Bored with UFOs

[Jeff Davis]

I've been extremely bored with the UFO field recently. It just seems like researchers rehash the same stories over and over again. I'm more interested with energies and mysteries here on Earth. End rant. Short but sweet.

Recognizing that you are "bored" is a GOOD thing. Recognizing that you are frustrated and just a bit POed, is an even BETTER thing! Why? Well for one thing, I'm a sadist and I thoroughly enjoy your pain!

All kidding aside, when we get bored, frustrated, feverishly tormented, and indeed bound in what feels like perpetual turmoil, what we are experiencing is a head on mirror reflection that profiles our curiosity driven passion in depth. It's a survival mechanism of your psyche. If you stop and carefully reflect on the times in your life when you are passing through these anti phases you will find that what directly follows are the most notable advancements in your personal assessment of the paranormal.

Sometimes my mind works in "soundbites". In times such as this I often hear William S. Burroughs' voice in the old Ministry tune "Just One Fix" as he cryptically remarks, "break - it - all - down"

An animal in the jungle hones it's hunting skills not by rational choice but rather by brutal instinct. There is no greater teacher than hunger as it often triggers the most skillfully effective improvisation imaginable.

When we are frustrated and tormented we are a starving animal experiencing our need to feed. The subsequent edification process is the growth of our personal paranormal construct.

Many GREAT inventors and innovators have dwelt long and tough in the jungles of their minds. Just ask Elmer J. Fudd, be very quiet, he's hunting wabbits.

Damn those soundbites! Perhaps some of us, eh hem, have spent a little too much time in those aforementioned jungles.

 

[Konrad Hartmann]

I hold a different view
For me the subject of UFO's is the most important subject Humanity has ever put its mind to.
Are we alone in the vast universe ?

If we dont care about the answer to this question, then we dont deserve it either.

For me there are enough witness sightings, radar traces and physical evidence to suggest something is there
So the implications behind the question why the silence become really interesting.

If they are here, then the answer to why they dont say hello becomes a deeply interesting area of speculation to me

As for nothing changing in the last 50 years i disagree again

Look at this thread as a single example

Scientific proof we were created by aliens? | The Paracast Community Forums

50 years ago we thought it terms of flying crockery, today we are able to look at the enigma from angles they could never have even contemplated, and in my opinion the silence is tied to this evolution of technological knowledge.

The enigma seems to me to be akin to a carrot on a stick.

I get that thats frustrating to the donkey, but it works really well for the entity holding the stick.

If we recognise this, the next interesing question is where is this gambit leading us and why

I look at this in terms of the study of UFOs versus the commercial field of ufology. As you say Mike, the implications of UFOS are staggering. And the topic raises many interesting questions at the periphery of this field. No matter what your angle or area of interest is, there is something to capture the imagination. Even if you think UFOs are always just experimental aircraft, well, secret aircraft is also pretty damn intriguing. Espionage associated with real or fabricated events is fascinating. The topic of hypnotic regression interests me, not because I really believe it to be accurate, but because I suspect that many hypnotists are unintentionally using material from their own unconscious to construct memories in the minds of subjects (and inside that nesting egg is the thought that the entities may have an existence within or ability to manipulate the unconscious portion of the human mind). And all of that is even before we get to the concept of intelligent creatures working at the edge of our perception with the ability to manipulate, breed, harvest, and/or create us.

However, there also exists the commercial field of ufology, and to be honest a lot of it does bore me. I start to zone out when I hear words like Roswell, MJ-12, and above all, Disclosure.
Philadelphia Speakers | MUFON PA
I'm sure there are a lot of good speakers on this line-up, but the only ones I would be interested in seeing (and admittedly some of them I just don't know much about) at the moment would be Redfern and Maberry. I don't feel very invested in a lot of the TV stuff.

