April 12, 2015 — Shop Talk 2015 with Burnt State

[Angel of Ioren]

Exactly - Chris is trying to actually do some good work in a field that contains a lot of morons. I may not agree with Chris on some of this stuff, but he does put in the work. More than dudes like me that just look this stuff up on forums

 

[pixelsmith]

Chris had me considering a donation to this very important project until his liberal/progressive crap slinging started. I still might but it did sour things for me. George Soros is even more evil than Koch Bros. in my opinion.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I'm a Canadian living in Quebec... we're like dirty socialists over here.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Geez, that's sort of a back-handed compliment, no?

Maybe Gene and Chris's negative energy is trickling down to my posts....

But yea, I still doubt we will have triangulated online camera system out in the desert anytime soon. Just my hunch, though I really hope we do.

 

[DaveM]

That's right Gene. Dr. Greer would take your money and have you stand in a field at night waiting for the ufos to show up. Nice research.

 

[DaveM]

Chris had me considering a donation to this very important project until his liberal/progressive crap slinging started. I still might but it did sour things for me. George Soros is even more evil than Koch Bros. in my opinion.

You forgot to include Pope Francis in your liberal/progressive rant.

 

[Burnt State]

Apologies in advance for commenting without reading the entirety of the thread. But Burnt State's comment here speaks to something which bothers me about discussions regarding possible alien intelligences: "... certainly not a scientific tactic or strategy at all."

What evidence do we have that these intelligences (if they do exist) are strictly and obsessively motivated by our understanding of science? I mean one could make a good argument that H. sapiens is pretty advanced scientifically, yet when we went to the moon we planted a flag, read a poem, and whacked a golf ball for pity's sake.

The idea that any flying saucer occupants must be ultra-rational and scientific seems just as fallacious, to me, as that they must be extra-terrestrial. (sorry about the typos - getting over a nasty bug and i cannot type well under the best of circumstances)

Well, if you do take time to read the thread you'll see I did cover irrationality, my favourite UFO associative thought experiment, in the discussion about the Theatre of the Absurd.

Of course our other option is to negate every single thought we have about the "Alien" because their paradigms are just so alien to us, and then we should just stop talking about the phenomenon altogether. This is afterall the age of nihilism in ufology where, afraid to move forward by applying our own science and rational & irrational approaches, we say, we can never undersand the alien so let's disagree and fight for our ETH right. Why not shut it down? What does moving forward look like if we decide we are too limited to begin to understand the situation?

However, we also need to acknowledge, in all the cries for having more science applied to the matter, especially if the ETH is a starting point, that their science is obviously well beyond our own. They remain entirely unknown and impossible to understand. We know next to nothing about the UFO conundrum after decades of study. They obviously moved past rational thought long ago in their evolution, given their ability to escape our own physical conceptions of the universe. So if we're going to throw our hands up in the air, negate everything and say nothing at all except that they exist, then the debunker has every right to say that they don't.

 

[Crazy Old Lady]

Wow, WithoutLimits09, that abductions may have something to do with measuring or assessing consciousness and individual response - for whatever purposes - is a truly fascinating idea. Bravo for some truly creative thinking. I also tend to be skeptical of the abduction phenomena. Perhaps because it's something I truly don't ever want to experience. But I've always been curious about perception and its role, or lack, thereof, in our external reality. If some other intelligence was trying to assess human perception, or even human emotional responses, then the abduction phenomena, whether it is physical or a function of our perceptions, such as an induced, altered psychological state, would make sense.

Burnt State and Pigsinzen: the idea of BOLs being linked to geology is an idea I think I've heard before; such as the Marfa Lights in Texas. It brought back a memory; about 20 years ago, my husband saw a green BOL above the hilltop that bordered the wetlands that make up the southern third of the valley in which we live. We live in Northwestern NJ. The geological composition of the whole area is iron, zinc, shale and limestone. Iron and zinc were mined commercially in this area up until about 50 years ago, and veins of iron run through the whole area. There are rusty stones in every stream. There is a limestone quarry within 10 miles of our house. With all the iron in the ground, electrical storms can be quite spectacular. BOLs don't happen frequently around here, but they do happen. What is the geological composition of your area? Is there a common denominator?

 

[mrs. eccentric]

hello Burnt State. I don't read where i advocated for nihilism or throwing up of hands. For the record i support neither position.

I simply pointed out that it's possible for the same intelligence to perform actions which appear to us to be scientifically quite advanced as well as ones which appear to be utterly irrational. Thus, to me "percipient reported an intelligent being which must have been seen thru use of advanced science acting in an irrational manner - scientifically advanced beings cannot behave irrationally - therefore the intelligent being does not exist" is not a compelling argument. I would be more than happy to hear you flesh out your argument in favor of your position (which i tried to state accurately, please correct if needed).

As one with training in anthropology as well as an interest in the occult, i find plenty of avenues for research and speculation about the ufo and other paranormal phenomena. I'm very much in favor of more science/materialistically oriented research as well; this is a complicated phenomenon with effects on material objects, plants, animals, and the human psyche and social/group mind. There's so much to learn, i figure there's plenty of room for anyone with an interest to hop on in!

re: the 'genetic sample taking/baby making' component of many reported abduction scenaria. From the anthropological view, it is striking that one common thread running underneath these stories is the idea of genetic or family relationship. Family relationships in human societies involve many responsibilities and obligations between the related peoples. So one could posit that the intelligences or 'aliens' in these scenaria are trying to get across the idea that we and they already have some type of family relationship, or that these intelligences want to create this type of relationship with us. Which is a very different motivation from 'dna sampling'.

