tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32450105375993711522024-03-05T03:35:06.856-08:00This Alien EarthC. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-86076071299450794482014-11-07T09:21:00.001-08:002014-11-08T06:23:22.377-08:00Microscopic Invaders & Real Zombification<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcunNaojJuBC2fJNlzztqWoAyMO3DFPyPhTpVFWQg4KTyuDn_Yg61rVtXQzNt1IqXmnCq1XYX9Hi0DDUyESag7Qlj3wMQZcl7KBkuBaiml79GYKhcZHL1OdQw0_I47486rlY1fSAN__Iq/s1600/rackhamanimalsgirl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcunNaojJuBC2fJNlzztqWoAyMO3DFPyPhTpVFWQg4KTyuDn_Yg61rVtXQzNt1IqXmnCq1XYX9Hi0DDUyESag7Qlj3wMQZcl7KBkuBaiml79GYKhcZHL1OdQw0_I47486rlY1fSAN__Iq/s1600/rackhamanimalsgirl.jpg" height="400" width="295" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which one is the fungus?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Perhaps you've heard of zombie ants.<br />
<br />
A zombie ant is an ant that has been taken over by a specific kind of fungus found mostly in the tropics: Ophiocordyceps unilaterus.<br />
<br />
The spores of the fungi attach to the outer shell of the ant, and soon break through its exoskeleton and begin to grow inside the unfortunate insect.<br />
<br />
That would be plenty bad enough (for the ant anyway), but it gets much, much worse.<br />
<br />
The cordyceps fungus has evolved to have more than a passing acquaintance with the ant's brain, such as it is, and quickly persuades the ant to leave its home in the trees for a moister, warmer locale on the forest floor.<br />
<br />
There, the ant, now controlled by the fungus, attaches itself to the underside of a leaf, where it soon dies.<br />
<br />
In the final phase, fungal hyphae (filaments) sprout from the dead ant's head and release spores, which float about the forest looking for another ant to stick to and start the cycle all over again.<br />
<br />
Evidence of this kind of ant-parasitism has been found on leaves that are 48 million years old.<br />
<br />
So this kind of thing has been going on for awhile.<br />
<br />
<b>Mice Who Love Cats</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6WZVAO0YcqlSWbj0jIu94SmXVtXZGwH-gXGXPKWMd4QWCpQRzE2pjk7lPrxkOthDufl4kpTCCQqIQqbAOvK_hr6SHdtPWSUdPb-cMX0agdopoV8K_06qUN54ekyrnGxbux4WrtYEYAez/s1600/catmice-pd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6WZVAO0YcqlSWbj0jIu94SmXVtXZGwH-gXGXPKWMd4QWCpQRzE2pjk7lPrxkOthDufl4kpTCCQqIQqbAOvK_hr6SHdtPWSUdPb-cMX0agdopoV8K_06qUN54ekyrnGxbux4WrtYEYAez/s1600/catmice-pd.jpg" height="640" width="379" /></a></div>
I know that right about now you are thinking, okay Pam, that's pretty weird but so what? What do zombie mice and Amazon fungi have to do with aliens?<br />
<br />
I promise I will get to that, seriously.<br />
<br />
Stay with me.<br />
<br />
Research into a micro-organism that lives in cat feces called<i> toxoplasmosis gondii </i>recently has shown that when <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/parasite-makes-mice-lose-fear-of-cats-permanently-1.13777" target="_blank">mice are infected with this teeny critter they lose their fear of cats</a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Toxoplasmosis gondii </i>causes an infection in pregnant women that can result in fetal abnormalities. In people who are not pregnant it is barely noticeable.<br />
<br />
Not too long ago the only interesting thing about toxoplasma was that their existence meant that Dad had to clean the cat box for nine months.<br />
<br />
However it turns out that toxoplasma have a lot in common with the fungus that zombifies tropical ants.<br />
<br />
They are very gifted germs.<br />
<br />
Toxoplasma actually change the behavior of animals who inhale their spores. In the case of mice, the loss of fear of cats benefits the <i>t. gondii </i>organism directly by making it much more likely than an uninfected cat will eat a friendly infected mouse and then spread the organism around some more by pooping.<br />
<br />
Even more amazing (or troubling, however you choose to look at it), people who carry the <i>t.gondii </i>organism in their bodies, <i>even when it is dormant and causing no illness, </i>become measurably more outgoing and sociable--just like the mice.<br />
<br />
Once the <i>t. gondii</i> organism is in a human body in a dormant state, it can't be removed, so the behavior changes are permanent; a finding borne out by the observation that mice who were cured of their toxoplasma infection retained their habits of sauntering up to cats to say hello unafraid of the consequences.<br />
<br />
Evidence is also accumulating that dormant toxoplasma may be a partial cause of certain kinds of schizophrenia, opening up a new line of research in the cause and treatment of mental illness.<br />
<br />
Researchers who discovered the capacity of toxoplasma to change human behavior decided to see if the same held true for other illness-causing micro-organisms.<br />
<br />
Because the researchers did not want to infect volunteers with active sickness, they decided instead to follow a random group of people who had just gotten a flu shot, reasoning that the flu virus in the shot, while not strong enough to make them sick, would still be alive in the subjects' bodies for at least several days while they developed immunity to it.<br />
<br />
They found that for the the week following an ordinary flu shot, even relative introverts got the sudden urge to shop, go to the movies, and in short hang out with large groups of people in any way that they could. All were completely unaware that their behavior had changed.<br />
<br />
<b>Get Your Flu Shot</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
I'm not saying that flu shots are bad.<br />
<br />
I had some kind of pernicious flu in 1992 that was so bad it took me a month to recover completely. I endured a fever of 103 or more for six days and it hurt to blink let alone move. By day six I thought, this is it, I'm going to die, but I didn't. The fever broke the next day.<br />
<br />
That experience taught me that a small virus can do big damage even to a healthy body, behavior change or no behavior change, so I <i>always</i> get a flu shot.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM0nzrW1kboQXwNuM3vw9aXegNzTSqhpjTTjEGzXfhbtykh-V2GTCupjRES_dx6-jf3Ssg2i1cFJWiCVvLrznz3j0X8tcz42bhlAicF3ztvU5Ckti0ZaTUo6Pn6MFKGFTqv7_rAVmM-p9/s1600/Pandora+Opens+the+Box.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM0nzrW1kboQXwNuM3vw9aXegNzTSqhpjTTjEGzXfhbtykh-V2GTCupjRES_dx6-jf3Ssg2i1cFJWiCVvLrznz3j0X8tcz42bhlAicF3ztvU5Ckti0ZaTUo6Pn6MFKGFTqv7_rAVmM-p9/s1600/Pandora+Opens+the+Box.JPG" height="400" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crap. I forgot to get my flu shot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What has been bothering me for awhile though is how, when people get to talking about aliens, what they are almost always talking about are humanoid creatures about our size and shape.<br />
<br />
Maybe the eyeballs are bigger. Maybe these guys have no genitals. Maybe some of them have scales or are excessively tall and Nordic-looking. But basically, they aren't that different in size or kind than Uncle Fred when he wears his Klingon costume on Halloween.<br />
<br />
Why should this be so?<br />
<br />
Why wouldn't aliens be so small we wouldn't even see them, or so large they wouldn't fit in any UFO, not even the football field-sized craft of recent sightings?<br />
<br />
Life on earth is so incredibly strange that it seems incongruous to me to think that life from elsewhere would be so easy to plug into a 50's B-movie.<br />
<br />
Why would we even recognize alien life?<br />
<br />
We can't even agree on what life <i>is, </i>right here, right on our very own planet.<br />
<br />
<b>What's Wrong With the Human Race?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
A popular cable TV show talks about a time in ancient history when human beings were bred with aliens and set on an accelerated developmental trajectory that has resulted in rapid technological advancement and population growth.<br />
<br />
This theory is appealing to lots of people, because it seems to illuminate many perplexing mysteries about the human race.<br />
<br />
For instance, why did humans get along as hunter-gatherers for so many millions of years with so little change and so few problems, and then suddenly decide, for no apparent good reason, to grow wheat, build pyramids, submit to kings, wage wars, and get smarter and smarter and smarter (at least in their own imaginations)?<br />
<br />
What the hell was that all about?<br />
<br />
Must be aliens, right?<br />
<br />
Well, maybe.<br />
<br />
But maybe the aliens in question are more the size of a cordyceps fungus or a toxoplasma than a tall Nordic looking guy in a tunic or a lizard with huge eyes.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4p5oKzltHWL5_FyxEBexID_-_m4r4nLif7Qhx2ffHj3vN-Hp2y5M2zMGvELmR27wIse8CJqswVuoKAqYBvBsYDnFYQQcwVVSJR12KWRk3gaHruBPf4D7Q0bmwfc12l4IYvq-dHUc-77LF/s1600/Dandelion-seed-blowing-away-Posters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4p5oKzltHWL5_FyxEBexID_-_m4r4nLif7Qhx2ffHj3vN-Hp2y5M2zMGvELmR27wIse8CJqswVuoKAqYBvBsYDnFYQQcwVVSJR12KWRk3gaHruBPf4D7Q0bmwfc12l4IYvq-dHUc-77LF/s1600/Dandelion-seed-blowing-away-Posters.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Take us to yer leader!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Some scientists believe that without fungus, life on earth would never have started at all. That one, tiny spore could easily have come here on a meteorite and seeded Earth in the same way the tiny jungle spores stick to jungle ants.<br />
<br />
The theory is more plausible than you might think. Different types of fungus are responsible for creating the kind of soil that can accommodate trees, and fungi can even coordinate the growth and behavior of forests.<br />
<br />
Fungi are amazing creatures, if they are in fact creatures.<br />
<br />
Neither plant nor animal but something else entirely, the activity of fungi is intertwined with the development of life on this planet going as far back as anyone has so far been able to discover.<br />
<br />
And this, you see, is what gets me kicked out of UFO groups wherever they spawn.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-129193748045165512014-10-27T17:57:00.002-07:002014-10-27T17:57:30.735-07:00Recurring Dreams of Alien Invasion <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv549nvBoGSYyxW9x2x0UdvgZaMLc1kz6FqMIbFHfQ7OGLSgp1oDZmuCdgxJA4tGTFCkPLtDtfBqmzRcYCglEc2bm5TdaUrwzYQ9EdVmcYeMJ-Qa4j2P3pCOD1ym-nEXkkPECBTmWnfcod/s1600/magritte-notrepro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv549nvBoGSYyxW9x2x0UdvgZaMLc1kz6FqMIbFHfQ7OGLSgp1oDZmuCdgxJA4tGTFCkPLtDtfBqmzRcYCglEc2bm5TdaUrwzYQ9EdVmcYeMJ-Qa4j2P3pCOD1ym-nEXkkPECBTmWnfcod/s1600/magritte-notrepro.jpg" height="320" width="249" /></a></div>
For the past year and a half, my dreams have been invaded by a persistent alien theme, so much so that lately when they show up I think, "Oh crap, not these guys again."<br />
<br />
My recurring alien invasion dreams started out as intense and frightening; not quite nightmares, but memorable and disturbing.<br />
<br />
Over the past eighteen months these dreams have gradually taken on a more cartoonish aspect.<br />
<br />
I no longer feel afraid in them. I no longer feel susceptible to alien capture or mind control, although the invaders are always trying to win me over.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, how is everyone else doing?<br />
<br />
Let's just say, it's not going well for Planet Earth.<br />
<br />
In my dreams, most humans have already fallen for the alien schtick.<br />
<br />
No one ever sees the aliens directly. When they do show themselves it is in human form, usually in a uniform of some sort, yet everyone understands that this just a meat-suit, not how they actually appear to each other.<br />
<br />
Really, we have no idea what they look like.<br />
<br />
What everyone notices instead (in fact can't help but notice) is their airships. The airships are huge, silver, and unavoidable. You can't really run from them. You can't hide.<br />
<br />
The ships are for us, not them. They are not 'in' the ships, they are just gathering us into them.<br />
<br />
Their pitch to humanity is this:<br />
<br />
"We can help you guys. Join us. We know what we're doing and we can make each of you into the highest, most realized personal form possible. Why would you not want that? Isn't that what everyone wants? So join us. We can help."<br />
<br />
Most people do join them willingly, but shortly thereafter the joiners begin to change rapidly, to mutate into some bizarrely specialized form.<br />
<br />
So, say the aliens decide your genetic code predisposes you to computer work. You soon grow to be a part of the computer, you stop looking like other humans, you instead take on a fleshy form compatible with what you are doing, Maybe you meld with the computer at head and hand level.<br />
<br />
Once you are assigned a task, that's all you do, and you claim to be happy about it.<br />
<br />
Basically, you become a slave, but a seemingly happy one. Bizarre to behold, but totally efficient.<br />
<br />
If you decline the aliens' offer of help, they keep after you. They mean for you to have their 'help' one way or the other. They are constantly after you to join.<br />
<br />
In the dreams, I don't want their 'help'. I'm horrified by the whole spectacle.<br />
<br />
The only fully human creatures left on Earth are me and a few other misfits who won't join.<br />
<br />
<b>Just the Way It Is</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7vPKFAtRfB-Wmf4uk63i2NAfVq80OqEtQE_W8lDwPdBjKe5PdvEq-xk8vr0WjXwpzvVZL32dzvWg73CSj5bHPOLHh1VdJTagUij3m-Lv9rDg8TCq-YzWnrkUW8MhKAotPLwQqd67NGiOH/s1600/alien_mirror_blender_rendering.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7vPKFAtRfB-Wmf4uk63i2NAfVq80OqEtQE_W8lDwPdBjKe5PdvEq-xk8vr0WjXwpzvVZL32dzvWg73CSj5bHPOLHh1VdJTagUij3m-Lv9rDg8TCq-YzWnrkUW8MhKAotPLwQqd67NGiOH/s1600/alien_mirror_blender_rendering.png" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
I used to worry about these dreams. I worried that something was pressing down upon us, (or at least upon me), and that I was missing it. I thought the dreams were prophetic, a warning of some sort.<br />
<br />
But lately I've been seeing these dreams as simply an imaginative reflection of how things actually are. As a species, it seems we are actively and rapidly transforming ourselves into an alien force: mutable, cancerous, bizarre. Comic, yet lethal.<br />
<br />
Bad for Earth and all its other creatures.<br />
<br />
Indeed, in our rush for profit and efficiency, for ever newer and better technology even before we know what to do with the stuff, we seem to be losing our humanity.<br />
<br />
