Software Tools for the UFO Field Investigator

A Field Investigator cannot function without a computer. In the field a smart phone has become almost as indispensable. These devices are expensive enough by themselves but when you look at the prices of some of the programs or apps you need the cost can seem a little steep. Fortunately there is a lot of software out there that's highly useful and either free or dirt cheap that's available for any device.

No PC or Mac can be without a high functioning word processor. Ideally you need a complete office suite that also has a database, a spreadsheet, and a slideshow presentation program. The first choice for most people is Microsoft Office, but it's expensive. The alternative is Open Office by Apache. This is a full office suite with all of these features and all of the capabilities of the Microsoft suite. I've been doing all of my writing on Open Office Writer for years. My wife keeps track of our household budget on Calc, and if you have ever seen me give a presentation at a meeting I was using Open Office Impress for the slideshow. In addition there is Draw and Database. If there's something that Micro Office has that Open Office hasn't, I can't find it. This complete suite is free. Just go to the website and download it.

Open Office is an open source program. Before downloading it, you might want to thoroughly read the official web site to find the answers to any questions you might have.

https://www.openoffice.org/

In UFO investigation a planetarium program is essential. Your case might be solved if you can identify a satellite, planet or comet that was in that area of the sky when the sighting occurred. As an amateur astronomer I've had several such programs over the years to find and identify stars and galaxies, and the price of some of them set me back a bit. Stellarium however is free. This is a richly detailed night sky observers sky chart and catalog that can show you any astronomical event at any time in history. If you have a computer driven telescope it will aim it for you. It will identify any star. (You didn't think I memorized all those stars, did you?)

This program is so highly regarded that MUFON has a link to it on the main MUFON website. Like Open Office, it's entirely free. I can't say “free” enough here.

Stellarium is also available for Android and Apple smart phones. However for this there is a charge. It's under three bucks. Look for it on the Play Store or the App Store. The handheld version allows you to point your phone at the part of the sky where your object in question is and identify with its star chart all the stars, planets, and satellites in that spot. And you can take it with you. Not only is this program portable, it's on a device you're going to take with you anyway. You'll never forget it! This is a big download. Be sure there's room on your phone.

http://www.stellarium.org/

Another source of information on satellite activity is the venerable Heavens Above. This is a web page that offers information on the locations and times that most man-made orbiting objects can be seen. There is also a free app for Android but if you have Stellarium running you may feel that this one is redundant.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

Google Earth is as useful on the ground as Stellarium is in the sky. It will allow you to aerially observe the terrain involved with your case, give you exact latitude and longitude of your sighting, required in a CMS report, and allow you to plot your cases on a map. A ground level view is now included. It allows you to spot structures and places of interest that might have a bearing on your case an determine their precise location. For example, I've had several cases in the Fountain Square area of Indianapolis. It's important to note in each case that the Indianapolis Downtown Heliport is only 1.06 miles NNW of this neighborhood. After a mile, most helicopters are just gaining altitude.

And if you want to check out Area 51 on Google Earth search for “Groom Lake.”

Google Earth is available free for PC, Mac, Linux, Android, and I-Phone.

https://www.google.com/earth/

Strictly for phones is a tool kit called Multi Measures. Every smart phone has an accelerometer, a GPS receiver, a magnetometer, a barometer, a thermometer, a pedometer, a gyroscope, a light sensor, a microphone, and a proximity sensor, Some high end phones have radiation detectors and heart rate monitors. Multi Measures doesn't access all of these devices, but it uses quite a few and translates the results into several useful tools. This free app includes a decibel meter, a magnetometer, a compass, a protractor, a ruler, a level (two kinds), a seismometer, a timer, a metronome, and a stopwatch. The magnetometer or teslameter can be useful on a site. UFO activity has often left magnetic disturbances behind. With this your phone can measure magnetic fields in Micro Teslas or Mili Gauss.

Another app, Metal Detector, is a dedicated Teslameter and measures only in micro Teslas.

Either of these apps is useful for the initial assessment of a scene. If unusual magnetic fields are detected, an actual magnetic field meter should be used to conduct a survey. Stuart has purchased two of these devises for use by Field Investigators. He has one and I have the other. Just let us know if you need one.

Periodic Droid is a detailed information source about the Periodic Table of the Elements. I would have given a tooth for this in school. Almost anything you need to know about any element is here.

UFO Tracker is similar to the map database at MUFON.com. It's free. It gives you fast information on the very latest reports. It's also huge. You have to have 8 gigabytes available on your phone just to install it.

The MUFON App is something I didn't find very useful. It is simply access to the MUFON web site. The problem is that it isn't phone friendly so its very hard to use. When this is fixed, it should be terrific.

Most phones come with a navigation app. Mine came with two. The one provided by my carrier had a subscription charge. Google Maps is just as good and, guess what, it's free! If you don't have it, it can be downloaded.

The last two things I recommend for smart phone use, if you don't have them already, is a good weather alert app and a virus protection app. Storm Shield is one of several good weather information and alert apps. Most TV stations offer a good free weather app that will give you a forecast and warn you of dangerous weather in your area wherever you travel to using your GPS. Protection for your phone from viruses is also important. Not that I'm paranoid or anything but there are bad guys out there. AVG is a quality antivirus app (It's good for computers too). The basic version is free. The Pro version is about $10 a year for Android. All of these are available free on the Play Store.

A good tool kit keeps you prepared for anything. But why buy what you need when you don't have to?

A Few Cases

Since I've been very interested in the nuts and bolts aspect of UFO investigation I haven't written in these pages very much about actual UFO sightings and experiences that I have investigated. To date I have completed 152 cases. More are pending. Some of those were identified as misinterpreted natural phenomena, man made objects and a few outright hoaxes, but a significant amount remain unknown.

