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

[Muadib]

Once again, I bring you the words of Whitley. I stumbled across his latest journal entry and found it to be both interesting and a bit shocking. Not only for the things Whitley says about aliens, or the lack thereof, but some of the things that he implies.

One is his assertion that the late Phillip Klass told him personally that he had a little quid pro quo arrangement with the USAF, debunk UFOs for us and we'll give you the scoop on new aircraft. Interesting, but all we have on that is Whitley's word. Although, I wonder if Klass was known in his field for breaking big stories on classified aircraft? I know he was an aviation journalist but I've never read any of his work. Perhaps someone here can enlighten me.

His other assertion that floored me was that a new study shows evidence that quantum indeterminacy is not real, and that so called quantum weirdness can be explained by classical, Newtonian physics. I haven't read the paper he linked to yet, but I'm definitely going to try and do so tonight. If it's true, the implications, not just for science, but for so much of the modern paranormal landscape, are staggering, to say the least.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on all of this. Is Whitley losing it, is he on to something here? What do you think?


The Reality behind Interstellar--Not What You'd Expect


I have been thinking long and hard about the close encounter experience and what it means. For some months now, I've been working on a new book that has caused me to re-read and re-think all of my past experiences, and to integrate some new ones. I have also come to reassess the evidence from the ground up. The reason is simple: none of the basic assumptions about close encounter work.

The US and British intelligence communities have used social engineering to spread the idea through the scientific and intellectual communities that it's all a load of nonsense and unworthy of scientific study or intellectual exploration. But this has been revealed as a lie--finally! In the British Ministry of Defense's 'Condign Report,' quietly declassified in 2006, there occurs an admission on page 408 that "plasmas unknown to science" can affect the human mind when they are in close proximity, causing people to see things that are not there, and that the soldiers who encountered strange lights in Rendlesham Forest starting on December 26, 1980--five years to the day before I would have my first adult close encounter 3,000 miles away--encountered such plasmas. (To hear more about this, listen to this week's Dreamland. To do that, click here. If you're trying to listen after Friday, December 12, it will be in the subscriber archive.)

In the years after the incident, the US Air Force sponsored debunker Phillip Klass (he was an editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology Magazine, and told me quite plainly that the Air Force gave him inside 'scoops' on secret aircraft for the magazine in return for his UFO work) put about the story that all that had been seen was the light of a nearby lighthouse.

But the Ministry of Defense didn't think that. Far from it. They thought that the men were being affected by these 'unknown plasmas.' (We can't know more, because the MoD falsely claims that all of the relevant files about the Rendlesham forest incident have been 'lost.' I would doubt that, just as much as I doubt that the Roswell files were accidentally destroyed, as the USAF told the General Accounting Office when Congressman Steven Schiff of New Mexico attempted to get them released. As he told me at the time, quite bluntly, 'the Air Force is lying.'

The sheer momentum of denial is now such that neither the scientific community nor, for the most part, the academic and intellectual communities are likely to change their approach in any way. Thus the most important thing that has ever happened to mankind continues to be completely ignored by the social elements most capable of addressing it.

This gets me to Interstellar. The movie has come along at a time when we are beginning to realize how desperate we actually are, trapped on this little tiny planet out in the middle of nowhere, beginning to sense that we are suffocating, and starting to search the skies for answers. But where can we go? Our solar system offers no planet that we could usefully colonize, and if we do find any other congenial worlds, they are liable to be so far away that getting to them will be, at best, problematic.

The movie offers a solution: we lean to build wormholes, or wrinkles in space, that enable us to travel across many thousands of light years in an instant, by bending space so that, for that instant, two distant places are side by side.

Many of the people sitting in the theater must be thinking to themselves, 'well, it must be possible, otherwise how do the aliens get here?'

I would suggest that they may not. In fact, there may be no aliens here at all.

There is another sort of wormhole that would require far less energy than one that would bend space. This one would briefly open a door between us and a parallel universe. Such an opening is not only possible, it could be maintained for some little time, as much as a few seconds--more than enough, in other words, for explorers and their equipment to pass through.

