What are we doing?

[Constance]

I see what you were saying now. I was grouping the Ariel School event along with other CEIIIs in which people of various ages have reported receiving messages telepathically from beings near the craft. Do you know if there is database being accumulated of these types of encounters?

 

[Constance]

The Ariel School documentary is being created by Randall Nickerson. It was initiated in 2007 by the John E. Mack Institute and the Institute has been working in cooperation with Nickerson during the making of the film. A Facebook post on the documentary’s page a couple of days ago said they are still on track to complete the film within the next 4-6 months.

From statements Nickerson has made, it sounds like he is committed to making the film in the best possible way. He has access to the entirety of the 1994 raw footage. And the last I heard, which was early this year, Nickerson had met and filmed new interviews with 45 of the 62 witnesses. The witnesses are now living in various locations around the world. That along with the fact that the film is being financed largely through private donations is a reason it has taken as long as it has to complete. In the film Nickerson is also going to explore the other sighting reports that occurred in the area throughout the week of the Ariel School encounter.

The film's web site contains a clip on the film.
Ariel Phenomenon

Ariel Phenomenon | John E. Mack Institute

Sand, thank you for the excellent information about this documentary. I've looked at the facebook page for the documentary and will link to it and to the John Mack Institute page concerning the documentary, and also share the trailer on my FB page. I think this documentary will make a major contribution to ufo awareness and studies.

 

[Burnt State]

I see what you were saying now. I was grouping the Ariel School event along with other CEIIIs in which people of various ages have reported receiving messages telepathically from beings near the craft. Do you know if there is database being accumulated of these types of encounters?

Because so many people claim channelling or that they are Contactees it's not easy material to filter. The experience of being near a craft and receiving messages I feel is entirely subjective, but is still a fascinating aspect of cases. You will find some here in this collection, Constance:
ET - Telepathic Communication

On another note, not sure if this was in the Kottmeyer article or not but The Outer Limits epiosde, The Bellero Shield, features this quote: "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak."

 

[Burnt State]

My impression is that John Mack worked with Cynthia Hind in investigating this case [there even seems to be a picture of the two of them together in a classroom at the site I linked] and that one or both of them wrote about their investigations at the school. We'd need to read those texts, I think, and as much as we can of what the children, teachers, and parents said after the event, to understand whether the children were "led" by Hind. I for one consider it a hopeless task to attempt to find out the backgrounds, psychologies, and reliability quotients of all the witnesses to CEIII events reported and investigated over the last 50+ (and probably more) years. I also think that no amount of such investigation could overcome the weight of the descriptions of the 'lived realities' of these experiences and their persistence in memory.

What's fascinating are some of the follow up memories that the original interviewees have when they are older. For them the event is still visceral and uncanny. But we also know that memories, unfortunately, are only as accurate as the last time they are recalled. This allows for perpetual erosion and corruption of the memory. It is their original interviews that has the most value. On a side note I find it fascinating that when we forget an intense memory, and thn suddenly recall it, the memory floods back like a hammer to the head and all the memory of the original event comes back with great force and accuracy.

However, interviews with the whole collection of kids and aduts in Zimbabwe would yield the best results. There is an issue of contamination though in that whatever initial conversations that were had in groups create opportunities for a lot of consolidation of ideas, events and imagery. While there is some variation in imagery, which is perfectly natural, though the range of descriptions of the humanoids is quite curious.

In the work by those interested in identifying mass hallucinations as the reason for why people saw Jesus rise from the dead or why those at Fatima saw the Virgin Mary (though I prefer Vallée's and other Ufologists' interpretation of that spinning disc as a UFO) they identify some interesting features that could explain a bit of the mechanism that could be at work in Ariel. If he right emotion and expectation is created then imagery can be pre-created, and a collective hallucination could unfold given the right conditions or even possible mundane stimulus. I know that fear can make people highly suggestive and a lot of weirdness can unfold without too much extra assistance.

I think you have to go back to the Cathars to find the kind of 'mass hallucination' you're looking for, and even then we can't be sure of what was experienced by those involved. I think most sane people, including children, have a grounded sense of what they experience, even in abnormal situations.

