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Part 2 of
4
UFOs: The Psychic
Dimension
Contents
4.
Physical Parameters
5.
Lightforms and Bioforms
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4. Physical parameters
UFOs come in an incredible variety of shapes, and there are very few
instances where absolutely identical-looking UFOs have been
independently sighted in different locations. UFOs in the shape of
dumbbells, hats, and washtubs have been reported, as have machines
flying through the air with moving wings. But many UFO enthusiasts
prefer to ignore reports that do not conform to their conception of
what extraterrestrial spacecraft should look like!
Eight main types of UFO can be distinguished
[1]:
1. Lightforms, including balls, rays, columns, and cones of light,
and light formations or arrays that don’t seem to be attached to an
object. The overwhelming majority of UFO sightings involve nothing
more than bright lights, mostly seen at night.
2. Spherical UFOs, ranging in size from a basketball to a house.
3. Discoid or disc-shaped UFOs -- the ’classic’ flying saucer. These
have always been one of the most frequently reported UFO shapes.
They may be domed, finned, or otherwise outfitted.
4. Elliptical, oval, or egg-shaped UFOs. They often lack exterior
features.
5. Cylindrical or cigar-shaped UFOs. Their ends
may be tapered or conical, or sometimes flattened. Some produce
a distinctive ’vapour
trail’.
6. Rectangular UFOs, i.e. objects with squared corners. They can be
as small as a ’flying carpet’ or as large as an aircraft carrier.
They are seen infrequently, and are largely a South American
phenomenon.
7. Triangular UFOs were rare in the early days of the modern
UFO era
but now account for an inordinate number of reports. They include
top-shaped, diamond-shaped, and cone-shaped objects, as well as
flying wings or ’boomerangs’.
8. Shape-shifters are UFOs that alter form over time in ways that
can’t be attributed to the angle of perception. They cast doubt on
the literal, physical nature of the phenomenon.
In terms of size, UFOs range from small balls of light a few inches
in diameter to giant, flying wing- or triangle-shaped objects as
large as football fields. The classic flying saucer is 35 to 50 ft
(10 to 15 m) across.
UFOs are sometimes seen entering or emerging from water. There are
reports that Unidentified Submarine Objects (USOs) used to follow
Soviet submarines, sometimes anticipating their manoeuvres, and were
suspected of being American devices. On one occasion a Soviet
icebreaker was working its way in the Arctic Ocean when a brilliant
spherical craft suddenly broke through the ice and flew up
vertically, showering the vessel with fragments of ice. It was seen
by all the sailors on deck and the officers on the bridge
[2].
It should be borne in mind that humans are notoriously bad at
accurately recalling what they have seen. A TV audience was shown a
faked picture of a fairly ’classic’ flying saucer for 15 seconds,
and then asked to draw what they had seen. The results were
extraordinary: 50 totally different and almost entirely inaccurate
images came back. One image was a circle with 4 huge wings radiating
out from it
[3]. Since
UFOs are widely believed to be alien
spaceships, a blurred dark area might easily be interpreted as a
porthole, and dark shading underneath might be interpreted as
landing gear. Large-scale meteors or fireballs are sometimes
reported as having ’windows’.
UFOs are either ’solid’ all the way through or contain a compartment
of some sort. Most of the descriptions of UFO interiors come from
abductees, who in most cases are probably not reporting an
objective, physical experience. At any rate, a study of 150
abduction reports found tables mentioned in 39%, computer/TV screens
in 13%, computers in 12%, chairs in 8%, counters or shelves in 7%,
cabinets in 7%, and benches in 4%. The tidy UFO interiors described
sound rather antiseptic and unlived in, though abducteé Whitley
Strieber recalled seeing dirty clothes piled up in one corner of the
chamber in which he once found himself
[4].
It is interesting to note how animals react to UFOs. Dogs usually
dislike them intensely; they may bark, howl, or froth, and some
cower in terror when an object is about. Cats hiss and spit, sheep
stampede, horses rear up, cows lie down, and birds simply stop
singing. These reactions are sometimes elicited before humans are
aware of anything unusual. In some cases animals may be agitated by
high-pitched sounds or microwave radiation, or they may simply sense
the presence of something unknown and frightening. Most reactions
seem to be temporary but a few persist. Cattle may refuse for
several days to be herded into paddocks over which UFOs have been
seen to hover, and in one case a single sniff at a recent landing
site sent a dog dashing away howling
[5].
In another case, a man and his wife were awakened by their 3 large
security dogs barking, growling, and behaving in a very agitated
manner. The dogs were pulling at their chains towards a wooded area
to the east. But when they were turned loose, they would not move,
even though their owner commanded them to go. They would look toward
the wooded area, growl, then back up. The man and his wife then saw
a brilliant flash of light coming from the wooded area, and the next
morning they found a ’landing site’
[6].
According to the ’psychosocial hypothesis’, UFOs are purely
psychological phenomena moulded by sociocultural beliefs. This
theory is clearly inadequate since UFOs often have physical effects
and leave physical traces
[7]. Many
UFOs that have been observed
visually have also been observed on radar
[8], though the majority
do not show up on radar. Sometimes UFOs are observed on radar but
are not sighted visually. It is well known that many atmospheric
conditions can give rise to false radar echoes, but this is unlikely
to account for all ’uncorrelated targets’. Radar records show that
unknown objects often follow erratic paths, suddenly vanish from one
spot and appear in another, and undergo abrupt and extreme altitude
and velocity changes
[9].
Over the decades, scores of photographs, videotapes, and film
segments showing unknown objects in the sky have been studied by
scientists and trained photo analysts. Although there have been many
hoaxes, there are also many photographs, films, and videotapes that
appear to be authentic and are consistent with what witnesses claim
to have seen
[10].
Fig. 4.1. A frame from the 8 mm movie film taken by George Adamski
in the presence of Madeleine Rodeffer and 3 other witnesses at
Silver Spring, Maryland, in February 1965.
Optical physicist William
Sherwood suggested that the apparent distortion seen in this and
other frames
could be caused by a powerful gravitational field
[11].
On 3 August 1965, highway engineer
Rex Heflin took a series of 4
Polaroid photos of a silvery craft near Santa Ana, California. Over
a period of about 2 minutes the craft moved east, ’wobbling’
slightly, gained altitude slowly, then increased its velocity and
altitude more rapidly, leaving behind a ring of smokelike vapour.
Several scientists and other researchers launched an all-out effort
to study the photos. In September 1965 two men in civilian clothes,
claiming to be from the North American Air Defense, came to Heflin’s
home and ’borrowed’ 3 of the original photos.
The photos were never
returned and the 2 visitors were never traced. However, copies of
the stolen photos continued to be analyzed. They were regarded as
most probably genuine though some doubts remained. Then one day in
1993 Heflin received a phone call from a woman who asked him if he
had recently checked his mailbox and then rang off. Half an hour
later she called again and asked the same question. After the first
call Heflin found his mailbox to be empty, but after the second he
found a plain, unmarked envelope containing the 3 lost photos. The
photos were then reanalyzed using state-of-the-art computer
enhancement, and the analysis supported the view that they were
genuine
[12].
Fig. 4.2. Two of the
photos taken by Rex Heflin in 1965.
[13]
The military undoubtedly have many reliable physical records of UFOs
in their possession. In an incident at the White Sands Proving
Ground, a V2 rocket was about to be fired when 2 objects, 2 to 3 ft
in diameter, came down, circled around the V2 several times, and
went back up, vanishing into the sky. The camera crew used up all
their film on the UFOs, and the V2 flight was cancelled while they
reloaded their cameras.
