serious analysis of Ufology, at least, continues to this day and there are many bright points of hope: the CAIPAN/GEIPAN 2014 conference is an important recent example, so is the work of Isaac Koi who is paving the way for solid UFOlogical investigation and historical analysis; Chris Rutkowski is a very bright light whose annual UFO report and related analysis is solid and continues to be based on real data with conservative interpretation that is open ended and very thoughtful; Greg Bishop, whose Radio Misterioso knows no bounds when it comes to serious inquiry and in depth conversation with leaders in the field and even common speculators with intriguing ideas, continues to challenge Ufology to go further and reinvent itself; the work of Curt Collins and countless other independent researchers also demonstrates a dogged determination in the field as did the Roswell Slides Research Group that brought together skeptics, debunkers and sympathetic critics alike to solve a problem. i would also point to one of the people that first demonstrated to me that real critical analysis can move the ball forward, Jerome Clark, whose UFO Encyclopedia (2nd edition) highlights more than just iffy material but the hardcore cases of Ufology whose event anomalies have multiple data points proving an advanced technology at work in our atmosphere. and there is still Jacques Vallee who continues to lead the pack in innovating the field and yielding incredible contributions from his definitive pro-ETH analysis to his evolution of thinking that damned the ETH making him heretic and now leads by pointing at the critical directions we can proceed in given what we know and what we've collected - it's a lot and it's very convincing that something physical is going on in our skies that's not just in our heads.
but there is a looming crisis of redundancy in Ufology that with the digital era so much noise can be generated and regenerated even after certain noise was squashed. there is also the issue of many ETH proponents refuse to yield to more open minded approaches putting the cart before the horse all the time because it seems obvious or that it's easy to do so - this is also a limiter ideologically. but, as we learn to record, crunch and analyze current databanks better we create some new directions. there is always serious research taking place that is not being talked about as well - i don't mean Ray Stanford, but independent groups and cabals who have their own missions and may only release to themselves until something meaningful is found.
in fact, the deeper you delve into the history of research and investigation into the phenomenon the more you come across some very interesting figures who did move the stone ball up the hill an inch or two, and then they died, disappeared, committed suicide or stopped working in the field for whatever reason. their work still has excellent value and will form the true Visible College of the future for Ufology to be based upon. the signal continues to be separated from the noise. it seems to me though that serious researchers are releasing very sparingly and it is not popular reading; it will not put bodies in the seats for the conference and has nothing to do with large UFO organizations of the past. but the work is being done and you have to dig to find it and it requires a lot of brain crunching to take ideas for yourself out of it. in many cases being bilingual helps a lot.
as far as the rest of the paranormal field or all that crap on TV - well, that's just crap on TV and there's a lot of crap at conferences as well. believerdom creates a lot of problems and makes a lot of money to promote the ice cream and sugar of various fields. best to avoid that high calorie content and forage for good anti-oxident wild nuts & berries. seek and ye shall find.
Burnt, I wanted to start a new thread with the article copied below but, as often, could not locate a device to enable a new thread. Anyway, I just came across this article by Martin Kottmeyer which seems to me to point in one direction new research could take -- the history of the 'wrap-around' eyes of aliens, and their penetrating 'telepathic' effects, variously reported and its possible origin(s). I hope this particular subject interests you; I would be interested in your thoughts about the possible meaning of this often-reported 'eye' phenomenon..
"The Eyes That Spoke"
by Martin Kottmeyer
In his final book,
Aliens From Space, Donald Keyhoe briefly recounted his involvement in starting the investigation of Barney and Betty Hill that eventually led to John Fuller's publication of
The Interrupted Journey, the first major work of the alien abduction mythos. Keyhoe was mystified more than anything else by the hideous faces of the aliens. The heads were oddly shaped with no ears and compressed noses and mouths. Worst of all were long slanting eyes which extended along the side of the head creating a sinister look. "What caused the subconscious minds of these two people to create these pictures from their imaginations has never been fully explained." [1]
Keyhoe could not accept the case 100%, he later admitted in a 1975 interview, but he did not reject it either. As mysteries go, Keyhoe's question seemed safely rhetorical. Who knows why anyone dreams of one monster and not another? How would anyone even begin to investigate such a problem?
