Reframing the Debate: A Path Forward or Backward?

[Trajanus]

Why have Project Blue Book in the first place?

Blue Book wasn't an unbiased investigation but a government sham.

Listen to Dr. Kevin Randle yesterday and excellent interview on the "Socorro Case" and his book is great read with footnotes .

Bragalia, despite claiming the "Roswell slides" was genuine, argues Socorro was a hoax. His view on the latter is as credible as is view on the former....

 

[Burnt State]

I wish you success with your work Burnt State. But I can see no bridge from the intangible realm of thought and consciousness, to the tangible manifestation of a device hovering in the air, emitting light, and suddenly darting through the sky. How can that happen without violating physical law and all reason? If you can offer a credible mechanism to explain that transition, then you might have something.


As a matter of fact, I do. Especially when we have multiple independent witnesses who report the same description of the device sighted, and/or radar returns, and/or trace evidence to confirm that what was seen was real and physical in nature.

Again these things in CE cases are a product of a consciousness engaged in the act of perception. The things seen up in the sky are just very interesting things seen in the sky. They may be a separate phenomenon or joined to what it is people see up close. And if seeing is believing then there's a lot of surrealism that needs to be accounted for in CE cases along with other cases of paranormality that appear to be tied to the UFO experience. So I wish you luck with your data and pursuits as well. This is where we diverge.

 

[marduk]

I can explain the ETH in a single sentence:

"The extraterrestrial hypothesis posits that other intelligent life exists in the universe and that it sometimes sends probes/craft to our planet."

I'm with you here.

I have yet to read anything even remotely as cogent as that regarding the co-creation hypothesis, and that makes me very, very suspicious.

That's where I think you've jumped the shark a bit.

The ETH and the co-creation hypothesis aren't incompatible. I have experienced firsthand that my perception has been screwed with on at least two occasions.

And that leads me to believe that they can effect such perceptual changes, but that my consciousness was involved in the creation - or at least acceptance of these changes.

Let me describe an encounter, but please understand it's difficult and personal for me.

One night as a teenager, I woke up as a bunch of tiny deer walked into my bedroom. I was in some kind of altered state, but in a state of wonder about it. Like "cool, somehow deer came in the house!"

They were very tiny. Like maybe 50 lbs. Big eyes that stared at you. Typical screen memory stuff.

One hopped up onto my bed and kind of sat down, just staring at me. I reached out and grabbed it's hoof. Only it didn't feel like a hoof - it felt warm and soft, more like a cat's paw.

But deer don't have cat's paws... when I realized that, the deer on my bed changed into a prototypical grey - only he wasn't grey at all. He was tan, his skin was warm and soft, he was toddler sized but very thin... and his eyes were very large and black. Just stared at me while I held it's hand. I got the sense that he was simultaneously fascinated, amused, and terrified of me... and that it was a 'he.'

And then I blacked out. There's no sense of time, no fade away, just a knife edge where you're conscious and then you're not. If you've ever been anesthetized, it's like that - only faster. Just a switch and then a discontinuity to your memory.

Now, one could say the deer was a screen memory, one that I 'saw through.' But I don't even know that it was actually a grey - maybe that was another deception. Or maybe my consciousness built an overlay just because it couldn't deal with what was happening. Or maybe whatever he was was rifling through my consciousness to find something I would accept.

Or one could say I just had a very strange dream, or that I'm crazy of course. I have no way to objectively prove anything happened at all, but even as I type this, it gives me goosebumps.

 

[mike]

And then I blacked out. There's no sense of time, no fade away, just a knife edge where you're conscious

Same with me, and waking was the reverse instantly awake like a switch had been thrown.

 

[Constance]

Constance,
Did you read the plant experiments pdf link and the current experiments from Earth satellites beaming to laboratories on photosynthesis ?

No, I didn't, blowfish. Would you post it again? Thanks.

 

[marduk]

Same with me, and waking was the reverse instantly awake like a switch had been thrown.

Yup.

And then I was up scared shitless on the couch until the sun came up.

I didn’t sleep again for a couple days, and not well for most of that year.

 

[Burnt State]

Yup.

And then I was up scared shitless on the couch until the sun came up.