On 17 July 1957 an air force RB-47 was
followed by a luminous, highly manoeuvrable object for about 1.5
hours, over a distance of well over 700 miles, as it flew from
Mississippi to Oklahoma. The object was, at various times, seen
visually by the cockpit crew as an intensely luminous light,
followed by ground-radar, and detected on electronic
counter-measures (ECM) equipment on the plane. The case involved
several instances of simultaneous appearances and disappearances on
all 3 ’channels’
[14].
Fig. 4.3. Photograph of an unidentified, stationary, high-altitude
bright light source,
taken by a Canadian Air Force pilot in 1956
(courtesy of Bruce Maccabee)
[15].
The disc-like object is over 100
m in diameter, and its power output is estimated at over one billion
watts.
UFOs often -- but by no means always -- cause car engines to stall,
power blackouts, and other electromagnetic disturbances, such as
spinning compasses. Curiously, not a single case of a vehicle
stalling has ever resulted in a serious accident. Landings often
leave ground traces, described as circular, oval, or irregular in
shape. Vegetation in the traces may be burned, depressed, or
dehydrated, and there are often symmetrically arranged marks
suggestive of landing gear imprints.
One of the best-documented incidents of the landing-trace variety
took place on 8 January 1981 when a man working in his garden in
Trans-en-Provence, France, reported that he had witnessed the
landing of a craft in the form of 2 saucers upside down, one against
the other. The object rested on the ground for a short period before
flying away. It left behind traces, impressions, and other evidence
of the presence of a large vehicle. An intensive investigation was
mounted by France’s official UFO-monitoring agency, GEPAN, which
took soil, leaf, and plant samples and had them analyzed by
government laboratories.
In 1983, in a 66-page scientific monograph
on the case, GEPAN noted that the leaves had inexplicably lost 30 to
50% of their chlorophyll and had aged abruptly in ways that could
not be duplicated in the laboratory. There was evidence of an ’occurrence of an important event which brought with it deformations
of the terrain caused by mass, mechanics, a heating effect, and
perhaps certain transformations and deposits of trace minerals
[phosphate and zinc].’ It concluded that these effects could best be
explained by a powerful emission of possibly pulsed microwaves
[16].
There are rare reports of UFOs ejecting molten metal and of physical
specimens being found at a location after a sighting. Analysis of
such samples has identified various terrestrial elements such as aluminium,
tin, magnesium, and silicon, as well as oil, but no
evidence of anything of definitely unearthly origin has turned up
[17]. There are many well-attested cases of a shining filament-type
material called ’angel hair’ falling out of the sky in association
with UFO sightings. There are photos of people handling it, and a
chemist who examined a specimen under the microscope described it as
’radioactive, heavily damaged cotton’. It usually ’evaporates’
fairly quickly
[18]. There are also many accounts associating
sightings of aerial objects with falls of translucent or transparent
gelatinous material, which quickly evaporates. This material,
sometimes called ’pwdre ser’ or ’star jelly’, has been reported for
centuries. One suggestion is that it could be excrement or other
residue from unusual atmospheric lifeforms
[19].
There are numerous reports of UFO witnesses suffering adverse
physical effects, such as dizziness, headaches, paralysis, numbness,
fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, weight loss, irritation of the eyes,
itchy rashes, burns, and other radiation-like effects. For instance,
one morning in 1973 an American truck driver noticed that his
tractor-trailer rig was being overtaken by a bright, turnip-shaped
object roughly as wide as a 2-lane highway. When he leaned out of
the window, he was hit in the face by a ’red flash of fire’ that
blinded him and partially melted his glasses frames. His glasses
were bubbled-out as if the wire inside the frames had been heated by
microwave radiation, causing the plastic around it to melt. He was
hospitalized with severe reduction of vision in both eyes, but
gradually recovered his sight over a period of 3 weeks
[20].
In Brazil there have been many reports of rectangular UFOs
(nicknamed ’chupas’) firing beams at people at night, often causing
serious and sometimes fatal injuries. In many of these incidents the
victims were hunters who in turn became hunted. In one
well-documented case a man was stunned and blinded after being hit
by a beam of light; his flesh began to detach itself from his bones,
and he died 6 hours later. Many of the injuries reported in these
cases are consistent with the effects of high-power pulsed
microwaves, though this does not explain the small puncture marks
sometimes found in the skin. Military encounters with UFOs have also
led to fatalities. For instance, on 23 November 1953, a military jet
was scrambled from Kinross Air Force Base in Michigan to chase an
unidentified object. The aircraft was tracked on radar as it merged
with the target over Lake Superior. Both objects then disappeared
from the screen. Despite an intensive search, no wreckage or bodies
were ever found
[21].
Given all the various physical effects reported, and also UFOs’
frequent interest in aircraft and in military and nuclear
installations, it is not surprising that some military personnel
should regard UFOs as physical spacecraft that pose a potential
security threat. Nor is it surprising that they should want to know
more about their propulsion system, which appears to be far beyond
the capabilities of our own current technology. The objects Kenneth
Arnold sighted in 1947 were moving at about 2100 km per hour, but
since then speeds of up to 35,000 km per hour or more have been
reported. Most UFOs have no visible means of propulsion, though
sometimes they leave a luminous trail. Most UFOs are silent in
operation, whether seen at a distance or close up. In cases where an
audible sound is heard, it is usually described as a steady,
low-pitched hum or a repetitive, high-pitched beep. But hissing,
whining, whistling, roaring, and explosive noises have also been
reported.
UFOs are often observed to follow an abrupt, zigzag path as opposed
to a straight line or gently curving trajectory. A hovering UFO that
descends towards the ground frequently makes a ’falling-leaf’ or
pendulum motion, involving a gentle rocking from side to side. As
well as being able to hover silently, UFOs have been seen to undergo
incredible accelerations and decelerations and to make 90-degree
turns that would tear conventional aircraft -- and their pilots --
apart. During miliary encounters with UFOs in Belgium in 1990, a UFO
was observed to achieve a fantastic acceleration of 40 g’s. This
would cause immediate death to human pilots, who can take no more
than about 8 g’s. If this had been a conventional aircraft, not only
would there have been a supersonic boom but, given the low altitude
and speed, many windows would have been shattered
[22]. There are in
fact no reports of sonic booms being produced by UFOs in supersonic
flight (more than 1225 km per hour).
If UFOs were ordinary physical craft, to prevent manoeuvres such as
those described above from producing massive g forces either the
craft would have to be made massless, or some form or ’anti-gravity’
propulsion would have to be used, so that any acceleration or
deceleration is imparted to every molecule of the structure
simultaneously.
This conclusion is supported by Paul Hill, a former NASA
aeronautical engineer. He noted that UFOs tend to sit level to
hover, tilt forward to advance, tilt backward to stop, and bank to
turn. Such motion is inconsistent with normal aerodynamic
requirements, but consistent with some form of repulsive force-field
propulsion, which he thinks probably involves a gravity-cancelling
field. This could explain why UFOs cause vehicles to stall, break
tree branches, dislodge roof tiles, deflect objects, and disturb
water. It would allow the occupants of a craft to survive extreme
supersonic flight without sonic booms, and would eliminate any
significant aerodynamic heating. In addition, a plasma sheath of
ionized and excited air molecules would surround the craft, and
affect its colours during various phases of its flight -- red and
orange during hovering and slow motions, blue and white at or just
before high speeds -- as well as how sharp or blurry its edges
appear at night
[23].
As far as their flight performance is concerned, some UFOs could
therefore be physical craft making use of anti-gravity technology.
It should be noted, however, that UFOs sometimes have weird, nonaerodynamic designs, apparently rivetted panels, and some have
been seen to emit fire, smoke, and steam! UFOs need not be ordinary
physical craft at all, and rather than being propelled by an
advanced physical technology making use of conventional physical
forces, they may be propelled by paraphysical, paranormal forces.