Once this interpretation occurred to me, I began to think outside the box.<br />
<br />
More on that in the next post.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-41168222084268498702014-09-29T17:25:00.001-07:002014-10-01T07:09:48.171-07:00Truly Alien--Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://amzn.to/YGNdpv" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_dr9gsq2cxnRk0zuEih62Q2XdxZiMd7I-T6GDzr2VqkSl4qQBAGnKCufeOHjsRfxdngQRtKM2p06Ch6ljVKgLb73fzs-B8TQXnfWgzy_43KoJ12X__vM6TUCVrYdDFYfF59UUD5CNnLVN/s1600/bujo-flickr.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://amzn.to/YGNdpv" target="_blank">Image courtesy of Bujo at Flicker CC</a></td></tr>
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One thing that has always bothered me about ufologists and alien hunters is their surprising lack of imagination.<br />
<br />
In 99 out of 100 alien movies or UFO treatises, the aliens are more or less our size, more or less bipedal humanoid creatures like ourselves, who more or less happen to share our madness for technology and also like sex with Earthlings, a lot.<br />
<br />
I mean, seriously?<br />
<br />
No one ever thinks that aliens might be microscopic, or bigger than multiple sperm whales, or comprised of something so strange as to be unrecognizable to human beings as life.<br />
<br />
In fact, science is still arguing about what life is, even right here, on Earth. Definitions elude us. So, how can we look for life beyond Earth if we can't even quite understand the life in front of our noses?<br />
<br />
The strangest life of all might be the life behind our own noses.<br />
<br />
H.P Lovecraft understood this kind of existential strangeness, and understood how and why people avoid it. His imagination spawned worlds; he created an entire mythos around his unique and awful perception of our plight.<br />
<br />
Lovecraft is rightly celebrated today, not just for his unique linguistic tics (settle down you eldritch cynics), but for the dense, murky tone of his writing, the way the words conjure up horrors so alien, so ancient, so beyond our most esoteric ramblings that even seasoned Lovecraft readers still shudder involuntarily when they read them.<br />
<br />
Enter Jeff Vandermeer with his <a href="http://amzn.to/1vtK6No" target="_blank">Southern Reach Trilogy</a>.<br />
<br />
Writing in the shadow of Lovecraft, Vandermeer takes language and chops it up in such a deft and horrible fashion that the reader is almost imperceptibly knocked off his or her personal linguistic moorings, whatever they may be, right along with the characters. In this way Vandermeer forces the reader to experience, if only vicariously, the end of personal identity and all the horror, wonder, and madness that necessarily accompanies that loss.<br />
<br />
Vandermeer is not forming a Lovecraft tribute band with this series. He doesn't write <i>like</i> H.P. Lovecraft. Arkham is a good thousand (million?) miles away from the unnamed stretch of southern coast that comes to be known in his trilogy as "Area X", a mysterious tract of nature that is invaded by something preternatural and undefinable.<br />
<br />
And yet the story is informed by Lovecraft, because early on it lays out the existential horror implied by loss of category.<br />
<br />
Philosophy students will recognize what seem at first like gratuitous references to Jacques Derrida and Deconstructionism, but the Southern Reach Trilogy is not some dry exercise in intellectual snottiness. Although not an easy read, the trilogy zigs and zags between startling, even poetic descriptions of the natural territory and dry, irritating expositions of the inner workings of the minds of various characters.<br />
<br />
The effect is to mire the reader inside Area X along with the characters; no small achievement, and it isn't until the last page that you realize you won't be able to forget the experience.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://amzn.to/1rAdYGb" target="_blank">Annihilation</a></i>, the first volume, is a good read, if a bit choppy. The choppiness is easy to forgive or ignore, because the story is original and interesting. You want answers to questions that are raised here. I, for one, could hardly wait for the second volume, <i>Authority,</i> to come out, even while resenting the fact that I had to wait.<br />
<br />
But <i><a href="http://amzn.to/1mL7PYO" target="_blank">Authority</a></i>, is a slog. Those questions keep the reader hooked and pushing forward, even while thinking, "Why are you doing this to me Jeff?" He has his reasons, which unfold in the final volume in ways that startle and satisfy and prove that answers are beside the point, really.<br />
<br />
The final volume, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/YGMTr1" target="_blank">Acceptance</a></i>, really sings. Parts of it are quite beautiful. Written in all three persons (first, second, and third) the events feel natural and preternatural all at once. At some point after finishing the final volume, I realized that I'd just read the first jazz horror novel.<br />
<br />
Honestly it's quite brilliant.<br />
<br />
I don't want to say too much more, for fear of spoiling the experience for readers new to the Southern Reach, but it did my heart good to see this genre reach these heights.<br />
<br />
I think Lovecraft would have loved it.<br />
<br />
I know I did.<br />
<br />
<br />
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</iframe>C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-68608489252319395242014-09-16T10:09:00.001-07:002014-09-16T10:20:48.340-07:00California by Edan Lepucki: Eat, Pray, Apocalypse?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIETrxVOoo92DmaVov-SscJiCf-ROE7O821mI4OHpi8BmCqGvpVFFlOSK_yZqdqoqHpzewXzwqCBBnkXSsU7EV1KvOXkEE2uqkkGgszG1OJ_LfquupFnbdER11mUEJuJqVik_UzLArb4Ma/s1600/girl-eastofsunandwest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIETrxVOoo92DmaVov-SscJiCf-ROE7O821mI4OHpi8BmCqGvpVFFlOSK_yZqdqoqHpzewXzwqCBBnkXSsU7EV1KvOXkEE2uqkkGgszG1OJ_LfquupFnbdER11mUEJuJqVik_UzLArb4Ma/s1600/girl-eastofsunandwest.jpg" height="400" width="258" /></a></div>
About a third of the way into <i>California, </i>the main character Frida encounters a porcupine in the woods and runs back to her makeshift encampment screaming for her husband.<br />
<br />
This would be a great scene in a satiric novel, and <i>California </i>could have been written as killer satire, but I don't think satire is what Lepucki intended.<br />
<br />
For this reason, and so many others, Lepucki's first novel never really delivers on the cover promise of a "stunning and brilliant... wholly original take on the post-apocalyptic genre."<br />
<br />
I wanted to love this novel. I love Sherman Alexie. Love Stephen Colbert. Feel zero fondness for Amazon and buy from Powell's all the time.<br />
<br />
Lepucki looked like a nice person who was very excited to be getting this kind of 'bump' on her very first time out of the gate.<br />
<br />
I like all of that.<br />
<br />
I give Lepucki kudos for writing a novel and publishing it. I give myself kudos for finishing nearly 400 pages patiently hoping things would quickly turn around.<br />
<br />
But for me, they never did.<br />
<br />
Lots of opportunities were missed in this story.<br />
<br />
Cal and Frida are not very deeply drawn and are not very sympathetic main characters. They seem as bland and blonde and California-ish as the state itself seems to people in other parts of the U.S., parts that already deal with severe winters, tornados, hurricanes, all manner of invasive species and diseases, and urban decay with roots in rioting and dead factories.<br />
<br />
Again, if this was satire, that could work. It doesn't.<br />
<br />
Missed opportunity number one: the title.<br />
<br />
Why is the book called <i>California? </i>We never really find out. Frida's husband Cal is teasingly called "California' by Frida's obnoxious brother Micah (who later becomes a sort of terrorist/cult leader), but the story is more Frida's than anyone else's.<br />
<br />
<i>California </i>could have been an ironic title, but it isn't. It's just kind of there, like Frida and Cal are there, and then, they're somewhere else, and then they're somewhere else.They leave the city for an unnamed wilderness. Why, it's hard to say. Frida clearly is not into it, and it is hard to understand how their woodland life is any better than their post-apocalyptic city life.<br />
<br />
Missed opportunity number two: So much attention is paid to the fairly shallow (and endless) interpersonal dynamics that we never get a real sense of scene, and it seems to me that in a novel about a fallen-apart world, you have to deliver that at minimum. That is one of the must-do requirements of the genre.<br />
<br />
The forest doesn't seem real, the apocalyptic landscapes are thin and poorly explained, and the weather is surprisingly bland, almost non-existent--and this when at the moment half of real California is either on fire or desperate for water. It gets cold, it gets hot. It doesn't storm. We see a porcupine, a coyote, and a couple of rabbits.<br />
<br />
I need more.<br />
<br />
Missed opportunity number three: The characters. All of them are sketchy, shallow, annoying.<br />
<br />
Maybe it is because Lepucki is still young, I don't know, but she didn't go deep enough, not by half. We never really care about Frida, Cal, or Micah. At their most conflicted worst they irritate us as much as they irritate each other, but having seen the fireworks at ordinary funerals and weddings many times in my 60-plus years, I have to think the interpersonal drama triggered by survival issues would go a lot deeper than, "oh cool, Micah still has the bee toy Mom attached to his stroller," and "wow are our hands ever chapped!"<br />
<br />
Missed opportunity number four: A plot.<br />
<br />
OK, there is a plot. But it is maddeningly expository, like one of those bad sci-fi flicks where the characters fill in the backstory with longwinded impossible dialogue. Lepucki even kills, then reanimates one of the main characters for no apparent reason, breaking a rule that should not really be broken unless you can dazzle with your surprising plot skills.<br />
<br />
The plot almost seems like an annoyance to Lepucki, something that she knows she has to deal with as a writer but that takes away from her focus on the tension between the characters.<br />
<br />
I personally think that if your characters are annoying and unsympathetic, they should at least get eaten or something by the end of the novel, and hopefully in a spectacular, unpredictable way, but alas, it is not meant to be. This is what happens in monster movies, but not in Lepucki's novel.<br />
<br />
By the end of <i>California</i> Frida and Cal are back in a 'community' not unlike the suburban plats we all see everywhere these days, where everything is beige and all the lawns are perfect. Frida and Cal stop complaining about their chapped hands and go back to complaining about bad clothes, bad food, stupid suburban rules, and they still don't seem to like each other much.<br />
<br />
This is the way the world ends?<br />
<br />
Not with a bang, but a whimper, tasteless nutritional shakes, and bad retail.<br />
<br />
Why, God? Why?!<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-51914554750914643052014-09-13T18:14:00.004-07:002014-09-13T18:14:55.795-07:00The Most Invasive Alien Species Ever <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFdPxIIiJX9XLzv1JLdJXKtQQsBMKiIUri-XS79gtd_T4q6PNmsMH4zq2nvLWRHoFB8AfzXoF4fQdCk-vfts3G8-_4Ny2VXZd4s2luLZeX8e05oDwXCBZUCAPcVGePXCtjWty97gJbAdnw/s1600/03animalswikicca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFdPxIIiJX9XLzv1JLdJXKtQQsBMKiIUri-XS79gtd_T4q6PNmsMH4zq2nvLWRHoFB8AfzXoF4fQdCk-vfts3G8-_4Ny2VXZd4s2luLZeX8e05oDwXCBZUCAPcVGePXCtjWty97gJbAdnw/s1600/03animalswikicca.jpg" height="320" width="231" /></a></div>
Us. It's us.<br />
<br />
If that sounds like some green terrorist guilt trip, I don't mean it that way, and it isn't even my opinion. I read it in a book called <i>The Sixth Extinction </i>by Elizabeth Kolbert.<br />
<br />
If you want to get really discouraged and freaked out fast, read that book.<br />
<br />
So many anthropologists and paleontologists and geologists now see modern human beings as the most planet-changing species ever to hit Earth that the modern era has been renamed the Anthrocene.<br />
<br />
The name invokes our species-specific tendency to alter the environment in drastic ways while spreading alien species around the globe to the detriment of native ones. Apparently we are responsible for the spread of all kinds of species to places they really don't belong: viruses, fungi, zebra mussels, cane toads, kudzu, and on and on.<br />
<br />
The upshot of all this altering and spreading is a mass extinction of the same (or greater) magnitude as the one that happened when that comet wiped out the dinosaurs.<br />
<br />
The jury is still out as to who is going to survive this particular extinction, and how, but apparently, it won't be the frogs. The frogs are already nearly gone.<br />
<br />
The book got me to thinking though, it might just be true that the aliens are us; that if we want to see an invasive alien species up close, get proof positive that alines exist, all we have to do is look in a mirror.<br />
<br />
Since the Victorian Era, many writers and even scientists have floated the idea that human beings are actually from Mars--not just men, but women too, all of us. (Venus is too hot.) Many modern day scientists believe that fungi, those tiny strange organisms that make life possible and make bread rise, actually came here on some wandering bit of rock.<br />
<br />
We are in a very real sense descended from stars.<br />
<br />
Whether or not we as homo sapiens were purposively bred by big-eyed aliens who came to Assyria for the gold is not even the issue. Our very existence, our genetic makeup, the way we behave in such a naturally destructive capacity, proves us to be a cosmic pest.<br />
<br />
Evidently, humans are the ape variant of purple loosestrife or Japanese knotweed.<br />
<br />
It seems the Earth goes through lifeforms in a cyclic fashion. So you have your slow Darwinian evolution and random mutations and so forth, and then, every four or five hundred thousand years the Earth wipes the slate clean and starts over again with new critters and new plants, as well as a few hardy survivors from the last cycle.<br />
<br />
If we are indeed in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, which animals will still be around when the next cycle starts? Rats? Roaches? Snails?<br />
<br />
