Elusive UFOs - a Solid Matter E-Book

Jaakko Närvä

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 458

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

This is a book dealing with the fundamental question of ufology. Are UFOs real or not? This problem has been studied for decades, and it is still severely debated by ufologists and skeptics. Most academics are skeptics. What is the right answer? This book goes systematically and thoroughly through the essential arguments for and against UFOs and enlightens the scientific grounds of ufology.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1.

Relevant concepts

2.

Basic history of UFO phenomena and the UFO controversy

2.1 Pre-UFOs

2.2 Official UFO Studies

2.3 UFO contacts and abductions

2.4 Ufological conspiracy claims

3.

Skeptical reasoning

3.1 There is no reason to think that UFOs and humanoids are real, on the contrary

3.2 UFO and humanoid sightings and moderate ufology as modern religiosity

3.3 The psychology of UFO and humanoid sightings

3.4 There is no valid evidence for the reality of UFO contacts and abductions

3.5 The religious background of UFO contacts, abductions and esoteric ufology

3.6 Accounts of UFO contacts and abductions have drawn heavily from science fiction

3.7 The psychology of UFO abductions and contacts

3.8 UFO conspiracy theories are based on mythical and fictive accounts

4.

Ufological analysis

4.1 There is no reason not to think that UFOs are real, on the contrary

4.2 Concerning the scrutiny of UFO sightings

4.3 Misinterpretations as a ufological problem

4.4 In theory, how to rule out ordinary misinterpretations

4.5 Refuting strongly exaggerated misinterpretations and other conventional explanations

4.6 Analysis of actual enigmatic UFO sightings – they seem to refer to real UFOs

4.7 Should any other claimed UFO phenomena than UFOs be taken seriously?

5.

UFOs as a scientific challenge

Bibliography

PREFACE

For a long time now, I have been fascinated by the fundamental ufological question: do UFOs really exist or not? To me, the subject has not been easy, instead, I have experienced a lot of mixed feelings. Are UFOs objective phenomena or not, has been an intriguing challenge for me. I have found the evidence compelling, yet problematic, that is, incoherent and not profound enough. As I see it, the question of whether UFOs are real or not, continues to be scientifically solid – although UFOs seem very elusive. I have tried to understand the big picture pertaining to this question: the relevant natural scientific, psychological and cultural scientific, skeptical and ufological evidence, and what can we infer from this multilayered, complex package. In this book, I go through the relevant information from the point of view of the problem of the objectivity of UFOs and present the outcome. I will show you, with clarity and profoundness, after deep and critical analysis, that UFOs do seem to exist and that ufology should be taken very seriously in the academic world.

A huge and grateful thank you to my family and many friends and colleagues who, in various ways, for example by reading and commenting the manuscript, helped me to write this book!

Jaakko Närvä

INTRODUCTION

UFOS – A SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC QUESTION

In the history of science, fear of authority and the desire not to shake the foundations of existing realities have driven people to oppose new inventions and ideas. Science has been known to be conservative and slow to adopt new, particularly groundbreaking inventions. One of the most famous examples is the opposition to the sun-centered model by Nicholaus Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton in the 16th and 17th centuries. Bruno, a Catholic priest and a doctor in theology was burned at stake for heresy on February 17th, 1600. The fate of the Italian astronomer and physicist Galilei was not quite as harsh, but he was sentenced to a lifelong house arrest. The Catholic Church did not accept the sun-centered model until the 1820’s.

People are not burned at stake or condemned to house arrest for making scientific discoveries in the Western world anymore. However, science can be conservative and slow particularly in adopting evidence of the factuality of unlikely assertions. In a way, this is of course how it should be. Science is all about making sure we get information that is as accurate as possible and eliminating the possibility that we could be fooled by nature or ourselves. The more unlikely the assertion the harder and better the evidence must be. Systematic and strict questioning of the assumptions, methods and research results, but also creativity in coming up with methodology and experimentation, are equally essential for providing proof, and time-consuming. People have sometimes noticed and understood the existence of a phenomenon before science has paid any attention to it, let alone substantiated its existence. As an example, folklore has been aware of ball lightnings and meteorites long before they were scientifically accepted as facts. In some fields of natural science, the cumulation of knowledge has depended on laypeople’s observations.

For almost 75 years now, UFOs have been a part of our awareness and a challenge both for the natural scientific and technical scientific community and for our entire society. The so-called modern UFO era is generally considered to have begun with Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, after which the term “flying saucer” was coined. Arnold was a 32-year-old successful businessman, an experienced private pilot, a deputy sheriff, and a search and rescue pilot of Idaho. On June 24th 1947, Arnold was on a business trip combined with a search for a missing airplane. While flying near Mount Rainier, Washington, he saw nine flat, somewhat crescent shaped objects amidst the mountain tops. Having discussed his sighting at Pendleton with other pilots, Arnold set out for the local FBI bureau, but it was already closed. He then headed to the East Oregonian newspaper. Arnold told Nolan Skiff, the editor of the “End of the Week” column, about his sighting, describing how the objects “flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water”. Another reporter, Bill Bequette, sent a dispatch out on the Associated Press wire on June 25th. He used the expression “saucer-like objects”, from which a headline writer came up with the moniker “flying saucer”. The news spread nationwide the very next day. In July the same year the US Air Force started its UFO research program. According to a survey conducted on August 19th, 1947, ninety per cent of US citizens had heard of “flying saucers”.

