Jim Moseley, Ufology Pioneer and Magazine Publisher, Passes into the Veil
Fortean explorer and UFO humorist Jim Moseley died of cancer this past Friday night ( 11/16 ) at the age of 81.
I never talked to, emailed, posted a reply or blogged Mr. Moseley at all since I’ve been posting on the Internet over the past five years, but I’ve listened to him and Gene Steinberg banter on Steinberg’s Paracast radio show enough times to know that he was a very fascinating and interesting folk character in his own right and that his influence will be felt in the UFO community forever and his type of humor will be greatly missed:
Fortean friend, ufology humorist, and writer James W. Moseley, 81, died Friday night, November 16, 2012. He passed away at a Key West, Florida, hospital, several months after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.
Upon hearing of the death of Moseley, Anomalist Books publisher and editor Patrick Huyghe said: “He was one of the last remaining old timers from the golden age of flying saucers. Goodbye, Jim.”
I, Loren Coleman, first met James W. Moseley (“Jim” to his friends) when he, John Keel, and I were speaking at a Fortfest in the D.C. area, in 1973. The most vivid memory I have of that time is sitting with these two gentlemen in the dark and shabby lobby of a motel, listening to the foremost scholars of ufology decide what they would do that evening. I recall politely excusing myself to finetune my next day’s presentation, as they skipped off, by foot, across the multilane highway, to visit a nearby striptease joint. And thus I was introduced to the braintrust of ufology, and knew what the end would look like – some sort of cosmic mix of humor and nudity galore!
For years, according to only a few readers, Moseley too frequently posted photographs of large-breasted women in his humorous ufology newsletter, Saucer Smear, confusing people who wished to claim that Moseley was gay, even though he was not, just because others wish to remain closeted for years.
Did it matter what people thought? Ufology historian and Moseley friend Jerome Clark wrote me: “Well, it did matter. It mattered to Jim, who was not gay and who did not like it when people spread such speculation.”
But it went beyond breasts: In the May 10, 2004, issue of Saucer Smear, Moseley highlighted the republishing of a book on three alien monsters raping a woman named Barbara Turner in her bedroom.Actually, it was quite obvious. Moseley was a comic, extremely interested in women and sex, and loved to be the center-of-attention. Certainly, his lifestyle was secretive to some. For almost thirty years, Moseley lived in Florida.Moseley with a large poster of marine treasure hunter Mel Fisher.In 1984, Moseley established an antiques store in Key West, Florida. He also made money in real estate. In 1992, Moseley donated his Peruvian material to the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History, located in Dania, Florida, where it is on permanent display.
James Moseley was a pivotal chronicler of a now-famed mystery that issued from his interest in ancient Peruvian artifacts. It is to be recalled that the Nazca Lines were first discovered by the Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe, who spotted them when hiking through the foothills in 1927. He discussed them at a conference in Lima in 1939. Maria Reiche, a German-born mathematician and archaeologist, first studied and set out to preserve the Nazca Lines in 1940. Paul Kosok, a historian from Long Island University, is credited as the first scholar to seriously study the Nazca Lines in the USA, on site in Peru, in 1940-41. But it was Moseley who first wrote about the Nazca Lines as an intriguing Fortean phenomena in Fate Magazine, in October 1955, suggesting a mysterious origin, long before they interested alternative writers such as Erich von Däniken (1968), Henri Stierlin (1983) and Gerald Hawkins (1990).
When UFO Aliens are not Alien, Part 2
To continue with Micah Hanks’ presentation of Nick Redfern’s Saucers of Manipulation as Nick speaks of the late Mac Tonnies last book The Cryptoterrestrials.
In short, the treatise of the book is that UFOs and their “aliens” are not necessarily alien. They could be in fact a very ancient race of the first intelligent beings of this world, perhaps a branch of the dinosaur family, or closely related to the human race.
In Part-1 of my Saucers of Manipulation article, I noted: “The late Mac Tonnies – author of The Cryptoterrestrials and After the Martian Apocalypse – once said: ‘I find it most interesting that so many descriptions of ostensible aliens seem to reflect staged events designed to misdirect witnesses and muddle their perceptions.’ Mac was not wrong. In fact, he was right on target. One can take even the most cursory glance at ufological history and see clear signs where events of a presumed alien and UFO nature have been carefully controlled, managed and manipulated by the intelligence behind the phenomenon.”
And, I further added: “But, why would such entities – or whatever the real nature of the phenomenon may be – wish to make themselves known to us in such curious, carefully-managed fashion? Maybe it’s to try and convince us they have origins of the ET variety, when they are actually…something very different…”
So, if “they” aren’t alien, after all, then what might “they” be? And if the non-ET scenario has validity, why the desire to manipulate us and convince us of the extraterrestrial angle? Let’s take a look at a few possibilities.
Now, before people get their blood-pressure all out of control, I am the first to admit that what follows amounts to theories on the part of those that have addressed them. The fact is that when it comes to fully understanding the origin of the UFO phenomenon…well…there aren’t any facts! What we do have are ideas, theories, suggestions and beliefs. Anyone who tells you otherwise is 100 percent wrong, mistaken, deluded or lying. No-one in Ufology – ever – has offered undeniable 100 percent proof that any theory is correct beyond all doubt. And provided we understand that theorizing, postulating and suggesting do not (and cannot) equate to proving, then there’s no problem. So, with that said, read on.
