A 2003-2004 Paper for students: A skeptics cornucopia?

This paper attacks "pseudo-science" (Ufology keynoted) as an intellectual warning for students:

Astronomy Education Review

RR

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Another Socorro possibility? Project Deimos

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/proeimos.htm

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The Pascagoula Proposition: Not a UFO abduction

When the alleged Pascagoula abduction occurred in 1973, co-workers and buddies Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were abducted by aliens that looked like this:

No other UFO sighting or event had (and still hasn’t) described beings that looked as Hickson/Parker described.

Why?

Because Hickson and Parker weren’t abducted, but experienced a folie à deux, a shared psychosis, brought on by suggestibility, one person influencing another, introducing a delusion.

Both men, Hickson a kind of father-figure to Parker, seems, from the record, to have been subjected to sexual examination(s).

In a later interview over 20 years after the initial incident, Parker's story became much more elaborate. Here Parker confessed to lying about fainting in sight of the creatures. He claimed that he was in fact conscious when the creatures took him on board the craft and led him into a room at the other end of a hallway to the left of the craft's entrance. He claims he was laid down on a sloped table and examined by a 'petite,' evidently female, being. Though he was paralyzed, he was able to observe the being inject a needle into the base of the underside of his penis. [Wikipedia]

Sexual elements often intrude upon those who suffer a folie à deux; it’s the sub-context of psychoneuroses [Freud and The Psychiatric Dictionary, Fourth Edition, Hinsie/Campbell, Pages 305-307]

The men reported they experienced “a whirring/whizzing sound, saw two flashing blue lights” which is similar to what those having an hallucination often experience.

Or were they under the influence of a mind-altering substance – alcohol, marijuana, LSD – or affected by something else?

This from Joe Nickell, csicop.org, 2012:

[The] two men … might have been drinking before the incident (as Hickson admitted he was after), [or] might have dozed off. Hickson could then have entered a hypnagogic (“waking dream”) state, a trancelike condition between waking and sleeping in which some people experience hallucinations, often with bizarre imagery, including strange beings (aliens, ghosts, etc.). This state may be accompanied by what is called “sleep paralysis” (the body’s inability to move due to still being in the sleep mode). In fact, Hickson not only reported the bizarre imagery but also said that the aliens “paralyzed” him before carrying him aboard the UFO in what sounds like a hypnagogic fantasy.

But if Hickson had a hypnagogic experience, what about Parker? Actually, he need not have been in such a state himself because, as he told officers, he had passed out at the beginning of the incident and failed to regain consciousness until it was over (United Press International 1973). Later he “remembered” bits and pieces of the alleged encounter. This would be consistent with an example of folie à deux (a French expression, the “folly of two”) in which a percipient convinces another of some alleged occurrence (as by the power of suggestion, the force of a dominant personality, or the like) or the other person simply acquiesces for whatever reason. (Young Parker’s position was vulnerable: he had recently joined the shipyard where Hickson worked and was residing with the Hick­sons.) It would have been significant if Parker had himself been in a hypnagogic state, since “suggestibility is high during this state” (Goldenson 1970, I: 574).

Or was the setting – a fishing wharf late at night – conducive to a neurological quirk that the older Hickson experienced and “communicated” to Parker, via the folie à deux?

Hickson went on, later in life, to say that he had “three more encounters in 1974, and said the aliens communicated to him that they were peaceful.” [Huffington Post, 2014]

All in all, while there is the [remote] possibility that Hickson and Parker were actually abducted by odd beings, the aftermath, as reported by them, has all the hallmarks of a psychological experience….

….not a hoax but an extended narrative evolving from a psychotic moment, acquiring a life of its own from persons who thought they were subject to a unique experience.

RR

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Why the Socorro UFO could NOT be an ET craft

The red symbol that Lonnie Zamora saw on the egg-shaped craft was (it seems) to be a painted symbol.

The problem for ET believers is that is Zamora’s UFO had traveled from outer space to Earth, the (painted) symbol would have deteriorated or been damaged, as paint is affected by space travel, as noted by Wikipedia and The Space Academy:

Impacts of these particles cause erosive damage, similar to sandblasting (Wikipedia)

http://www.spaceacademy:

Particles impact paint and cause small craters in walls and windows.

Elon Musk’s Space X is coping with how to maintain business or corporate logos on reusable space vehicles, affected by the deleterious affects of space travel.

And the First Star Trek movie addressed the matter when it coped with a rampaging entity – V’ger – which was the “Voyager” spacecraft, the name on the craft having been altered by its travels in space.