Again from the anthro perspective, a universal method of creating relationships of obligation between human peoples is to exchange gifts - gifts of food are always quite popular and fraught with meaning. (Cue Mr. Simonton and the pancakes!). The 'ultimate gift' is that of a child in marriage (cue Mr. Antonion Villas-Boas - wait, this is a family friendly forum.....but we don't want to be TOO family-friendly . Again, we can look underneath these stories and see an underlying theme: that we humans are related closely to these 'aliens', and that these same 'aliens' want to underline this fact to us and to further the cycle of relationship, obligation and gift-giving between us. One could spend years poring thru witness accounts and ethnographic data in order to find pertinent examples and make a case for exactly how this plays out (or not).

Whether or not you find these ideas interesting or well-presented, i wanted to include them to show that i am interested in furthering our knowledge about these vexing occurrences and that there are other (hopefully fruitful) ways to approach these topics besides simply 'science'.

 

[Burnt State]

hello Burnt State. I don't read where i advocated for nihilism or throwing up of hands. For the record i support neither position.

I simply pointed out that it's possible for the same intelligence to perform actions which appear to us to be scientifically quite advanced as well as ones which appear to be utterly irrational. Thus, to me "percipient reported an intelligent being which must have been seen thru use of advanced science acting in an irrational manner - scientifically advanced beings cannot behave irrationally - therefore the intelligent being does not exist" is not a compelling argument. I would be more than happy to hear you flesh out your argument in favor of your position (which i tried to state accurately, please correct if needed).

Greetings, mrs. eccentric. I'm glad we could meet for tea and fairy pancakes. I subscribe to both the irrationality of the UFO and the fact that they have previously engaged rational science because of how they do what they do. I've never advocated that they are ultra rational as I believe that most of our experiences with the phenomena are co-created events involving our culturally infused brain informed by a finite sensory apparatus and a stimulus that is unknown at this time.

If however we are going to engage in the ETH then we need to tabulate this perspective and consider how the history of evidence does not support the ETH. So it's not that they don't exist but that what people are reporting as actions that are purporting to be scientific in nature i.e. the collection of samples of soil, water and flesh in fact make no scientific sense so what's really going on? It is the theatre of science being presented to us, when the history of their interactions functions in a more absurdist manner.

None of this is discounting the existence of an intelligent being as you have calculated here as my opinion. It's just that the story of 100's upon 100's of different humanoids visiting us makes no sense in the totality of the discussion. Is it one species we are talking about? Is it Hellyer's number? Or is it Albert Rosales's ongoing tally which must have hit over a 1000 by now. This is also part of the absurdity of the phenomenon. An absurd phenomenon operating outside of our scientific capacities and beyond our psychological ones, though as you point out later, there are some familiarities we recognize. I'd have to ask is this about them or us?

As one with training in anthropology as well as an interest in the occult, i find plenty of avenues for research and speculation about the ufo and other paranormal phenomena. I'm very much in favor of more science/materialistically oriented research as well; this is a complicated phenomenon with effects on material objects, plants, animals, and the human psyche and social/group mind. There's so much to learn, i figure there's plenty of room for anyone with an interest to hop on in!

Agreed and celebrated. The more hopping the merrier, especially those who hop out of different corners of the multidimensional reality room we all share in. And sometimes i think maybe we are sharing reality with something really, really different than us.

More ways of looking helps to cover more ground. And tension is good too.

re: the 'genetic sample taking/baby making' component of many reported abduction scenaria. From the anthropological view, it is striking that one common thread running underneath these stories is the idea of genetic or family relationship. Family relationships in human societies involve many responsibilities and obligations between the related peoples. So one could posit that the intelligences or 'aliens' in these scenaria are trying to get across the idea that we and they already have some type of family relationship, or that these intelligences want to create this type of relationship with us. Which is a very different motivation from 'dna sampling'.

Are you saying here that the things that David Jacobs has advocated are actually true? All that very well could just be a fantasy in the minds of abductees, singing the song the conductor of hypnosis, who has no business hypnotizing people, wants to hear. But this family construction is an interesting angle. How does this family dynamic work up against the alien torture implant & probing & dissecting and reattaching limbs? Yes again perhaps we may have different notions of how family or hives work? But that level of assault just doesn't seem a good way to foster our idea of family except if we are talking about paradigms of abusive & dysfunctinal human family structures. But to even talk about this presupposes that there are in fact these alien creatures that are actually doing these things to us, causing some to believe it is also happening to their children. Are they claimng cycles of bedroom abuse in family environments?

I find abduction reports that reference hybrid babies, stolen eggs, sperm and fetuses are not about alien anthropology so much as human constructed fantasy and those people need to talk to a different class of professional to determine the source of that narratve and that stimulus. It's interesting to note, in lieu of the absence of the big three abduction proponents that these narratives are no longer centre stage in the UFO discussion. I find the Hidden Experience and Radio Misterioso approach that is about exploration, and where the irrational and the subconscious are considered more. Question: If someone told you that they were experiencing alien abductions and that their hybrid baby had been taken from them, who would you tell them to go talk to?