Let’s first go back to Mac Tonnies and his cryptoterrestrials. Regardless of whether or not Mac was onto something with his theory that UFOs might originate with a very ancient, impoverished race that lives alongside us in stealth – and that masquerades as extraterrestrial to camouflage its real origins – at least he admitted it was just a theory. He didn’t scream in shrill tones that he was definitely correct. And he didn’t suggest that if you disagreed with him you needed to be ejected from the ufological play-pen. So many within that same play-pen – for whom, for some baffling reason, shouting louder somehow means: “I’m closer to the truth than you!” – could learn a lesson or several from Mac.
Rather than originating on far-off worlds, Tonnies carefully theorized, the cryptoterrestrials may actually be a very old and advanced terrestrial body of people, closely related to the Human Race, who have lived alongside us in secret – possibly deep underground – for countless millennia. In addition, Mac suggested that (a) today, their numbers may well be waning; (b) their science may not be too far ahead of our own – although they would dearly like us to believe they are our infinitely-advanced, technological-masters; (c) to move amongst us, and to operate in our society, they ingeniously pass themselves off as aliens; and (d) they are deeply worried by our hostile ways – hence the reason why they are always so keen to warn us of the perils of nuclear destruction and environmental collapse: they are grudgingly forced to share the planet with us, albeit in a distinctly stealthy and stage-managed fashion.
Moving on from beings of the past to entities of the future, Joshua P. Warren, investigator and author of numerous things of a paranormal nature, has addressed the highly controversial angle that the UFOnauts are our future selves: Time Travelers. And, in doing so, Josh has focused deeply on the mysterious matter of the macabre Men in Black.
Josh asks of their odd attire: “Why do the MIB dress like this? Why do we call them the Men in Black? Well, if a man puts on a black suit, with a black hat and walks down the street in 1910, and you see that man, you would probably notice him. But, would you think there was anything too extraordinary, or too out-of-place about him? No: you probably would not. And if you saw a man walking down the street in 2010 wearing a black suit and a black hat, would you notice him? Probably, yes. But, would you think you think there was necessarily anything too extraordinary? No.”
What this demonstrates, says Warren, is that the outfit of the black suit and the black hat is flexible enough to work within the social context of the culture of at least a century or more. And so, therefore, if you are someone who is in the time-travel business – and within the course of your workday, you’re going to go to 1910 to take care of some business, and then a couple of hours later you’re going to be in 1985, and then a few hours after that you’ll be heading to 2003 – you don’t want to be in a position of having to change your clothes three times. So, what do you do? In Warren’s hypothesis, you dress in an outfit that is going to allow you access to the longest period of time within which that same outfit may not draw too much unwelcome attention.
“And that’s why,” suggests Warren “in and around the whole 20th Century, it just so happens that the black suit and the black hat will work for them.”
And, if you don’t want to give away who you really are, encouraging the idea that you are extraterrestrial, goblin-like or supernatural – rather than future-terrestrial – would make a great deal of sense. If, of course, the theory has merit!
Then there is probably the most controversial angle of all: UFOs are from Hell…
Again UFOs are angels and demons meme ala the Collins Elite is presented because of the seeming paranormal behavior of the phenomenon.
But I am reminded of the old Arthur C. Clarke saw that a sufficiently advanced technology of an ancient race is indistinguishable from magic ( I’m paraphrasing here ), so the supernatural theory is not a very convincing argument to me.
The battle of the UFOs and their accompanying aliens rage on.
Again hat tips to The Anomalist and the Mysterious Universe.
When UFO Aliens are not Alien
UFO researcher and author Nick Redfern expounds on Micah Hanks’ blog Mysterious Universe on the theory that UFO aliens are not necessarily alien – that they are indeed a modern iteration of fairies, demons, angels, goblins and other forms of magical being(s) from the past.
The late Mac Tonnies – author of The Cryptoterrestrials and After the Martian Apocalypse – once said: “I find it most interesting that so many descriptions of ostensible ‘aliens’ seem to reflect staged events designed to misdirect witnesses and muddle their perceptions.” Mac was not wrong. In fact, he was right on target. One can take even the most cursory glance at ufological history and see clear signs where events of a presumed alien and UFO nature have been carefully controlled, managed and manipulated by the intelligence behind the phenomenon.
A look back at many of the early books, periodicals and fanzines on the Flying Saucers of yesteryear will show they were filled with encounters between astonished humans and aliens “taking soil samples.” “Radar-visual” encounters were all over the place. People were always in the right place – or, depending on your perspective, the wrong place! – to see the surprised and rumbled ETs hastily scoop up their little tools and race back to the safety of their craft. And they would always be sure to take to the skies in view of the witness.
If, however, we critically analyze events of this type, it becomes obvious that a trend is at work. These were not matters of an accidental or stumbled upon nature – at all. The entities were seen because they clearly wished to be seen. The reason: almost certainly to encourage the spreading of a belief in aliens amongst us – and in definitive meme-like style. And it has undeniably worked. After all, barely 65-years after the Kenneth Arnold encounter at Washington State in June 1947, the UFO phenomenon – and what it potentially implies, whether you’re a believer or not – is, today, known of just about here, there and everywhere.
In the bigger scheme of things, 65-years is no time at all. But in that period pretty much every one of us has been exposed to the theory that “UFOs = aliens” in some capacity, whether it’s via watching a TV show, reading a newspaper, seeing a TV commercial that incorporates UFOs into its marketing campaign, having a personal encounter or knowing someone who has, and…well, the list goes on. And that many admittedly don’t accept aliens are among us is, in some ways, wholly irrelevant to the fact that those same people still know what the term “UFO” suggests. Only sixty-five years after Arnold and we’re all pretty much “infected” by the alien-meme.
