There are some good points in this video interview, The sort of thing we used to have discussions about when Ufology was actually interested in reality (or some Ufologists were and this is before I left Ufology in the 1980s as a veteran!).
Orson Welles
"How might people react if aliens landed?" The response is usually "Look at the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds and the panic and death it caused!" In fact, that is mostly myth and that successive UFO and other authors -print or blog and even You Tubers (what can you expect there!) continue the myth just shows how lazy people are. Some basic searching helps sort things out and this blog did just that:
Welles himself was sheer brilliance and I am sure that he neither added to the story or denied it!
What might aliens look like? Well, if you go online you see one image after another of "Greys" -not similar to one another but all, of course, genuine "Grey". This shows jus the kind of pap Google, MSN or Firefox throw up at searchers who then dribble away and say "See -Google would not show Greys if they were not real aliens!"
ahem
The other thing you will get are images of microbes and even of whale like, insects type creatures and walking tree and I have to admit at that point my brain farts loudly -especially when these images come from "respectable" scientific blogs or articles by scientists. Probably, these images are used because walking trees and whale like creatures on far distant planets are non-threatening; no one can imagine microbes, something whale sized or even a walking tree thing hopping into their flying saucer and skipping over to Earth. And many astronomers and astrophysicists, including those working in the Search for extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have a deep seated fear of alien intelligences coming to Earth. I often wonder whether that is why they so ridicule UFO reports based on no investigation or a jokey news comment? This I have dealt with in my books to an extent and to be honest if your are pooping your pants over aliens coming to Earth maybe SETI is not a good (life long gravy train) job for you?
A while back I reviewed The Zoologist's Guide To The Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens by Dr Arik Kershenbaum
"No planet will have a complex form of life that popped into existence all on its own. Whatever life is like on an alien planet, it must have begun simply. Now, it could be that it remained simple; that’s possible. Probable, even, on many planets. But if life is to achieve any kind of complexity, the only way that complexity can accumulate is if favorable changes and innovations are retained and unfavorable ones are lost — and that’s precisely evolution by natural selection."
He is then asked: "One of the key ideas in your book is the notion of “convergent evolution.” What is that, and why is it important?"
His response:
"If you observe two animals with similar features — feathers, for instance — you might presume that they inherited them from a common ancestor: the feathered dinosaur that was the ancestor of all modern birds. That’s just regular evolution, where children have similarities because they inherit the characteristics of their parents.
"But sometimes you see animals with traits that they couldn’t possibly have inherited from a common ancestor. For instance, the wings of birds work in pretty much the same way as the wings of bats. But the common ancestor of birds and bats was a small lizardlike creature that lived over 300 million years ago, long before even the dinosaurs. It certainly didn’t have wings, and the large majority of its descendants, including elephants and crocodiles, don’t have wings (thankfully). So those wings must have evolved separately in different lines of descendants.
"Sometimes this “convergence” of traits is for something obviously useful, like wings. But sometimes convergence produces bizarrely similar creatures that share so many characteristics, it can be hard to believe they’re not closely related. The recently extinct thylacine [a large predatory marsupial native to Tasmania and mainland Australia], for example, could easily be mistaken for a peculiar breed of dog, but it’s much more closely related to a kangaroo! And yet living a life similar to that of modern coyotes or jackals meant that it evolved many similar characteristics convergently."
You see what appears to be an oddly moving light in the sky and as it gets closer you see it is a craft. It lands and an entranceway appears. This steps...floats out. What is YOUR reaction? photo of Sarlacc Jellyfish (Chrysaoro achylyos)
If you are feeling a bit "my brain is mushy" at the moment do not panic. It will soon pass. Humans look out at the galaxies arounds us and all we know is Us and the planet we are killing and the way we behave. Therefore, every planet has to evolve like Earth and every species has to evolve like species on earth. Alien life will develop the same as human life and by so many thousands of years will have destroyed itself in war. These aliens will also use our forms of energy or more advanced forms and will use the same type of signal technology humans use.
Wrong and Right in the same breath. We can only base evolution and planets and what we think they will look like based on our limited knowledge of the Earth. Every time someone writes or talks about the new exo-planets we are finding out come the graphic images of the planet's surface and clear skies, water and....well, it's all made up. What scientists detect are tiny spots of light and then through analysing the images guess at the new planet being "rocky like Earth" or a "Gas giant like Jupiter" (ask astronomers about the distant gas giant exo planet that...uh...vanished)
Well, I lose things all the time.
The truth is that we have never seen the surface of these planets and anything added to the information about "probably rocky like the Earth" is pure speculation. If we are able to detect these "far distant" planets using Earth's best equipment the...why are we not concentrating on the planetary systems closer to us which would make logical sense. You look nearby then start venturing outwards -that's how exploration works. But not with SETI. Safest way is to send a signal or look for a signal from as far away as possible and the work "thousands" you can add to the "light years away" the better. Some 55,000 years for our signal to reach the planet in question. Anyone there can respond and after 55,000 years we will get a reply. "We" will not be here and by the time "We" get that reply it is likely that neither will "they" be there.