We might not be here to answer that question.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-44734452586175517852014-08-28T07:04:00.002-07:002014-08-28T07:11:26.392-07:00Ebola & Emergent Viruses: Real Aliens<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVaKyIERnDYTh4Y4pGtemP0iS8K5hRr9ToiO_uPJ3VT2aaNGXwR847w4AewfDchzpJYkhiuRFl7XvANpo3dUyuvc6a2f3RiHn6OUtNm-GtCbTYilmnbfF1S0HLfYHMFapjYKbSykCajJg9/s1600/wb_pandora.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVaKyIERnDYTh4Y4pGtemP0iS8K5hRr9ToiO_uPJ3VT2aaNGXwR847w4AewfDchzpJYkhiuRFl7XvANpo3dUyuvc6a2f3RiHn6OUtNm-GtCbTYilmnbfF1S0HLfYHMFapjYKbSykCajJg9/s1600/wb_pandora.jpg" height="320" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">:"Pandora" Rackham Public Domain Image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A virus is a single strand of proteins. The ebola virus, an RNA virus, is composed of only 7-9 proteins.<br />
<br />
Science cannot decide if viruses are alive or not.<br />
<br />
Viruses might even be alien life forms, come here on some meteorite.<br />
<br />
Or, they might not be lifeforms at all.<br />
<br />
Some viruses can live for eons in an inert state, just waiting for a living host to come along. Once inside the host, they 'come alive' and reproduce themselves inside living cells, so vigorously that the cell ruptures and sends the (now seemingly living) virus in the bloodstream of the host.<br />
<br />
From our perspective, we say the host has contracted an illness, is sick, but what's really happening is the virus is feeding off the host in order to reproduce itself. A really persistent virus will jump to other hosts while it does this so that even if the original host dies, it can keep reproducing in other infected bodies.<br />
<br />
A virus exists to reproduce itself. That is its sole purpose.<br />
<br />
Ebola virus is a scary damn virus, period. If you aren't scared of the ebola virus, you don't understand viruses and you don't understand ebola.<br />
<br />
But what if I told you that the reason ebola is becoming such a problem is that our familiar Western ways of doing business are causing viruses that once hid in other organisms in self-contained ecosystems (like rain forests), are now forced to find new 'food' when those ecosystems are destroyed for profit?<br />
<br />
That happens to be exactly what is going on with ebola, and it's happening with more and more strange new illnesses that 'jump species' (move from an animal host to a human one) when their habitat is destroyed.<br />
<br />
Ebola spillovers into humans tend to take place near logging facilities.<br />
<br />
Viruses like ebola that jump into humans for the first time are called 'emergent viruses', and they have steadily been growing as a problem and a threat over the last 50 years. Globalization has accelerated the process enormously.<br />
<br />
Although our chances of being wiped out as a species by ebola virus are currently small, our chances of being wiped out or nearly wiped out by some other emergent virus are very high. When it comes to global pandemic, the question is not if, but when.<br />
<br />
I find all this fascinating, not just because it is dark and scary (it is), but because it shows how connected every living organism in the world is to every other organism. It's a balance: remove one bit (like in Jenga) and the whole system falls apart and then rearranges itself.<br />
<br />
Will we be a part of the new arrangement?<br />
<br />
That is up to us, in large measure. So far, it doesn't look good.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-63515242726231027532014-08-24T14:51:00.000-07:002014-08-24T14:51:09.079-07:00The Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS0NIvvZO8mOB3hq3-ph96XdBM5ATqB36Fr_KvTnL9_vt8ob0GWSjGRNKhJz-qeoMUZxU4c3hDwqm0pDVz2t9glDFCNMvON78kTergB1tp12uPtwHvOUPBX6Hm81YdFKgCvYIqdPa5ZxKT/s1600/thestarfairies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS0NIvvZO8mOB3hq3-ph96XdBM5ATqB36Fr_KvTnL9_vt8ob0GWSjGRNKhJz-qeoMUZxU4c3hDwqm0pDVz2t9glDFCNMvON78kTergB1tp12uPtwHvOUPBX6Hm81YdFKgCvYIqdPa5ZxKT/s1600/thestarfairies.jpg" height="320" width="241" /></a></div>
What if the aliens are from Earth?<br />
<br />
What if we've been living side by side, right here, for thousands of years?<br />
<br />
That may sound like the plot of 'made for Sy Fy' movie or series, but it's a theory that's been kicking around since the 1970s, when Jacques Vallee began to compare UFO encounters of the 50s forward to fairy folk encounters of previous centuries.<br />
<br />
Now of course the idea of 'ancient aliens' is so popular that cable TV can't seem to make enough shows about it, and any ancient artifact featuring big eyes or a bird in it gets interpreted as proof that we were visited by space beings in early antiquity.<br />
<br />
In <i>The Cryptoterrestrials</i>, Mac Tonnies offers a focused essay on why aliens and UFOs may well be creatures from right here on earth. Tonnies died not long after the book came out, which is tragic. He had a nimble mind and brought a critical perspective to a topic woefully short on intelligent criticism.<br />
<br />
Here are a few things to think about:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Why would aliens abduct humans for the purpose of genetic merging? Why would we expect to be compatible in that way? Perhaps we are compatible because we are dealing with one branch of human creatures trying to borrow genetic qualities from another branch of human creatures, like Neanderthals and Cromagnons.</li>
<li>Alien abductions make the most sense as theater. Using two of the most powerful human emotions--fear and sex--the typical alien abduction seems to parody our science and the way we treat animals in the name of science. Maybe this seeming parody is the point.</li>
<li>Grey aliens look way too much like human beings. There are creatures right here on earth, countless creatures, which look nothing like us. Why do supposed creatures from 'outer space' look like more fragile, big-eyed versions of ourselves?</li>
<li>Accounts of kidnappings by otherworldly beings (such as fairies) go back hundreds and even thousands of years. Perhaps 'alien abduction' is just the latest cultural explanation for a terrestrial phenomenon that is much older. </li>
</ul>
<div>
I personally like the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis and would like to expand up on it future posts, even though it is not all the popular at present.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the meantime, check out Mac Tonnies' book, if you can get your hands on it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's sure the be worth more once it goes out of print.</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-13926389779202763912014-07-30T18:22:00.001-07:002014-07-30T18:22:34.781-07:00UFOs and the Paranormal Taint<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERTEOQGq4SERG_JS9L2lkFJxR822T5fDk5_ev0cittP03EwwdqmcY3np6zWXNqa7s_5m9NtRvoH9LkbE7_m_fP7z_YCg3ElRFY_zooULD3TDsz9te_tq1S_oVRWxr75cjBBe5GP4L4CSP/s1600/102929Stuck_in_a_1950s_Science_Fiction_Movie.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERTEOQGq4SERG_JS9L2lkFJxR822T5fDk5_ev0cittP03EwwdqmcY3np6zWXNqa7s_5m9NtRvoH9LkbE7_m_fP7z_YCg3ElRFY_zooULD3TDsz9te_tq1S_oVRWxr75cjBBe5GP4L4CSP/s1600/102929Stuck_in_a_1950s_Science_Fiction_Movie.png" height="320" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Back off Shermer!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Paranormal stuff is stupid, right?<br />
<br />
And UFOs are the stupidest.<br />
<br />
Not according to Charles Tart, veteran researcher and author of <i>Transpersonal Psychologies</i> and <i>Altered States of Consciousness</i>, and most recently <i>The End of Materialism</i>.<br />
<br />
But, if you take yourself seriously as an academic, a writer, a researcher, a scientist, or, well, as anybody except a total fool, giving paranormal topics serious uptake will give you an indelible case of the 'paranormal taint', and you will be snickered at and ostracized forever after.<br />
<br />
The term 'paranormal taint' has nothing to do with ass, although you may well utter a synonym for 'rectum' when someone treats you as though you have it.<br />
<br />
In <i>The End of Materialism </i>Tart goes after what he calls 'scientism', which is based on ridicule and on simply declaring something you don't like 'impossible'. Not science at all, but more like someone who plays a scientist in the theater of his or her own mind.<br />
<br />
The scientific method by contrast is a step by step method of inquiry which can be summarized as including 1) hypothesis, 2) observation, 3) experimentation, 4) replication, and 5) peer review and criticism, which, ideally, will get you back to step 1) all over again, refining the discoveries as you go.<br />
<br />
Tart has spent most of his life using the scientific method to experimentally show that some paranormal topics are real and worthy of continued study. He calls these 'the big five', and they include 1) telepathy, 2) clairvoyance, 3) precognition, 4) telekinesis, and 5) psychic healing.<br />
<br />
What does all this have to do with UFOs?<br />
<br />
A lot, actually.<br />
<br />
Nothing slathers a person with more paranormal taint than talking about UFOs in a serious way, and yet, thousands of people have had encounters, sightings, and even repeated contact. Many of these people are respected scientists, pilots, military personnel, and government officials.<br />
<br />
You might think, so what's wrong with approaching the topic in a scientific (not scientistic) way?<br />
<br />
Nothing really, and some people are starting to do it.<br />
<br />
In fact, Tart's critique of scientific materialism and the exclusion of all nonmaterial topics from serious study is just one of a rash of recent books calling for the same. Many top thinkers are coming out and saying that science, while it is great and useful and has led to many discoveries, is not the be-all and end-all philosophically.<br />
<br />
I will be listing some of those books in future posts.<br />
<br />
For now, I just want to say that one of the many reasons UFOs continue to fascinate me personally is that they represent the most irrationally tainted of all paranormal topics. I have the sense that this is important, that in fact we've shoved all of our worst fears and rejected bits onto these unknown aerial whatsits, and for that reason alone we should be interested in taking them more seriously.<br />
<br />
So that's my justification. I think it's a good one.<br />
<br />
How about you?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-70414336375708328912014-07-27T07:22:00.000-07:002014-07-30T08:57:04.047-07:00Giant UFOs & Triangular Craft<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCL5v9V9tRzwhEyhuxuc2eHFx-vwryJDICQtvue0w4dMMKuh6Ll9hFkL_ZahdG8yoK_tXnIBx_D5zt49RQiV8USI9PGQIOyuPUny58oty2SdRkgcVm-u43GcF74JAJhw5uTtwVqW1Su1KN/s1600/TriangleBelgium1990.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCL5v9V9tRzwhEyhuxuc2eHFx-vwryJDICQtvue0w4dMMKuh6Ll9hFkL_ZahdG8yoK_tXnIBx_D5zt49RQiV8USI9PGQIOyuPUny58oty2SdRkgcVm-u43GcF74JAJhw5uTtwVqW1Su1KN/s1600/TriangleBelgium1990.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Belgian triangular UFO Courtesy J.S. Henradi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Is the US working on enormous aerial transport vehicles?<br />
<br />
If so, why?<br />
<br />
In recent years, UFO sightings have increased, although you would hardly know it from watching or reading what we generously call 'the news'.<br />
<br />
Sightings have changed, however. The most commonly sighted UFOs in recent years have been enormous UFOs (the size of several football fields), and triangular craft with lights on each point of the triangle and in the center.<br />
<br />
(Orange balls of light have also increased, but these will be addressed in another post.)<br />
<br />
In Belgium in 1989 and 1990 hundreds of people saw and photographed triangular craft like the one in the photo above. The military saw them, they showed up on radar, they were clearly visible on several occasions over several major cities.<br />
<br />
When the U.S. military was asked about the triangular craft in Belgium it said it had no information.<br />
<br />
Why does the U.S. take this unhelpful position over and over again? Are these ours? Are they experimental? If so, why would we be flying them over Belgium? If they are not ours, why are we not interested?<br />
<br />
I find this really weird.<br />
<br />
Mass sightings of huge craft occurred in Phoenix, Arizona in March of 1997, and in Stephenville, Texas in 2008. One Stevenville man saw a huge craft at close range (several hundred feet) that was so huge he could not see the edges of it or the sky until it rapidly accelerated upward.<br />
<br />
That is passing strange if nothing else, and there is no reason to think the man was lying or ill.<br />
<br />
Why then are UFOs such a target of ridicule? And why is the US so quiet?<br />
<br />
More thoughts on this later.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-47830317680745536262014-07-24T13:58:00.001-07:002014-07-24T13:59:27.577-07:00Which Came First: Aliens or Sci-Fi?What is the relationship between UFO sightings and UFOs in fiction, stories, and film?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpo_WPu7a0ZhtY1mh6t_sEfXZHOjW_5yozbTRs7RqS90gMjwzT9WScyPWiEpNCkzkcF5Oi8hmXj__PkcJOQotjtNlIwMqyXXIIUtxsQ3BNy8QZmA55Dvf_iz6zg7ZcO4Gpkvamiga2-l_y/s1600/earth-vs-flyingsaucers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpo_WPu7a0ZhtY1mh6t_sEfXZHOjW_5yozbTRs7RqS90gMjwzT9WScyPWiEpNCkzkcF5Oi8hmXj__PkcJOQotjtNlIwMqyXXIIUtxsQ3BNy8QZmA55Dvf_iz6zg7ZcO4Gpkvamiga2-l_y/s1600/earth-vs-flyingsaucers.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, courtesy XRay Delta @ Flickr</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You might think that imaginative sci-fi comes first, spawning subsequent actual 'sightings' and experiences as people unconsciously amend their memories to include sexy aliens.<br />
<br />
In 1974 Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer conducted research into the development of 'false memories', that is, real memories accompanied by strong emotion and certainty of things that never actually happened. They found that it was possible to implant 'memories' into people, and that some people were more suggestible and easily influenced than others.<br />
<br />
By the mid-90's Loftus's research created a firestorm in the psychological community. Some therapists had been uncovering sensational 'repressed memories' in a number of patients.<br />
<br />
As a result, lawsuits were filed, talk show hosts were happy and busy, and people seeking help for emotional problems found themselves in the middle of a heated insider battle that was not overly helpful to <i>them. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Believe it or not, 'repressed memory', 'recovered memory', and 'false memory syndrome' are nowhere to be found in the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic manual used by psychologists and psychiatrists today. False memory syndrome is as controversial today as the controversial 'recovered memories' it was popularized to fight.<br />
