November 18, 2018 — Jerome Clark

[Derek]

Well in it’s glory days the Paracast certainly did have a great reputation for calling out the questionable claims of known outright scammers/hoaxers - David Biedny in particular was a genius in “holding their feet to the fire” - and Chris O’Brien to a lesser extent. These episodes made for truly compelling listening - and did great service to the field, dismissing and deriding some of those nutters out of any credibility.
But that middle hour episode with Jerome - such an esteemed long standing researcher - just descended into exercise in tedious
semantics really. I think Jerome was very patient. He was very clear too - I’m sure to most listeners.

You’re very loyal to Gene of course - but to dismiss listener GlitteringBadger’s comments thus isn’t really very constructive. Again, maybe consider matters from the perspective of your audience, your consumers?

The show is obviously slipping - don’t let it be doomed to fade into obscurity. Maybe reformat it while you still can - even if it means fewer episodes.

 

[Derek]

You can’t operate a “Gold Standard” from a cardboard box/street corner.
This subject has a reputation for screwing with its participants - many of them ending their days in destitution / penury ...... look what happened to John Keel for instance (I well remember his Paracast tribute roundtable episode).
So if he’s having problems
then maybe Gene should take a hiatus from the subject for a while in order to address them?

 

[Randall]

Well in it’s glory days the Paracast certainly did have a great reputation for calling out the questionable claims of known outright scammers/hoaxers - David Biedny in particular was a genius in “holding their feet to the fire” - and Chris O’Brien to a lesser extent. These episodes made for truly compelling listening - and did great service to the field, dismissing and deriding some of those nutters out of any credibility.
But that middle hour episode with Jerome - such an esteemed long standing researcher - just descended into exercise in tedious
semantics really. I think Jerome was very patient. He was very clear too - I’m sure to most listeners.

You’re very loyal to Gene of course - but to dismiss listener GlitteringBadger’s comments thus isn’t really very constructive. Again, maybe consider matters from the perspective of your audience, your consumers?

The show is obviously slipping - don’t let it be doomed to fade into obscurity. Maybe reformat it while you still can - even if it means fewer episodes.

One of the most important things to get into perspective when questioning claims is that there's a difference between being critical of the person and being critical of a claim. The claim stands as a subject of discussion separate from the person. Therefore it makes no difference who presents the claim, be they popular or otherwise, and I'm confident that Jerry recognizes that there was no personal attack against him because he already knows that discussing the concepts he brought up is not a personal criticism of him.

Another thing I feel is important to mention is that there was no attempt during the discussion to "get the better of" Jerry. As I pointed out to him, it was to apply critical thinking to the claim in an effort to better understand it. Your opinion that it was "tedious semantics" is a very weak argument because semantics is what gives meaning to the words used to convey the concepts, and being a talk show, words are everything. So if the meaning of the words used is not effectively conveyed, then the concept remains unclear.

This was very evident in the idea that there can be an "experience anomaly" that is neither objectively or subjectively real. If you have a hard time with that because of the semantics, I don't blame you. Not everyone gets or is even interested in such things. But Jerry is and he was the guest on the show. Plus I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that there are other members of the audience who might also like to understand what Jerry was talking about, because like many others, they want explanations for the phenomena, and that idea was being proposed as part of such an explanation.

 

[Randall]

You can’t operate a “Gold Standard” from a cardboard box/street corner.
This subject has a reputation for screwing with its participants - many of them ending their days in destitution / penury ...... look what happened to John Keel for instance (I well remember his Paracast tribute roundtable episode).
So if he’s having problems then maybe Gene should take a hiatus from the subject for a while in order to address them?

It's always easier to comment when your not in a person's situation. But who knows? You could also be right. Whatever the case. It's Gene's call, and personally, instead of complaining I chose to volunteer. In doing that it's impossible for me to please everyone. So if you want to be critical that's your right. But at the same time, I'd kindly ask that in addition to being critical, how about offering some doable solutions? I can't help but think that if just a few others also put in time, that it would be more positive than complaining, and most of the problems you describe could be solved.