Not speaking about this conference in particular, but a lot of discussions in ufology seem to consist of endless lists of anecdotal accounts. It's kind of like eating grits, in that they only become digestible if you do something with them to make them interesting. In other words, a pile of data isn't really that interesting if we don't do anything to look for correlates, potential causes, and most interesting to me, the potential to alter the phenomena. To use another corny analogy, talking about nothing but Roswell is like going to an amusement park and only riding the ride that spins you around in a circle on a swing. You just go around in a circle and eventually you feel queasy. Then there are also the UFO Madlibs conversations that go something like:
[Deceased UFO researcher] once said that he spoke to the [relative] of Colonel [last name] who said that when he was at [name of military base], he saw a piece of [noun] and was told he could never [verb] about it.

I feel like entertainment is a significant portion of looking at UFOs, or else we would probably be having a more technical discussion about these things (and many of you guys do have fairly technical discussions about it). But there are very few books and productions created about UFOs that do not possess a certain amount of sensationalism for the sake of amusement (and viability).

 

[Randall]

Perhaps bored was strong word, but it's how I feel right now. I don't need anything flashy and exciting. Just some decent credible new cases. I feel like a lot of the field focuses on the past instead of the future. Something has gotta change before the entire field goes stale. Maybe it will take a UFO landing in a corn felid here in Iowa lol.

As someone who has more than a peripheral interest in ufology, the periods when my interest wanes is usually fairly short because there are so many facets to the field as a whole that I can switch gears to something I find interesting and almost always find a link to ufology in it someplace.

More recently, I've also been repeatedly surprised by the older cases that not unlike yourself, I had once set aside as outdated and largely irrelevant. These days, the more I review some of the older cases, the more I think that the information there is often grossly undervalued. I'm not sure exactly what you are into, but one example I like to give of how my interest in the old cases was rekindled involves the Classic book by E.J. Ruppelt The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects. I was in the process of transcribing it for online reading on our website when I came across a report about a USAF jet pilot who was sent up to intercept a UFO that had been picked up on radar..

Back then the jet age had yet to mature and one of finest aircraft the USAF had at the time was called the F-86 Super Sabre. Now that doesn't mean much to most readers so I created a link to a brief article on that aircraft. It was a transonic jet, and looking up what that word meant led me to visualize one of the most riveting UFO incidents I've ever read. Part of the reason for that is that because we're so used to modern jets that we don't appreciate what those early airplanes were like to fly in.

The F-86 was one of the last fly by the seat-of-your-pants single-seat jet fighters, and although they could break the sound barrier, they didn't do it gracefully and riding one of those things in a power dive must have been one crazy ride. The excitement comes when you take a few minutes to visualize just what that must have been like ... Start by imagining yourself at 40,000 feet ... see the ground way down there? ... Now imagine yourself strapped into a single seat jet screaming out of the sky toward the ground at the speed of sound ...

"The second pilot, who was going down to 5,000 feet, was just beginning to pull out when he noticed a flash below and ahead of him. He flattened out his dive a little and headed toward the spot where he had seen the light. As he closed on the spot he suddenly noticed what he first thought was a weather balloon. A few seconds later he realized that it couldn't be a balloon because it was staying ahead of him. Quite an achievement for a balloon, since he had built up a lot of speed in his dive and now was flying almost straight and level at 3,000 feet and was traveling "at the Mach."​

Again the pilot pushed the nose of the F-86 down and started after the object. He closed fairly fast, until he came to within an estimated 1,000 yards. Now he could get a good look at the object. Although it had looked like a balloon from above, a closer view showed that it was definitely round and flat -- saucer-shaped. The pilot described it as being "like a doughnut without a hole."​

As his rate of closure began to drop off, the pilot knew that the object was picking up speed. But he pulled in behind it and started to follow. Now he was right on the deck.​

About this time the pilot began to get a little worried. What should he do?"​

Now if that teaser doesn't relieve some of the boredom ... I dunno what will ... So how does this story end? Well I'm sure you know because you're so familiar with all these boring old cases ... right ?

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A clip of an F-86​

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[Burnt State]

I really liked Konrad's UFO script - there are so many of these that keep looping over and over again, from the astronaut to the convincing, but never seen, Ray Stanford PowerPoint, Ted's Marley Woods' light blob videos and Knapp's infamous Skinwalker video of undeniable evidence. There is a lot of truth in both the above two posts. The old narratives not only hold more entertainment but more engagement with nothing more than well written words, really.

