Who is the most important Ufologist?

[Burnt State]

Upwards at 45 Degrees
Julian Cope

400 metres across, and hanging like a football field
over the valley of the stone circles
wondering what the crop will yield
Cos the mothership has come
Cos the mothership has come
Who's she gonna take this time?
Right now tell me who's she gonna claim?

Loving is the face of Jesus
Smiling is the Mona Lisa
To penetrate the diamond
the pituatary gland gets torn off its access and frees
Earth is a cannon of love, shame beyond Socrates
Who's to blame but the man like any man?
Who's to blame but the man who leads?

Going upwards at 45 degrees
Going upwards at 45 degrees
Going upwards at 45 degrees
Won't somebody sign my release
x2

When people jump through time
they give themselves up to rhyme and reasons of the heavens
they recognise in themselves
reconciling their thoughts to those of dutiful people
they're unashamed

Going upwards at 45 degrees
Going upwards at 45 degrees
Going upwards at 45 degrees
Won't somebody sign my release?
x3

 

[Burnt State]

I see we went to the same school of Vogon poetry.

that's an obligatory event every thursday at my house - even the dog has to read his own poetry.

Humanity goes through the same cycles of convention, intervention and interaction, the clothes differ but the motivations or force that propels us is the same.

so what happens if we spend less time studying it, naming it, creating the conventions, defining the archetypes and just live them, perhaps without language? what other processes might we become aware of that are outside the linguistic naming and explaining of experience, what invisible processes become visible and our intuition becomes a more dominant domain for conscious/non-conscious thought that translates and responds to what is being perceived as something that we are also participants in.

Its "hiddenness" is in plain sight if you have a key its meaning unfolds, "it" requires something from you not just the literal interpretation of the meaning of the symbols which is drawn out of the process and interaction with these symbols, its all too aware of itself, the process, which is part of the communication its "meta-life"requires you and its interpretation thus becomes an intuitive skill or art, yes its like life. We are dealing with the immaterial here and as close to a method of conscious application of will in this regard, we are not dealing with the physical materialist reality even though weirdly we are at the end of the domino line. Horses for courses.

This is where inexplicable, paranormal sightings or the unexplained gets confused. Is it in the mind, is it in physical reality? Does it actually matter if the results are the same or the emotional response is the same? But this is another thread.

it seems to me our own sensory perceptual mechanism that might allow us to interpret unique phenomenon as either mental, physical or both is either limited by design, and will always be beyond our ken. perhaps we're just not using it to its full capacity? only then might we evolve to understand the magic a little more clearly.

Its difficult, you have to unlearn and wipe the slate to get some of this as stuff as it is hidden for a reason, the awareness that words are not the communication but their interaction and the people and experiences are as well, and certain interactions require a certain mindset, create new pathways and synaptic links, reach other aethyric planes, and further levels or degrees. When we do this, real magic happens, we use our imagination to create tools to further understand the material and the immaterial, but ultimately we must be still aware of the same consciousness interpreting more of this rich data.

that's the magician longing to see, longing to recreate the society we live in. some could argue that at the centre of every cult, coven and druidic gang of esoteric practitioners is someone who wants to communicate through other methods to create new pathways. question: have we ever created such societies without a corrupt, egotistical frontman who gets deluded by power? maybe there've been some groups of women who used to band together in the woods and share medical and plant knowledge before the men, led by a frontman, came by to burn them all, but how many successful societies have flourished in their attempts to live through symbology, without words, to support each other honestly instead of seeking personal gain? were these the things we got up to in the early years of civilization when we were able to communicate to animals and mountains, when we were still is constant discovery mode? and so it follows...

Occultism from what I gather has unfortunately many connotations confused meanings and cultural prejudices stacked against it the same as using "Magic" and in this age "UFO" this is mainly due to the fact that its true practitioners or experts kept stuff around them esoteric and in most cases hidden to the uninitiated and from the unprepared thus allowing buck making charlatans, new age twats, religious scaremongers, religions zealots, the scared (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing maxim applies) to basically put a whole load of people off a tool which may be of some help or maybe the piece to the puzzle, itself adding to the firewall. There is a literal understanding of the word, a practical application of the word, a personal connection with the word, a hidden meaning and then there is the "obfuscated" reinterpreted understanding of the word. This is maybe how and why symbols are used or art is created, the storyteller is born just trying to make sense of stuff thats un-intelligible that has no definition or immaterial form.

and it's this last bit that is the pivot point - what would have come from a society that chose to embrace art, to embrace irrational thinking processes, to have focussed on creation, fertility and other fecund methodologies? we really lost a lot when we forwarded our will, intellect and actions to the 'buck making charltans' who still run this world many centuries later.