That goes for both directions and frankly, when you look at the preponderance of the evidence, it seems more likely that the aliens are coming from right here, not from other planets in this universe at all. However, it's not at all clear that 'parallel universes' are any less a fiction than interstellar wormholes.

Until now, that is. A group of scientists at Griffith University in Queensland have postulated that quantum indeterminacy is not real, even though it can be observed experimentally--and, in fact, that quantum weirdness in general actually has an explanation in classical Newtonian physics. They postulate that there are a number of classically sized universes occupying the same space in slightly different basic orientations--in other words, real, physical parallel universes.

The equations they have come up with show that such things as quantum indeterminacy can also be explained by the slight pressure that particles from these other universe exert on particles in ours. (You will find their paper in Physical Review X, doi.org/wtw.)

Could it be that living beings from such universes are learning how to enter ours, and we, also, can learn how to make this move? If so, could there be places literally right here that we could colonize, or at least interact with, perhaps learn how to survive from?

We are absolutely alone out here lost among the stars, billions of vibrantly alive beings trapped on a dying planet.

Or are we alone, and what does 'here' really mean?

Interstellar may describe technological tools that can never be. We may never be able to cross the vastness of space. But it may be that we don't need to. We need only learn how to cross a barrier so thin that it almost isn't there, beyond which lie worlds untold.

You can find the article here: Whitley's Journal - the latest entry | unknowncountry

 

[SheaOlmsford]

Hmmm....why would Phil Klass conceivably tell Whitley Strieber of his secret arrangement with the Air Force to denounce UFO's in exchange for aircraft technology scoops for his magazine? I met Phil Klass many years ago. Warm and cuddly he was not. I find it hard to conceive of what would invoke Klass to "reveal all" to Whitley Strieber. Let's chalk up another unlikely tale from the mind of Whitley Strieber.

I cannot comment on quantum indeterminacy. I actually did some internet research after reading your post, but it didn't help. Am I Penny from THE BIG BANG THEORY?

Unknown Plasma causes hallucinations? Forget anti-structuralism and other typically complex human explanations for what is perhaps quite simple! Forget the Trickster. The Trickster is dead. Long live the Unknown Plasma that causes paranormal delusions!

I don't see what is so shocking about simply moving the origin of aliens from another planet in our universe to a separate universe that overlays our own. Classic Metaphysics has claimed that all dimensions and universes exist in 1 space but at different frequencies. Such theories have been around a long time in ufology also, if you break with the old white haired guard (Stanton Friedman, Stephen Bassett, Clifford Stone, Robert O. Dean, David Jacobs, Budd Hopkins) who see this entire bizarre phenomena in terms of chessy 50's B Movie sci-fi.

 

[Muadib]

I realize that these aren't exactly new ideas, and please don't think I'm endorsing Whitley's viewpoints here. I simply find him to be an interesting character and a decent writer. Still, the stuff about Klass, while probably untrue, was shocking to find, since it has little to do with the rest of the article. I don't understand why he felt the need to throw that one in there, especially given the fact that the man is dead.

From what I understand about quantum physics, and it ain't much, the demonstration that quantum indeterminacy and other quantum weirdness was explainable by classical physics, would mean that quantum physics would become obsolete, a relic of the past. There would be absolutely no need for quantum physics if classical physics can explain, and allow us to make predictions about, the quantum world. Imagine the effect it would have on all of the quantum woo peddlers out there if the whole thing blew up in their face?

I don't know about you, but I find the notion, well, shocking.

 

[Constance]

In the British Ministry of Defense's 'Condign Report,' quietly declassified in 2006, there occurs an admission on page 408 that "plasmas unknown to science" can affect the human mind when they are in close proximity, causing people to see things that are not there, and that the soldiers who encountered strange lights in Rendlesham Forest starting on December 26, 1980--five years to the day before I would have my first adult close encounter 3,000 miles away--encountered such plasmas.