If Lonnie Zamora’s UFO had traveled from space regions to Earth, it seems that the (painted) insignia would have been altered by that travel: loss of part of the symbol and/or discoloring by the vicissitudes of space travel.

RR

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FotoCat update (and Gilles Fernandez)

For those of you who don't get notifications about Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos' terrific UFO Fotocat site, here's a link from his recent note about an update:

http://fotocat.blogspot.com.es/2014_09_25_archive.html

Our friend Gilles Fernandez gets a nice shout-out from Vicente-Juan that you should see.

RR

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From A. Hebert (in 2005?): response to a posting at our RRRGroup blog?

I found this missive on a CD archive of UFO material accumulated in the 2005 time-frame.

I don't know if it came to us, in response to a Socorro posting, or I picked it up from elsewhere. (If the latter, I hope the recipient forgives me.)

But I thought the thinking of A. Hebert -- a relative of Tim Hebert? -- was interesting. What do you think?

RR

----------------------------------

I don't know if this has already been mentioned but Zamora never actually saw the two beings go into the object before it took off and no one knows what materials the object was made of.

Zamora heard two loud slams, no longer saw the beings and the object took off (according to Ray's book and other accounts). Therefore, no one really knows if the beings were in the object when it took off.

Since we don't know if the beings were actually in the egg-shaped object when it took off, we don't know if their weight was included in the take-off load.  Neither do we know what the object's hull or interior was made of (the word "metallic" is used repeatedly, almost excessively, in references to the object but Zamora only made a visual observation).

If the beings were not in the object when it took off and the object was not made of any kind of metal, perhaps the object itself was some form of balloon/UAV (patents do exist that include these features).  The two loud slams Zamora described hearing could have just as easily been the slamming of two car doors as the "beings" got in a car and drove off beyond Zamora's view and while he was focused on the object as it launched (they may have only appeared small from a distance). Like the LEM, the object may have had small thrusters for maneuverability (going against the wind).

The description of the object emitting flames and a roaring sound while landing and taking off makes it sound more like something man-made - from the '60's - than something from another planet.

A. Hebert

PS: Please excuse this intrusion. I have been studying this case for some time - from the point of view it was man-made and using forms of CC&D. Patents do exist, past and current, with various technologies that resemble what Zamora saw. However, any time I try to reference patents on the Updates list, they never get

posted so I stopped making these references.  They are included in the book I'm writing.

Many of the aerostat patents that utilized thermal and/or gas with thrust from the 60's and 70's were either egg-shaped or saucer-shaped.  Doesn't mean they were actually built.  Only means they were being considered.  Later versions, however, were built and some licensed by the U.S. government or associated agencies.

My hypothesis is the object Zamora saw was an LTA using a sort of jet engine for initial lift with hot air containment and helium reservoirs for sustained buoyancy, thrusters for maneuvering.  May have been manned or unmanned.  No stereos or boomboxes, too heavy. [Grin]

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Howard Hughes, UFOs, and Socorro

Most of you know that I’ve long advocated a conjecture that Howard Hughes [Aircraft/Toolco] was responsible, inadvertently, for Lonnie Zamora’s Socorro sighting (or event) of 1964.

As usual there is no “smoking gun” but circumstantial material helps support the conjecture and UFO researchers have ignored that material in their haste to accept the notion that police officer Zamora saw a bona fide alien craft or was the subject of an elaborate hoax by New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology students.

(Note Hughes' logo on his card above. Hughes and his employees liked to display such graphics on their enterprises -- airplanes, factories, business cards, letterheads, et cetera.)

The excerpts from the paper cited below indicate to me that Hughes has been in the aerospace mix (deeply involved with the U.S. military) since before Roswell. And his forays in the southwest desert (New Mexico) were many in the 1945-1965 time-frame, encompassing the Roswell and Socorro events.

This proves nothing, I understand that, but it does provide grist for investigation if one really wants to get to the bottom of what happened near Roswell and particularly what happened in Socorro, April 1964.

Billion Dollar Technology: A Short Historical Overview of the Origins of Communications Satellite Technology, 1945-1965

by David J. Whalen 

While some communications satellite technology flows from one manufacturer to another, much is protected by patents, and even more is protected by the difficulty of learning new technology. Technology transfer, even when facilitated by cooperation, is often difficult. Many early geosynchronous satellites used techniques pioneered by Hughes on Syncom in 1963. The Hughes-Williams patent was the subject of litigation for years, but it proved to be quite valuable to Hughes. Eventually, most other manufacturers and the U.S. government had to pay royalties to Hughes. Perhaps more important, Hughes has dominated the manufacture of communications satellites since the first Syncom in 1963. The risk of competitors appropriating technology is greatly overstated. 