Fear.
As for the 'fact' that every alien civilisation that becomes advanced creating its own destruction through war "the way we will" the only response to that statement is to call it the height of human arrogance! Humans love killing anything it can including any other living creature and, of course, the planet they are living on and to even insinuate that no other intelligent life form could be better than us and last far longer is sheer foot-stamping by ignorant people. Brian Cox, the physicist or whatever he wants to call himself has openly called people stupid for believing in UFOs and also stated that "there is no life out in space" which is one of the most unscientific statements ever. But then he has always come across as arrogant and egotistical and definitely, as we used to say "Kopf in den Arsch".
The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.25×1011) galaxies in the observable universe as of 2022.
Here is a quote for you (and Brian Cox): Not that very long ago we were living in a universe with only a small number of known planets and these were all orbiting our sun. But after a new raft of discoveries Scientists confirmed that, as of 21st March, 2022, there were more than 5,000 planets exist beyond our solar system -exo-planets. Skies & Scopes website gives this estimate on planet numbers
"Given that we can’t be completely certain how many planets there are in the Solar System, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that once we look beyond that our estimates get much vaguer. But we are going to have a go anyway.
"So, Earth and the planets of the solar system revolve around the Sun. Which is one star within our galaxy, the Milky Way.
"Whilst our sun alone seems huge to us, the current best estimate is that the Milky Way contains between 100 billion and 400 billionstars(source).
"Estimates vary considerably as it is extremely hard to calculate and so you can find different estimates out there (including this one estimating a trillion stars in the Milky Way).
"If we then take the higher-end figure of 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, how many planets does this mean?
"We know that our Sun has at least 8 planets, but the most recent analysis in Nature journal is that, on average, each star of the Milky Way hosts one planet.
"Therefore we can take the estimate that there are 400 billion planets in the Milky Way".
Sit on that one Brian Cox.
We can estimate and estimates are just that -estimates (I may have over complicated that line). But we know that water and the other material needed for the creation of life on Earth is out there as are, probably, the things to create life as we do not know it. Had science not started by ridiculing observers/percipients (though not from the very outset since some were open to life in space but the conservative members of the community were quick to move in when an official stance was taken -The Robertson Panel in the 1950s (This was a scientific committee which met in January, 1953 and headed byHoward P. Robertson. The Panel came about after a recommendation to the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) in December, 1952 from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) review of the U.S. Air Force investigation into UFOs, Project Blue Book.The CIA review itself was in response to widespread reports of UFOs, especially in the Washington, D.C. area during the summer of 1952. The panel was briefed on U.S. military activities and intelligence; hence the report was originallyclassified Secret) and The Condon Committee which was funded by the USAF from 1966-1968). Neither was that open to educating the public on the possibility but intentionally to play the subject down, ridicule it and so on -with the help of scientists and Ufologists "on the payroll" (ref: Richard Doty, Paul Bennewitz and William Moore).
I could write more about how many scientists (including Hynek who had his own university and astronomers condemn him over his UFO work) suffered loss of work, contracts and relentless pressure from their peers and others to not be open minded and scientific and use a sceptical eye and look at the data. Study UFO history, folks.
The intelligence community had money to throw around as grants and bribes and oh those so wanted "military contracts" so there were plenty of scientists prepared to not just stick a knife in the back of a former friend and colleague but also twist it around a lot for good measure... oh, and spit on their shoes at the same time.
The AATIP and all those others are just the same old same old. Moving in and knowing just how to subvert Ufology and receive the applause because they have done it so many times before. Ufologists leap on board willingly, pants around their ankles and ready to bend over. Doty paid Ufologist William Moore to lie and deceive Ufology for years. Moore confessed and he was out. Doty has become a Ufology hero attending conventions and meetings and no doubt still plying his trade and why should Ufologists care what his machinations did to Bennewitz? Just like all the suppressing of UFO information bad guys are now the good guys so Doty is now a celebrity. Watch this:
I have read thousands of reports of CE3K/alien entities in coming up to 50 years now, and even if I cut that list down to just 10 reports that I felt sure indicated "something" would that help me to state what "aliens" might look like? No and yes. There are cases in those ten where the entity descriptions match -the percipients in two events did not know each other, were separated by hundreds of miles yet their descriptions of entities match up.
Imagine that landed UFO you see does not have jellyfish like entities but more insectoid ones -ant-like, say? Reason to panic?
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Now let's consider certain other reports and as I detailed in my book Contact! we have entities in what appear to be pressurised or atmospheric suits and helmets -the so termed "Michelin Men" and some reports go back to the 1950s. Most of the observers had no interest in UFOs/flying saucers and a good few mocked those stories "before" and most of the accounts were not in the press and publicly known. These are the sort of facts and correlations Jacques Vallee has not noticed even though some reports are from France.
