Monday 24 September 2012

Undersea Mystery in Baltic: Update

At the 50th Anniversary BUFORA Conference, Clas Svahn from Sweden representing the AFU (the final speaker for the first day) was asked whether he had any knowledge about the Baltic sea underwater object(s) discovered by the Ocean X Team, given that the Ocean X Team is also Swedish. 

Clas replied (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he had been in touch with the Ocean X team and there was nothing new to report other than what is already in the public domain. However, he did confirm that, from what he had been advised, the object(s) are indeed made of stone or rock - as opposed to being metallic - which, in my view, would certainly end speculation about any form of 'craft' having been discovered (unless our E.T. or pan-dimensional friends can fabricate vehicles from stone of course!).

He went on to explain that there would be no fresh news released for the time being because the Ocean X Team appear to be tied into a deal with a television company, who will most likely have exclusive rights to any broadcast about the undersea object(s).  Consequently, any release of information prior to the TV broadcast would compromise the deal. Clas said that it is likely that any such broadcast will be later this year.

This makes perfect sense to me - and I think it increasingly likely that this will be a huge anticlimax. All the same, Ocean X - and whichever TV company they are apparently working with - will still milk this for all it's worth to them.

Clas - if you happen to read this post and anything I have reported here is inaccurate, I would be more than happy to correct it.


Sunday 23 September 2012

BUFORA's 50th Anniversary Conference

Yesterday I attended the first day of BUFORA's 50th Anniversary Conference at the Holiday Inn, Kings Cross, London. 

BUFORA Logo

It's the first time I'd attended an event of this type, so I went pretty much with an open mind as to what to expect. Having given presentations myself and attended numerous seminars in my former (Govt) capacity I was able to look at these speakers with an experienced and critical eye. On the whole - and the usual minor technical upsets notwithstanding, I'd say it was was a good experience for anyone not very conversant with the whole UFO subject, as well as a happy and familiar experience for those with much more grounding in it. The main speakers (detailed below) gave good presentations, each of which centred on different aspects of the UFO phenomenon. In fact, I would go as far as saying that one speaker especially easily matched some university lectures I have seen for quality of content and professionalism in presenting. It seemed to me that attendance at the event was good. It appeared to peak during the middle of the day with something like up to 70-80 delegates (at a guess) packed into the small conference room.

BUFORA is run by a hard working and dedicated group of volunteers who genuinely want to find the truth behind the persistent enigma of the UFO phenomenon, irrespective of whether what they find fits in with popular public perception or not. It is clear that they are definitely not sensation seekers and are professional and unbiased in their search for explanations behind UFO incidents. It is a testament to their serious commitment to 'Ufology' that BUFORA has lasted half a century whilst other similar such groups have appeared and vanished over a (sometimes much) shorter timespan.

What impressed me was their broad consensus that the majority of UFO cases they had investigated had conventional explanations (which I agree with), and that they possess a wealth of hard data and experience to support this. This of course makes those few cases where all the usual explanations are ruled out more compelling, but I liked the assertion that - as more than one of the speakers pointed out - just because we don't yet have definitive answers to such cases, we shouldn't automatically turn to the E.T. hypothesis for a solution.

It is apparent too that BUFORA have, over the years, garnered respect amongst other agencies/communities involved to a lesser or greater extent in the UFO phenomenon such as astronomers and civil aviation professionals. It is also worth noting that they gather witness testimony from civil aviation and military personnel (in confidence of course) in addition to members of the general public.

Consequently, I would strongly encourage anyone with a serious interest in UFOs to check in and register with BUFORA. And I say this in my blog without having had any financial incentive from them to do so.

And so to the speakers 
(please scroll to the relevant bio in the BUFORA link provided for the first four speakers)

Lionel Beer

Lionel Beer was a founder member in 1962 of BUFORA. He shared some interesting anecdotes about BUFORA's beginnings and some of his personal experiences, as a precursor to the other presentations. Of note was his meeting with none other than Dr. J. Allen Hynek with photographic evidence to prove it.