Examples of conversion disorders affecting large groups of people having physical and mental symptoms are as recent as the late 90's and beyond with a number of odd cases: fear of genitals being stolen, sudden rashes breathing ailments and anxieties, spontaneous contagious episodes of laughter, fainting and breathing issues and other odd weird events that have no organic cause, but in the Kosovo school children case that affected only ethnic Albanians it demonstrates how stress and anxiety in the populace can lead to such events of strange group delusions and physical manifestations of collective illness. an nteretnt feature of conversion disorder is that groups of women appear to be a central feature of conversion disorder i.e. factories and all girls schools are a repeated theme.

I agree though, collectively seeing aliens and a craft out in the back of the schoolyard is a different matter altogether. However, if the germ of such an idea is what is convincingly spread at the outset then I can see the possibility of a mass hallucination occurring, especially if here is enough fear traveling through the group. Groups of people in fear are highly unpredictable and unstable bodies. In researching mass hallucinations there really isn't a lot of strong consistent work or cases around this historically. But then think about the bloodlust found in crowds around the world that drag criminals out of prison to meet mob justice because of how they broke everyone's reality. It corresponds to a shared shift in values and perceptions in a crowd of people that will beat out its will in the bloody streets. When reality breaks all bets are off as to how a group might respond. Perhaps I've watched The Night that Panicked America too many times?

But the part where Ariel gets really strange is the sense of telepathic communication unfolding, and as you have pointed out this is a repeated occurrence in some cases with crafts on he ground. This does help to elevate this case and suggests that the nature of the external stimulus is physical, unique and interactive. I find it very curious that when we look at groups of cases that are most convincing it is the two well known school children cases that people focus on. The only person I personally know that has had a significant UFO sighting happened during her Grade 8 graduation ceremony outside on a field in Trinidad, where the whole school and parents all watched a glowing metallic cube tumble across the sky, stopping the ceremony until it suddenly took off, as UFO's will do sometimes.

Eyes, I still feel are easy and natural portals for all creatures. Staring at some dogs makes them go crazy and violent. It I don't stare into the half Husky eyes of my dog he feels uncertain of his place in the pack. Like with my cat before him, I routinely engage in telepathic communication with my dog and we appear to have excellent understanding of each other. My cat was an exceptional therapist for me and brought me through some very difficult times. Unfortunately, none of this has improved my telepathy with my partner in any meaningful way. So, if in fact these kids stared into the eyes of an alien creature then I would be surprised if there was not some reporting of some kind of a dialogue. There's an inevitability there along with the fact that the messages are often the same environmental pleas. The one where the witness reports the alien telepathically communicating to her to not to bother him because he could crush her like a bug is the one I find to be hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

 

[ChrisJohnsen]

Unrelated to the immediate conversation above, I saw this article online and immediately thought of Robert (Burnt State).

Young girl ‘possessed by the devil’


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Burnt State]

Unrelated to the immediate conversation above, I saw this article online and immediately thought of Robert (Burnt State).

Young girl ‘possessed by the devil’

Yup, the kids can be especially susceptible. I still remember the gal who freaked out during one of my ouija sessions as a teen. The power of belief is a powerful thing. Paranormality may follow depending on the size of the trauma it induces.

 

[Constance]

What's fascinating are some of the follow up memories that the original interviewees have when they are older. For them the event is still visceral and uncanny. But we also know that memories, unfortunately, are only as accurate as the last time they are recalled.

I don't think we 'know' that. What is your source for this claim? The nature of memory is one of a number of daunting questions remaining for science, philosophy, and consciousness studies, and also concerning the 'para-normal' experiences referred to as NDEs.

This allows for perpetual erosion and corruption of the memory. It is their original interviews that has the most value. On a side note I find it fascinating that when we forget an intense memory, and thn suddenly recall it, the memory floods back like a hammer to the head and all the memory of the original event comes back with great orce and accuracy."

That's more than a "side note." You cite one phenomenon among others that undermines the claim you made above, that "we also know that memories, unfortunately, are only as accurate as the last time they are recalled."