Some UFOs could be living creatures (or ’critters’) rather than
spacecraft and possess a natural power of flight using their own
life energy (see next section). Trevor Constable argues that both
creatures and craft could emerge into our physical reality from the etheric realms and be powered by
etheric energy.
Wilhelm Reich (who
died in 1957) called this energy ’orgone’, and demonstrated its
existence experimentally. Constable argues that the known properties
of orgone energy can account for many of the phenomena associated
with UFOs
[24].
Fig. 4.4. A UFO photographed by a US Marine Air Group pilot over the
Northeast China Sea during the Korean war. The sharply delineated
straight line in the middle and the black lower half suggest
photographic trickery, but similar bizarre effects have been noted
in other cases.
According to Trevor Constable, the blackness on the underside and
left-hand extremity of the disc is caused by high concentrations of
contractive, cold orgone energy, which is known to desensitize or
nullify film emulsions. He argues that orgone energy spins around
the circumference of the craft, and that the camera has ’stopped’
the rotating field on the left side of the disc, accounting for the
otherwise anomalous ’shadow’ on the upper side of the vehicle.
Constable remarks: ’What earthmen don’t know about light, color,
energy, substance and tangibility would fill a bloody great hole in
the ground’
[25]
When electromagnetic signals propagate through the ether they are
weakened in proportion to the square of the distance they have
travelled. If a UFO is surrounded by a high concentration of
orgone,
this could explain power failures and electromagnetic interference.
Plasmas created by the whirling fields around the craft could
account for reports of UFOs causing burning and scorching.
Experiments indicate that human contact with a high concentration of orgone would withdraw their own
bioenergy, resulting in numbness or
even unconsciousness. Orgone energy could also explain temporary
blindness in witnesses, and burning, tanning, and reddening of the
skin.
Spinning is probably the most common single motion attributed to
UFOs; when in flight they either spin, or give the illusion of
spinning as a result of their moving lights. Constable argues that
both spinning and ’falling-leaf’ motions can be explained by the
spinning wave motion (also known as the kreiselwelle or
KRW) of orgone energy. The sometimes jerky and erratic motion of UFOs
resembles the flight of humming birds, which, like all organisms,
make use of their own orgone life-energy.
The bobbing, skipping and swinging of various types of
UFO emerges
from the fundamental KRW pattern of the energy used in propulsion,
or, in the case of the critters, in their animation and natural life
pulsation. Skipping discs such as those first witnessed by Kenneth
Arnold, may well propel themselves using the peak energies of the
huge KRW waveforms that are naturally present in our atmosphere ...
[26]
Are UFOs physically real? In theory, they could be any of the
following:
1) genuine physical objects
2) temporarily materialized
ethereal objects
3) ethereal objects perceived clairvoyantly
4)
projected external images or holograms
5) illusions existing only
in witnesses’ minds, either,
(a)
self-generated or
(b) induced by
other entities
Whether UFOs show up on radar or not does not
necessarily prove whether they are physically solid, since physical
objects can be made invisible to radar. Conversely, not everything
that shows up on radar is physically visible. Films of UFOs do not
prove that they are three-dimensional objects possessing physical
density unless they are also seen to interact physically with their
environment, such as by leaving material landing traces.
The following sighting took place at Pelotas, Brazil, on 5 October
1996. Businessman Haraldo Westendorf, a trained stunt flyer who did
not believe in UFOs, spotted an enormous cone-shaped object, about
225 ft high and 325 ft in diameter at its widest point. Over a
period of 15 minutes he circled the huge, brown, spinning object 3
times, once bringing his tiny plane within 130 ft of it. He then
noticed a hole where the rounded top on the object had been just
moments before. Out of it rose a classic, saucer-shaped object,
about 30 ft (9 m) in diameter, which sped off at about Mach 10 (i.e.
10 times the speed of sound).
Westendorf was going to fly over the
top of the ’mother ship’ but changed his mind when it began to
rotate more rapidly and fire red light beams from its top. The
object then shot straight up at tremendous speed, and Westendorf at
first thought the resulting shock wave might knock him out of the
sky. However, he never felt any turbulence -- which suggests it was
not an ordinary physical object. The entire incident was witnessed
by 3 ground-based air traffic controllers and numerous other people
on the beach at Pelotas, but the government’s air defense system
radar centre at Curitiba never picked up the mysterious object on
their radar screens
[27].
Fig. 4.5. UFOs sighted at Pelotas, Brazil, October 1996 (courtesy of
Harry Trumbore)
[28]
The following close encounter appears to involve an object that was
physically tangible (at least temporarily) and not just physically
visible. On 14 June 1968 Isidro Puentes Ventura, a reservist in the
Cuban army, was standing guard by himself when he saw a white light
behind some trees and went to investigate. He found himself 150 ft
from an object resting on the ground, and observed it for 10
minutes. It was round, with a dome and a series of ’antennas’ on
top. Despite its strange shape and unusual brightness, he thought it
might be an American helicopter and started firing at it. He had
fired about 40 rounds when the craft became orange and emitted a
strong whistling sound.
Then he lost consciousness. 5 minutes past
midnight several machine-gun rounds were heard coming from Puente’s
location. He was found unconscious at dawn, and taken to hospital;
he was unable to speak for 6 days and remained in shock for a
further 7. Investigators found 48 spent machine-gun casings and 14
bullets flattened by impact against some extremely hard metallic
object. A depression was visible in the soil, with a central hole 3
ft in diameter and 3 smaller indentations around it, indicating the
presence of a very heavy object. Cuban radar had detected an
unidentified object that vanished amidst tremendous electronic
noise. Within a 15-ft radius the soil at the site was calcined and
covered with ashlike gray dust; analysis confirmed that a high
degree of heat had been applied
[29].
The following case involves a shape-shifting UFO. During an Aeroflot
flight in September 1984, the crew and passengers saw an enormous
yellow ’star’ which projected a beam of light towards the ground,
followed by 2 less vivid beams. The big beam then swung round and
projected straight into the aircraft cabin as the object raced
towards the plane, changing into a ’green cloud’. Minsk ground
control was contacted but the air traffic controller could see
nothing on the radar screen. The object cruised along beside the
plane. Multiple lights of different colours and fiery zigzags
crisscrossed the ’vapour’. By this time the ground controller could
see the light show.
The object then began changing shape as if to
mimic the plane. It developed an appendage and then became a ’wingless cloud-aircraft with a pointed tail’. Another airliner also
saw the weird green cloud, as did controllers at Riga and Vilnius.
The ’cloud’ continued to escort the plane for over an hour until it
began to descend to land at Tallinn. Strangely, the Tallinn approach
radar had picked up two ’blips’ trailing behind the aircraft, and
while these targets remained ’solid’, the radar reflection of the
aircraft kept fading in and out! The other airliner had approached
the UFO, which shot a beam of light that struck the 2 pilots.
Several days later, one of them was taken to hospital, where he
later died of a disease resembling myeloma, i.e. malignancy of the
bone marrow. A similar disease made the other pilot an invalid for
life
[30].
If UFOs were ordinary, tangible objects they should be seen pursuing
straight flight paths over considerable distances, but there are few
cases where this has occurred. Instead, they often seem to appear
abruptly, manoeuvre about in a localized area, then abruptly
disappear from sight or radar screens. As the above case
illustrates, they have also been observed to change shape. Their
sudden appearance and disappearance are sometimes accompanied by a
flash of light or an explosion. In some cases UFOs (and UFO
entities) vanish without a sound, suggesting that they are not
ordinary physical phenomena, since otherwise their disappearance
would create a partial vacuum and make a noise. In one case,
analysis of a videotape of a craft’s disappearance showed that it
actually accelerated almost instantly to several times the speed of
sound, causing it to become invisible to the eye
[31]. However,
genuine materialization and dematerialization sometimes seem to be
involved.