 

[Derek]

Well Randall I was just giving some personal options as a casually interested listener - a consumer as I’ve said. Probably one of many with a fairly similar disposition. Ultimately there’s a lot of choice out there and if the “consumer” becomes disinterested or bored he/she just moves on. Consumers don’t offer solutions, they just seek satisfaction- ultimately the market supplies it.
I just feel that the wider appeal of the programme is diminishing (probably with that of the subject itself), again just my opinion.
I think that’s about all I have to say. Can only wish you’s the best

 

[Randall]

Well Randall I was just giving some personal options as a casually interested listener - a consumer as I’ve said. Probably one of many with a fairly similar disposition. Ultimately there’s a lot of choice out there and if the “consumer” becomes disinterested or bored he/she just moves on.

Ain't that the truth.

Consumers don’t offer solutions ...

Are you really sure about that, because I've been part of more than one consumer opinion survey, and I find it hard to believe nobody else has. Don't you?

... they just seek satisfaction- ultimately the market supplies it.

Not all consumers are the same, so it's probably not wise to lump them all into one group, let alone the group we personally identify with. I was a consumer here just like you. In fact I purchased advertising as a positive way to help support the show, and I've even been banned at times too. So I obviously exercise my choice as a consumer very differently than you, and I think that if a person is going to complain, they should also be prepared to offer a solution. It doesn't make them bad people if they don't. But I think it adds respect regardless of whatever the PTB does with it.

I just feel that the wider appeal of the programme is diminishing (probably with that of the subject itself), again just my opinion.
I think that’s about all I have to say. Can only wish you’s the best

I think you've offered your opinion fairly. I'm just trying to encourage you to use your energy in a positive way as well. After all I'm on your side when it comes to the idea of making the show better. It's a question of how exactly given the resources we have. If you think of something let us know!

 

[Derek]

As a final thought

 

[MikeJ]

This was great listening for me because during my years wasting my time being exposed to the constant stream of ufo related nonsense on social media, I noticed one guy notably absent from that scene! Jerry Clark.

The last part of this show explains that.

He is right about his task being to leave a body of work that will help a future generation of academics in more significant numbers launch their own inquiry.

An incredibly valuable contribution!

 

[Derek]

Hear, hear - I think Jerry is one of the few remaining preeminent players in what is now a pretty discredited field.
For decades he’s been a truly professional/reasoned chronicler, historian, commentator and thinker in/of this most intriguing and utterly frustrating of enigmas. When there’s nothing further to be said he just steps back from the scene for a while until the foolishness has subsided (somewhat like Vallee).
There’s no doubt that he’s made an immensely valuable contribution - and surely a lasting one at that. His classic body of work will surely stand the test of time when most of the ufo-illogical works of pulp fiction have been long forgotten.
Sadly though, as with Vallee , he’s one of the last of finest.
Having said that - after long consideration even Jerry maybe comes to conclude that there is no real tangible evidence for the existence of a material phenomenon - let alone one of extraterrestrial origin.

 

[GlitteringBadger]

Personally, Gene could be recording out of a cardboard box on a street corner and it wouldn't make any difference to me. It's his show.

Clearly; and I applaud your loyalty to Gene and dedication to the show.

He's got his own...way of doing things.

That's true. His way of doing things has been for co-hosts like you, and past co-hosts like O'Brien, and Bishop, and Kimball, etc. all the way back to Biedney to do the heavy lifting of researching the guests, engage with them, interact with listeners here and generally be the reason why some of us have listened all these years. What's Gene's contribution? Telling people that he knew Jim Moseley and dragging down the brand with his personal shenanigans?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Not true. Many of the guests are those I selected, and I had decades of research to call upon. As to forums, I left it to the moderators to do most of the interactions, although I got involved in some of the discussions. This is the way many of these forums are run.