However, interviews with the whole collection of kids and aduts in Zimbabwe would yield the best results. There is an issue of contamination though in that whatever initial conversations that were had in groups create opportunities for a lot of consolidation of ideas, events and imagery. While there is some variation in imagery, which is perfectly [naturalconsists range descriptions] of the humanoids is quite curious.

Something's missing in your last sentence marked by the portion that I placed in brackets. From what I've read of the immediate response at the Ariel school after the children returned from their eventful recess they were asked to draw pictures of what each of them had seen. I don't think there was much time for them to 'contaminate' one another's individual perceptions of what they saw.
The differences in style and details in the drawings seem to me to result primarily from the different ages and drawing skills of the children. It seems that most of them drew the ufo as an object curved on top and flat on the bottom. The significantly more detailed and angular drawing you include was more than likely produced by an older child who was either closer to the object and/or or able to remember angles, levels, and other appurtenances of the object.

 

[Constance]

up, the kids can be especially susceptible. I still remember the gal who freaked out during one of my ouija sessions as a teen. The power of belief is a powerful thing. Paranormality may follow depending on the size of the trauma it induces.

Or it could be that a paranormal receptivity in that girl enabled her to sense an actual paranormal presence in the room. Was she a disbeliever or believer in the ouija board and/or in spirits when you gathered her and others into your sessions? In either case, though, I think that what she experienced was more likely the cause of her upset than a trigger for 'paranormality' she experienced as a result of her fear. Do you see what I mean?

 

[Burnt State]

I don't think we 'know' that. What is your source for this claim? The nature of memory is one of a number of daunting questions remaining for science, philosophy, and consciousness studies, and also concerning the 'para-normal' experiences referred to as NDEs.

I don't think it's all that daunting anymore. How short term memory is made and recalled vs. how the hippocampus helps to encode longterm memory are known events. We know that practice makes perfect and that as the musician or storyteller rehearses the details they come to perfect their material, but it slips and weakens as they stop practicing. Circumstances surrounding a story that is retold infrequently will in fact alter and shift the story and new details may be added or forgotten creating a whole new story. As this continues a broken telephone approach to our memories unfolds:
Your Memory is like the Telephone Game: Northwestern University News

That's more than a "side note." You cite one phenomenon among others that undermines the claim you made above, that "we also know that memories, unfortunately, are only as accurate as the last time they are recalled."

Not at all really. While this may be difficult to prove we know from probing the brain in operations flashback memories ensue and the memory comes out as fresh as its last remembrance. This is something that crops up for people who have experienced trauma, for example, where the brain may in an act of self preservation lock up unwanted memories but triggers may recover such things and then bam, you get instant replay all of a sudden. I know. I'very read about it. It's happened to me. I've been there when it's happened to others. It's pretty darn shocking.

Something's missing in your last sentence marked by the portion that I placed in brackets. From what I've read of the immediate response at the Ariel school after the children returned from their eventful recess they were asked to draw pictures of what each of them had seen. I don't think there was much time for them to 'contaminate' one another's individual perceptions of what they saw.
The differences in style and details in the drawings seem to me to result primarily from the different ages and drawing skills of the children. It seems that most of them drew the ufo as an object curved on top and flat on the bottom. The significantly more detailed and angular drawing you include was more than likely produced by an older child who was either closer to the object and/or or able to remember angles, levels, and other appurtenances of the object.

I corrected that though i'm not sure if i captured what I had wanted to say originally. I think variance in their images actually is acceptable and understandable for all the reasons you listed, but they do tell different stories. Hind asked the headmaster to have kids complete drawings. She's there the next day so the drawings could have been done that day or the next. What we don't often hear about in this story is how local cultural mythology around demons who eat children may have affected what was seen, drawn, understood or how that idea may even have spread amongst kids who may not have even seen anything but were just really afraid because of their cultural beliefs and what other kids said - just like the ouija board story.

But, we do not know the nature of conversations between adults and kids, kids in groups, or kids with parents, so there's a lot of opportunity for contamination. Ufology needs to be treated with hardcore evidentiary standards and here we have 62 or 64 witnesses, then only 35 drawings and finally only 12 kids interviewed. Who selected those kids? What would the rest have said? Were these just the ones who all had a similar story? Were these mostly the white kids and not the black kids? The whole picture is clearly not there. However, is what we have here intriguing? Absolutely - for me it is a critical case, but it still needs to be picked apart in earnest.