Entity described in 1954 Marius Dewilde incident _________________________________________________
I had one case of black coloured (or "negative") entities in the mid 1970s and then a case from France pushed that up to two. Again, ongoing research has revealed other such reports. It cannot be guaranteed that all the percipients/observers saw the same entity type but a case from the UK in the 1970s has an entity type that matches up with the "Kelly Cahill" case and, no, unless someone shot forward in time to buy my book or secretly broke into my home to access the files Cahill and the others involved would never -never- have seen the illustration I drew and had the observer confirm as being accurate. Now if you are good at math you work out the odds of that.
"They were emotionless" and "They did not seem to care" as well as the ever popular "They knew we were watching them doing whatever it was and just ignored us" are often lines used to describe some entities. Suppose that certain aliens have only one "emotion" and it created an obsessive compulsive disorder to just learn, gather samples and nothing else? Perhaps "they" do not have emotions or any concept of pain -they may well have conquered pain centuries ago- so an "abductee" and his/her reactions may seem very odd to such aliens but on noticing the distress a touch of some kind relieves the pain or stress.
Even if some of the best CE3K reports are accurate we still know nothing concrete about alien life or these "visitors". In one of my books I referred to the possibility of "lurkers" -probes sent out over the centuries or decades to other star systems to hide amongst asteroids or even orbit a planet. These lurkers gather data and send it back to the planet of origin. Now they could be more than just Voyager type craft and could also be able to return to mother craft moving through space or carrying out planetary surveys. The intelligences may look nothing like us or similar to us. For decades I searched every and all records I could for reports of non-humanoid entities in UFO incidents and those I found were either hoaxes (by Ufologists) or newspaper jokes. I was then told that far from dismissing humanoid looking entities they were now deemed far more likely to be what we were looking for. Hey, I have a life time to waste so go for it!
Let us suppose that they, the "aliens", do not look like us? Our radio and TV broadcasts have been beaming out into space since the 1920s at least so they can see our popular culture, concepts etc. Humans will view anything looking different as evil and recall all the horror and sci fi memories. Could some entities be a form of advanced holographic projection? Of course they could and more advanced civilisations are going to look at our top tech and laugh. Some form of holographic contact controlled from a craft is a possibility. There are also reports of entities that seemed and looked robotic in the way they acted. Perhaps that is just how aliens look? Robots are a possibility as are androids constructed to look human-like so that there is less of the fear element in encounters.
The rare -very rare- reports are worth noting. Euporia, Mississippi in 1973 (never investigated due to racist viewpoints) is a case in point:
“Night time (no exact hour). Two UFOs were observed near the above location (Eupora), by several witnesses in a car. One object hovered in the sky overhead while the other landed on the highway just over 100 yards (103 m) from the car ; the car lights and engine now died.
“An AE now appeared from the landed object. This AE had to hold on to a handrail. It had a wide mouth, flipper like feet and what appeared to be webbing between the legs. Even more strange were the feather-like structures on its back which gave the impression of opening and closing when the AE moved.
“The AE now re-entered (?) the object which took off ; the car’s electrics then began to function again.”
I have never heard a description similar to this in all my years handling these reports. The one case that even Ted Bloecher felt needed to be investigated in full was dumped. Pascagoula in the same state was to feature the 'only' CE3K in 1973 (there were other accounts but these were, again, ignored as the observers were "black"). A unique and multi observer case lost.
It is interesting that Ufologists join in with the debunkers in dismissing some of the cases involving stranger, non human entity case while not really accepting any other type either! Again, Ufologists spend years chasing after lights-in-the-sky as extra terrestrial space craft but will not consider "what's in 'em?" I have see UFO 'investigators and the usual bunko boy Ufology celebrities talk about this and that account but when someone mentions "aliens" they giggle or side-step the matter.
Stupidity? Ignorance? Or fear?
UFO conferences used to be full of eager people wanting to talk about their latest UFO reports or encounter cases from abroad (even in the 1970s Ufologists thought UK CE3Ks were so rare that there might be only 3-5 at most if we excluded contactees). Now we have pure escapist fantasy moving in and claims of "I investigate 100 abductions a month in the UK" and it is shocking how many do not know anything about Ufology or its history and while some will claim, say, Jacques Vallee or Budd Hopkins have contributed a great deal to the subject not many have even read Vallee. Few if any have read Ivan T. Sanderson's books. Most have not read any pre-2000 books and a great many have watched all the UFO documentaries (like the fake Skinwalker Ranch series) and read the sensationalist books where almost the only thing true is the author's name (sometimes).
If I explain to someone why the object they photographed or videoed looks diamond shape, and it is a fact, I can expect a curt response or full on abuse!
Science has failed in its main task of looking into UFOs and instead the hucksters and counter intelligence crowd control everything from what people are told to believe to what we are supposed to now call them and Ufology stands there and takes it all in one big whallop. Why would people who have suppressed UFO reports and facts and acted against Ufology lie to Ufology?
In the UK early flying saucer reports were forwarded to the Ministry of Defence and there was an openness. But the new craze was to criticise all military and governments and call then cover up liars while George Adamski conned the gullible, aided and abetted by Ufologists, and raked in the money. "Hmm this flying saucer photo looks a bit out of focus..just say it was the transmogrification transducer coil effect!"