Heather Dixon

Heather Dixon's presentation was a good overview of the fallibility of human memory and recall in terms of witness testimony - and how we do not yet fully understand the workings of the human mind to be confident, especially when attempting to explain UFO encounters or 'high strangeness' events generally. For example, she touched on hypnagogic and hypnopompic stages of sleep which can leave a witness in an 'altered state of reality' and vulnerable to experiencing things that may be subjectively, as opposed to objectively, 'real'. It could be argued that many - but not necessarily all - abduction cases could be explained by this altered state of consciousness, especially if there is no external evidence i.e. multiple witness testimony or other physical evidence available to investigators. What was also made clear in her talk was the unreliability of regression hypnotherapy as a form of witness testimony, which is still open to debate and which is why BUFORA has a policy of not using it to gather evidence.

John Spencer

In my view, John Spencer's presentation was the most engaging. John covered the growth of the modern UFO phenomenon from the days of the Kenneth Arnold sighting to the present and how media reportage, cinema treatment and patterns in UFO encounters often mirror world events or influence public perception. An example cited was George Adamski's alleged encounters with the 'Nordic Aliens'. To paraphrase John, the benevolent 'Nordics' gave advice about the dangers of atomic weapons (very much an issue at the time of Adamski's alleged encounters) but did not appear far-sighted enough to mention other significant threats to humanity such as global warming. In other words, many of these 'close encounters' involved aliens telling various humans about issues that were hardly prophetic and already widely known. What was also interesting was John's theory about the Americans' recurrent theme of 'dual identity' in life or 'hybridisation' in their UFO encounters. He noted that a sizeable number of US abduction cases featured aliens seeking insemination with human DNA to create some new hybrid race, and that this reflected recurrent themes of the hybrid human/alien, human/robot, human/mutant, human/vampire etc. in the majority of American science fiction and fantasy, something which - interestingly - is not so prevalent in British SF and fantasy.

Jenny Randles

Jenny joined the conference by video link and also gave an engaging talk about how important it is to not jump to conclusions about a given UFO event until one has as much available evidence as possible. She then cited a classic case where film evidence of a glowing UFO orb subject to multiple witness sightings was in fact a rare - but not unknown - 'ball' of superheated fuel from a test fighter plane experiencing engine trouble and engaging its afterburners to rectify the problem.
Consequently, she explained that serious investigators have to be mindful of and rule out a huge variety of conventional explanations before a case ceases to be one of an Identified Flying Object (IFO) and subsequently becomes a UFO. In fact, Jenny said that BUFORA tend to use the initials 'UAP' (which can stand equally for Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena - as for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) when engaging with external agencies such as the police, military or CAA, as a way of engendering confidence and being an effective disassociation from the stigma attached to the initials 'UFO'.  I don't think their organisation's name would have quite the same ring to it if they called it BUAPORA though!

Given the above, Jenny has co-authored a book about supposed UFO encounters that ended up having conventional explanations, called 'The UFOs That Never Were'. I plan to get my hands on a copy as soon as I can.

The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe

Lionel was a reasonably well-known UK household name in the nineties having presented Channel Four's Fortean TV. He is a colourful and charismatic character, most notably being an Anglican priest, keen motorcyclist and a 3rd Dan martial arts instructor. He and his wife Patricia have decades of experience in the paranormal world and do not devote themselves exclusively to just the UFO phenomenon.

In his very stimulating talk, and in addition to sharing some fascinating anecdotes, Lionel laid out his - and his wife's - six key theories concerning explanations for the hard core of inexplicable UFO encounters, in that they could be:-

1. 'time ships' - vehicles or devices from the future with technology far in advance of our own;

2. 'dimension ships' - vehicles or devices that have crossed over into our universe from a parallel one;

3. 'extraterrestrial' visitors - as in visitors from another planet;

4. vestigial ancient technology - as in devices from hitherto unknown or long-vanished former human civilisations;

5. secret Government/military experiments; and

6. psychic or psychological phenomena which is as yet not fully understood.

Clearly number 3. is the most popular theory and more recently there has been an acceptance of the first two, which - unsurprisingly - has developed in line with cutting edge thought in the mainstream scientific community. Number 5. is popular with conspiracy theorists of course and I imagine number 6 is in the list because of Lionel's own experience.