The Hughes Aircraft Company Task Force on Commercial Satellite Communication25 met for the first time a few weeks later on 12 October 1959. 

Hughes alone (successfully) had attempted to design a cheap lightweight spacecraft.

AT&T paid for the development of Telstar and reimbursed NASA for the launch services. Hughes paid the development costs of the protoflight Syncom satellite, although NASA underwrote the construction of the actual flight models.

Murphy outlined the work conducted at Hughes from 1959 to 1961 on satellite design and testing, all with company funds. As a result, Hughes could launch its first Syncom only 17 months after signing a contract. 

The year 1964 had begun with a contract for two geosynchronous satellites (model HS-303, the Early Bird) for Comsat. In March, NASA had awarded Hughes a contract for five Applications Technology Satellites, and in August, Syncom 3 was launched into geostationary orbit.

9. Project RAND, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, Report No. SM-11827 (Santa Monica, CA: Project RAND, May 1946).

117. It should be pointed out that future Hughes systems depended on the "gyrostat" principle developed at Hughes by Anthony Iorillo and demonstrated on the Army TACSAT.

------------------------

N.B. This paper is online at our private UFO site and I'd normally provide it here, but since it seems that only CDA is reading my provided finds, uploading such papers for edification here seems superfluous, futile.

RR

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Not really a change; just a slight alteration

Since we're using The Iconoclast(s) for a new blog, related to our media work, I've changed the title of this blog, but the URL remains the same obviously.

UFO conjecture is really what we're about, despite David Rudiak et al. not understanding the term or principle. I'm hoping the revamped title will make it clear what the purpose of this blog is, and dissuade some readers from continuing to be ignorant, about UFOs and intellectualism generally.

RR

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Soccer Ball on Mars?

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/nasas-curiosity-rover-photographs-round-balllike-object-on-the-surface-of-mars/story-fnjwlcze-1227071405507

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A fascinating UFO tidbit, but that's all it is (apparently)

This sketch shows what appears to be a UFO event related to the Tugunska explosion in Russia (but there is nothing online or in our UFO library following up on the "sighting" except a comment, below, from Arthur C. Clarke at a site about astronomical and science phenomena):

Arthur C. Clarke comments:

The Tunguska event will soon be eighty years in the past. Imagine our surprise, therefore, at receiving this report in 1985 from Mr Samuel Sunter of Victoria, Canada. Mr Sunter was a boy of nine, living in Northumberland, England, when the explosion took place. This is what he told us:

I saw, looking north east, on June 30th 1908, a large red ball of fire, about three times the size of a full moon. It looked just like a hole in the sky. On the other side of the hole, it looked like flames, just like looking into the fire box of a locomotive. But what made me afraid was a solid beam of light which reached right down to where I was standing. This made me afraid and I ran into the house, so I do not know how long it lasted after I first saw it. Even today I have a very vivid memory of it.

Could Mr Sunter have indeed seen the Tunguska explosion from 4,000 miles away across the roof of the world? It seems improbable; but if his memory of the date is correct, he almost certainly witnessed some of its effects.

RR

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Haha?

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The sources for our speculation(s) about Roswell and Socorro

David Rudiak likes to say that UFO bloggers and web creators get their Roswell or Socorro materials from his web-site, but we've always gotten our materials from the original sources, such as NASA and the Goddard Library, putting our finds online years ago, from which others purloined our material. But that's okay with us, as disemmination of government information isn't owned by those who find it, online.

Here are some notes from the Goddard Library about Balloons re: Roswell and Socorro as we saw it and see it:

These notes took us to Raven Industries, A CIA front that worked with Howard Hughes on his Socorro-sighted lunar lander and the Helios and Moby Dick Projects that Mr. Rudiak wants to take out of the Roswell time-frame which are solidly in that time-frame, as you can see.

And here is a report about tethered gondolas (or lunar lander configurations) that might, as we see it, account for Lonnie Zamora's sighting:

Tethered

And finally, an article from the skeptical inquirer that should bolster the Zoam Chomsky, Lance Moody, Gilles Fernandez and CDA views:

Project Moby Dick

RR

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Thinking: The Thing Missing in Ufology

Edward de Bono has established a regimen of thinking that everyone should know, especially those who consider themselves UFO intellectuals or who are part of that pseudo-study: ufology.

Here are some of his books:

And here is a book that is classic that should be in everyone's library, not by de Bono:

The reason I'm suggesting this book and Edward de Bono's regimen about thinking derives from how lame I'm finding my own thought processes to be and those of readers who leave comments here.