People in Ufology take it very personally when you criticise Jacques Vallee. Most I doubt have even read his books, I was once told "You CANNOT question Dr. Vallee!" Screw you because yes I can.
Ufology has always done this. Harold T. Wilkins an early flying saucer author was a plagiarist and made stuff up and passed it off as fact. Things in his books I have back-tracked to the original sources and found them takenm out of context or even a different twist put on them. But, oh no, you could not criticise him.
Frank Edwards and his books gave out a lot of misleading information as did his radio show but he was a journalist with a buck to make. Yes, I criticised him and for good reason.
Donald E. Keyhoe was a legend and anything he wrote was true and the United States Air Force was lying. We KNEW that because...Keyhoe told us. facts twisted to push his agenda and it is interesting to learn now that he had racist leanings. But I go by what is written and presented and we know he was against Betty and Barney Hill because they were a "mixed race" couple.
John A. Keel -as with Keyhoe's books I enjoyed his work but he added "extras" to stories and again twisted facts because he had books to sell and the fact that he got a lot wrong in Operation Trojan Horse does not matter to Ufologists because they NEVER looked into what he was writing. They never check any sources.
I could go on but Keyhoe, Wilkins and Keel misled and lied to us and yet there was no open criticism of them allowed.
The same happened with Budd Hopkins. Nice guy. Delivering the facts and peer reviewed work. He lied. He knew that he was submitting faked evidence in his books and lectures and misused hypnosis. He corrupted Ufological research for three decades. Every CE3K or "abduction" case was rebooted so that now "Greys" were involved -even in the Hill case it seems!
David Jacobs. Historian. Used hypnosis incorrectly and totally lost the plot but when I criticised him, as I did Hopkins: "You cannot criticise an academic" -Hopkins and Jacobs, of course, "put bums on seats -sold tickets to events and made MUFON etc lots of money.
A small group promote Orbs and rods so that was another big thing. Explain the orbs or criticise the "stars" and "you cannot do that!"
Luis Elizondo and the whole counter intelligence take over of Ufology where they have gotten people to stop calling UFOs by that term -we MUST call them "UAP" -and people are! These are people who have and are suppressing UFO reports and lying and having followers in Ufology attack people who for decades have tried to break into the secrecy. The truth seekers are now the enemy!
Yes I can criticise and ask for evidence just as you can. NO ONE is beyond question when it comes to research whether UFOs or not. Nothing is peer reviewed in Ufology. With my own work absolutely no one is interested in papers on CE3Ks or the other work I have done for almost 50 years now. Therefore I present it in books. No big words (anything like that I explain because it is important that everyone knows what is going on and understands. Every case I write about or present is fully referenced which means that the data can be peer reviewed and the original sources double and triple checked.
Here then is my assessment of Dr. Vallee and it is based on having read his books, watching interviews and reading what people who have met him say.
When I became one of "The New Guard" of Ufology in 1974 I was impressionable. But there was one thing I believed and that was that science needed to get involved in Ufology. Dear old Lionel Beer and his book service quickly supplied me with the two books that were must reading for serious Ufologists and after all the Adamski crap and decades of Contactees being the source of all technical UFO data.
The books were Challenge To Science: The UFO Enigma and Anatomy of a Phenomenon: UFOs In Space and both were written by Jacques Vallee (Challenge To Science being co-authored by Janine Vallee). Vallee, we were told was French. He was a scientist. And France was often far ahead of the rest of the civilised world and the French Academy of Science was, quite literally, the scientific body to be held in awe.
Vallee was a French scientist. That made these books far more alluring than a bag of chips to a young man (I am told that I should have gone from model soldiers to girls but I got side-tracked into UFOs).
Vallee was also young and willing to speak out so kudos to him. I sat down and read both books and tried to discuss them with others but found few had read them mainly because they were "a bit too technical"!
I digested most books back then as much as I do now and I would often sit back later and go over things I had read and early in the morning I was still awake (my sleep pattern is...no sleep pattern!) and suddenly I realised something. I noted errors -in a graph for one thing but other things suddenly hit me.
I asked Franklyn Daviun-Wilson and we went over the books. I still have, after decades, Franklyn's copies and he annotated the actual pages (in all my books you will see LOTS of post-it notes) because writing in books was an old fashion thing -I have examples from 19th and early 20th century natural history and science books and so on. It was mainly so that you had your own thoughts on the actual page rather than later sitting there and thinking "What page was it I queried? What did I query??". Anyway, here are notes at the front of Anatomy of a Phenomenon:
My own note on Vallee's graph:
When I was putting together data for The UFO Report I threw out Desmond Leslie and George Adamski's fictitious The Flying Saucers Have Landed but felt Vallee's work was still "safe". Then I started finding that I was correcting things like dates, etc. and I realised that this scientist who was bringing UFO research respectability was far from scientific in his approach to gathering and presenting data. it was quite bad.
Of course I did leap at getting a copy, from Lionel again, of Passport to Magonia: From Folklore To Flying Saucers because though I am a "nuts and bolts" kind of fella I am a sceptical researcher. I do not say "Folklore...flying saucers???" I keep an open mind and I read what is presented and then form my own opinion.