I found theory 4. to be something I hadn't seriously considered before. There are more than a few 'ancient alien' proponents who believe humanity was given advanced technology by extraterrestrials thousands of years ago - but not many of these appear to consider the possibility that humans, through their own ingenuity, might have already achieved advanced levels of technology during the 200,000 years it is currently estimated we have been on the planet (as Homo sapiens or humans). A big problem with this theory however is that one would have expected some archaeological evidence to support this, given that we are still unearthing dinosaur fossils that are far older by several tens of millions of years.


Clas Svahn board member of the AFU

Clas Svahn was given the longest slot of the conference by far (it felt something like 90 minutes without a break) which was asking an awful lot of the delegates in terms of attention at the end of quite a long day. I suspect that this was less his doing and more to do with BUFORA giving him such latitude because: a) he had travelled the furthest of all the speakers (from Sweden) to be there and b) it became apparent that the body he represents (AFU) has given a great deal of support to BUFORA, and the relationship between the two bodies is a strong one.

Clas talked about the history of the body he represents and the frankly staggering amount of work his group of volunteers undertake in recording and documenting UFO cases worldwide since the start of the modern UFO phenomenon - which I applaud. What also stood out for me was that they have a very good working relationship with the Swedish military, which still has its own 'UFO desk' (unlike Britain) and which uses the AFU's database to record their own UFO incidents. 

Clas then gave delegates a fascinating insight into the long-standing 'Ghost-rocket' phenomenon in Sweden which is too extensive to elaborate on here. Please follow the link for a general explanation.

All in all, BUFORA staged a very good event for those interested in the UFO phenomenon.  Long may their good work continue until (perhaps one day) the whole mystery is comprehensively explained.



Friday 21 September 2012

Why are schools running 'UFO crash drills'?

Just today I noticed the following article

Pupils investigate UFO crash site 

which - bizarrely - refers to pupils of a school in Somerset being allowed to get involved in the 'investigation' of a mock 'UFO Crash site'. This is allegedly with the assistance of local police whilst extra theatricality is provided in the form of an 'MI5 operative' and 'scientists' being present (presumably teachers and local volunteers) at some point during the day

Leigh UFO and meteor sightings (From The Bolton News)
Now whilst this is a great way to engage young minds with what is probably a fun and exciting event (wish my school had done something like this when I was a nipper!) why stage a crashed UFO event, rather than recreate a more earthly crime scene of some kind?

Doing the usual internet trawl reveals that this has generated quite a few results, which I guess is no bad thing in terms of publicity for the school. What's more this isn't the first time this has been done. Another such article on a separate exercise is Pupils Investigate UFO. Others go back to at least 2008. (Note: these articles are helpfully referred to by other net authors - I can't claim the credit for having initially spotted them)

It begs the question - why UFOs?

It could just be a case of a subject matter being one that is most appealing to a young generation brought up with the likes of Dr Who and recent releases of films like Men In Black 3. These exercises may also all be the brainchild of one or a small number of individuals as a way of stimulating pupils across the UK.

But is the apparent trend more than that?

If - as some experts on the E.T. hypothesis behind UFOs believe - there is some gradual disclosure process being carried out by The State in various countries (a theory I remain open-minded about), then one could argue that one aspect of this could be the act of engaging the youngest minds of our society.

However, there only seem to be a handful of exercises like this that have taken place in the UK so far. It would be interesting to see if other countries do something similar with their own children. To date they don't appear to have happened with any frequency to suggest anything other than coincidence. In other words - it doesn't look like it's part of any 'grand plan' so far...




Monday 10 September 2012

Douglas Trumbull's response concerning UFOTOG

Dear All,

I've been away...

My apologies for not posting for some time. There's no excuse for this other than my having visited family and friends during the Summer and being involved in other personal pursuits.

Douglas Trumbull's response re: UFOTOG!

I can now report however, further to my earlier posts
Still no news on UFOTOG and An open email to Douglas Trumbull about UFOTOG that - after a gentle reminder - Mr Trumbull has very kindly sent a comprehensive response to me concerning his project.

For any doubters out there I have attached the full response as a JPEG (in addition to the full text) below.