 

[Kieran]

After Philip Imbrogno was exposed as a liar. I've given up on Ufology. I rarely comment on the subject anymore.

I still believe in the UFO's subject. I genuinely experienced odd things like that in my life. But i'm not looking for answers anymore from this field of study.

I have watched hundreds of UFO videos, yet not one, resembles my personal UFO experiences. For me, that is prove positive genuine sightings of true unknowns is a rare thing. I'm not going to find what i saw on Youtube.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Everyone has their own "take" on UFOs and for me this is one of the most interesting aspects of the phenomenon. The ONLY thing we KNOW about the UFO phenomena is that we are inseparable from it with respect for observation. Beyond that, everything is speculation. There is NO supportive evidence with respect for the UFO Phenomenon apart from associations that we find constructional agreement within. The commercial aspect sickens me to no end and I am certainly not referring to the subsidy needed to keep a show like the Paracast going. I am referring to the jokers like Greer that succeed in parasitically feeding on the religious like aspect of the UFO belief system.

Part of the reason that the older "classic" material is so appealing is it's innocence and naivety. It's precisely the same attraction that older movies hold for the movie maven. This attraction is dialog relevant. This makes for GREAT story telling which in turn is a far greater, more so rich, folklore repository. In the world of the paranormal, simplicity makes for the clearest and most lasting social impressions with respect to memorable iconic resonance. These "things" that feed our imaginations create the very fabricated reality the we project upon them based solely within temporal relevance. Do we creatively originate and thereby insert these "things"? I think not. We creatively interpret them based on association. They are real. The problem is that we have a very limited take on what is reality.

 

[pixelsmith]

I will never be bored with the UFO subject. I admit I was on the fence at one point but when you see one fairly close the excitement and anticipation of your next encounter will never go away.

 

[Burnt State]

I still believe in the UFO's subject. I genuinely experienced odd things like that in my life. But i'm not looking for answers anymore from this field of study.

I have watched hundreds of UFO videos, yet not one, resembles my personal UFO experiences. For me, that is prove positive genuine sightings of true unknowns is a rare thing. I'm not going to find what i saw on Youtube.

That reflects my own sentiment about the subject matter quite accurately. Except...

there are times that I start questioning the classic cases, and start to doubt the whole possibility of ET being something we could actually see, that I wonder if those craft I saw mysef were not just some elaborate inexplicable something, and I will never know its source or occupant. Maybe we are not able yet, as a species, to know such things?

I can only echo Jeff Davis' wisdom:

The problem is that we have a very limited take on what is reality.

 

[Jeff Crowell]

Up to about a year ago I was an avid ghost hunter, slowly easing into the UFO stuff. Now I have very little, if any, stomach for the ghost hunting. My wife's taken over that part of things, but I got tired of all the BS and fat-headed egotists. Sure, you have those in UFO research, too, but I find them easier to ignore. Does it mean I've stopped believing in things of spirit-ness? Nope, I've had an experience and gathered enough odd pieces of data to believe 'something's going on', as they say, but so few people are interested in really what's going on that I have no more patience for it.

Then again as Don Ecker will tell you, it's easy to lose faith then find it again after about a year or three. I've seen guys quit "cold turkey" then pick paranormal research back up again in a few years. Sometimes I think you just need to step back and re-wire a bit.

J.

 

[Randall]

... There is NO supportive evidence with respect for the UFO Phenomenon apart from associations that we find constructional agreement within ...

The above seems a little too absolutist. There is plenty of evidence, just not the kind of evidence that some people will accept.

 

[boomerang]

Seems like most of us eventually reach a point in ufology where we:

1. Are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the phenomenon is part of something very strange but very real. ("not visionary or fictitious")
2. Don't know what is causing it, or even know if anyone else does.
3. Are seemingly powerless to pierce the veil of obfuscation with which the subject seems to surround itself.
4. Doubt we will ever live to see beyond said veil.
5. Are repeatedly goaded back to some level of hopefulness and attention by the very fact that something very strange but very real has happened and continues to happen.

6.(optional) Seek coping strategies with which to remain involved despite frustration arising from cognitive dissonance in the steps 1. through 5. loop. I think forums like this may be one such strategy.