Again from the anthro perspective, a universal method of creating relationships of obligation between human peoples is to exchange gifts - gifts of food are always quite popular and fraught with meaning. (Cue Mr. Simonton and the pancakes!). The 'ultimate gift' is that of a child in marriage (cue Mr. Antonion Villas-Boas - wait, this is a family friendly forum.....but we don't want to be TOO family-friendly . Again, we can look underneath these stories and see an underlying theme: that we humans are related closely to these 'aliens', and that these same 'aliens' want to underline this fact to us and to further the cycle of relationship, obligation and gift-giving between us. One could spend years poring thru witness accounts and ethnographic data in order to find pertinent examples and make a case for exactly how this plays out (or not).

Whether or not you find these ideas interesting or well-presented, i wanted to include them to show that i am interested in furthering our knowledge about these vexing occurrences and that there are other (hopefully fruitful) ways to approach these topics besides simply 'science'.

Those concept of gifts that we give to the sky seductress seems to also be very human in nature. Can we apply that lens to define motivations of things that may not even be real, or is this about us applying the filters that make sense to us given how we interpret the event? You see alien family interaction whereas I see internal narratives unfolding based on our conditioning, personal histories and our interactions with an unknown stimulus. Is that a fair assessment?

That discussion about the ethnography of the alien is also dangerous territory is it not where we create and define a reality that does not necessarily appear to be coming from the source it purports to be coming from? The deliberate deception of the million mundane alien science field trips with their rudimentary sampling of minerals, fluids and where the aliens go bag, probe & tag some locals, is really its own ruse. Validating this ruse needs better questions asked before the reality of aliens interacting with us biologically, let alone psychologically, is confirmed. We know there are distinct sociological effects on humanity that ranges fom cult to decompensation, excommunication and isolation of the witness. As Jeff Davis has been pointing out, on the ETH Is Folklore thread, the UFO phenomenon does not stand alone. It appears to be interwoven with a past and a series of other folkloric and mythic narratives that we have always engaged in. It's reality appears to be shfting and evolving.

 

[Sub-light]

Burnt, according to Paul Hellyer we may have up to 80 extraterrestrial races visiting us. He does state that there are a few nasties among them but for the most part the ETs are benevolent and looking out for our best interests.

How does all this jive with aliens probing our belly buttons and impregnating our earthly females??

I'm sorry to say this but this statement is one of my biggest problems with the UFO belief system (for lack of a better term)
When I was younger I came from a background where I was taught to believe in a talking snake and in the idea that the entire universe was created in seven (literal) days only a few thousand years ago and a bunch of other stuff that at the time was easy to believe but, then I but I started questioning the logic of what I was taught. I feel the same kind of thinking goes along with the UFO culture. There are people out there that believe were being visited by 80 different Alien races? I understand why people think this way because the reports would clearly indicate multiple planets multiple races multiple types of vehicles multiple types of cultures. But to me this is all completely insane. I'm sorry to put it that way but it does. I have to say that the show and the form Are kind of typical of the mess that the UFO culture has become. When burnt state came on the show, I started hearing theories that I never even heard it before.... sky critters? really? sky critters. Now I'm not saying that to put him down maybe there is such a thing as sky critters but it's just becoming a nebulis grab bag of theories.
All I can say is that this is what I believe:
1. It is possible that some kind of intelligent life exists in the local group of stars in our galaxy capable of interstellar travel. I don't believe that anybody is going the speed of light or faster (sorry) . I like the slow multi generation space vehicle idea though.
2. It's entirely possible that this planet has been visited in our distant past even many thousands of years ago.
3. One of those times may have been a 1947. I believe the people were seeing real objects not reflections not hallucinations not Sky quitters. I believe they were seeing real flying objects. I reject the theory that they were German .I reject the theory that they were anything to do with our culture and technology on this planet at that time. That doesn't necessarily mean they where alien beings from another solar system but the people who build them were not 20th century earthlings either. However to me the idea that they could've come from another star system is completely plausible and as I've stated before, REFUGEES not explorers.
4. I believe that many of the sightings that have occurred over the last several decades after the initial contact have little or possibly nothing to do with whoever those were in 47
5. What I do agree with Burt, Chris and Gene is that many of these things that people are seeing today may have some type of natural phenomenon, supernatural phenomenon or some other unexplainable phenomenon and I believe that those have been occurring off and on throughout our entire existence on Earth. I don't think those things are connected to whatever came here in 1947.
6. The objects 47 seem to be two different types of vehicles. A lifting body saucer shaped type vehicle (that didn't rotate like a frisbee) and some type of small blue light type object that I believe was probably ejected from the vehicles and was some type of probe.
7. Lastly, I have a feeling that whatever came in those days is no longer active. I'm not sure what happened to them maybe they all just died. Maybe they're floating in Solar orbit somewhere out there dead, maybe their Technology is being reversed engineered as we speak and maybe a lot of these things that we've seen over the last few decades is some kind of weird technology that has been tested or utilized (then again maybe they settled down in Venice CA). And I don't think that they were super advanced compared to us now, maybe 150 years?
NOW I know that all these things I'm saying are just my opinion. I have no degrees. I'm not a UFO researcher and I haven't written any books but I'd like to think that I am able to cut through all of the insanity and BS and just try to make some kind of simple logical sense of all of this. we need to stop trying to connect all of the stuff into one unified phenomenon and start with a simple question... WHAT the hell was going on in 1947? If there's a Roswell connection, so be it.. if not, MoveOn.
AND If we are also seeing sky critters, break-away society Technology, Angels or whatever else, those things should be researched as separate possibilities. ...And maybe, juuuust maaaybe stop calling everything we we don't understand, UFOs

 

[Burnt State]

Ok, so you're hanging your hat on Roswell and Kenneth Arnold, is that correct, or no, not Roswell but just 1947 sightings (which ones exactly lead you to this) And then following this an alien refugee narrative unfolds where we are reverse engineering their craft made of balsa wood, bits of metallic sheets and some colorful tape, or wait, not Roswell? Which craft is it?

