black combat boots and walkie talkie.

I never step through a stargate, unless im wearing it

 

[Randall]

The thing about the yellow chopper is that if there are any still being maintained, I would imagine mechanics who could maintain such a machine are few and far between. Point being, considering it's very limited range etc, someone in the industry would likely know. Also if it only has a range of ~90 miles then it would no doubt have to have set off or set down within a 90 mile radius of where Chris was at the time. There can't be too many airfields to check out and I'm sure someone at these airfields would have known if such an old chopper had landed/re-fuelled at their field? I mean, there is no reason it could not have taken off and landed 'off the grid' but if it was a genuine vintage chopper - I'm sure it would need constant maintenance and parts etc so it's just not something that someone can roll out of a shed to do nefarious things and put it back once done - such a chopper would need constant TLC.

I have lot of experience flying choppers, both in the military but mostly working offshore, being that it was the mode of transport to and from rigs. A friend who is a maintenance engineer on choppers once told me that 'a helicopter is basically a million mechanical parts desperately trying to come apart constantly'!! I know for a fact that the choppers I used to take going offshore and constantly checked and maintained and despite that, we had yet another ditch just last week.
Every single night they have certain maintenance (lots of things need tightening up due to the severe vibrations) and at slightly longer intervals they are far more fully serviced.
Point being that an old thing like Chris reported would be like a dying man in ICU. You just could not bring it out for use whenever you wanted. It just doesn't work like that. Remember, it was sighted on two occasions as well - weird squared.

In a way, a bit like the classic cars of the MIB?

And Chris - your profile pic is becoming like a scramble suit!

Helicopters aren't necessarily all that complex. You can even order a kit and build one in your garage if you really want to, ( Mosquito Aviation - Home of the Ultimate Ultralight Helicopter : Index ), and the old ones didn't have any fancy chips or computers. So unless you're talking about some big dual rotor job, anyone with some mechanical experience and a small hangar or a barn could take one apart and rebuild it without much problem. But even if that weren't possible, I still don't see how it would be relevant one way or the other to the issue of the ETH.

 

[Double Nought Spy]

Didn't Art Bell sit at his microphone wearing a Hugh Hefner robe and some bunny slippers? I just assumed it was a long tradition, and that a fair percentage of the people one hears on Internet shows are wearing sweat pants or their jammies. I think I'd dress up in a wizard's robe with a cape if I had a radio show.

That helicopter thing has always intrigued me. Somewhere in Strieber's body of work is a similar story. The absurdly obsolete mustard yellow chopper showing up in association with a UFO report or other weird event, and someone (maybe Strieber) doing the checking only to get puzzled or annoyed reactions from those who knew about such things. I think it's in one of his earlier books, Communion or Transformation or one of those, but I could be misrememberating. I am reasonably sure I read about it before reading any of Chris's books, because I recall thinking Boy that's really weird! when I first encountered Chris's story. Maybe you could ask him about it if he ever deigns to go on your show.

 

[Wade]

That helicopter thing has always intrigued me. Somewhere in Strieber's body of work is a similar story. The absurdly obsolete mustard yellow chopper showing up in association with a UFO report or other weird event, and someone (maybe Strieber) doing the checking only to get puzzled or annoyed reactions from those who knew about such things. I think it's in one of his earlier books, Communion or Transformation or one of those, but I could be misrememberating. I am reasonably sure I read about it before reading any of Chris's books, because I recall thinking Boy that's really weird! when I first encountered Chris's story. Maybe you could ask him about it if he ever deigns to go on your show.

If so, that would make whitley quite the trend setter. Wasn't it shortly after communion came out that incidents of ufo sightings involving alien greys skyrocketed? Up to that point I think descriptions of humanoid contacts were varied and in many cases bordered on the surreal.

 

[Randall]

Nigerian Student Builds Helicopter From Junk​

 

[Double Nought Spy]

Well, if I am recalling this correctly, it was a case Strieber investigated. He was apparently pretty active at that for a while after his own experiences. Seems like it took place in California and involved an abduction or missing time event. I did twenty minutes of fruitless googling about it after my last post. I might be completely off base, but I usually have a good memory for such things. I would bet money that I have read about another yellow helicopter seemingly straight out of the early 50s somewhere else, and the details of such a craft being horrendously expensive to operate even if someone had one in airworthy condition, which is about as likely as seeing Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang snooping around a Bigfoot village.