Over the 12.5 years The Paracast has been on, I have produced and edited every single episode. I had the help of one person in adapting these forums to a new platform, but otherwise I did it all by myself. After the original Paracast site was redesigned with some neat PHP tricks, I managed it from then on. I run the web server, I post every single episode, including the stitched together Paracast+ versions free of the network ad blocks. I am up very early Sunday mornings to finish the work on the latest episodes.

The Paracast+ was mostly my idea, and I was responsible for its implementation, for better or worse.

This is not engaging in "shenanigans." This is spending a decent number of hours each week to keep this show running.

That said, I do appreciate all that Biedny, Kimball, O'Brien and now Murphy did to create a better program. They all deserve high praise for what they accomplished working with me.

 

[Randall]

Clearly; and I applaud your loyalty to Gene and dedication to the show. That's true.

Thank you, but let's not forget something. If I'm remembering correctly, @Paul Kimball mentioned. I'm also the only cohost to have been banned from the forum. LOL. So Gene and I certainly don't always agree on everything, but we've learned how to mange our differences in a positive way. Ultimately my loyalty is to truth and the cause, and I think Gene knows and respects that.

His way of doing things has been for co-hosts like you, and past co-hosts like O'Brien, and Bishop, and Kimball, etc. all the way back to Biedney to do the heavy lifting of researching the guests, engage with them, interact with listeners here and generally be the reason why some of us have listened all these years. What's Gene's contribution? Telling people that he knew Jim Moseley and dragging down the brand with his personal shenanigans?

It seems to me that most people don't realize what it takes to put on a show week after week after week for years without fail. Yes it's true that Gene has had the help of some excellent cohosts in the past, but that doesn't mean Gene's contribution is trivial. I also personally feel that referring to Gene's ongoing challenges as "shenanigans" is somewhat judgmental.

There are a lot of people who have their own particular challenges in the world and Gene is one who also just happens to do a radio show/podcast. I feel The Paracast and it's archives are an excellent contribution to the field of ufology, and given that there probably would never have been a Paracast without Gene, I choose to look at his contribution as very positive.

 

[Burnt State]

Binary Thinking?

In this episode Jerry had the notion that there was some sort of third reality that exists between the objective and the subjective that he referred to as "experience level events". I made several attempts to pin down what that actually meant, but Jerome had no coherent explanation. He defaulted to the idea that people can't grasp the idea because we're stuck in "binary thinking".

Unfortunately that's not an explanation, and when I attempted to explain why, he kept cutting me off and made a comment to the effect that logic is what whatever people want it to be. By the time he gave me the opportunity to talk, he and Gene's moderating had flustered me and I didn't do a very good job of explaining exactly why Jerry's view of logic is completely backward from the way it actually is.

The point I was trying to make is that the logic of a situation remains constant regardless of people's opinions about it. For example if we take an even number of things and divide them into two groups, those things will then be in one group or the other. None will be in both, and there's no amount of opinion making that can change that situation because the nature of the situation is binary, not because it's based on "binary thinking".

Likewise, we humans each experience the world from our own unique perspective. By their very nature, our experiences don't belong so anyone else but us. If we then accept that there is a world beyond us as individuals, and that our experiences aren't simply a grand illusion created by our mind, then the nature of the situation becomes binary in that there exists an external ( objective ) world as well as our inner ( subjective ) world, and these two groups are by their very nature mutually exclusive. Jerry doesn't get that.

I also tried to get him to realize that these sorts of questions are what philosophers have studied for millennia, and that making the claim that any particular existential position is true requires substantial evidence, which he simply hand waved, and when I offered a way that his idea might logically work, he hand waved that as well.

So as much as I respect Jerry's contribution to ufology, I wouldn't say that his idea about things existing someplace between the objective and the subjective is coherent. Or if it is, he hasn't explained it in a way that makes any sense, and defending it with the idea that others don't get it because of their "binary thinking" isn't good enough.