 

[Burnt State]

Or it could be that a paranormal receptivity in that girl enabled her to sense an actual paranormal presence in the room. Was she a disbeliever or believer in the ouija board and/or in spirits when you gathered her and others into your sessions? In either case, though, I think that what she experienced was more likely the cause of her upset than a trigger for 'paranormality' she experienced as a result of her fear. Do you see what I mean?

I guess I would have to categorically reject that one as the people who fall prey to the demons are those that believe in demons. When I think of what lies at the other end of that spectrum, which is the supposed possession of Anneliese Michel, and her subseqent torture and then death, facilitated by the torturous abuse and neglect of her very religious parents and two priests, I just do not accept that the way the dead might contact us includes demons, djinn or satan.

I do believe we forge our own realities and belief, specifically religious belief, is a very powerful facilitator of what we think we have seen (i.e. Virgin Mary or UFO) or feel is happening. Anneliese went from being an average rebellious teen to being browbeaten into believing in her torturers, and prayed that she would go to heaven when she died and then she died. The case was such a monstrous example of how people create surreal realities out of religion and so tragic that the judge could not sentence anyone involved despite the fact everyone was found guilty. Think of some of the remote places where people believe raping virgins will cure them of AIDS or dismembering albinos is the right thing to do. I see these ouija board events as superstitious at best. While I can't deny weird things happen with ouija boards I don't believe in possession. But I do believe it is the erroneous belief system with no facts that can cause a lot of problems in this world and/or misidentification of strange things.

 

[Constance]

I don't think it's all that daunting anymore. How short term memory is made and recalled vs. how the hippocampus helps to encode longterm memory are known events. We know that practice makes perfect and that as the musician or storyteller rehearses the details they come to perfect their material, but it slips and weakens as they stop practicing. Circumstances surrounding a story that is retold infrequently will in fact alter and shift the story and new details may be added or forgotten creating a whole new story. As this continues a broken telephone approach to our memories unfolds:
Your Memory is like the Telephone Game: Northwestern University News

Burnt, I read the blurb about Bridge's graduate school research issued by the university's PR department. Way too many trivial experiments (and sweeping conclusions postulated by the researcher) make their way onto the internet and mislead the public about the significance of the experimental findings. The experiment bore no comparison to people's memories of significant events occurring in their lives. Ask any of the people here who have reported UFO encounters if their memories fade away over time. Some experiences are so striking in their stark abnormality, or personally tragic in the case of the deaths of loved ones or working clean-ups following manmade or natural disasters, that one can't escape or repress them. Lived experience is nothing like remembering which objects were in which squares in a computer test over two or three days. The more personally significant the event, the more permanent the memory.

 

[Constance]

The case was such a monstrous example of how people create surreal realities out of religion and so tragic that the judge could not sentence anyone involved despite the fact everyone was found guilty. Think of some of the remote places where people believe raping virgins will cure them of AIDS or dismembering albinos is the right thing to do. I see these ouija board events as superstitious at best. While I can't deny weird things happen with ouija boards I don't believe in possession. But I do believe it is the erroneous belief system with no facts that can cause a lot of problems in this world and/or misidentification of strange things.

I don't believe in demons or possession. What young people are trained to believe, the suppression of their mental freedom and health by various types of lunatics or terror-seekers or sadists, unquestionably sets them up for mind-numbing fear. Are you saying the girl in your ouija group was a victim of terrorism by her parents? That could well have accounted for her freaking out at your dining room table.

 

[Burnt State]

Burnt, I read the blurb about Bridge's graduate school research issued by the university's PR department. Way too many trivial experiments (and sweeping conclusions postulated by the researcher) make their way onto the internet and mislead the public about the significance of the experimental findings. The experiment bore no comparison to people's memories of significant events occurring in their lives. Ask any of the people here who have reported UFO encounters if their memories fade away over time. Some experiences are so striking in their stark abnormality, or personally tragic in the case of the deaths of loved ones or working clean-ups following manmade or natural disasters, that one can't escape or repress them. Lived experience is nothing like remembering which objects were in which squares in a computer test over two or three days. The more personally significant the event, the more permanent the memory.