Before I forget; Dr J. Allen Hynek gave his approval of Vallee and that helped get Vallee's name "out there" to Ufologists who generally ignored anyone who was not British or American (there is a long list of French Ufologists who Vallee stands on the shoulders of but who are unknown outside of France). Hynek made all the introductions and to read Vallee later talk down at Hynek and display an egotism -he apparently got quite angry and stroppy at one point because someone got interviewed and he was not. All the information is online but Vallee also shows his ego and arrogance at times in his own books.
Passport To Magonia I read through and noted the various UFO related entity cases but then realised a big problem. Sources -or lack of them. A report is given but no source of the account or "a friend told me of..." which needs back-up. Who was this person? Were they a scientist or a lay person? Seeing a "pan-like entity" could have been an altered state incident or even hallucination. Witness confidentiality yes but why should we accept this as a genuine incident?
I have never met Jacques Vallee and so my opinions are not based on whether he is a "pleasant guy" or not. His Catalogue of UFO Landings is pointless as it contains known hoaxes and misidentifications at the very time they were added. Quimper-Corentin, France, 1620: never happened as Vallee described. Alencon, France, 1790: UFO and entity case -never happened and no report in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences as Vallee claimed:and he could have checked!
And to still use known hoax cases and cases proven to have other explanations and cite them as evidence to back up his personal theories. Unforgivable.
For some cases cited there are no original sources given and we are expected to accept those reports and (those very few people who do research) are expected to base work and analyses on these? No. That is not how science works and Vallee who loves to keep pointing out (and hearing others stating) that he is a scientist knows that.
The number of Ufologists who go like giddy girls who have just met their favourite boy band when they state "I met Dr Vallee" or discussed something with Vallee is almost ridiculous. The fact that Vallee's data is included in catalogues without anyone checking it is the worship of dogma.
For years I kept contacting Ted Phillips to try to get some data on all of his Physical Trace evidence and the test results -I have asked his colleague Farrairo- nothing. How can you claim to be gathering scientific evidence on the phenomena (NOT phenomenon) to present to science and yet as far as I can find Phillips submitted no papers or test results for peer review from the 1960s until the time of his death (let's not go to the Marley Woods fiasco). Looking at what I eventually found of Phillips Trace catalogue contained entries that cannot be accepted as evidence. Anything prior to 1900 and up until trace samples began being gathered (1950s to a degree) and that you cannot see with your own eyes or have no test results on is junk data. Useless. Phillips was another worshipper of Vallee and his catalogue listing includes Vallee sourced stories; again the known fakes.
Vallee was the inspiration for the French scientist in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So what? That fact is cited by Ufologists and wannabe Ufologists on You Tube and elsewhere as if it is one of the greatest achievements ever. A French film director played a French scientist...not named Vallee. Dr J Allan Hynek was a consultant and IN the movie. (that is never mentioned).
Vallee, had he carried out first hand analysis of UFO reports would have seen that there is an unexplained natural phenomenon (I termed UNP back in 1983) and the reports of what appeared to be solid, constructed craft (whether hoax or genuine). Then you have the misidentifications, fraudulent interpretation of known phenomenon and insufficient data due to no investigation taking place. Instead he states that after all these decades he has no idea what "UFOs" are (his connection with some involved in the recent Elizondo affair is worrying) but strongly believes or hopes that they are multidimensional in some way because extra terrestrial "would be boring".
The "great man" has "no idea what UFOs are" but knowing better than the rest of us concludes multidimensional. Which sounds like an egotist with his head up his own ass -the fact that people buy his published and very over priced diaries must be a great boost to his ego.
There is one photograph which, I think, sums up Vallee.
Born in Winterbourne on the outskirts of Bristol, now part of South Gloucestershire, Frankly with with his parents and brother (Warwick) at the "Villa de France" which is a grand name but I believe a small farm back in the 1970s. Franklyn did not get on with either his brother or father and rebelled by using his mother's maiden name (Davin) to make the surname Davin-Wilson.
Franklyn was a graduate of Bristol Boys Grammar School and it seems a few graduates could be labelled eccentric in some way -I met at least one of his peers who not only looked like him but had the same mannerism in speaking (a proper education) and also smoked his cigarette, like Frankly, the "way gentlemen do".
He hated wasps. Apparently when he was a child a swarm had chased him and he had to take refuge in a farm shed. Wasps getting too close where not killed; Franklyn clapped his hands close to them and they were stunned until he moved or moved them. One he accidentally killed looked odd to him so he took it to Bristol City Museum where it was checked and found to be a new species -I assumed it carries his name.
I know Franklyn spent some time in the British Army and not sure whether he was attached to or actually in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), He was a member (I later found out a founder) of the British Computer Society, hence usage of MBCS in official letters. In the early 1970s he campaigned for the use of computers in UFO studies and even designed a punch card system specifically to get the most data from UFO reports. He presented the idea to both the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and Contact (UK) and although Brinsley le poer Trench (later Lord Clancarty) thought the idea had "great merit" he "regretted" that no funds were available for such an undertaking. BUFORA, calling for the need for more scientific investigation gave Franklyn the run around until finally admitting that "Maybe it's something for the future when the situation has improved more" (ie: no money.