Observations of flying objects resembling UFOs have been clearly documented since the late 1800s, then called “airships” and now known as “mystery airships” or “phantom airships” (see section 3.5). After this, from about the 1910s till 1945, “ghost airplanes“ (ghost fliers; foo-fighters) were spotted in North American and European skies. In 1946 the term “ghost rockets” was used especially in Scandinavia. But it was Arnold’s sighting that introduced the idea of these incredible flying machines to the mainstream popular culture. The term “saucer”, however, is known to have been used in connection to strange, ethereal objects already on January 24th, 1878. This was when John Martin, a Texan farmer, described his sighting of a flat silvery celestial body travelling with amazing speed using the term “saucer”.

After the beginning of the modern UFO era, the US Air Force had an official UFO research project for more than twenty years. General Douglas McArthur referred to UFOs and aliens in his speech at West Point Military Academy on May 12th, 1962. Probably the single most significant UFO study, the Condon Report (1969), carried out by the University of Colorado (Boulder) and funded by the US Air Force, alludes to the existence of UFOs. The UFO question has been discussed both in the US Congress and the British Parliament. In the early 1990s, both Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan made it publicly known that a threat from outer space could force the Soviet Union and USA into cooperation. Several notable scientists have taken a stand on UFOs. For example, Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the planetoid Pluto, reported seeing unidentified objects flying in a formation on an August evening in 1949. An important event in more recent modern ufology was the opening of the French State ufology archives in the spring of 2007, after which Great Britain for example also started publishing its UFO reports. UFOs are inseparably related to the question of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and notions of how dramatic an effect the affirmation of alien intelligence would have on science and our society as a whole.

UFO experiences and interest in UFOs are a significant part of our collective awareness and international culture. The number of people who believe UFOs exist is in hundreds of millions, and tens of millions have reported sightings. In addition to North America and Europe, ufology exists for example in South America, Australia, China and Japan. The use of UFOs in entertainment industry, movies, TV and cartoons brings them to everyone’s living rooms. Popular movies exploiting the UFO theme include for example Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1979), E.T. (1982), Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997), Signs (2002), Paul (2011), Iron Sky (2012) and Independence Day 2 (2016). The UFO tradition, which was originally an American phenomenon, is still very much alive in North America.

I myself have also seen a very UFO-like celestial object which first split into two and then merged back to one again. This happened in the spring of 1997. Here is a brief description of what I saw. I am not suggesting my experience is proof of the existence of such phenomena, because it has not been researched (it will remain my personal sighting), but I give it here just as an illustrative example. Let’s just say that I have not found an ordinary explanation for my observation.

I saw a strange object in front of a cloud cover, it was small but yet clearly bigger than a dot. It was symmetric and elliptical, pointy at the ends and clearly defined, but it seemed two-dimensional. The object had no parts or protrusions that would have made it seem three-dimensional, and I could not make out whether the surface was curved. The object stood stationary and lopsided in the sky. It seemed to be reflecting the sun’s reddish orange glow (or at least it was the same color as the clouds colored by the setting sun). The object disappeared suddenly, reappeared in a few seconds in another place in the sky, far from the original location – or else a similar object showed up there – lopsided again, but this time it appeared to be slightly bigger. Then its edges started to soften and it divided very smoothly into two balls, which diminished until they disappeared. To my amazement, the balls, with soft edges, reappeared in the same place where they had just disappeared from and merged back into the sharply outlined ellipse.

I immediately thought of the corresponding UFO descriptions I had read about. Regardless of the fact that the topic was quite familiar to me and that I had been interested in UFOs for as long as I can remember, the whole experience was every bit as strange and confusing as it is to any other UFO witness. Although the impression of the object was very real, at the same time the whole experience was very hard to believe and difficult to handle.

I have been studying the UFO subject now for more than two decades. In December 2008, I defended my PhD thesis at the University of Helsinki on Ufology and UFO experiences as Religious Phenomena, after which I continued as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of World Cultures. In this book I will set aside my official academic approach. Instead of exploring strictly the religious aspect of UFOs, my overall viewpoint is ufological. I will be delving into the question of the existence of UFOs and the validity of ufology as a science. Do UFOs really exist and if we think they do, why do we think that?

Has this not been researched enough already? Some are convinced; others are not. Some say there is strong evidence for the existence of UFOs; others say there is nothing to support the claim. Also, is there anything new or substantial to be said about the existence of UFOs? It is indeed possible that nothing novel can be said without innovative, thorough and large-scale examination of the subject.

My intention here is to take a step back, as it were. Many are of the opinion that all kinds of UFO phenomena are without question real and that UFOs and the creatures travelling in them come from other dimensions. They are sure about the intentions of these creatures and about how they operate. They feel that certain official organizations are purposefully withholding dramatic UFO information. I feel that the fundamental problem in ufology continues to be the reasoning concerning the existence of the UFOs. I feel that the evidence on the existence of UFOs has not been itemized and presented systematically enough and in correct relation to the wide array of arguments about them. My intention in this book is to systematically demonstrate why the question of the existence of UFOs should have academic significance. I feel this is important because ufology has been neglected by the majority of the academic community. With my contribution, I strive to ensure that this remarkable and perhaps even paradigmatic phenomenon gets the academic attention it deserves.

Despite being immensely interesting and scientifically noteworthy, the subject of UFOs is taboo-like and it is widely avoided in the academic community. UFO witnesses and activists are still often unduly frowned upon. It is not at all uncommon that most UFO witnesses tell only their families and close friends about their experiences. Sometimes the witness tells no one or only speaks about the incident a long time after it happened. UFO witnesses are afraid of being ridiculed and stigmatized. The fear is not unfounded; snicker is a common reaction to UFO accounts. The burden of the witnesses is made heavier by the fact that the experiences often confuse and overwhelm them too, regardless of whether the experiences are true or not.