And then meanwhile, all the othe countless UFO sightings since then, and I'm not talking sentient sky critter balls of light (obviously I jest here, but after many decades of research and guess work, even Constable almost makes reasonable sense in attempting to explain one aspect of the conundrum), but the countless of observations of metallic craft, craft with the seamless texture of glass, crafts that move through objects, that dissolve, that appear to fly off into space, that appear to dock and merge with other ships, that fly in formation, that have hatch ways, portholes and strange humanoids that walk out of them, that follow planes, that come in thousands of shapes and sizes and so the list goes on....all that stuff, that we should not call UFO's alongside the balls of light, strange amorphous objects, small probes, giant mother ships, triangular shaped objects, spiky balls, round shaped eggs etc. etc. that stuff is just people seeing things?

Listening to the show & reading the forum, alongside the many other avenues people get their UFO lore & science from, tells us that their are many, many unidentified phenomenon flying around in our skies, entering and exiting water, suddenly appearing and disappearing, showing up on radar, scaring pilots... Who is grouping it all into one thing? There are obviously many things at work.

I'm glad for you that you've found a 1947 piece of mind because most people have gone on a long strange journey when it comes to trying to understand the phenomenon, trying to separate ETH from the many other H's and be they Hynek or Vallée, these paradigm shifts are the result of prolonged study of the phenomena. So you're lucky that you've found a singular answer to believe in because a lot of us can't reconcile the situation so quickly, nor do we all believe in Roswell as an alien crash event, or that 1947 can tell us anything specific outside of a sociological effect on the populous, hence the space of middle ground, still asking questions, is where I reside.

I can also now be found over at Sesame Street.

 

[Burnt State]

I'm sorry to say this but this statement is one of my biggest problems with the UFO belief system (for lack of a better term)
When I was younger I came from a background where I was taught to believe in a talking snake and in the idea that the entire universe was created in seven (literal) days only a few thousand years ago and a bunch of other stuff that at the time was easy to believe but, then I but I started questioning the logic of what I was taught. I feel the same kind of thinking goes along with the UFO culture.

Furthermore, and to close the circle, some of us find it easier to believe in the bible as an allegorical tale trying to convey other ideas to us that some have adopted into a belief system, in the way that you have constructed a belief system around Roswell/not Roswell and Arnold. To he honest I find that there's at least some tangible thought to be gained through interpreting the ongoing UFO phenomenon as an allegorical system that may also be trying to teach us some new ideas. So whether there's a talking snake, burning bush or alien voices in your head, they all are basic challengers to rationality, asking us to expand the paradigm of rationality, to engage in what if's, to even evolve our thinking to include options never before contemplated.

 

[mrs. eccentric]

hi Burnt State! Two statements of yours stand out to me: "I find abduction reports that reference hybrid babies, stolen eggs, sperm and fetuses are not about alien anthropology so much as human constructed fantasy and those people need to talk to a different class of professional to determine the source of that narratve and that stimulus. " and "... I see internal narratives unfolding based on our conditioning, personal histories and our interactions with an unknown stimulus."

Mr. State, i can tell that you are very smart, a genius with words, very well read on large parts of this phenom, and you pretty much have your mind made up. Which is fine, i have my mind made up on certain things as well. I am 53 and have read and studies on the paranormal/ufos since i was around 7. I do not have the time, energy, or inclination to do battle on the intenet for my point of view. I simply asked a seemingly straightforward question, which it seems to me your answer is: "These narratives are all so different and all so absurd that it must all be in the experiencers heads." Of course, we could send 100 people to a library, have them read a book, and then tell what they read and easily get more than 100 stories. This doesn't mean that books do not exist, nor that authors are a figment of the imagination. But then maybe i focus more on the 'unknown stimulus' than the experiencer - tho it takes both to make an experience.

i have to go now - maybe more later. Altho nowhere have i ever endorsed the ETH or David Jacobs (i rec'd a book of his as a gift once and threw it out). re: family dynamics. Maybe take a look at initiation ceremonies? till later, steph

 

[Burnt State]

hi Burnt State! Two statements of yours stand out to me: "I find abduction reports that reference hybrid babies, stolen eggs, sperm and fetuses are not about alien anthropology so much as human constructed fantasy and those people need to talk to a different class of professional to determine the source of that narratve and that stimulus. " and "... I see internal narratives unfolding based on our conditioning, personal histories and our interactions with an unknown stimulus."