Not exactly. See Nick Pope's account of the meaning of that item in Condign, here:

Larry Warren on DMR-Dec. 15th | Page 4 | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[Randall]

I realize that these aren't exactly new ideas, and please don't think I'm endorsing Whitley's viewpoints here. I simply find him to be an interesting character and a decent writer. Still, the stuff about Klass, while probably untrue, was shocking to find, since it has little to do with the rest of the article. I don't understand why he felt the need to throw that one in there, especially given the fact that the man is dead.

Who knows for sure what's true and what's not when it comes to Strieber's claims. All that seems obvious from his work is that it appears to be a mix of fiction and what he believes are his personal experiences combined with some historical factoids ... in other words, it's docufiction.

From what I understand about quantum physics, and it ain't much, the demonstration that quantum indeterminacy and other quantum weirdness was explainable by classical physics, would mean that quantum physics would become obsolete, a relic of the past. There would be absolutely no need for quantum physics if classical physics can explain, and allow us to make predictions about, the quantum world. Imagine the effect it would have on all of the quantum woo peddlers out there if the whole thing blew up in their face?

I don't know about you, but I find the notion, well, shocking.

Quantum physics is built on mathematics that attempts to describe and predict what scientists think is taking place with matter and energy at the smallest scales. Therefore it is an abstract model, and parts of that model might work well, while other parts might not have anything to do with objective reality. The bottom line is that we still don't have all the answers about the fundamental forces of nature, or the true nature of our universe itself.

What we can be sure of however is that the quantum mystics are peddling nonsense. You've probably run across that discussion in the forum before, so no need to repeat it yet again here. The point being that the woo peddlers will exploit whatever the general public doesn't understand for the purpose of gaining some fame and/or money, or maybe it just helps them justify their own mixed-up beliefs about the way things are, and if anything comes along to replace quantum theory, they'll probably exploit that too.

 

[DaveM]

If there are no aliens here after all, I guess Whitley will be returning all that money from the books where he says that aliens visited our planet...

 

[SheaOlmsford]

If there are no aliens here after all, I guess Whitley will be returning all that money from the books where he says that aliens visited our planet...

If you have read all his books, you would find that Whitley constantly questions the origins of these experiences. He changes his opinion over time, as any intelligent person would do when faced with a life long mystery that can only be solved with conjecture and hypothesis. He coined the term "The Visitors" from the very beginning because he was NOT comfortable just thinking of them as your standard 50's B sci-fi movie "aliens".

 

[DaveM]

Unfortunately, I have read a few of Strieber's books and I do wish I had my money back!

 

[SheaOlmsford]

Unfortunately, I have read a few of Strieber's books and I do wish I had my money back!

I share your opinion about every fictional book he has written. Yes, you could say they are all fictional. But I am referring to the books he claims are fictional.

 

[TrivialSublime]

If you have read all his books, you would find that Whitley constantly questions the origins of these experiences. He changes his opinion over time, as any intelligent person would do when faced with a life long mystery that can only be solved with conjecture and hypothesis. He coined the term "The Visitors" from the very beginning because he was NOT comfortable just thinking of them as your standard 50's B sci-fi movie "aliens".

Then I guess we would be considered suckered for buying his books as he changed his opinions on his experiences..

 

[George Wingfield]

There can be no doubt whatever that Whitley Strieber’s book Communion –A True Story (1987) is anything other than a work of fiction. He did, of course, listen carefully to the stories told by other supposed alien abductees --or their memories of abduction resulting from hypnotic regression—before he sat down to write Communion.