Franklyn also championed computer analysis of UFO photographs which, again, no UK group was interested in. "They are just clubs: we need science!" he told me in frustration.
Franklyn could go from cheeky playfulness to livid if angered. He was reading through a copy of a book by Ian Ridpath (astronomer) and yelled out "***** piece of crap!" and threw it across the room. He immediately apologised as he like my collection of "very interesting books". At one point in the late 1970s he suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown and admitted himself to Manor Park Hospital. I visited daily all day until he started to recover. Due to his breakdown I managed to see how the mind could affect the body and that helped with later UFO research.
I once saw a photo of Franklyn as a young man and had to look twice; he was thickset, had a very thick black beard and black hair swept back. Unfortunately, respiratory and kidney problems kicked in and he lost weight and hair. I visited him several times to find him red faced and gasping for breath and with a cough that got me concerned enough, along with the cracking coming from his chest, to tell him I was going to phone for a doctor (you could in those days). I knew that he had discussed the matter with his doctor, I had even chatted with the doctor, and I knew he had suggested Franklyn try "a special med". I found out that this was cannabis -illegal in those days for the doctor to suggest and Franklyn to buy but he knew a semi hippy couple and got cannabis from them. He knew my stance on drugs which is why he kept the use quiet (I had thought the smell was coming from a flat below on a couple occasions (Franklyn lived in old flats on Hotwells Road at the time). He could hardly "roll up" as he hacked out more coughing and gasped for breath so I had to roll him aa joint on the understanding he never tell anyone I had. I watched as within ten minutes the cough lessened and his breathing grew better. After that I started looking at the medical use of cannabis.
Franklyn scribbled notes in various coloured inks -ha had a system that he once explained but forget after all of this time. He had a large file of original research on Astronomers and UFOs, Unidentified Orbital Objects, Mars Mysteries and so on. I learnt one thing from Franklyn which has stuck with me all of my life.
I was showing him some research work when he visited my home and read through it. "You have two references for each case" he said. I happily nodded and he then looked at me and said: "Get three more. Get as many references as you can and cross check what each says and if you can go to each source if you cannot get to the (witness) source!" Fully referenced is what I have done since and it was a good lesson to learn as I found how "very reliable" sources turned out not to be. It's why I do a lot of archive research and find so many photos, items or original sources "long lost" -it helps with peer review, too.
Franklyn could not type to save his life whereas I had been typing since I was 14 years old. He had gone to a pro typing agency to have his report on the Mirage of Bristol That Appears in Alaska. It was expensive and so I got roped in, through vary devious means (telling me how good and fast my typing was!).
In 1983 I was admitted to hospital and on getting home found that Franklyn was finally going to have his kidney operation and it seemed to work and over Christmas dinner we discussed the major projects planned for 1984 on. He bid me a cheery farewell that evening and I had no idea that was to be the last time I would see him.
On getting back from work at the start of the new year my grandmother told me that a very polite young man who had bowed when greeting her (I knew that was Franklyn's hippy friend) had called around to speak to me. And when I finally met up with Ron and his partner it was to be told Franklyn had died on new year's day. He had apparently been feeling "a bit under the weather" so retired to bed just before midnight. When he was not up early next morning Rob checked and found Franklyn had died. At tat time, even after a major operation, warfarin was not prescribed to prevent blood clots and had it been prescribed then the blood clot that caused Franklyn's heart attack would not have formed.
I was then presented with a problem. I had no transport and the landlord wanted Franklyn's stuff removed within two days or it was going to be dumped in a skip. I ended up walking across the city and then a return was with three crammed bin liner bags and they were falling apart. At one point an old chap came out of his house and looked as I tried to push the papers back into the bin liners "I know what you need, son" he said and then went back inside to re-emerge a couple minutes later with a wheel barrow and he trusted me, a stranger, to return it. The next mile home was sheer joy! I unloaded the bags and returned the wheelbarrow.
Franklyn had been a committee member of the British Flying Saucer Bureau and, with his work, a founding member of Project Grey Book. His whole outlook was to get science involved in UFO research. A good friend and an unknown British Ufologist these days. His archives are safely stored with my own.
Another founder, again a forgotten Ufologist, was Dave Cowdy who helped form Manchester Flying Saucer Research in the4 1950s had moved to Bristol and died a few years before from a heart attack (Dave taught me a lot about identifying fake UFO photos -his records and photos were lost when he died suddenly and the council moved in and ignored his written request (which a neighbour also told them of) that if anything happened to him I should be contacted to collect his papers.
Last month I posted about my CE3K/AE archives and how I really wanted to scan all of the pages and save onto storage devices so that, eventually, the AFU in Sweden, CUFOS in the United States and The British UFO Archive would all have the information. Someone looked at the files and told me that it would cost £30,000 and three years to carry out the task full time.
Since that time I have added even more report pages to the U. S. and a lot to the UK archives. Same person asked how many more pages so I told him. Apparently he know estimates that scanning would take approximately 4 years.