Words change their meaning or can be changed, there is no Law but they are wrapped in cultural context which makes them rich and wonderful, its how you say them that gives them their zest too. Awareness comes from side stepping outside the system and seeing this free from cultural prejudice, doctrine, dogma, you do this and you change, you start shaping your "key" that helps you understand or even approach these archetypes with greater lucidity and understanding and to your own personal connection to these forms. Some people are lucky and are born like that, some people have to work at it. Its enough to be aware and know your limitations but what I wouldn't do is to stop people from approaching something I have now skill or knowledge of, I would not limit peoples experiences but open them up to new ones.

in an age where the entire history of 'key' shaping is accessible to most people, and the ability to creatively respond to words, images, ideas and action, it says something about the power of conditioning that most are passive consumers as opposed to creative producers. the desire to create, to turn people onto new ideas, is still the territory of the artist. all the tools and methods are there for others to explore new geographies of the mind and in turn take on that magician's role, to create something fresh and new. is this revolution unfolding digitally as we speak? after all, once the digital revolution permeates the globe and changes us there will always be the opportunity to reinvent oneself.

In regards to this thread, we should acknowledge those that have helped to make evolutionary leaps in thinking but i don't think people in these days, the days of religious or scientific fanaticism and literal interpretation can even grasp the concept of an evolutionary theory without cynicism, dogma, cultural prejudice or misinterpretation.

and so, yes again, hail to the freaks!

reinvent yourself today.

 

[nameless]

As a side note I heard or read Copey talking about these ;
Secrets of the Stone Circles | Heritage of Japan

 

[Burnt State]

i understand that thanks to his fascination he has become one of the the leading experts in the british isles related monolith sites - is that true?

it's not a wonder he connected to the Japanese Stone Circles - he loves the really wild experimental Japanese metal bands i understand.

 

[Jimi H.]

Jimi H u hope you don't put me on ignore as you previously threatened..

Nahh, I usually enjoy your inputs, so I don't want to do that

I really hope you come out and enter the mystic and explore the mysticism of jim Hendrix as he was an amazing genius in charge of his craft who had been touched by the faeries with a deft hand.

Here's my problem: If this forum was full of staunch debunkers, I might be easier to lure into more spacy paths, just to shake up stiff thoughts a bit. But since others here are quick to go out on a limb, I think I intuitively feel I have to balance things out a bit! It's like a yin-yang effect, I guess.

 

[Jimi H.]

Actually no that's not true in the least. That is NOT what he stated. I included the full context of the quote which is typically not included. Bottom Line: Imagination *is* more important than knowledge. Why? Because it encompasses and includes EVERYTHING that will ever be known. He didn't stutter. That is exactly what Einstein meant.

Lol, you quoted him for saying that imagination is important and you conclude that he believes in magic.

Here's the quote, from Wiki Albert Einstein - Wikiquote
"I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research."

So, we are talking about:

- Intuition
- Inspiration
- Imagination

Neither of the three words imply magic. If you are a very romantic/religious person, you may feel that intuition/inspiration comes from some divine/ideal sphere, but that is not what Einstein said. He did not say that his inspiration was given to him, like people are given spells or magic potions in a Harry Potter-book.

Fwiw., I believe that intuition is a product of experience + knowledge + an open mind. The open mind allows sub-conscious reasoning without being constricted by rules. But without experience and knowledge, you'll rarely have good intituion, because you'll lack the pre-requisite information that allows your sub-conscious to work it out on its own.

 

[nameless]

Here's my problem: If this forum was full of staunch debunkers, I might be easier to lure into more spacy paths, just to shake up stiff thoughts a bit. But since others here are quick to go out on a limb, I think I intuitively feel I have to balance things out a bit! It's like a yin-yang effect, I guess.

This is an admirable sentiment or position to take. I would try to be certain that I wasn't actually going along with the herd, enforcing status quo and control mechanisms.

