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From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 01:10:19 -0800 Fwd Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 16:41:52 -0500 Subject: Re: 'The Threat'... > From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>, on 1/21/98 10:52 PM: > From: William White <bwhite@frognet.net> > Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: 'The Threat'... > To: updates@globalserve.net (UFO UpDates - Toronto) > Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 13:40:05 -0500 (EST) > > To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net> > > From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com> > > Subject: re: UFO UpDate: Re: 'The Threat'... > > Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:00:08 -0800 > > So while most of the list seems to think that UFO geometries > > remain largely unchanged for at least 50 years, you believe that > > they follow science-fiction fashion. > You missed my point. I wasn't referring so much to the past 50 > years as to the representation of these phenomena in the past 500 > years. I have had neither the time nor the resources to evaluate > the subject over the past 50 years, which is why I said in my > previous message I was open to new information on the subject. Well, science fiction has only really existed for a relatively short time, at least as a literature of technical extrapolation. So I can't see how UFO descriptions, which have remained relatively unchanged (given the difficulty in interpreting or assessing the credibility of older sources) could follow SF fashion. Still, a basic review of the UFO sighting reports over the last 50 years shows that most basic types have been present over that entire period. The UFO Evidence probably provides one of the best references for UFO geometric classifications and has excellent catalogs to support those. When we go further back, things become more debatable, at least in part because it is harder to assess the credibility of the sources. The Alexander Hamilton tale is one example of a seemingly credible tale made of whole cloth. On the other hand, there are some reports which fit quite well with the more modern reliable reports. Basically, I think that has to be an important part of our "baseline": we have reports from the present day and the last fifty years which have been relatively well investigated, and the credibility of whose witnesses is generally known. So the patterns we derive from that data are probably representative of the "real" phenomenon (whatever that may be). Thus, when I go back and look at old data, I give much greater credibility to cases that support current patterns than to those which break them. > > How do you cope with the presence of boomerang formations in the > > 1800s, disks in the early 1900s, triangles in the 1940s? > I was referring primarily to CE3s in which considerable detail > about the craft in question is reported. Were there CE3s > reported from these times? (Not doubting you; I'd love to hear > more about it). Sure. Vallee's Magonia http://www.geocities.com/~mcashman/magonia.htm contains reports back to 1867 of landings and CE-3s. Again, there are quite a few of the older cases which are debatable, but there are also those which seem to fit common patterns today. > > Why do most movie UFOs look nothing like reported UFOs? Why do > > most 1940s and 50s spacecraft look like cones and finned tubes > > and we have few or no reports of geometries that look anything > > like that? > Actually, I take issue with that. From what I remember, the > "finned cone" spaceships of the 1940's and early 50's were often > of Earth origin, whereas the representations of craft of ET > origin were varied. Furthermore, trying to establish causality > may be difficult since I'm sure that UFO sightings have > influenced SF as much as SF may influence or color UFO sightings. > Case in point, one of the first reports of "flying saucers" was > actually a misnomer; the sighting in question involved objects > which *skipped* like saucers. Yet shortly after, saucer-shaped > craft appeared both in SF and in popular sightings. No, no, there were "flying saucer" shaped "alien spacecraft" in SF as far back as the '30s. And the Arnold sighting, discussed at length, just recently in this forum was a) of largely disk shaped objects (see the original Blue Book report sketches) and b) analysis of object geometries from The UFO Evidence shows 1947 shapes to be pretty much similar in distribution to those in the period from 48-64. In other words, there were spheres, ellipses, disks, cylinders, etc. and, of course, c) SF readership has never been a major proportion of the reading public. Offhand claims that SF influences the reports of UFOs must deal with the absence of UFOs during period of high SF awareness (such as Welles' 38 War of the Worlds or the period immediately after Close Encounters, and with the (until fairly recenly) limited demographics of SF and fantasy. Also, most "alien spacecraft" in the 30s and 40s were giant metal riveted cigars with large round glass portholes. These are conspicuously absent from the UFO reports of the time period. Films of the 50s were influenced by the major flaps, but their UFOs are rarely similar to the reports of the time. For one thing, egg / elliptical and cylindrical objects are seldom if ever shown, while they contribute a significant proportion of reports. The discs they portray rarely show the very common lenticular disc. In other words, any theory that claims a relationship between fiction and reports doesn't stand up well to the actual cases. > Again, I'm not saying there aren't UFOs, I'm just saying I'm not > convinced they are big hunks o' metal. > > > If anyone is aware of evidence which substantiates the existence > > > of actual alien spacecraft (as opposed to simply unknown luminous > > > phenomena) please tell me; I'm certainly open to changing my > > > view. > > Metal/solid surfaces - verified by touch, radar, bullets and > > rocks thrown. > Interesting ... can you give me some references for these? I'd suggest a copy of Paul Hill's Unconventional Flying Objects. > > EM effects > > Heavy weight ground traces and ground burn traces > All of which are characteristic effects of stable high-energy > plasma configurations (plasmoids). Of course, they could also be > evidence of some high-tech propulsion system as well. If there were some evidence for the existence of these so far imaginary constructs existing in a state of nature, I might, slightly grant some possibility to the idea that they