The taboo-like quality of the subject of UFOs is due to various reasons, some of which are historical. In the 1950s, the US Air Force started a campaign to lessen the public interest in UFOs because of security issues. Among other things, the Air Force was afraid that the enemy might exploit the general UFO enthusiasm in psychological warfare. As sociologist Joseph A. Blake has stated, the scientific community followed this policy and did not take UFOs as a serious scientific question. Most ufologists in the 1950s were laypeople which lowered its academic prestige even more, and the chorus of snappy skeptics with sarcastic refrains was enough to make many wary of free expression in this matter. The “flying saucers” were a frequent source of ridicule and snide remarks in the press. One reason for this aversion of UFOs might also be an instinctive fear reaction caused by the off-chance that there are species more intelligent and physically more powerful than we are. I think that another reason why the academia is not interested in UFOs is that they are often linked to even stranger and more unlikely occurrences, such as UFO contacts and abductions, conspiracy theories, all sorts of supernatural phenomena and horror stories. This in addition to the fact that discussion of potentially revolutionary phenomena is always difficult in science.

Before delving into the subject at hand, let us clarify the structure and progress of the book, and also what I am basing this information on. The idea is simple. Interesting arguments for and against the existence of UFOs have been presented. I will first offer the reader key information about the history of the UFO phenomena and the UFO research (chapter 2). Second, I will present the skeptical reasoning, which argues for the non-existence of UFOs (chapter 3). The rationale behind the skeptical arguments is manifold. Third, after the skeptical arguments I will reason from ufological perspective, demonstrating why the possibility of the existence of UFOs should be taken seriously by the science community (chapter 4). Here I will show you why I feel, despite of all the skeptical reasoning, that there are well-founded arguments for the existence of UFOs. I find it important to go through the skeptical arguments first, so my ufological defense in favor of the existence of UFOs would be as successful as possible. In other words, the ufological argumentation I will present after the skeptical reasoning necessitates that the skeptical counter-arguments are acknowledged and taken into account when necessary. The book ends with the conclusions of the argumentation. If the reader is only interested in the justifications for the existence of UFOs, he can go straight to the ufological argumentation that begins in chapter 4. The ufological chapter is a coherent whole in itself, although the preceding chapters lay the groundwork for a broader understanding of the UFO question.

This is meant to be a book for a popular audience (albeit scientifically sustainable), so there are no references in the text. At the end you will find a bibliography of the material I have used for the book and what I have used to evaluate various arguments and information. However, the reader may, and rightly so, at some point find himself wondering what I base my information on. I have relied on sources I have found to be source-critically reliable. I have critically studied the UFO literature I have used, ufological, skeptical as well as anthropological. My criteria for the reliability of a source have been whether the text is formally academic or seems analytical and thorough, and also what the author’s education and expertise is on the subject of UFOs. I have also done comparative analyses on various sources. Determining the truth value of the information and the validity of details in the UFO literature has by no means been easy. I do, however, promise after years of studying this subject that the information presented in this book is predominantly and essentially accurate. Even though I have not listed the specific bibliographical entries, I have not written this book whimsically, but placed great value on the integrity and veracity of the information given here.

CHAPTER 1

RELEVANT CONCEPTS

UFOs themselves are the starting point of ufological research, but the UFO phenomenon or phenomena are also often mentioned. Joseph Allen Hynek, an astrophysicist and perhaps the most significant researcher in the history of ufology, defined a UFO phenomenon as the body of reports of actual UFO and humanoid sightings (The UFO Experience, 1972). Hynek drew a distinction between the so-called distant sightings and close encounters. In a close encounter the UFO is seen as a rather large object. It is often described as being the size of a car seen from the distance of hundred meters (330 feet) or even much larger. If you feel a hundred meters is a long way and that a car cannot be seen very clearly from that distance, try it yourself. If the circumstances are otherwise optimal enough, you will find the car is quite visible and many times the size of a dot. In reports about close encounters humanoids are sometimes also described in detail. The average distance to UFOs and/or humanoids in close encounter experiences is typically less than 150 meters (500 feet) according to J. Allen Hynek.

Hynek acted as an adviser for the US Air Force’s UFO project for approximately two decades. The Air Force hired Hynek because they needed an astronomer to identify which UFO sightings were in fact astronomical phenomena. The investigation was then focused on Wright-Patterson in Daytona, where the Technical Intelligence Division was located (TID’s name was later changed to Air Technical Intelligence Center, ATIC, and it is now known as the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, NASIC). At the time Hynek was the head of the McMill Observatory at University of Ohio.

The definitions of ufologists concerning the UFO phenomenon vary depending on what kind of subjects they find ufologically relevant. Hynek for example did not include narratives of esoteric UFO contacts in his definition of the UFO phenomenon, although he did consider encounters with individual humanoids quite possible. Generally speaking at least the following research subjects have been included in the category of UFO phenomena: UFOs, humanoids, Men in Black, UFO contacts, abductions, cattle mutilations and crop circles. It must be said that in the field of Cultural Studies the terms UFO phenomenon or phenomena often refer not only to the research topics of ufology, but also to ufology itself, as well as to many kinds of UFO-themed social and cultural materials.