It's ok to entertain new thoughts and ideas, I am constantly reevaluating my own prejudices or "blindly accepted" knowledge and beliefs. In a way UFOs and the paranormal have this built in, perhaps the trickster element and hoaxing keeps you humble and free from dogma, the minute you say "no it's this " with the exclusion of all else and stand your ground to a hypothesis, is when you hit an intellectual dead end, so you let it bite you in the ass hold up you hand and say ok that's a lesson in not taking things at face value and allowing that mindset to control my perceptions, most of us have been there and got the t-shirt and wasted time building this house of cards.

 

[Jimi H.]

.. i found it interesting that so many more folk voted for Dolan over Clark, when Clark certainly is the more rigorous historian of the field. Dolan is much more open to speculative approaches.
..
Keel obviously has strong appeal for his own, "magical thinking." he's the original out of the box thinker, scant on fact and happy to magnify and blame demons from other dimensions.
..
but what does that mean if the reading public favours Keel significantly over the actual academic historian? maybe we don't want the scant truth and prefer to have the inventive and imaginative ways of thinking about the whole situation - hence Vallee's top of the poll position. ...

Very good post! Should give some insight into why academicians tend to stay out of the fray.

It's a small sample, but you've shown a bias which doesn't seem to favor diciplined academic work but instead seems to favor an enticing story.

 

[Burnt State]

i think the biggest magnet to the paranormal and UFO landscape are the enticing stories and then once you grow up and want to see who is behind the curtain you start thinking more critically about the field and realize that it's littered with enticing stories and those who ask for more enticing stories and then start basing reality around the wild story. it has its place. there is entertainment, wonder and endless amounts of imaginative speculation to be found - even an idea or do that you can stand on perhaps. but when we get to the meat of the matter, there's very little to hang our science cap on but the occasional event that can actually be proved that it or something weird really did happen.

i feel that the paranormal and UFO studies are like comets flying through space - attracting incredible amounts of interest as they fly by but mostly insubstantial when you melt the whole thing down. exciting as fireworks as they fly by, but really, very little at the core.

at the end of the day, let's face it, we really like stories. that's at the heart of the human experience. how real they are doesn't really seem to matter most of the time.

 

[Burnt State]

This is a cross post from the Jerome Clark and Fate Magazine editor episode but i think it has more merit here and should be recorded here in terms of a more in depth look at Clark.

The Paranormal According to Jerome Clark: Anomalous Events and Experiences


I'm a fan of Clark's work because what he says about UFO's and the paranormal are reasonable, well researched and done so with a passion and a zeal. Like everything Clark does he injects his own razor's wit and verve into stories he feels need telling or ripping to shreds - and that includes his distaste for thought experimenters like Tonnies or imaginative confabulists like Keel. For him the paranormal landscape has clear divisions i.e. either it happened and you can prove it or you can't and you're just telling a story, or a lie. If you've been set on fire you know it happened and you have the undeniable scars and trace evidence to prove it. I had a teenage friend once who set himself on fire after being careless at the pumps while filling his car and thought nothing about lighting up a smoke in the car afterwards. Visiting him in the hospital later and seeing his skingrafts convinced me that those are events worth preventing.

Clark breaks things down like this:

There are, as I see it, three classes of anomalous claims and phenomena:

(1) Pseudo-anomalies, which is to say the noise generated by misperceptions, wishful thinking, hoaxes, delusions, and exaggeration.

(2) Core anomalies that manifest as unusual and puzzling events in the world - in other words, they give us some reason to suspect their objective and physical, if unexplained, presence in the world - and that will be eventually explained within the boundaries of expanded existing knowledge.

(3) Experience anomalies, shadow phenomena that 'exist' in vivid (frequently collective) perception, that sometimes have a parasitic relationship to (2), while being epistemologically unrelated, and whose existence cannot be proved at the event level even as the extraordinary appearances at their center can be, in some subjective sense, experienced in deeply anomalous states of consciousness. We lack so much as a vocabulary for these, and they are so far beyond current knowledge (if - emphatically - not universal human experience) that explanations and theoretical frameworks cannot be usefully discussed. Literal interpretations are certainly wrong.

It is (3) that interests me most these days, and to which I intend to devote my energy and attention as an anomalist from here on.