It's not that commentary at this blog is unintelligent or fetid; it's just that the commentary is devoid of creativity and/or imagination.

That is, the commentary is, as de Bono calls it, vertical thinking when it should be lateral thinking.

You need to read his books to get the gist or do your usual studying by googling Edward de Bono and reading what he has to say.

(You might also check out the Dimnet book, The Art of Thinking.)

In the Socorro post below this one, there are comments that make my point about "unimagination."

Since UFOs have not reached or even approached an explanation, the phenomenon has to be attacked with an outrageous attempt at novelty and "new think."

The stultifying thought that resonates here, my own included, provides nothing unique or interesting.

The comments are, usually, actually worse than my postings. That's rather sad, pathetic even.

I don't care if I lose some (or many) readers/commentators here with this posting.

What have I really lost? A boring, uninviting set of comments, often florid -- sound and fury signifying nothing.

So, my fellow quidnuncs....hie thyselves to the bookstore or library and read up on where thinking is today and enlighten or edify those of us who need enlightenment and edification.

Please...

RR

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The Socorro Copter: Lonnie Zamora's craft?

In 1959, Hughes' scientists at Hughes Aircraft were devising underwater and aerial crafts, Here's a sketch of one of those endeavors: The so-called Hughes "mobots" for underwater projects and use

But in a more realistic vein, Hughes Aircraft/Toolco worked to develop a helicopter for the U.S. Army and was testing such copters in the southwestern United States in the early 1960s.

This is one of those copters -- the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse (a two man!) copter that crashed in a test:

Two photos of the Cayuse under development:

And here are two Cayuse copters engaged in aerial practice:

Did Lonnie Zamora stumble upon a prototypical Hughes Cayuse copter that looked, from the front, more egg-like than it did from the side, which also looks egg-like?

And did he see the smoke trails as the copter left the area?

(Hughes ended up getting the Army contract in 1965.)

RR

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For Bruce Duensing (and a few others)

Two papers [PDFs]...

One about anomalous experiences (UFOs, ghosts, et cetera) -- why they occur and who experiences them:

Anomalous Experiences

And this -- Dealing with Astrology, UFOs, and Faces on Other Worlds: A Guide to Addressing Astronomical Pseudoscience in the Classroom:

441

RR

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The Trent/McMinnville UFO is a truck mirror?

Over at Kevin Randle's blog our friend Zoam Chomsky [The Iron Skeptic] posted a comment purported to tell readers there that farmer Trent, who took the (in)famous McMinnville flying disk photos (1950), used his truck mirror to hoax the photos he took, and this photo shows the mirror used:

Now we like Zoam but this photo was taken after the May 1950 photo session. Did Farmer Trent re-attach the mirror he supposedly used to create his flying saucer photos?

Yes, there are several arguments made for a Trent family hoax, but there are equally valid arguments that the Trents did see and, indeed, photographed an odd flying object.

Zoam's comment at Randle's blog is off the mark however, as here we have the mirror, mischievously used, back in place on farmer Trent's truck.

One skeptical comment bites the dust.

RR

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The Roswell Slides: An Update

We had hoped that Anthony Bragalia would provide a posting about what’s going on in the “Roswell slides” matter but I think he’s not interested.

It seems that possessor of the slides has removed The Roswell [Dream] Team from an association with the slides.

Mr. Bragalia, like us (and some of you) would like to see the slides make a public appearance and they may, but not imminently it seems.

Mr. Bragalia cannot tell us anything more than he has, he tells me.

Our resident space intellectual, Larry, who has seen the slides, close up, isn’t about to say they show an alien body but he does admit the Kodachromes do show an odd humanoid body and that the slides need much more scientific scrutiny, which they have gotten or are getting, the “owner” footing the costs of such scrutiny.

So, we’ll all only get to see the slides when and if they appear on a broadcast show from one of the usual presenters of fringe material: History, Science, Discovery, et cetera.

RR

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Is this anything? Nope....

http://www.jspacenews.com/5000-year-old-moon-shaped-monument-found-israel/

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Ufology Flies Further into the Flaky Arena

Many of you chastised Anthony Bragalia for his latest posting about remote viewing and Roswell, with attendant commentary about a Roswell séance from Nick Redfern.

And our favorite site about the paranormal -- The Anomalist – has become truly enamored of the fringe, UFOs as spiritual quirks, et cetera.

This reminds me of the 16^th Century when the western world was engulfed in goofy activities and odd pretenses, as recounted in this book:

The 1500s were beset by a societal change – The Church of Rome under attack by Martin Luther and eventually unseated as the moral arbiter of human behavior by the Protestant movement.

