The UFO Rogues Gallery Takes Over America
Skeptoid MediaThis is going to be a rare 2-part episode, which I'm really bummed about because the whole point of it is to lay bare the through-line that goes from the 1960s all the way to the present day — the same people, making the same claims about UFOs, and only now in the past few years getting the huge amount of public attention. That's what's really critical to understand: You've seen these videos from the US Navy allegedly showing UFOs and any reasonable person would assume that something new and exciting has been observed. But it hasn't. This isn't new news, it's literally 50-year-old news. However, once I got the episode written out, it was simply too long to squeeze into a Skeptoid episode. So I'm going to ask you bear with me and sit on the edge of your seat for the full one-week span between episode releases. Today we're going to pick up the story way back in the 1960s when it truly began, and next week we'll bring it all the way to the present day.
The spiritual leaders of this rogues gallery, as it were, are former astronomers and UFOlogists Jacques Vallée and the late J. Allen Hynek. They became friends in the 1960s over their shared interest in the metaphysical, specifically an idea they both shared based on their observation that poltergeists and UFOs both had a habit of appearing and disappearing. Their belief was poltergeists and UFOs — explicitly referring to alien spacecraft in this case — were the same manifestation of inter-dimensional beings. Together with their young protegé, the devout Scientologist Hal Puthoff, Vallée jokingly referred to the little group as the Invisible College, a reference to their special knowledge unseen by others.
Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ufo-rogues-gallery-takes-over-america-part-1/id203844864?i=1000527995064
Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ufo-rogues-gallery-takes-over-america-part-2/id203844864?i=1000528740316
= new reply since forum marked as read
Neither wrote or said publicly they knew what UFOs are. As they don’t have one to study, they study UFO Reports. Dr. Vallee said the phenomenon is real, but more complex than simple visitors from outer space.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as “the flying saucer phenomenon.” I think it has three components and we have to deal with them in different ways.
First, there is a physical object. That may be a flying saucer or it may be a projection or it may be something entirely different. All we know about it is that it represents a tremendous quantity of electromagnetic energy in a small volume. I say that based upon the evidence gathered from traces, from electromagnetic and radar detection and from perturbations of the electromagnetic fields such as Dr. Claude Poher, the French space scientist, has recorded.
Second, there’s the phenomenon the witnesses perceive. What they tell us is that they’ve seen a flying saucer. Now they may have seen that or they may have seen an image of a flying saucer or they may have hallucinated it under the influence of microwave radiation, or any of a number of things may have happened. The fact is that the witnesses were exposed to an event and as a result they experienced a highly complex alteration of perception which caused them to describe the object or objects that figure in their testimony.
Beyond those — the physical phenomenon and the perception phenomenon — we have the third component, the social phenomenon. That’s what happens when the reports are submitted to society and enter the cultural arena. That’s the part which I find most interesting."
SOURCE: http://integralnews.blogspot.com/2008/01/jacques-vallees-integral-approach-to.html
As for the professional skeptics’ organized attacks on Vallee:
Skeptics and Their Arguments
"Cut through the ridicule and search for factual information in most of the skeptical commentary and one is usually left with nothing. This is not surprising. After all, how can one rationally object to a call for scientific examination of evidence?" Bernhard Haisch, Ph.D., "Be Skeptical of the Skeptics" "Skeptics, who flatly deny the existence of any unexplained phenomenon in the name of 'rationalism,' are among the primary contributors to the rejection of science by the public. People are not stupid and they know very well when they have seen something out of the ordinary. When a so-called expert tells them the object must have been the moon or a mirage, he is really teaching the public that science is impotent or unwilling to pursue the study of the unknown." (Vallee, J., Confrontations, New York: Ballantine Books, 1990.) Dr. Jacques Vallee, astrophysicist, computer scientist and world renowned researcher and author on UFOs and paranormal phenomena. He worked closely with Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Commenting on the need for science "to search beyond the superficial appearances of reality"
Continues w/interview…
http://ufoevidence.org/topics/SkepticsAnalysis.htm
Character assassination is un-scientific and un-Democratic.