The majority of these are simple flybys, sightings designated as FB1 on the Vallee scale. Someone looked up and saw something strange flying by. That's all. Objects sighted like this include glowing orbs, Saucer shapes, triangles and boomerang shapes. Often only a light is seen. The object did not land or interact with anything. There is no trace evidence. I can interview the witness but usually there is only one. After the interview I'm done. If the sighting can't be immediately identified as known object I'm left with “Insufficient Information” or “Unknown” as a conclusion.

Some of these are striking.

• In the Fountain Square area of Indianapolis a professional musician was sitting in his backyard about nine o clock on a summer night. He regularly did this on good nights with his wife while they smoked and looked for meteors. She was looking away when he saw a multicolored disk fly purposely from north to south. It was gone in two seconds, just long enough for him to get a good look. While not a witness his wife is an excellent artist and drew a picture from is description.
  
• While on duty, an Indianapolis Police officer watched several orange glowing spheres fly across the northern section of the city. The description he gave fit the profile of the glowing orb or OBOLs (Orange Balls of Light) that have been reported so often across the United States. The next night a woman reported an identical sighting near the Castleton Area.
• While flying from El Paso, Texas to Columbus, Indiana a pilot had a near collision with a UFO over Indiana. This occurred in 1974 and wasn't reported till much later. He was flying a Cessna Centurion and was in contact with Indianapolis Center when he saw the light in front of him. He provided this statement.

“We watched this oncoming light for what seemed like 5 or 10 minutes. Of course

we had no idea of its distance from us-there are no benchmarks up there to gauge distance, and at night time you might see a light many, many miles away. Soon I could tell it was getting much closer and I turned on my landing lights in the nose of the aircraft, in addition to my wingtip navigation lights as a precaution. The light just kept coming at our altitude and I was getting tense. In a moment it was close in front of us and I banked my plane sharply in a steep right turn and bank to get away.

“The very moment I did this, the object with its light, in the flash of a moment, abruptly reversed direction by rapidly climbing and proceeding more than 90 degrees to the right of its former course. Picture the bottom half of the letter “Z”. That was it’s trajectory. All of this happened in a split second and I observed what I thought was the tail of this object climbing in the darkness at incredible speed, with 2 less bright lights, which quickly disappeared from our view. Given our right turn position and the speed which this object displayed, I cannot describe it further, it just could not be made out in the darkness, and what seemed a split second. It was a frightening event.”

Sometimes the investigation leads off into strange directions.

• On March 29, 2014 at 10 about 10 PM a mother and her two daughters were driving west on I 70. They had just left the city and were approaching the Indianapolis international Airport which was on their right when all three observed an object in the sky that did not resemble in any way an airplane. The three women were adamant that they were very familiar with the configuration and light arrangement of commercial aircraft and other types of aircraft. They had driven in this area several times before. The object they saw did not resemble anything that any had ever seen in their lives. The object was described consistently by all three as a triangular shaped or V-shaped object with a single light at the apex of the V. The object was moving extremely slowly. It was moving so slowly that the mother was uncertain how it could remain in the air if it was an aircraft of conventional nature. All three observed the object for several minutes until they lost sight of it while driving. They did not stop.

I digitally recorded interviews with all three. Since the two daughters were minors I obtained a parental consent form from the mother to allow this interview. All three stories were remarkably consistent. The three women describe the observation only and did not give any indication that there was any abduction or missing time involved. All three were remarkably shaken by the event.

The object was described as a V-shaped object of immense size. The primary body of the object was essentially lost in overcast and the witnesses were all barely able to make out its shape. The object had a single light at the apex of the V. The apex of the V was pointing south. The object was slightly illuminated either by the light at its apex or the large amount of lights from the airport. It appeared to be flying very low and appeared to be very large described as the size of a large airliner.

That night the wind was northwest at 15 miles an hour. Skies were overcast with a ceiling of only 2600 feet. This is remarkably low. Only very low flying or in this the vicinity landing and taking off aircraft would be visible from the ground.

This section of I 70 is immediately adjacent to the southern end of Indianapolis international Airport. This is one of the busiest and largest airports of the nation. It is a central hub for many airlines including FedEx which operates, after dark, a consistent train of jumbo jets in and out of the airport. At any given time between the hours of 9 PM and 8 AM five or six FedEx jumbo jets will be in landing or takeoff patterns. Radar infromation is unavailable. There is a complete lack of cooperation by the radar operators at Indianapolis international Airport with any UFO investigation.

A few days after receiving this report I drove with my wife down I 70 taking the route past the airport that was taken by the three witnesses. We were specifically looking for any man-made structure stationary or otherwise that might account for the siting. We observe nothing of that nature whatever. There is no structures along this route that would account for the object is described by the witnesses.

After interviewing the mother about this particular incident she volunteered that she had a previous possible experience involving UFOs. As a child she had written a short story titled The Spaceship in My Backyard. It described herself as a child witnessing a space ship landing and meeting the occupants. She provide a copy of this story but with respect for her copyright I will not present it here. For reasons that the mother does not appear to quite understand this story had a significant impact on her and was very important in her young life. It was important enough that she felt she had to bring it to my attention. It is not clear and will not be clear without further investigation whether this is simply a science fiction story written by a young child or whether it represents extraterrestrial contact and a suppressed memory. I discussed the concept of hypnotic regression with her and she seemed open to the idea. So far this has not occurred.

A Problem with Expert Advise

A couple of weeks ago I attended an interesting UFO symposium at the Kokomo Indiana south library. Indiana MUFON State Director Stuart Hill and I were speakers. Also present was former Indiana MUFON Chief Investigator Glen Means who spoke extensively about the Kokomo Boom of April 16, 2008. Glen was one of the first FIs on the scene. The boom is still a topic of great interest in the area and several people in the audience reported hearing it.

Now let me state right now I am NOT going to offer here a definitive or any other kind of explanation as to what happened that night. But there is a point or two...