This caused generally reasonable men (and women) to become mentally disoriented, causing them to accept or adopt practices that raised hob inside society.

(The Salem Witch Trials of the 1600s are an example.)

What is happening now that is creating societal turmoil that even extends to the obscure and ridiculous segment defined ad “ufology”?

Why it’s the onslaught of extreme Islamic movement, that hopes to unseat what it sees as the corruption of civilization by the western powers, headed by the United States of America and Great Britain.

The mental anxiety produced by this extreme “religious” movement seems to have infected even those who are usually removed from societal plights: UFO mavens.

While UFOs have a reported tangibility or reality as seen in the historical record and especially the journalistic record of the modern era, those who are mentally disjointed, at some level, by the societal upheaval promulgated by al Qaeda and currently ISIS in the middle east, have brought their disjointedness into the UFO arena.

Alien abductions and extraterrestrial visitation have been replaced by the idea that UFOs are a product of the eerie spiritual milieu – ghosts and spirits are the cause of UFO sightings and are the underlying explanation of UFOs – the UFO reality.

Just as spiritualism and psychic séances became epidemic in the late 1800s, those oddball activities are now recurring in the UFO community, besmirching a topic [UFOs] that is already too weird to be considered by sane individuals, let alone science.

Sure, ESP and related psychic manifestations should be studied by those who think there is intellectual or evolutionary gold inside those freaky matters.

But UFOs? Does that phenomenon need one more bizarre accretion added to its already baffling and queer lore?

RR

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Where is the UFO book we should all have and read?

Each culture, each discipline has a book or two that represent a clarification of that culture or discipline; that is, the book or books are essential to the intellectual evolution of our species, humankind.

For example, in Literature there are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Dante’s [Divine] Comedy, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, James Joyce’s Ulysses, among countless others you can name.

In politics, geo-economics, sociology are Machiavelli’s The Prince, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Marx’s Das Capital, to name a niggardly few.

In psychology is Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, or any number of Jung’s oeuvre.

In science, besides the magnum opuses of the early Greeks, or Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, there is, in the modern era, Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and many others.

You get my point (I hope).

But in Ufology or just among the many UFO writers who’ve published books, who has written the magnum opus of UFOs?

Not Berlitz, or Jacques Vallee, or Jerry Clark, or Brad Steiger, or Kevin Randle, or Stanton Friedman, or anyone else.

The UFO topic, while rife among a few fringe fanatics who visit here and other UFO venues, has not received a book or tome that sums up the phenomenon or even comes close to clarifying what UFOs are, sociologically, scientifically, or even fantastically.

There is no UFO book that one has to have or has to read.

The subject matter is devoid of an important, essential read or book.

What does this tell us about our lives, those of us enamored of UFOs?

And what does it tell us about UFOs as a relevant part of human life?

RR

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Robert Sheaffer provides (at Kevin Randle's blog) the Joel Carpenter analysis of the Trent/McMinnville photos

And ongoing discussion of the Trent/McMinnville UFO photos at Kevin Randle's blog has brought out the usual pro/con comments of some UFO habitues.

Robert Sheaffer checked in and provided, magnanimously, a link to a "lost" exegesis of the Trent photos by (the now deceased?) Joel Carpenter in 2004.

The analysis by Mr. Carpenter is a prime example of how a UFO sighting/event should be evaluated and here is the link that Mr. Sheaffer provided....and we thank him for making it available again:

http://tinyurl.com/CarpenterTrent

(I normally wouldn't intrude upon Mr. Randle's effort but this Trent analysis is so good that I think it should be seen by as many ufological hobbyists as possible.)

RR

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Dr. Lincoln LaPaz on his observation of Green Fireball(s)

A paper from a February 1949 [Top Secret] conference at Los Alamos Scientific Center wherein Dr. Lincoln LaPaz discusses (with Dr. Edward Teller et al.) his observation of a Green Fireball:

Page One

Page Two

(David Rudiak may try to say this came from his site, but it didn't. It appeared at our original UFO blog in 2004.)

RR

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Rothenberg Boy 9-13-1966 -- A UFO sighting?

I came across this drawing in our UFO archives.

It's entitled RothenbergBoy9-13-1966.

But I can't find any reference (via Google or in our UFO library) to a Rothenberg UFO sighting.

Anyone got an idea?

RR

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Media vs Media

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A reminder to my unsophisticated, ill-read, unintellectual readers

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

-William Shakespeare
  Julius Caesar

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For Nick Redfern -- not about UFOs!