What could not have been foreseen was how serendipity might step in to break this minor mystery. The local PBS station a few years ago decided to rerun the old TV series
The Outer Limits. It was one of the most visually amazing programs of my youth, and I eagerly tuned in to experience once more such sights as the horrifying Zanti misfits, the bee girl, moonstone, Borderland's ionic gale, the down-shifting time machine of "Controlled Experiment," and David McCallum's evolution into a mega-brain.
It was during the showing of the episode "The Bellero Shield" that I felt the uncanny frisson of deja vu. The eyes of the alien were unusually long and wrapped around the side of the face. It quickly hit me these eyes were just like the wraparound eyes that were drawn in
The Interrupted Journey -- and the later more detailed drawing the Hills did in collaboration with the artist David Baker.[2] Though I couldn't articulate it at that instant, there were other similarities which had contributed to the sense of a close relationship: no ears, no hair, no nose, and a cranium shaped like a bullet tilted backwards 45 degrees. I was excited by the possibility of a match because I was reasonably sure there were few or no other examples of aliens with wraparound eyes in science fiction cinema. Moments later however my excitement became subdued. It dawned on me that
The Outer Limits was a series of the mid-Sixties and the Hill case dated to the early Sixties-- 1961 or 1962. "The Bellero Shield" couldn't have been an influence. Still, the book came out in 1966. Could the lag be significant?
After the program ended, I dug into my library for a round of late night research. "The Bellero Shield" aired February 10, 1964. The Hill's UFO encounter happened in the morning of September 20, 1961. That probably should have killed the idea of any kind of influence, but the resemblance was just so compelling I couldn't shake the feeling there had to be a relationship. I reread
The Interrupted Journey. To my delight I discovered there was no mention of wraparound eyes in the earliest account. Betty's dreams, written down a matter of days after the UFO sighting, mention men with Jimmy Durante noses, dark or black hair and eyes and a relaxed human appearance that she said was "not frightening." This is all quite different from the final product. The changes emerge in the hypnotic regression with Dr. Simon. The most salient issue was to know when the wraparound eyes were first described. That turned out to be during a hypnosis session involving Barney dated February 22, 1964. Not only did "The Bellero Shield" precede Barney's first mention of wraparound eyes, it did by only 12 days! I was immensely pleased.
I ordered the script of the show next. My thoughts were so distracted I realized I had missed the dialogue. This yielded additional evidence for the relationship. Judith, played by Sally Kellerman, is conversing with the Bifrost alien and asks it if it can read her mind. It answers, "No, I cannot read your mind. I cannot even understand your language. I analyze your eyes. In all the universes, in all the unities beyond all the universes, all who have eyes, have eyes that speak..." Judith, intrigued, asks how it speaks her language. It elaborates, I learn each word just before I speak it. Your eyes teach me." [3]
In saying all eyes speak, the Bifrost alien is conveying a truth and simultaneously dodging the human/alien language barrier problem by a unique dab of poetic license.
In the same hypnosis session in which Barney drew the wraparound eyes, there is this exercise in confusion: Yes. They won't talk to me. Only the eyes are talking to me. I-I-I-I don't understand that. Oh -- the eyes don't have a body. They're just eyes..." [4] Barney's confusion about the talking eyes is one most viewers probably shared over the writer's gimmick employed by the episode's creators. The notion shared by both texts that eyes can talk defies dismissal via appeal to commonness or coincidence. By any measure, the case for influence here is not just satisfactory, it is exemplary. At least one abduction researcher has granted this point. [5]
The discovery of this pseudomemory will not shock hypnosis experts. They have long been aware of the danger on confabulation in regression work. There was no reason to expect
The Interrupted Journey's narrative to be immune from such contamination. Belatedly, Keyhoe's question thus finds itself answered with the mundane corollary that Barney had watched the science fiction/horror series
The Outer Limits shortly before his subconscious was called upon to imagine what a scary alien ought to look like. Betty's dream aliens were too normal to justify the fear he displayed during the original UFO experience.