It boils down to this: If someone has a UFO experience, it is something subjective, and either that subjective experience has an external ( objective ) cause or it doesn't. Logically, there can be no third option for there to be no external cause and not have the experience be entirely subjective.

Perhaps binary thinking has been a bit of a plague for ufology because the more you sink into an experiencer's version of anomalous events the Kore you realize you are trying to grasp the ineffable. Transferring an experience from one person to another is limited in terms of language. Repeatedly we are reminded, as Greg and Clark and others point out, we don't always have an accurate language to describe the feeling of intense paranormal events, or any intense human experience really.

That model of a third way has captivated me since I've first sunk my teeth into anomalous experiences and brought it up on one of Greg's episodes when we looked at Bruce Duensing's work. I cited a Latin American short story, The Third Bank of the River. The story, as you can gather from the title, suggests that there is a third and unknown, and perhaps not always clearly articulable, way of identifying or knowing an experience.

Whenever I read case history of the up close and personal encounters with unknown craft or humanoids I am often struck by how the entire scene is described as an altered version of reality, the Oz effect if you will, where sensory experience does not seem to be functioning the way it does in every day common nuts and bolts reality.

That third level of reality, the one that is para to ours I think is a fruitful way of starting a conversation about anomalous experiences, as perhaps by mapping out a language for such experiences we may be able to better and more accurately transfer the experience from one to another.

Though when I think about it, human beings often tend to engage in ritual as a means of transference. And I doubt this will sit well with you, but at the heart of ritualistic practices there is a desire for those in the congregation to share in the shaman's vision of reality as induced through substance, sound and/or meditation.

Experiencers of the anomalous, those who have danced with the trickster, may simply be visionaries with something new, or very old to offer the community. Maybe this history does go back to bilocating and levitating saints as Pasulka's American Cosmic is going to investigate. If witness culture wasn't so shunned and stigmatized we would have already developed a new language or method of transferrence from experiencers to the curious - one that doesn't become cluttered with religion's familiar tropes or the limitations of those who would map on to the experience a discourse and paradigm i.e. ETH before we even have a proper transferrence of what actually happened to the experiencer.

I guess people really like to label anomalous subjective events with an objective reality to suit their means of how to talk about it. That does not seem fruitful to me. Perhaps it is more productive to dwell in the middle ground of uncertainty to get a better feel for what paranormality might actually be.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

You'll be especially interested in listening to our episode for this weekend, with Suzanne Hansen.

 

[Steve Wehba]

For what's it's worth, I found Jerome Clark to be quite defensive about his positions, and when I hear that, it sometimes indicates those positions may be indefensible. To assert that there is some plane of existence between objectivity (i.e., material reality) and subjectivity (i.e., internal, mental reality) without providing solid proof is specious. Why not postulate there are n-levels of reality between the two extremes? Why stop at only one? To reiterate, this sounded a lot like "proof by continual assertion," and I didn't think it advance the conversation much.

 

[Burnt State]

For what's it's worth, I found Jerome Clark to be quite defensive about his positions, and when I hear that, it sometimes indicates those positions may be indefensible. To assert that there is some plane of existence between objectivity (i.e., material reality) and subjectivity (i.e., internal, mental reality) without providing solid proof is specious. Why not postulate there are n-levels of reality between the two extremes? Why stop at only one? To reiterate, this sounded a lot like "proof by continual assertion," and I didn't think it advance the conversation much.

Though without question there is another reality between our version of objective reality, what is in our heads and what else is out there. The frequencies of light and sound that are beyond our capacities do exist. Our sensory sytem is a limited virtual reality event in our mental plane - the lines appear to be blurry already. We still have limited understandings of where consciousness comes from. We speculate on whether or not plasma is conscious. We know a lot that we don't know a lot.