<br />
Whenever I see this kind of polarized, heated, go-nowhere debate I think, "What is being obscured by all this arguing over two and only two outcomes?"<br />
<br />
In other words, what is getting lost in the messy middle, where most of us actually live?<br />
<br />
Much the same argument goes on with the question of which came first: aliens or sci fi stories about them?<br />
<br />
The relationship between experience and imagination is complex. On the one hand, if you can't even imagine something you aren't likely to see it or experience it in the material world. On the other, if an experience is toxic, 'hot', or confusing, you may well invoke a more structured fiction to make it understandable.<br />
<br />
Extremely unwelcome information can also be screened by memories more palatable to society at large. (I've often thought that people would much rather hear about an alien abduction, for example, than a violent real rape involving all-too-real human beings.)<br />
<br />
Some people are also sensitive to the extent that they can tune in to 'big stories', emerging cultural myths, and shepherd them into material reality as an organizing or healing principle. Although we do not recognize such people as legitimate in our modern technological society, every other society that has even existed on this earth does.<br />
<br />
None of this answers the question posed by this post. Or, it does.<br />
<br />
We never consider than answers to questions can be multiple, that reality can be so disorganized and confusing as to seem alien all on its own, that to get to the heart of a matter you sometimes have to tolerate not having a pat answer for a very long time indeed.<br />
<br />
That's what a scientist would do anyway:<br />
<br />
Tolerate the confusion. Stand in the center. Watch. Take notes.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-26971624803515124832014-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:002014-07-23T13:21:17.111-07:00UFOs, Aliens & the Singularity<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUHMYtu3vGTjskMZkamUE3wQIe6B8LY5_L-XtTRA6NM3eR50DH1GhTUSfzzAGFMVk7Lg86AlhHQJDIYGH8iPVTBW96el8JHByt-n8_YL_aJhb-GB8EIVblM6phQ6LJqf87jrKMK2GKhMZ/s1600/rocketglasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUHMYtu3vGTjskMZkamUE3wQIe6B8LY5_L-XtTRA6NM3eR50DH1GhTUSfzzAGFMVk7Lg86AlhHQJDIYGH8iPVTBW96el8JHByt-n8_YL_aJhb-GB8EIVblM6phQ6LJqf87jrKMK2GKhMZ/s1600/rocketglasses.jpg" height="320" width="299" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flickt Creative Commons XRay Delta</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you've never heard of the singularity, you seriously need to hone your geek 'cred'.<br />
<br />
Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge popularized the term singularity to refer to a moment in time when technology outpaces human intelligence.<br />
<br />
Given the arguably sketchy state of human intelligence these days, you might think that the singularity came and went long ago, but according to futurist Ray Kurzweil (who is looking forward to the singularity the way kids look forward to Christmas morning), it should arrive in the year 2045.<br />
<br />
Vinge thinks the singularity will come sometime before 2030, and he's busy mainlining vitamins in the meantime in preparation.<br />
<br />
Vinge is pretty sure the singularity will allow people who are excited about merging with machines with big brains to basically live forever.<br />
<br />
I guess he is one of those kinds of people who never spilled coffee on his keyboard.<br />
<br />
Well, never mind. I'm giving myself away here.<br />
<br />
The point is, once artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, all bets are off. Not only will the future be unpredictable to the extreme, we might not even recognize what is happening because we lack the intelligence to accurately perceive and process it.<br />
<br />
If this is all true, how do we know the singularity hasn't already happened?<br />
<br />
We don't, not really. We could all be virtual beings inside some computer brain right now. And that's where UFOs come in.<br />
<br />
According to author and blogger Micah Hanks, UFOs might not be directed by an extraterrestrial biological intelligence, but rather a notably terrestrial machine intelligence, and there is pretty much no way of knowing when this intelligence was born and what its intentions are.<br />
<br />
All we can really be sure of is that it is probably smarter than we are and its aims are not human ones, and not necessarily benevolent.<br />
<br />
That's all pretty creepy. But it's an idea that's infected popular culture to the point that we are seeing it in our films and television shows. The recent CBS hit "Extant" seems headed in this general direction, and in the most recent version of "Battlestar Galactica" A.I. creatures originally designed by humans decide to just exterminate us before we ruin the universe for everybody.<br />
<br />
I personally think that there's a good chance we'll exterminate ourselves way before our favorite robots get a chance to slip Armageddon past us, but that's just me.<br />
<br />
I just broke yet another toaster. I <i>have </i>spilled coffee on my keyboard. And I think living forever as part of a machine could well be some post-modern version of hell.<br />
<br />
But what a great time to write science fiction!<br />
<br />
What am I doing blogging???? (Don't answer that!)<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-28446548945026003012014-07-21T14:46:00.001-07:002014-07-21T14:46:06.139-07:00Do UFOs Really Possess Superior Technology?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqDx_mXg6ATiLYlOfuXFKuUGQ8H8uqc1cX6-99PIP_C0h3XvsIwOFSZzgqiqujXe1cBY0GSRtKbz9iQTRDMcBx_-9tJjMFzQNANz9UIzgzIxOEzvdNcXS5yD6PjWfkRaNOofACdGYh0Wz/s1600/itcamefromos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRqDx_mXg6ATiLYlOfuXFKuUGQ8H8uqc1cX6-99PIP_C0h3XvsIwOFSZzgqiqujXe1cBY0GSRtKbz9iQTRDMcBx_-9tJjMFzQNANz9UIzgzIxOEzvdNcXS5yD6PjWfkRaNOofACdGYh0Wz/s1600/itcamefromos.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Definitely projected</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
UFOs are often said to display superior aerial technology--technology that is somewhat like ours, but shows itself to be a much more advanced version.<br />
<br />
Justifications for this belief include the way some UFOs appear to rapidly accelerate and decelerate, the way they appear to travel at tremendous speeds, or their capacity to blink in and out of sight, as if hopping between dimensions.<br />
<br />
The fact that UFOs are more often than not completely silent is also commonly mentioned as proof that they operate via a technology far beyond our understanding.<br />
<br />
I'm not so sure this is as obvious as it is commonly taken to be.<br />
<br />
Projected and/or holographic images also can be made to seem to blink in and out, or 'fly' silently overhead. Although sometimes radar evidence would seem to indicate a solid object, not a projected image, if someone was bent on deception there are ways to 'fool' radar.<br />
<br />
In fact, the US government has developed (and is probably developing, as we speak) some of these methods. One of the best examples is the stealth bomber, which was mistaken for a UFO often before its existence was disclosed.<br />
<br />
I am not saying that no UFOs are a true mystery or that the US government is responsible for all of them by way of weapons development. I'm just saying that given the propensity for deception that has come to be a major part of the phenomena, we should be difficult about projecting our own ideas onto something that might not be what it appears to be.<br />
<br />
Somehow, people who want to understand the phenomena have to disentangle themselves from the ET hypothesis and stop projecting ideas that fit that hypothesis onto the UFOs themselves.<br />
<br />
I personally think that pushing human beings toward a greater tolerance of paradox and uncertainty is at least part of what is going on.<br />
<br />
But I should probably not get too invested in that either.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-19438621941275026832014-07-17T13:44:00.000-07:002014-07-17T13:44:32.706-07:00Myth America<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA04wQRoo9NmVqimkD0RPYVsU2_7enZRGsiMqdrZsTZwR1yra2x1yIWSqWIPHHI5caXwEiwq45xKP6HeLmK1XAZmuljbfM5AmnNXDJoDn_Li0NIO5CV8BoJauLWsSxhyZgQPv-Hz_2l6l9/s1600/vicdamico-rene-magritte-voice-of-space-1931-1932_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA04wQRoo9NmVqimkD0RPYVsU2_7enZRGsiMqdrZsTZwR1yra2x1yIWSqWIPHHI5caXwEiwq45xKP6HeLmK1XAZmuljbfM5AmnNXDJoDn_Li0NIO5CV8BoJauLWsSxhyZgQPv-Hz_2l6l9/s1600/vicdamico-rene-magritte-voice-of-space-1931-1932_500.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From a painting by Magritte</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
People who are passionate about UFOs tend to get really testy about the 'm' word.<br />
<br />
OK, I get that it's way more fun to talk about aliens and spacecraft and parallel dimensions and Nbiru and Reptilian takeovers and expanded states of awareness and--well, you get the idea.<br />
<br />
But myth is important and it can also be really fun.<br />
<br />
Myth is the key to J.K. Rowling's stupendous Harry Potter success. (That, and writing talent.)<br />
<br />
Myth is what we in the United States wave around on the 4th of July, be it red, white, and blue, or sparkly and combustible.<br />
<br />
Most of us know very well that America has some serious problems right now. Statistically speaking, we are not the greatest nation of all time on any number of quantiifiable parameters--from infant mortality rates to social mobility to the number of people we throw into prison for long periods of time.<br />
<br />
But the myth of America is sacred to many people, even liberals. Even cynics. The myth of America is a map of where we'd like to be--and how can we ever get there without a map?<br />
<br />
Every culture has a central myth, called a 'founding myth', that maps out the values, hopes, and dreams of the culture. Modern culture claims not to have a founding myth, but that's not true. The myth of the Hero, the man who sets out and explores and conquers, coming back with new information and new discoveries--that's the modern world's founding myth (according to myriad scholars and philosophers).<br />
<br />
Isn't the myth of the Hero the template for scientific knowledge as well?<br />
<br />
Sure it is.<br />
<br />
Science "boldly goes where no man has gone before" and we applaud.<br />
<br />
So, getting back to UFOs and to ufology's distaste for myth and other smushy concepts as applied to unidentified aerial <i>stuff, </i>ask yourself this question:<br />
<br />
If you were an alien intelligence (not to say extraterrestrial but just 'not us'), and you wanted to influence the direction of human evolution without detection, what would you do?<br />
<br />
Would you plop down on the White House lawn and say, "See here now, we'd like for you to start thinking about and doing things a bit differently!"<br />
<br />
Or would you tinker with the universal template for human consciousness? Myth.<br />
<br />
Yes, I have some ideas about this topic.<br />
<br />
More later.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-33153974938299403192014-07-16T10:03:00.002-07:002014-07-16T14:38:14.609-07:00Ten Things You Might Not Know About UFOs<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2o-O_XzL5h1V3_UNtzWCViGKJEi3ILx97XmbWD0vyMcVam2WzgzqtYlFy8xr9fmk93ZS6owEA8QAXi23gKCvo1yvcJU4ODR5Z0iOf3DadczdY_BOY31jZoA4kUNUtZ_swcJXM7JmeXv4/s1600/middleages+space+ship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2o-O_XzL5h1V3_UNtzWCViGKJEi3ILx97XmbWD0vyMcVam2WzgzqtYlFy8xr9fmk93ZS6owEA8QAXi23gKCvo1yvcJU4ODR5Z0iOf3DadczdY_BOY31jZoA4kUNUtZ_swcJXM7JmeXv4/s1600/middleages+space+ship.jpg" height="197" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medieval rendering of UFO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Over the past 60 years an entire mythology has built up around the subject of UFOs in America.<br />
<br />
A mythology is a cycle of important, interconnecting stories that we come to believe or at least value because they tell us something important about ourselves and our place in the world.<br />
<br />
Often, people who have seen a UFO or who are invested in UFOs and believe something important is going get angry when anyone talks about 'UFO mythology'. That's because mythology is devalued in modern culture, and is often understood as 'a bunch of untrue stories made up to explain something'.<br />
<br />
That is not the definition of mythology I accept. In a sense, a mythic cycle is made up of stories that are more real than simple physical reality. UFOs can be physically real, and we can still attach a mythology to them, and in fact, we have.<br />
<br />
Here are a few things you might not know about UFOs, because they are not part of the cultural mythology attached to them:<br />
<ol>
<li>UFO means 'unidentified flying object', not 'spaceship from another planet'. In fact, some researchers would like the axe the term 'UFO' altogether and use 'UAP' instead. </li>
<li>'UAP' stands for 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena' and is preferable in a sense because we don't really know for sure if unidentified sky sightings are objects.</li>
<li>UFOs can be found in ancient, medieval, and modern art.</li>
<li>Small 'eye idols' resembling gray aliens were common in Sumeria, the oldest known civilization in the Middle East, and were associated with the Goddess.</li>
<li>Roswell is not even mentioned in the earliest UFO investigations (i.e. Project Blue Book, etc.) and did not become a topic of popular interest until the publication of <i>The Roswell Incident </i>by Charles Berlitz and William Moore in 1980.</li>
<li>Bigfoot and other cryptids have been sighted in conjunction with UFOs. </li>
<li>Jacques Vallee and other ufologists have suggested that Marian apparitions (such as at Fatima and Medjugorge) are consistent with UFO close encounters.</li>
<li>US intelligence agencies routinely use UFO groups as training grounds for new agents, purposely providing disinformation and setting one faction against another.</li>
<li>The US is the only nation with a modern air industry and/or military that publicly claims to have no interest in investigating UFOs.</li>
<li>In 1999 France published <i>The COMETA Report, </i>officially titled <i>UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare for? </i>The opening statement includes the following quote: </li>
