Jim Moseley July 15, 2012

[Sentry]

... witness testimony... it's probable there are far fewer 'beings' but many interpretations and memories of them.

Eye witness testimony is inaccurate. It can be anything from deliberate lies to just being colored by emotion or later rationalizations.

Your comment about films reminds me of anecdotes about the earliest motion pictures. Reportedly, audiences were afraid objects on the screen could harm them, and screamed at images of oncoming trains and pistols pointed at them. Evidence suggests we cope poorly when confronted with something new and alien to us!

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Indeed. Well said Sentry.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Jim mentions during the show how landed craft seem to be carrying slightly different creatures each time they made an appearance on Earth.
Like why would presumably a main alien race have so many varieties of strange creatures and robot-type things?This has puzzled me also until I hit upon the idea simply of witness testimony.

If you were to take 100 people to a sci-fi movie for the first time, and then hours after it finishes ask them all to draw the main robot or creature - how different do you think the memories might be? And so, if people really are scared witless by witnessing some landed craft's occupants wandering a forest or whatever, is it any wonder that often major details are similar but smaller ones or so different? I don't see why this cannot account for the variety of things reported. If true, it's probable there are far fewer 'beings' but many interpretations and memories of them.
This is not to say of course that I believe all such reports!

I love the passage of Anne Rice's Interview with The Vampire how David (the boy) asks Louis (the vampire) about the way he sees things differently than humans. And Louis replies that such things cannot be explained with words, because it would be like trying to explain sex to a virgin

Greg Bishop is fond of mentioning how terribly limiting language is when trying to describe something for which you'd never had a previous experience. You ALWAYS need a consensual point of reference.

One way to keep this in perspective is to study the old engravings and woodcuts done in the 16th and 17th century meant to show the creatures seen by Old World explorers in their travels to the the European public. You see the drawing of a giraffe or a baboon and it obviously doesn't look like a real giraffe, yet it was the best approach they could make based on their cultural preconceptions and expectancies.

I think the same thing happens with the UFO phenomenon.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I think you are right. In a way, well exactly actually, we are talking about accuracy in the media. We have more forms of media to receive news/pics from and we rely on it too much for accuracy.

These old-world explorers may have had prejudices of their own and for hundreds of years, people only had retold accounts to tell them whats was happening and exists elsewhere in the world.

I have to say I am very skeptical of ALL reports involving flatwoods-type things. For some reason I can maybe accept greys and nordics.....at a push even reptilians.

But crappy robots with claws and hoods for eff sake, and all manner of one-off reports of weird creatures - NO!!! lol, aaah relax...

 

[red_pill_junkie]

I think you are right. In a way, well exactly actually, we are talking about accuracy in the media. We have more forms of media to receive news/pics from and we rely on it too much for accuracy.

These old-world explorers may have had prejudices of their own and for hundreds of years, people only had retold accounts to tell them whats was happening and exists elsewhere in the world.

I have to say I am very skeptical of ALL reports involving flatwoods-type things. For some reason I can maybe accept greys and nordics.....at a push even reptilians.

But crappy robots with claws and hoods for eff sake, and all manner of one-off reports of weird creatures - NO!!! lol, aaah relax...

Funny, I feel kind of the opposite. As a natural contrarian I pay more attention to the more outré encounters. Oh how I miss those old reports of hirsute dwarves with steel claws that we used to receive from North America!

It's when the reports become more 'standardized' that I fear of cultural conditioning, whereas the more WTF tales have the potential of unfiltered raw details that may be of vital importance for future references.

 

[SPX]

This dude cracks me up.

I just about LOLd when he was talking about Stanton Friedman's beard.

BTW, for Chris: I live in Utah and am typing this about 500 feet from the Mormon temple in Salt Lake. I can tell you that the Mormon's do use the Bible--both the Old and New Testaments--and consider it to be authoritative. They also, of course, use the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps most interestingly though, there is a third book upon which they base many of their beliefs that most non-Mormons are unaware of: Doctrine and Covenants, which contains a number of supposed revelations that Joseph Smith received.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Jim also mentioned Fatima's Miracle of the Sun, though he wasn't sure if of the people who were gathered, the atheists among them managed to see anything.

From what I've read, many self-confessed atheists who traveled to Cova da Iria to make fun of the gullible religious rubes did witness the incredible aerial spectacle, and many of them fell on their knees and asked for forgiveness

Heavenly Lights, by Joaquim Fernandez and Fina D'Armada is IMO the authoritative book on the subject. A must-read for any UFO buff.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Funny, I feel kind of the opposite. As a natural contrarian I pay more attention to the more outré encounters...It's when the reports become more 'standardized' that I fear of cultural conditioning, whereas the more WTF tales have the potential of unfiltered raw details that may be of vital importance for future references.

Excellent point, I agree entirely! A good example of this is that it wasn't until the late '80s and early '90s that "alien greys" were reported anywhere but in North America. It was only when the media began front-loading this (now archetypal) image to people around the world that we began to see reports of "greys" from other countries. Look back at 50's and 60s South American CE-III cases and often the occupants were described as short, dark hairy dwarves. One could almost make the case that it was the cover of a single book, Communion that was a lynchpin causal element that introduced this potent cultural meme that has now spread out into the culture-at-large. There are many other examples, to be sure...

