Researcher Roundtable: Whose Weirdness Is It, Anyway?

By Greg Bishop

One of the first lessons of Buddhism, certain kinds of physics, and the courtroom is that people will see what they expect to see. Robert Anton Wilson gives the example of a university law or psych class (I can’t recall which) where someone runs in unexpectedly during the lecture and tries to stab one of the students. A great majority of the witnesses will swear that the criminal used a knife until the professor brings him back with a banana held in an upraised hand. This error in perception more or less applies as well to things that we haven’t seen or experienced yet.

Not to labor the point too much, but Wilson also recalled in an interview that there was a UFO case he had heard of in which one of the witnesses recalled a longish-shaped UFO landing, while the other said it was nothing but a school-bus going by. Although some may argue about “abduction screen memories” and the like, it is more likely that these people saw some “whatsit,” some “x,” and filled in the details later. Jenny Randles introduced the term “Oz Factor” many years ago to describe the indescribable events and atmosphere that surround a UFO or Fortean event. Part of this phenomenon is the inability of the participants to recall any details or just as likely, the entire episode. The reasons may lie with the cause of the event, be it intelligent or not, but the fault may also lie within ourselves.

The reason for this may be that we have nowhere to put the experience in our mental files. Joe McMoneagle, in his excellent book “Mind Trek” describes the mental processes involved in perception and recognition as a series of millisecond decisions that the brain must make when processing sensory information. Before the impression reaches conscious awareness and recall, it has already been edited to conform to memory and expectation. With nowhere to “put” an anomalous experience, many people will just edit it out.

In the last 10-15 years, the UFO abduction scenario has come to be accepted by most of the population as a possibility or a good story at the very least. The extraterrestrial idea has been with us far longer, and just as a tale will change with each telling, something as weird and abnormal as a flying saucer (or bigfoot, or rampaging aliens) probably went through a lot of interpretation even before the witnesses are interviewed. These experiences are not shared by a large part of the population (Budd Hopkins and the Roper Poll notwithstanding,) and more importantly, have been rejected by the dominant culture, which is reflected in the media culture. Of course the same media tells us what we can and can’t see as well, which adds to the morass of misinterpretation and outright denial.

Media outlets have given us even more places to “hang” a weird experience. In the name of the newest fad, strange experiences are chewed up and spat out to innocent eyes (and psyches.) Many in the UFO field have thrown up their hands in exasperation over the “contamination of the database,” but in a rush to “explain” things, the UFO community joins the larger culture in its misinterpretations. They can’t help it. People must have things explained to them in a way that can be understood. Merging of the self and the “other” (whatever it is that is encountered in an anomalous experience) is not easily accepted or grasped in a western-public school-scientific worldview. This is starting to change, however.

What part of our brains are activated by the anomalous, or by the numinous? Psychologist Mario Pazzaglini used to remark that UFO researchers had little understanding or respect for the unconscious. This is certainly part of the equation when someone comes to us with an inexplicable event, but whatever is roiling around in the vicinity when some perplexed soul happens upon it probably won’t be understood anytime soon. Theories include time windows, bilocation, hallucination brought on by magnetic fields, and the ever popular “misinterpretation.” (Actually, if something is “misinterpreted,” it means that there must be a normal or nearly normal explanation for an event. What gives some people the omniscience to declare what that might be is sometimes laughable, sometimes plausible, but shuts the door on further interest.)

We can perceive more than we want to let on. The evidence for this is actually overwhelming, but more shepherding by forward-looking but classically-trained (but not classically shackled) parties may eventually bring a sea change in popular awareness. Perhaps we might be able to see whatever the “other” in an anomalous experience may be. We might also see that it has an inexorable and intimate link with ourselves, and in some ways, is us.

Author of the book Project Beta, Los Angeles Radio Host, Excluded Middle Magazine Editor, Project Censored Award Winner, Conspiracy Zone contributor, Regional Representative for the Centre for Fortean Zoology, Author of Numerous Magazine Articles, Professional Judge Ito Impersonator, and … Kook. Greg’s interests run the gamut of “Alien Writing”, Consciousness, ParaPolitics, UFO Contactees, Remote Viewing, Fortean Phenomena, CryptoZoology and much much more.

See Also Disinfo.com’s Dossier

And his own website … www.ExcludedMiddle.com and blog … www.UFOmystic.com and the new website for his radioshow www.RadioMisterioso.com

Researcher Roundtable: The Shape Shifters

by Jim Keith

Perception of UFOs and whatever-they-are that inhabits them has morphed numerous times this century due to the influence of the various forms of media, so that one might well wonder if we are not dealing with shape-shifters here, rather than a concrete phenomenon. Depictions of alien craft for the first half of this century–in magazines like Thrilling Wonder and Amazing–were primarily rockets, until the famous flying saucer coinage that came about after the Kenneth Arnold sighting. Similarly, the prototypical “grey alien” image did not really appear on the scene, in the public consciousness, until after the release of the movies Invaders From Mars (in which the big headed alien had tentacles, as I recall), and Invasion of the Saucer Men in the early 1950s.