What exactly is meant by the term UFO? It is an acronym for Unidentified Flying Object. It is not known who came up with the term and abbreviation. A US Air Force UFO report dated at the start of 1949 uses the term Unidentified Aerial Object. According to the aviation and space historian Curtis Peebles of Smithsonian Institute, the acronym UFO was first used in the first part of Sydney Shalett’s article in the Saturday Evening Post titled “What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers”, which was published on April 30th, 1949, during the Air Force’s UFO study called Project Grudge. The second part came out on May 7th the same year. Shalett was allowed to acquaint himself with the investigations of the Air Force because Project Grudge wanted to dispel the general public’s concerns about UFOs. Suspicion that officials were hiding information about the existence and nature of the flying saucers had started to surface around this time. The term Unidentified Flying Object was further used in the Air Force’s 600-page report dated December 1949. So it may be that Shalett came up with the term UFO. A flying object that can be identified is known in ufology as an IFO (Identified Flying Object).

In the aforementioned closing report of the UFO investigation he headed at the Colorado University (see Introduction), the renowned physicist Edward U. Condon defined a UFO as an airborne or landed object thought to be capable of flight that an eye-witness is not able to identify and therefore reports it to, for example, government officials. I will speak about the so-called Condon Committee more later on. In his book The UFO Experience, Hynek defined a UFO as an object seen in the sky or on the ground, or a light phenomenon that cannot be explained in a normal way.

Because scientists are able to identify most objects the witnesses cannot recognize, a UFO (a literally unidentified flying object) is actually according to Condon most often an IFO, an identified flying object or article. Instead, for Hynek a UFO really is a UFO in the sense that it cannot be identified even by study. Like Hynek I think IFOs, identified flying objects, are not as such ufologically interesting and therefore cannot be included in the definition of a UFO. Planet Venus or helicopters that are not immediately recognizable as such are examples of phenomena that should be separated from the research subjects of ufology. Ufology is not interested in birds or rocket launches. Besides, IFOs already have their own specific sciences, such as ornithology, astronomy and meteorology.

Both Condon and Hynek in their definitions refer to a device capable of flight. It is true that just any artefact seen in the sky or moving there cannot be considered a UFO, no matter how unusual the phenomenon is. Ufologists would not call a kicksled flying across the skies for no apparent reason a UFO, but might instead assume someone is flying the sled by psychokinesis. And if they did, I would say definitions that encompass all possible strange phenomena are in desperate need of specification. Also, it is not sensible to limit the definition to aircrafts. Ufologists do not always consider UFOs as crewed aircrafts, but also use the term to refer to various small flying devices that appear remotely controlled (if they are described as having super-technological features). Therefore we should speak of flying devices.

UFOs are flying devices which cannot be explained in a normal way. More specifically, they have paranormal characteristics: in ufology, UFOs are typically considered as some sort of super-technological flying machines, often sphere-like aircrafts, with paranormal or extraordinary abilities that surpass the known laws of aerodynamics or physics. A paranormal phenomenon can be said to be something that is contrary to everyday experience and that cannot be explained without making considerable alterations to existing science. In other words, paranormal refers to counterintuitive phenomena that are currently unexplainable to us but that will, when understood, transform physics as we know it. In the same vein, the general public also perceives them as flying saucers. UFOs, or their behavior, are not basically something we could call logical.

The witnesses describe UFOs flying without wings or any sort of visible power source, such as propellers, a rotor or a jet engine. They are reported to perform aerodynamically impossible, wondrous stunts, and be capable of unbelievable maneuvers, such as sharp turns at high speed. They appear and disappear suddenly, as if moving from one place to another in a blink of an eye (although friction should burn fast flying items in the atmosphere and the G-force at great speeds should crush not only the vessels but also their passengers). UFOs do even more incredible, surrealistic tricks: they change size and shape from solid to blurry and split into two or merge into one. Strange or surreal things such as an eerie feeling before the experience, sudden complete silence, or that only some of the witnesses see the UFO, are sometimes connected to UFO sightings.

This concept stems from the history of the UFO tradition, where as early as in the 19th century the pre-UFOs were described as super-technological aircrafts. The descriptions have always followed the development of aeronautics of the time, but the same, aerodynamicsdefying character has remained constant (see section 2.1).

Let it be noted that a UFO cannot be defined as a strange light ball, even if UFOs often are referred to as such. Not all strange spherical lights, such as possible natural electric phenomena, are interesting to ufologists. They need to have some sort of reference to supertechnological flying devices. But sightings of weird light balls are of course a key subject matter for ufological research. As mentioned above, for ufologists, it is essential to find out if actual paranormal flying devices are behind the reports of strange spherical lights. The research subject and research data should not be confused as being one and the same. The subject is studied by means of the data.

The definitions of both Condon and Hynek state that a UFO is perceived, in other words it is an object that must somehow relate to perceptual experience or interpretation. This criterion is needed because a UFO is not just any extraordinary flying device found for instance in comics or fiction. It is a paranormal flying device or machine that is integrally related to perceptual experience, and its existence is considered plausible by both the observers and the ufologists.

This definition does not include assumptions about the origin of UFOs or their rationale. For example, these objects could perhaps be some high tech human products with tricks that appear magical, alien spacecrafts or, after all, misinterpretations of some common occurrences. In that case they would have simply been erroneously perceived as some sort of strange flying devices. In other words, I find that this definition is applicable to the meaning of the term UFO; it denotes something that has specific ufological significance and interest, whether UFOs actually exist or not.