 

[Jeff Davis]

The above seems a little too absolutist. There is plenty of evidence, just not the kind of evidence that some people will accept.

You're right, it is poorly stated. What I meant was that there is no undeniably objective evidence that would support a specific definition for what UFOs are, apart from a constructive context in which each individual finds his/her own personal agreement within.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Seems like most of us eventually reach a point in ufology where we:

1. Are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the phenomenon is part of something very strange but very real. ("not visionary or fictitious")
2. Don't know what is causing it, or even know if anyone else does.
3. Are seemingly powerless to pierce the veil of obfuscation with which the subject seems to surround itself.
4. Doubt we will ever live to see beyond said veil.
5. Are repeatedly goaded back to some level of hopefulness and attention by the very fact that something very strange but very real has happened and continues to happen.

6.(optional) Seek coping strategies with which to remain involved despite frustration arising from cognitive dissonance in the steps 1. through 5. loop. I think forums like this may be one such strategy.

I agree with, and even find an elated sense of comforting resolve within one through three. However in my case, I find exclusion from four through six as a direct result of one through three!

 

[Burnt State]

6.(optional) Seek coping strategies with which to remain involved despite frustration arising from cognitive dissonance in the steps 1. through 5. loop. I think forums like this may be one such strategy.

The forum has served to emphasize my strong feelings about numbers 3, 4 and 5. So instead of a coping strategy I find that the Paracast, and related forum, became a UFO gateway drug that has started to infringe a bit on that most valuable resource - time. The number of different podcasts, net searching, reading and contempation has only expanded over the years. It's starting to make me doubt #1 more and more. Sometimes I think it would have been better to have found my addiction within meditation, or exercise, or DMT.

 

[boomerang]

Sometimes I think it would have been better to have found my addiction within meditation, or exercise, or DMT.

Better to diversify as none of us want to wind up like Fox Mulder !

 

[Randall]

You're right, it is poorly stated. What I meant was that there is no undeniably objective evidence that would support a specific definition for what UFOs are, apart from a constructive context in which each individual finds his/her own personal agreement within.

Because awareness is by its very nature subjective, any evidence that we become aware of is also subjective. For example the person looking at a film of an event is not seeing the event as it is actually happening, and contrary to the views of most skeptics, video cameras and recording equipment are not necessarily better than a firsthand witness experience. Cameras and other devices are prone to failures, limitations, artifacts, and manipulation. On the other hand, a firsthand experience of a live event is as close to the actual event as is humanly possible. If you have ever used a video camera you have probably experienced this yourself. Watching the event live is much better than watching it through the viewfinder or screen of your handy-cam. You can take in a lot more and have a much more realistic experience by viewing it firsthand in real time. So the point here is that the idea that this so-called "objective evidence" is better than firsthand experience is faulty reasoning. I'm not saying that's necessarily what you were getting at, but if it was, then perhaps I can offer you another way to view the issue.

When we're dealing with scientific evidence, the main idea is that we're dealing with something called empirical evidence, which is evidence that can be sensed with our familiar senses and therefore gauged and measured. Again, because empirical evidence involves sensory stimulus, it is by its very nature subjective, and there are many kinds, including indirect evidence and non-material evidence. For example we cannot see individual atoms with our eyes, but we can see them with an electron microscope. We believe the atoms are there because according to a chain of logic that involves some sophisticated engineering and a lot of testing, we conclude that there is a very high probability that the images we see are in fact individual atoms. Similarly, but at the other end of the spectrum, we deduce things about the nature of the cosmos by studying light from objects that is so old that in some cases the objects that produced the light probably no longer exist. We also accept this as scientific because there is a chain of logic that makes sense of it.

We can apply similar lines of logical reasoning to the issue of evidence for UFOs, and when we do, we also find that there is overwhelming evidence that UFOs exist. However that's when the skeptics usually decide to move the goalposts. Instead of dealing with the idea of empirical evidence and logical reasoning, they redefine what qualifies as evidence to exclude the evidence we have, and demand the evidence we don't have. Usually, this takes the form of demanding verifiable material evidence. So while they may deem it fine for astronomers to presume that some object that longer materially exists produced some otherwise unexplained radiation, for some unknown reason, their critical thinking skills short circuit when the topic switches to UFOs.