could cause some minor EM effects. Unfortunately, like most UFO reports, most EM reports occur during clear weather, many are during the day and include the close observation of structured objects with a metallic appearance. No one, least myself, would deny the presence of ionization effects near the surface of the UFO. But the cases available refute any idea that a majority of the interesting UFO cases can be accounted for in this way, not least due to the energy requirements. The idea that plasmas can leave calcined ground traces with weights in the tens of tons, however, is completely unsupportable (pun intended). > > Radiation output verified by geiger counter > Which has also been posited as a plasmoid characteristic (note: > I'm not good at plasma physics, so I haven't been able to > evaluate the published literature). We'd require x-ray output at least from any UFO source. A mechanism for producing x-ray energy from such sources as ball lightnings could be postulated, but ball lightning forms under well-defined weather conditions which seldom if ever exist during UFO sightings. And the extensive literature of radiation damage cases indicates that we are not talking about minor levels of energy generation - again a major problem for any of these "self-motivated plasma" theories. > > These all indicate an objectively existent, solid, possibly > > technological phenomenon. Alien spacecraft? Maybe. > Well, I wasn't disputing the *existence* of the phenomena. What > I was trying to say (and wasn't very clear at) is that if these > phenomena do exist as sentient beings, I think they may be so > advanced as to be in a sense "beyond our reality", and much of > what we see about them (e.g., the details of the craft, and > *especially* the details of what they tell us in CE3s) may be as > much a reflection of our own belief system as reality. > After all, their "language" is probably very different from our > own, possibly operating nonverbally, and if so, we may be > misinterpreting them completely. This is a Vallee-type concept which I really can't see support for in the cases that I have examined. Only a very small percentage of cases appear unusual enough to require extraordinary explanations of this sort, and many of those are of dubious credibility. Others have been successfully explained by various theorists with ideas that don't require quite so much revision of current scientific concepts as "parallel worlds", "ultra-terrestrials", paranormal "control systems", etc. I refer you to my essay at http://www.geocities.com/~mcashman/paracrit.htm and the followup study of the Magonia catalog at http://www.geocities.com/~mcashman/magland.htm for my reasoning in so far rejecting these kinds of hypotheses. Yes, there is a large amount of room for difficulty in trying to understand the behavior of a phenomenon which seems to be directed by an intelligence whose motives are inaccessible to us. But that argues for great caution and maximal evidence before theorizing, especially before making theories that really break with the knowns of physics. > I'm especially concerned with interpreting CE3s as physical > events. As an example, I have read several accounts from people > who are supposedly abducted repeatedly while in bed, and yet > there haven't been any observers who can verify this. Excluding > for a moment the possibility of neurological problems, wouldn't > such advanced beings be capable of immersing the abductee in a > completely "hallucinatory" scenario? Many researchers, myself included, still have a number of problems with the "reality" of various abduction cases. There's no question that there's room for abduction to be occurring in some fashion, though I doubt it is with anything even close to the frequency of the reports that seem to be coming with increasing pace as the years pass. The reason for that is that there are credible cases on the border of abduction, consciously remembered, and in some cases with physical evidence of one sort or another. But I think there is also a lot of mental illness and publicity seeking and attempts to gain attention at work in the abduction phenomenon, and many of the "non-physical" abductions are probably either part of this, or are effects of PTSD on people who have had some objective experience, or they are not related to the UFO phenomenon, by the very absence of the UFO in the reports. > Anyway, like I said, I'm open to anything, and I'm not trying to > say "you're wrong" so much as trying to see what various people > think and how well they can support those views. If anything I'd > love to be referred to some evidence on the subject. Read the catalogs and read the literature. My website hosts four large catalogs, and the Project 1947 website http://www.iufog.org/project1947/index.html contains a number of excellent catalogs while http://www.primenet.com/~bdzeiler/ contains excellent source material, including papers by a number of eminent researchers. > > > Assuming no real progress is made, and that we continue to view > > > UFOs as mythological phenomena, I wonder how they will appear, > > > say, 100 years from now, or 200. > > You must be the "we". > Again by "mythological" I didn't necessarily mean fantastic or > false; I just meant that there *is* a modern-day mythology about > UFOs which is evolving. And whether or not UFOs are real, I > think most would agree that the culture surrounding UFOs has > evolved into a modern mythology. We recently hashed that around extensively here. I won't go into it again, but you may want to check out the UFO Updates archive. > And I'm not the only one who views UFOs as a manifestation of our > own expectations as much as reality. There are a couple of > authors I've read who have pointed out a continuum from faerie > lore to UFOs without making the conclusion many today seem to > have made (i.e., that people in former times must have been > mistaking UFOs and aliens for something else, and that we, being > so much more advanced, know The Truth). I don't think we've > gotten that much more intelligent in the past 500 years. It's not a question of getting more intelligent but of having more knowledge. And we certainly have a lot more knowledge now than we did then. Anyway, I hope this helps in _your_ search for knowledge. ------ Mark Cashman, creator of The Temporal Doorway at http://www.geocities.com/~mcashman - Original digital art, writing, and UFO research - Author of SF novels available at... http://www.infohaus.com/access/by-seller/The_Temporal_Doorway_Storefront/ ------
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