But, why would such entities – or whatever the real nature of the phenomenon may be – wish to make themselves known to us in such curious, carefully-managed fashion? Maybe it’s to try and convince us they have origins of the ET variety, when they are actually…something very different…
Back in 1957, a Brazilian named Antonio Villas Boas claimed to have been seduced by a vibrant, pleasantly-stacked space-babe who growled like a wild beast while the pair got it on. Hey, it doesn’t really get much better than that, does it? Well, I guess she could have brought a girlfriend along, too…
The Villas Boas affair is one that has been embraced by some in the UFO community, derided by others, and outright dismissed by far more than a few. Granted, it’s a highly controversial story, but there’s something else, too.
Before his departure from the craft to which he was taken, Villas Boas allegedly attempted to steal a clock-like device, but was thwarted from doing so by an irate crew-member. Researcher Jacques Vallee has noted that Villas Boas described the clock as having one-hand, and several marks, that would correspond to the 3, 6, 9, and 12 figures of an ordinary clock. However, while time certainly passed by, the clock-hand did not.
“The symbolism in this remark by Villas-Boas is clear,” said Vallee. “We are reminded of the fairy tales…of the country where time does not pass.” In addition, centuries-old folklore is replete with tales of people who claimed to have visited the realm of the fairies and who tried to bring back with them a souvenir, but only to be thwarted, in one form or another, from doing so at the last minute – just like Villas Boas was.
And still on the matter of fairies: In 1961, a Wisconsin chicken-farmer named Joe Simonton claimed to have met aliens who landed on his property in a classic Flying Saucer-style craft. They were said to be very human-looking entities, who had an “Italian” appearance, and generously gave the stunned Simonton a handful of pancakes that one of the crew-members happily cooked on his alien grill! Like the story of Villas-Boas, it’s not just controversial, but beyond controversial! However, read on…
The U.S. Air Force took notice of the Simonton case and, as a consequence, secured a remaining pancake for analysis. A report prepared by the Food and Drug Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare demonstrated that the pancake was made of soya bean, bran starch, buckwheat and hydrogenated fat. But, what was interesting was the fact that the pancake was totally lacking in salt. In the folklore of the Middle Ages, fairies could not abide salt.
On this same path, in today’s alien abduction stories, people are shown so-called “Hybrid Babies.” In fairy mythology, such entities had an obsessive interest in human reproduction and would often steal babies and leave “changelings” in their place.
Many alien abductees appear to have screen-memories in which their unearthly encounters with the black-eyed Grays were replaced by dreams and recollections of encountering owls. Roman mythology tells of the Strix or Striga that craved human flesh and often manifested while people slept. Its name was derived from the Greek term for owl. Tales from ancient Babylonia tell of owl-like entities, of a supernatural nature, provoking terror and fear in the homes of people in the dead of night – just like the Grays.
The parallels are obvious. We are seeing evidence of a very old phenomenon in our midst us that, at various times, has been perceived by the Romans, Greeks and people of Babylonia as near-demonic in nature, by the folk of the Middle Ages as being fairy-based in origin, and by us, today, as extraterrestrials.
This has become the modern meme amongst the UFO community nowadays. While such researchers as Stanton Friedman remain what passes for “mainstream” thought in the research area, the “aliens are not necessarily alien” meme is fast becoming the mainstream thought in this arena.
More to come tomorrow.
Hat tip to the Anomalist.
Those evil, soul harvesting ETs
As a kind of continuation of my previous post (Dolan on Malstrom), the possible interference of UFOs/inhabitants in the US nuclear missile force is a meme that is gaining traction in our culture and ties in with another meme that is also getting attention; the idea that UFO beings are demonic in nature and that nothing good can come of them.
First, in the past few years serious researchers are considering the fact that UFOs have qualities that mimic paranormal, or ghostly ones. That ability to flicker in and out of sight, turn at right angles, shape shift and become a ‘personal’ experience for the observer. This is not an old idea. Investigator John Keel wrote about this during the 1960s. Researcher Jacques Vallee followed in suit in the 1970s. And Vallee was a staunch ETH nuts and bolts guy at first!
So the demonic meme isn’t an old one, just one that has had a resurgence. The most notable example is Nick Redfern’s ‘Final Events, and the Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife ‘ , a tome that is an expose of a secret think tank in the American espionage organization CIA and its plan to make the USA in a fascistic theocracy in order to save American ‘souls’ so they won’t get ‘harvested’ by these demonic beings.
What is curious about this meme is the Judeo-Christian flavor of it and to me, that is suspicious. For it completely leaves out the pantheon of gods and demons of the other religions on the earth.
There’s no mention of djinns, manitus, vimanas or anything like that in this think tank’s study, it’s completely fundamentalist, evangelical Christian in scope.
Writer and researcher Micah Hanks of The Gralien Report and Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule weighs in on this subject of demonic UFOs most eloquently and assuredly better than I can:
Quoting Archbishop Desmond Tutu in this week’s edition of Time Magazine, apartheid’s fierce adversary and soon-to-be-retiring holy man commented that, “The texture of our universe is one where there is no question at all but that good and laughter and justice will prevail.” Considering this philosophy alongside popular speculation that alien species may have been visiting Earth for hundreds, if not thousands of years, one might surmise that their intentions were good, also. If aliens are actually here, they haven’t harmed us yet, right?Speculation of this sort no doubt raises contention within ufological circles. After all, there appear to be two differing viewpoints present in modern ufology which, over the years, have slowly resulted in a sort of loose segregation among its ranks: those who believe aliens are here to help humankind, and those who feel that their intentions are more dubious, and present cause for concern. Though these differing perspectives will no doubt continue to foster argument, it is interesting to consider how people’s beliefs in this regard are affected by theology, namely that of Judeo-Christian origin.