Before he jumped on the alien abduction bandwagon Whitley Strieber was regarded as a leading writer of horror fiction and some regarded him as the equal of Stephen King. One of his earlier horror stories was titled Pain and in this one can find many parallels to his alien abduction story in Communion. This commentary on the similarity is taken from a review that was published several years ago on the net:-

Whitley, as it turned out, had left a significant paper trail in this regard:
a story, "Pain," that appeared in a 1986 hardcover anthology, of horror stories,
Cutting Edge. "Pain" is a remarkable prefiguration of Communion's distinctive
addition of S&M themes to the traditional UFO mixture-as-before. Here is the moment
in Communion when Strieber reveals how he was raped by aliens:

[Aboard the saucer] the next thing I knew I was being shown an enormous and
extremely ugly object, gray and scaly, with a sort of network of wires on the end.
It was a least a foot long, narrow and triangular in structure. They inserted this
thing into my rectum. It seemed to swarm into me as if it had a life of its own.
Apparently its purpose was to take samples, possibly of fecal matter, but at the
time I had the impression that I was being raped, and for the first time I felt
anger.

In "Pain" the narrator, a novelist like Strieber, tells of his besotted passion for
a professional dominatrix, who belongs to an ancient, alien race that had fed on
human pain throughout history. They were in charge of the Roman Empire, arranged
the Holocaust, assassinated Kennedy, and now their agent, cruel Janet O'Reilly,
puts Strieber's hero through a standard bondage-and-domination scenario.

The textual parallels between "Pain" and Communion are extensive. Could it be
that Strieber, having made the imaginative equation between the "archetypal
abduction experience" and the ritual protocols of bondage and domination, realized
he'd hit a vein of ore untapped by previous UFOlogists? Strieber's alternative
explanation is that the story represents the first surfacing of memories repressed
by the aliens, who had given Strieber a similar hazing only days before "Pain" was
written.

Another fiction of Whitley's was his account of how he was pinned down by the gunfire from multiple murderer Charles Whitman who shot and killed 15 people and wounded 31 others from a 27-story high tower on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin in 1966. This claim, which Strieber made during the 1980s, was eventually nailed by a researcher from Texas who knew him and who was able to prove that he could not possibly have been in Austin at the time. Whitley was then forced to concede that his account was imaginary --or else a false memory, which, he suggested, had been implanted by the aliens.

Twenty years ago I sat next to Whitley’s charming wife Anne on a long bus ride when we were, together with Whitley, attending a UFO conference in Brisbane, Australia. I knew Whitley quite well back then but hadn't met Anne before. We talked at length. Having recently read Communion, I said naively that it must have been quite terrifying for her living with Whitley in that house in the woods near Accord (Ulster County) NY during the time he was virtually under siege by aliens. I said that the frequent presence of such intruders both outside in the dark with the security lights going on and off, and also inside --sometimes in the bedroom during the night-- must have been enough to terrify most folk out of their wits. Anne looked at me and smiled. She said "Oh, no, that's just Whitley ..... I never see a thing." She went on to say --in so many words-- that all this was in Whitley's head and no one else experienced any of the sheer Gothic terror which he so masterfully describes in 'Communion'. She didn't actually say it was fiction but I was left in little doubt of that. Out of loyalty to Whitley she would most likely deny any of this in public.

 

[Wade]

Interesting, it leads me to think that we ALL owe our existence to Mr. Strieber. Maybe the matrix we are in are courtney of the communion (and Wolfen!) author.

 

[SheaOlmsford]

There can be no doubt whatever that Whitley Strieber’s book Communion –A True Story (1987) is anything other than a work of fiction. He did, of course, listen carefully to the stories told by other supposed alien abductees --or their memories of abduction resulting from hypnotic regression—before he sat down to write Communion.

Twenty years ago I sat next to Whitley’s charming wife Anne on a long bus ride when we were, together with Whitley, attending a UFO conference in Brisbane, Australia. I knew Whitley quite well back then but hadn't met Anne before. We talked at length. Having recently read Communion, I said naively that it must have been quite terrifying for her living with Whitley in that house in the woods near Accord (Ulster County) NY during the time he was virtually under siege by aliens. I said that the frequent presence of such intruders both outside in the dark with the security lights going on and off, and also inside --sometimes in the bedroom during the night-- must have been enough to terrify most folk out of their wits. Anne looked at me and smiled. She said "Oh, no, that's just Whitley ..... I never see a thing." She went on to say --in so many words-- that all this was in Whitley's head and no one else experienced any of the sheer Gothic terror which he so masterfully describes in 'Communion'. She didn't actually say it was fiction but I was left in little doubt of that. Out of loyalty to Whitley she would most likely deny any of this in public.