Jack the Ripper identified via DNA test:

http://www.inquisitr.com/1458093/dna-evidence-reveals-identity-of-jack-the-ripper/

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Brit UFO Writer James Easton on Socorro [from UFO UpDates, 2001]

James Easton wrote about the Socorro event, in answer to Don Ledger -- the Shag Harbor advocate -- at UFO Updates in 2001.

Mr. Easton addresses Raven Industries and its balloon prototypes.

Ravin Industries was the CIA front used by Howard Hughes for his lunar lander prototype tests.

Click HERE to read the Easton hypothesis.

RR

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A paper that puts Roswell and other UFO things in perspective

Dead on Arrival?
The Development of the Aerospace Concept, 1944–58
by STEPHEN M. ROTHSTEIN, MAJOR, USAF
School of Advanced Airpower Studies

This paper, which is archived at our (private) UFO web-site, contains the military milieu for the period when flying saucers were prominent and the Roswell incident had taken place.

These excerpts show the internecine conflict between the U.S. Army, The U.S. Navy, and the new U.S. Air Force, and why I think the U.S. Navy is the ultimate source for UFO information, not the U.S. Air Force.

The paper also makes clear that if a extraterrestrial craft had crashed and was recovered near Roswell, the event didn't impact the United States military in an overt, significant way.

The paper also allows for a possible non-extraterrestrial accident that might account for the Roswell incident.

And the last excerpt here could give a clue as to why James Forrestal was murdered....

On 20 November 1943, von Kármán forwarded the report to the War Department.4 For reasons unclear, the Air Force backed away from the project. ORD, however, did not; and in January 1944, they contracted von Kármán’s team to begin research in White Sands, New Mexico. By the year’s end, ORDCIT had fired an eight-foot, 500-pound missile 11 miles down range and was be-ginning to explore the effect of attaching lifting devices to improve its range and guidance characteristics. 

Interestingly, all of these events—as well as the emergence of the aerospace concept itself—took place prior to the Air Force gaining its independence in July 1947. Furthermore, these events established virtually every strand of horizontal and internal issues that will come to challenge the aerospace concept throughout the rest of this study. Consequently, understanding the period of 1944–47 is critical.

The Navy’s role was to control the high seas. Naval leadership—attuned to the emerging possibilities of rocketry to extend the reach of their fleets, as well as the Army’s organizational maneuvering with the Germans and Project Hermes—decided to enter the missile melee.

Beginning roughly in July 1947, the aerospace concept fell upon hard times, stagnating—and at times perhaps even receding—for the better part of the next six years.

If in the summer of 1947 the aerospace concept appeared to be taking hold within the Air Force, encouraged by Air Force leaders clearly thinking about the prospect of an operational domain that naturally extended beyond the atmosphere, within three years the concept had all but died.

“Secretary Forrestal Announces Results of Key West Agreements, 26 March 1948” (n.d., located in Air University Library, Maxwell AFB, Ala.), 9, 12. The resulting potential ambiguity between the Air Force and the Navy over which service owned the strategic at-tack role was clarified in a subsequent amendment to the Key West Agreement that appeared three months after it was signed. On 1 July 1948, Secretary Forrestal issued a memorandum for record that said “the Navy’s requirement for . . . forces . . . would not be the basis for the development of a strategic air force. On the other hand, the memorandum also included the statement that ‘although strategic air warfare was assigned to the Air Force as a primary function, it was agreed that the Navy should not be denied the air necessary to accomplish its mission.’” Quoted from “Chronology of Changes in Key West Agreements, April 1948–January 1958,” prepared by the Historical Section, Joint Chiefs of Staff on 7 February 1958...

RR

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Singular UFO sightings/events

One of the problems with UFO “research” or scrutiny is that significant UFO episodes happen once and are rarely or never repeated, causing absence of the repeatability intrinsic to scientific methodology.

For instance, the World War II phenomenon of “foo fighters” never occurred again, nor the ghost rockets over Scandinavia.

Kenneth Arnold’s chain of “saucers” has not been seen outside the 1947 time-frame.

A Roswell incident has not recurred, Aztec being a misguided extrapolation of the Roswell tale.

The green fireballs over the American southwest in the late 40s and early 50s, despite a spate of later sightings, have not been seen in the sighting numbers that took place originally.

The McMinnville (Trent) object, while duplicated in hoaxes, never appeared again in legitimate photographs.

The odd entities allegedly seen alongside landed aerial craft in the 1950s, mostly in Europe, have not recurred.