I didn’t sleep again for a couple days, and not well for most of that year.

Every single one of my traumas be they hallucinatory, familial, near death, death, UFO, violence, out of body or straight up night terror have all stuck with me decades later. Lost lots and lots of sleep over them all.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Whatever is causing these events it's happening to thousands and more on a regular occurrence. Hell a lot can be blamed on sleep paralysis , hallucinatory events , which leaves the ones where folks who are not so called asleep and rather wide awake see the experiencer go through the events and the unknown objects in all forms and shapes which don't explain in normality of everyday life. Science can't answer all these events and religion has step in to fill the void in the past. No need to worship any other intelligence life form rather seek out its weakness to obtain clues.

 

[Linton]

Sounds like y’all need to hug it out. It’s fascinating to observe a collection of brilliant minds (far more sophisticated than found on many such forums at least) clash so aggressively on such coherently presented points.

As marduk, pointed out with his personal experience, many of us have very personal links to these phenomena, whether U.F.O.s or other aspects of the unexplained. Often these experiences are in direct opposition, or present challenges to our otherwise, logical, sceptical approach to the world around us.

So, given the questionable reality of what some have experienced, with nearly all of their senses, and the lack of direct evidence for any presented idea (however eloquently presented), can’t we all just agree that until we collect some solid data that it’s really just honest, from a scientific point of view, to say that nearly all possibilities are still on the table with a pretty equal footing. The best we can do, is set up a way to collect data in a controlled manner for one aspect of the myriad of phenomena out there (exactly as Chris is doing) and then circle back to discuss where that data is pointing us. Beyond that we’re just inserting our own hopes, dreams, or possibly regurgitating exactly the nonsense they/it/we want us to, and the angry debates take us nowhere. Or did I miss the part where the debate turned into a rational discussion that made a significant step forward to solving it all?

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

The ETH and the co-creation hypothesis aren't incompatible. I have experienced firsthand that my perception has been screwed with on at least two occasions.

This was a goddamn fascinating account, thank you for sharing it marduk.

I actually agree with you 100%. Over and over again I've encountered very credible and sincere accounts like yours that seem to make this point very clear: these freaky little rascals can directly [edit: mess] with your head - as in mind control, perception control...whatever you want to call it. I think of it as a very sophisticated form of the kind of consciousness control that we have over our pets - I can get my dog all riled up by playing rough but well-intentioned, or I can put him to sleep by petting him with a meditative vibe, or I can make him sad by becoming sad. It's a crude analogy, granted. But it shows that a superior consciousness can directly control the state of consciousness of a less advanced conscious being.

But note that this perspective involves the interaction being two physical sentient beings. Something is doing it to you. It's not mystical, supernatural or unphysical in nature. We're simply neurologically outmatched by a sentient creature that can, somehow, manipulate our minds in ways that are staggering to contemplate. But it's a real, causal process, controlled by real, physical beings. Apparently, beings from other worlds.

So to me, this is almost certainly 100% ETH. And if Burnt State were arguing that real, physical beings (most likely of extraterrestrial origin) were instigating a 'cocreation' perception process through some kind of biological or technologically-enhanced neurological process unknown to modern science, then we'd be in perfect agreement: I think that's exactly what's going on, and all of the puzzle pieces fit together seamlessly.

But that's not what's he's saying (or rather, if that's what he's saying, then that's not how I'm reading it). He seems to be attributing these exotic psychological manipulations to some kind of "interdimensional"/nonphysical form of intelligence that also makes us see physical craft in the sky. And I can't accept that, because if it's unphysical in nature, then it's inherently unscientific in nature - untestable, undetectable, and unfalsifiable. And I think that's a dangerous road to go down for any mind that values reason. Because nonphysical forces can't have physical effects, and things like radar-visual cases and trace evidence cases clearly demonstrate a physical aspect to the ufo phenomenon.

 

[Burnt State]

This was a goddamn fascinating account, thank you for sharing it marduk.