I am not one of Whitley's born-again UNKNOWN COUNTRY disciples, but how do we account for the other witnesses at the cabin who swear they also encountered the Greys? Is this a "me too" syndrome? How about the professional doctor who performed the initial hypnosis on Whitley, drawing out a lot of emotional distress? Can a person fake responses under hypnosis? How about the San Antonio Doctor who testified that Whitley had an implant that moved away from his scalpel? Was there collusion? I know this doctor went on to become a darling of the Coast to Coast radio show. I ask these questions sincerely to see how we can explain the peripheral events that Whitley eagerly supplies even now on Dreamland and his honored guest appearances on Coast to Cosat (the Fox News of the pararnormal world).

I was once good friends with a fellow who did a lot of work with Whitley as a graphic artist, creating some of the most famous alien abduction pictures on the internet in the late 90's. Then there was a falling out. My friend would not reveal the details except to say that everyone who gets close to Whitley is eventually dumped. I also know this is true of Jesse Long, who is a friend of mine. Jesse was in Whitley Striebers TV special CONFIRMATION. Once the show was over, Whitley dropped his supportive role and dumped Jesse. He refuses now to take any calls from Jesse. I trust my friend and do not think his next comment was just a sour grapes desire to harm Whitley. My friend said that he no longer believed that Whitley had ever been visited by "The Visitors", even though my friend earnestly believed that he (my friend) had been abducted many times.

Caption for picture below: "Excuse me, is this the line for alien abduction?" (click t0 see)

 

[Burnt State]

U.F.O. Tricksters Abound

Given Strieber's colorful past, where jumping on the latest bandwagon is the first thing you do before breakfast so you have lots of time to manage your cult during the rest of the day, I don't think there's much left to say. He did launch the grey alien meme and solidified that for our culture, probably influencing countless alien abductions and informed a whole culture about AP. Let's face it; he's a lot bigger that Betty and Barney ever got, cult guru period included.

His wife's confession, if true, identifies what we've always suspected, that if these alien visitors were really probing Whitley and communing with him, then like many a self-constructed contactee before him he's made the whole damn thing up. I do leave large allowances for his wife's statement regarding the location of these events though - taking place in his head. Perhaps Mr. Strieber had some very unique internal experiences - everyone has their mental horrors to contend with after all.

However, I also think Whitley's a true trickster in our contemporary culture. He has framed a lot of the alien abduction phenomenon, and has admittedly attempted to con, confabulate, and just plain makes stuff up. Like Steve Greer, Linda Howe, Romanek etc. they're all in it for themselves, though Romanek's kind of out of it altogether now. These are the tricksters, bringing about disorder for a good many years now. Too bad about Howe, as her initial trajectory was to be a bold and detailed reporter. But she was also meddled with and went all weird, almost Bennewitz weird when you think about some of her statements and convictions.

They're all writers of fiction, and the reality behind them all is rather troubled on the whole, troubled and perhaps even a little disturbing. A true trickster in his own right, I wonder what would Moseley say about all this?

 

[Wade]

Still it HAS been brought up before...namely by me just recently... that the phenomena is to use Chris 's terminology, but in a different context, could be a "closed system" phenomena. I even suggested that an abduction experience could be akin to a hijacking of your conscious. From an argumentative standpoint this possibility could certainly serve as a way around such inconvient observations by those that say they never see or heard a thing but it could also be true. I've also mentioned before that there are certain things about an abduction experience that are often reported I don't like from a logical/logistic standpoint. I suppose the possibility that these acts could be done in a non tangible (?) context instead of actual nuts and bolts abductions doesn't make them more logical but IF an abduction is done on a subconscious level maybe there could be false recollections based on perceptions in other words they THINK they got operated on because they expect it, their imagination is getting involved...Don't know if any of that makes sense....Of course it could also be a variation of what other people refer to as a visit from the old hag. At one time i used to suffer horribly from hypnopompia and while i don't recall ever seeing an old hag , I certainly felt I was being harassed, maybe even violated, and it scared me s***less and seemed very real until i got a handle on it. Could be Whitley is having a go at us but maybe to him and others it is very, very, real. It's easy to say it is/was just your imagination but to a sufferer there is nothing imaginative about it.

