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From: Dave (daev) Walsh - Blather <daev@blather.net>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 13:52:05 +0100
Fwd Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 01:43:04 -0400
Subject: Blather: Epiphany Weather

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B  L  A  T  H  E  R

p a r a n o r m a l   p r o v o c a t e u r i s m

By Dave (daev) Walsh daev@blather.net
Web: http://www.blather.net
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July 5th 01999, Dublin, Ireland   Vol 3. No. 3
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Lily O'Briens is a manufacturer of premium handmade chocolates
located in the heart of County Kildare in the Emerald Green
Island of Ireland. Surf along to their website and feast your
eyes - and order via our secure server!


http://www.lilyobriens.ie/
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EPIPHANY WEATHER

It's some months now since Blather last paid any direct
attention to the curious, if somewhat tiresome, phenomenon of
Irish ufology and reported UFOs. Truth be told, the respite was
sorely needed.

Still, duty-bound we return to the fray, however grudgingly. It
is with a little pride and nagging sense of futility that we
notice that we seem to be the only voice emanating from this
island which takes a critical (yet amused) view of the actions
of Irish ufologists and their subsequent newspaper coverage.
Much of this reportage seems polluted with X-Files cliches,
pointless 'facts', often providing us with little more than mere
silly-season page-filler.

A June 20th 01999, page 3 headline in *Ireland on Sunday* reads
*ETs fail to show for big date*. We commend the author of the
article, one Dara deFaoite, for his objectivity and avoidance of
the usual sensationalist cliche and device.

The story hangs on the proceedings of the night of June 17th,
when our old friends, Eamon Ansbro of the Programme for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence Research (PEIR) and Alan Sewell of
the Irish Centre for UFO Studies (ICUFOS), invited a hoard of
journalists to 'one of the country's most dramatic vantage
points, the Chieftain's Horse... to gaze skyward on the word of
a former NASA meteorologist who predicted that at least one UFO
would be sighted over Boyle that evening'. The sighting was
predicted, it seems, for 00:30 hours, i.e. Friday morning.

Now, this is curious... the next paragraph states that:

'Eamon Ansbro, Ireland's leading ufologist and founder member of
the Irish Centre for UFO Studies (ICUFOS), believes he can
calculate when alien craft will enter our atmosphere for us to
see.'

This would seem to imply that a Mr. Ansbro has worked for NASA,
*not* something we were aware of... but then, even Richard
Hoagland, purveyor of the 'Mars Face' idea, has worked for NASA.
Perhaps Mr. deFaoite could tell us more about the NASA
connection. Mr. Ansbro would presumably refrain from
elaborating. We think he doesn't like us, something of which we
are not greatly surprised. But we digress.

Mr. Ansbro was equipped, on the night in question, with a
"spacecraft-tracking camera", apparently costing some £15,000
and 'standing a mean 7ft tall and linked up to at least three TV
monitors, the specialised equipment rotated spontaneously
capturing certain areas of sky as it turned.'


According to Ansbro, this device should "able to tell what kinds
of elements are emitted by the craft by using special light
filters once it locks onto a craft".

DeFaoite makes mention, if not by name, of Roy Dutton's
*Astronautical Theory*. Ansbro tells him that "there are at
least 660 known orbital tracks which have been monitored by
scientists and ufologists since 1880. From these, we can predict
when they will appear in any one zone".

Eighteen-hundred and eighty? Surely an oversight on the part of
Mr. deFaoite or *Ireland on Sunday*? While we would happily
accept that people have been seeing weird and inexplicable
things in the heavens for a lot longer than 119 years, we
harbour a not inconsiderable arsenal of doubt on this matter.
Surely *someone* meant 1980?