Glen's talk was about his own investigation of the event. He rushed to the area from his home in Peru as soon as he heard about it. His police scanner was on the entire time. Glen quoted a dispatcher as saying “We're on the phone with a meteorologist and he says it was a meteor.” Everybody chuckles. A meteorologist is an expert on weather not meteors and why would they call a weatherman anyway when they should have called an astronomer or something. Maybe something funny is going on.

Maybe.

Or maybe they called exactly the right person.

A meteorologist is someone who studies and is expert on anything that is in the atmosphere or falls from the sky, like for example meteors. The things he studies include electrometeors, lightning, and hydrometeors, rain, snow, and hail. He also studies lithometeors which is any solid matter falling or carried through the sky. This included dust picked up by the wind, sandstorms, and space born rocks.

Someone who studies only meteors and meteoriticist es is called a meteoriticist.

So who are you going to call? It's eleven o clock at night and everyone is excited and wants answers NOW. Do you have the number of your local meteoriticist in your pocket? Do you even know what a meteoriticist is? Have you ever heard of one? On the other hand the guy on the local TV station is expert in atmospheric phenomena and he always tells you when to look for the Persied Meteor Shower. Where's the phone?

All of this started with Aristotle who wrote his treatise, "Meteorologica” , on climate and weather. This great work covered all knowledge on the subject of the day including the related subjects of geology, astronomy and oceanography. It was all lumped together and didn't get sorted out for centuries. The very existence of rocks that fall from the sky was still a matter of debate in the eighteenth century. Many scientists just couldn't grasp the idea that rocks could travel through space like planets do. Those who insisted that rocks do fall from the sky called them “meteors”, the Greek word for anything suspended or falling through the sky.

So just maybe the meteorologist gave the police a good and informed answer. Not necessarily the right answer, he wasn't there, but a meteor remains one possibility of what caused the boom that night..

Speed Limit Violation

UFO Skeptics will sight one fact time after time in their continuous denial of UFOs: The speed of light.  Einstein's Laws of Relativity states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light.  Since light takes years to thousands of years to cross significant portions of our galaxy they reason that interstellar travel is impossible.  And they are right, up to a point. 

Skeptics ignore the fact that in nature something has historically traveled many times faster than light.  This sudden astonishing burst of speed occurred just after the Big Bang.  The universe expanded so fast that areas of the universe (all of them) lost contact with all other areas and never regained it. To state this another way, beyond the limits of our perception, beyond the most distant object seen by Hubble and other telescopes, beyond the distance that any photon has traveled to or from Earth since the Big Bang lies uncounted other areas just as vast as the one I just suggested that have never seen each other since no photon has had time to travel far enough.
 -Yet all of these places were in the same place during the Big Bang. They just flew apart Really, REALLY, REALLY fast.

How can this happen?  If we can't violate the Speed of Light how can nature?  The important thing to remember here is that nothing within the universe can or ever has traveled faster than light.  The thing that traveled, or rather expanded, faster than light was the universe itself.  Einstein's Laws only state that nothing within the universe may travel faster than light.   THE UNIVERSE  can do anything it wants.

This opens up some new areas of research.  Can we go outside of space-time (the universe) and bypass its laws?  Can we wrap a portion of space-time around a ship like the new Space  Warp Drive Theory suggests?  Can we fold Space-time?

None of these things will happen anytime soon but a civilization a few hundred or a few thousand years more advanced than ours might have one of these capabilities.

(This is described much better in Brian Greene's book: The Hidden Reality; Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos)

More Drone Problems

I think a large percentage of  UFO reports to MUFON in the last two years are actually drones. The quadracopter and hexicopter styles have become more and more popular.  Now the hobbyists are deliberately making their toys look like UFOs. A 'how to' video can be found on You Tube by searching "AR Drone 2.0 How to Install LED UFO Light Kit". Drones, like any aircraft, should have red and green navigation lights, however the lights on many can change color and brightness and pulse in any pattern. While the FFA is expected to release regulations on drones soon they haven't yet and when that happens they will be ignored. 

To complicate matters further drone fight clubs have become popular. (Search You tube for "Drone Fight Clubs") Hobbyists will design and build their own drones and engage in drone to drone aerial combat. They use 3D printers to make their own spare parts. Add some pretty LED lights and a night fight becomes reports of UFOs in dogfights.

Cases

There is been a lot of UFO activity in Indiana and the last two or three years. Many new cases are being reported some of them that occurred recently in some of them of past historical encounters. We the Indiana field investigators are trying valiantly to get these cases cleared out. Unfortunately with a very unusual nature of our investigations is not possible to find adequate explanations in every case. But then it is the case conclusion "unknown" that makes this kind of investigation so very interesting.

Over the last few months fireballs been reported separately over Brownsburg Indiana, Valparaiso, Indiana, and North Manchester Indiana. Triangle shaped craft have been reported over Remington, Mount Vernon, and St. Joseph. Sphere shaped objects have been reported over Bremen, St. Joseph, Indianapolis, and Hamilton Indiana.

My own investigations included cases such as a number of spheres or sphere like objects sighted on July 5, 2013 over Avon Indianaand a similar wave over the same town within 1 mile of the previously mentioned sighting precisely one year before. There were sightings of triangular illuminated objects similar description to the Phoenix lights over Fortville Indiana and within two days of that sighting another on I 70 at the south end of Indianapolis international Airport that was seen by three female family members in the same car. Other cases that I am working on include a sphere over Indianapolis on May 2014, lights over Marion on April 2014, a triangle over Indianapolis on March 2014, a disc over Indianapolis on November 2013, a cylindrical is shaped object over Mooresville Indiana, January 2013, and a triangle over Coatesville in May 2013. There are in fact a lot more open cases. Some of these, at least reportedly, involve possible abductions.