During a recent interview, UFO researcher and Presbyterian minister Barry Downing told AOL News that UFOs “may have been around for millions of years,” and speculates that their presence could have had some influence on the “development of the biblical religion.” Downing’s 1968 book The Bible and Flying Saucers sought to draw connections between biblical mythology and visits from alien beings, similar to those proposed by the various progenitors of the “ancient astronaut” hypothesis, namely Ezekiel reporting the appearance of flying “wheels” in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 1:16). Downing cites the parting of the Red Sea that granted safe passage to the Israelites–and even the Ascension of Jesus Christ–as other instances where ancient people sought to explain complex phenomenon where aliens might have intervened.
Since the instances related above are generally accepted as miracles or, at very least, circumstances that seemed to work in favor of Judeo-Christians people in the Old and New Testament, one obvious perspective would liken the resulting influence of presumed alien visitors to that of angelic beings. This notion is contrasted rather drastically with the assertions made in my colleague Nick Redfern’s new book Final Events, and the Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife. Redfern’s book tells the peculiar story of the Collins Elite, an organization with members in various branches of government (namely the CIA) who begun investigating UFOs and their potential link to the devilish dealings of Aleister Crowley and, perhaps more importantly, Jet Propulsion Lab co-founder Jack Parsons. The notion that UFOs and their alien occupants may actually be linked to dark dealings and satanic rites is hardly new (as Redfern’s book illustrates), having been proposed in ufological circles by the likes of Daniel Boudillion, Greg Bishop and myself in my book Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule. But is there any credible link between the presumed activities of extraterrestrials and demonic forces?
Many have proposed the odd theory that alien abductions are actually representative of a tangible process of removing people’s souls, which our extraterrestrial visitors appear to be “harvesting” in various capacities. In his book Communion, famous author and alien abductee Whitley Strieber described how abductees “experienced feeling as if their souls were being dragged from their bodies.” Strieber even discussed one incident of his own where he had experienced “total separation of soul and body,” and reported hearing his alien captors literally say “we recycle souls.” Another peculiar exchange that points to the possible dubious nature of alien-human contact was reported during an abduction encounter that appeared in David M. Jacobs, PhD’s book The Threat. An abductee interviewed for Jacobs’ book recalls telepathically communicating with one of his extraterrestrial captors, and asking what their intentions were. Rather cryptically, he was told “all they’re interested in… no matter what happens at all, is that they control.”
The foreboding circumstances presented within such reports can hardly escape designation within our so-called “evil” category. Still, they may be worthy of further interpretation, as seen from perspectives seeking to define the phenomena more broadly, rather than the strict, cut-and-dry labeling of “good and evil.” Consider the numerous consistencies between reports of UFO abductees and those who have had various sorts of mystic experiences, both self-induced (via entheogenic drugs, meditation, etc) and spontaneous. One common theme would be the perception described by mystics that a “presence” accompanies their meditations, rituals, and other methods of entering altered states. This sometimes even culminates in trans-dimensional “encounters” with sentient beings, seeming so real that no explanation could exist in the mind of the initiate other than a literal meeting with an alien presence having transpired. Mystic experiences are also traditionally rife with descriptions of bodily dismemberment, as well as levitation, out-of-body experiences, tunnels of light, religious iconography, and a host of other things that similarly pepper various ufological literature, especially in the cases where alien abductions have been involved.
Does making associations between the two phenomena in this way challenge the notion that alien abduction is an entirely physical phenomenon? Perhaps so; but more to-point in the present circumstance, it illustrates the commonality between mystic experiences–many of which involve circumstances that could certainly elicit a sense of separation between soul and body–and the nuts and bolts, primarily medically-oriented alien abduction scenarios which, of no particular surprise here, contain many of the same sort of elements. Perceived in the absence of their mystical counterparts (and interpreted solely in a physical sense), alien abductions could hardly be received as anything but negative or “evil.” And yet, ironically, mystic practitioners have long noted circumstances that are curiously similar within their meditations and dream quests, having merely accepted them as one small part of a greater experience.
In the end I guess, one person’s DMT experience could be another’s demonic UFO abduction.
I’m not sure about this at all about the so-called spirituality of ET entities, or any other ‘spirit’ entity that can cross over from the other side/dimension at will.
Certainly the subject deserves more research on my part if I want to accurately comment on it.
Alien Contact in History: Battle for Our Souls, or a Culture Clash?
Out of body experiences, 9/11 Premonitions and Synchronicities
My ol’ pal Highwayman and I have been having quite a discussion lately (with him doing most of the ‘discussin’ of course lol!) about Dr. Hawking, God and such. While talking about spiritual things leave me feeling a little itchy, I of course ran across this little synchronistic piece on Jason Offutt’s blog From the Shadows about a man who suffered an injury playing a sport and then has the ability of precognition:
Bob Higgins went for a rebound in a Mormon Church gym when someone cut out his legs and he fell to the court, his head bouncing off the hard wood floor.
“I suffered an extremely hard concussion and lived,” Higgins said.
Higgins, a Catholic, had twisted his ankle playing in that gym before, and after his teammates dismissed his injury, he vowed to God he’d never play there again. But he did – and as Higgins lie on the floor unconscious, he felt his spirit leave his body.
“I was out and floated up through the hoop looking down at myself as my teammates carried me off,” he said.
Higgins said he could see a clear silver strand connecting his spirit self to his physical body as his teammates moved his body onto a stage adjacent to the court. Then they left his body there and resumed the game. His spirit self stood, watching the game until he saw people approaching.