And UFO reality definitely appears to be something that is beyond our grasp to understand on many levels. In Clark's model of event and experience anomalies he has at least articulated a way of comprehending essential categories of the phenomenon. He is repeatedly diligent in his investigations of the phenomenon and is one of the few UFO writers that first made some sense to me.

I'm a fan; I confess. I don't think he goes far enough, but his paradigms based on the encyclopedic history of the phenomenon are still quite insightful. Vallée goes further, Keel is weirder, Bishop is more imaginative. But as Bishop identifies, as Clark, Keel and even Vallée does about the phenomenon, It Defies Language. The phenomenon is simply hard to talk about. So I can see how Clark gets frustrated in how hard a thing it is to know. And the big guns in the field and new strong voice remind us that we really don't know a lot at all about the phenomena.

It's weird. It's highly strange. It appears to be beyond us, and maybe we need to imagine another realm that it may come from, another reality that we can't fully participate in except in very rare moments.

 

[Randall]

I'm thinking about many questions still, how there may be a purpose behind the history of anomalous experiences on this planet and perhaps an evolutionary one....are we participating in some kimd of excerise that asks us to consider that there's more to reality than what our senses and logic and materialism tells us?

There's a collection of key issues there that need to be unraveled before a coherent understanding of the question can be had. But basically it boils down to proposing that some sort of faith plays a part in accepting the alien agenda. There are those who are drawn to faith and those who question it. I'm in the latter category, and have considered the issue deeply enough to put well behind me on my evolutionary path ( so to speak ).

Can things be energy and matter at once.

That depends on how one looks at the question. Scientifical jargon uses the word "energy" as a sort of catchall term that means different things to different people. Science however, uses it in specific well defined ways. Philosophically the issue of matter is also different from scientifical usage, and different again from scientific usage.

So do we alter reality through our looking. Is there even another way to appreciate and particiapte in reality beyond objective reality as defined by our senses.

Those are another set of related issues that require an understanding of the premises before they can be coherently answered.

As Duensing suggests to me are anomalous experiences about an invitation of sorts to particiapte in a journey to The Third Bank of the River?

Another issue of interpretation, but basically why would the aliens create riddles with literary plot devices? We already have plenty of that ourselves. The Third River is a human story, not an alien one. Maybe it's Duensing who's trying to get others to think along his lines rather than the aliens. For those who want to explore the story: A Discursive Dive into The Third Bank of the River by Guimarães Rosa

I am struck by different recurring themes in ufology and other paranormal fields that keep cropping up. They raise more questions: This whole scientific evidence thing does seem to be a bit of a hangup. There is an enormous imbalance between subjective stories and objective evidence. The phenomena appears to be quite slippery.

Why is that I wonder? Certainly the aliens don't have to operate this way if they don't want to. Therefore it must be intentional. So let's look at the consequences: Doing things this way creates a divergent flow of possibilities in the minds of the interpreters. Therefore IMO what is important to keep in mind is that the flow begins at the top with their decision to operate in that manner.

From there we can extrapolate that they would therefore have been aware from the start that they would be creating a situation of uncertainty. In one sense you might say they're on the "third bank of the river". They're the ones behind the screen who have planted the seeds of the narrative which we've cultivated according to our paradigms. I make an effort to look past those from a "fourth bank" so to speak.

Secondly, these images and sights appear more tied to the planet itself than outer space as commented on repeatedly by the more intriguing of commentators and researchers - is this localized phenomena generated by the planet or aspects of it, another consciousness, that we can't fully appreciate?

We could say that people are localized phenomena generated by the planet or aspects of it, another consciousness, that we can't fully appreciate. Right? Besides that: What does it mean to "fully appreciate" anything? We are by our nature individual experiencers of the world around us. Our appreciation of it is therefore filtered through our perceptual and conceptual lenses. Something is always filtered out. We cannot even fully appreciate ourselves, let alone some mysterious anomaly. The best we can do is attempt to pin down truths that give us insight.