On October 11 at 1 PM Indiana MUFON will be hosting a meeting that is open to the public at the public library in Greencastle Indiana. Detailed information on this meeting can be found that the MUFON Indiana website. I will be speaking on some of the cases listed here as well as a number of others that I have been investigating. Among the other speakers present will be Stewart Hill are state director.

Regression Session Failure

I haven't been blogging here for some time because I've been quite busy with investigations and other MUFON business. Approximately once every year Indiana MUFON tries to do a hypnotic regression event involving as many UFO experiencers who may be abductees as possible. This year I was directly involved in get this years session in operation. Unfortunately it did not work, and a great deal of time and effort done by our state director Stuart Hill and to a lesser degree myself has been wasted.

There are quite a number of important issues involved in using hypnotic regression to recover lost or hidden memories of a UFO related event. If any of these factors come into play they could taint or invalidate any evidence recovered using hypnosis. Far from our favorite form of investigation, hypnosis is rather on the bottom of the list of evidence sought by MUFON investigators. Its primary advantage is that it is evidence where other evidence is unobtainable. The stories and information obtained with hypnotic regression are susceptible to suggestion, subconscious fears, underlying psychiatric disorders which may present themselves as delusions that are perceived as reality, and on some occasions the strong desire of the subject consciously or unconsciously to please the investigators. Any of these can cause a confabulation to be presented during the session instead of a real memory.

The biggest obstacle however is anxiety on the part of the subject. It is widely believed that hypnosis can bring forth memories that have been long submerged. These can be terrifying images or experiences that the subject may not be ready to face. Therefore the most difficult issue is getting the subject to voluntarily present themselves at the session.

Another obstacle is the widely held belief that it is impossible to present or maintain a false story during the hypnotic state. An alleged witness who is in fact perpetrating a hoax will want to avoid any hypnotic regression for fear of being discovered.

This year after lining up all subjects for hypnotic regression and obtaining our certified hypnotherapist, all the subjects backed out and the session had to be canceled.

Hypnotic regression ranks last in the hierarchy of evidence for UFOs behind trace evidence, photographic evidence, and eye witness testimony. It does however offer some major advantages. It can fill in blanks in the story of a witness, and offer therapeutic relief for the extreme anxiety that often plagues the witness. This year MUFON Indiana lost an opportunity to fill in some of the blanks in our investigations and perhaps offer some needed assistance to UFO witnesses who may or may not be abductees. This is been to us a great disappointment.

Indiana MUFON conducts hypnotic regression sessions in full compliance with the guidelines presented to us by the MUFON international leadership. These guidelines state that the actual hypnotic session must be conducted by a certified hypnotherapist. This essentially defines the hypnotic session as a medical procedure. In addition to the confidential nature of almost all investigations and the promise of MUFON to maintain the confidentiality of any UFO witness who wishes to remain anonymous, hypnotic regression sessions also fall under the HIPPA law. Detailed information on this very important law can be found at this website. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/

This law protects your privacy during any medical procedure. Unauthorized release of such information can in fact cause great harm. Let me offer this hypothetical example. Nurse "Betsy" works on a medical floor of a major hospital. Congressman "X" has just been admitted to her floor. He is there with a mild cardiac complaint. Nurse "Betsy" is a member of a major political party and strongly believes in the platforms in the policies of that party. Congressman "X" is a major player in the party on the other side of the aisle. He has recently announced his candidacy for the presidency. The policies and platforms that he believes in are in direct opposition to those held important by nurse "Betsy". While studying the medical record of Congressman "X" Nurse "Betsy" discovers that in the past the Congressman has been prescribed antipsychotic drugs and undergone electroshock therapy. Nurse "Betsy" now wonders if she might be doing a public service by leaking this information about the Congressman's background. If she were to do this she would not only be violating the confidentiality of her patient but she could also face several years in a federal prison for violating a federal law. And consider the other harm done to the Congressman. There is a huge amount of prejudice involving the kind of therapies the Congressman reportedly had. In fact the Congressman might be more sane and capable then Nurse "Betsy".

Information obtained during a hypnotic regression session or any other medical procedure whatever is restricted specifically to the medical caregivers directly involved in the patient's care and to those whom the patient has designated to receive this information.

Foo Fighters and Other Thoughts

Unidentified flying objects were in fact nothing new when they first came upon the public consciousness after 1947. Pilots in all theaters of World War II had been seeing them following and keeping pace with their aircraft for some time. Without guidance from their commanders , Allied airmen chose their own name to refer to these objects. They called them foo fighters. They borrowed this name from a popular comic strip of the day called Smokey Stover. http://www.smokey-stover.com/ Smokey was a fireman who drove an impossible vehicle to fight fires called The Foomobile. This vehicle was a small two-man fire engine that had only two wheels on a single axle. In the comic strip of course this worked just fine, while if such a vehicle had been created it would've simply fallen over with the technology of the 1940s. It simply could not work. Since the foo fighters appeared to operate in a manner inexplicable in the 1940s the Allied airmen decided to name them after Smokey Stover's impossible Foomobile.

This wasn't the only time that a comic strip was used to suggest a name for an object used by the military and World War II. The awkwardly named general purpose vehicle became a much loved and ubiquitous tool used by all services. It was initially commonly referred to by its initials GP. This four-wheel-drive vehicle could go anywhere. Shortly before its introduction the popular comic and cartoon character Popeye introduce another comic character called the Jeep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYK66ysrhiY This strange creature resembled a small dog walked upright on two legs and went anywhere. It would walk up walls walk across ceilings with a complete disregard for gravity, and walk over buildings. No obstacle slowed it down. Therefore it comes to no surprise that almost every G.I. in every theater simultaneously came to the conclusion that the general purpose vehicle had to be called the Jeep.

Interestingly with present-day technology the Foomobile is actually quite possible. Its basic design in the comic strip is quite similar to that of the present day Segway. A Foomobile could be constructed today using the computer controlled gyroscopic system of a Segway. This of course could not even be imagined during World War II.