Mr. State, i can tell that you are very smart, a genius with words, very well read on large parts of this phenom, and you pretty much have your mind made up. Which is fine, i have my mind made up on certain things as well. I am 53 and have read and studies on the paranormal/ufos since i was around 7. I do not have the time, energy, or inclination to do battle on the intenet for my point of view. I simply asked a seemingly straightforward question, which it seems to me your answer is: "These narratives are all so different and all so absurd that it must all be in the experiencers heads." Of course, we could send 100 people to a library, have them read a book, and then tell what they read and easily get more than 100 stories. This doesn't mean that books do not exist, nor that authors are a figment of the imagination. But then maybe i focus more on the 'unknown stimulus' than the experiencer - tho it takes both to make an experience.

i have to go now - maybe more later. Altho nowhere have i ever endorsed the ETH or David Jacobs (i rec'd a book of his as a gift once and threw it out). re: family dynamics. Maybe take a look at initiation ceremonies? till later, steph

Please steph, there is no battle and I certainly own no genius - just a big mouth with lots of opinions and very curious. If anything, perhaps in lieu of tone not being captured, i'm just asking questions and curious about other perspectives. You obviously have your own - from such tensions new ideas spring. As far as making my mind up - I would say i'm undecided on most of this and even doubt myself at times.

To clarify, I have not decided that all these experiences are happening in our heads - there is still an unknown stimulus. As I've repeatedly stated, I don't think we can ever use the word "all" and apply it to these nebulous zones of reality. As a doubter, there are certain methods and beliefs that I think need real criticism, especially for the sake of the witness who steps forward, especially if they step forward with tales of personal violation. There has been a direct extrapolation from the witness stories of alien contact to tales of human hybridization and genetic experimentation - where is the proof for such stories? Should people with such stories go to abduction researchers, self-trained hypnotists or other agenda driven "investigators"? Should we look to their children as potential abductees?

Or is it possible to legitimize what Rutkowski calls Alien Abduction Syndrome and treat it seriously in society by directing people to trained, non-judgmental professionals, who will honour the story and not exploit the witness? I think that's the first goal if we're going to pursue concepts of alien abduction in our culture. This does not mean that it's all in their heads. Yes, there is an interaction, a co-creative process and how much is internal vs. how much is external is very much a debatable event. It's definitely worth debating, categorizing and investigating (Project Core is a start) to see what shakes loose from the process.

Re: initiation rites...definitely worth looking at and often discussed on the forum and on the show. The effects of the UFO in our society are highly visible; witnesses are still here - both of these sociological endeavors are worth examining. I think that a general thread search will reveal this theme of discussion as a workable paradigm that parallels many historic events and many cultural histories about rites of passage in the liminal zone deep in the forest. George Hansen's episode definitely involved this discussion as have other episodes.

hope there's more later, as I'm 45ish and still confused about most of this stuff but trying to build off of the good ideas & critique the bad ones that have come down the pipeline over the years while still trying to understand my own experience. ~ robert

 

[Sub-light]

Ok, so you're hanging your hat on Roswell and Kenneth Arnold, is that correct, or no, not Roswell but just 1947 sightings (which ones exactly lead you to this) And then following this an alien refugee narrative unfolds where we are reverse engineering their craft made of balsa wood, bits of metallic sheets and some colorful tape, or wait, not Roswell? Which craft is it?

And then meanwhile, all the othe countless UFO sightings since then, and I'm not talking sentient sky critter balls of light (obviously I jest here, but after many decades of research and guess work, even Constable almost makes reasonable sense in attempting to explain one aspect of the conundrum), but the countless of observations of metallic craft, craft with the seamless texture of glass, crafts that move through objects, that dissolve, that appear to fly off into space, that appear to dock and merge with other ships, that fly in formation, that have hatch ways, portholes and strange humanoids that walk out of them, that follow planes, that come in thousands of shapes and sizes and so the list goes on....all that stuff, that we should not call UFO's alongside the balls of light, strange amorphous objects, small probes, giant mother ships, triangular shaped objects, spiky balls, round shaped eggs etc. etc. that stuff is just people seeing things?

Listening to the show & reading the forum, alongside the many other avenues people get their UFO lore & science from, tells us that their are many, many unidentified phenomenon flying around in our skies, entering and exiting water, suddenly appearing and disappearing, showing up on radar, scaring pilots... Who is grouping it all into one thing? There are obviously many things at work.

I'm glad for you that you've found a 1947 piece of mind because most people have gone on a long strange journey when it comes to trying to understand the phenomenon, trying to separate ETH from the many other H's and be they Hynek or Vallée, these paradigm shifts are the result of prolonged study of the phenomena. So you're lucky that you've found a singular answer to believe in because a lot of us can't reconcile the situation so quickly, nor do we all believe in Roswell as an alien crash event, or that 1947 can tell us anything specific outside of a sociological effect on the populous, hence the space of middle ground, still asking questions, is where I reside.

I can also now be found over at Sesame Street.

Wow! Well, first I would like you to read my post again. A lot of what you said does not reflect what I wrote... Maybe your not understanding my point. Maybe I'm communicating well. I have written many other post and maybe that will fill in Some blanks?