Those films launched the image of the grey alien in fairly realized form into our dreams and into our faces. One wonders what the creatures at Roswell would have looked like if it hadn’t been for Hollywood. Not to say that one could not find any examples of spacelings that looked like standard greys in the millions of pulp SF pages that had earlier appeared, or in the perhaps hundreds of other SF and monster films that came out following the dropping of the atomic bomb, but until then extraterrestrials tended to be depicted as humans or grotesquely-distorted monsters not so different than the Frankenstein or Golem mold; they hadn’t taken on the sleek, insectoid look.

At this point, the true believer might even go so far as to cite bald-headed, bug-eyed images from rock pictograms or ancient religious depictions as proof that the greys have been with us for a long time, but the truth is that one can find any sort of imagery in such mythological representations if you have the patience to look. If you went looking for beings with square or triangular heads and pinpointed eyes you would find those, too, at which time the ever-fertile mind of the true believer would respond that, well, in this galaxy no doubt there are square and triangular–and octagonal-headed! Yes, octagonal headed!–aliens, too, and the thoughtful student of the topic would give up in exasperation and repair to the bar, which he had been looking for an excuse to do, anyway.

In fact the prototypical grey alien physiog didn’t become our primary characterization of extraterrestrials until years after the mid-20th century UFO flap, possibly after the widespread promotion of the Betty and Barney Hill event. The Hill contact also seems to have influenced our perception of what aliens do, since before that time the alien abduction and full body cavity search motif was quite rare. Until then, when humanfolk consorted with aliens, it was usually because the aliens wanted to take them on a grand tour of the solar system, or had some wacky homilies to impart about discontinuing the use of non-organic fertilizers, or some such. Now, seemingly, the aliens have gotten a better handle on what they have in mind, more or less discontinuing the grand tour due to cost-effectiveness, and instead focusing on gynecological studies. They have in fact, it seems, abducted and made free with virtually half the attendees of any UFO convention, and heaven knows on what planet they keep all those milk carton kids.

The human government/alien collaboration and alien underground bases theme is also quite rare until the Paul Bennewitz disinformation scam, and the popularizations of no-doubt-sincere (read that last phrase in the voice of Richard Nixon) John Lear, Bob Lazar, and Bill Cooper that were rapidly impressed into the public consciousness by that no-doubt-sincere latterday P.T. Barnum, Art Bell, and his ilk.

There is no question that the media influences our perceptions of UFOs and their denizens, and will continue to do so. The real questions are what is the real nature of the shape-shifters who lurk behind the media sideshow, what will be their next incarnation in our consciousness–and will I have visitation rights with my half-human offspring? My guess is that grey aliens will be with us for quite a long while, since the “grey” insectoid image is an intensely effective visual distillation and synthesis that would be hard to top. As I pointed out in Saucers of the Illuminati, it is perhaps the simplest depiction of a recognizable face possible: An inverted triangle of three dots dictates the eyes and mouth, with visual harmony demanding the bulbous head. We surely have a ways to go before such a striking characterization is discarded by whatever subconscious–or conscious?–mechanism weaves on the loom of our dreams. At the same time, the proliferation of puerile UFO and paranormal imagery that we currently experience in movies, TV, books, and the radio suggests that we may relatively soon see the exhaustion of the usefulness and the interest of the alien motif. We may be building to the point where we require–or the diktats of media require?–some new conceptual touchstone for humans to wrap their wits around, possibly of a quasi-religious nature because of the turning of the calendar.

What will it be? That remains to be seen, but my sense is that it will evoke a groan and a shaking of the head for the old timers who have lived through George Adamski, the Hills, the many skull farmers who do it with less panache than the Church of the Subgenius, and all the rest. Certainly whatever new imagery and mythos that springs forth will be both fad and frenzy; but with any luck there will be a few among us who are able to place the images in context.