Well perhaps we will have to read more articles. Memory for all, except those who have photographic memory, is malleable and memories are not like words on a page. Research tells us that age alters our chemistry and makes accessing those memories harder and harder. This is generally accepted as a fact of life. But now research tells us that the very act of remembering alters the memory itself:
Memory is Fiction
Many people have firm beliefs in memories that may in fact belong to their wife, sibling or best friend. Some memories are actually photographs and not even accessible. And then situational conversations can help to plant memory and then, wanting group approval, we may misremember without even thinking twice about it. Everyone has these stories.

And even that notion that some moments are unforgettable really have to do with the significance of the event, but our accuracy is far from 100%, even though sentiment may try to convince us otherwise. I have watched many significant memories fade and lose some of their exactitude: my marriage, the birth of our children, severe car accidents, the death of my father, taking my children to emerg, being with my daughter in ICU etc. the list goes on. These are very special & critical memories to me, loaded with emotion, as are memories of dreams of the dead that I love, but I know I only have parts of these moments, sensations, bits and pieces. It would be arrogant to say I remember it like yesterday, because I would know it to be a lie. I would say the same about my UFO experience. These were all intense imprinting moments, but I can not say I can retell these perfectly. I could say that to someone because people say it all the time, but it does not make it so.

 

[Burnt State]

I don't believe in demons or possession. What young people are trained to believe, the suppression of their mental freedom and health by various types of lunatics or terror-seekers or sadists, unquestionably sets them up for mind-numbing fear. Are you saying the girl in your ouija group was a victim of terrorism by her parents? That could well have accounted for her freaking out at your dining room table.

No, I'm saying that the only people who experience that kind of fear, and scream, "We're all going to hell," when playing with ouija boards, is someone whose belief in religion is outweighing their critical faculties. The hardcore believers think it is perfectly normal to exorcise their children to death.

Sometimes when people are confronted with the inexplicable they revert to what they know is relatable, or the last bit of social programming latent in their minds. This may cause them to freak out. Everyone else in the room who was not tied to god in their life at that moment had no reaction even remotely close to such extreme effects.

 

[Sand]

It would be arrogant to say I remember it like yesterday, because I would know it to be a lie. I would say the same about my UFO experience.

Burnt, I was actually going to ask this just before I saw this post.

What are your thoughts on the memory of your own sighting?

Are there elements you have confidence in (the number of objects, the path of the objects, the configuration of lights, the fact that you were with another witness)? Or are there no elements you have confidence in? How far do you think your memory of the sighting has deviated from what actually happened? Do you feel confident that there were really burn marks on the garage roof as you remember it?

 

[Burnt State]

Burnt, I was actually going to ask this just before I saw this post.

What are your thoughts on the memory of your own sighting?

Are there elements you have confidence in (the number of objects, the path of the objects, the configuration of lights, the fact that you were with another witness)? Or are there no elements you have confidence in? How far do you think your memory of the sighting has deviated from what actually happened? Do you feel confident that there were really burn marks on the garage roof as you remember it?

It's interesting that you bring up confidence in the memory because that's what I was trying express regarding those events and it is confidence that is measured as a memory qualifier.
Why We Remember So Many Things Wrong - The New Yorker
Regarng my own experience: it was forgotten for along while till my mom reminded me of it one nigh about a decade later and then it came tumbling out of the brain closet like a freight train. That was its own unique experience. I have strong confidence about all features of the even in terms of path of objects, what they did, seeing the burn marks with Billy W. the curled up shingles and burnt tree, what people said in the house, all the details of the immediate moment leading up to the sighting, the look on the face of the babysitter's daughter as her neck craned upwards to look. I have limited confidence in the colors of the lights on the ships, though I remember their shape, that they were glowing, that they appeared metallic, that they were silent, but for some reason I can not name with certainty the specific colors of lights. For some reason that memory is gone and that bothers me a lot.