“A group of what I think were angels began walking my way,” he said. “Then out of the group a small man came having been directed by a taller bearded man from a group of robed men.”
This small man reached out to Higgins and carried him up a tunnel of light.
“We arrived at a large glass-like temple with black and gold flakes in the shiny floor, mostly black,” he said. “The purple curtains were very tall all around.”
Higgins’ guide took him up steps to a throne holding a bearded man.
“He had dark black hair and bore scars on his hands and feet and face,” Higgins said. “I am sure it was Jesus. He looked like a biker, not menacing but authoritative and in control.”
This man Higgins believed to be Jesus wore sandals of gold and jewels. He looked at Higgins, then, unsmiling, gave commands to the small man who had brought him there.
“I felt kind of ashamed to be there because I really didn’t want to be there,” Higgins said. “I knew he knew all about me, but it went so quickly and I felt like it as a blur and I really had no control of myself at this point. I could think and see, but I didn’t breath or feel anything; I was just an it.”
The man on the throne gestured to a person Higgins felt was an angel. The angel took Higgins by the arm and led back to the tunnel. Higgins didn’t like what waited for him back in the gym.
“We descended swiftly and I found myself sitting up still out of my body and I saw around me large men in bright robes; large blonde men with backsides like ‘he men,’” Higgins said. “Very big guys fighting with fierce looking scraggly men trying to reach around savagely at me with long nails; dirty desperate looking men who I could barely make out in the darkness.”
These unkempt men in rags fought with Higgins’ angels, trying to grab Higgins, then one angel touched Higgins and he woke.
“Whoa, I had a headache,” Higgins said. “I had to be carried back to my apartment with a concussion and off work for a week.”
Higgins believes his experience has to do with breaking his promise to God.
“I think I let the devil in,” he said. “I had not kept my vow not to play ball with the Mormons because I had been hurt before playing ball with them and they just left me there. Mormons aren’t bad, it was just a failure on my part to keep my vow.”
Something happened to Higgins after his concussion – something that lets him see future horrors.
“I got warnings of attacks in my sleep about terrorists, through the first Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing,” he said.
His most terrifying premonition was on Sept. 10, 2001.
“A spirit tried to wake me the night before 9-11 and told me, ‘Wake up young man, your nation is under attack,’” Higgins said. “I asked in my sleep, ‘Where? Where? By whom?”
The spirit told him Washington, D.C., and New York.
“I was so disturbed to see rubble and smoke as if I was propelled in time to the scene,” Higgins said. “I was choking.”
Higgins kicked in his sleep and woke his wife who asked what was wrong.
“I told her what the spirit said to me and she remembered it later that morning and was astonished,” he said. “I was sorely confused. I thought about it all morning and I couldn’t decide what I should do.”
He realized there was nothing he could do.
“I felt bad knowing this and not doing anything to this day,” Higgins said. “Watching in horror as the planes hit the second time then people jumping to their deaths.”
Remember that I said earlier that this was a synchronicity coming across this recent post by Offutt? Well, he was a guest on the Paracast the past weekend in which he discussed his book about finding paranormal objects and activities literally in your backyard.
The synchronicity isn’t about finding something in my yard (other than cats and woodchucks) but about coming across Jason Offutt related stuff in two days that talks about a religious vision while talking about religion with the Highwayman.
I know, that’s reaching, but it’s cool, is it not?
Jung the Occultist
When people discuss Carl Gustav Jung, it’s generally about his famous split with Freud in 1912, or his theory of cultural archetypes.
But as I’ve been reading about him lately through his 21st Century disciples (Christopher Knowles and Christopher O’Brien..hmm..”Christophers”…), the theory of archetypes and synchronicity (note the “Christ” figures as disciples) bringing “gnosis” (knowledge..heh..another one!) is hard to ‘ignore’ (hah, another one! Okay, stop now).
Well it seems that Jung in the last years of WWII was in the throes of depression and was suffering heart ailments as well. While in a coma after suffering a fall that broke his leg, he had an “out of body experience”:
On 11 February 1944, the 68-year-old Carl Gustav Jung – then the world’s most renowned living psychologist – slipped on some ice and broke his fibula. Ten days later, in hospital, he suffered a myocardial infarction caused by embolisms from his immobilised leg. Treated with oxygen and camphor, he lost consciousness and had what seems to have been a near-death and out-of-the-body experience – or, depending on your perspective, delirium. He found himself floating 1,000 miles above the Earth. Seas and continents shimmered in blue light and Jung could make out the Arabian desert and snow-tipped Himalayas. He felt he was about to leave orbit, but then, turning to the south, a huge black monolith came into view. It was a kind of temple, and at the entrance Jung saw a Hindu sitting in a lotus pos ition. Within, innumerable candles flickered, and he felt that the “whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence” was being stripped away. It wasn’t pleasant, and what remained was an “essential Jung”, the core of his experiences.
He knew that inside the temple the mystery of his existence, of his purpose in life, would be answered. He was about to cross the threshold when he saw, rising up from Europe far below, the image of his doctor in the archetypal form of the King of Kos, the island site of the temple of Asclepius, Greek god of medicine. He told Jung that his departure was premature; many were demanding his return and he, the King, was there to ferry him back. When Jung heard this, he was immensely disappointed, and almost immediately the vision ended. He experienced the reluctance to live that many who have been ‘brought back’ encounter, but what troubled him most was seeing his doctor in his archetypal form. He knew this meant that the physician had sacrificed his own life to save Jung’s. On 4 April 1944 – a date numerologists can delight in – Jung sat up in bed for the first time since his heart attack. On the same day, his doctor came down with septicæmia and took to his bed. He never left it, and died a few days later.