Similarly the flight characteristics and physical behavior of unidentified flying objects have been impossible to understand and completely impossible to explain since their first appearance in antiquity. The fact that the mechanism of their flight behavior cannot be explained in any way by commonly accepted science has been a major argument for skeptics and debunkers. If the flight characteristics of UFOs appear to be impossible then the objects themselves are equally impossible. This however may change dramatically quite soon. Scientists are making new breakthroughs that might explain them. Boaz Almog is a physicist in Israel. He has made a fascinating presentation for the TED talk series. This presentation can be watched in its entirety at the TED website. http://www.ted.com/speakers/boaz_almog In this he describes his research into superconductors and

magnetic fields and an amazing principle that he refers to as quantum locking. In the demonstration viewable on the Ted website he takes extremely thin sapphire discs and super cools them to near absolute zero using liquid nitrogen tuning them into superconductors. He then places the disc over a magnet where it becomes locked within the magnetic field and maintains its position completely defying gravity in relation to the magnet. This is accomplished by quantum locking, a principal described by Almog in detail in the video. The behavior of the super cooled superconducting discs in this video is strikingly similar to the behavior commonly attributed to unidentified flying objects. Boaz Almog may not believe in unidentified flying objects himself, he certainly doesn’t comment on them in the video, but is very possible that he may have explained how they might possibly work within the science that is known today.

Like Smokey Stover's impossible Foomobile modern theoretical science might now have explained how unidentified flying objects just might possibly work and how we might someday be able to build them. No matter how impossible, if it can be imagined today it can be done tomorrow.

Your comments

The most recent comment I have received about this blog concerns OBOLs (Orange Balls of Light).  The comment is published below.  OBOLs are frequently reported in Indiana during the summer.  I have written articles about them in this blog.

The commenter is reporting a fascinating close, personal experience with an OBOL.  I want to hear about cases like this.  The greater the catalog of reports available to MUFON Investigators like myself, the greater our chances to to find a clue that could help solve this mystery and others surrounding UFOs.  If you see an OBOL, UFO or anything else you think might be related please report it on the MUFON website.  There is a link near the top of this blog.  There are easy instructions there for filling out the report and your identity will be kept in confidence if you wish.  Reporting in this fashion allows us to investigate your sighting and places it in a reference data base for further research.

The Surprise Film

Conventional wisdom within the ufology community says that the US military and government know all about UFOs and are keeping what they know secret. This may indeed be true but historically the behavior of military and government personnel has been highly inconsistent. There are many documented cases of officials trying to cover up cases and silence witnesses. There are also cases where no attempt to keep anyone quiet was made by any agency. Then there is The Surprise Film (my term) which, in a coverup protocol, makes no sense at all.

The Surprise Film works like this: a group of military personnel is directed to enter a room at a military facility. In the room they are shown a film that quite clearly shows aliens, alien vehicles or both. The clarity of the film is striking. Those who have talked about the films are absolutely convinced of the reality of UFOs. Then the audience is asked to leave. There is no introduction to the film. They are given no instructions or explanations before, during or after the film. They are not asked to be quiet about the film or to agree to any kind of secrecy.

My first encounter with the story of The Surprise Film was when I was a teenager. My father had just returned from training duty with the Navy. His career with the US Navy and The Naval Reserve spanned forty years. As a reservist he spent two weeks every year on active duty. Most often this was aboard ship but on that year he was assigned to The Pentagon. Like the incident described above, he and other officers of similar rank were directed to enter a room and sit down. They were shown a film and afterward told to leave. They were told nothing before, during, or after the film. Before the film my father did not believe in flying saucers. Afterward he did.

A similar occurrence is discussed in the latest issue of The MUFON UFO Journal, January, 2014 No. 549. Access has recently been obtained by MUFON to the research of the late Leonard Stringfield who was interested in UFO crashes and subsequent retrieval of the downed objects. He had received a report from a retired Air Force Colonel who was shown a film during a regularly scheduled briefing, possibly in 1956. The film showed a circular, silver-colored disk on the ground. The interior of the apparent craft was shown as well as at least three short bodies. He stated that no details were given before, during, or after the film. He did say that things discussed during briefings were considered military business and not to be discussed.

I have learned that others have been shown films like this. Most often these are reported to be interceptor gun camera footage of UFOs in flight.

If the Air Force or Army wants to cover up UFOs, why show anyone this kind of film? It's completely counter-intuitive.

Two hypotheses come to mind: 1. a psychological experiment 2. a security test.

The psychological experiment hypothesis is reminiscent of the wild experiments run by the CIA. During the fifties and sixties, for example, the CIA exposed unwitting Americans to LSD to see how they would react. Exposing Americans to apparently conclusive evidence that UFOs are real and that we are not alone in the universe may seem tame by comparison but it's important to remember that, for most people, this revelation would be a life changing event. It would completely reorient how they perceived themselves in the universe.

The experiment would involve first showing the subjects the film and then observing them to see their reactions. It's not unreasonable to suppose they might have been under surveillance for years. The data gathered from such an experiment might be useful in determining when, how, and perhaps if, the American public should be informed about existence of UFOs.

The security test hypothesis is much simpler. Show military people a film in a military environment, then watch them to see who talks. During World War Two, the FBI often tried to coax personnel attached to atomic bomb related projects to talk about their work. Those who did were often reassigned. An experiment like this might suggest who can be trusted with higher security clearances.

Neither of these hypotheses require that the films be genuine. They could be Hollywood type special effect productions. In fact, neither hypothesis requires that the experimenters themselves believe in UFOs. What makes me believe that they possibly were genuine however is the reaction of those who saw these films. They were struck with their clarity. After watching them any doubt vanished. They believed UFOs were real.