So truth be told, Constance is right to some extent, strong emotion makes memories last, makes the imprint strong. I can recall specific aspects of all the memories I listed above but I can't tell them front to finish without some areas of limited confidence. For example, I can not access the emotion I felt when I saw the ships, but I know I was super afraid. I do though remember some of the joy of childbirth, holding my daughter in the three a.m. halls of the hospital, but I can't get at that intensity accurately. I know emotion marks the memory, but the feeling itself dissipates with time. I can however access the terror, fear, and sheer helplessness of watching my daughter in ICU because it is only a year and a half old. I wonder, aside from the emotion, what else slips away, what sensory information, the specifics - these get thinner over time. I can feel the rich detail of the UFO story grow thinner each year. I know the facts because I told them and retold them so often. Now, their most accurate record exists on this forum and not in my brain.

 

[Constance]

While this may be difficult to prove we know from probing the brain in operations flashback memories ensue and the memory comes out as fresh as its last remembrance.

Those surgical exeriments in which Libet probed parts of the brains of conscious adult patients were fascinating. In one case that he wrote about, the adult patient experienced {saw, heard, smelled, and felt} a multitude of vivid details in his surroundings on his fifth birthday, things that had escaped his attention and were thus not consciously experienced at the time. This suggests, of course, that a massive amount of past experience including preconscious, prereflective, experience remains stored in our subconscious minds and likely influences us without our awareness throughout our lifetimes. Psychiatrists and psychologists use the iceberg to describe the relative influence of the conscious and subconscious mind, most of what influences us being hidden from consciousness beneath the water line.

 

[Constance]

. . . I can however access the terror, fear, and sheer helplessness of watching my daughter in ICU because it is only a year and a half old. I wonder, aside from the emotion, what else slips away, what sensory information, the specifics - these get thinner over time. I can feel the rich detail of the UFO story grow thinner each year. I know the facts because I told them and retold them so often. Now, their most accurate record exists on this forum and not in my brain.

It might be that nothing disappears from subconscious memory but that for one reason or another we might not willingly or easily re-engage, draw up into consciousness, experiences we've lived in the past. The main reason for that might be the degree to which we are distracted by what goes on around us throughout our waking hours. A great deal from the past and also exercise of the imagination emerge from the subconscious during dream states. I think we 'know' an immense amount about ourselves and the world at levels we don't or can't usually access.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Children seem to be open to these and remember speaking a teacher who worked education system for many years saw a pattern of dead relatives visiting the children below a certain age and did not ridicule the matter rather listen to the children.

 

[Burnt State]

It might be that nothing disappears from subconscious memory but that for one reason or another we might not willingly or easily re-engage, draw up into consciousness, experiences we've lived in the past. The main reason for that might be the degree to which we are distracted by what goes on around us throughout our waking hours. A great deal from the past and also exercise of the imagination emerge from the subconscious during dream states. I think we 'know' an immense amount about ourselves and the world at levels we don't or can't usually access.

that summation of our two states of living brings up too much - dreams...hmm.... but it is startling to consider that all our sensory experiences, every touch, taste, kiss, clutch & bump, every single thing we saw with that fovea centralis, each scent and sound has all been recorded. our brains appear to be pre-built for endless amounts of storage. it's all in there. there's so much that we missed along the way. what it would be like to go back to certain moments, to see your life's fatalistic moments unfold as they did - memory as an unstoppable stream of what once was.

there are times i think that it would be great to re-see that UFO experience, or find a way back to that full resolution piece of alien magic in the skies. but if i could get back a memory that would not be first on my list. if there is some of mental yoga practice that can help one to learn the concentrating skills of memory retrieval i will find it and work on that for the remaining decades, if they come.

i can also see memory retrieval as a kind of cognitive narcotic, where memory addiction is the new social high causing lots of losses in productivity. however, if we do know that much more about ourselves on these other levels it strikes me that knowing more about ourselves could be counter-intuitive to those zen pursuits of not attaching emotion to things especially not the narcissism of self and memory. that's called living in the past. but then maybe that's the trick, to dispassionately know more is to better act within the collective, to maximize our proficiencies more efficiently. maybe memory retrieval could help us with working on compassion to increase global productivity for the whole hive? we would first emerge out of our past, perhaps having learned some compassion for ourselves first, knowing what we know in vivid human technicolour.