Jung was convinced that he hadn’t simply hallucinated, but that he had been granted a vision of reality. He had passed outside time, and the experience had had a palpable effect on him. For one thing, the depression and pessimism that overcame him during WWII vanished. But there was something more. For most of his long career, he had impressed upon his colleagues, friends, and reading public that he was, above all else, a scientist. He was not, he repeated almost like a mantra, a mystic, occultist, or visionary, terms of abuse his critics, who rejected his claims to science, had used against him. Now, having returned from the brink of death, he seemed content to let the scientist in him take a back seat for the remaining 17 years of his life.
Although Jung had always believed in the reality of the ‘other’ world, he had taken care not to speak too openly about this belief. Now, after his visions, he seemed less reticent. He’d had, it seems, a kind of conversion experience, and the interests the world-famous psychologist had hitherto kept to himself now became common knowledge. Flying saucers, astrology, parapsychology, alchemy, even predictions of a coming “new Age of Aquarius”: pronouncements on all of these dubious subjects – dubious at least from the viewpoint of modern science – flowed from his pen. If he had spent his career fending off charges of mysticism and occultism – initially triggered by his break with Freud in 1912 – by the late 1940s he seems to have decided to stop fighting. The “sage of Küsnacht” and “Hexenmeister of Zürich”, as Jung was known in the last decade of his life, had arrived.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Yet Jung’s involvement with the occult was with him from the start – literally, it was in his DNA. His maternal grandfather, Rev. Samuel Preiswerk, who learned Hebrew because he believed it was spoken in heaven, accepted the reality of spirits, and kept a chair in his study for the ghost of his deceased first wife, who often came to visit him. Jung’s mother Emilie was employed by Samuel to shoo away the dead who distracted him while he was working on his sermons.She herself developed medium istic powers in her late teens. At the age of 20, she fell into a coma for 36 hours; when her forehead was touched with a red-hot poker she awoke, speaking in tongues and prophesying. Emilie continued to enter trance states throughout her life, in which she would communicate with the dead. She also seems to have been a ‘split personality’. Jung occasionally heard her speaking to herself in a voice he soon recognised was not her own, making profound remarks expressed with an uncharacteristic authority. This ‘other’ voice had inklings of a world far stranger than the one the young Carl knew.
This ‘split’ that Jung had seen in his mother would later appear in himself. At around the age of 12, he literally became two people. There was his ordinary boyhood self, and someone else. The ‘Other,’ as Carl called him, was a figure from the 18th century, a masterful character who wore a white wig and buckled shoes, drove an impressive carriage, and held the young boy in contempt. It’s difficult to escape the impression that in some ways Jung felt he had been this character in a past life. Seeing an ancient green carriage, Jung felt that it came from his time. his later notion of the collective unconscious, that psychic reservoir of symbols and images that he believed we inherit at birth, is in a sense a form of reincarnation, and Jung himself believed in some form of an afterlife. Soon after the death of his father, in 1896 when Jung was 21, he had two dreams in which his father appeared so vividly that he considered the possibility of life after death. In another, later dream, Jung’s father asked him for marital advice, as he wanted to prepare for his wife’s arrival. Jung took this as a premonition, and his mother died soon after. And years later, when his sister Gert rude died – a decade before his own near-death experience – Jung wrote that “What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it.”
Hmm..apparently the whole family could communicate with “spirits”, what ever spirits are.
Are they just glimpses of other dimensions, or are they projected “archetypes?”
It’s hard to say from this article, but I would conjecture that given Jung’s, and others OBE’s that what ever our core beings (consciousness) are, they exist in another reality.
And the collective subconscious is capable of projecting “archetypes” that can become real and solid.
Pretty deep.
UFO Flies Into Jet Contrail
Slow day today. Plus I’m running late. So I checked out my ol’ pal Rick Philips at Barf Stew and he had this neat little YouTube video up.
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Rotating UFO Flyby Airliner Netherlands 7th March 2010
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Hmm..must be checking out the content of the jet exhaust. Why?
Is There a Ufology “Hate Meme?”
It has recently come to my poor addled mind that David Biedny is no longer on the Paracast.
I don’t listen to the show much anymore, for reasons I don’t particularly know why, but I have listened to a couple more recently. And I’ve wondered why Gene Steinberg has had guest hosts on. Now, I don’t really find that strange, David had spoken before about taking a hiatus. But quitting the show, I found that curious.
It could be because of Gene’s personal problems, but I won’t go into that here. If anyone has kept track of the show recently, they would know what I’m talking about.
It seems lately to some folks however, that since David left the Paracast, he has been casting aspersions on Ufology in general, calling it “entertainment.”
I would have to agree with him on some aspects of this; the Billy Meiers, Steven Bassetts, Michael Sallas and others of this ilk I could probably put into that category. It is tough to fight to get some respectability in a field in which you have folks who claim that Earth governments are in contact with humanoid aliens, of which there are 57 varieties of. And all are part (or most) of an enlightened ‘Galactic Federation.’
Four years ago I would’ve believed it, but not now.
Anyways, there are folks who still take the field of ‘ufology’ seriously and take exception to folks who leave the field and loudly proclaim it is “entertainment” :
Recently, David Biedny referred to the Paranormal as no different than, “…any other form of Entertainment.” I was already accepting the idea that many people were and still are turning their collective backs on the Paranormal until Paul Kimball said we Ufologists eat our own, and now with Biedny’s thoughts —all too readily solidifying the contempt for the field— it’s time I put my two cents in.