</ol>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>“The accumulation of well-documented sightings made by credible witnesses forces us to consider from now on all of the hypotheses regarding the origin of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, and the extraterrestrial hypothesis, in particular.”</i></span></span></b><br />
<div>
<b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I would summarize these 10 points this way: UFOs are not easy to understand (hence the term <i>unidentified), </i>they have been around for thousands of years, if not longer, there is broad agreement among nations that they are a serious concern, and last, but by no means least, the US is a bad player in terms of coming to an understanding of what is going on.</span></span></div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-5696857481049362252014-07-14T09:44:00.001-07:002014-07-14T09:44:34.351-07:00Time to Ditch the ET Hypothesis?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAL4464yrpgwVCVuFuPN8fiHuqymOiuDUFVCIeK3ZLYFFNFTXWqAR0iUshWsyW5NiCMSYmJ4XGEs3oe16lmgkEJERcAUo84z-oihDJ2toYK5gWorYqZh_X1lO-rEKGzlumxu7zq9-YA9d/s1600/3572437392_fc6218f864.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAL4464yrpgwVCVuFuPN8fiHuqymOiuDUFVCIeK3ZLYFFNFTXWqAR0iUshWsyW5NiCMSYmJ4XGEs3oe16lmgkEJERcAUo84z-oihDJ2toYK5gWorYqZh_X1lO-rEKGzlumxu7zq9-YA9d/s1600/3572437392_fc6218f864.jpg" height="320" width="186" /></a>The ET hypothesis is the idea that UFOs come from outer space and are sent here by extraterrestrial life forms.<br />
<br />
Most people don't consider the ET hypothesis to be a hypothesis at all.<br />
<br />
If anyone brings up the topic of UFOs at all (which, it seems to me, happens less and less these days) most people will respond with something like, "Yes I think the universe is just too vast to rule out the possibility of life on other planets."<br />
<br />
Skeptics might say something like, "We don't know how to travel those vast distances. I think it may be the case that highly advanced civilizations might well die out before they develop the technology to travel to other planets."<br />
<br />
When we look at our own situation as supposedly intelligent creatures on planet Earth, both of these positions seem plausible. We hope there is life on other planets and can see it is probably so. We also see that out own civilization is in danger of snuffing itself out. Soon.<br />
<br />
What everyone seems to have forgotten at this point is that the term 'UFO' is an acronym that means <i>Unidentified Flying Object. </i>UFO is <i>not </i>shorthand for "technologically advanced craft visiting earth from some other planet."<br />
<br />
Some of the best recent writing on UFO phenomena comes from people who suspect UFOs might not be extraterrestrial phenomena at all. Since I am currently writing a book that takes some of these newer ideas into account while placing UFOs into a different context, I thought I would resurrect this blog.<br />
<br />
Maybe eventually I can sell e-copies of the book or offer it for free on this site.<br />
<br />
Maybe not.<br />
<br />
But I felt like I was ready to talk about this in a new way and that doing it here might be a good option.<br />
<br />
More to come, stay tuned...C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-9824432283451069312012-10-08T15:34:00.003-07:002012-10-08T15:46:40.837-07:00Solving the Communion Enigma<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Hzn1vMNEFtsjmgkrWqktsKjdz9OvLqgMUS33PJM3EfMU0Umibj8aIYSBdmpIoF8YdL8PQyUpvdIArsPS8nb6384E18eyKt9xWAFwbNrzE3n2g_3tVp0mHE0w8N0c_iMUNKYLprFN4S4Z/s1600/isamizdat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Hzn1vMNEFtsjmgkrWqktsKjdz9OvLqgMUS33PJM3EfMU0Umibj8aIYSBdmpIoF8YdL8PQyUpvdIArsPS8nb6384E18eyKt9xWAFwbNrzE3n2g_3tVp0mHE0w8N0c_iMUNKYLprFN4S4Z/s320/isamizdat.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy isamizdat at Flickr Creative Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I picked up Whitley Strieber's newest book <i>Solving the Communion Enigma</i> at the library this week, I was pretty sure that, at 213 pages, it wasn't going to <i>really</i> solve the Communion enigma.<br />
<br />
I mean, if he'd really solved that puzzle, he would have told us all sooner, right? <br />
<br />
I picked it up anyway on the off chance it contained something new.<br />
<br />
It does not.<br />
<br />
I do have some thoughts about the book though, which I'd like to share as charitably as I can. I don't love scathing reviews written just to be nasty, and I don't mean to write one here.<br />
<br />
First, what I liked about the book:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>I like that Strieber brings up the link between childhood trauma and contact experiences. </b>Bringing this up is risky, since most of the people who write about alien abduction are heavily invested in the ET theory that aliens are coming to Earth to breed a hybrid race of human/alien creatures. I've never been convinced of that explanation, and I've never liked the way the credentials of experiencers are laid out in every case to prove they are sane. Not that I think people who have these kinds of experiences are insane (especially since I'm one of them), but because doing this eliminates all kinds of possibilities and opportunities to learn new things. </li>
<li><b>I like that Strieber brings out the obsession some experiencers have with perceptual gaps</b>, these spaces in human perception that even humans can learn to use to render themselves 'invisible'. What else could be lurking there? I've wondered that for years, but when I bring it up, most people look at me like I'm nuts. (See above paragraph.)</li>
<li><b>I like that Strieber leaves open the possibility that, if there is some kind of other life form intruding into our space (or visiting it, or whatever), it does not automatically follow that their motives are cohesive or understandable. </b>He uses as an example humans who go to a vacation spot. Anybody can visit a popular resort, but not everybody is going to behave the same way when they get there. Some will be courteous and circumspect, some will throw trash everywhere, some will commit criminal acts. Some will dissect cows and take sperm samples. </li>
<li><b>I like that Strieber took the chance of putting his personal experience out there</b>, which, although he swears otherwise, I can't help but think he sometimes wishes he hadn't. After the initial sensation triggered by <i>Communion</i>, this gamble basically ruined his career as a writer and trashed his finances in the bargain. He lost his beautiful cabin in the woods where he met all these beings. He now runs his own radio show and maintains a subscription-only website. Many people of many stripes make fun of him or don't like him. Reading this latest book, it comes across that this fall from grace (and money) shook him and his family to the core. </li>
</ul>
<br />
That said, <i>Solving the Communion Enigma</i> left me with some negative reactions and critical thoughts that I almost hate to mention.<br />
<br />
After all, I'm not putting every burp and wrinkle of <i>MY</i> inner life on the page for the public to trash or validate or whatever. <br />
<br />
I'm a bit more self-protective than that. I choose to inhabit the peanut gallery most days. <br />
<br />
But, on the other hand, when you put yourself out there in that way as a writer, in the first person, you do open yourself up to the critical thoughts of others. <br />
<br />
Here are a few of mine:<br />
<br />
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1) <b>Another characteristic shared by people who experience this kind of contact is a fluid or shaky sense of self</b>. I don't believe this characteristic is necessarily pathological (although it can be). The fact is, though, that many abductees (or 'experiencers', a term many prefer) see their 'self' or ego state, their identity, in a different way than other people do. You can hear this almost obsessive self-concern in Strieber's writing, especially in this book, where it reaches an almost aggravatingly intense pitch. At times it almost feels like a tic, or like verbal picking at a scab. <br />
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Strieber is forever pointing out that 'we are more than we seem' and 'we are the greatest mystery of all', without getting into any details about why that is. What's more, he clearly considers himself some sort of adept because of his ability to initiate all manner of anomalous experiences during meditation, including his initial exploration of 'the visitors'. This becomes wearing after awhile. It's way better if lots of other people call you an adept. If you are the only one saying it while those around you have less charitable things to say, the impression that comes across is something like narcissistic petulance.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNfC4rHiN0gPKzQZ8uycok9JClA9fNcm38IBNgeKYXlNmX48G-IioZ9rB0Yn8V3EL6MnUPFaozs9h5qwyyiS9OV8Ifth9a_EaA273MbnLFCf7sXKOPZpvC5MYiut9te-IOwjRT05j2qMN/s1600/escher-dream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNfC4rHiN0gPKzQZ8uycok9JClA9fNcm38IBNgeKYXlNmX48G-IioZ9rB0Yn8V3EL6MnUPFaozs9h5qwyyiS9OV8Ifth9a_EaA273MbnLFCf7sXKOPZpvC5MYiut9te-IOwjRT05j2qMN/s320/escher-dream.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MC Escher print Public Domain</td></tr>
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2) Strieber consistently refers to these various others as butterflies to our caterpillars; that is, as possibly the next form humanity takes in some other hyperreal dimension after death. The problem with this is <b>these others don't really <i>look</i> or sound like butterflies so much as hymenoptera--that class of parasitic wasp that lays its eggs in caterpillars so its own young can hatch and devour them</b>. Strieber does give lip service to this possibility, but it's clear he really, really wants his visitors and his others to be cool and advanced so that his experiences with them can also be cool and advanced. I know that after I die, I do hope I don't turn into a wide-mouthed Ooompa Loompa in a blue suit who carries people out of their bedrooms at night, but if I do end up like that, I don't think 'butterfly' will be the first word that comes to mind.<br />
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3) This leads me to my last and most troubling question: <b>Why does Strieber cling so manically to these experiences and their importance above all others? </b>His insight that the reason people with trauma in their pasts are more likely to make contact is because they understand that reality isn't always what we want is a good one. That might be true too, and I've thought of that explanation many times myself.<br />
<br />
But an alternate explanation--one that can't be discarded out of hand--is that the reason trauma victims are more likely to have such experiences is that the aliens (or visitors or others or whatever they might be)<i> know</i> that no one is going to believe a person with past trauma who is carrying a fantastic story.<br />
<br />
Trauma victims are uniquely prone to more trauma and more victimization, as almost any experienced therapist will tell you, and predators get very, very good at recognizing and exploiting traumatized people--even ordinary human predators do this, so how much more so predators with uncanny non-human abilities?<br />
<br />
More so than in any of his other first person books, the voice of the traumatized child really comes through in Strieber's latest work; the longing to be special, to have been chosen because of one's unique and elevated capabilities, to be recognized as worthy and worthwhile instead of damaged and suspect and something to use.<br />
<br />
His relative inability to own this part of himself, to get some kind of human perspective on his frantic, confusing (and as it sounds, lonely and rejecting) childhood, hurts his case when it comes to his special insights about the visitors and the others, and raises the possibility that he clings to these strange experiences in order to avoid looking hard at more earthly ones.<br />
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That doesn't mean he's wrong. It doesn't mean that close encounters of the 4th kind aren't very real in many cases, including his.<br />
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But this desperate tone hurts his first person analysis.<br />
<br />
We need this kind of testimony and we need people strong enough to disclose it.<br />
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But to expect to make a living from it--that's probably not realistic and possibly not a very wise path to take. I can't help but think, after reading this book, that Strieber chose this path prematurely, before he fully considered what the consequences might be.<br />
<br />
Witnessing the aftermath of his choice has been alternately fascinating and--in this case--painful. <br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-60789863777775129712012-09-29T11:35:00.002-07:002012-09-29T11:35:44.285-07:00Revisiting Project Blue Book & Edward Ruppelt<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6xm6SmozZpCa0peFDvAQzPZ18NVAt69XZzgXu6drs8QZc2LLRDMs35P-Bb3etaw8MOR8qkl7hxPSFUN1HPCneOgsKODKl5VV6Cm058noDDyCixFPAXKHgRIJwhHovzxDeZ97fEDayrgJ/s1600/earthvsflyings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6xm6SmozZpCa0peFDvAQzPZ18NVAt69XZzgXu6drs8QZc2LLRDMs35P-Bb3etaw8MOR8qkl7hxPSFUN1HPCneOgsKODKl5VV6Cm058noDDyCixFPAXKHgRIJwhHovzxDeZ97fEDayrgJ/s400/earthvsflyings.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the movie, "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" 1956</td></tr>
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I've been rereading <i>The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects</i> by Edward J. Ruppelt from 1955. <br />
<br />
Ruppelt was the first guy in charge of Project Blue Book, the military organization assigned to collect and investigate UFO reports in the early 50s. He also was quite familiar with Project Grudge, which came before Blue Book in the late 40s.<br />
<br />
After 57 years, <i>The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects</i> is still a good read, although the reports get a little redundant after awhile. Ruppelt wrote in a very direct and often blunt, common-sense sort of manner, and he seemed to hold the line between debunkery and true belief really well.<br />
<br />
His method at the time was to try to explain each sighting some other way, and if that turned out to be impossible, to classify it as 'unknown'.<br />
<br />
That strikes me as good practice.<br />
<br />
Anyway, a few things stand out about this book after all these years, and I thought I'd just note them here, because they're kind of unexpected.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Ruppelt never even mentions Roswell. </b>Today, most people have the impression that Roswell was the grandaddy of all UFO reports, the mother of the myth, the beginning of a grand conspiracy. And yet, even though Roswell happened in 1947, you wouldn't know it even happened at all from reading this book from 1955. </li>