Or we are all subject to being taken "offline" and tinkered with recalibrate and readjusted then re deposited back into our "reality"

 

[George Wingfield]

I am surprised that beyondthestargate, or anyone, should actually believe all that he hears on Coast-to-Coast without a few reservations. Many guests on that program are out-and-out fantasists or, perhaps I can say, many are simply not that truthful. Others may sincerely believe they were abducted by aliens --or had different weird experiences-- but it doesn’t mean to say what happened to them was any part of the physical realm to which we all belong. Both sorts of “experiencer” will often try to validate their stories by producing things like positive polygraph results, supposed alien implants, alleged witnesses who would back them up, etc. Skeptics like me don’t get invited on Coast-to Coast!

Let me give you this story about Whitley Strieber which was told to me by Budd Hopkins. Some time before Communion was published in 1987 Whitley flew to New York and got in contact with Budd, who had by then published Missing Time (1981) and was about to publish Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods. Whitley wanted to meet Debbie Tomie (aka Kathy Davis; now Debbie Jordan-Kauble) who was Budd’s star abductee at that time and who undoubtedly believed that she had been abducted by aliens several times from her home in Indiana.

Debbie just happened to be in NYC staying at Budd’s and so Budd rather reluctantly allowed Debbie to go and meet him in a nearby restaurant. She was questioned by Whitley about every aspect of her abduction experiences for quite some time. Whitley kept peering at her in a strange way until she eventually asked him “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

At first he denied that he had been looking at her strangely but after she pressed him repeatedly, he said “Well, haven’t we met somewhere before?” No, she said, and she didn’t think she had ever seen him before that day.

Whitley continued to look very strangely at Debbie until she became really quite upset. Again she pressed him, asking “If we did meet before, where was that?” Very slowly and reluctantly he replied “It was on one of the ships…” It then dawned on her that he was implying that they had somehow met aboard a flying saucer at a time both of them had been simultaneously abducted.

She was shocked but soon realized that Whitley still hadn’t finished delivering this bombshell. She demanded to know more and became quite angry with him. Feigning extreme reluctance Whitley Strieber then said that it wasn’t all of her that he had met: what he had seen on the “ship” was just her head floating in a vat of liquid together with other body parts.

At this Debbie became extremely upset and got up to leave. She didn’t tell Whitley that she disbelieved him but said she never wanted to see him again. Then she went out of the restaurant and returned to Budd’s place. Obviously it wasn’t going to be to anyone’s advantage to publicize this absurd episode.

Whitley Strieber was always a practical joker since he was young. He would often tell his victims some tall story with a completely straight face and never for a moment concede the story was made up. His vivid imagination and his writing skills have always been his passport to success. You may ask me whether I should have believed Budd Hopkins? Well, yes, but not everything he told me --though Budd certainly appeared to believe that alien abductions genuinely did happen.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Fascinating insights. But about the last paragraph: How do you know he was "always a practical joker since he was young"? This part of his bio?

 

[Constance]

I've never read Strieber's books. From what I'm hearing here about his behavior and his fiction writing preceding his abduction book(s), I'm feeling as if I've been spared an immense and grotesque confusion.

 

[SheaOlmsford]

I am surprised that beyondthestargate, or anyone, should actually believe all that he hears on Coast-to-Coast without a few reservations. Many guests on that program are out-and-out fantasists or, perhaps I can say, many are simply not that truthful. Others may sincerely believe they were abducted by aliens --or had different weird experiences-- but it doesn’t mean to say what happened to them was any part of the physical realm to which we all belong. Both sorts of “experiencer” will often try to validate their stories by producing things like positive polygraph results, supposed alien implants, alleged witnesses who would back them up, etc. Skeptics like me don’t get invited on Coast-to Coast!

