Strangeness

My interest was peaked when MUFON received a report of unusual occurrences on a farm in Hancock County, Indiana. The report referred to a large formation of black helicopters, strange lights, ghosts and other phenomena I decided to take on at least the initial investigation myself because the farm was only ten minutes from my house.

A little more than a year ago I presented at several speaking engagements in the Central Indiana area to promote membership in MUFON. The Central Indiana area has been a hot spot of reported UFO activity of all varieties but I was the only field investigator. My efforts resulted in the formation of the MUFON Indy Group, a unit of MUFON based in Indianapolis. In very short order six members became certified field investigators and that number is growing.

Our group has become very interested In the events at the Skin Walker Ranch in Utah. I wondered if a similar area of activity might be located in Indiana. This has happened before. Lucky Point was a location of intense activity in southern Indiana in the 70s. This included balls of light, UFOs of several types, big foot sightings, and other things. It was investigated by Past State Director, Jerry Seivers and a link to the details of this investigation can be found on the MUFON Indiana web site.

Unfortunately the farm in Hancock County does not appear to be quite so promising, at least so far.

The initial report referred to strangely deformed trees, ghost activity, sightings of strange people, possibly spirits, who appeared out of place in the modern world and vanished mysteriously, and on one occasion, a fleet of black helicopters.

The trees were quickly explained. My wife is a certified master gardener. She recognized the appearance of the trees to be natural tree growth formation and grape vines. While they had an interesting and somewhat spooky appearance, there was nothing unusual or unnatural about them.

My intention was to visit the farm with field Investigator, Roger Pingleton. Roger is far more interested in ghost phenomena that I am and I wanted to keep this balanced. Frankly, while I try to keep an open mind about everything, I'm pretty skeptical about the whole concept of an afterlife. Roger arrived for our appointment at the farm on time. I was running late so instead of taking the county roads I decided to save time by using I-70. A Fed-Ex tandem rig crashed ahead of me and spilled all of it's fuel. I was trapped in traffic for the next seven hours and never made it there that day. I could see the farm from the interstate and couldn't get there. At my request Roger surveyed the area with a Geiger counter and magnetometer. I was hoping that if there was any UFO activity at the farm, trace radiation or magnetic anomalies would remain. He concentrated on the locations the owner identified as places where strange sightings had occurred over the years. The results were negative.

He was, however, very impressed with the ghost activity the owner reported.

I was able to visit the farm about a week later. The owner had lived on the farm most of her life. She showed me several sites. There was the tree where a lynching had allegedly occurred possibly by the KKK who were powerful in Indiana in the 1920s, the location of a suicide, a place by a stream, now quite close to I-70, where an Indian village was believed to have been massacred by white settlers, and the place over the farm where she had recently seen a formation of ten black helicopters hovering stationary over her farm.

There was no UFO activity reported.

This investigation is ongoing. Since MUFON Indy has a significant group interested in spiritual phenomena I will leave most of this investigation to them. Historical records can be searched for references to the Indian village, the suicide, and the lynching to see if they can be verified as historical events.

I have to say I'm not impressed with the helicopters. While I have heard many reports of black helicopters they are not mysterious. Black is a popular color for privately owned helicopters. Ron Ursay, owner of the Colts, used to own a black Bell 222. LifeLine, Indiana's oldest medical helicopter service now flies five black and red EC-145s. I have also seen Army helicopters literally hundreds of times. Shelbyville, Indiana is only a few miles south of the farm and it is the home of a National Guard helicopter base. Against a bright blue sky or in gray overcast army green helicopters will appear black and unmarked. Their markings are black. So will almost any other color. The bright sky will cause your iris to contract. The farm is also very close to Indianapolis Regional Airport where the Mount Comfort Air Show is held every year. This is the scene and many military demonstrations and war reenactments. If ten attack helicopters were flying in the area it would be unique but not unusual.

Investigators with MUFON Indy will continue to monitor the farm. We've discussed having an overnight session at the farm. We'll see.

Cogs and Artifacts

I've been familiar with the theory of aliens visiting Earth in ancient times and influencing humanity for most of my life. I read Chariots of the Gods in the 70s. Now with the Ancient Aliens TV series the idea is growing in popularity.

While I believe you should keep an open mind on such matters It's also very important to be careful not to jump to false conclusions. We must try to be as informed as possible about what you’re looking at and try to interpret it within the correct context.