While the 1959 Reverend Gill (Papua. New Guinea) sighting provided elements seen in similar sightings (noted here recently), archetypal sightings are missing in UFO reportage.

The giants of Voronezh (Russia), 1989, never showed up again.

The Betty/Barney Hill abduction, the Travis Walton kidnapping, the Pascagoula experience, and Rendlesham kinds of events were one of a kind, not duplicated or even approximated in later or recent UFO reports.

The raft of alien abduction accounts can be placed in a neurological setting, not an actual physical setting.

And yes, UFO sightings over military installations, can be said to have been duplicated and still occurring but no related sighting has the cachet of the sightings noted above.

(There are other singular UFO sightings or episodes that you can, also, cite certainly.)

That such UFO sightings, as those noted, are virtually unique goes to the problem of investigation or scientific scrutiny; one time, singular events lie outside methodologies to explain them.

Why is this so when it comes to UFOs?

That’s the matter “ufology” can’t deal with, and hasn’t.

RR

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The Theology of Ufology

Lance Moody’s recent comment about David Rudiak’s Roswell/UFO belief system…

“[David can be and always [is] in the service of his Lord, Saucer Jesus”

… goes to what happens to people who become enmeshed in the UFO (Roswell) topic; they become religious-like in their adherence to the phenomenon.

For instance, in my several year association with Anthony Bragalia, I’ve seen him become fanatically “catholic” about UFOs, with Roswell becoming the core of his belief system, even as he eschews some of the other UFO cults (Trent/McMinnville, Socorro, et cetera).

David Rudiak, whom Lance references, is evangelical about UFOs and Roswell is his “Jesus.”

Kevin Randle is like a Seven Day Adventist: sort of believing after once fervently believing in UFOs as the prime example of ET visitation.

The ultimate atheist is Zoam Chomsky, followed less fervently by Gilles Fernandez and Lance Moody himself.

The agnostics – CDA and me – accept UFOs as real but have no idea what the essence of the phenomenon (or phenomena) is (are).

One can find other UFO aficionados who might have a theological or non-theological belief system intact – many being visitors here – but I’ll leave the comment section for them to add their confessionals.

RR

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David Rudiak responds but....

I got a comment from David Rudiak for the posting prior to this but I'm not putting it down for posterity. It was a personal attack, which David can't refrain from doing....he has little sense of humor when it comes to Roswell or UFOs altogether.

But I'd like to insist that in the Roswell time-frame there were lots of balloon tests going on, besides Mogul or Helios. For example, this from the NASA archives:

A description is presented of main balloon applications, giving attention to the Skyhook project, the Moby-Dick project, the Transosonde project, the Rockoon project, and the projects Stratolab and Manhigh.

David is fixated on Mogul and we all know why, don't we?

Mac Brazel was a dolt, and his "debris" was balloon scrap, just as the Army said.

RR

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Our Source(s) for the Brazel/Roswell Alien Debris Dismissal

David Rudiak likes to think that his Roswell site is the fount of all information about Roswell and that material appearing online comes from his site.

However, some of us have been at this a lot longer than Mr. Rudiak, and we have, online, material that does not derive from his site.....exactly the opposite often occurs.

If one Googles the title of our previous Brazel posting, they will find this:

http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007/04/original-sources-of-1947-roswell_26.html

http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007_04_22_archive.html

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ParanormalGhostSociety/conversations/topics/50152

Our original information from the NASA archives along with a site that borrowed our input, which is okay with us. (There are others as you'll see with a Google search.)

Moreover, here is an insert that causes us to speculate on the Brazel "debris" find:

And here is the full paper from December 1947 that tells us Mac Brazel found something from the tests that took place in his area......this does not come from Mr. Rudiak's site. We found it during our "research" years ago:

Controlled Balloon Flights over Roswell, July 1947

RR

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Kenneth Arnold: Delusional ET Believer or Observer of Actual Odd Flying Objects?

This appeared in the article, pictured above [Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1949]:

Arnold, while investigating the (alleged) Maury Island sighting in June 1947, generally considered a hoax, saw, "while flying to the scene of the investigation," as the segment above reports, a "covey of twenty-five flying disks."

Did Arnold really see 25 flying disks or had he become delusional within the hectic flying saucer cultural milieu of the time period?

One can make a case for delusion [See Symptoms of Psychopathology, John Wiley & Sons, 1970, Page 55 ff.].

While Kenneth Arnold's initial iconic sighting of nine objects near Mount Ranier is still open to interpretation, his stated observation of a covey of twenty-five flying disks bespeaks a mental disorder.

Or did he really see a covey of flying disks? His testimony seems incredulous. But does that demean his original "flying saucer" sighting, June 24th, 1947?