I am an enthusiastic fan of science fiction. I've seen every science fiction film I could and enjoyed them thoroughly. Even as a child, however, I could easily pick out which things in the movie was real and which were model or photographic special effects. I could spot the matte lines, recognize rear screen projection, and tell when stop motion animation was used. I'm sure most other people could spot these things as well. If they didn't recognize how a scene was done then at least they were aware that it was some kind of trick. It wasn't until the Nineties that special effects became so advanced that the line between the real and the imagined became difficult for the average viewer to distinguish. Yet no one who has seen The Surprise Film has come forward and said they were shown a Hollywood fake. Rather they believe that what they were shown was undeniably real.

Field Investigation Frustrations

A field investigation for MUFON can often be an extremely frustrating experience. When this becomes the case, the most important thing you know may be when to walk away.

I’d like to tell you about two cases in point that I have been investigating. Both are referred to by FIs as historical cases. They are cases that occurred years or decades ago and only now a witness has come forward to report them. This leaves the FI in a difficult position. Physical evidence can be difficult to impossible to find, if it ever existed, due to the passage of time and land development. Corroborative witnesses likewise. Often the only source the FI has is the original witness. All then depends on the cooperation of that one person.

The first case:

Sometime in the 1970s a group of teenagers spent the night out in a heavily wooded area for, what the primary witness (Witness A) referred to as, “a night of romance.” The location they chose was a deserted spot on the shore of a major reservoir. The surrounding area was undeveloped except for a few dozen houses on the shore, a few bait shops, and a marina. The reservoir was a popular fishing and boating area. Since then the area has been heavily developed and it's crowded with restaurants, strip malls, and very expensive houses.

According to the initial statement by Witness A, well after dark a large number of dogs began to bark from what he believed to be a kennel on the other side of the lake. A red lit object then descended over the water. It emitted a flash that silenced the dogs instantly. Most of the group, including all of the girls, then retreated to their cars in panic leaving two boys, Witness A and Witness B, to continued to watch from the shore. The red lit object resolved itself into a domed saucer shaped craft which hovered over the water, then and suddenly shined a light on the boys. It then appeared to depart quite abruptly. When the boys returned to the group they were asked what took them so long. Apparently a good deal of time had passed.

This had the potential to be a significant case. First, two individuals stayed to watch the object and may have experienced missing time. It was possible that both had been taken aboard the craft. If I could find the second individual he could corroborate the statement of the first. Hypnotic regression of both individuals revealing the same indecent from two entirely different points of view, could be very exiting. Second, there are the others who retreated to the car. These could be witnesses who experienced no missing time and may have been unaffected by the craft. Their statements could offer new details and vital support.

I was soon deflated. I was successful in identifying only three other witnesses. Witness B was deceased. My hopes of having two significant witnesses to an important case vanished. I located two of the girls whom I designated Witnesses C and D but they were difficult. Witness C refused to see me or speak on the telephone. Her only communication with me was a short email stating that the only thing she saw was a light on a boat and “We were all stoned out of our gourds, anyway.” Without more evidence that last sentence alone would invalidate the case.

Witness D refused to respond. Witness A didn't want to try to contact her himself.

MUFON Field Investigators are not police! We have no authority at all. We cannot just knock on somebody's door and insist they talk to us. Pestering someone to do something they don't want to do is called harassment. My final communication to both these witnesses was to inform them how to contact MUFON or myself should they decide to do so and to promise never to initiate contact myself again.

This left me with Witness A and his completely unsupported statement. I spoke to him extensively over the phone. He seemed very troubled by the event and was seeking help. He had read a good deal about UFOs. He agreed to meet me and other FIs for a hypnotic regression. This seemed to me the only way learn more about the event and to corroborate his statement.

In Indiana our hypnotherapist is Craig Lang. Craig is a certified hypnotherapist and has conducted hypnotic regression on many apparent UFO abductees. He has written a book on the subject, The Cosmic Bridge. He is also the Director of MUFON Minnesota, and has recently been appointed Assistant Director of MUFON's Abduction Research Team. Craig's approach is as much therapy as investigation. An abduction experience can be quite traumatic. Along with discovering details about the event, Craig helps the subject to deal with the trauma and leave the session in a better state than when they approached it.

Witness A did not appear for the session or call to say he wasn't coming. When I spoke to him about this he said that some friends had told him that hypnosis could “mess with your mind.” He was afraid to go deeper in this in any manner.

I closed the case.

The second case:

A similar case involved a couple who saw a large object at very close quarters while on a drive. This was also an historic case reportedly occurring in the summer of 1989. The couple was a man and a woman who it seems had an off again, on again relationship. They were on a drive together for the purpose of discussing the future of that relationship. At the time of the actual sighting they were arguing over Whitley Striber's book, Transformations, which had come out the previous year. At one point the woman threw the book out of the window. The couple noticed a light in the trees and decided it was a flying illuminated object and it appeared to be stalking them. After several minutes they drove around a bend and the object or craft was sitting on the ground waiting for them. Nothing else was remembered beyond that point.

The couple reported other experiences, including one where they were out doors again at night, they briefly noticed a light in the sky and then suddenly found themselves lying in the grass naked next to an astronomical observatory on a college campus. Their clothes were nearby.

Here was a case with two witnesses reporting the same experience. The similarity to The Betty an Barney Hill Case is striking.

The couple is no longer together. Both have married other people. He lives in Ohio, she, it turned out, lives about twenty minutes from my house. I thought this would be easy.

I interviewed both extensively over the phone. I arranged for them to meet with Craig Lang at one of Indiana MUFON's regression sessions. They both backed out.

Since the woman lived near me I decided to conduct a cognitive interview. This is an advanced technique of interview that must be conducted in person. It forces the subject to recall events in different chronological orders and from different points of view. This give the technique a capability of discovering new previously unremembered details almost as strong as hypnosis. Unlike hypnosis the subject remains fully awake and a trained practitioner is not required. It's described in detail in the MUFON FI manual as well as Wikipedia. Jill Beitz, Indiana's Chief Investigator, agreed to be present to observe. The witness also agreed to meet with us but on two occasions, when the time came she couldn't make it.