All of a sudden, it has become popular to denigrate the field. Now everyone from every corner of the field is turning their back and turning up their nose. When did this start exactly? Who was the first person to knock down a domino? And why is it that the Ghost Hunting Field isn’t following suit?
In fact, even the Cryptozoologists are separating themselves from the negativity, which has me considering a new field in which to focus my time and energy. But everytime I entertain the thought of leaving Ufology, I think about all the other people walking away and I start to see Ufology as this once full house that is now almost empty and on the verge of collapse.
The researchers who were the foundation aren’t doing their job. The researchers who furnished this great house of Ufology have left dust in their place. You would think younger researchers would rally together and proclaim this a small blemish on the field that can be easily fixed. But no, instead half of them are growing weary with the backstabbing, the lack of viable information and worse, the fallen (once) heroes of the field.
It is now acceptable for Ufologists/Paranormal researchers and investigators to talk shit about the field with no consequence. And why should there be? It’s not a ‘real’ field of study. It’s just a hobby for rejects. It’s one of those fields you ‘fall’ into when you’re a kid, dabbling with the occult and getting your ass kicked in the school yard for being a little too smart.
It’s the red-headed stepchild of Science. The Paranormal is where all the freaks go when they want to feel special. I get it now. It’s reject central. So if you make it out of freakdom—if you write a book, or two—if you start a successful blog—if you get a TV Show/Radio Show—you become too cool to be in the Paranormal field. You just have to get out and spread your wings.
Right?
I so totally get it now!
The problem is, I don’t think many of you should be allowed to walk away so easily. In fact, I think some of you should be held accountable for what you have done. This is the Paranormal Fields version of Arthur Andersen. There is plenty of fraud in the field, committed by the people who ‘supposedly’ helped to build it in the passed few decades.
Some cases that were absolute bunk were given too much attention. Other cases weren’t explored enough. Some researchers backed fraudulent claims and hoaxers and even created hoaxes. I am not going to waste time naming names, because frankly, right now I just don’t give a shit. But I am trying to make a point, and the point is the people who started this shit need to clean it up.
It has become acceptable to just walk away from the field and turn a blind eye at what previous generations have done to a field that could have gained more respect, if not for certain people’s inclination to share the spotlight and make shit up as they went along. Ufology/The Paranormal could have been something more. And it’s not like I didn’t see it gaining ground.
Heck, the Vatican said, ‘Yes, there might be ALiens!’ And then their are various projects enacted for Disclosure, like the Freedom of Information Act. And no, we didn’t exactly figure out what happened at Roswell, but everyone and their mother has heard about it. Alien Invasion films are usually blockbusters. Little kids follow the adventures of Invader Zim and every other animated Alien.
And why? Because Ufology/The Paranormal broke ground somehow. The field slowly but surely seeped into the Global subconscious so that many more people believe in other life in the Universe. More people report UFO sightings. More people talk about their Haunted houses. More people want to know about Life after death, and that curiosity is why shows like ‘Medium’ and ‘The Ghost Whisperer’ have ratings.
The fact that some researchers have been on Larry King and that NOVA and the History Channel cover UFOLOGY (no matter how biased, warped or critical it may all be) is enough to confirm we have come a long way baby and we are making great strides. But somehow, somewhere, people started getting weary and greedy and dispassionate. Fine. I am not saying no one has the ‘right’ to walk away.
That was never point to begin with. My point is, clean up your shit on the way out. And once you are gone, stop talking about it. We don’t need your bad vibes, and we certainly don’t need any more ill repute because the only thing you can find to talk about is how much Ufology/The Paranormal sucks. Because it doesn’t. It is just another outlet for solving the mysteries of this world we live in. Until someone can definitively give us all the answers, I suggest we stop acting like one method or one particular field is more important and respectable than the other.
Because at the end of the day, whether you leave UFOLOGY/The Paranormal behind or not, it’s still a part of your legacy. The shit storm you left behind will haunt you.
Nice rant..er..post by Tina. She makes some good points, but leaves out the ones I posted above. But is there a “hate meme” against ufology in general?
I don’t think so. As she points out, more people are thinking about life in the Universe more seriously now, to the point which the Vatican acknowledges it (although Christianity as a religion has always accepted the existence of higher creatures). Even in the mainstream science, Stephen Hawking told us to “beware” of advanced aliens bearing gifts.
If there is a ‘hate meme’, it is against those who are perceived to be P.T. Barnum types who use ufology to the point it’s ‘ufoology’ at conventions and on the media, mainstream and alternate.
And even then they serve a purpose.
Contact Consciousness
Steve Hammons of the Joint Recon Study Group is thinking about ways an extraterrestrial, non-human intelligence would possibly interact with us humans on a daily basis and how modern science is bringing our own awareness to bear on studying the “unconventional intelligence.”
The apparent growing awareness of the possibility or probability that we are being visited by extraterrestrial and other unconventional intelligences seems to pose some important questions.
These questions take us beyond the discussion about if we are being visited or if UFOs are exotic spacecraft of some kind.
Anyone of average intelligence who has done a moderate amount of research on the subject can safely conclude that something along these lines is going on.
If we were to request a “SitRep,” a situation report, about where we find ourselves, what would it say? What really is going on? How does it affect us? What might happen in the future? How will we adjust to a changing reality?
To deal with these and other interesting questions, we will probably need to improve and enhance our “situation awareness.”
ECLECTIC AWARENESS
Limiting the discussion to UFOs and extraterrestrials might be too narrow a focus. Those topics certainly seem to be part of the overall scenario at hand. But what other related factors are in play?