As you can see I had subsequently asked Mr Trumbull if there was any part of his response he would prefer me to exclude - but have not heard back from him so far. So Mr Trumbull - if you are reading this - I hope you will forgive me if I publish your email to me in full, as I felt I could not wait longer to share its contents with readers of this blog. In any case, I judged that there was nothing sensitive in its content that warranted exclusion or (more importantly) that Mr Trumbull would object to my   
publishing.

Note that the UFOTOG project is effectively shelved until such time as sufficient funding can be found for it. I'm sure this news will come as a disappointment to all. BUT - if anyone out there thinks they may be able to significantly financially support Mr Trumbull's project then I'm sure he'd like to hear from you!

Here is the screen capture of the email as a JPEG...


...and the full text of our latest exchange:-

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[Sent to me by douglashtrumbull@gmail.com - 5 September 2012 20:16 U.S. local time]

"Hi Jonathan,

I apologize, but UFOTOG is not a priority project with me right now.

To answer some of your questions:

I have invested heavily in the UFOTOG project for many years, yet have not been able to find financing to actually hit the road and do the real research. Therefore no real research has been attempted, which could require very expensive equipment and sensors, as well as a dedicated crew to work in the field for months or years. I created the UFOTOG demo film for the purpose of raising significant money to make an intensive long term study, hopefully resulting in a feature length IMAX type documentary of the REAL THING.

Whatever that is, I do not know, but what I do know is that even if we got amazing and scientifically valid, peer reviewable, data and imagery, who do you reveal it to? The police? The military? A government agency? Don't think so. But I would want people like Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku to comment on what we find.

Nevertheless, recent interest has been shown by some "reality television" producers, but they have a significant financial inability to pay for the expensive equipment needed. They only budget for the production, not the science. So I am not confident that anything will happen. Shows like UFO HUNTERS is what they want and expect, and that is of no interest to me.

There has been no data collected, thus no secret data or images to release.

I am very passionate about the project, and may feature elements of UFOTOG in some upcoming sci-fi film projects, and maybe that will spark some interest in moving the project forward with the funding required. Real science is expensive, but there may be money for fiction. Go figure.

I will not give up on this.

All the best,

Doug"


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[Sent by me to douglashtrumbull@gmail.com - 6 September 2012 01:00 London time]

"Dear Doug,

Thank you so much for your swift and comprehensive response to my last email. Thanks too for the clarification concerning UFOTOG which I appreciate will now be shelved for the time being.

If you are happy for me to do so I would like to publish your response in my blog. If there are any parts of this email exchange you would prefer me to remove I am more than happy to do that (so long as it's not the whole exchange!).

I can empathise and understand only too well the difficulties in securing funding for research - especially where it may be the subject of controversy. For example, in my last (UK) Government role I worked in higher education policy and am wholly familiar with the challenges now faced by established universities seeking research grants in the face of dwindling Govt support.

If there is any small part I can play to assist let me know. I am attending the annual BUFORA conference in a couple of weeks and - if you like - I can spread the word about UFOTOG there - although I strongly suspect that a) most of the delegates will already know about your project and b) you'll have much better contacts than I have!

It's remotely possible that one or more of my readers - all of whom will be sympathetic to your cause - may have useful contacts or information to further assist.

I agree that in the (what currently sounds unlikely) event that sufficient funding were to be found and peer-reviewable data was gathered, respected figures in the scientific community such as Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku would be best placed to comment on it and lend credibility to any findings of note.

Even then getting such data peer-reviewed would be a significant challenge - especially in terms of engaging a group of eminent scientists or aviation experts - whom one would want not to be strongly biased either way on the subject of UFOs or UAP.

You mention UFO Hunters. I've watched one or two online trailers and was very quickly turned off. Sensationalist programmes like this can't even get the basics right and pander to the lowest common denominator. And I don't see any change in such programming coming any time soon.

It would be a great shame if all the effort on your part to date came to naught.

But you should know that there is an increasing number of people out there who - like me - are sick and tired of all the amateur and largely faked online footage and yearn for a true professional to show us what on earth (or off-earth perhaps?) is going on in our skies.

I know if I had several million pounds/dollars in my account I'd be investing in UFOTOG but alas...

In the meantime, I wish you all the best with your other projects and hope that a ridiculously wealthy and sympathetic benefactor comes knocking on your door soon.

All the best to you too,

Jonathan"