I actually agree with you 100%. Over and over again I've encountered very credible and sincere accounts like yours that seem to make this point very clear: these freaky little rascals can directly [edit: mess] with your head - as in mind control, perception control...whatever you want to call it. I think of it as a very sophisticated form of the kind of consciousness control that we have over our pets - I can get my dog all riled up by playing rough but well-intentioned, or I can put him to sleep by petting him with a meditative vibe, or I can make him sad by becoming sad. It's a crude analogy, granted. But it shows that a superior consciousness can directly control the state of consciousness of a less advanced conscious being.

But note that this perspective involves the interaction being two physical sentient beings. Something is doing it to you. It's not mystical, supernatural or unphysical in nature. We're simply neurologically outmatched by a sentient creature that can, somehow, manipulate our minds in ways that are staggering to contemplate. But it's a real, causal process, controlled by real, physical beings. Apparently, beings from other worlds.

So to me, this is almost certainly 100% ETH. And if Burnt State were arguing that real, physical beings (most likely of extraterrestrial origin) were instigating a 'cocreation' perception process through some kind of biological or technologically-enhanced neurological process unknown to modern science, then we'd be in perfect agreement: I think that's exactly what's going on, and all of the puzzle pieces fit together seamlessly.

But that's not what's he's saying (or rather, if that's what he's saying, then that's not how I'm reading it). He seems to be attributing these exotic psychological manipulations to some kind of "interdimensional"/nonphysical form of intelligence that also makes us see physical craft in the sky. And I can't accept that, because if it's unphysical in nature, then it's inherently unscientific in nature - untestable, undetectable, and unfalsifiable. And I think that's a dangerous road to go down for any mind that values reason. Because nonphysical forces can't have physical effects, and things like radar-visual cases and trace evidence cases clearly demonstrate a physical aspect to the ufo phenomenon.

No. I'm not advocating that at all and don't understand why you keep surrendering all human will to an unproven external agent. Did you even read what I wrote? Why wouldn't the source of the misperceptions come from the human agent trying to make sense of something it can't quite see or understand properly. You really don't get this whole cocreation thing do you?

 

[marduk]

This was a goddamn fascinating account, thank you for sharing it marduk.

I actually agree with you 100%. Over and over again I've encountered very credible and sincere accounts like yours that seem to make this point very clear: these freaky little rascals can directly [edit: mess] with your head - as in mind control, perception control...whatever you want to call it. I think of it as a very sophisticated form of the kind of consciousness control that we have over our pets - I can get my dog all riled up by playing rough but well-intentioned, or I can put him to sleep by petting him with a meditative vibe, or I can make him sad by becoming sad. It's a crude analogy, granted. But it shows that a superior consciousness can directly control the state of consciousness of a less advanced conscious being.

But note that this perspective involves the interaction being two physical sentient beings. Something is doing it to you. It's not mystical, supernatural or unphysical in nature. We're simply neurologically outmatched by a sentient creature that can, somehow, manipulate our minds in ways that are staggering to contemplate. But it's a real, causal process, controlled by real, physical beings. Apparently, beings from other worlds.

So to me, this is almost certainly 100% ETH. And if Burnt State were arguing that real, physical beings (most likely of extraterrestrial origin) were instigating a 'cocreation' perception process through some kind of biological or technologically-enhanced neurological process unknown to modern science, then we'd be in perfect agreement: I think that's exactly what's going on, and all of the puzzle pieces fit together seamlessly.

But that's not what's he's saying (or rather, if that's what he's saying, then that's not how I'm reading it). He seems to be attributing these exotic psychological manipulations to some kind of "interdimensional"/nonphysical form of intelligence that also makes us see physical craft in the sky. And I can't accept that, because if it's unphysical in nature, then it's inherently unscientific in nature - untestable, undetectable, and unfalsifiable. And I think that's a dangerous road to go down for any mind that values reason. Because nonphysical forces can't have physical effects, and things like radar-visual cases and trace evidence cases clearly demonstrate a physical aspect to the ufo phenomenon.

Well, viscerally I agree that the most likely answer is the ETH... however...

You’ll note that in this account there are exactly zero spacecraft of any kind involved. It took place in a major Canadian city, in the basement of my parent’s house. There were no sighting reports, and nobody else in the house noticed anything at all. I think the cat was all spooked out, but that’s it.