The term humanoid means literally a human-like being. In connection to UFOs, it typically means smallish human-like creatures seen in the vicinity of a UFO, and who have most likely arrived on a UFO. The terms UFO-occupant and ufonaut have also been used. A humanoid is not the same as an alien. A ufologist, or anyone else for that matter, would not call just about anything a humanoid; Predator, the Klingons and Superman are extraterrestrial beings, but they would not be categorized as humanoids or UFO-creatures.

UFOs and humanoids are very closely linked together by today’s ufologists. During the 1950’s most ufologists found not only UFO contacts but also UFO landings and humanoids incredible. Ufologists striving for factual research could not concede to the idea of small creatures emerging from the UFOs. With the increase of humanoid reports, as well as certain notable humanoid incidents and a few significant books on humanoids, ufologists changed their attitude in the 1960s. According to the ufologist Charles Bowen, the term humanoid became widely used in ufology by the late 1960s.

MIB is an acronym for Men in Black, also sometimes known as strong-arm-agents. They are (usually) men associated with UFO phenomena who appear peculiar, look somehow unusual and dress in black clothes, typically suits. In classic accounts their facial features were described as Oriental or Indian, and they were said to drive black Cadillacs and big Sedans. Ufologists have assumed that the MIBs are US government agents who, by making trouble, intimidating and threatening people, try to silence UFO witnesses. Some have even thought the MIBs are aliens in disguise. This stems from the rather odd appearance of the MIBs and their often unconventional behavior. For example, their clothing has been described as abnormally clean and crinkle-free, and their hair uneven, as if it grew unusually fast. They have been reported to wear lipstick and to walk in a strange manner, gliding and swaying like their pelvis was attached to their upper body with ball joints, and their upper body and lower limbs were twisting in different directions.

UFO contacts are voluntary and active communions with benevolent and loving space creatures that are linked to UFOs and the UFO tradition in some way. The creatures do not have to arrive in a UFO, but they can for example make a telepathic connection, and still be interpreted as being part of UFO reality.

In UFO abductions, the humanoids in one way or another take the witness involuntarily somewhere – usually into a UFO. What is involuntary is not always obvious. The witness may for example follow the humanoids quite willingly, but may later make it understood that he was enchanted.

Folklorist Dr Thomas E. Bullard (1989, 153) has divided the “stereotypical” abduction accounts into maximum of eight episodes:

1. Capture. Strange beings seize and take the witness aboard a UFO.

2. Examination. The beings subject the witness to a physical and mental examination.

3. Conference. A conversation with the beings follows.

4. Tour. The beings show their captive around the ship.

5. Otherworldly Journey. The ship flies the witness to some strange and unearthly place.

6. Theophany. An encounter with a divine being occurs.

7. Return. At last the witness comes back to Earth, leaves the ship, and reenters normal life.

8. Aftermath. Physical, mental, and paranormal after effects continue in the wake of the abduction.

The capture episode has four parts of its own: (1) alien intrusion by a UFO or strange being, (2) entry into a zone of strangeness where physical laws begin to fail, (3) onset of the time lapse when the witness becomes in some way mentally impaired, and (4) actual procurement of the witness by the beings.

Bullard calls these stereotypical UFO abductions, but corresponding cases that adhere to Bullard’s model have also been called prototypical abductions. They could also be called ideal type abductions because Bullard’s model presents a simplified model of a full-length abduction, as if it were an ideal structure.

In practice, a prototypical abduction event often starts either from a bedroom or while the abductees are driving a car. Once inside the UFO, medical procedures are carried out and the abductee may even have intercourse with a humanoid. Often, the abductee and the leader of the humanoids have a conversation. The emotions of the abductee may vary greatly during the event: he may feel intense fear and pain, and on the other hand great gratitude and friendship towards the humanoids. The aliens control the abductees somehow, and they can for example remove their pain with a flick of the wrist. The abductees may get a tour of the space ship. After the event, the abductee may remember nothing or just parts of the experience. He may instead have strange symptoms, like scars or nightmares of the abduction.

If we take into account all kinds of experiences in which humanoids are said to take the witness with them by force, the characteristics of the experience may vary greatly. As the aforementioned definition of a UFO abduction already suggests, abductees are not for example always taken into a UFO. The prototypical abduction account is therefore a subordinate term for UFO abductions, albeit a very significant one, since it is highlighted in the literature and dominates the UFO abduction discourse and tradition. This is because the prototypical abductions are suspected to be or considered to represent interesting and real abduction experiences by many ufologists. These are not just vague stories with a lot of variation.

The term ufology may be used to refer to all research that takes the veracity of UFO phenomena or at least some of them somewhat seriously. One should separate the kind of ufology that I call moderate ufology (also called scientific, level-headed or serious ufology) from skeptical UFO investigations and from ufology which I call esoteric ufology. Official UFO research features skeptical conclusions and moderate ufology, but no clearly esoteric ufology under any circumstances (see section 2.2).

Moderate ufologists want to separate the scientifically interesting and challenging UFO material from the clearly imaginary material. This kind of separation effort took place already in the early 1950s when those who considered themselves serious ufologists differentiated between UFO sightings and the assertions of UFO contactees. Thus open-minded but yet seriously critical research is emphasized in moderate ufology. It aims at strictly scientific investigation and no esoteric ideas, such as pantheistic divinities and spiritual “vision” (or Christian premises), are allowed.