1. I'm not hanging my hat on anything. But, you want to take an event like what happend during the summer of 1947 and turn it into some kind of paranormal parapsychological event? All I can tell you is, I read the Project Sign reports. I only looked at the ones that had consistency and that were made over a short period of time and compared those to newspaper stories of that particular three weeks. You can't make this a "mass hysteria" event because there were specific descriptions written down describing these craft and there was a consistency to them. Maybe you need to go and look at the stuff yourself. And again I am not hanging my hat on Roswell. I think it was probably a minor event compared to the entire event.
2. As for your balsa wood and foil comment ...it's kind of a low blow :/ You make it sound like, I am just one of the idiots that think a weather balloon was the beginning and end of everything that happened in 1947. Personally I think the Roswell situation was a deception to draw attention away from the saucer sightings. It's possible that some of the personnel thought something had crashed but later the Air Force saw it as an opportunity to try to put the whole "hoopla" to bed. However I'm not committed to any particular explanation. Roswell just isn't a pivotal event for me.
3. As for your pictures. Clearly they are pictures of the same type of vehicle at different angles and that was the whole problem with the descriptions. people were seeing the same vehicle at different points of view and to me that makes it all the more real. The problem with all of this is that our viewpoints are polluted by the fact that we are living in an age with so much science-fiction that has clouded our judgment and we are jaded because we see all kinds of weird flying machines these days. I don't know about you but I certainly wasn't alive in those days. But if I was I seriously doubt that I would have conjured up a vision of something that clearly was aerodynamically correct to do what it was doing. I've listened to several interviews with astronaut Gordon Cooper who himself had seen these objects on two occasions (while on earth not in space) and clearly believes them to be the correct shape for a reentry type vehicle. I remember the first time I saw those photographs -blurred and crappy as they may be- but still to me it looks like a lifting body type vehicle.
4. You make it sound like I've created some safe little naïve nest to live in and that's unfair. If you read what I wrote more carefully you'll know that's not the case. I'm a very mechanical person I build things I make things I design things and perhaps, that's the problem. I simply just don't have this metaphysical paranormal, science-fiction a way of looking at everything. For me it's got to be a simple case of nuts and bolts (or whatever they were made out of ) and I believe that's what happened in 1947, a real solid event.
My problem with all of the sightings after that is, that the cat was out of the bag, people started seeing things and imagining things. That doesn't mean SOME of those things WE'RE NOT REAL or ETs or time travelers or people from a breakaway society, people from I the earth or whatever (in the mechanical corporeal sense) I'm just not sure they are connected to what happened to the initial events that most people agree started all of this. So just trying to make my point as simple as I can; it seems like the UFO community in general wants to connect it all into one phenomenon and I just don't believe it's all connected. My particular "hobby" is what happened 47 because I feel that those events have just been pushed into the backwaters of childhood UFOlogy in favor of trying to connect all of the other stuff to it.

Look, there are many strange things that have been happening over the years I don't know what they are and I don't discredit them but it's a mess for me to try and figure out but, I don't believe that we're being visited by 80 different races of aliens either. What I am into right now is what I personally can wrap my little brain around. The rest of it is for other people to wrap their heads around.
In closing, I agree with the general view of the show. Yes, more careful and more logical research needs to take place. Unfortunately "UFO land" has become a cottage industry so, good luck to us all, lol

 

[Constance]

Excellent post, Sub-light. I agree with everything you've said here, and want to add a reference to your Point 1:

1. I'm not hanging my hat on anything. But, you want to take an event like what happend during the summer of 1947 and turn it into some kind of paranormal parapsychological event? All I can tell you is, I read the Project Sign reports. I only looked at the ones that had consistency and that were made over a short period of time and compared those to newspaper stories of that particular three weeks. You can't make this a "mass hysteria" event because there were specific descriptions written down describing these craft and there was a consistency to them. Maybe you need to go and look at the stuff yourself. And again I am not hanging my hat on Roswell. I think it was probably a minor event compared to the entire event.

This is at least the third time I've encouraged Burnt and others to read the Sign project on 1947 and Ted Bloecher's still expanding catalogue of ufo sightings in the US in the spring-summer of 1947. Here is the link at NICAP:

1947 Chronology

Do not miss James McDonald's introduction, linked at the top.

 

[Burnt State]

Wow! Well, first I would like you to read my post again. A lot of what you said does not reflect what I wrote... Maybe your not understanding my point. Maybe I'm communicating well. I have written many other post and maybe that will fill in Some blanks?