I would agree very much that if it happened, then something physical happened because my mind interacted with it. I think therefore I am and all that. However, I have no idea what the hell it was or what it wanted.

There was no communication. I got nothing from this experience except bad sleep habits. I didn’t develop any ‘new age’ kind of mentality, or any other transformational kind of experience.

It happened, and that’s all.

It may have been projected into my mind from afar. It could have been a demon. It could have been the trickster. I believe the simplest answer is the ETH based on what makes logical sense to me, but that’s the end of it.

I’m always mystified by these contactee or abductee scenarios that have these giant narratives, because nothing like that has happened to me that I have memories of.

 

[marduk]

No. I'm not advocating that at all and don't understand why you keep surrendering all human will to an unproven external agent. Did you even read what I wrote? Why wouldn't the source of the misperceptions come from the human agent trying to make sense of something it can't quite see or understand properly. You really don't get this whole cocreation thing do you?

Maybe lay it down a little easier for us. What I’m groking is that our perception of what happens - our mental state, our beliefs, our internal mythologies are as important to you as what may be behind the experience. At least as an entry point to try to understand it.

Am I heading in the right direction?

 

[Burnt State]

Maybe lay it down a little easier for us. What I’m groking is that our perception of what happens - our mental state, our beliefs, our internal mythologies are as important to you as what may be behind the experience. At least as an entry point to try to understand it.

Am I heading in the right direction?

Yes you are. While Greg Bishop in his essay posits that the existence of an alien as the starting point of talking about these encounters it doesn't necessarily mean that they have total control over our minds or that they even exist. To relinquish our role as a passive one where we are merely subject i reject categorically. The act of seeing is as much a biological one as it is phenomenological. How we see is wrapped up with the individual. Their prior experiences personally, sociologically, culturally, their frame of mind, if you will, is a shaped process. That is why is some shootings of black men last year turned out witness reports that ranged from he ran at the officer to he stood still with his hands in the air. There is always a bias in the act of seeing. You see the gold and white dress and I see the blue one. It's an established fact that we see things differently from person to person. While language mitigates the idea of a public object they really don't exist. The moon I see is different from the one you do. We each have our personal moon. Some can't get past this notion and would rather have external reality be what is in our heads and that it's the same in the heads of others. But when you read witness accounts it's not as clear as that. There are other factors at work - some see nothing in the sky, some see the same UFO and others recount being abducted. Memory, which is a faulty thing at best, erodes each time we retell our tale.

If I am raised in a culture that believes in sky people then my experience of the alien other may be a gift to me and my people. For others with a different front loaded cultural setting they may see monsters and be in terror from their experience. And of course the state of mind of the person prior to these experiences may also play a crucial role. If we are destabilized prior to the event then how dramatic events unfold will be different for each witness. Knowing who and what informs the witness can tell us a lot more about the experience then just looking at what the report says they saw.

We play a direct role in every act of seeing as does our background. Fear and trauma do seem to be relevant factors in these CE cases and the events that unfold afterwards further colours the initial experience and also needs more investigation. Many are afflicted following such experiences and more paranormal events are known as features of these occurrences. It's just not as simple as aliens controlling our minds. That may be the case but it entirely denies our role and our will. While solid ships may appear in the sky, as your own narrative tells us, shape shifting and physical contact are part of the event. There are a number of well known psychological experiments that cause people to have physical sensations even though none is present. I have had this happen to myself where I touched a phantom tree that I knew was not there but I felt it just the same. I detailed this on the forum last year when I first started looking at the role of the sensory processing as part of these types of cases.

The complexity of human sensory experience should not be underestimated as there are a great number of factors involved. My suggestion is that in unique situations, such as your own, logic does not play a role per se and our imaginations may have a lot more to do with it. I am not saying you imagined in at all. What I'm saying is that you had an experience that was very unique; you may have encountered a life form or some kind of external stimulus that caused your mind to perceive it in the only way it could make sense of it. And so the deer became an alien. That's what made sense to your mind in that moment. But what was actually there is difficult to say.