You might mistake Jerome Clark as a minimalist theorist vs. other more elaborate theorists, such as things talked about during the most recent Stalking the Herd episode, where we were reminded of ideas such as the Memeplex Evolutionary Imperative. Clark however, does not subscribe to a Jungian perspective at all. I believe his favourite quote on Jung is that the only place the collective unconscious exists is in Carl Jung's library. He doesn't have time for thought experiments, at least not anymore. Clark is an historian who deals in facts, and is very interested in the hardcore UFO event with multiple witness radar signal trace evidence cases. However, his real area of personal emphasis is on experience anomalies, things that come from the liminal world that do not appear to have happened in consensus reality. They are alive in the memory of witnesses which he describes their core dilemma this way, “many high-strangeness phenomena are vivid experiences while not being actual events in any ordinarily understood sense.”

How are we to make sense of these otherworldy stories that have had a profound impact on the experiencer but are just simply not a traditional experience in the way we define conscious experience? People have been seeing mermaids, hoop snakes, mysterious airships and even claim contact with all manner of odd humanoids that appear to have literally stepped out of the twilight zone to make a brief visit to our world much to the wild wonder of those who see such things. No one has documented these cases with more vigour than Clark over the years - any minor perusal of his published works will open you up to his true passion for high strange experiences.



Clark has this final statement to make about anomalies: "In my view the centuries-old debate over anomalies and the paranormal stalled long ago because both sides have insisted on either-or interpretations, causing both to engage in extreme, untenable — not to mention absurdly literalist — rhetoric. It would have helped if the debaters had acknowledged that sometimes “experience” and “event” are not synonymous." The rabid debunker dismisses the idea of liminal experiences as the product of unstable folk prone to fantastical thinking, but perhaps this investigation into odd experiences needs to be treated in an entirely different manner, using tools not yet invented. For him we can not dismiss the Men In Black stories out of hand, but we should be disciplined about which stories we lean on to explore.

As a final consideration i'd like to remind you of the infamous 1967 Falcon Lake Incident with Stefan Michalak whose full narrative includes the up close and personal viewing of a real life flying saucer, audible voices of occupants coming from inside the ship, and then finally an exhaust port burn that left Michalak scared and scarred - it is a premiere tale and if you don't know about it I'm not sure what you're doing here at this forum. Either way, here are some interesting bits of info that document it along with the classic photo of Michalak and his burns - taken from a Polish website, just to acknowledge my appreciation for my Grandmothers's exceptional perogies and cabbage rolls, as she's turning 99 this May, so Poland is on my mind.

​

The Falcon Lake Wiki article

CBC Digital Archives

Collections Canada



What are we to do with Michalak's experience? Questionable trace evidence was also found, though Stefan's tale and wounds are extraordinary. Was this an experience? Was it an event? How are we to log what happened to him and what he saw? I prefer to see his incredible experience as one of the great UFO tales that seems to be a strong example of an incursion into our world from a set of beings that normally do not participate in our reality but likes to visit our minds every now and then with their technology. And as others have suggested, why couldn't these experiences also be events and provide physical traces of their ephemeral nature.

 

[Jimi H.]

Some quality posts Burnt State

 

[nameless]

Excellent summary and a good way to bring us up to speed and set goal posts.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Lol, you quoted him for saying that imagination is important and you conclude that he believes in magic.

Here's the quote, from Wiki Albert Einstein - Wikiquote
"I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research."

So, we are talking about:
- Intuition
- Inspiration
- Imagination

Neither of the three words imply magic. If you are a very romantic/religious person, you may feel that intuition/inspiration comes from some divine/ideal sphere, but that is not what Einstein said. He did not say that his inspiration was given to him, like people are given spells or magic potions in a Harry Potter-book.

Fwiw., I believe that intuition is a product of experience + knowledge + an open mind. The open mind allows sub-conscious reasoning without being constricted by rules. But without experience and knowledge, you'll rarely have good intituion, because you'll lack the pre-requisite information that allows your sub-conscious to work it out on its own.

All hale Jimi Hendrix. He knows Einstein's mind better than Einstein did himself. Please quote me where I stated that Einstein believed in "Magic". Don't bother, you cannot.

 

[Jimi H.]

..Einstein himself took the time to clearly underline the value of real magical thinking when he stated,
...

 

[Jeff Davis]

Clark *is* a paranormal minimalist that simply has chosen to play it safe. You may choose to call that "rational" if you like. I'll call it what it really is. A very safe guess. You can state whatever you like, but compared to Keel or Vallee, the man is simply an anomalous experience documentarist. Nothing more.