I will write here and now that I cannot see the scanning taking place. just adding the new data has taken two ink cartridge refills, more copier paper and protective sleeves for the pages and I am also looking at the other pages that need copying I estimate at least three more ink cartridge refills and a lot of paper. With the books and AOP Journals not selling I have to limit things to what I can afford so the files will continue to be built up but bit-by-bit.
I have always held Dr Mack above and away from Hopkins and Jacobs when it comes to abduction reports. I watched this video and for the second time in a week my heart sank.
I have been reappraising certain researchers and stumbled upon a couple items making me question Mack's approach and whether he had an agenda of some kind. Diaz (below) was recognised as a hoaxster fairly early on and Mack's claim that Diaz made no financial gain from his claims (books etc) could easily be challenged.
That the "craft" he photographed resembled a very local type of glass lamp (below) only adds to the hoax claim.
Above the local glassware and below an alien space craft. Honest -look iut even has a light beam coming from it and not a support you debunkers!!!
That Mack considered Diaz to be genuine and his well schooled on the subject sons to also be supporting their dad and truthful..Mack's credibility as someone investigating accounts takes a nose dive.
In both my books and blogs I have commented about this absolutely silly "where are they?" remark.
I published this on Sunday, 21st June 2020:
Nasa funds major new search for signs of life elsewhere in the universe
Article by Andrew Griffin of The Independent. My comments follow:
Nasa is funding a major new search for alien life elsewhere in the universe.
The project – which is being run by scientists at Harvard and the University of Rochester – will scan the skies for signs of life known as technosignatures. Those are indications of alien technologies, which would be revealed to us either on purpose or by accident.
The research is the first time in three decades that Nasa has given a grant to look for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and the first time it has ever tried to do so without looking for radio technosignatures.
Researchers believe that while life elsewhere in the universe may look very different, it is likely to be identifiable by similar signatures as those given off by life on Earth. As such, they hope that they will be able to spot indications that alien civilisations elsewhere are using the kind of technology we are already using, or could theoretically use in the future.
"Technosignatures relate to signatures of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess," said Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard. "Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites."
Astronomers believe that the search could have more success than in the past because humanity has made great strides in finding worlds elsewhere in the universe, and understanding whether they could serve as home to life elsewhere. With those discoveries, researchers should now be able to know more accurately where they should be looking.
"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has always faced the challenge of figuring out where to look. Which stars do you point your telescope at and look for signals?" said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the primary recipient of the grant. "Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form. The game has changed."
At first, the researchers will look for two main signatures: solar panels, and pollutants. Both represent key and identifiable ways that humanity has changed the Earth, and so any alien civilisation might do the same.
It is likely that other civilisations would look to harness the energy of their sun as they look for new ways to power their technology, for instance. If that was done in the form of solar panels, we might be able to see reflections being sent through the universe.
"The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, hosts a habitable planet, Proxima b. The planet is thought to be tidally locked with permanent day and night sides," said Loeb. "If a civilization wants to illuminate or warm up the night side, they would place photovoltaic cells on the day side and transfer the electric power gained to the night side."
Likewise, the chemicals released as any alien civilisation builds its infrastructure is likely to be possible to pick up. By looking for chemicals that are unlikely to be produced naturally, we might be able to see that sign across the universe." End
"Today we are fairly confident that the Milky Way is probably between 100,000 and 150,000 light years across. The observable Universe is, of course, much larger. According to current thinking it is about 93 billion light years in diameter"
In 40 years time we will -or you might- hear "We've not found anything yet but...."
Firstly, what if an extra terrestrial civilisation does not want to light up its planet at night? If they do it may well be that they have power sources we cannot imagine and use those to light up any cities or areas it needs to. Don't get me wrong; it is one thing to look for and after all but what if they detect "something" because as most prominent astronomers like to say as part of their mantra:"It's anything but aliens" Odd signals: "It's anything but aliens".
My favourite part of this is: "...the chemicals released as any alien civilisation builds its infrastructure is likely to be possible to pick up" which means that if you are very -VERY- lucky and everything is just about "peachy" they might possibly detect the chemicals. But there is still going to be that quote "It's anything but aliens".
The number of people in the astronomical and space community who are terrified of confirming any form of alien life from microbe to higher (microbe is "meh. Possibly acceptable" -and that we know from findings in our own solar system.
People have this idea, possibly brought about by the various planetary charts they have seen since childhood, that you leave Earth and it is a straight line to Mars, then Jupiter, then Saturn and so on. Almost as though the route from Mercury to Pluto (there, I wrote it) is a straight line -an interplanetary highway of sorts. It isn't. Neither is the universe linear: Earth is a grain of sand somewhere in 85 million tons sandbox.
"At least astronomers are trying" someone might say. However, they are looking into deep space -93 billion light years of it. We know that with radio signals you can expect them to take many thousands of years to get to the target "area" of space. Say a civilisation picks up that signal? It will take thousands of years to get the response. We mioght not still be here -in fact scientists say they have sent signals to areas where any intelligent life may have ceased to exist.