Jim Keith is the author of such books as:

• Gemstone File, (1992)
• Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History, Feral House, (1993)
• Black Helicopters over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order, (1994)
• Casebook on Alternative 3: UFO’s, Secret Societies and World Control’, (1994)
• Saucers of the Illuminati, (under pseudonym Jay Katz) (1995)
• The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro (with Kenn Thomas) (1996)
• Okbomb! Conspiracy and Cover-Up, (1996)
• Casebook on the Men in Black, (1997)
• Mind Control, World Control: The Encyclopedia of Mind Control, Adventures Unlimited Press, 1997
• Black Helicopters II: The End Game Strategy’, (1998)
• Biowarfare In America’, Illuminet Press, (1999)
• Mass Control: Engineering Human Consciousness, (2003)

Researcher Roundtable: The UFO is a Psychic Bomb

by SMiles Lewis

So, “are we being prepared?” Hell yes! The entirety of the human collective is preparing itself for the inevitable: overt contact with the probable multitudes of non-human intelligences / consciousnesses extant within the Universe. It is the urge-to-destiny of every lifeform to go beyond the confines of its original evolutionary environs and become a part of the galactic evolutionary process. It is this inevitability for which the human collective unconscious (and its governing hierarchies of morphic consciousnesses: local, national, global) is preparing itself. It does this through our imaginal experiencing of the alien other, and all aspects of our confrontations with the unknown.

The ufo phenomenon exists in a synergistic cybernetic interface with humanity. Whatever the true nature of UFOs, they interact with us within several different milieus, all of which are influenced by the media and culture. This media and culture in turn feeds back into the phenomena in a continuous cycle.

In a discussion on the UFO UpDates elist about the value of regressive hypnosis in ufo close encounter / abduction cases Jenny Randles said:

“The evidence of psychology – at least as I read it – is at best split and I find biased against hypnosis being used as a way to uncover even say a 75% truth level.

So – if we accept that 25% of all abduction testimony is fantasy then which bits do we use to construct our ongoing theories and worldviews? Especially as these feed back into the collective unconscious and inevitably create false data in the next generation of abductees?

Even if some true memory is emerging – and I suspect it is, by the way – the constant over use of hypnosis is simply diluting the level of truth in the cases that emerge by adding in more and more fantasy. By now I suspect the data emerging is so contaminated that it is dangerous to make any real assumptions from it.”

In this way the very nature of accessing the human unconscious via hypnosis muddies the data pool of UFO encounters. This example is focused on hypnosis as the mechanism of dilution but human waking consciousness could be arguably as diluting when confronting an unknown. Time and again we see how the shocking nature of humanity’s confrontations with the denizens of the dark nights of the unfathomable abyss throws back our unconscious enculturated ideas about what these denizens are like. For the human mind will utilize any and all imagery at its disposal to fill in the blanks of the incongruous and anomalous sense patterns it must organize from moment to moment.

Dr. Greg Little has written about the probability of the 80-90% IFO (Identified Flying Object) rate among ufo reports being the main instigator of the cultural and media propagated UFO myth, ie-the haystack of IFOs are the stories most people hear told about UFOs. Just as ufo researcher Dr. Jacques Vallee has suggested, the stranger the encounter the less likely it is to be widely reported. Thus abduction researchers who confine their studies to cases with a specific structure or descriptive element help to further tune-in the specific morphic field that represents that type of experiencing of the phenomena and any attendant entities.

Several theories have been put forth over the years which implicate human consciousness in the effecting of quantum physical processes. Human observation can influence the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanical systems such that a true mind / matter interface exists. The evidence for this seems nearly incontrovertible.

This possibility has led researchers like Thomas Bearden to speculate on and attempt to quantify the physics of paranormal manifestations as a sort of tuning in of different possible quantum potential realities. In his physics, the research of Dean Radin and the ideas of Carl Jung we see the possibility of the human collective unconscious manifesting consensus reality according to some sort of “critical mass / hundredth monkey / morphic resonance” hypothesis. There is evidence that the focusing of human consciousness can increase the ingression of novelty through a decrease in the randomness of random number generators. This may also be attenuated by the local morphological terrain. In other words, different geographic vectors and social / cultural “boundaries” may actually affect the local psychic environment to predispose experiencers towards certain types of paranormal phenomena.

For example, all pre-modern cultures have myths of contact with non-human beings (gods, angels, demons, ancestors, etc.) but with the rise of Modern Western communications we see the spread of the post modern experiencing of these phenomena in the form of UFO/ET encounters. All types of encounters are still possible and still experienced around the world. However, even before the image of the big-headed big-blackeyed grey alien was spread via western physical communications media the image started spreading through the collective unconscious.

All this means is that people in say, a Hispanic Catholic community, are perhaps equally likely nowadays to encounter the Virgin Mary, as they might be to meet space aliens. Whereas in pre-modern era encounters they may have been much more likely to encounter something which would fit into their pre-existing mythos. Or, perhaps a rational atheistic westerner, encountering an unknown luminous phenomena in an area of indigenous-religious importance would have a classic experience explicated within the prevailing geographic arena’s mythos / paradigm. The variability of psychic factors is still little understood but there do seem to be these “hundredth monkey / critical mass” issues to contend with.