Strieber's book covers were powerful catalysts for the grey alien meme, but they were well known for remarkable similarities from one case to another well before Communion hit the stands. That cover used to make me very uncomfortable, staring out at me from places like supermarket checkout lanes. When I finally got around to reading it, I slept with the lights on for a silly length of time. Months, I think. Strieber has a huge talent as a horror writer. He can still creep me out. I never finished Greys.

No, I do not believe I have ever been abducted. If it ever happened to me, the hypnosis took very well and I am pleased with the competence of the crew.

 

[Polterwurst]

How do we justify the leap in logic from helicopter to UFO? A sighting of an old Earth type aircraft doesn't equal the sighting of a UFO?

I think that the point you are missing is that the helicopter wasn't the original sighting. If I remember correctly, Chris was interviewing a family that had a more classical UFO-sighting and they reported that after the sighting the helicopter showed up hovering around ominously over their home or something along these lines. Correct me if I'm wrong, Chris. So that's what links the yellow chopper to UFOs, especially when it shows up again years later when someone is investigating the original sighting.

 

[Double Nought Spy]

I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything.

As I recall, the yellow helicopter was part of an animal mutilation case that Chris was investigating. He got the story of the weird aircraft as part of the event from many years previous, and then it obligingly buzzed Chris the next day. Hard to chalk that one up to little grey aliens screwing with us, in my opinion. It's one of those things that sticks out like a lipstick-wearing man in black showing up in a brand new '47 Cadillac on some absurd errand. It just don't make no damn sense. Which just could be the point.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

...As I recall, the yellow helicopter was part of an animal mutilation case that Chris was investigating. He got the story of the weird aircraft as part of the event from many years previous, and then it obligingly buzzed Chris the next day. Hard to chalk that one up to little grey aliens screwing with us, in my opinion...

[From The Mysterious Valley pages 40 - 44]

The Yellow Whirlybird
During those first couple of weeks in January 1993, I was so intent on digging up as much as I could about the unexplained activity reported during the preceding three months and researching the colorful history of unexplained occurrences in the San Luis Valley that it never occurred to me that we were in the midst of an on-going flap. Something more involved and complicated than I, at the time, could ever imagine. I was right in the middle of it and never realized that I was actually becoming part of the story. I thought I was just researching an article for a small-town newspaper, not attempting to investigate and anticipate where these elusive phenomena would occur.

As the process of painting an accurate picture of the history of UAD reports and UFO sightings unfolded, it became obvious that more cows had been mysteriously killed than the media had reported. Initially, it appeared that Saguache County, where I lived, had no documentation of UADs. Several ranchers told me that cases had been reported in the 1970s, but I could find no reference to them. Even the acknowledged top researcher in the field, Tom Adams, was unaware of any official Saguache County cases, or even reports.

It turned out that the local Saguache Crescent had never published a single article pertaining to the many UADs that allegedly occurred here. The editor explained, "Oh, they happened but we only write about good news." I called Sheriff Dan Pacheco and he claimed there were no records of any "mutilations" or sightings in his office. He sheepishly told me that most of the previous sheriffs had never kept accurate files. "We don't even have files on murders that took place in Saguache County back in the '60s and '70s."

Two days after my talk with Sheriff Pacheco, he called to tell me he had been searching through old boxes in the basement and found a packet of pictures. I picked them up the next day. The packet contained 24 color photographs of eight cows and one horse that had been reportedly "mutilated." Only two of the photographs had any writing on the back explaining who owned the animal and when the report was filed. But I had proof in my hand that Saguache County had experienced reports of unusual animal deaths.

The photos haunted me. What could have done this to these poor animals? The horse appeared to have been cut with a laser. A strange tar-like substance ringed the incision areas. The rear-end appeared burned-off and it looked like the animal had been lying there for days before the photo was taken, but I found out later from the owner of the once-beautiful palomino show horse, that the photo had been taken just a few hours after the horse's death.

I figured that if the "top" expert in the field was unaware that reports had been filed in Saguache County, maybe this whole phenomenon was more pervasive than I had imagined.
Looking through the photos, I noticed that one picture was of a Hereford bull. It took me a couple of days of sleuthing and phoning to establish that the bull belonged to the Sutherland family, who had a large spread several miles west of Moffat, less than 20 miles from my house.