If I type a letter then put it in an air-tight sealed container and bury it ten feet (3m) somewhere in the Somerset countryside, miles from any buildings and with no signs indicating where it is located....how long will it be before anyone finds the container let alone reads the letter? Welcome to sending signals into space.
To put it bluntly, we know sod-all about our own solar system. Asteroids skip past us without being detecyted until a few days before. I am sure that the money given to this new "search" could go toward an asteroid defence system. Or, perhaps we ought to concentrate on probing the planets of our system before probing deep space?
Oumuamua showed just how astronomers and scientists can get hysterical -arguing, fighting and name-calling and all done publicly because they must have their five minutes (and it might lead to some profitable TV work, know what I mean?). Ufologists...I exclude from any debate on the subject as even now they are still using the PAINTING of what Omuamua might look like as though it was an actual photo -and they are picking up details on it!
In my book Contact -Encounters with Extra-Terrestrial Entities I wrote about why the French space agency has a unit that looks at UFO reports and the French have investigated and catalogued many UFO cases since the 1950s. Had such open policies been adopted in the UK, United States, Soviet Union/Russia we might be far more enlightened today.
I do NOT believe that an alien space craft crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, definitely never did at Aurora. There was no UFO crash near Nottingham, UK in the 1980s and that was proven beyond a doubt. Rendlesham Forest never saw a UFO crash. The whole "Grey alien abduction phenomenon" as made into a pop culture thing by Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs using very dubious data is just that -a modern pop culture myth. And I write that know that there are certain cases that seem genuine (but do not involve "Greys").
Any intelligent life from elsewhere watching Earth is not going to want to make any open contact. Our best chances of encountering any intelligent life is in near space. Signalling and searching for signals in nearer solar systems -forget the next galaxy over. We need a large number of small probes that can send out a repeatable signal but also listen for such signals.
I would not expect official government bodies to do that (just the mere discussion as to the name of an advisory panel and all the ego pushing would take years. It needs someone with a lot of money and aerospace interest to do this and cut through red tape.Look at Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite system.
I hate to say it but this new search seems to be yet another "free meal-ticket for life" venture that professional astronomers love to get.
Unfortunately, I do not have thousands of years to wait and see if "anything" might be detected.
I ought to add that since the 1950s some French scientists have looked at UFO reports and AE encounters and these are subject to serious investigation. In the United States all such reports were derided by Ufologists until they could jump on a publicvity bandwagon and then , as now, "there are these little guys -what's that all about?" Alleged 35 year Ufology "veterans" have no idea about CE3K reports because they spend months or even years looking into reports of oddly moving pinpoints of light in the sky. They should be asking and looking into who or what is in control of anything resembling a constructed craft.
Hopkins and Jacobs did untold damage to the subject.
Bothe James and Coral Lorenzen realised that if there were alien craft flying around then the one thing that should be studied are the reports of the "occupants" or "Ufonauts". Dr J. Allen Hynek stated that we could probably learn more from these reports. That trio were ignored.
When an astronomer or scientist (they like to give themselves grand sounding names) states "There is no evidence" they are either knowingly lying or simply buffoons. Ask one whether they have seriously looked away from the jokey newspaper reports to carry out a serious investigation of all the data out there and they will respond "Of course not -its all hallucinations or psychological!" That is when you know they are afraid. No open minded, sceptical scientist refuses to look at the data to study and draw their own conclusions. How could these scientific buffoons answer these questions:
1) How does one, possibly two, people go for a walk in the countryside miles from any town or industry and receive high enough doses of radiation that they become ill and some have radiation burns -not the Ufologist saying that but qualified doctors.
2) How do three women driving home get pursued by a craft and suffer missing time plus a host of physiological effects as well as post traumatic stress disorder? Not just that but unconnected independent observers report seeing a vehicle being chased along the road by an object as described by the women? How does a women picking berries on a quiet Sunday in 1954 France scream out, collapse and suffer from medically diagnose mental shock -and people at the time observe a strange flying object and those nerar to where the woman collapsed heard a strange noise after she screamed out? How do you explain a man whop encounters a UFO in the Canadian wilderness and receives radiation burns -the case is fully investigated by authorities and is, decades on, still unsolved?
I could go on and ask why these "scientists" will not ask fellow scientists such as those in France who have investigated for data? Because they don't want their colleagues giggling at them? Scientists standing by their principles and the evidence in the past have been tortured and executed but the "silly scientists" are living in fear of someone giggling at them? That is a jobs worth NOT a scientist. In this day and age private contact could be made with other scientists.
3) The current false "UAP disclosure" is just that. We will learn nothing new. However, SETI astronomers as well as other professionals could, as the subject is taken far more seriously now, join the other scientists who are openly looking into UFOs and not hug people such as Prof. Brian Cox who utters rude responses when asked about UFOs and has made the most unscientific statement I have ever heard from a mkodern day "scientist": there is no alien life in this or any galaxy.
If anyone mentions Fermi remind them he was talking when spaceflight was not around and if he had the data available today he might well be stating "They're all over the place!"
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