The man has again contacted MUFON HQ and I have spoken to him. Now he's reported nightmares. I'll try again to schedule a regression. So however I have never been able to meet either face to face.

I will visit the observatory site this summer with a Geiger counter and magnetometer. After so many years I really don't expect to find anything out of the ordinary. Barring a major development I will then walk away.

Both of these cases appeared to have great potential. Both have a complete lack of physical evidence. Both have apparently met a dead end due to a lack of cooperation from the witnesses. Both may not be true.

Hypnotic regression and cognitive interviews have another important capability beyond the discovery of new details. They can uncover a lie. The field investigator must keep in mind that if a purported witness is trying to carry out a hoax he might try to avoid something that would expose him. A skilled conman may try to string his target along with little snippets of information while keeping the prize just out of reach. Until one of these definitive techniques is applied these cases remain in a state of limbo. They may be hoaxes or they may be two important abduction cases where the subjects could benefit from hypnotherapy and understanding of the trauma they may have gone through.

Launch of a new blog

I've launched another blog. 

It's called  A Cosmic Artist's Notebook.

I mentioned elsewhere on this site that I am an artist specializing in paintings of astronomical and space related themes.   I've decided to blog about my artwork as well.  Sometimes writing about helps me to refine that work and plan new paintings. 


You can find a link to this blog in the right column of this blog.  I hope you enjoy it.

Skeptics, Old SF Movies, and UFO Reports

After the experience of Betty and Barney Hill was reported in The Interrupted Journey by John G. Fuller, skeptics forwarded the hypothesis that the origin of the recovered memories of the Hill's were nothing more than those of forgotten memories of an Outer Limits episode with Sally Kellerman featuring an actor in big eyed alien costume.  The theory goes that once viewed a highly shocking and dramatic visual experience such as a really good TV show is lodged in the collective consciousness to resurface, slightly altered, in hypnotically recovered memories.  The Hill's, as reported in Captured, by Stan Friedman and Kathleen Marden denied ever watching that show.  Another accusation was that the memories came from The Invaders from Mars. (1953)  Responding to this Betty Hill denied ever watching science fiction movies, ever.  This of course slowed down the skeptics not at all.  (The Hill's experience was in 1961.  The Outer Limits episode was broadcast in 1963.  Most of the hypnotic regression sessions occurred in 1964.) Since then UFO reports, sightings of greys, and reports of abductions have been blamed on the apparently traumatic influence of Close Encounters, Star Wars, Star Trek, and virtually every other SF movie or TV show with anything or anyone even remotely extraterrestrial as a character.

An alien in The Bellero Shield from The Outer Limits threatening Sally Kellerman (Google)

I frankly do not believe that there is anything to the belief that watching a movie can plant a subconscious memory that can later be interpreted as real. (Planting false memories under hypnosis is another matter,)  I believe that this takes a much stronger experience such as real trauma that can induce post traumatic stress disorder.

Killers From Space (Google)

Having said that in fairness I have found an SF movie that does fit the profile of an alien abduction and is old enough to have been seen by all of those who have reported abduction experiences if they can overcome their intense boredom while watching it. The film is Killers From Space. This film was released in the early fifties and starred Peter Graves. Graves is a scientist working on a nuclear experiment. He acts strangely and is given truth serum to discover why. Under the serum he relates being abducted by aliens with large eyes and taken to their underground base.  His experiences there are terrifying.  After interrogation he is sent by them under a form of mind control to sabotage the experiment he is working on.  Of course, since he is the hero, he recovers his will and defeats the aliens.

Killers From Space (Google)

To say that this film is a low budget "B" movie is to be exceptionally generous.  The aliens are stock bad guy actors wearing close fitting hoods and ping pong balls cut in half as their bulging eyes.  The terrifying monsters Graves' character is shown are magnified images of ordinary earth creatures like frogs.  Only the basic plot of the film has the form of a typical alien abduction.  The subject is taken,  he is examined, his memory is altered, he is released and later recovers his memory using a therapeutic aid in this case truth serum instead of hypnosis.


The problem with this film having any effect on collective memories is that it is so consummately bad.  It really is difficult to sit through.  You can watch it on You Tube and other sources online and see for yourself.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Alien in Hocus Pocus and Frisby. (Wikipedia)

Another alien abduction story that has a little greater chance of having an effect on the collective unconscious is a Twilight Zone episode called Hocus Pocus and Frisby.   Frisby does not refer to the flying saucer in the story.  That, it seems in pure coincidence.  Frisby, played by Andy Devine, is a teller of tall tales.  He loves to relate how he singelhandedly won World War Two and was instrumental at many other great turning points of history.  He is a pathological liar.  The aliens watching him do not understand this and capture him thinking he is the greatest human alive.  He escapes before the saucer has lifted off, when he discovers that the sound of his harmonica is intensely painful to the aliens.  If he had a set of bagpipes it might have been lethal and he might have had the saucer to support the tale he inevitably tells to his usual audience at the small town general store.  Without proof their reaction is predicable.

An interesting aspect of this story is the appearance of the aliens once their human disguises are removed.  The eyes are something like those of the greys.

Still I have trouble believing that memories of science fiction movies and plays can have any real effect on memories.  Involved in the science fiction culture as I am I know many, many, people who live and breath science fiction.  Very few of them accept UFOs as a reality or have reported a UFO experience of any kind in spite of he fact that they have read hundreds of SF stories and have seen all of the movies and TV shows.   I myself became fascinated with SF at the age of four when I watched Godzilla.  Yes I remember it vividly. Thus far I have yet to experience my first alien abduction even though I have investigated a dozen or so.

Why Do They Look Like Us?