In one incident, a man saw a hovering disc suddenly grow smaller and
vanish, accompanied by a blast of wind which knocked him to the
ground. In another, the head of a team of construction workers
encountered a strange-looking man standing in front of a large
shining dome floating about 3 ft above the ground. Suddenly the
strange man vanished. Then a loud whistling sound was heard and the
saucer rose by successive jerks, before being erased in a sort of
blue haze. The story was corroborated by several of the construction
workers
[32]. In October 1969, a French couple saw an oval-shaped
object on the ground, the size of a VW Beetle, which lifted up,
paused briefly, then disappeared at an amazing speed, flying off
into the trees, and passing through them as if they did not exist
[33].
References
1. Dennis Stacy and Patrick Huyghe, The Field Guide to UFOs: A
classification of various unidentified aerial phenomena based on
eyewitness accounts, New York: Quill, 2000, pp. 17-8.
2. Jacques Vallee, UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A cosmic
samizdat, New York: Ballantine Books, 1992, pp. 28-9.
3. John Spencer, Gifts of the Gods? Are UFOs alien visitors or
psychic phenomena?, London: Virgin, 1994, pp. 87-8.
4. Charles F. Emmons, At the Threshold: UFOs, science and the new
age, Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press, 1997, pp. 163-4; The Field
Guide to UFOs, p. 145.
5. Lyall Watson, Lifetide: A biology of the unconscious, London:
Coronet, 1980, p. 271.
6. Brad Steiger, Mysteries of Time and Space, West Chester, PA:
Whitford Press, 1989, pp. 102-3.
7. P.A. Sturrock et al.,
’Physical evidence related to UFO reports:
the proceedings of a workshop held at the Pocantico Conference
Center, Tarrytown, New York, September 29 - October 4, 1997’,
Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 12, 1998, pp. 179-229.
8. Bruce Maccabee,
’Atmosphere or UFO? A response to the 1997 SSE
Review Panel report’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 13,
1999, pp. 421-59.
9. Illobrand von Ludwiger, Best UFO Cases -- Europe, Las Vegas: NV,
National Institute for Discovery Science, 1998, pp. 93-124.
10. Richard F. Haines,
’Analysis of a UFO photograph’, Journal of
Scientific Exploration, v. 1, 1987, pp. 129-47; Bruce Maccabee, ’Analysis and discussion of the images of a cluster of periodically
flashing lights filmed off the coast of New Zealand, Journal of
Scientific Exploration, v. 1, 1987, pp. 149-90; Richard F. Haines
and Jacques F. Vallee, ’Photo analysis of an aerial disc over Costa
Rica: new evidence’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 4, 1990,
pp. 71-4; Bruce Maccabee, ’Analysis and discussion of the May 18,
1992 UFO sighting in Gulf Breeze, Florida’, Journal of Scientific
Exploration, v. 7, 1993, pp. 241-57; Pierre Guérin, ’A scientific
analysis of four photographs of a flying disk near Lac Chauvet
(France)’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 8, 1994, pp.
447-69.
11. Timothy Good, Beyond Top Secret: The worldwide UFO security
threat, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1996, pp. 441-5, plates (pp.
414/5).
12. Ann Druffel, Robert M. Wood and Eric Kelson,
’Reanalysis of the
1965 Heflin UFO photos’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 14,
2000, pp. 583-622.
13. Ibid., figs. 11 and 12.
14. Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities: Ancient insights into
modern UFO phenomena, Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing, 2nd
ed., 1995, pp. 28-9, 212-3.
15. Bruce Maccabee, ’Optical power output of an unidentified high
altitude light source’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 13,
1999, pp. 199-211; Jacques F. Vallee, ’Estimates of optical power
output in six cases of unexplained aerial objects with defined
luminosity characteristics’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v.
12, 1998, pp. 345-58.
16. Beyond Top Secret, pp. 117-9; Jean-Jacques Velasco,
’Report on
the analysis of anomalous physical traces: the 1981 Trans-en-Provence
UFO case’, Journal of Scientific Exploration, v. 4, 1990, pp. 27-48;
Jacques F. Vallee, ’Return to Trans-en-Provence’, Journal of
Scientific Exploration, v. 4, 1990, pp. 19-25.
17. Jacques F. Vallee,
’Physical analyses in ten cases of
unexplained aerial objects with material samples’, Journal of
Scientific Exploration, v. 12, 1998, pp. 359-75; Peter A. Sturrock,
’Composition analysis of the Brazil magnesium’, Journal of
Scientific Exploration, v. 15, 2001, pp. 69-95; Best UFO Cases --
Europe, pp. 61-9.
18. Alan Watts, UFO Quest: In search of the mystery machines,
London: Blandford, 1994, p. 14; Beyond Top Secret, pp. 122-4.
19. Trevor J. Constable, The Cosmic Pulse of Life: The revolutionary
biological power behind UFOs, Garberville, CA: Borderland Sciences
Research Foundation, 2nd ed., 1990, pp. 453-7.
20. Alien Identities, p. 324; At the Threshold, p. 147.
21. Jacques Vallee, Confrontations: A scientist’s search for alien
contact, London: Souvenir Press, 1990, pp. 112-39, 199-226.
22. Alien Identities, pp. 102-3.
23. The Field Guide to UFOs, pp. 150-1.
24. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 345-69.
25. Ibid., pp. 96, 423; Beyond Top Secret, plates (pp. 158/9).
26. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, p. 359.
27. The Field Guide to UFOs, pp. 110-1.
28. Ibid., p. 111 (illustration by Harry Trumbore).
29. UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union, pp. 82-5.
30. Jenny Randles, The UFO Conspiracy: The first forty years, New
York: Barnes & Noble, 1993, pp. 115-7; Beyond Top Secret, pp.
248-50.
31. Alien Identities, pp. 75-6.
32. Ibid., pp. 61, 218.
33. Confrontations, pp. 183, 187.
Go Back
5. Lightforms and bioforms
The majority of UFOs are nothing more than bright lights, generally
seen at high altitude. Scientists tend to ignore high-altitude
nocturnal lights because of their close association with ufology.
Low-level light phenomena have received more attention, though many
are just as anomalous and remain poorly understood
[1].
A low-level luminous phenomenon sometimes thought to be related to
UFOs is ball lightning
[2]. However, ball lightning diameters are
generally 10 to 40 cm, while the diameters of flying discs can be
hundreds of times larger. Ball lightning is generally thought to
consist of glowing spheres of plasma created by electromagnetic
forces, but no one can explain how such spheres form and preserve
their shape, or how so much energy can be concentrated in such a
small volume. Ball lightning can pass through glass windows without
breaking them, and can even appear within a metal-screened
environment, such as an aircraft, which a straightforward electrical
effect would not be expected to do. Furthermore, it can hover, float
languidly, fall to the ground, remain stationary, or move as if
purposefully; sometimes it seems to inquisitively explore a room as
if directed by intelligence. Related phenomena include luminous
aerial bubbles -- ’large assemblages of colored spheres or bubbles
drifting randomly, quickly, almost playfully’
[3]. After sunset they
might become nocturnal lights.
In a case from 1954, a ball of light about the size of a basketball
fell from the clouds, about 20 ft in front of a man’s car. It
bounced 3 times and then detonated the next time it touched the
earth. Interestingly, the engine stalled and the car coasted to a
stop -- an often-reported phenomenon in UFO encounters. More glowing
balls continued to fall and bounce, as if in slow motion
[4].