DeFaoite seems to display an amused literary gasp of incredulity
at the claims of "orbital tracks", 'which apparently circle the
earth like an American Airlines' traffic control map'. Also
interviewed was ufologist Betty Myler, head of the Irish UFO
Society. We thought she was involved with the 'Western UFO
Society'. What with these two organisations, PEIR, ICUFOS and
the Irish UFO and Paranormal Research Association (IUFOPRA),
Ireland seems rather well catered for. Small wonder, however,
that this writer would be unlikely to be discovered in the Good
Books of the aforementioned organisations.

Various others are quoted too, but we shall refrain, for now,
from getting into deep nit-picking of the statements made by
Myler and others present, many of whom refrained from giving
their names due to the '"unwarranted cynicism surrounding the
area"'. Cynical... us?

We would like point out that Ms. Myler *apparently* runs the
local tourist office, and seems to see the UFO phenomenon as a
source of tourism potential. Or so we are told.

One memorable quote about the alleged visitors came from unnamed
source:

"I can't say where they come from for certain but I reckon
they're travelling through time from a parallel dimension and
interfering with our reality, unbeknownst to themselves even,"
she said.

The speaker, was apparently adopted by an alien - named Astro -
at the age of two. Or so we are told (from a source other than
*Ireland on Sunday*).

Good old Alan Sewell - a man always seems fairly non-committal,
(not that this is a bad thing) told deFaoite that  '"anyone who
openly states that they believe in extraterrestrial life is, in
effect, placing their heads on the chopping block".

Blather thinks that anyone who openly states that they believe
in the *possibility* of extraterrestrial life may happily escape
the guillotine.

Alas Sewell seems to fall at the next fence:

'"I would be very foolish to say to you" 'Yes, there are ETs out
there,' because I've never seen them but we can definitely say
there are unidentified craft circling the earth on a regular
basis".

Proof, please, Alan? *Evidence* even?

This is not to say that Blather doesn't believe in the
possibility that Sewell's assertion is correct. We just want to
poke our digits in the Messiah's wounds, that's all.


Dara deFaoite closes his article (and a decent one at that) by
telling us that other than a few satellites, nothing of interest
was seen in the heavens that night.

However, rumour has it that 'something' was seen - but not by
any members of the press. Oh no, they were looking the wrong
way, apparently.

Typical.

Blather reader James Lundon was good enough to facsimile us a
cutting from the The Limerick Leader of Saturday 8th May 01999,
*Converting to UFOs in the Limerick Sky*, by Brendan Halligan,
editor of the newspaper.

Halligan recounts how he 'didn't believe there was anything of
significance in the so-called UFO phenomena', until his apparent
conversion on April 27th. Two friends of his, one male, one
female, 'both of whom are utterly sensible, highly intelligent
and patently honest' told him of their experiences - he says he
was converted at 22:30 hours. He doesn't say if his converters
had their experience on that same night or not.


The woman was watching television when the screen 'blacked out
for several seconds. A few minutes later it happened again. And
a few minutes after that it happened yet again. The lady
happened to look out her window. She could hardly believe what
she saw. Nor might I have believed it except that her story was
corroborated by her adult son.'

We find this interesting. First Halligan tells us of how *both*
witnesses 'are utterly sensible, highly intelligent and patently
honest', yet he wouldn't have believed the woman's testimony if
were not that for the corroboration of her son. Thanks to this
corroboration, Halligan's personal beliefs have been affected...

Halligan says that what they 'saw in the western sky was a
large, red, glowing, roughly saucer-shaped object with
laser-type lights. It wasn't a conventional aircraft: it hovered
silently for some 20 minutes before disappearing in the
direction of the Clare Hills'. He reckons - but his tongue is
self-consciously in his cheek - that it might have been 'some
sort of military or meteorological experiment', or even some
sort of NATO exercise - the fact that Ireland is not officially
a member of NATO notwithstanding.

Yet what he 'knows' is that 'beyond any shadow of a doubt is
that it wasn't the figment of the imagination which up to then'
he had suspected such sightings to be.