And finally, there hasn't really been a lot of traction gained in terms of what we historically actually know about the phenomena. We have theories and we debate theories and that's about it. Is there something wrong with the way we've been looking at it all to date and do we have the capacity or imagination even to chart a better way of exploring experience anomalies?

For me as a ufologist, the analysis of "experience anomalies" are the domain of psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists. I simply ask the question: Is it hypothetically possible and reasonable given the details of a case to explain the phenomena by the workings of an alien craft and/or intelligence?

If not, then you're dealing with some other field of interest. That being said, one of the most intriguing possibilities is that the aliens setup those situations in order to assess our capacity for reason, gullibility, and behavior. In other words all your questions and ideas may be entirely relevant in that the aliens are themselves asking the same questions and using us as objects of study in an attempt to find their own answers.

 

[Randall]

Though without question there is another reality between our version of objective reality, what is in our heads and what else is out there.

That's a claim rather than an explanation of how such a situation is possible. In my earlier post I explained why such a situation is impossible. But then again, perhaps you're looking at the question differently than the way Clark put it.

The frequencies of light and sound that are beyond our capacities do exist.

I would tend to agree, but not everyone would. First of all we can't prove anything actually exists beyond our subjective experience. Secondly, if things do exist beyond our conscious experience, then they don't exist "between" conscious experience and objective reality. Rather they are an objective reality in and of themselves. There can be no "between" because it's logically as impossible as claiming there's a mysterious whole number between 3 and 4 and unless you agree, you're stuck in "binary thinking" If I'm wrong then by all means refute the logic.

Our sensory system is a limited virtual reality event in our mental plane - the lines appear to be blurry already. We still have limited understandings of where consciousness comes from. We speculate on whether or not plasma is conscious. We know a lot that we don't know a lot.

It seems to me that the evidence is overwhelming that consciousness comes from a normally functioning human brain. I don't know about other types of brains, or even if other people have consciousness. We simply assume they do because they're like us and since we have consciousness, they probably do too.

And UFO reality definitely appears to be something that is beyond our grasp to understand on many levels.

Interstellar travel by an alien species is perfectly within our grasp to understand. Beyond that we can get metaphysical about anything. We don't even understand our own reality, let alone someone else's, be they alien or people in our own families.

In Clark's model of event and experience anomalies he has at least articulated a way of comprehending essential categories of the phenomenon. He is repeatedly diligent in his investigations of the phenomenon and is one of the few UFO writers that first made some sense to me.

Clark is at the top of the heap. But that doesn't mean he's right about everything, and the idea of something existing between the objective and the subjective is something that he hasn't got a good conceptual grip on, otherwise he'd either see the problems with it or be able to defend it with something other than appeals to authority or claiming it's beyond human understanding and therefore not disprovable.

I'm a fan; I confess. I don't think he goes far enough, but his paradigms based on the encyclopedic history of the phenomenon are still quite insightful. Vallée goes further, Keel is weirder, Bishop is more imaginative. But as Bishop identifies, as Clark, Keel and even Vallée does about the phenomenon, It Defies Language. The phenomenon is simply hard to talk about. So I can see how Clark gets frustrated in how hard a thing it is to know. And the big guns in the field and new strong voice remind us that we really don't know a lot at all about the phenomena.

That's for sure.

It's weird. It's highly strange. It appears to be beyond us, and maybe we need to imagine another realm that it may come from, another reality that we can't fully participate in except in very rare moments.

Another reality? How far down the rabbit hole do we want to go ion that one? Does it really matter? It makes no difference where UFOs come from so long as it's from beyond the boundaries and constructs of known civilization. Just that alone should be amazing enough. But I guess people get bored with the same old concepts, so those who want to remain interesting to their audiences have to dream up more and more exotic theories in order to keep them entertained.

 

[Burnt State]

That's a claim rather than an explanation of how such a situation is possible. In my earlier post I explained why such a situation is impossible. But then again, perhaps you're looking at the question differently than the way Clark put it.