The usually flame-like forms known by names such as ’will-o’-the-wisp’,
’jack-o’-lantern’, ’ignis fatuus’, and ’corpse
candles’ make up another class of earthlights. In folklore they were
interpreted as wandering sprites liable to lead travellers to their
doom, or as harbingers of death, and were widely believed to hover
over fresh graves. The standard explanation attributes them to
spontaneously ignited gases (largely methane) escaping from swampy
ground, but this theory will not work in many instances as the
flames are often described as cold. Sightings of will-o’-the-wisps
decreased towards the end of the 19th century, while sightings of
UFOs have since increased. It seems that ’UFO’ has become the new
catch-all term for unusual luminous phenomena.
Other unexplained light phenomena are earthquake lights and volcano
lights, often reported before, during, or after a quake or eruption.
Earthquake lights come in a wide range of forms, such as streamers
and aurorae-like displays across the sky, balls of light, glows in
the atmosphere, sparkles of light on hillsides, and ’slow’
lightning. Sometimes lights are seen in or above the sea, some of
which may be traceable to submarine quakes. Other extraordinary
light phenomena reported by seafarers, especially in the Indian
Ocean, include great wheels and bands of light fanning soundlessly
across the ocean, but scientists prefer to ignore these mysterious
manifestations
[5].
Earthlight sightings are particularly common near active geological
faults. According to the tectonic strain theory developed by
researchers such as Paul Devereux and Michael Persinger, these
lightforms are mainly generated by stresses and strains in the
earth’s crust, though the exact mechanism is unknown
[6]. Similar
phenomena have been recreated experimentally on a laboratory scale,
and the evidence contradicts the popular theory that they are
plasmas.
Fig. 5.1. This photograph of 2 balls of light flying over Carleton
Moor near Skipton, England,
was taken by police sergeant Tony Dodd
at 3.15 am on 14 March 1983.
Note how the upper light illumines the
underside of the low cloud.
Many mystery lights have been reported
in the area
[7]
Fig. 5.2. This remarkable photograph was taken by David Kubrin in
1973.
After visiting the Pinnacles National Monument in California,
he and his wife suddenly saw a light streak by just above the
treetops, producing shockwaves in the air.
Then it stopped without
deceleration, as if weightless.
The light was basically ovoid in
form, and as it stopped it seemed to go into a spin, causing its
light to dissipate.
It lost its shape and merged somewhat with the
surrounding air.
The photograph was taken as the spinning began.
It
shows a golden light core partially surrounded by a flare of light,
against a darkening blue sky.
The Pinnacles are spectacular
spire-like columns and jagged peaks.
Beneath them is an
intricate cave system, and the site is bounded on the east by the
San Andreas Fault
[8]
Earthlights vary enormously in size and colour and can change shape.
They range in size from ping-pong balls of luminosity to grand
lightforms, though basketball size is common. They are usually round
or spherical, but tubes, cigars, rectangles, diamonds,
tadpole-shapes, and irregular forms have frequently been described.
At close range, a teeming inner activity is sometimes reported
within them. Earthlights can make sounds of various kinds, notably
hissing and buzzing noises. Multiple earthlights seen flying
together can divide and merge, and display seemingly coordinated
movements. They are frequently seen emerging from or disappearing
into the ground. They often haunt bodies of water such as lakes and
reservoirs, and are occasionally seen glowing beneath the surface of
the water. When free-floating, they commonly prefer the vicinity of
mountain peaks and ridges, isolated rooftops and rock outcrops,
towers and antennae, and other sharp or isolated features that tend
to be charge collectors. This might indicate that they have some
kind of electromagnetic basis. However, the light produced
frequently seems to be of an unusual nature, very bright, but
defined and without rays.
Devereux believes that earthlights are on the very edge of physical
manifestation, which may explain why some lights show up on radar
while others do not. The geographical zones in which they appear
must provide a source of energy, probably electromagnetic or
gravitational, allowing them to intrude into and move around in our
material world. The exact mechanisms that generate them are unknown,
but Devereux thinks they represent ’an energy manifestation that is
either an unfamiliar form of electromagnetism, or else is of a
completely unknown order that interacts, resonates, in some way with
parts of the electromagnetic spectrum’. He draws a parallel with the
Chinese concept of chi, or the kurunba of the Australian aborigines:
’a primary sea of force that underpins the manifestation of energy
effects and matter in the material world’
[9]. He also points out
that earthlights frequently seem to display intelligence and to
respond to the movements and thoughts of observers.
Devereux believes that most UFOs are in fact earthlights. Over 40%
of UFO sightings are said to occur on or close to geological faults,
which are the scenes of electrical, magnetic, or gravimetric
variations. It is noteworthy that poltergeist and other paranormal
activity often occurs in the immediate neighbourhood of earthlight
outbreaks, and during the same period, and that both UFO and
poltergeist activity seem to increase at times of significantly high
global geomagnetic activity.
However, the earthlight theory cannot account for all UFO sightings.
First, UFOs are also seen in seismically inactive areas. Second,
although earthlights seen in daylight can look shiny and metallic
and are likely to have a spherical, ovoid, or discoid form, the
largest earthlights are usually only several meters across, whereas
some UFOs are many times larger. Third, although energetic
lightballs have been known to singe foliage and leave burns and
grooves on the ground, earthlights cannot account for close-range
sightings of large, structured, heavy craft that leave corresponding
landing traces.
To account for close encounters with ’aliens’, including abductions,
the tectonic strain theory has been extended with the notion of
electromagnetically induced hallucinations. Our perceptions of the
world around us are mediated by the patterns of electromagnetic
activity they generate in our brains. Any stimulus that can induce
similar patterns of activity in the brain can generate experiences
that are just as real and compelling as actual events. Michael Persinger has shown that stimulating the temporal lobes of the brain
with electrodes can induce a variety of deeply disturbing mental
experiences, including nearly every basic element of mystical,
religious, and visitor experiences, such as encounters with demons,
angels, and fairies.
Persinger and Devereux argue that the energy fluctuations generated
by fault lines can not only give rise to earthlights but can also --
especially at close range -- interact with the human nervous system,
specifically with the brain’s temporal lobe, generating
hallucinations of alien encounters. This typically happens when the
witness is in an altered state of consciousness (usually during
early morning hours) or during a protracted period of driving, when
right-hemispheric brain activity and interruptions of consciousness
are encouraged. The details of the experience depend on witnesses’
beliefs and expectations, on the sensitivity of their temporal lobes
and limbic regions, and on the complexity of the electromagnetic
field applied through the brain
[10]. There are numerous accounts of
people coming very close to earthlights without receiving any
physical injury or suffering hallucinatory effects, but Devereux
suggests that these differences may depend on the frequency at which
the energy from a light emanates.
The major weakness in this theory is that although electromagnetic
fields may be able to induce hallucinations in the laboratory, no
ordinary, random field outside the laboratory could produce an
ordered, coherent train of thought during a close encounter lasting
for about an hour, including many matching details in the
recollections of different witnesses. It is quite possible that some
close encounters, or at least certain elements of them, are
visionary or hallucinatory experiences. But the mechanisms inducing
them are unlikely to be ordinary physical forces.
Kenneth Ring argues that while extraordinary encounters may be
correlated with neurological factors, such as temporal-lobe lability,
they are not reducible to them.
Just as a television set is not in itself the source of the images
we see on its screen, the brain may not generate our experiences
either. Instead, it may serve to transmit them. Taking that stand,
it may be necessary that a certain neurological state occur before
certain images and information can be received, but that state then
would be more like a window (even if it distorts the input somewhat)
than a signal station in its own right.