I learned this unexpectedly in the 1970s when I visited the Indianapolis Museum of Art with my niece. Both of us had recently read Chariots of the Gods. We went to the museum on an impulse with no idea what exhibits might be on display or prior conception of what we might see.

The IMA is a world class museum. Today it's several times larger and houses one of the finest permanent collections in the world. If you visit Indianapolis you must spend a couple of days at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

My niece and I walked into the gallery that usually contained the traveling exhibits and noticed that it appeared to be a display of very ancient artifacts. A map on the wall illustrated an archeological dig at the site of a possibly prehistoric civilization. Plaques described the location of this lost culture, the habits that were so far known of its people and how the site was discovered. Around us were the objects that were unearthed from that site. Plaques described them as thousands of years old. Most of these were votive forms, objects of art crated as an offering or tribute to the gods in return for a favor. Essentially a three dimensional prayer.

We looked at the objects at first in fascination and then stupefaction. The objects could not be votive forms. They were parts of machines. There were obvious gears and cogs. Machined parts suggested a purpose that could not quite be discerned. It was if archeologists had unearthed clearly advanced devices with no concept of what they had found. Wheels and levers fit perfectly together as they were created by an advanced civilization. Certainly not by a prehistoric culture as they are understood today. Either a civilization with a technology rivaling our own once existed on Earth, almost all traces of which have now vanished or the ancient astronaut theorist were right. At that moment nothing else seemed possible.

The moment passed.

As we intently studied the objects new details emerged. On the side of one cog I could clearly read the inscription in English lettering “Kawasaki”. Other modern names could be found. Then we listened like flies on a wall as a museum official explained the exhibit to another visitor. This was an art project. A college teacher had created an imaginary civilization that had been unearthed by a fictional dig. The artifacts had been created with found objects by his students. This was not a hoax. It was art.

It is undeniable that there is evidence that suggests that at least some of the ancients were more advanced than we give them credit for or they had access to higher technology. Damascus steel was forged by a process that may have been duplicated only recently. Greek fire continues to be a matter of debate. The Peri Reis Map remains unexplained. Medieval and Renaissance art contains many images that appear to be space ships or flying craft. These suggests that we have been visited by aliens in medieval and perhaps ancient times but whether or not these visitors had any influence on our development remains speculation. Even Erich Von Daniken states that he is only suggesting a possibility and asking if perhaps it could have happened that way.

Do Microbe Swarms Form OBOLs?

Orange Balls Of Light (OBOLs) are by far the most common of UFO sightings in Indiana. I’ve written about them before. They appear and then go away. They don't behave like other UFOs, or for that matter like other Balls of Light in other states or other parts of the world. Here they appear singly or in numbers, float leasurly across the sky usually at an altitude of at least 1500 feet, and then vanish. In other parts of the world they have been reported to chase people, approach within a few feet of an observer, appear in colors other than orange, such as red and blue, and sometimes have been known to impart a physical, electrical shock to the observer. (Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah, Colm A. Kelleher, George Knapp ). They have also been reported to be associated with crop circles, cattle mutilations, and virtually every other UFO phenomena.

So what are these and are they all the same phenomena?

The other day my wife, Robin Brunner, and I were kicking the subject around and she came up with an amazing idea. Suppose at least some of the OBOLs are bioluminescent airborne microbes?

We know that microbes exist and live in the atmosphere. They are even thought to affect the weather. (See Cloudy with a Chance of Microbes. Microbe Magazine, March 2012.) We also know that many lifeforms on planet Earth are bioluminescent Could a species that is normally microscopic and therefore invisible gather together in a swarm occasionally and on this special occasion become bioluminescent as a group creating an OBOL that floats across the sky as the swarm is perhaps mating or fissioning. A spere would be a common shape for such a swarm. The Brownian motion like movement of a colony of glowing microscopic creatures might produce an effect that appears very much like a ball of fire. although it would be cold.

J. Allen Hynek and other famous UFO researchers have considered the possibility that some UFOs could be living creatures. I would like to suggest this as one possible theory for that hypothesis.

Clearly this cannot explain all OBOL phenomena. We cannot have proof of this idea until a microbe has been isolated. But this might explain some of the OBOL phenomena as it has been reported so often in Indiana.