Let me give you this story about Whitley Strieber which was told to me by Budd Hopkins. Some time before Communion was published in 1987 Whitley flew to New York and got in contact with Budd, who had by then published Missing Time (1981) and was about to publish Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods. Whitley wanted to meet Debbie Tomie (aka Kathy Davis; now Debbie Jordan-Kauble) who was Budd’s star abductee at that time and who undoubtedly believed that she had been abducted by aliens several times from her home in Indiana.

Debbie just happened to be in NYC staying at Budd’s and so Budd rather reluctantly allowed Debbie to go and meet him in a nearby restaurant. She was questioned by Whitley about every aspect of her abduction experiences for quite some time. Whitley kept peering at her in a strange way until she eventually asked him “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

At first he denied that he had been looking at her strangely but after she pressed him repeatedly, he said “Well, haven’t we met somewhere before?” No, she said, and she didn’t think she had ever seen him before that day.

Whitley continued to look very strangely at Debbie until she became really quite upset. Again she pressed him, asking “If we did meet before, where was that?” Very slowly and reluctantly he replied “It was on one of the ships…” It then dawned on her that he was implying that they had somehow met aboard a flying saucer at a time both of them had been simultaneously abducted.

She was shocked but soon realized that Whitley still hadn’t finished delivering this bombshell. She demanded to know more and became quite angry with him. Feigning extreme reluctance Whitley Strieber then said that it wasn’t all of her that he had met: what he had seen on the “ship” was just her head floating in a vat of liquid together with other body parts.

At this Debbie became extremely upset and got up to leave. She didn’t tell Whitley that she disbelieved him but said she never wanted to see him again. Then she went out of the restaurant and returned to Budd’s place. Obviously it wasn’t going to be to anyone’s advantage to publicize this absurd episode.

Whitley Strieber was always a practical joker since he was young. He would often tell his victims some tall story with a completely straight face and never for a moment concede the story was made up. His vivid imagination and his writing skills have always been his passport to success. You may ask me whether I should have believed Budd Hopkins? Well, yes, but not everything he told me --though Budd certainly appeared to believe that alien abductions genuinely did happen.

You might try reading my post again slowly. I called Coast to Coast The Fox News Of the Paranormal. Maybe you didn't get the insult, but to me that was meant as a grave insult. I also stated that I am NOT a born again disciple of Strieber, but asked questions that any SERIOUS investigator of the paranormal should be able to answer. If this is any indication of your reading apprehension and retention, then I worry about you.

 

[George Wingfield]

Hi, Gene

You ask how I know that Whitley was always a practical joker? Well, Whitley Strieber told me that himself when we were at a UFO conference in Pensacola Beach/Gulf Breeze in 1997. Don’t get me wrong --I like Whitley but you certainly don’t want to believe everything he says. He is usually the life and soul of the party and always the center of attention. Over a few drinks in the bar he told me of some of the practical jokes he had played and just how credulous some folk are.
One spoof I remember he recounted was when he was telling a group of fans about flying on Concorde, the supersonic airliner, which was much more expensive than any other transatlantic flights. He told them that the huge G forces meant that passengers all had to be strapped in as they accelerated to Mach 2 and one was unable to move. “What”, one woman inquired, “did you do if you urgently needed to go to the bathroom?” Whitley told her that Concorde had an ingenious mobile toilet that could be moved by cables into position under any seat where it was needed. No one ever questioned something like this which he said with an absolutely straight face and there were many other outrageous tales of this sort. We laughed until I almost cried at some of his reminiscences.

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.

I must apologize to beyondthestargate for failing to catch his reference to Coast to Coast as “the Fox News of the Paranormal”. I don’t watch Fox News and I hardly ever listen to Coast-to-Coast either. There are of course plenty of folk –even in AZ—who accept uncritically all that they hear on both these channels. I’m sure that beyondthestargate is NOT one of them!