As to the weird cases featuring inexplicable elements---I agree. Those are the ones that make me sit up and take notice. Dare I mention that these cases tend to be the most "tricksterish" in nature and may be tapping into deeply rooted-archetypes in the collective unconscious. Once that meme gets implanted into the collective it develops a life of its own--sometimes becoming a super-meme, or a constellation, or grouping of other memes. The "UFO" is a perfect example. Now, ufos have been connected to everything from abductions, crop-circles, cattle mutilations, power outages, to even bigfoot! When "weird" cases (w/ seemingly impossible or implausible elements) come to my attention, I tend to jump on them more heavily and quickly than your more mundane variety. Right now, for example, it is an on-going outbreak of strange "flying humanoid" reports in the SLV.

Thanx 4 your insight RPJ!

 

[Sentry]

Speaking of grays, I just came across a news story from 1968 of a fairly elaborate hoax that Dr. Hynek busted. This farmer and an artist partner concocted a tale of him being captured and given a physical examination by small, big-eyed gray aliens- in 1968! Worth a look:
St. Joseph Gazette - Google News Archive Search

 

[Wade]

Funny, I feel kind of the opposite. As a natural contrarian I pay more attention to the more outré encounters. Oh how I miss those old reports of hirsute dwarves with steel claws that we used to receive from North America!

It's when the reports become more 'standardized' that I fear of cultural conditioning, whereas the more WTF tales have the potential of unfiltered raw details that may be of vital importance for future references.

The thing is the old school "aliens" are still happening. Though norwhere near as "tex averyish...That's what always struck me...they were cartoonish in nature. I go through albert rosales database quite frequently and although reduced in numbers from the 50's and 60s they're still there, they just take a back seat to the little greys, why I don't know. Is it maybe we are conditioned to accept the possibility of little grey ET's from the orion belt are acceptable but anything deviating from that are must be DTs ?

Whoops...I realized I pretty much parroted chris's reply sorry I didn't see It at the time as I just hit reply on red pill junkies post without reading the posts after it.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Speaking of grays, I just came across a news story from 1968 of a fairly elaborate hoax that Dr. Hynek busted. This farmer and an artist partner concocted a tale of him being captured and given a physical examination by small, big-eyed gray aliens- in 1968! Worth a look:
St. Joseph Gazette - Google News Archive Search

LOL the farmer was from Loco Texas, so that explains it

(Check the Spanish dictionary, vatos)

But it's weird they didn't mention the name of the con artist who came up with the hoax in the 1st place.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

The thing is the old school "aliens" are still happening. I go through albert rosales database quite frequently and although reduced in numbers from the 50's and 60s they're still there, they just take a back seat to the little greys, why I don't know. Is it maybe we are conditioned to accept the possibility of little grey ET's from the orion belt but anything deviating from that are must be DTs ?

Scott Corrales is doing an OUTSTANDING job with his blog Inexplicata, which deals with Hispanic UFOlogy.

Lots of good stuff, vintage and trendy

 

[Goggs Mackay]

And I just recognised that King Crimson cover. 'Discipline' is my fav, tho the cover is boring.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

And I just recognised that King Crimson cover. 'Discipline' is my fav.

One of my favorites, kind sums up life on the Paracast forum... Tony Levin is awesome on the Chapman Stick

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Oh yes! Ages since I listened to this. 'The Sheltering Sky' is a great instrumental - I find it really moody.

There are some fantastic vids of some of this album live on youtube.

Red is amazing too.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Well, of course me about to have a bath, guess what the bath soundtrack is tonight?

Frame by frame - how did I forget that!

Is this now an officially King Crimson highjacked thread?

 

[Sentry]

... the farmer was from Loco Texas... it's weird they didn't mention the name of the con artist who came up with the hoax in the 1st place.

I think Carroll Wayne Watts, created the tale of the artist and two hypnotists to divert blame away from himself. Watts later claimed he was forced to fail the lie detector test by MIB-style silencers, and that his original story was the truth after all!
The Watts case was covered in Jim Moseley's Saucer News, later reprinted Tim Beckley's MIB: Aliens Among Us. Kevin Randle also interviewed Watts as one of his first investigations. He and he tells about it in the beginning of "Reflections of a UFO Investigator". Unfortunately, neither of them have further information on Watts' alledged trio of hypnotic conspirators.

... the creatures seen by Old World explorers in their travels to the the European public.

That reminds me of about Marco Polo. When he returned with his stories of China and other lands, he also brought along some tales of animals which turned out to be mythical. This takes us back to the realm of UFOs, where the real and unreal are often mixed by the witnesses and researchers. This mixture can make things frustrating, but even if we don't find the "unicorns", looking for them leads to valuable, real discoveries.

 

[GeoShift]

Its always a good show when Jim's on. Thanks everyone.

 

[nameless]

If u like early King Crimson. check out this band;

 

[SRL+]

One of the best shows I’ve listened to. I would suggest that Mr. Moseley attempts to inform the listeners on just how this twisted mess of Ufology came into being what, and where it is today.