Certainly, modern scientific theories of multiple dimensions or a “multi-verse” appear to be significant. Other elements of modern quantum physics bring to mind the ideas of wormholes and star gates.
Then there are anomalies regarding time, some kind of “unified field” of energy or “zero point energy,” a possible higher intelligence or several higher intelligences, and of direct interest – human consciousness.
What is going on in the biological sciences that might be relevant? Studies of the human body and those of the animals, plants and other life forms that share our Earth are revealing fascinating secrets and discoveries.
In fact, it might be wise to pay attention to the many kinds of scientific study about our planet and the life on it before serious climate change, pollution, overpopulation or some other cascading or sudden catastrophe create very serious problems for the human race.
Do we really want to reach the tipping point of dangerous developments for the human species, as well as other animal and plant life on Earth?
Maybe a more positive tipping point of some kind is a more useful goal. This brings the circle back to the important discussion of human consciousness.
INTEGRATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
If extraterrestrials – the good, the bad and the ugly – angels and/or other unusual intelligences are conducting activities in and around Earth, what impacts will there be on us average humans going about our daily lives?
In the end, Steve notes, we need to bring all of our tools in order to focus on studying and communicating with non-terrestrial intelligences.
Even our consciousness.
Beyond UFOs and Extraterrestrials: Human consciousness may be key
The Fermi Un-Paradox
Enrico Fermi, whose famous lunch-time theory has transcended the decades was a believer.
Yes, a believer.
According to Mori of Forgetomori, Fermi not only questioned ‘why’ we haven’t seemed to have been visited by aliens, he actually believed they existed:
According to “Dr. SETI“, H. Paul Shuch, from the official SETI League, “physicist Enrico Fermi, said to be a firm believer in the existence of extra-terrestrials, was frustrated by the lack of firm evidence of their existence”. Wait a minute, Fermi actually believed in the existence of aliens?
That may sound preposterous given that his famous Paradox is one of the most referenced arguments advanced against the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, but amazingly, it probably is true.
Fermi unfortunately passed away in 1954, shortly after he formulated his paradox. He didn’t publish the concept in written form, rather it was just an idea discussed by him with colleagues at lunch. That was then often quoted and referenced by others for decades afterwards. This probably explains why his original idea came to be so misunderstood.
It was only in 1985 that someone seems to have decided to actually document the origins of the paradox, and sadly, even this work is widely ignored. That’s the report from Los Alamos National Laboratory, “Where is Everybody?’: An Account of Fermi’s Question“, by scientist Eric M. Jones.
Jones interviewed those present at that historic lunch at Los Alamos in the summer of 1950. They were Emil Konopinski, Herbert York and Edward Teller, and he provided accounts of the conversation by all of them.
Interestingly, the paradox was related to the cartoon seen above. Konopinski wrote:
“I do have a fairly clear memory of how the discussion of extra-terrestrials got started while Enrico, Edward, Herb York, and I were walking to lunch at Fuller Lodge. When l joined the party, I found being discussed evidence about flying saucers. That immediately brought to my mind a cartoon I had recently seen in the New Yorker, explaining why public trash cans were disappearing from the streets of New York City. The New York papers were making a fuss about that. The cartoon showed what was evidently a flying saucer sitting in the background and, streaming toward it, ‘little green men’ (endowed with antennas) carrying the trash cans. More amusing was Fermi’s comment, that it was a very reasonable theory since it accounted for two separate phenomena: the reports of flying saucers as well as the disappearance of the trash cans.”
Edward Teller also recalled:
“I remember that Fermi explicitly raised the question, and I think he directed it at me, ‘Edward, what do you think? How probable is it that within the next ten years we shall have clear evidence of a material object moving faster than light?’ I remember that my answer vas ‘ 1 o-6.. Fermi said, ‘This is much too low. The probability is more like ten percent’ (the well known figure for a Fermi miracle.) “
The discussion then went on to other topics, as they arrived at the luncheon table. It “had nothing to do with astronomy or with extraterrestrial beings. I think it was some down-to-earth topic. Then, in the middle of this conversation, Fermi came out with the quite unexpected question ‘Where is everybody?‘ … The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi’s question coming from the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once that he was talking about extraterrestrial life”, Teller wrote to Jones. “I do not believe that much came of this conversation, except perhaps a statement that the distances to the next location of living beings may be very great and that, indeed, as far as our galaxy is concerned, we are living somewhere in the sticks, far removed from the metropolitan area of the galactic center”, Teller added.
But York believes that Fermi was somewhat more expansive and “followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over. As I recall, he went on to conclude that the reason we hadn’t been visited might be that interstellar flight is impossible, or, if it is possible, always judged to be not worth the effort, or technological civilization doesn’t last long enough for it to happen.” York confessed to being hazy about these last remarks.
Note how York confirms that Fermi assumed extraterrestrial civilizations existed, only that their non-arrival must have meant something stops them on their way. That’s exactly the position taken by SETI scientists to this day.
Eric Jones’ report can be downloaded at the FAS website:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-10311-ms.pdf
One could argue that UFOs are proof of alien civilizations, but most UFOs seem to exhibit characteristics more akin to paranormal activity, i.e., ghosts, hauntings, shapeshifting, etc. Definitely ‘nuts and bolts’ explanations and trace evidence is in the minority, thus robust scientific proof is hard coming.
But as Arthur C. Clarke once said, ” A sufficiently advanced technological society will appear to the less technological as magic.”
Maybe we better keep that in mind.
Fermi believed in aliens? What a paradox! (From August 2007)
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