I spoke with Mrs. Virginia Sutherland and she said, "Yes, we had a bull killed in June 1980." She described the incident in detail over the phone and invited me out to the ranch the following day to interview her family. I couldn't help but be impressed by the hardy ranching family. They remembered the incident with clarity. I interviewed them to cross-reference their accounts and found all accounts were identical.
The 1,700 pound bull had been in a separate pasture about 500 yards south of the ranch house. At dusk, June 5, 1980, the family was sitting down to dinner when they heard a helicopter fly slowly over the house, heading south. They had seen utility company choppers checking the power lines three miles west of the house many times and found it unusual that a helicopter should be flying so low over the ranch at dusk, so far from the power lines. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, they heard the sound of the chopper again but this time it seemed to be hovering close by.

They went outside to see. The chopper, "an old-fashioned, two-man, whirlybird-type of helicopter, mustard-yellow in color," was rising from the pasture where their bull was located. "It didn't seem to have any markings whatsoever. I thought that strange," commented Mrs. Sutherland. "I also thought it was peculiar that it had evidently landed in our field." The chopper flew back to the north, right over their house. "We all got a real good look at it. It was one of those, like you see on M.A.S.H-type helicopters. It was only 30 or 40 feet over our heads."

The next morning, they discovered the dead bull, its penis and eyes gone, its rear end "deeply cored-out," and a "one-inch plug missing from the brisket." The Sutherlands, understandably angry at the loss of their prize seed-bull, immediately called all around southern and central Colorado and northern New Mexico, trying to determine where the old-fashioned helicopter was based. They came up empty. No airport had ever seen a mustard-yellow, whirlybird-type helicopter and they were told that this type of craft was extremely rare and astronomically expensive to keep in the air because of its age. It had very limited range, due to fuel consumption.

"It was the strangest thing. That (dead) bull was never touched by scavengers. Flies wouldn't land on one side of it and it took years for the carcass to melt into the field!" Virginia remembered.
I thanked them for their time and a graciously-loaned second photo of the bull. I promised I would give them a call if I unearthed anything that might shed some light on the untimely demise of their animal. I would make that call the very next day!

The following morning, as I sat over a cup of coffee in our dining room, reviewing the Sutherland interview notes, I heard the faint sound of a helicopter coming down the Sangre de Cristo Range from the north. I glanced out the window to see a mustard-yellow, old-fashioned, "like you see on M.A.S.H-type helicopter!" As it approached our house less than 200 feet high, it wheeled sideways and I saw the glint of what may have been a camera lens, pointing out the passenger's side. Isadora, her eight year-old daughter Brisa and several neighbors also saw the chopper. I was floored that, almost 13 years after the fact, the antique helicopter had returned, flying over the house of the investigator, me. I wondered what anyone would want with footage of my flabbergasted open-mouthed face in the dining room window. I had been so startled, I forgot to grab my camera.


Rules #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.


I remember commenting on the phone to Paris, Texas researcher, Tom Adams, during that last week in January 1993, "It just can't get any weirder than this!" He quickly assured me that it could.

 

[Polterwurst]

Notice in the above post how debunkers seem to think other people are mostly incapable of their own critical thinking.

I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything.

I had actually intended the post to be a reply to Ufology. But you're right, it was cattle mutilations, not UFOs. So, Ufology does have a point in that it wasn't a UFO sighting that was followed by the yellow helicopter, but cattle mutilations, which may or may not be related to UFOs (I don't think there is much proof that it is?). As I've never personally seen such a case or talked to a person involved, I'm quite sceptical about these myself. But I guess, having a sheriff showing me photos like the ones Chris described, might make me wonder.

 

[Randall]

I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything.

As I recall, the yellow helicopter was part of an animal mutilation case that Chris was investigating. He got the story of the weird aircraft as part of the event from many years previous, and then it obligingly buzzed Chris the next day. Hard to chalk that one up to little grey aliens screwing with us, in my opinion. It's one of those things that sticks out like a lipstick-wearing man in black showing up in a brand new '47 Cadillac on some absurd errand. It just don't make no damn sense. Which just could be the point.