<li><b>Ruppelt DOES talk about the Maury Island Incident a.k.a. the 'Roswell before Roswell'.</b> Just before Roswell, a weird incident took place near Tacoma, Washington at Maury Island, involving the supposed sighting a several UFOs by some men on a small fishing boat. One of the UFOs was having trouble and supposedly leaked molten metal that burnt one of the fisherman's sons. This incident has been almost completely forgotten. It is significan't because 1) the writer gathering facts about the story was Kevin Arnold (although Ruppelt doesn't name him in 1955 out of courtesy) and this incident took place BEFORE Arnold's famous first sighting of 'flying saucers', 2) the whole thing was hoaxed by a guy who was almost certainly CIA, and last but not least 3) the plane carrying the supposed melted saucer bits (it was just slag) crashed, killing both of the investigators aboard. </li>
<li><b>Most of the 1950s UFOs are anomalous lights in the night sky.</b> Unless you read Ruppelt's book you don't get a sense of how dramatically UFO sightings have changed in just 50-odd years. Although a few sightings recounted in this text took place in the daytime and involved silver-grey craft, most were just lights in the night sky that moved oddly and sometimes showed up on radar. A few pilots saw UFOs close up, but even these mostly only saw a glowing red flash, not a craft. </li>
<li><b>It is obvious that a sizable number of high-placed military officials took UFOs dead-seriously, and that most of them felt they were interplanetary. </b>The official attitude of the US government today (if indeed there is one) has gone quite cynical, yet you do get the sense reading this Blue Book text that a sizable number of generals wanted serious research done out of the public eye. Ruppelt never says this outright, but he talks about this internal disagreement fairly openly. </li>
<li><b>About 25% of the very excellent sightings by military and civilian pilots and other experts remain unsolved to this day. </b>When people talk about UFOs today, usually in a sarcastic or ridiculing manner, they sometimes point out that only a small percentage of sightings are true unknowns. This is just inaccurate. The correct figure is closer to a fourth of all sightings, which is nothing to sneeze at, considering that even back then people were discouraged from reporting anything. Ruppelt estimated that in 1955 only about one in ten sightings was ever reported, and the number is almost certainly lower today. (The US government no longer even accepts UFO reports.)</li>
</ul>
I'm astonished that in 1955 the first head of Project Blue Book doesn't even mention Roswell, but by 1987 Phillip Corso, a known intelligence operative for the US, is writing about how he collected alien technology from the crash and sent it to Bell Laboratories to be reverse engineered. This is an obvious and bald-faced lie that can be easily dispelled with a little research into Bell Labs and the technologies Corso claimed came from aliens, so why did he write that crap?<br />
<br />
Clearly at some point US intelligence thought that hyping UFOs and feeding the UFO community disinformation provided some kind of useful cover for something or the other.<br />
<br />
The question is, what?<br />
<br />
UFO conspiracy theorists would say that this was done to cover up the truth about UFOs.<br />
<br />
I personally think it was done for more generic reasons--to distract the public from nuclear weapons testing and other weapons programs; to cover up test flights of experimental military aircraft; to practice 'psy-ops' on a small sector of the US public to see what works; and so forth.<br />
<br />
It's kind of like that movie formula where a cynical horror writer who doesn't believe in ghosts makes up a bunch of stories about them and gets rich, only to up discover he lives in an actual haunted house and has no idea of how to handle it.<br />
<br />
It's like that, only with spaceships and aliens and the US government.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I strongly recommend reading original texts from the early days of UFOs if you can find them.<br />
<br />
It'll get yer brain whirring. <br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-39600005695490205502012-09-16T08:55:00.001-07:002012-09-16T11:09:21.469-07:00Weird Stuff That Has Happened to Me While Writing about UFOs<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqzlYo2KGpKaK9VkqkD1Gg2Jhmw7AE-_V5mmhz_Arpm_3jifVEmoLP9KSW1HkWUGv7A_YNl_cYdl5WGdNa3sdgkfV5N183houiULLKDzuDOGJ2c2PTSSTmV9xBiHnPwYbtkIQaKFZk605/s1600/grayalien.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqzlYo2KGpKaK9VkqkD1Gg2Jhmw7AE-_V5mmhz_Arpm_3jifVEmoLP9KSW1HkWUGv7A_YNl_cYdl5WGdNa3sdgkfV5N183houiULLKDzuDOGJ2c2PTSSTmV9xBiHnPwYbtkIQaKFZk605/s320/grayalien.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons</td></tr>
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Jacques Vallee has said on many occasions that if you investigate UFO phenomena in a serious way, the phenomena (and ordinary people) will start to mess with you.<br />
<br />
This was his point in <i>Messengers of Deception</i>, one of his last books on UFO phenomena.<br />
<br />
When Vallee wrote this book, he was thoroughly frustrated and disgusted with both the UFO community AND the scientific community, and who can blame him?<br />
<br />
Things have only gone downhill since.<br />
<br />
I am hardly a top researcher of anything, let alone UFOs, but I take anomalous phenomena seriously and have been calling for rigorous, serious investigation of the same for several decades, the last decade online.<br />
<br />
Has anyone (or anything) messed with <i>me </i>during that time?<br />
<br />
Without being paranoid, I'd say the answer is a qualified yes.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Back in the late seventies, when I first began to take the topic seriously (and had had experiences of my own), I was engaged to a man who wanted to work for the FBI. At the time we lived in northern Indiana, and I worked in a factory that made camera bags. I also attended university part-time. After my fiancee applied to the bureau for the fourth time, he actually received a positive response and we prepared to move to DC. During the preparatory phase I was visited by a man who identified himself as an FBI agent no less than three different times, once at my job. The only question I was ever asked was whether or not my fiancee was a communist. I was never shown any ID or given any names. My fiancee found this weird because only one agent was assigned to our city, and these people were not him. Men in Black? Probably not, but then again...</li>
<li>Fast forward to DC, circa 1979. DH was working as a translator for the FBI. I began to receive odd phone calls, not unlike those described by John A. Keel in <i>The Mothman Chronicles</i>: static-y, weird electronic sounds with background noise that sometimes sounded like hissing voices. These continued into the mid-eighties, even after I left my FBI husband and remarried. One week, I received a call from Budd Hopkins, whom I'd written after reading one of his books. That week, my phone pretty much went crazy with these bizarre calls. </li>
<li>Since writing this blog, I've had some unpleasant encounters while attempting to discuss UFOs online. One person actively harassed me, telling me that I had had no UFO experiences but was rather part of a dark, nasty CIA experiment in mind control. Another person began to relentlessly email me after I'd posted something about blown stems in crop circles, explaining to me that this was bogus and assuring me that he knew all about it and had researched it for years. Finally I said, fine, OK, just to get off it. But really, radiation and plant anomalies HAVE been found in <i>some</i> crop circles, and this has been confirmed by university labs, not just ufologists. </li>
<li>I have received numerous emails and messages attempting to discredit major UFO investigators. Their degrees are bogus, they've done this, they are not who they say they are, they have done that, etc. Very annoying. </li>
<li>Most recently I received a graduate paper about UFOs and alien abduction experiences from a man I do not know who prefaced this act of 'reaching out' with the caveat that he knew 'lots of people don't like me very much and aren't happy with my theories' but he would tolerate them because of my psychology background. I got repeat emails asking what I thought of his paper, but when I'd reply and ask him questions, I never got answers.</li>
</ol>
Some of this--a lot of it actually--can be chalked up to the fact that this topic attracts a wide range of unusual people (some would say 'cranks'), and to the fact that anytime anyone writes anything online, SOMEONE will step up and tell that person what a jerk he or she is. That's just the internets (it's a series of tubes, I hear...)<br />
<br />
But part of it is a little disturbing and contains mild, veiled threats that don't scare me much but are, how can I say this? Creepy. Yucky. Suspect.<br />
<br />
So even though Leslie Kean, in her recent book <i>UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record</i>, says that the US might not be so much hiding things as just mystified by what's happening, I do think Vallee is right that the deeper you dive into this stuff, the weirder it gets.<br />
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My personal belief is that part of that is our government, and part of it is the phenomena itself.<br />
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Happily, I see signs of a turnaround, Kean's excellent book being one of those signs. <br />
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In future posts I'll list other reliable resources and ideas on how serious study of the data available could yield serious insights and prompt a search for more data. <br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-75266958240414157082012-09-07T10:41:00.002-07:002012-09-07T10:48:22.121-07:00Pushing Back on the UFO ET Push Back<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRqndgsdt-gbXNB_FOSzjNx8CRM8Cr1XEMJqpZZwNDGZcy5oy1QLHkGa_2490V7SZfhSQbfP-MaIMq0ai9vhbLHszcqHjPmUwd-Hzz6Od1SKhlLSpewUIjeJbyd_L_ooXvaCTEivA3Lw9N/s1600/markufo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRqndgsdt-gbXNB_FOSzjNx8CRM8Cr1XEMJqpZZwNDGZcy5oy1QLHkGa_2490V7SZfhSQbfP-MaIMq0ai9vhbLHszcqHjPmUwd-Hzz6Od1SKhlLSpewUIjeJbyd_L_ooXvaCTEivA3Lw9N/s400/markufo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Markusram @ Flickr Creative Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I confess I was one of the people who was very quick to discard the extraterrestrial hypothesis regarding the origin of UFO sightings. <br />
<br />
I didn't buy all of the stock reasons supporting the push back, but because I have a background in myth, magic, and psychology, I could clearly see that certain mythic structures and symbols were a major part of the phenomena.<br />
<br />
I leaned toward Jacques Vallee's conclusion that UFOs are likely 1) real and worthy of serious study, but 2) not of extraterrestrial origin.<br />
<br />
I've been rethinking that bias lately, mostly as a result of reading Leslie Kean's excellent book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307717089/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347039644&sr=8-1&keywords=leslie+kean" target="_blank"><b><i>UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. </i></b></a><br />
<br />
Toward the end of Kean's book, two political scientists from Ohio State University take a look at the reasons usually given off-the-cuff for the impossibility of the ET hypothesis. Their aim was to shoot these objections down as rational statements and then discover why the taboo against taking UFOs seriously is so strong, both in the scientific community and the US government.<br />
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I was persuaded both by Kean's book and the political scientist's paper that it is way too soon to bury the ET hypothesis.<br />
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Here is their deconstruction of the deconstruction (with a few addendums of my own):<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i><b>If UFOs Are Extraterrestrial, They Would Have Landed on the White House Lawn</b></i>. But would they, really? If we are doing military reconnaissance in or on territory occupied by an enemy or potential enemy, do we march up to the leader of that nation first to let him or her know we are doing that? Of course not. Another reason ETs might not seek out our leaders is that they may have a policy of noninterference with societies they visit. Last but not least, in a very famous UFO flap that took place over Washington DC in 1952, multiple UFOs were seen over the White House and reported by residents, tracked by radar, and confirmed by pilots. So alarmed was President Harry Truman by the strange event, that he ordered the Air Force to pursue and shoot them down. Later, the mass sightings were chalked off to a 'temperature inversion,' a weather phenomenon causing false blips on radar. To this day the explanation rings false to amateurs and professional aviators. </li>
<li><i><b>We Already Know That We Are Alone in the Universe</b></i>. This not-very-scientific statement used to be more persuasive, back in the days before the Drake equation and the discovery of numerous habitable planets in nearby solar systems. Today, with the Mars probes still collecting data, we aren't even sure we are alone in our own solar system. </li>
<li><i><b>Even if ETs exist, They couldn't possibly Get Here. </b></i>This one is based on the assertion that technological limits make traversing the great distances involved in intergalactic space travel impossible. Yet the more we understand about particle physics and the strangeness of the concept of time, the less persuasive this claim becomes. If we have discovered all this in the space of 50 some years, how much more might an alien civilization discover over the course of 3,000 or 30,000 years? We know that wormholes exist and time travel might be possible. Alien technology might make intergalactic or inter-dimensional travel not only possible, but routine. </li>
<li><i><b>If ETs Were Already Here, We Would Know. </b></i>This is the Bigfoot <i>habeus corpus </i>threshold, AKA 'show me a body and I'll believe it'. When it comes to UFOs, this statement assumes we can look for and find UFOs if we try, then catch and bring one out in public to prove they exist. But visitors to this planet might well have the technology needed to evade observation, should they wish to remain hidden. Our own military has such technology, so why wouldn't alien visitors have the same capacity? Also, we aren't even looking for them anyway. Other nations are responsibly recording chance sightings for future study, but the US is actively pushing back on even taking UFOs seriously. </li>