1. I'm not hanging my hat on anything. But, you want to take an event like what happend during the summer of 1947 and turn it into some kind of paranormal parapsychological event? All I can tell you is, I read the Project Sign reports. I only looked at the ones that had consistency and that were made over a short period of time and compared those to newspaper stories of that particular three weeks. You can't make this a "mass hysteria" event because there were specific descriptions written down describing these craft and there was a consistency to them. Maybe you need to go and look at the stuff yourself. And again I am not hanging my hat on Roswell. I think it was probably a minor event compared to the entire event.
2. As for your balsa wood and foil comment ...it's kind of a low blow :/ You make it sound like, I am just one of the idiots that think a weather balloon was the beginning and end of everything that happened in 1947. Personally I think the Roswell situation was a deception to draw attention away from the saucer sightings. It's possible that some of the personnel thought something had crashed but later the Air Force saw it as an opportunity to try to put the whole "hoopla" to bed. However I'm not committed to any particular explanation. Roswell just isn't a pivotal event for me.
3. As for your pictures. Clearly they are pictures of the same type of vehicle at different angles and that was the whole problem with the descriptions. people were seeing the same vehicle at different points of view and to me that makes it all the more real. The problem with all of this is that our viewpoints are polluted by the fact that we are living in an age with so much science-fiction that has clouded our judgment and we are jaded because we see all kinds of weird flying machines these days. I don't know about you but I certainly wasn't alive in those days. But if I was I seriously doubt that I would have conjured up a vision of something that clearly was aerodynamically correct to do what it was doing. I've listened to several interviews with astronaut Gordon Cooper who himself had seen these objects on two occasions (while on earth not in space) and clearly believes them to be the correct shape for a reentry type vehicle. I remember the first time I saw those photographs -blurred and crappy as they may be- but still to me it looks like a lifting body type vehicle.
4. You make it sound like I've created some safe little naïve nest to live in and that's unfair. If you read what I wrote more carefully you'll know that's not the case. I'm a very mechanical person I build things I make things I design things and perhaps, that's the problem. I simply just don't have this metaphysical paranormal, science-fiction a way of looking at everything. For me it's got to be a simple case of nuts and bolts (or whatever they were made out of ) and I believe that's what happened in 1947, a real solid event.
My problem with all of the sightings after that is, that the cat was out of the bag, people started seeing things and imagining things. That doesn't mean SOME of those things WE'RE NOT REAL or ETs or time travelers or people from a breakaway society, people from I the earth or whatever (in the mechanical corporeal sense) I'm just not sure they are connected to what happened to the initial events that most people agree started all of this. So just trying to make my point as simple as I can; it seems like the UFO community in general wants to connect it all into one phenomenon and I just don't believe it's all connected. My particular "hobby" is what happened 47 because I feel that those events have just been pushed into the backwaters of childhood UFOlogy in favor of trying to connect all of the other stuff to it.

Look, there are many strange things that have been happening over the years I don't know what they are and I don't discredit them but it's a mess for me to try and figure out but, I don't believe that we're being visited by 80 different races of aliens either. What I am into right now is what I personally can wrap my little brain around. The rest of it is for other people to wrap their heads around.
In closing, I agree with the general view of the show. Yes, more careful and more logical research needs to take place. Unfortunately "UFO land" has become a cottage industry so, good luck to us all, lol

Ok, let's look more clearly at this wave and your theory of refugees who have crash landed on the earth in 1947 and then they are somehow responsible for the incredible wave that unfolds. While I like your criticisms and moments of touché with my low blow made of balsa wood I still have to point out that what is being seen across 1947 is certainly not the same ship at all. If anything we are seeing the same diversity of craft, creature, and shape and style of object in the sky, be they fireball, wings, saucers, glowing submarines, flipping objects, soaring objects, football shaped craft, orbs etc.

I'm not seeing the logic behind your mechanical claim. Do not the exact same criticisms of the ETH apply here given the incredible frequency of sightings and diversity of sightings.? In the classic Rhodes' photos that I posted are we not also seeing a possible representation of craft made by the good ole US of A at the time? What Arnold saw also can be subbed in by unique American craft, for the sake of doubting, of course. The many reports of formation flying flattened objects could very well be local boys flying those new wings. While I like the concept of the refugees that crash landed, how the heck did they get a manufacturing plant up and running so quicky to create such a diversity of ships? Even more perplexing is the lack of imagination in the human witnesses who can't stop seeing little green men, literally. Do you it find all those features more than a little suspicious?

So, while the wave itself is quite interesting historically, I still feel that the incredible amount of sighings is pointing to the beginning of what will be an extended series of waves of many, many different kinds of craft and creature. If you could extract a specific type of craft as being the dominat shape of that era, what would it be and what would all the other various diverse sighings represent to you -- a singular visitation of a species with many different kinds of craft or camouflage at work? Can we really separate one wave from another when the wave is always thematic in shape & style, yet always cluttered with so many other kinds of oddities in the sky at the same time?

So no safe nest or parapsychology, but from what do you draw the conviction of such a singular narrative being the reason for such an incredibly strange moment in UFO history, with even more strange waves to follow, each era having its own unique characteristics in terms of dominant craft? I can see the attraction to this era, i.e. James Carrion, but you are, like him, taking an isolated period to explore and the same questions apply. He says conspiracy and local craft and you say songular alien craft, is that right?

 

[Sue]

I found Chris's assertion that all anecdotal evidence is worthless (paraphrase) provoking, particularly since the bulk of my training in the social sciences was in doing qualitative research. It was really contentious back in the day to claim that you could do anything that counted as science without putting numbers around it. Especially for the social sciences, if it didn't have numbers in it there was no way 'real' scientists (physicists, chemists, etc.) would take it seriously.

However, there are indeed ways to use non-numerical, human experiential and behavioral data to do rigorous science. (It's even better if you can design a study that draws on both qualitative and quantitative data, but there's some questions that can't be answered by numbers.) A lot of my professors 'knew' that qualitative research was BS so they didn't even bother to try it, but younger ones has started teaching courses in what good qualitative research looked like and how to design it. Having lived out some of those battles, I've always argued that the type of thing Chris is calling anecdotal evidence (sightings reports, for example) IS, TOO, VALID DATA!