Keel was 100% right on the money. IMO, he almost completely solved the UFO origin riddle. The only real missing piece is consciousness and how the denizens of the Superspectrum technologically access this reality. That will follow in time, I am certain. Scientifically, I would like to hear Clark refute Keel technically. I do not believe he could for a second, apart from his tongue in cheek BS entertainment that he's been spewing about Keel. Which BTW, was due to a professional feud that he and Keel had running throughout Clark's career as an author while Keel was alive. Clark may enjoy poking fun at Keel, too bad he's not even half the researcher that Keel was. Not even close.

 

[Jeff Davis]

"Magical thinking" is NOT "magic". It's called using your imagination. Nice try though.

 

[Jimi H.]

"Magical thinking" is NOT "magic". It's called using your imagination. Nice try though.

Jeff, you implied that Einstein was into magic. He was into using his imagination. I don't fall for your little linguistic trix.

Another thing, your signature quotes Einstein. I haven't checked up on it, but please note that 'mysterious' isn't capitalized. You know the difference, right?

Like I've said elsewhere, the reality of being and the universe is essentially mysterious to me. Many scientists-types feel that way. Nature is a mystery in itself.

So, when paranormal proponents say that the 4 corners area is 'magical', I correct the wording and say it's 'mysterious', because the landscape itself invokes the deepest questions about reality and being, the mystery of being.
I find that the use of the word 'magical' is used by paranormal proponents who want us to believe in literal magical or other super-natural events in the 4 corners area. Live dinosaurs, bigfoot or what have you.

I have studied philosophy and one of the most important things I learnt was to truly take the time to understand what words imply, and to use them correctly. Because words carry connotations, - and you know it. That's why you try to substitute 'imagination' with 'magic'. Why else did you even bother discussing it, why else did you substitute imagination with 'magical thinking' in that quote?

Again, you wrote: "Einstein himself took the time to clearly underline the value of real magical thinking.."

Maybe we agree about what he wrote when it comes down to it, maybe you just like the word magic instead of imagination, I'm just not going to play along with it. Magical thinking and imagination are not the same thing. That's all.

Feel free to write your own dictionary though, but please refrain from the bullshit and the attitude:

All hale Jimi Hendrix. He knows Einstein's mind better than Einstein did himself. Please quote me where I stated that Einstein believed in "Magic". Don't bother, you cannot.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Jeff, you implied that Einstein was into magic. He was into using his imagination. I don't fall for your little linguistic trix.

Another thing, your signature quotes Einstein. I haven't checked up on it, but please note that 'mysterious' isn't capitalized. You know the difference, right?

Like I've said elsewhere, the reality of being and the universe is essentially mysterious to me. Many scientists-types feel that way. Nature is a mystery in itself.

So, when paranormal proponents say that the 4 corners area is 'magical', I correct the wording and say it's 'mysterious', because the landscape itself invokes the deepest questions about reality and being, the mystery of being.
I find that the use of the word 'magical' is used by paranormal proponents who want us to believe in literal magical or other super-natural events in the 4 corners area. Live dinosaurs, bigfoot or what have you.

I have studied philosophy and one of the most important things I learnt was to truly take the time to understand what words imply, and to use them correctly. Because words carry connotations, - and you know it. That's why you try to substitute 'imagination' with 'magic'. Why else did you even bother discussing it, why else did you substitute imagination with 'magical thinking' in that quote?

Again, you wrote: "Einstein himself took the time to clearly underline the value of real magical thinking.."

Maybe we agree about what he wrote when it comes down to it, maybe you just like the word magic instead of imagination, I'm just not going to play along with it. Magical thinking and imagination are not the same thing. That's all.

Feel free to write your own dictionary though, but please refrain from the bullshit and the attitude:

I DID NOT imply that Einstein was "into Magic". That's utter horse shit.

Dude: You're just being a lame ass troll here. Go home and get some sleep. You could use it.

 

[Muadib]

I hate to come back from my long hiatus just to take a dig at Jeff (which I'm not, but this post may be interpreted as such) especially since I think he's an extremely intelligent poster with a lot to offer, but I find his statements on UFO's and UFO origins hard to integrate with one another.

For example, Jeff has repeatedly stated, and I couldn't agree more, that anytime you are in the company of someone who tells you that they know anything for certain about what UFO's really are or where they come from, you can be sure you are in the company of fools. Pretty straightforward and an excellent point, imho.

Now though, we have Jeff saying that he "knows" (how he knows one must wonder, but I digress) that John Keel was right on the money with his, in my opinion, rather strange theories. How is one supposed to reconcile those two statements. Is John Keel the only person in the world, besides Jeff, who isn't a fool when he states that he knows what UFO's truly are and from whence they come?