</ul>
<br />
All of these 'reasons' are irrational. We have nothing resembling enough data to come to any of these conclusions scientifically. The best we can say is that we don't know, and we aren't trying to know. Until we try to know, until we fully investigate the phenomena scientifically, all we can do is maintain an agnostic stance.<br />
<br />
What really persuaded me that the ET hypothesis might not be as dead as I'd previously thought, however, was that, after reading Kean's book, a lot of things I was already thinking about UFOs kind of fell into place without negating or contradicting that hypothesis.<br />
<br />
In other words, it is possible to combine the ET and the mythic hypotheses into one.<br />
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I don't know that anyone has done that yet.<br />
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So maybe I will. <br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-23022906864368928402012-09-03T12:01:00.002-07:002012-09-03T12:08:37.496-07:00The Political Roots of the UFO Taboo<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLa5PFqnwk_SiQPHgtj1DaGL_kfB_Vbu5IWzBWRaHurs4RcFZYdZPlWvgWPw9IQZdx0-KkrMY4h6lrLnTAZ8pZeDSePPhB78qWsaGLMdA_3IolR-rhGt8G-gDrGuR2-_r2_pIII9TTGpb3/s1600/shinyufo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLa5PFqnwk_SiQPHgtj1DaGL_kfB_Vbu5IWzBWRaHurs4RcFZYdZPlWvgWPw9IQZdx0-KkrMY4h6lrLnTAZ8pZeDSePPhB78qWsaGLMdA_3IolR-rhGt8G-gDrGuR2-_r2_pIII9TTGpb3/s400/shinyufo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CGI courtesy Markusram at Flicker Creative Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I just finished reading Leslie Kean's excellent and flawlessly researched <b><i>UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. </i></b>If you haven't read it, go buy or borrow it right now and dive in.<br />
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I promise that afterward you will never see this topic the same way again. <br />
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Kean concludes her examination of the hard evidence for the existence of UFOs with a discussion of the UFO taboo and why it is so strong, especially in the United States. <br />
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In 2008, Dr. Alexander Wendt, a political science professor at the Ohio State University, published a paper with co-author Dr. Raymond Duvall in the leading scholarly journal <i>Political Science. </i><br />
<br />
The paper<i>, Sovereignty and the UFO, </i>examines the cultural resistance to taking UFOs seriously and concludes that the problem is not scientific, but rather political.<br />
<br />
The authors start out by noting that, "The proper application of science demands that at present we be agnostic about whether or not UFOs have an extraterrestrial origin, neither believing nor rejecting this," and yet a virulent taboo on even studying the phenomenon prevents serious study.<br />
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This is especially puzzling, the authors say, given the fact that we have multiple credible sightings over a period of at least 70 years, that many of these sightings involve multiple witnesses of high credibility, that contrary to 'common knowledge' we have physical evidence and lab-tested photographs, and we also have confirmation by credible university science labs that physical effects on plants and people have resulted from close contact.<br />
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You would think that this would be an exciting opportunity for scientific investigation and that finding out what UFOs <i>are</i> would be a necessary security task for modern nations.<br />
<br />
Yet science won't touch the topic with a ten foot pole, and the US government actively discourages serious investigation of the phenomena.<br />
<br />
Other countries no longer take the 'debunking' approach favored by the US. France, Chile, Belgium, and Britain have all had recent major sightings by citizenry and the military, and all have taken these sightings seriously, applied modern scientific analysis to whatever evidence could be gathered, and all continue to urge the US to put aside its secrecy and bad attitude. <br />
<br />
All of these nations, and others, have set up agencies to collect data and seriously study the phenomenon. It is only the US that refuses to participate.<br />
<br />
Wendt and Duvall conclude that the UFO taboo is built on three distinct political threats inherent in taking the phenomena seriously. Not all of these attitudes are conscious. In fact, mostly, these threats lurk just below the threshold of consciousness, but are still very real:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><b>The physical threat.</b> The possibility that UFOs are indeed unknown, poorly understood, physical manifestations of <i>something </i>represents a powerful physical threat. If UFOs turn out to be extraterrestrial, then we can't know if they are friendly or are just doing reconnaissance work before they come and exterminate us. </li>
<li><br /><b>The threat to national sovereignty.</b> Governments may also be reacting to the threat that, were UFOs to be confirmed to be extraterrestrial, there could be a huge public push for a world government to strengthen our position--a move that most national leaders would want no part of, especially the US, which enjoys (for the time being) a spot as world leader. </li>
<li><br /><b>The threat to human sovereignty. </b>Possibly most threatening of all is the revelation that human beings are not the smartest creatures in the universe. Right now we take this for granted, so much so that we barely are even aware of it. This anthropomorphism (human centered view of the world) is a modern orientation. Prehistoric and ancient cultures often did not share it, recognizing instead that nature is more powerful. Today, this human-centered view of reality is so important to our culture it almost defines our culture. If we are not the smartest creatures how can we lay claim to the right to govern? </li>
</ol>
These three fears result in a cultural and political reaction to UFO phenomena that is much the same as denial at the personal level. A certain circular logic persist in the face of steadily accumulating evidence: UFO phenomena can't be true, therefore UFO phenomena are not true.<br />
<br />
In future posts I'll take a look at how Wendt and Duvall deconstruct the impossibility of the ET hypothesis. Clearly, the reasoning used to shoot they hypothesis down is faulty if not ridiculous, and yet this approach persists.<br />
<br />
I'll also take a look at some of the weirder experiences I've had while blogging about UFOs that illustrate the tenacity of the political taboo.<br />
<br />
I am not anybody. I'm nobody, blogging.<br />
<br />
And yet I have had my unpleasant 'stop it' encounters from total strangers.<br />
<br />
Finally, the very existence of a serious paper in a prominent academic journal gives lie to the claim that UFOs are unworthy of serious study. Many, many highly educated people disagree and are willing to say so. And for every person willing to take that chance, there a likely ten that aren't.<br />
<br />
It's a career killer, to go out on that limb.<br />
<br />
But it's past time for it to happen, and it is happening, with or without the cooperation of the US government. C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-60447952965586564192012-08-23T16:49:00.001-07:002012-08-23T16:49:22.636-07:00I'm Still Here... And So Are UFOs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIMYHpWkxwT4YvY1IOuFva4JHMWy3N_rTi0gqKVzbr3gAeyhJ5KHsCib5xbzGq6TG-9Qeua14k2UJxkJrtXnKcJ4dF-NGUl4o5tqdbzTZl2miyMDVTA3oO0OmQNDFoqSYi2kPZe5Jt1K-4/s1600/magritte16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIMYHpWkxwT4YvY1IOuFva4JHMWy3N_rTi0gqKVzbr3gAeyhJ5KHsCib5xbzGq6TG-9Qeua14k2UJxkJrtXnKcJ4dF-NGUl4o5tqdbzTZl2miyMDVTA3oO0OmQNDFoqSYi2kPZe5Jt1K-4/s320/magritte16.JPG" width="255" /></a></div>
I'm belatedly reading Leslie Kean's excellent book <b><i>UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On Record. </i></b><br />
<br />
Kean, a excellent reporter and careful writer received praise from all quarters when her book was released in 2010. I remember seeing her interviewed by Jon Stewart, wanting to read her work. At the time, however, a family medical crisis and the slow recovery afterward was sucking all the air out of the household in which I live.<br />
<br />
Then, I got busy working to pay the medical bills.<br />
<br />
And in the process I kind of let this blog slide.<br />
<br />
But only halfway through Kean's book I am already fired up and have about six articles I want to write, and new questions to ask. It's an amazing book, and if, like me. you are one of those people who was successfully browbeaten into discarding the extraterrestrial hypothesis and focusing on myth and psychology instead, you really <b>HAVE</b> to read Kean's book. <br />
<br />
In just the first half, Kean gives enough compelling evidence for the physical reality of UFOs to make the gnarliest debunker stop and think again. Moreover, when I saw how much more open and advanced other nations were on the topic as compared with the U.S., I was gobsmacked.<br />
<br />
Seriously, we, the US of A, are the crabby secretive douchebags of the world when it comes to UFO research. Why? Kean explains some of it, which dates back to the fifties when the CIA got involved in the topic, fearful that a major flap could jam phonelines and become a security risk. I knew about that, but what I didn't know was how much more seriously the rest of the world was reacting.<br />
<br />
Think UFO sightings have dropped off drastically since the 70s?<br />
<br />
I thought that too, but guess what?<br />
<br />
UFO sightings worldwide have been INCREASING steadily since the topic first caught fire in the US in the late 40s.<br />
<br />
In fact, a large UFO hovered over a landing strip at O'Hare airport in Chicago in 2002, and was seen by dozens of airport personnel including passing pilots.<br />
<br />
Want photographic proof?<br />
<br />She's got it. (Not of Chicago, but from other cases, and it's good too.)<br />
<br />
Want physical evidence?<br />
<br />
She cites it. <br />
<br />
Want names of serious military and civilian aircraft personnel and scientists from all over the world who no longer think UFOs are funny or something to ridicule?<br />
<br />
She lists plenty.<br />
<br />
So here I am, sort of back where I was when I first got hooked on this topic so many years ago.<br />
<br />
I've written a lot of stuff outside the ET hypothesis, but I've never said the phenomenon was foolish or unworthy of serious study. Now, I am thinking I have to open myself again to the ETH and find a way to reconcile it with my own work. And I think I can.<br />
<br />
So keep an eye on this blog, and in the mean time, pick up Leslie Kean's book and start reading.<br />
<br />
The truth may be out there.<br />
<br />
But if you think you will get it from the US government or about half the people writing UFO books for money, you won't. <br />
<br />
This is why investigative reporting is 'worth it'. It's a shame we don't have more of it in the U.S. C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-43596244299064757942012-03-19T08:56:00.003-07:002012-03-19T12:23:19.974-07:00Does Sleep Paralysis Explain Alien Abduction?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcIY1Cg7qQIqcjUYElmdtVGr5dr0mpsYNl3UyQkZzoXuXPUd_AHgi6ndXcdLfFET4HgRQhsblGJoWliuu1QiT16CmzB9zt4VpBbR9QLhafo3JqUjNn7P7fd4EeX9WZNxjwzIOfMt3kur2/s1600/hufford+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcIY1Cg7qQIqcjUYElmdtVGr5dr0mpsYNl3UyQkZzoXuXPUd_AHgi6ndXcdLfFET4HgRQhsblGJoWliuu1QiT16CmzB9zt4VpBbR9QLhafo3JqUjNn7P7fd4EeX9WZNxjwzIOfMt3kur2/s320/hufford+cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
Sleep paralysis has become widely known as a common sleep disorder in which the body becomes paralyzed (as it commonly does during dream sleep to protect people from injury) but the person falling asleep is not totally asleep yet.<br />
<br />
Instead, during sleep paralysis, the experiencer is trapped in a state of twilight sleep, somewhere <a href="http://crrookwood.hubpages.com/" target="_blank">in between full consciousness and dreaming</a>.<br />
<br />
While in this between-state, the person typically experiences terror, the sense of a malevolent presence in the room, and a heaviness or pressure on the chest or body, as if being held down or paralyzed by that entity.<br />
<br />
In some cases the person is only dimly aware of a sinister presence and sees nothing except, possibly, a shadow. In other cases the person sees what look like alien creatures, demons, or paranormal entities. The experience ends when the person wakes up or falls asleep completely.<br />
<br />
Sleep paralysis is often put forward as an explanation for alien abduction reports. Before aliens became the <i>bete du jour, </i>people reported being 'hagged' (ridden by an old hag, which was understood to be form of witchcraft), or said they had been attacked by an incubus or succubus--demons that preyed on a semiconscious person's sexual energy.<br />
<br />
It's tempting to say, "oh well, now we understand that this is a medical problem called sleep paralysis," but in fact, as long ago as 1989, respected academic folklorist David Hufford was making a reasoned argument that 'sleep paralysis' is a descriptive term for what appears to be a consistent discrete phenomenon that we don't really completely understand.<br />
<br />
Hufford's book, <i>The Terror that Comes in the Night, </i>based on his academic study entitled "An Experience Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions." revolutionized the academic study of folklore. Previous to Hufford's careful philosophical analysis, it was assumed that folkloric tales were primitive (read: false) ways of understanding things that science could easily explain better.<br />
<br />
In fact, science does not have a great explanation for some things that trigger folkloric explanations, and neither does the study of folklore.<br />
<br />
Sleep paralysis or 'hagging' (in the <a href="http://crrookwood.hubpages.com/" target="_blank">language of folklore</a>) is one these cases. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YAsEXa1KLVif7yXquryH0ek2qSaToYt-cQGDpZXMWyltYcnayunw3DOAeQh4XIIeWDMLys0DshoEx2QRC8JO9xg7EtcNobdjxaDWnhW9IJ_A39QGITKgjoYb2_prgNnTF_9yAdLjvo21/s1600/abductionlamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YAsEXa1KLVif7yXquryH0ek2qSaToYt-cQGDpZXMWyltYcnayunw3DOAeQh4XIIeWDMLys0DshoEx2QRC8JO9xg7EtcNobdjxaDWnhW9IJ_A39QGITKgjoYb2_prgNnTF_9yAdLjvo21/s320/abductionlamp.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