Skeptics often pose the question: If we are being visited by aliens from another planet or dimension, why do they look so much like us? Why should they walk upright on two legs, with two arms, two legs, a head with two eyes all placed in the same general location as our own? Its reasonable question. All of the alien types we believe exist, the reptilians, The mantis-like insectoids, the Nordics and the iconic grays share with us the same basic configuration in spite of the likelihood that they evolved completely independent of humanity. shouldn't they instead look completely different from us? shouldn't they appear alien?



Science fiction never had this problem. In his classic War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells reasoned that a being from another world should look otherworldly.  He described a tentacled bear shape like a brain crawling. Taking Wells as inspiration SF writers imagined a zoo of intelligent species.  Edgar Rice Burroughs gave his Martians four arms and improbable tusks,  Frederick Brown described a globular being with tentacles, Heinlein depicted a noble giant dragon capable of extremely delicate work using its incongruously tiny hands.  Larry Niven, in his Known Space stories described his Puppeteers as tripedal, two feet in front, one in back, with the brain between the shoulders.  An eye and a "mouth" with manipulating mandibles were set in each of two tentacles coming from both sides of the shoulders.  Descended from grazing animals like deer the entire species were natural cowards.

Our collective experience with interviews of those people who have been contacted by aliens reveal none of these.  All of the aliens are bipedal humanoids.

Evolution fills niches like water naturally seeking it's own level.  A species will evolve into a certain appearance that functions well in the niche it lives in.  A land predator has four legs, sharp binocular vision with eyes that can be raised above it's body so that the rest of it will remain concealed.  The ears are designed for maximum sound gathering and can swivel, but are most efficient when directed forward.  It has very capable claws and teeth.  Jaguars, tigers, wolves, Tasmanian  wolves, hyenas, and dogs all share these characteristics because they are the ones that work and survive to pass these traits along to the next generation.  Similarly all birds have the same basic form expressed in many variations. 

The so called humanoid form is simply the best that we can imagine for and intelligent species.  First it is bipedal allowing the being to stand up straight and have the greatest field of view.  the eyes and ears are close to the brain so that the information from them will be received soonest.  The brain in at the top to allow for maximum cooling and is protected in a hard skull.  The forelimbs, freed from walking or running can be used for manipulation of objects which in later evolution inevitably become tools igniting the further evolution of grater intelligence.  The bipedal upright humanoid for may in fact be the only form an intelligent species may take.

The Ancient Civilization Hypothesis

A major debate within MUFON and the larger UFO community rages over the origin of the objects and craft we study. When public awareness of the topic first emerged in the early fifties the obvious conclusion was that they were craft from another planet. Skeptics leaped at this pointing out that there could be no life elsewhere in our solar system and that travel beyond it was impossible according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The first argument is now known to be almost certainly wrong though as yet there is no public announcement of a discovery of life on Mars or Europa, the second has been weakened by a new generation of physicists who have put forth a number of theories that suggest ways to cross the universe with out contradicting Einstein.

While the extraterrestrial hypothesis remains strong, ufologists have suggested other possibilities. Now that string theory suggests the possibility of parallel universes, inter dimensional travel is a popular contender as is time travel. Personally I agree with most physicists that time travel is impossible. I'm greatly disappointed in this. I would like to travel to the future. The inter-dimensional and extraterrestrial hypothesis however look like they still have a lot going for them.

But an article in this months issue of The MUFON Journal (November No. 535) has gotten me wondering about a thought that has been nagging me for a long time. What if “They” have always been here?

Richard Hoffman, Alabama State Director (MUFON), writes about a meeting he had with Dr. Leon Kazarian, who stated that he was studying the long term effects of space travel on the human body at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Hoffman recalls Kazarian stating that “..his team had projected out a future scenario where if two consecutive generations were to live in space, we (humans) would give birth to children who resemble the current beings associated with UFOs.” Hoffman later wonders if this suggests the time travel hypothesis. But suppose time travel really is impossible.

A number of ruins and other traces have suggested that civilization may have existed on earth at a time far earlier than the currently accepted 3000 years or so. Earlier than that and all traces could be erased by geologic action. Suppose then that a technologically advanced human civilization existed on Earth say 80,000 years ago. This civilization developed some form of space travel along with the other technologies that would be contemporary with that. Like our present civilization, some of the people would live in technologically advanced comfort while others would remain primitive with other levels of technology and superstition in between. Then there is a global catastrophe. A significant portion of the advanced peoples leave the Earth and survive. The greater portion of those left behind die leaving only a few thousand to restart the human race on Earth. After a few generations the space dwellers would, if Kazarian's statement is correct, develop smaller bodies, larger heads, and almond shaped eyes, as a result of living in weightlessness or reduced gravity, and exposure to cosmic radiation. They would have traveled in space for many generations, perhaps seeking a home at another star, perhaps taking up residence in our Solar neighborhood in artificial habitats. Eventually some of the space dwellers would return to see if Mother Earth might be habitable. By then they would look quite alien.

A catastrophic reduction in the human population may have occurred. Research into the human genome suggests that human population was suddenly reduced to about 15'000 individuals, 70,000 years ago. This is called The Toba catastrophe theory because it happened when the Toba super volcano in Indonesia erupted causing major environmental change. Wikapedia states on the subject, “The theory is based on geological evidences of sudden climate change and on coalescence evidences of some genes (including mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome and some nuclear genes) and the relatively low level of genetic variation with humans.”

A single suggestion in a recalled conversation and a few theories isn't much to hang a hypothesis on but it does suggest an explanation for UFO visitors that does not require the great energies to cross interstellar distances or travel between dimensions. The space-born survivors would have the motivation to visit Earth and the means to since great distances do not have to be involved. I am a little uncomfortable that this dovetails with the Ancient Astronaut theorist with whom I largely disagree but advancing knowledge means looking at things in new ways.

If this hypothesis turns out to be the case how do we greet them when real contact is finally made? Hi cousin, Been awhile?