So that was my knee jerk response when I heard him say that, but then I thought, "Wait a second. He's sort of right." Sightings reports and personal accounts are valid data when collected under the right conditions, but as far as I can see that's not what happens in the UFO field. Even if original reports are collected accurately, they constitute a tiny, almost lost part of a field that consists of mainly of the telling and re-telling, building upon and transforming of a relatively small number of reports. All the nuances of the original data get lost in that echo chamber. So while the masses of anecdotal evidence in the UFO field may tell us about the people involved in the anecdotes and the times they lived in, it may too contaminated by the sheer humanity of it all to tell us much about the phenomenon itself - or even if one was involved. This is where someone like Aaron Gulyas comes in and makes science out of a portion of the grand UFO narrative.

As for data mining and big data, they are topics I don' know much about. Based on what I do know, I'd guess they're probably not appropriate for the small numbers of the kind of outlier data points we're talking about, especially since an unknown number of them are hoaxed.

 

[Sub-light]

Thanks Constance. Okay Mr. State, one thing I guess I should point out here is that you're talking to somebody who is the biggest aerospace enthusiast You will probably ever meet. I am extremely well-versed in the subject of aircraft and spacecraft. I have 25 years of experience in aerospace education and aerospace museum work and worked as a consultant for NASA/JPL. My job for them was to help the Galileo Mission Outreach eam put together a CD ROM that explaind the mission. Ironically the fact that I was not formally educated as an aerospace engineer turned out to be an asset. It turns out that a lot of engineers have difficulty explaining things in plain simple terms. You can believe me when I tell you that I took great lengths to try and eliminate anything earthly that could of been mistaken for those "craft". I realize that some of the reports in Project Sign had all kinds of shapes involved in them but I don't believe what those people were seeing were connected to the actual craft .
Think of it this way. Imagine there's a cat burglar in the neighborhood. They come on the radio and say "a man wearing an orange jacket and a blue hat has been breaking into homes." Suddenly the police get reports every time someone hears or sees something. The police will ask for a discription and tend to throw out discriptions that aren't constant. It's that simple. If you want to try to take each discription into account you will get nowere fast. You will come to the conclusion that the circus is in town.
In other posts in this forum I have laid out my "refugee" hypothesis. It involves one or more vary large multi generation design ships. Scientist and futurist today have speculated on how people from Earth May need to leave it some day in the face of some planet killing event and find a "new" earth. The movie interstellar deals with a storyline something like this. The problem with my theory and my view for some people is that it's not vary "paranormal". It's just normal for those people coming here. Of course, understand that I am NOT at all close minded to other theories and possibilities. But what I am close minded about is that, the "things" that were being seen were actual flying craft of some type. Going along with my hypothesis of the refugee aliens what people were seeing were scout ships. People like to speculate that "The aliens" (if they were aliens) were super super advanced and super super sophisticated to almost a supernatural level. And of course anything is possible. I personally don't think they were that advanced. Most people who studied this during that time have concluded that there were Three types of objects being seen; The disc shaped lifting body shaped vehicles were all the same except for one, there was one they said was shaped a little more like the "heel of the shoe" and there were consistent reports of that "heel ship". The other is the "blue light" which may have been seen even by pilots during World War II (FooFighters) I believe this to be some type of autonomous probe like thing.
The first book written by Donald Keyhoe gives a very valuable insight into the thought process and analysis during that time. I know that a lot of people want to suggest that these things were just some earthly secret aircraft. Trust me when I tell you this, I wish that were the case ,because to be honest with you, the idea of aliens coming here or even as refugees is a little scary, even if it is also somewhat exciting. Other theories such as "breakaway society's" and other weird things that I've been suggested aren't any less spooky to me.
If they were of US design then that design would've found itself some place down the road but it never did ( till the mid-70s). The hottest thing they had back then wwad the F-86 and the F-86 continued to be the hottest thing all the way through the Korean War. The biggest secret plane we had in 1947 was the X-1. Since I am not into believing in the "Evil Secret Government Idea" I don't think this country had secret "super technology" that we've never seen before. That is why I am not quite as strong a believer that the government was harboring the Alien saucer secret as much as people think they were. While they certainly didn't tell us everything they know I don't think they knew as much as we think.

Go on YouTube and look up Astronaut Gordon Cooper's UFO encounters. I didn't know him personally but I have friends who did and the guy is solid as a rock and not crazy.

As for foreign countries such as (what was left of) Germany or Russia creating craft like that the same thing applies. If the Soviets were capable of building anything like that ,they wouldn't have used Migs all the way up through the Vietnam War. Also the idea that things like that were created to scare people is completely absurd. Why build a flying saucer to scare people in the US when you could just fly a Russian bomber over to scare us. People in those days weren't afraid of flying saucers because they didn't associate them with aliens till the 1950s. And if you read Keyhoe's book or other material from that time you will see that most civilians thought the flying discs were of US design to begin with. Even personnel at Muroc Air Force Base (now Edwards) filed reports! Why would they do that for something they understood?

I guess in the end what I am saying is that while there IS plenty to study and plenty of phenomenon to wonder about I believe that this particular Mistry is worth deeper study and research. An analogy I will use this. The JFK assassination vs the RFK assassination. Robert F Kennedy's assassination was not delved into nearly as much as his brothers and there are so many more unanswered questions about that particular event that have never been answered or explained. Roswell is sort of the JFK of UFO study, meanwhile a bigger Mistry has been glossed over that may yield much more information about what was going on.
BTW I've really enjoyed this little discussion and I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't wait to hear the next show.