[11]
Another theory, which overlaps with
the earthlight theory to some
extent, is that UFOs are aerial bioforms or sky creatures. By using
an ordinary camera loaded with infrared film, Trevor Constable, a
well-known aviation historian, has photographed plasmatic lifeforms
in the atmosphere which inhabit the infrared part of the spectrum
and are normally imperceptible. Their existence has been
independently verified by researchers in Europe and the United
States. Most are spherical, discoidal, or cigar-shaped, others look
like fish or serpents, and many resemble giant pulsating unicellular
organisms or amoebas. Constable believes that only some UFOs are
living creatures (or ’critters’) and that others are intelligently
designed and controlled craft originating in the etheric realms
[12].
He argues that under certain conditions some aerial bioforms can
alter their density and become physically visible and tangible.
Their essentially ethereal, ’plastic’ nature enables them to change
shape, split into two, and merge. They appear to travel in pulsatory
fashion, swelling and shrinking cyclically as they move through the
air. They sometimes travel through the atmosphere in luminous
shoals, rather like fish. Their behaviour suggests that they possess
a low degree of intelligence. They have been seen playing around
thunderheads and around aircraft wings.
They have paced airliners
and jet fighters like dolphins pacing a ship. They have been seen
chasing each other playfully around the sky, and tend to take
evasive action if humans approach too close. The creatures that
Constable has photographed either inhabit the etheric borderland
between the physical and astral realms or originate in the astral
realms themselves, and are shape-shifting elemental lifeforms.
 
Fig. 5.3. These 2 photos show the same giant amoeba-like entity,
complete with nuclei, nucleoli, and vacuoles.
It was invisible to
the naked eye and was photographed with infrared film on 25 August
1957 in the Californian Mojave desert.
The sky background is black,
because the filter used over the camera lens absorbs the blue sky
radiation
[13].
Fig. 5.4. This invisible critter was photographed at Thousand Palms,
California, in May 1975 by Constable’s daughter, Diana, then aged
11.
She was extremely sensitive at this age and had been trained to
take photos of objects perceived etherically.
The camera was
equipped with an 18A filter and high-speed infrared film.
A ’cloudbuster’,
invented by
Wilhelm Reich for weather-engineering purposes, can be
seen in the lower right
[14]
Fig. 5.5. These invisible plasmoids are among many that were
photographed at night near Genoa, Italy, in January 1981.
Infrared
and magnetic detectors and other instruments suddenly went wild and
the researchers operated their cameras immediately,
even though
nothing was visible to the naked eye.
The many photos taken show
these strange blue and white etheric forms falling from the zenith,
and rolling down the
hillside, skimming along the grass and among the cars, equipment,
and researchers
[15]
Radar provides another means of detecting invisible UFOs, including
critters. Radar emits bursts of microwaves which are reflected back
by whatever gets in their way. Microwaves lie between radio waves
and infrared radiation, and infrared lies just beyond the red part
of the visible spectrum. Radar was perfected during the Second World
War and was used to detect enemy aircraft and ships before they
became visible to the naked eye. But sometimes objects were detected
by radar which remained invisible even when they were so close that
they should have been directly perceptible.
The following incident took place during the war, and is known as
the Nansei-shoto case. Two US aircraft carriers were patrolling the
area south of Okinawa in the North Pacific when their radars showed
a very large blip approaching from the northeast, which was assumed
to represent an estimated 200 to 300 enemy aircraft. At a range of
100 miles their speed was determined to be nearly 700 miles an hour
-- faster than any known aircraft in the world at that time. All the
American aircraft available were scrambled and directed towards the
approaching force. Despite excellent visibility, the fighter pilots
saw nothing, even when radar showed them to be directly above the
attacking force. The ’enemy’ kept on coming towards the task force,
which was now preparing itself for the impending attack. The
mysterious formation flew over the fleet, but the crew never saw a
thing -- just an empty blue sky
[16].
There have been many similar incidents since then. These invisible
objects are officially known as ’radar propagation anomalies’,
’spurious echoes’, ’radar ghosts’, or ’angels’. Constable says that
various way-out notions such as flocks of birds, heated pockets of
gas, and clouds of insects are used to explain them away. He
believes that many are unknown living creatures.
Radar can have curious effects on some UFOs. For instance, 2 naval
officers reported that they had watched a couple of UFOs retreat
hastily when they blundered into a strong radar field. The UFOs
bounced back out of the radar beam like rubber balls striking a
brick wall. This sounds like the response of something living to an
unpleasant stimulus. A similar incident at a New Jersey cape
occurred in 1950. When UFOs were seen there repeatedly, the
government was notified, and 3 radar towers mounted on trucks were
brought. An officer explained that radar made the saucers ’stagger’
and they hoped to bring one down if they could get enough beams on
the disc at close range. The radar did cause the discs to stagger
later that day but failed to bring them down. They sped away and the
radar trucks were withdrawn a few days later. Periodic returns to
certain areas, such as water sources, is of course a basic
behavioral pattern of animals. Radars cannot cause any known
aircraft to ’stagger’, but the powerful beams of pulsed electronic
energy they emit can stimulate and even burn living tissue
[17]
The following accounts show that a wide variety of living lightforms
and sky creatures may exist.
In September 1891 a bizarre atmospheric lifeform was seen over
Crawfordsville, Indiana. It was headless and oblong, 20 ft long and
8 ft wide, and propelled itself with several pairs of fins. 2 men,
together with a Methodist pastor and his wife, observed it circle a
house, disappear to the east for a short time and then return. The
creature was back the following evening, and this time hundreds of
residents saw its violently flapping fins and flaming red ’eye’. The
creature ’squirmed as if in agony’ and made a ’wheezing plaintive
sound’ as it hovered at 300 ft. At one point it swooped over a band
of onlookers, who swore they felt its ’hot breath’
[18]
In 1925 Don Wood and another American landed in a two-seater plane
on Flat Mesa, near Battle Mountain in the Nevada desert. While
walking about the top they noticed something coming in to land. It
was round and flat like a saucer, and about 8 ft across, with a
reddish underside. It skidded to a stop about 30 ft away. They
walked up to it and found that it was an animal like nothing they
had seen before. It had a mica-like body, but no visible eyes or
legs. It was hurt, and as it breathed the top would rise and fall
making a half-foot hole around it like a clam opening and closing. A
hunk had been chewed out of one side of the rim, from which a
metal-looking froth issued. After a 20-minute rest, it started
pulsating again, and grew very bright except where it was hurt. It
tried to rise up, but sank back again.
Suddenly the men saw a much larger animal, 30 ft across,
approaching. It settled on the smaller one with 4 sucker-like
tongues. Then it grew too dazzling to look at, and both rose
straight up and shot out of sight in a second, at an estimated speed
of 1000 miles an hour. They left behind an awful stench. The frothy
stuff the little creature had ’bled’ looked like fine aluminum wire,
and there was more frothy, wiry stuff in a 30-ft circle where the
big creature had been. This material finally melted in the sun. Don
Wood did not publicize this incident until 1959 as he doubted
whether anyone would believe him. He pointed out that the larger
animal would appear as a 30-ft light if seen at night
[19]
In August 1927 artist, philosopher, and explorer Nicholas Roerich
and other members of his expedition saw a huge, shiny, oval-shaped
object, one side of it glistening in the sun, high over the
Altai-Himalaya. They watched through field glasses as it flew south
at a great speed and then changed direction, before disappearing in
the intense blue sky. A Buddhist lama said that the object was a
sign of the protecting force of Shambhala, a legendary
spiritual kingdom referred to in eastern traditions
[20]
During the 1933 assault on Mt. Everest, climber Frank Smythe saw 2
curious-looking objects floating in the sky, resembling kite
balloons in shape, but one possessed what appeared to be squat,
underdeveloped wings, and the other a protuberance suggestive of a
beak. He was at an altitude of 27,600 ft and the objects were
hovering about 400 ft lower. They were very dark, and seemed to
pulsate slowly. Other Himalayan expeditions in the 1920s and 30s
reported seeing ’giant silver discs’ and ’a flying teakettle’.