So what does this boil down to? I'm the first to say that so far as I know, the public has no scientifically verifiable material evidence that proves UFOs are real; at least not yet. However at the same time, if we refrain from moving the goalposts and disqualifying perfectly valid evidence, even in the absence of material evidence, it becomes unreasonable for any rational person to deny the existence of UFOs. Certainly those who choose to deny that UFOs exist have every right to do so, but let's not be fooled into thinking that they are justified in the name of science or critical thinking. They are simply either uninformed or hard core deniers.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I agree with you 100%. I have been stating precisely the same thing for many years now. I have always maintained the argument that expert personnel as witnesses, such as trained observers in the fields of aeronautics, astronautics, avionics, etc. provide perfectly genuine and legitimate expert testimony that does in fact constitute the rational basis for the full acceptance of such reporting. Believe me, when it comes to empirical evidence or the notion of what is IMO nothing other than commercial consensus science, you're preaching to the choir. I have been "on" about that for many years now. Especially with respect to archeological hard evidence that is far and away beyond observation/perception.

However, and this is a BIG "however" in the mind of what I refer to as the untainted scientific mind, perception and observation are conditionally relevant. I am not referring to visibility conditions or anything that might trick or fool the observer either. What I am referring to is the temporal nature of cognitive reasoning. What I am referring to here Ufology, *IS* that which is verifiable scientific evidence and the manner in which that same evidence provides an undeniable rational context from which the human mind must perceptively draw.

When a trained scientific observer, which most all of the aforementioned experts assuredly are, draws perceptively assembled information from the well of his/her temporally cognitive based reasoning using a sharp and healthy mind, it is just as assuredly that the product of their perceptive assemblage is context bound informational reporting. They cannot help that. No one can.

Giving you the clearest and most straight forward example I can think of would be the typical UFO observation that what was witnessed "defied the laws of physics" Why is that exactly? It's because we are utilizing the most powerful form of reasoning at the observer's disposal. Namely, temporal cognitive reasoning. In using an example that you and I have used in the past thanks to our mutual friend Burnt State, we can again make use of the (drum roll please)... light bulb. When an observer looks at a light bulb (switched on), many pieces of information are perceptively assembled via, yes you guessed it, temporal cognitive reasoning. One cannot even begin to fathom the number of calculations taking place in that synaptic treasure trove we have come to know as the human brain. Apart from these nuances however is the ever so slightly delayed big picture assemblage of formulaic perception derived informational construction. We see the light bulb, we see the glow emanating from within the light bulb, we can with relative ease judge the physical distance between where we're standing and where the light bulb is screwed into it's socket, and we also perceive, with much greater clarity thanks to the light bulb, the room within which the light bulb is situated as it is illuminated by the light source. However, what we cannot see is what matters most. It is the ultimate contextually and temporally bound cognitive understanding that everything we're observing is being determined in infinitesimally definite precision between our ears and not "out there" at all.

So we ask ourselves within the context of renewed understanding: Are the laws of physics which we observe UFOs perpetually defying our best scientifically constructed constants really any different? Are our observations of them any less subject to our temporal cognitive reasoning than a mere light bulb? I personally don't think so. Instead of subscribing to the perception based and formulated opinion that UFOs must be representative of a superior alien technology that make these constants obsolete, might it be more so possibly accurate to consider that UFOs may be defying humanity's temporally relevant cognition as they are assembled contextually via our powers of constructive perception? Possibly, and I honestly think it would be illogical to exclude such a possibility as being scientifically valid as this is merely representative of the manner in which all human beings observe and construct their realities.

The question that I must ask you Ufology, is whether or not UFOs may in fact use the observed construction of our realities to their navigational ends. Again, are UFOs navigating air space, or the observer's reality? There is NO definite right answer based on the BEST observation on record because of the very nature of observation itself. It would be illogical to think otherwise, and yes, that is an absolute. It's a fascinating consideration. One that I find absolutely impossible to ignore.