Having perused the *Limerick Leader* piece, Robert Anton Wilson
proposes that 'this sort of story fits neatly into the Persinger
model [i.e. *Tectonic Strain Theory*]. First an obvious
electromagnetic anomaly, then a strange light... The True
Believers say "It must be a Spaceship!" The Other True Believers
say "It must be a hoax or hallucination.!" Persinger says: Maybe
a recurrent bit of Chaos in the geo-magnetic field...

'In Persinger's model, those further away may have had Jumping
Furniture and called it "spooks" or "poltergeists," and those
closer in would report  Freudian/Jungian dream material --
rapists from outer space, seductive green women from Venus,
death-rebirth experiences resembling ancient myth and modern
LSD...'


Finally, Blather received a telephone call some weeks back, from
a rather concerned young couple who had seen a UFO in the
eastern skies,

around 21:15 on Sunday April 18th, 01999, near Bracklin, which
is close to Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Curiously, 49 weeks
beforehand, i.e. in May of 1998, they had seen a similar object,
at *the same time of night*. They reported that it made no
sound, it was about 3ft (0.91m) in diameter and '150ft (46m)
up'. We did question them on just how they determined the size
of the object, and it just seemed to be a reckoning -
unfortunately nothing even so useful as 'the size of my thumb at
arms length' was available.

On checking on what was to be seen in the night sky of April
18th, we find that, in Dublin, at 21:15, Mars was just a little
above the horizon, East-South-East. Venus was high up in the
Western skies.

This is not to say that these people mistook a planet for
anything, well... closer. At the time of our conversation with
them, we explained that  we had to consider such a 'mundane'
explanation, if only for the sake of being able to rule it out
through investigation. They seemed, understandably, a little
upset by the idea that an experience - such a *personal*
experience could have been apparently caused by mere
misidentification of a planet. We don't know whether it was or
it wasn't.

There was more than just a mere sighting of an anomalous
skyborne light source. They saw it move behind trees and *split
into two*. They even followed it in their car. Unfortunately,
the more pressing our questions, the more indignant the
witnesses became. Despite the fact that *they* had called us, we
began to feel as if we were treading in territory in which we
had no business. We asked if, while they followed it in the car,
if the light had remained in the eastern sky - we wanted to
determine whether or not it was a distant (and relatively
stationary) object, or something that really was in the
neighbourhood. The witnesses, alas, 'knew' that it was local,
and our trail of investigation dried up.

What we do know, however, is that the witnesses were profoundly
moved by their experience, and while they *did not* claim that
it the light was definitely extraterrestrial in origin, they
seemed opposed to 'mundane' explanation. They had talked to
several of the UFO groups mentioned earlier in this issue, and
even checked with aviation authorities. They wanted answers, but
seemed a little worried that they mind find them too easily.
This is again, understandable - any of us would be embarrassed
to attribute an epiphanic experience to a mere heavenly body or
low flying aircraft?


Dave (daev) Walsh
5 July 01999

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Notes:
Robert Anton Wilson

http://www.rawilson.com

The Limerick Leader

http://www.limerick-leader.ie/
Blather's one run-in with Ms. Myler, plus indigence at Irish UFO
shenanigans:

http://www.blather.net/archives2/issue2no32.html

Michael Persinger's *The Tectonic Strain Theory as an Explanation for
UFO Phenomena:*

http://www.laurentian.ca/www/neurosci/tectonicedit.htm

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Octocon X

The Tenth National Irish Science Fiction Convention


Guest of Honour:
Robert Rankin
Bestselling author of
The Brentford Trilogy and Apocalypso

Other Guests Include:
Eugene Byrne, Storm Constantine,
Maggie Furey, Robert Holdstock,
Graham Joyce, Tom Mathews, Ian McDonald,
Kim Newman, Geoff Ryman, Michael Scott,
Brian Stableford, Dave (Daev) Walsh and
James White

9-10 October 1999
Royal Marine Hotel
Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland




http://www.iol.ie/~jshields/octocon/

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