If any of this is possible then we certainly have a quagmire on our hands. For if the fantastic fictions of our television and print media can feedback upon and influence our images and ideas of the unknown then we will continue to have a harder and harder time of sorting the wheat from the chaff of non-human intelligences communicating through the UFO encounter.

Perhaps even more important, though, are the implications of the media’s continued use of increasingly dreamtime like (and thus paranormal) imagery. The coincidental rise of this trend in the shadow of the internet and all it portends is no mere coincidence. Humanity is preparing the evolutionary ladder for the rise of human consciousness out of and away from the confines of its own physical shackles. This is a dangerous trend, for in this evolution to some other organism we see our own probable extinction.

It is these very issues which are being raised by the latest batch of cinematic consumerism in films like 12 Monkeys, The Truman Show, Dark City, The Matrix, The Eleventh Floor, eXistenZ, etc. For they at once open our minds to the possibilities of limitless mind, virtual reality, nanotech, artificial intelligence and all their attendant ethical issues while often degenerating into simple guns and kung-fu action movies. The overarching theme here is “Question Reality”; a refrain from the sixties and seventies which has found a renewed vigor in these post Phil Dickian times.

As an announcer for the email audio zine GroundZero once said, “Get ready, because very soon you will be called upon to decide what is real and what isn’t.” Choose your reality wisely, or it just might come back to haunt you.

ANOMALY magazine is proud to present the resurrection of The Elfis Network’s Researcher Dialogue project. Years ago the ELFIS Portal to Possible Paradigms launched a short lived section to its online E.L.F. Infested Spaces journal called Researcher Dialogue. Within that section of the online zine was to be a regular Question and Answer session for every issue, wherein a question on anomalous phenomena would be posed to the panelists composed of invited Kooks, each a noted Author and Researcher in some field of Anomaly Studies.

Among the first round of Invited Panelists was ParaPolitical Researcher Jim Keith, Paranormal Publisher and Author Greg Bishop, then Elfis Editor Mr. Baggins, Elfis Founder SMiles Lewis, Crackpot Historian Adam Gorightly, Hauntings Investigator Dennis Hauck, Local Investigator I.M. Aliensun, Devil’s Advocate Tim Brigham, Mysterious Investigator Eugenia Macer-Story, CyberFortean NeuroAnthropologist Steve Mizrach, Excluded Middlers Robert Larson and Peter Stenshoel, and Veteran Pagan Peacenik Thom Laaki.

In 1999 when the Elfis Network launched the Researcher Dialogue, the initial question for our panelists was …

“Given the proliferation in recent years of ufo / paranormal / dreamtime imagery in the media (VW’s “Reverse Engineered From UFOs” ad comes glaringly to mind), do you feel that this is actually changing or affecting the phenomenon itself? Is the mass-media consciousness causing the UFO phenomenon to change the way it interfaces with us?”

We had a wealth of responses from a variety of perspectives:

• “Of Sex, Jackalopes and UFOs” by I.M. Aliensun
• “The Shapeshifters” by Jim Keith
• “Do We Really Want ‘The Truth’” by Mr. Baggins
• “The UFO is a Psychic Bomb” by SMiles Lewis
• “Grey Alien Rant!” by Adam Gorightly
• “A Personal Story” by Dennis Hauck
• “… the meme of little gray scientists …” by Tim Brigham
• “Another Perspective” by Eugenia Macer-Story
• CyberFortean NeuroAnthropologist Steve Mizrach
• “Are We Being Prepared?” by Peter Stenshoel
• “This is nothing new” by Thom Laaki

We’ll be posting these original responses shortly and we hope to get some responses to this original question from some of the original invitees who have only just recently begun to compose their replies … 7 years later.

In the near future we hope to pose a variety of questions to our original panelists and some new participants as well. The questions posed will be dealing with a wide range of anomalous phenomena ranging, as always, from the paranormal to the parapolitical.

What questions might we ask next? Perhaps …

• “Has there been a decrease in the number of reported ‘Alien Abductions’ post 911? What might that mean?”
• “Is corruption in politics just an anomaly, or are ParaPolitics the real norm?”
• “How many anomalies surround the attacks of September 11th? What do these anomalies tell us about the nature of the 911 Conspiracy?”
• “Do blind people have ‘Alien Abduction’ experiences? What about ‘Lucid Dreams’? How do they differ from those with 20/20 vision?”
• “What standards of evidence do our panelists find the most and least convincing regarding UFOs versus Bigfoot versus Remote Viewing versus Criminal Conspiracy?”
• “How many mentalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

These and many other questions will be explored within this new forum here at ANOMALY magazine.

- SMiles Lewis