’Experts’ dismissed these stories as hallucinations created by the
high altitude. Local people, on the other hand, said that such
aerial objects had always flown regular routes over the mountains,
and they regarded them as religious manifestations
[21]
The area around Darjeeling, in the Himalayan foothills in the
extreme northeast of India, appears to be an earthlights lair. One
evening near the beginning of the 20th century, some foreign
visitors were walking round a flower garden when they saw a light
like that of a lantern being carried down the path. It then flew
across to another part of the hill, taking 2 to 3 minutes to cover a
distance which would take an ordinary human at least half an hour.
They were told that it was one of the ’chota-admis’ (little men),
who lived underground and only came out at night, when they would
walk or fly about with lanterns. They would never let anyone get
near them and if anyone came upon them unexpectedly they would
disappear, and the person who saw them might become ill or even die
[22]. On several subsequent occasions the witnesses saw identical
lights flying across the hills.
Some years later the Tibetan Buddhist scholar Lama Anagarika Govinda
saw similar lightforms gliding through the hills while staying at
Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, some 50 km from Darjeeling. His
host, the Maharaja, told him that the lights were not of human
origin. They could float through the air at speeds no human could
attain, and the people of his country considered them to be a kind
of spirit
[23].
The 5-peaked Wu Tai Shan in northern China is a holy mountain to the
Tibetans, Mongolians, and Chinese alike. The peaks of Wu Tai and all
the surrounding temples are sacred to Manjushri, the bodhisattva of
wisdom and virtue. On the southernmost peak, a tower was built
specifically to observe the ’bodhisattva lights’, which always
materialized between midnight and 2 am. In 1937 a party of European
visitors was allowed to view them. They saw innumerable fluffy balls
of orange-coloured fire moving serenely and majestically through
space, ’truly a fitting manifestation of divinity’
[24].
’Spooklights’ are frequently seen around Marfa in Texas. In March
1973, 2 geologists saw 2 lights moving rapidly towards the
northeast, almost at right angles to the road they were on. The
first light slowed down near the road, crossed it less than 1000 ft
in front of the car, only 3 or 4 ft off the ground, and continued to
the east where it seemed to merge with a third light. The second
light followed approximately the same path as the first but more
slowly. The men tried to sneak up on it in the car with the lights
out, but it veered away. It hovered in the middle of the road, and
the men had the impression that it knew exactly where they were and
was daring them to chase it. The intensity of the light decreased as
it slowed down and hovered in one spot. It was about half the size
of a basketball and the colour of an incandescent light bulb. After
about 30 seconds it moved off to the east to join the other lights,
then they all vanished
[25].
In northeastern Oklahoma there are frequent sightings of luminous
phenomena known as the Tri-State or Hornet spooklight. Some of these
lights have been shown to be refracted car headlights, but many
remain unexplained. On one occasion 10 to 15 people were observing
the Tri-State light when it suddenly appeared about 30 ft away in
the middle of the road. It was about the size of a basketball,
orange-yellow in colour, throbbing and slowly rolling along the
ground. The awestruck onlookers remained extremely quiet, not
wanting to frighten it. Suddenly some cars behind them began to
crunch the gravel in the road, trying to get a better view. The
light reacted by rising up to about 10 ft above the ground, split
into 2 sections, and shot into the woods in both directions at once
[26].
On 29 July 1947, 5 weeks after his famous sighting that ushered in
the modern UFO epoch, Kenneth Arnold had a second UFO sighting. He
was descending into La Grande, Oregon, to refuel his plane, when he
was confronted by ’a flock of what looked like ducks’, except that
they were brassy-coloured and 3 to 5 ft across. There were several
dozen of them, heading straight for him, but eventually they swerved
away. When he dived into the cluster, they soared away leaving him
standing. In 1952 Arnold saw the UFOs again and took a movie of
them. Two flew underneath him at Mount Lassen; one appeared solid
but the pine trees could be seen through the other. He came to the
conclusion that many flying saucers were living creatures rather
than nuts-and-bolts spaceships
[27]. The US Air Force was aware that
some of the luminous UFOs that buzzed its aircraft at high altitudes
were observed to pulsate, and in April 1949 it issued a public
announcement mentioning the hypothesis that some of these objects
could be strange animals.
One summer morning in 1975 a New York science teacher was about to
get into his car when he saw a dark cloud, the size of a basketball,
hovering above his house. The cloud floated back and forth, changing
in shape from a small globular mass to a larger ovoid and finally
assuming a dark, multicurved, vaporous form, about 6 ft high and 1.5
ft wide. The man continued to watch in disbelief as events took an
even stranger turn. The cloud seemed to inhale, pursed its ’lips’,
and directed a stream of water towards him and the car, soaking
both. After a minute the spray stopped, and the cloud vanished
instantly. A pH test later confirmed that the precipitation was
simply water. This event sounds like the prank of a mischievous
elemental
[28]
In the spring of 1951 US soldiers were mounting an attack on a
Korean village when a glowing, disc-shaped UFO approached them. A
private fired at it with armour-piercing bullets and heard the sound
of metal hitting metal. The object ’went wild’ and began to move
erratically and flash its light off and on. The men then heard a
sound like the revving of a generator, and were swept by some form
of a ray, producing a burning, tingling sensation. 3 days later they
had to be evacuated by ambulance as they were too weak to walk
[29].
Bullets hitting UFOs, and also humanoid beings, are often reported
to sound as if they are hitting metal -- but this could mean that
physicalized etheric matter can assume properties like those of
metal rather than flesh. The ’mica-like’ body and ’wiry froth’
associated with the creatures seen by Don Wood on Flat Mesa seem to
support this idea.
In mid-1964 a ’metallic’ lifeform began appearing in Rio Vista,
California. Reports described it as cigar-shaped, about 5 ft in
diameter and 12 to 15 ft long. It glowed a soft red and moved
silently. On 22 September 1965, 300 to 400 persons stood in the dark
on a hilltop around a water tower where the object was generally
observed. It appeared and was seen hovering or moving slowly a
couple of hundred feet above the treetops or the top of the water
tower. Boys with .22 rifles shot at the object one night, and the
bullets made a metallic ’twang’ and caused the object to flare up
bright red for a second
[30].
’Saucer nests’ have been reported in Northern Queensland, Australia.
One morning in January 1966, a farmer near Tully was driving a
tractor near a lagoon. He was surprised to see a large, disc-shaped
object suddenly ascend from the water reeds 25 yards away. It rose
to an altitude of about 60 ft, then tilted a little to one side and
vanished speedily to the southwest. In the reeds the farmer found a
circular, flattened area, about 30 ft in diameter, within an
otherwise undisturbed, dense reed growth. The flattened stems were radially distributed in an anticlockwise manner. The reeds had been
torn free of the bottom so that the whole mass was floating on the
surface of the water. By the evening, the upper surfaces of the
flattened reeds had turned brown. Other nests were subsequently
found in the same area, and have also been reported in other parts
of the world
[31].
The anticlockwise flattening of the reeds is significant, as
evidence of anticlockwise, energetic motion around discoid UFOs is
found in numerous incidents. A typhoon involves an anticlockwise
motion and levitates millions of tons of water as it crosses the
ocean. Trevor Constable believes that UFOs which levitate themselves
make use of the same etheric or orgone energy. The high orgonotic
potential associated with the Tully creatures withdraws the orgone
charge in the reeds under them and pulls them free of the bottom.
The browning of the upper edge of the flattened reeds could be
caused by the whirling plasma around the creatures.