Maybe it's not something that our senses can experience in normal situations but in certain cases we are left with something unfathomable. And we obviously play a role in that act of seeing. How much do we bring to the dance vs. how much is supplied by the external stimulus can not be determined at this point. But together the reality that you experienced was co-created, just like that internet dress meme, that demonstrates seeing is not believing. It's much more complicated than that.

To explore your case further would take many more in depth conversations and a lot of beers at the bar. What was happening in your life prior to that event? What may have helped to inform the imagery that your mind supplied for you to see what you believe you saw? If we go down the road that aliens control our minds then we passive peons will never get a purchase on these experiences. Those who like to study ships in the sky do not seem to recognize that witness reports of Humanoids and CE events are a very different animal. And they are not in the same camps or ways of thinking about these events at all. And yet they appear to be related. And that's why Vallee took on the ETH after being its number one supporter. The evidence provided by CE witnesses and its case history point towards something much stranger at work.

 

[Thomas R Morrison]

No. I'm not advocating that at all and don't understand why you keep surrendering all human will to an unproven external agent. Did you even read what I wrote? Why wouldn't the source of the misperceptions come from the human agent trying to make sense of something it can't quite see or understand properly. You really don't get this whole cocreation thing do you?

The only thing more pretentious and pointless than postmodernism, is postmodernists. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by introducing a causal agent into the equation: it might make some kind of sense if something were creating these perceptions on purpose.

But without a specific causal agent acting with intent, the "co-creation hypothesis" asserts that when a human being is confronted with something that they can't cognitively process at the liminal boundaries of our conditioned experience of collective consciousness, they inexplicably all spontaneously perceive little humanoid creatures with big black eyes and solid metallic craft that hover silently and perform radical aerobatic maneuvers in the sky...regardless of whether they're a Peruvian cocoa farmer, an elementary school child in Zimbabwe, or a stock broker on Wall Street. And that's not simply incomprehensibly implausible, it's downright stupid. If such different kinds of people in completely different cultural contexts had their brains scrambled by a peek at "Ultima Thule," then why in the hell would they all see the same things, instead of very personalized icons of their own psychological expectations of mystical forces, like Quetzalcoatl, the Lord Jesus, and Buddha, instead of willowy grey aliens? And how on Earth could that ever explain the radar-visual and trace evidence cases? Oh, right: it can't.

 

[Randall]

... can’t we all just agree that until we collect some solid data that it’s really just honest, from a scientific point of view, to say that nearly all possibilities are still on the table with a pretty equal footing ...

I don't think that from a scientific point of view all possibilities are on equal footing. As I've said a number of times, I think it's far more reasonable to suggest that some possibilities are far more reasonable or likely than others. Otherwise we'd have to say that the Transports From Hell theory in its full biblical glory is just as valid as the Interstellar Hypothesis. But not only that, scientific evidence isn't the only evidence worthy of consideration. I don't need "scientific evidence" to know I saw something beyond any tech in 70s and probably even now, and with tens of thousands of other reports I don't need "scientific evidence" to think it's reasonable to believe I'm not the only one who's had a similar experience.

I've become fed-up with having science touted as the be-all and end-all of human knowledge and experience. Don't get me wrong. I'm not being "anti-science". I really think science is cool. But it's become a tool used to deny things that are obvious, e.g. there's no scientific proof that hydro-fracking doesn't cause underground water contamination, because no direct link between the fracking and the contaminated water can be found. Give me a break! And it's basically the same kind of denial with UFOs. If the debate needs reframing, I'd say forget the debate along with all the wasted time and effort trying to prove it to the skeptics and the naysayers.

OK let me insert a caveat here: Chris' SLV camera project is a worthwhile effort, and so much has already been put into it that it should be completed on principle alone. But even if some project like that gets some good footage, all it's going to let us do is say "Look we told you so." to a bunch of skeptics, most of whom won't believe it anyway, and Chris will at long last get his moment in the Sun. I'd love to see nothing more. But in the meantime, I can't help but think we're missing something when it comes to witness experiences.