Barney's confabulation has other interesting repercussions. As Thomas E. Bullard has pointed out, "wraparound eyes" is a term that has become common in the abduction literature. [6] Case after case can be pointed to of people describing alien abductors with eyes that wrap, curl, or taper around the head. Some that UFO buffs may recognize include: Carol Wayne Watts, 1967; "Canadian Rock Band Abducted," 1971; David Delmundo's 1972 contact with the turban-sporting Ohneshto; the 1977 Langenargen abduction (a major German case); the Andreasson Affair; Harrison Bailey; South Dakota Connection (MUFON, March 1983); Paris Colorado; the Mirassol abductions; "Jennifer"; Tom Holloway, D.D.S. (in Boylan, 1994). [7] Others exist, but this will suffice to indicate the influential nature of the Hill case on the history of the imagery of abduction experiences. Before the Hills, wraparound eyes seem largely, probably totally, absent in the UFO literature. Cinematic aliens sporting wraparound eyes are similarly largely absent. But not totally. I eventually discovered one other instance. It is an unnamed mutant in the film
Evil Brain from Outer Space, a Japanese film imported in 1964. Interestingly, one of the heads of Projects Unlimited which provided the monsters for
The Outer Limits was named Wah Ming Chang. He was a talented sculptor and designed most of the head sculpts for the series. This may hint at cultural roots in Eastern myth or kabuki theatre, but I'm not prepared to follow the trail the distance to prove it.
The motif of the speaking eyes did not share in the popularity of the wraparound eyes. There is one example in Edith Fiore's
Encounters. The abductee named Victoria describes aliens communicating by simply looking at each other. It is tempting to speculate that the alien bonding practices involving staring described in
Secret Life are descended from Barney's talking eyes, but there are many complicating factors such as strong hints of
Star Trek's Vulcan mind meld and a rich cluster of psychological symbolisms in staring eyes, such as love, intimacy, supervision, contempt, and predators, that seem more rewarding avenues of interpretation. The paucity of speaking eyes probably reflects the poor nature of verbal memory compared to visual memory. The confusing nature of the idea of talking eyes probably doesn't help. It may also be that hideous eyes have a defining role in creating an appropriately paranoia-inspiring iconography. As Keyhoe apparently sensed, they are more believably alien. The eyes say Them.
To the psychosocial theorist, the eyes whisper us.
Notes
- Keyhoe, Donald. Aliens from Space. Doubleday, 1973, pp. 243-5.
- "New Drawings of Hill Abductors," UFO Investigator (April 1972), pp. 3-4.
- Scene 24
- Fuller, John. The Interrupted Journey. Dell, 1966, p. 124.
- Bullard, Thomas E. "Folkloric Dimensions of the UFO Phenomenon," Journal of UFO Studies #3, 1991, p. 40.
- Bullard, Thomas E. UFO Abductions: The Measure of a Mystery FFUFOR. 1987, p. 243.
- Kimery, Tony L. "Carroll Wayne Watts - Contactee, Hoaxer of Innocent Bystander," Official UFO, 1, #11, October 1976, p. 33. FSR 29, #3 Stevens, Wendelle. UFO Contact from Undersea. Stevens, 1982, p. 148. Schneider, Adolf & Illobrand von Ludwiger. "Brilliantly Shining Objects and Strange Figures in Langenargen" in Interdisciplinary UFO Research, MUFON-CES Report #1, 1993, p. 142. Andreasson Affair, p. 25. Rogo, p. 130 MUFON Journal. March 1983, p. 3. UFO Contact from the Reticulum Update, p. 341. UFO Abduction at Mirassol, p. 298. J. of UFO Studies #3 , 1991, p. 100. Boylan, Richard J. & Lee K.Close Extraterrestrial Encounters. Wilflower, 1994, p. 99.
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