The Queensland UFO nests seem far more like a nesting area for
living creatures than a base for space beings. The nesting of UFOs
on water amid the reeds is reminiscent of living organisms that fly,
such as geese and ducks. The object taking flight when a noisy
tractor approached is reminiscent of startled wildfowl. In the same
area of Queensland, a discoidal UFO was observed pacing an airliner
at high altitude. UFOs have similarly paced airliners, bombers, and
jet fighters all over the world. Seabirds characteristically pace
ships at sea, often accompanying them for hundreds of miles.
In January 1958 a 21-year-old Australian was chased by a dome-shaped
object that emitted a narrow light beam toward the ground. He was so
frightened that he drove home on a half-flat tyre, followed for 5 km
by the object, which was about 50 m away and 10 m above the ground.
The object caused radio interference, and overtook his car at over
100 km per hour [32]. Beams of light emerging from UFOs are often
reported and need not mean that they are aerial vehicles; instead, a
lifeform could be ’probing’ the observers.
Flashing lights, too, need not imply a structured flying machine. In
October 1973 a law-enforcement officer in Mississippi saw a glowing
top-shaped object with flashing lights that floated slowly through
the air. It hovered over an electrical power installation and
emitted hissing torchlike jets. The man followed it for several
miles, then it came closer and his engine, car lights, and radio
failed. The object departed, and after about 15 minutes the car and
radio resumed operation. The officer again caught up with the object
and watched it slowly turn upside down, and then abruptly vanish
[33]. Many
UFOs appear to be attracted to power plants, power lines,
radio transmitters, blast furnaces, street lights, and similar
energy sources
[34].
In 1982, while driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Keith
Boyer and a friend sighted a ball consisting of a series of lights,
merging and rotating into each other, surrounded by a fuzzy mist. It
was about 50 ft across and looked like a living entity. The object
had been hovering about 100 ft off the ground, but then began to
descend, and became uncomfortably bright -- a mixture of deep-rich
blues, greens, yellows, and reds. At some point a beam of light from
the object struck their car. After a blackout, Boyer remembers that
he was no longer driving; his friend was. And they were ’babbling’
to each other in some unknown tongue. After 10 to 15 minutes the
strange mental state gradually wore off
[35].
The rectangular UFOs or chupas seen in northeastern Brazil, which
often emit beams of light and incapacitate people, could also be
creatures rather than craft. On several occasions the local
population has chased chupas away by shouting and banging pans
[36]!
An American couple once saw a luminous UFO resting above a small
grove of trees at Lone Pine, California. The lighted area kept
expanding to cover most of the entity and then contracting, with a
period that matched the observers’ respiration rate. The lightform
then tilted and suddenly sped off without a sound, moving a distance
of 10 miles in a matter of seconds. As it did so the trees leaned
with it instead of being blasted backward. The couple drove out into
the desert and stayed beneath the object for an hour and a half. A
sort of heavy fog rolled out of openings in its sides. They felt
that it was looking at them, and were suffused with a feeling of
reverence, beauty, and humility. When the man prepared to take a
photograph, the entity sped to the right, then shot straight up
[37].
There are several reports of UFOs apparently responding directly to
the thoughts of observers. In 1950 a US Navy plane operating over
Korea was followed by 2 objects travelling at up to 1200 miles per
hour. They had a silvered-mirror appearance and a surrounding red
glow. The radar on the plane indicated 1.5 miles between the objects
and the planes when the objects suddenly seemed to halt, back up,
and begin a jittering motion. At the moment when the guns were
readied to fire, the radar went haywire. An attempt was made to call
the aircraft carrier on different frequencies, but each time the
channel was blocked by a strange buzzing noise
[38].
There are also many reports of UFOs mimicking human behaviour. In
several cases, high-powered lights have been flashed at luminous
UFOs, and the latter have blinked back in similar sequences. At
10.30 pm on 14 April 1991, a young woman in Oklahoma saw a very
large silver object, with a red light and ’antenna’ on top and
’windows’ and rows of blue and red lights. She was extremely happy
but at the same time crying and frightened. She began jumping and
for some reason jumped 2 steps to the left. The object responded by
jerking 2 ’steps’ to her left. She thought this was wonderful so she
jumped 2 steps to the right, and the object responded by moving to
the right. This was repeated several times
[39]. Clearly, such
antics are not what we would expect of extraterrestrial spacecraft!
References
1. William R. Corliss (comp.), Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in
Nature, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 2001, pp. 278-330.
2.
Ibid., pp. 82-163.
3. Ibid., pp. 185-9.
4. William R. Corliss (ed.), Science Frontiers, no. 141, 2002, pp.
3-4.
5. Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature, pp. 331-84.
6. Paul Devereux, Earth Lights Revelation: UFOs and mystery lightform phenomena, London: Blandford, 1990; Paul Devereux,
’Earth
Lights & UFOs’,
http://www.acemake.com/PaulDevereux/earthlights.html.
7. Earth Lights Revelation, pp. 113-4, plate 15.
8. Ibid., pp. 120-1, plate 20.
9. Ibid., p. 204.
10. Michael Persinger, ’The UFO experience: a normal correlate of
human brain function’, in: David M. Jacobs (ed.), UFOs and
Abductions: Challenging the borders of knowledge, Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, 2000, pp. 262-302.
11. Kenneth Ring, The Omega Project: Near-death experiences, UFO
encounters, and mind at large, New York: William Morrow and Company,
1992, p. 216.
12. Trevor J. Constable, The Cosmic Pulse of Life: The revolutionary
biological power behind UFOs, Garberville, CA: Borderland Sciences
Research Foundation, 2nd ed., 1990.
13. Ibid., pp. 397-8.
14. Ibid., p. 419.
15. Ibid., p. 448.
16. Ibid., pp. 9-11.
17. Ibid., pp. 118-9.
18. Jerome Clark, Unexplained! 347 strange sightings, incredible
occurrences, and puzzling physical phenomena, Detroit, MI: Visible
Ink Press, 1993, pp. 78-9.
19. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 108-11.
20. Nicholas Roerich, Altai-Himalaya: A travel diary, Kempton, IL:
Adventures Unlimited Press, 2001 (1929), pp. 361-2; Nicholas Roerich,
Shambhala: In search of the new era, Rochester, VE: Inner
Traditions, 1990 (1930), pp. 6-7, 244.
21. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 105-7; John A. Keel, Strange
Creatures from Time and Space, London: Sphere, 1979, pp. 66-7.
22. Earth Lights Revelation, pp. 147-8.
23. Ibid., p. 148.
24. Ibid., p. 155;
http://www.sacredsites.com.
25. Earth Lights Revelation, pp. 117-8.
26. Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature, p. 303.
27. Dennis Stacy and Patrick Huyghe, The Field Guide to UFOs: A
classification of various unidentified aerial phenomena based on
eyewitness accounts, New York: Quill, 2000, p. 10.
28. Unexplained!, p. 69.
29. Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities: Ancient insights into
modern UFO phenomena, Alachua, FL: Govardhan Hill Publishing, 2nd
ed., 1995, pp. 325-6.
30. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 116-7.
31. Ibid., pp. 359-65.
32. Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, folklore, and
parallel worlds, Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1993 (1969), p.
270.
33. Alien Identities, pp. 218-9.
34. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 445, 447.
35. The Field Guide to UFOs, pp. 130-1.
36. Jacques Vallee, Confrontations: A scientist’s search for alien
contact, London: Souvenir Press, 1990, p. 224.
37. Brad Steiger, Mysteries of Time and Space, West Chester, PA:
Whitford Press, 1989, pp. 124-6.
38. Alien Identities, pp. 89-90, 100-1.
39. Charles F. Emmons, At the Threshold: UFOs, science and the new
age, Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press, 1997, pp. 8-9.
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