I think it's precisely because of the wide ranging and often nonsensical and theatrical nature of these experiences that there is an intent behind them, and that by deconstructing those experiences, we might find a pattern in the intent that could suggest motives and means and other things that we haven't necessarily thought of yet. So far, I'd say that this approach suggests that Earth and humans are the subject of study, and that it is our behavior that is of primary interest. This would explain why they need the theatrics and other nonsensical types of interaction. You can't do that simply by scanning from orbit. It needs to be up-close and personal.

 

[Constance]

{to marduk}To explore your case further would take many more in depth conversations and a lot of beers at the bar. What was happening in your life prior to that event? What may have helped to inform the imagery that your mind supplied for you to see what you believe you saw? If we go down the road that aliens control our minds then we passive peons will never get a purchase on these experiences.

We might never "get a purchase on these experiences" in any case. It might be that encountering/coming into close contact with humans is just as disorienting and upsetting to the visitors as encountering them is to us -- or anyway to some of us. Not all close encounter reports I've read have been terrifying to the witnesses. I also question your reference in the above post to marduk to "the imagery that your mind supplied for you to see what you believe you saw." What convinces you that our minds as a general rule project hallucinations whenever what we see upsets us or departs from what we assume to be 'normal'?

 

[Trajanus]

So far, I'd say that this approach suggests that Earth and humans are the subject of study, and that it is our behavior that is of primary interest. This would explain why they need the theatrics and other nonsensical types of interaction. You can't do that simply by scanning from orbit. It needs to be up-close and personal.

I don't doubt the phenomenon is engaged in study. But HS is not about studying our behavior but confusing us.

 

[Constance]

I don't doubt the phenomenon is engaged in study. But HS is not about studying our behavior but confusing us.

I've been meaning to ask what 'HS' stands for?

I see no reason to conclude that they have only a single purpose in coming here -- to confuse us -- and could not also be here to study our behavior as well as the character and current condition of the planetary environment that produced us. We have, after all, been blowing ourselves up and endangering all life on this planet since the beginning of the atomic/nuclear age. Among their own varying behaviors, there might be different reasons for them, and differences in attitude among different visiting species or androids. But the significance of one persistent behavior is unambiguous: their spotlight on and interference with intercontinental missiles and other nuclear weaponry here, in Canada, in Russia, and other countries.

 

[Burnt State]

The only thing more pretentious and pointless than postmodernism, is postmodernists. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by introducing a causal agent into the equation: it might make some kind of sense if something were creating these perceptions on purpose.

But without a specific causal agent acting with intent, the "co-creation hypothesis" asserts that when a human being is confronted with something that they can't cognitively process at the liminal boundaries of our conditioned experience of collective consciousness, they inexplicably all spontaneously perceive little humanoid creatures with big black eyes and solid metallic craft that hover silently and perform radical aerobatic maneuvers in the sky...regardless of whether they're a Peruvian cocoa farmer, an elementary school child in Zimbabwe, or a stock broker on Wall Street. And that's not simply incomprehensibly implausible, it's downright stupid. If such different kinds of people in completely different cultural contexts had their brains scrambled by a peek at "Ultima Thule," then why in the hell would they all see the same things, instead of very personalized icons of their own psychological expectations of mystical forces, like Quetzalcoatl, the Lord Jesus, and Buddha, instead of willowy grey aliens? And how on Earth could that ever explain the radar-visual and trace evidence cases? Oh, right: it can't.

Stop craning your head to look in the skies all the time. These are apples and oranges and your ETH bias has apparently killed your imagination. You keep wanting it to be all about the ships in the sky. If it was just about that there would be no convo to be had. But high strange is high strange for s reason and you keep wanting it to be radar plain and simple or as Vallee put in recently: American eth people, they want to go out and kick the wheels of the car. I suppose it's called nuts and bolts thinking for a reason. I get that you're locked into wanting to connect these spaces and I also get you can't imagine a world where matter and energy shift back and forth or one where people do in fact see Buddha and Jesus. The question is why the hell do they see little deer that turn into aliens or catfish people or humans in flying tanks who suddenly make traffic disappear and call the lone witness by name? Do you even read the bizarre tales of CE case history? Or wait it's all mind control by pilots in ships....or Msrduk must have got it wrong. If you don't like the nuances and weirdness of CE absurdity then please stick to the radar cases. You'll be much happier and far less frustrated I suspect.