Jan. 23 - Q & A

Dear Friends,

Paste the link if you don't receive the images.

http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2010/01/q.html

Be Well.

David

Q & A

{these remarks will refer to two comments from readers; one from the black dogs article and one from the Colorado article}. In my judgement neither of these comments needs to be responded to in a minimalist way. So, even though they are not on the same topic [unless, I guess, you're the ghost of John Keel], I'm going to place my answers to them here side-by-side. One is on the topic of Black Dogs and one on the Colorado Project. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To TS [about black dogs]: the first thing that I'd feel useful to say is that we should separate "dark figures" from both "black dogs" and "MIBs" at least to begin with. Dark figures of the folkloric kind seem to have almost no "behavioral" characteristics in common with "men-in-black" cases. As a UFO historian, I have had reason to look into several of the Men-in-Black claims, including rather deeply into the original one with Albert Bender, which catalyzed the concept. Almost with certainty the Bender case was a visit from government agents doing their job of investigating a potential security problem. Even Bender's own description [initially] of what went on paints them as polite and hardly sinister. The exact nature of the security concern is not known, but we do know that the Robertson Panel concerns heightened intelligence community concerns about people who were getting a popular following [Bender was, even internationally] and, on top of this, Bender's organization had received a metal fragment from something that had blasted through a sign [metal one] and could have been caused by some runaway ordnance from the Navy. The fact that Bender freaked out seems attributable to his nervous personality not the MIBs. I am not sure that I have any MIB case in my files which I view credibly as being both real and not having to do with expected intelligence community function. "Dark Figures" are another matter. These entities seem to have nothing to do with UFOs nor do they even communicate with the witnesses [merely standing or lurking about, and, yes, seeming quite sinister.] One rarely sees a clear face of the dark figure [which is often robed and hooded] at least in the most credible [to me] versions, which are out-of-doors. Whereas MIBs come to ones home in suits and ties and ask about UFOs, dark figures stand about outside along the waysides being uncommunicative and scary [whether they intend to be or not.] Pookas are much more like dark figures than MIBs. Pookas almost never are claimed to communicate anything, except in the speculation of what it might mean by the witness. They are almost always outdoors. Both Pookas and olde-world dark figures are commonly felt to be frequenters of certain particular locations, though, of course, not always present. MIBs are never thought of like this. I view MIBs as mere humans and hardly at all mysterious, and Pookas and dark figures [olde-style] as members of the Middle Kingdom, as does Diarmuid MacManus. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Concerning Vallee's idea about a "physical" anchor, who can say? These things are a bit like poltergeists, which seem to be anchored at least temporarily, but there is much more "range" with them. If poltergeists are the spirits [or something] of the unquiet dead, then they are, in theory anchored to some significant environment of their life. If pookas et al are, instead, a member of the Middle Kingdom, one would rather guess that it's their choice which sort of "entry point" they choose to use and more freedom of range occurs. Obviously, we can't know that sort of thing. What we do seem to know is that Pookas et al then to have their general "places" where they typically manifest, whether that is by choice or by some forced limitation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Concerning quartz [and even granite, which is composed in large part of quartz] , I do not believe that it is at all "proved" that quartz induces any sort of altered state of consciousness. Michael Persinger has pushed a speculation for years now that tectonic stresses in the Earth will "squeeze" quartz crystals producing an electric field phenomenon by what is known as the piezoelectric effect. Persinger has used this speculation to claim that Earthquakes produce areas of field strength at the surface which alter and discombobulate the brain so that it begins to hallucinate--and goes on to explain all UFOlogical close encounters as merely us temporarily losing our minds and talking about it later. The piezoelectric effect is real. After that Persinger's theory is entirely speculative. In order to try to ground it better in facts, he has subjected volunteers to large field strengths [using electrode caps through which large magnetic field strengths can be bussed at their brains] and claims that he can cause them to hallucinate. Any "proof" of quartz causing altered states is probably a mangle of this "work". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Regarding "hard evidence" that pookas inhabit certain specific locales, we're not talking hard evidence here on any of these things that we discuss or we wouldn't be debating their reality in the larger consensus anymore. There are stronger or weaker indications of the realities of these things--UFO reality, very strong--but even there no craft or body at the national academy of science nor no representative at the UN. There's plenty of encounter evidence that Pookas inhabit certain places. MacManus names each of his pookas by the place they appear in.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------=================================================To "Willy' on Colorado et al: Concerning Colorado and the Pentagon. The Air Force was in trouble in Congress over the "swamp gas" hullaballusion and had to tread very carefully to not make another gaff. They, rather brilliantly, saw a way to turn a minus into a plus, if they could just pull it off without a scandal reflecting directly back on them. Their priorities were simple. Get the congress and the public off their backs, and get the public project ended so this would not happen again. There is no evidence anywhere that concern over whether the UFO phenomenon was real or not played any role in this strategy at all. One thing that UFOlogists tend to forget: the military is not interested in science unless it plays directly into their national security responsibilities. There is every reason to believe, [reading all the documents] , that the Air Force had decided that UFOs, whatever they were , were nothing to do with national security and should be severely downgraded in all ways except where they over-excited the public. AND, they had decided this way back in 1952--even earlier for most officers. Hippler, therefore did not give a d___ about whether any UFOs were real or not. He had a simple task:use Colorado to get all this unhelpful flack out of the AF's hair. In that he was completely successful--and the AF was the only player which got what it wanted from the fiasco. The only reason that Hippler cared how "positive" the report might be was that a more positive report made it more difficult to rationalize dumping Blue Book [Condon realized this, too]. If, however, someone like NASA could be stuck with the pariah, then that would be OK. Because of this Robert Low, an unfairly maligned figure in this story, went forward with his administrative work in hopes of a positive conclusion with a NASA takeover. He even spelled out N-A-S-A with a wink at a speech he gave [totally upbeat towards UFOs] at the JPL at Cal Tech in late 1967. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now, as to vibrating road signs: there is only one really primary case of such an effect in the literature that is considered well supported and which impressed Allen Hynek so that he gave it over to Spielberg for inclusion in CE3. Vins-sur-Caramy, France, April 14, 1957. (the investigation of this case was done by the famous early French researcher, Jimmy Guieu.) Two women were walking along the road when a weirdly shaped "flying machine" landed about 100 meters ahead. The thing was like a top with its point down, and of a dull metal color. [it was in planform like a narrow cone a meter and a half high]. Sticking out all over the "cone" were what appeared to be metallic "stems" [or spikes or whiskers] pointing horizontally away from the body of the thing. These stems were agitating mightily. There was also a deafening rattle heard. This noise turned out to be a nearby road sign which was vibrating wildly. The women gasped and cried out. This alerted a nearby bee-keeper who ran to the spot. He saw the thing, too, and watched it "jump" off the road, make a turn, and fly shortly only to land again two hundred meters away. There it made a second road sign vibrate madly and produced its own noise which seemed to harmonize strangely with the sign. Finally the thing took off, pitching wildly from side to side but now quite quietly flying away. One of the ladies husbands was a policeman, and he and others inspected the site. Dirt and even earth near the landing areas had been swept aside as if by a violent wind. French authorities tried to hush this case up. [claiming to Guieu that it was a military craft]. Guieu and his associates however persisted and went to the site where they found that there had been no magnetic effect exactly where the craft had landed but a quite substantial effect at the road sign. At the second landing site the result was the same. Further on a sluice gate over which the craft passed also showed a magnetic effect. Finally they tracked down the primary witnesses and got their first hand accounts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To the general reader, as you can see, I felt that these questions needed more time. I could NOT do this, though, if a lot of folks think that answering just one person's questions is too much of a waste of everyone else's time. Yes, it IS my blog and I have to make the decisions, but, at least with "Willy" I can ask him to read the files for himself when he comes over. :-)

Posted by The Professor at 11:07 AM