The existence of UFOs – extraordinary flying devices – is not a fact in moderate ufology. Moderate ufologists may find it important to research whether UFOs and some other UFO phenomena are real. In addition, many of them feel, and admit, that there is currently no clear explanation for UFOs, even if some of them do defend for example the ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) hypothesis. So, moderate ufology is often about researching the existence of UFOs. Thus it focuses on conclusive cases that take place outdoors (outdoor sightings constitute the prevalent or popular UFO experiences). Although moderate ufologists practically disregard contact cases, they may still study some abductions, cattle mutilations and cover up claims. Paranormal conceptions may be taken seriously because they do not as such need to go against physicalist conceptions – after all, paranormal means something that is beyond prevalent scientific understanding, but not necessarily anything divine or miraculous.

The difference between moderate ufology and skeptical UFO research is that the UFO skeptics find the entire notion of an extraordinary UFO phenomenon entirely impossible or highly improbable and suggest that all UFO experiences can be explained by common occurrences. However, UFO contact movement (see below) representatives, such as esoteric ufologists, sometimes lump them all together calling them all skeptics. They do this because they consider both skeptics and moderate ufologists to be “too critical” or negative about facts regarding UFO phenomena.

In esoteric ufology all kinds of UFO phenomena such as abductions, conspiracy theories and crop circles are believed to be true and examined from an esoteric point of view. Individual esoteric ufologists are usually focused on one particular type of occurrence, like UFO contacts or the technology of UFOs. Esoteric ufology is an elemental part of the so-called UFO contact movement. The movement has its origins in Western esoteric tradition. It focuses on the belief that well-meaning space aliens want to improve our spiritual development (I will return to the concept of esotericism in section 2.3). Space is not usually considered to encompass only the physical space as we know it, but is also seen as being multi-dimensional, and the aliens are accordingly seen as coming both from space and from another dimensions or other planets. (See section 2.3.) The UFO contact movement as a whole comprises esoteric UFO experiences, such as UFO contacts and UFO abductions which have been given esoteric content and interpretation, the sects and cults formed around them, and esoteric ufology. The UFO contact movement has also been called a psycho-occult or occult interpretation of the flying saucers.

The term UFO abduction movement is also used. It seems to be, at least in part, a branch or a continuation of the older UFO contact movement. The UFO abduction movement, like the traditional contact movement, focuses in part, in an esoteric way, around the belief that benevolent extraterrestrials want to advance our spiritual development (abduction spirituality, the so-called positives). On the other hand, experiences with indifferent and exploitative aliens are also highlighted. (See section 2.3.)

CHAPTER 2

BASIC HISTORY OF UFO PHENOMENA AND THE UFO CONTROVERSY

In the following I will outline the history of UFO experiences and ufology. I will also present information that is needed in order to understand the skeptical and ufological argumentation discussed in the following chapters. First, I will look at the historical precedents of UFOs prior to 1947, which I will here call pre-UFOs. Second, I will discuss some historically significant UFO research which has served as a starting point for moderate ufology and has motivated ufology at large. Third, I will deal with UFO contacts and abductions, and finally, with ufological conspiracy theories.

2.1 PRE-UFOS

The following overview of the historical and social contexts of “pre-UFOs” is largerly based on the study by sociologist Robert E. Bartholomew and psychologist George S. Howard titled UFOs & Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery (1998). By the late 1800s mystery airships were reported. They were the predecessors of UFOs and the modern UFO era. In 1877-1880 airships were seen in New Mexico and in 1896-1897 they amazed people by appearing in California and the mid-West. In 1896, the sightings were concentrated in California but already the next year the wave of sightings spread nationwide and especially to the middle parts of the United States. In 1896-1897 many mystery airships were seen in Canada. The airships received a lot of attention in the States in 1896-1899. In the summer of 1897, unidentified airships were seen in Norway, Sweden and Siberia, among other places. Several mystery airships were detected for example in New Zealand in 1909.

The mystery airships were often described as oval-shaped, egg-like, often hazily distinguishable and sometimes bright vessels, or sometimes simple, star-like objects in various colors. The oval objects often had wings and a powerful spotlight, whereas the cigar-like elongated ones had a propel or a fan-like generator with a cabin underneath. Sometimes the witnesses claimed the wings were moving up and down like those of a bird, and that they were similar to birds’ wings. On other occasions anchor ropes could be seen hanging from the airships, and their buzzing sounds, the crew talking and singing, or music could be heard coming from the airship. At times it was claimed or assumed that various items, such as an instrument, a piece of metal or coal, letters or notes had fallen from the ships. There were group sightings of the ships and very often the witnesses were authorities or people who were deemed reliable and high ranking in their own community, such as policemen. At times there was no sighting of the airship, but it was heard and often the airships were observed with binoculars. There were also pictures, some of which were clearly trick photographs.

Sometimes even the pilots were seen. For instance, once the crew of an airship was said to have waved to a family as the ship glided low past their house. The parents said the ship was doing a zig-zag movement and seemed thus to be malfunctioning. In secluded areas, some individuals could have conversations with the crews or pilots of such airships. The pilots often made small adjustments to the vessels, took or asked for water for the boiler and/or took other materials with them. One Texan man was told the airship was built of new, self-floating material and that its propulsion force was based on condensed electricity; its movement devices were very complex. The captain of one of these aircrafts, an old man with a long beard, told a senator from Arkansas that he had solved the mystery of gravity. He had invented an anti-gravitation thread. If this thread was put around any object, it immediately became weightless. He also revealed his plans to visit Mars on his aircraft. Some might even hitch a ride in a mystery airship. The general assumption was that some eccentric and mysterious, wealthy inventor, genius or professor had solved the secret of aeronautics.