I would tend to agree, but not everyone would. First of all we can't prove anything actually exists beyond our subjective experience. Secondly, if things do exist beyond our conscious experience, then they don't exist "between" conscious experience and objective reality. Rather they are an objective reality in and of themselves. There can be no "between" because it's logically as impossible as claiming there's a mysterious whole number between 3 and 4 and unless you agree, you're stuck in "binary thinking" If I'm wrong then by all means refute the logic.

It seems to me that the evidence is overwhelming that consciousness comes from a normally functioning human brain. I don't know about other types of brains, or even if other people have consciousness. We simply assume they do because they're like us and since we have consciousness, they probably do too.

Interstellar travel by an alien species is perfectly within our grasp to understand. Beyond that we can get metaphysical about anything. We don't even understand our own reality, let alone someone else's, be they alien or people in our own families.

Clark is at the top of the heap. But that doesn't mean he's right about everything, and the idea of something existing between the objective and the subjective is something that he hasn't got a good conceptual grip on, otherwise he'd either see the problems with it or be able to defend it with something other than appeals to authority or claiming it's beyond human understanding and therefore not disprovable.

That's for sure.

Another reality? How far down the rabbit hole do we want to go ion that one? Does it really matter? It makes no difference where UFOs come from so long as it's from beyond the boundaries and constructs of known civilization. Just that alone should be amazing enough. But I guess people get bored with the same old concepts, so those who want to remain interesting to their audiences have to dream up more and more exotic theories in order to keep them entertained.

I listened to most of the show with Eric Oulet and the first half of this Clark one right up to your quasi heated exchange regarding his third option. I liked your interview with Eric and you pushed both guests to get at their theories. But with Clark you were not able to appreciate his long standing theoretical developments, and said the guy who wrote the UFO Encylopedia rushed into thinking about appeared to you as the ludicrous. I think it comes down to the fact that you're a materialist.

For you logic says it must be 'either or' and the non-materialist option just doesn't square your triangle. You don't see a 'both and' option. Vallée cited that case on the Paracast of a man reporting a UFO flying over a tree behind a building that he witnessed. When Vallée goes to see him he says, No no it didn't fly over the tree....it flew through the tree! They act like ghosts at times. Sometimes people report seeing ghosts after they've had a close encounter with a craft.

The phenomena repeatedly presents itself as insubstantial, as being there, but not quite being there. The literature is filled with these kind of visionary experiences that don't always seem to jive with a physicalist's version of reality. The Denchmont Woods case is a good example - physical evidence with a visionary experiential report. And my fave is one about the schoolboys in America that watched a UFO ship hover in front of them and then fly incredibly fast while simultaneously shrinking till it flew straight into a tree and disappeared.

What we've always disagreed with is not that the basic radar multi point witness occurrence takes place, and I'll throw in some landing trace to go along with it. Those all certainly suggest "alien" craft. It's the narrative of silver screen saucers.

What we disagree on are the many high strange cases that appear to be both material and ephemeral at once, those that have parapsychological overtones, those that are part of a liminal experience, where the things that happen do not even appear to be happening in the world as we know it, but is instead about the passport to magonia. It's origins are things we can't fully imagine, nor comprehend. We don't have words to name what it is. It's an experience that is of the world and not of the world as we know it all at once. It is the middle kingdom. And binary thinking is what stops the journey. And then we fall back to the good old ETH, which is in of itself pretty damn exotic.

I don't think UFOs have ever been about logic. The phenomena is patently absurd. I'm not saying discard science, but you can't just hold onto one way of knowing. These experiences belong to the realm of the high strung. The advanced technology appears as magic. We have to imagine where magic comes from, or we can just see it as a joke and laugh in terror at it all.

 

[Burnt State]

P.S. "The experiences that happen outside our categories." He's talking about non-consenual reality occuring in our normal paradigm of reality. As far as we can tell it is inexplicable and slippery and it is definitely non-logical.