Just as current and long-time UFO aficionados (you know who I mean) have become ET obsessed when it comes to UFOs, without any substantive proof of an extraterrestrial connection to the phenomenon. one can understand the psychological mechanisms at work in the symptomatic array that UFO buffs have become immersed in.

This is what happened to Kenneth Arnold, at a time when flying disk hysteria was prevalent, even rampant.

Or one can say that Arnold saw nine odd flying objects and even a covey of twenty-five shortly thereafter.

But that would be participating in the hysterical delusion, would it not?

RR

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If UFOs are ephemeral or neurological, how does one explain this?

Stephen Michalak Falcon Lake, Manitoba 1967

Sonny Desvergers West Palm Beach, Florida 1952

Or this from http://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ufo-burn.htm

During the great sighting outbreak of early November 1957, a number of close encounters had a disturbing consequence: burns and related injuries to witnesses. One of the most dramatic occurrences took place at an army base at Itaipu along Brazil's Atlantic coast. At 2 A.M. on November 4 two guards saw a luminous orange disc coming in over the ocean at a low altitude and an alarming rate of speed. As it passed above the soldiers, the disc came to an instant stop.

The two witnesses suddenly felt a wave of heat and a horrifying sensation as if they had burst into flame. Their screams brought other soldiers stumbling out of their barracks just in time to see the UFO streak away. At that moment the fort's entire electrical system failed. Amid great secrecy the two men were rushed to a military hospital and treated during the next few weeks for first-and second-degree burns to ten percent of their bodies.

But there were other burn cases as well. In the afternoon of the same day as the Itaipu incident, the engines of several cars along a rural highway near Orogrande, New Mexico, ceased to function as an egg-shaped object maneuvered close by. A witness who stood particularly close to it contracted a "sunburn." In the early morning hours of November 6, outside Merom, Indiana, a hovering UFO, which bathed his farm in light, also seriously burned René Gilham's face. He ended up spending two days in the hospital.

At around 1:30 A.M. on November 10 a Madison, Ohio, woman saw an acorn-shaped UFO hovering just behind her garage. She watched it for half an hour. In the days afterward she developed a body rash and vision problems that her doctor believed suggested radiation poisoning.

RR

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Pseudo-Science: Ufology, of course

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Mac Brazel's Roswell Find: Balloon Debris but not Mogul Debris!

Some Roswellian advocates insist upon the idea that Mac Brazel found debris from a crashed flying disk, from which the errant Haut press release derived.

They argue that Project Mogul did not cover what Brazel discovered, and they are right.

But what he did find was still debris, but from Project Helios and here's what Brazel found:

The New York University Balloon Group was organized in November, 1946 to develop and fly constant level balloons that would carry Army Air Forces' instruments aloft for the long range detection of nuclear explosions. In 1947, while awaiting the delivery of the polyethylene balloons to be used in these flights, tests were made using clusters of neoprene, meteorological sounding balloons. In June, flight operations started in Alamogordo AAF, NM where three full-scale flights were launched. One of these, NYU Flight #4, was last reported over Arabela, NM. From a recent examination of the Weather Bureau winds aloft reports and of the ground tracks of the two subsequent NYU flights, it appears that Flight #4 is a likely candidate to explain the debris later recovered north-northwest of Arabela.

And here is a web-ste dealing with the Mogul matter, with inane comments by Roswell/ET advocates:

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=93349

David Rudiak will say this is the Mogul array, but it has nothing to do with Project Helios.

Here is what it really is -- Mogul was a seprate project from Helios:

This trip was made in support of Project Helios. The primary purpose was to visit present or potential suppliers of materials need for the project. A major point of interest is the view on plastic films under consideration for the balloons. Pliofilm still seems to have most potential; nylon and polythene (polyethylene) are nowhere near mature enough to be seriously considered. 

This report describes the first outdoor inflation and flight attempt of a full-size pliofilm balloon on April 24, 1947. Purpose of the test was to obtain data on (1) proposed method of inflation; (2) use of plastic ground cover; (3) behavior of the aerostat at low wind velocity; (4) weighing off the aerostat; (5) rate of ascent; (6) operation of appendix; (7) excess lift for safe take-off without dragging; (5) balloon suspension system; (9) behavior of suspended parachute. Several preconceived opinions on these points were found wanting. A suspension harness failure precluded an actual flight. Nevertheless, the experiment was very revealing, producing information vital to any future attempt. Prior to the first outdoor inflation, a trial inflation had also been successfully made at the balloon loft. 

RR

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