Apart from being creations of some brilliant inventor, the airships were also thought to represent the devil. On the other hand, there were many skeptical voices: many scientists and critical journalists of the day tried to say the airships were just misinterpretations of Venus or other stars, hallucinations, “herd behavior”, irrationalism, pranks or scams. Often the tone of the explanation was very sarcastic, like that the airship accounts were just booze-induced babblings.

James Lewis from San Diego described how he took an aircraft to visit heaven and Samuel Bunnel from Marcel County saw through a telescope how the airship was steered by very exquisitely dressed winged angels. While the members of a group called the First Spiritual Circle were observing an airship, one of them went into a trance and told the others there were two men and a dog on the ship.

Not much attention was paid to the possible existence of aliens, but some people claimed to have met Martians flying on the airships. For instance, there were two men who said they had met three Martians that were over two meters (seven feet) tall, had huge feet and no facial hair. The creatures had mouth pieces attached to a container that allowed them to breathe. They went to their ship by floating and taking long strides. The ship was pointed and very large. It had a huge steering wheel and expanded and reduced like a muscle. One man who was on his way home met with Martians that were examining the Earth, nourished themselves with small pills and “drank air”. They were about three and a half meters (11.5 feet) tall and they had gigantic heads. Their ship was lit and it had propels.

A man from Missouri encountered Martians that looked different than those described above while walking in the hills in Springfield. These were exactly like humans, a man and a woman, beautiful and naked. The woman was of average height and Greek statues paled in comparison to her shape. Her golden, wavy hair descended down to her waist and she had a bejeweled band on her forehead. In the shadows of the vessel was an auburn-haired man with noble features and a distinguished look. His hair was shoulder length. He had a beard all the way down to his chest, which was a bit lighter in color than his hair. Both of them were cooling themselves with a fan, even though the narrator thought the weather was cool. By signing he managed to convince the Martians he meant no harm. The woman came up to him, he kissed her hand fervently and the shy woman blushed like a rose. The Martian male took the narrator by the hand and took him to the ship, which was a little over six meters (almost twenty feet) long and two and a half meters (eight feet) wide. The narrator looked inside the ship, saw a magnificent sofa and stepped in. As the ship started to lift off, the man hurried out after which the ship rose lightly like a bird and dashed away like an arrow. The Martians laughed and waved goodbye.

The popularity of the Martians over other space races was enhanced by the American astronomer Percival Lowell’s (1855-1916) book published in the early 1900s in which he complemented G.V. Schiaparelli’s observations of the artificial channels on the surface of Mars with the observations he made with his telescope. There were heated arguments about the existence of the channels in the scientific community of the 1800s and 1900s. Lowell’s claims were widely known to the general public and they were also widely supported. Also the popular mechanical science fiction of Jules Verne made the Martian hypothesis more credible.

Several reports on ghost airplanes capable of unbelievable stunts were made in the Nordic countries in 1933-1937, with a particularly great number in 1934. According to the sightings the ghost planes could fly in the dark and also in dense snow storm. The Nordic authorities explained these as mass delusions. The Swedes thought alcohol or weapons smugglers might be behind them, and so the Swedish customs officials started to look into the matter. The most popular belief was that these were German, Russian or Japanese spy planes. In January 1934, a few Swedish Air Force fighters were ordered to pursue some strange airplanes. Two fighter planes were destroyed in all the commotion, but there was no loss of human life. The relationship between Sweden and Russia had been rather poor for the past two hundred years, so naturally the Swedes suspected they were Soviet planes. The ghost airplane wave of 1934 made the Finnish army to take up amplified air control and to investigate whether or not the sightings were real. The investigation concluded that they were all due to a “mass psychosis” (mass delusion would perhaps be a more apt word), because the stunts the planes were said to perform were technically impossible.

One of the most famous ghost airplane cases took place when a bright object the size of an apartment house was fired with anti-aircraft weapons with floodlights ablaze in Los Angeles in February 1942. The gunfire had no effect on the object, which remained still for an hour and then disappeared. Three people were killed by unexploded shells and three died of a heart attack. In addition, twenty Japanese Americans were prisoned after the incident and accused of having communicated with the aircraft by signaling to it with flashlights. Two days before the ghost airplane had appeared, a Japanese submarine had destroyed gasoline storage tanks in Santa Barbara, California. Reports were also filed in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Africa and Europe. There was a particularly great number of “foo-fighter” reports of discoid and spherical objects in the German airspace in 1944-1945.

After the Second World War in 1946, “ghost rockets” were reported in the Nordic countries. The sightings seemed to be moving from the northern parts of Europe towards the south, to Portugal, Italy and even India. The sightings were made mainly in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, particularly in Sweden. They were bright, spherical, cigar-shaped and rocket-like objects that sometimes at various speeds emitted orange or green color. Ghost rockets were also seen in the Soviet Union, Denmark, England, United States, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Turkey and Morocco.

The ghost rocket sightings had significant repercussions. The Swedish military was on high alert and on July 27th, the government forbade the press from revealing the sightings sites. Also the Norwegian government decided the same on July 29th and the Danish government followed suit on August 16th. A little later, on August 31st, the Norwegian government forbade the publication of any information about the ghost rockets. They were worried that the sightings were actually describing German-made V-rockets. Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain conducted secret investigations into the ghost rockets. Swedish army went through several cases thoroughly, including alleged crash sites, traces possibly left by ghost rockets and various materials they were said to have left behind. The situation was tense. Sweden and the Soviet Union were arguing about the origins of the rockets and people were still afraid that the Soviet Union would manage to manufacture a nuclear weapon with the technology they received from the Germans. Sweden was about to buy radar technology from England to track the rockets and a US military representative visited Sweden to discuss the sightings. The United States was worried that the Soviets might bomb Sweden.