 

[Randall]

The question that I must ask you Ufology, is whether or not UFOs may in fact use the observed construction of our realities to their navigational ends. Again, are UFOs navigating air space, or the observer's reality? There is NO definite right answer based on the BEST observation on record because of the very nature of observation itself. It would be illogical to think otherwise, and yes, that is an absolute. It's a fascinating consideration. One that I find absolutely impossible to ignore.

I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at, so I'll respond to the three most probable contexts.

In the first context, there are UFOs navigating the airspace and when someone observes one they are also affecting the observers reality, intentionally or otherwise. The common denominator being that like everything else that is external to our selves, UFOs are an independent phenomenon until they are experienced, and how we experience them is dependent on how they affect our sensory input, and how we as individuals interpret that input based on our cumulative knowledge and worldviews.

In the second context, the idea that they are "navigating the observer's reality" implies a navigator, which in turn implies an independent and calculated impact on the observer's worldview. It suggests that there might be some purpose behind UFO sightings beyond the observer's own agenda.

Thirdly, one might also suppose that in a purely subjective context, UFOs navigate the minds of those who visualize them in the same way as any other visualization.

All these contexts have equal value in terms of deriving truth and meaning. In fact I would say that the more one reflects on them, the more symbiotic they become. But at the same time they also represent a hierarchy of existence that spans from the purely objective to the purely subjective, and I believe it's important to prioritize this hierarchy with the objective reality at the top. UFOs aren't simply fiction or imagination and in my view, better fiction includes plenty of allusions to the real thing.

 

[Burnt State]

Better to diversify as none of us want to wind up like Fox Mulder !

or Sherlock Holmes, but then he did diversify and still often succumbed to self-destructive activities. Perhaps Frank Black is a better model, though he ended up divorced, disenchanted and discontinued. It's a real three or four pipe problem, this UFO thing.

 

[Burnt State]

I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at, so I'll respond to the three most probable contexts.

In the first context, there are UFOs navigating the airspace and when someone observes one they are also affecting the observers reality, intentionally or otherwise. The common denominator being that like everything else that is external to our selves, UFOs are an independent phenomenon until they are experienced, and how we experience them is dependent on how they affect our sensory input, and how we as individuals interpret that input based on our cumulative knowledge and worldviews.

In the second context, the idea that they are "navigating the observer's reality" implies a navigator, which in turn implies an independent and calculated impact on the observer's worldview. It suggests that there might be some purpose behind UFO sightings beyond the observer's own agenda.

Thirdly, one might also suppose that in a purely subjective context, UFOs navigate the minds of those who visualize them in the same way as any other visualization.

All these contexts have equal value in terms of deriving truth and meaning. In fact I would say that the more one reflects on them, the more symbiotic they become. But at the same time they also represent a hierarchy of existence that spans from the purely objective to the purely subjective, and I believe it's important to prioritize this hierarchy with the objective reality at the top. UFOs aren't simply fiction or imagination and in my view, better fiction includes plenty of allusions to the real thing.

I really appreciate what this part of the thread has woven. With regards to symbiosis I think there is something interesting there in that recurring theme of witnesses sensing some type of interaction or responsiveness being observed in the object. However, this feeling of responsiveness and intense emotions are experienced because of our own body chemistry and subsquent inclinations. Like the third option you identfied there is the viewer's subjective response to unknown phenomenon that combines with emotions to create a UFO reality. While these witnesses may also be experts and trained it still doesn't mean they're not having a perfectly natural, emotional response to some rather mundane or extraordinary, natural phenomena. How do those cases get separated from the other options? How many great cases are there really that have multiple evidence reference points outside of the credible, indivdual story?

In using an example that you and I have used in the past thanks to our mutual friend Burnt State, we can again make use of the (drum roll please)... light bulb. When an observer looks at a light bulb (switched on), many pieces of information are perceptively assembled via, yes you guessed it, temporal cognitive reasoning.

I was just thinking about that while listening to a recent MU podcast that spoke specifically to recently recorded instances of NDE's where the clinically dead did come back with memories proving consciousness can sustain itself without the brain being alive. Unfortunately I could not find any real science to back this up.