OK I see where we need to get into the nitty gritty. The good thing about this discussion is that the source material was recorded:

01:21:05 | Gene: "As Chris said there at the end of the previous segment, over the years he's taken a step back from ETH or extraterrestrial. Tell our listeners why."​

​

01:21:16 | Chris: "Well it it had to do with uh the first case I actually investigated back in 1993, um towards the end end of I think the second week of January actually, when I had the uh the family tell me about a bull that was mutilated 13 years before and uh, observing a yellow antique helicopter fly right over their house, and come to find their bull had been mutilated and they of course equated the two events and, 13 years later I was interviewing them went home the following morning. As I'm typing up my notes from the interview uh an antique yellow helicopter flew right over my house, and and at that instant I realized that this was infinitely more complex, and that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was woefully inadequate to explain something like that, unless, I you know, I there were five other witnesses to the helicopter so that was a real nuts and bolts machine that flew over the house but but, I mean what what are the odds? Uh I I tried every which way to find out where that thing came from, and was laughed at by anybody that uh knew anything about aviation, uh they said these things were in museums, uh they they are just are not being operated anymore. So, from that point on I, I really had a a a wake up call. Uh Prior to that of course like most people I assumed that you know aliens were here interacting with us, uh observing us, uh maybe tweaking our genetic code at some point in the distant past, uh you know and all the popular, uh knee jerk sort of uh, things that people tend to buy into I think in the Modern Age, and and I and I instantly went the other way."​

​

Analysis:

1. It is clear from the show that the context of the question ( unless we're taking ETH to mean "Explainable Terrestrial Helicopters ) that we're talking about the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis which is a popular theory for the origin of UFOs. Therefore we can safely assume that the rationale that follows has something to do with UFOs. However as we listen we find that the turning point for Chris was his sighting of a helicopter, not a UFO. Therefore when he says, "the extraterrestrial hypothesis was woefully inadequate to explain something like that." he is using rationale that is completely irrelevant to the question at hand. For example, the ETH is also woefully inadequate to explain my neighbors garden gnome. So what? But for some as yet unexplained reason Chris makes a gigantic leap in logic and says, " ... that instant I realized that this was infinitely more complex ...".
2. The first sighting by Chris' parents were presumed to have been linked to an animal mutilation ( and presumably by extension to UFOs ), but there is no evidence the helicopter actually was in any way directly linked to the mutilation ( "... they of course equated the two events..." ). So we don't know if the first helicopter sighting actually had anything to do with the animal mutilation, let alone UFOs. So now we are even further removed from any connection to the ETH.
3. Even if the helicopter was seen at the same time and location that some cattle mutilation was taking place ( as mentioned in Chris' later post here in this thread ), we'd then only have a helicopter linked to a cattle mutilation, not a UFO, and therefore once again the incident would have nothing to do with the ETH.
4. Simply because people laugh and the owner of the helicopter wasn't identified is not sufficient evidence to jump to the wild conclusion that the experience was something infinitely more complex than the ETH.
5. Chris calls the ETH and its associated possibilities " ... knee jerk sort of uh, things that people tend to buy into ... ". This couldn't be further from the truth. Although some people simply tend to "buy into" what they are told, the original ETH was the result of a serious study by USAF specialists ( see Estimate Of The Situation ) who concluded that UFOs are most likely from another planet.

Conclusion:​

Chris' rationale against the ETH stems from an epiphany, not logical reasoning based on the evidence of his own observations. Perhaps this epiphany is correct. We don't know. But either way, the circumstances surrounding it are not sufficiently connected with the ETH to justify using it as part of any logical evaluation of that hypothesis. Chris goes on to say that he also read Vallee's and Keel's work. So have I. They don't provide sufficient reasons either, and I have yet to be presented with any believable UFO report that cannot be explained by invoking sufficiently advanced technology.

Back in 1948 UFOs were very easily distinguished from any aircraft of the day by their radically different appearance and superior performance. They were clearly identified as solid and metallic in appearance, implying a manufacturing process, which in turn requires raw materials, refining, fabrication, and assembly facilities to do the job. No such facilities have been found on Earth in over 60 years since that report and it's simply not reasonable to suggest that they could all be kept hidden this long. Although, I have heard some interesting speculation on how it might be done by a complex network of terrestrial suppliers who somehow manage to keep it all off the books and out of the eye of investigators.