The alleged rockets were not found and in the end there was nothing that would have actually pointed to the existence of such things. Approximately twenty per cent of the sightings remained unexplained, but this was, according to the Swedish army, due to the lack of information, so there was no reason to assume they would have been Soviet rockets. It was generally believed that as had been the case with other similar phenomena, the rockets were delusions, humbug, balloons, clouds etc.

2.2 OFFICIAL UFO STUDIES

The first UFO wave of the modern UFO era was in 1947 – or it properly started the actual UFO tradition. After Kenneth Arnold’s famous UFO sighting and the commotion it caused, some things happened that led the US Air Force to start its own investigations on UFO reports. On July 4th, 1947, UFO reports started to flood in from Portland, Oregon. The same day, the Air Materiel Command (AMC) suggested various natural causes for the phenomena, such as clouds reflected by the sun, pieces of meteors and frozen, flat hailstones. Scientists quoted by the press did not accept these explanations, however. On July 6th, the New York Times suggested among other things that these flying saucers were ships of extraterrestrial beings and that their mother ship was anchored outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

On July 8th, the newspapers got a startling piece of news: according to the public relations officer at Roswell Field, Lt. Walter Haut, the Air Force had found remnants of a flying saucer that had crash landed on Earth. The news spread nationwide and internationally in the newspapers. According to the press release, the flying saucer had crash landed on a farm near Roswell. However, Brigadier General Roger Ramey quickly went on the radio to explain that these were in fact the remains of a weather balloon. Later the same day at a press conference the remains were presented and it was pronounced that they were indeed parts of a Rawin sounder (a type of a weather balloon). The next day the press was full of similar corrected information. The description given to the Roswell Daily Record newspaper by William “Mac” Brazel who had discovered it likewise matched a weather balloon, although at the end of the article Brazel, who had dealt with weather balloons before, claimed this was not one. In any case the commotion died down after the weather balloon explanation and the Roswell case disappeared from the public eye – for the time being.

Also on July 8th, officers and airmen at the Muroc air base (located in the Mojave desert) observed silvery and yellow-and-white round items in the sky that they could not recognize. The sightings in Muroc as well as some others convinced the Air Force that the flying saucers were a serious problem. A secret order was given to examine all sightings of flying saucers. The findings were to be sent to the Technical Intelligence Division (TID) of the AMC in Wright-Patterson air base in Daytona, Ohio. The TID employees did not question the existence of the flying saucers, which were assumed to be either high-performance Soviet aircrafts (the leading Earthly candidate), U.S. Navy aircrafts called XF5U-1, or extraterrestrial technology.

Late that summer, the commander of the Air Force requested for a preliminary study concerning the flying saucers. Lt. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, the commander of the Wright-Patterson AMC, informed the chief in his letter dated September 23rd, 1947, that the reported phenomena were to their knowledge real, high tech flying devices, although some of them were caused by known objects. The letter states further that American technology made constructing such devices partially possible, but that this kind of development would be extremely expensive and time consuming. Twining suspected the flying saucers to be secret domestic or foreign nuclear technology. As a conclusion, Twining requested a permanent project be set up to investigate the flying saucer reports.

On December 30th, 1947, Maj. Gen. L. C. Craigie, head of research and development department gave an order, in the name of national security, to set up a permanent investigation project with a security classification “restricted” (the lowest rating) and with a priority 2A (1A being the highest national priority). The project was called Project Sign and it was fully operational on January 22nd, 1948. By this time, the Technical Intelligence Division had ruled out American secret technology, as well as the possibility of a Soviet weapon, so the ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence) hypothesis had started to gain support among the researchers. The general public however were led to believe that the phenomena could be explained by natural occurrences and hoaxes. In 1947, there were 850 sightings reported in the US press. The Air Force was able to explain 110 out of 122 with natural phenomena.

Captain Thomas F. Mantell was killed on January 7th, 1948; he was on a training mission when Godman Air Base had asked him to go on pursuit of an unidentified object. As a result, his F-51 plane crashed on William J. Phillips’ farm near Franklin, Kentucky. On July 24th, an Eastern Airlines flight, with Capt. Clarence S. Chiles and his co-pilot, First Officer John B. Whitted, was near Mongomery, Alabama, heading for Atlanta, when the pilots spotted an oval-shaped glowing red object that was cleverly maneuvered, and had two rows of windows on the side. Researchers of the Sign project concluded that the objects in these two events which later became classics of the UFO tradition were ships of alien intelligence. Publicly, however, the staff said that Mantell had chased Venus. Air Force consultant J. Allen Hynek disagreed with the Sign researchers. He was convinced that Mantell had actually chased Venus and Chiles and Whitted had seen a bright meteor. In any case, in September a document labeled “Estimate of the Situation”, with a “Top Secret” stamp on it, was sent to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, in which it was concluded that flying saucers were real and that they came from outside the Earth.

The third classic incident took place on October 1st. A construction manager and a second lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard George F. Gorman pursued an unidentified object with his F-51. The Sign staff investigated the plane, among other things with a Geiger counter, and found the plane to have an elevated level of radiation. The staff concluded something out of the ordinary had happened.

Vandenberg sent back the Estimate of the Situation report in October, saying the evidence was not credible. From the fall of 1948, the staff at Sign