The casual and superficial debunking of <a href="http://crrookwood.hubpages.com/" target="_blank">paranormal and UFO or alien phenomena</a> often includes scientific 'explanations' that are actually descriptions that are no more accurate than the folklore explanations that preceded them, of phenomena that we just don't understand very well. <br />
<br />
A description is NOT an explanation, and it is even less an argument against the validity of an experience.<br />
<br />
Sleep paralysis is a fascinating phenomenon. I myself have experienced it several times when I was much younger. It really is a terrifying and weird experience, but the leap from that experience to the experience of an alien abduction is huge, despite the intriguing similarities.<br />
<br />
Before we start snickering at these things, it would be so great if we could <a href="http://crrookwood.hubpages.com/" target="_blank">look into them with an open mind</a>. And I need to mention here that many respected scientific and academic minds have ask for the same attitude. <br />
<br />
We might just discover something nobody expects.<br />
<br />
And isn't that what science is supposed to be about? <br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-57312828759951009672012-02-14T10:48:00.000-08:002015-10-06T18:41:55.142-07:00The Significance of Time in UFO Sightings and Alien Abduction Experiences<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFKxl07rhxj8wZaRo5gNXqjhgr8zg8hedrVs6pCwiJVFUtxltYavFL-KhSuxWG8LUlamwuG7R_2_ZvapsuKaCaG-41CjWxqLA1MkWpAWP-LmukLzcX4Y2CjMLt_G0_1GNk98kqm_V52uLI/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFKxl07rhxj8wZaRo5gNXqjhgr8zg8hedrVs6pCwiJVFUtxltYavFL-KhSuxWG8LUlamwuG7R_2_ZvapsuKaCaG-41CjWxqLA1MkWpAWP-LmukLzcX4Y2CjMLt_G0_1GNk98kqm_V52uLI/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
Time distortions play an important role in many UFO sightings and in nearly all alien abduction experiences. For example:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Abductees report episodes of 'missing' time and time distortion most of the time. Sometimes they find themselves unable to account for several hours on a routine trip. Sometimes abductees report feeling like days have passed during the experience when the actual amount of time that passed was hours or minutes.</li>
<li>UFO sightings are also sometimes accompanied by time distortions. One especially fascinating distortion (which is by no means universal) involves the stoppage of time. Watches, car ignitions, and digital displays shut down in the presence of a UFO, but often time itself also seems to have stopped. When the vehicle clock is checked again, the sighting seems to have occurred outside of time, as if time itself had stopped, not just the watch.</li>
<li>When UFOs at a distance are sighted by pilots and others, the motion of the UFO is often described as jerky or "like a stone skipping on water." In other words, the UFO does not always move in a straight fluid line. Instead it seems to appear one place, then another, then another, with gaps in between, in much the same way that film appears when the reel is slowed way down. Kevin Arnold, who is often credited with the having seen the first UFO (I think this is not correct but it is a standard description) explained the movement of the objects he saw as jerky in this way. Some observers describe it as the UFO 'blinking in and out.'</li>
<li>When veteran ufologist John Keel first reported the Men In Black phenomena, he noted that the way these 'men' dressed and spoke, as well as the cars they tended to drive, were 'off' in terms of time. That is, the clothing was from the 40s or 50s, the cars were from that era also, and the slang used was dated to the point of being sometimes comical.</li>
<li>One of the most frequently used non-explanations of UFO sightings and alien abductions is temporal lobe epilepsy. The temporal lobe is the part of the brain that processes incoming verbal information and memory, and also, our sense of time.</li>
</ul>
It seems to me that this might be a clue to what is going on with at least some the more unusual sightings, the ones that can't be explained in other ways. I'm not sure the answer is as simple as 'time travel'. But I do think that in many of the stranger examples, distortions of time are important.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqkA3o_LHDl0AiRtqjVYygvDY4gTYvwZe4uVEUv1KJXLHczEmb-kLjfFuiZw8l8sCuXsrPQZO4GblzeYPSosjRPBNX3BvK8cogdcgm4Y4rxavLmdx4cmx8PEZSuvtokkxyylhWb7Cmeex/s1600/magritte16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqkA3o_LHDl0AiRtqjVYygvDY4gTYvwZe4uVEUv1KJXLHczEmb-kLjfFuiZw8l8sCuXsrPQZO4GblzeYPSosjRPBNX3BvK8cogdcgm4Y4rxavLmdx4cmx8PEZSuvtokkxyylhWb7Cmeex/s320/magritte16.JPG" width="255" /></a></div>
Theoretical physics has already discovered that time is more than a sequence of causal events arranged like a line through space.<br />
<br />
Human beings perceive time this way, but that isn't how physicists necessarily understand it. We have to be careful about taking complex ideas and reducing them to New Age blather, but then again, it seems that something genuine is going on here. We just don't know what it is.<br />
<br />
Yet.<br />
<br />
I'd like to go on, but I'm not a physicist and I don't have... um, time.<br />
<br />
But it's something to consider, no? <br />
<ul>
</ul>
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-12265034322529989052011-12-29T12:42:00.000-08:002011-12-30T08:03:36.174-08:00Ancient Aliens or Modern Misconceptions?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YuIWpyV-T2LFgQ627fFnnphIqhcj2ZBqfgqnB1iQ8ybEqv3_Dnb5ZDBFkRoAEvk7mK1SrBME8GH_ELmGGT8swO0t1qi3aVR5UC9lU56i__tzNC2SqscowX4eG1Ak92iLYgI2VjqUVTGv/s1600/horrorposter9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3YuIWpyV-T2LFgQ627fFnnphIqhcj2ZBqfgqnB1iQ8ybEqv3_Dnb5ZDBFkRoAEvk7mK1SrBME8GH_ELmGGT8swO0t1qi3aVR5UC9lU56i__tzNC2SqscowX4eG1Ak92iLYgI2VjqUVTGv/s320/horrorposter9.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>I'm going to share (not much of) a secret with you:<br />
<br />
I will watch almost <i>anything </i>with a paranormal/UFO theme to it, even paranormal reality shows, even the <i>Ancient Aliens </i>series on the History Channel.<br />
<br />
I also have fond memories of the release of the first Von Daniken book, <i>Chariots of the Gods! </i><br />
<br />
You have to like a guy who isn't ashamed to use exclamation marks at the end of every sentence, no matter how silly or far-fetched.<br />
<br />
Wait. What I meant to say is,<br />
<br />
You have to admire a guy who isn't afraid! To use exclamation marks! At the end of every sentence! No matter how silly or far-fetched! <br />
<br />
<br />
I also really, really like the Greek fellow with the crazy hair who edits his own magazine about this stuff. He is always very well-dressed and well-spoken, and he has hair that defies the laws of physics. Seriously, that hair is proof enough for me of almost anything he has to say.<br />
<br />
I know I'm being a bit of smart aleck here and I usually try not to do that. But it seems to me that there are a number of basic misconceptions underlying the ancient alien hypothesis. Un-coincidentally, mainstream archeology shares a few of these too. That way, we get the classic crackpot/debunker deadlock polarity that for some reason HAS to emerge in any discussion of the unexplained.<br />
<br />
<br />
Here are just a few of those (for my money) faulty assumptions:<br />
<br />
<ol><li><b>The Myth of Progress. </b>This myth has it that human beings are naturally progressing toward greater and great sophistication and intelligence, so that anything in the deep past that we can't replicate and improve upon today must be evidence of some kind of intervention by a superior force. We can't build Stonehenge without machines so aliens must have done it. We can't build a system of aqua ducts to Roman specifications so aliens must have done it. We don't know how the Pharoahs slapped up those pyramids so quickly and so mathematically/astronomically correctly so aliens must have done it. This assumption is deeply disrespectful of ancient peoples, many of whom were as sophisticated and intelligent if not more so than today's top scientists. It is egomaniacal in the extreme to assume that we are the pinnacle of human development and therefore anything we don't understand must have inhuman origins. </li>
<li><b>The Aliens Are a Lot Like Us Assumption. </b>Not only are aliens assumed to be bipedal, hominid-type organisms of more or less the same height and girth as homo sapiens, they are assumed to be 'technologically advanced', meaning they have an affinity for shiny aerodynamic shapes, bright lights, and tight-fitting jumpsuits. But even a cursory look at alien species invasions on our own planet--and there have been many--reveals that aliens can be as small and goopy as a zebra muscle or as florally lovely and rabid as a strand of purple loosestrife. In fact, the first aliens we meet from outer space might have already arrived--in the form of microscopic viruses. So the 'a lot like us' assumption seems more a byproduct of science fiction stories and movies than common sense. If the aliens are aliens, you would, if anything, expect them to be so different from us that we would barely recognize them as living things. </li>
<li><b>The 'They Want Our Wimmin' Assumption. </b>So, let's just get this straight. Alien invaders came from across time and space to visit Earth eons ago, and the first thing they did when they got here was try to get laid? Seriously? When was the last time a zebra mussel put the moves on your wife? Even if that did happen, how far do you think such a mussel would get with its dishonorable intentions? Why don't humans try mating with chimpanzees so we can get them to run our Walmarts? Because it's disgusting, that's why! I mean, come on! We have some good-looking wimmin here on earth, but they're not all that and a bag of chips. </li>
</ol><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAG94o6Hz0kxoK6XNhBxUskCsxozNSAVRVR21yZVsrCtENsFnrIcTJ_c5Muj3EZ0ZdBTsHjqOAYk2jmcOSuwxny2D6K3pS-HVCHJ3u8VOGsMT5EYtX8KTfZmTldQzXDaVLxp81qUFyei-p/s1600/alienssquare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAG94o6Hz0kxoK6XNhBxUskCsxozNSAVRVR21yZVsrCtENsFnrIcTJ_c5Muj3EZ0ZdBTsHjqOAYk2jmcOSuwxny2D6K3pS-HVCHJ3u8VOGsMT5EYtX8KTfZmTldQzXDaVLxp81qUFyei-p/s1600/alienssquare.jpg" /></a></div>You get my drift.<br />
<br />
I could go on, but I won't.<br />
<br />
I actually think the notion that alien species found their way to earth in our deep past is a real possibility and a credible one.<br />
<br />
It's just that the analysis going on on both sides of the fence, at least for now, isn't.<br />
<br />
That doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching the show.<br />
<br />
I still haven't figured out how that guy gets his hair to stay like that.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245010537599371152.post-63195755226751924872011-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:002011-06-24T07:21:35.362-07:00Happy Anniversary Kevin Arnold<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqwYNu6FAav4eE7myxK2am7rpsY5cZWp0snIJ65pq5zu0fEL9IM9ilRGnSHdTLGqPqG-mgZzTyDMnRe7r-Hu9e-hHRczKZdg9FnhtVf7oemuTkmUBxFPhSE4260AhNyxEaks3YVqnUKZn/s1600/Arnold_crescent_1947.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqwYNu6FAav4eE7myxK2am7rpsY5cZWp0snIJ65pq5zu0fEL9IM9ilRGnSHdTLGqPqG-mgZzTyDMnRe7r-Hu9e-hHRczKZdg9FnhtVf7oemuTkmUBxFPhSE4260AhNyxEaks3YVqnUKZn/s320/Arnold_crescent_1947.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Sixty-four years ago, on June 24, 1947, Air Force pilot Kevin Arnold reported that he had seen several silver flying discs from his plane that moved like stones skipping over water.<br />
<br />
Arnold's description of the objects as 'disc shaped' led to invention of the term 'flying saucer', and the modern era of ufology was born. Arnold later modified his report to say that some of the discs were shaped more like flying arcs (see photo). <br />
<br />
Kenneth Arnold had over 9,000 hour in flight and was widely respected both within and outside of the military. He claimed that he was not worried about the sighting at first because he assumed the discs were classified U.S. military aircraft.<br />
<br />
When that assumption turned out not to be the case (so far as we know), Arnold became more involved in the investigation of UFOs, interviewing several witnesses and contactees and eventually writing a book on the topic.<br />
<br />
Some UFO researchers and conspiracy theorists (i.e., <a href="http://brumac.8k.com/KARNOLD/KARNOLD.html">Bruce Macabbee</a>, Jim Marrs) claim Arnold had seen UFOs over Yakima Washington and even had some contact with military intelligence agents (either knowingly or unknowingly) in early 1947, before his famous sighting.<br />
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Whether or not that is true, after a few years Arnold refused to talk about UFOs any further and began to decline all interviews.<br />
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Make of it all what you will.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlzp15_zH6BHrWIHIq84DebuPbLZDJTkM6VhArirY_AuafAuEoUDYEv5uTTTwxJEoG5hSNT8sfQlOG27urFCvMflghO9sd_8Iw3p03oCpyCA2wTcwWLQLjx7ytvZruN-h96Jdom21apAW/s1600/aliens5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSlzp15_zH6BHrWIHIq84DebuPbLZDJTkM6VhArirY_AuafAuEoUDYEv5uTTTwxJEoG5hSNT8sfQlOG27urFCvMflghO9sd_8Iw3p03oCpyCA2wTcwWLQLjx7ytvZruN-h96Jdom21apAW/s320/aliens5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>If nothing else, these claims prove that dissembling and controvery are par for the course when it comes to UFOs, and have been from day one. <br />
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And <i>that </i>is a fact you can take to the bank.<br />
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UFOs have been seen in the skies and reported in detail for millennia of course (see the recent book, <a href="http://www.diaryofanalienlifeform.com/2011_01_01_archive.html"><i>Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times</i></a>, by Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck), but Kevin Arnold's sighting is widely regarded as the beginning of the 20th century incarnation of these elusive phenomena.<br />
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Whether you believe, just want to believe, or think it's all total rot, why not celebrate?<br />
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Have some star jelly on your toast today.<br />
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Make cupcakes!C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0