I'm sure Jeff can explain these discrepancies in his thinking, perhaps his opinions have evolved somewhat from his earlier statements, though I would contend that his original notion was the correct one. No matter how much we want to believe that we know what's going on, the longer I've followed this subject, the more I've come to realize this: "We simply haven't a fucking clue when it comes to the how, who, what or why questions surrounding UFO's."

I'd like to point out that this post isn't an attack on Jeff, I'm genuinely curious as to what changed his previous thinking, especially if he can point me to some of the sources that form the basis for his new opinion.

As to the original topic of the thread, "Who is the most important Ufologist?"

I'd say he or she is yet to be born, or they've yet to find their true calling. The most important Ufologist will be the one who finally provides either:

A. some form of concrete answers about the phenomenon that are supported by irrefutable evidence

or

B. the methodology by which we can obtain those answers


To my knowledge, none of this has happened yet, unfortunately, so this poll may be a tad premature.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I hate to come back from my long hiatus just to take a dig at Jeff (which I'm not, but this post may be interpreted as such) especially since I think he's an extremely intelligent poster with a lot to offer, but I find his statements on UFO's and UFO origins hard to integrate with one another.

For example, Jeff has repeatedly stated, and I couldn't agree more, that anytime you are in the company of someone who tells you that they know anything for certain about what UFO's really are or where they come from, you can be sure you are in the company of fools. Pretty straightforward and an excellent point, imho.

Now though, we have Jeff saying that he "knows" (how he knows one must wonder, but I digress) that John Keel was right on the money with his, in my opinion, rather strange theories. How is one supposed to reconcile those two statements. Is John Keel the only person in the world, besides Jeff, who isn't a fool when he states that he knows what UFO's truly are and from whence they come?

I'm sure Jeff can explain these discrepancies in his thinking, perhaps his opinions have evolved somewhat from his earlier statements, though I would contend that his original notion was the correct one. No matter how much we want to believe that we know what's going on, the longer I've followed this subject, the more I've come to realize this: "We simply haven't a fucking clue when it comes to the how, who, what or why questions surrounding UFO's."

I'd like to point out that this post isn't an attack on Jeff, I'm genuinely curious as to what changed his previous thinking, especially if he can point me to some of the sources that form the basis for his new opinion.

As to the original topic of the thread, "Who is the most important Ufologist?"

I'd say he or she is yet to be born, or they've yet to find their true calling. The most important Ufologist will be the one who finally provides either:

A. some form of concrete answers about the phenomenon that are supported by irrefutable evidence

or

B. the methodology by which we can obtain those answers


To my knowledge, none of this has happened yet, unfortunately, so this poll may be a tad premature.

Please quote me where I stated that I "KNOW" John Keel is correct. He is, however, correct IMO as I stated. What else do we have apart from theoretical opinion on this matter? Incidentally, this was the ONLY reason Keel EVER made anti science quotes. Period. It was NEVER an attempt to down play science. It was in fact a clear statement to the effect that science be damned with respect to their blatant denial of the UFO reality and any authority that their institutional derangement might afford them. This is very important as John's theory on the Superspectrum is extremely scientific in it's approach. I would love to see someone deny or take apart as much. I have yet to see that. Where is Clark's rebuttal? Where is ANYONE's rebuttal. I am certain the alternatively opinionated will reply that it wasn't worth as much. Typical.

There is far more evidence to support notions of a superspectrum than there are aliens visiting from outer space.

So ultimately Maudib, it's critical that you and others here get it right. I NEVER stated that I knew anything with respect to UFOs. I stated that I BELIEVED, according the beliefs that my own opinions have afforded me, that John Keel was right on the money. Anymore questions? BTW, I did not take your post as being trollish like faux Jimi's in the least. he was just baiting. You are at least attempting to understand. I hope I have been clear with my answer.

It is clearly important to admit real ignorance, which I do most definitely do with respect for UFO certainty. No one is. However, IMO, Keel is correct and what he has claimed is in NO WAY outlandish nor half as likely a fiction as are "visitors from outer space". If that is the case, where is the hypothetical evidence to support as much? There is NONE. Whereas, according to witness testimony, which is the ONLY thing we do actually have with respect for UFO definition, there is plenty of hypothetical evidence to support exactly what Keel contended.