Tuesday, February 23, 2010

WHACKLAND: IT Came From Out Proctor.

Difficult for me to get serious lately. It's sort of a paradox. My change of venue to WVA and the "loss" of my research materials [as far as availability goes] has not made the use of them urgent, but rather lacking in energy and intent. That change officially arrives with a plane flight Saturday, so this blog will have a change as well, then. I hope to maintain some frequency of entries, but the heavy-duty essays and historical syntheses will probably not be possible. Still, we'll see. Today, I'm in retreat to Out Proctor and Believe-it-or-not. Maybe you'll find it fun; maybe not. To keep yourself amused, you might ask yourself which of these alleged events seem likely to have really happened. Then you can ask yourself which of them do you think have anything to do with UFOlogy. They ALL ended up in somebody's UFO files.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Globs. Their "name" almost tells you that you're not going to really understand them. But there they seem, occasionally, to be, doing their globby business. A). 1955: Baltimore, MD--"a fuming spherical mass drifted over Baltimore and landed in the city". Thus began a note to Wright-Patterson AFB and Project Blue Book. Many people congregated about it including the police. People tried to puncture it, but it healed up. One guy tried to squash it with a tire, but couldn't damage it. Police cordoned off the area, and after several hours, the thing degenerated and left behind a yellowish residue. Analyzed at the morgue, the residue contained Metallic oxides and animal tissue. Blue Book was told that the answer was "a detergent bubble filled with exhaust gasses from a diesel locomotive in a railway yard." !! [this is one of the goofiest "explanations" in my files of an "answer" not meeting the reported characteristics of the event]. But, there you are.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B). 1950: Philadelphia, PA--Four policemen saw an "airborne object" which sailed above the city before landing in an urban field. The thing was six feet in diameter and glowed purplish and misty. One of the policemen tried to pick it up, but some of it adhered to his hands, dissipated, and left a sticky residue. The officers watched for 30 minutes while the blob slowly disappeared. Lest one believe that the story was just made up, the policemen reported the event to the FBI and the relevant document still exists. At least no one tried to explain this one as containing train engine exhausts.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------C). 1979: Frisco, TX--A lady woke up one morning and walked outside. There on her lawn were three purple blobs. They were small, about breadloaf sized. As she watched, one of them "just faded away". The other two persisted. They "looked like smooth whipped cream, purple... I stuck this stick into the object. It went in easily, very easily. I punctured it. On the inside it was the same thing--just like real whipped cream, and it looked like it was melting". When the police arrived, an officer tried to pick one up. He said that it was "pretty warm". He put the blobs into boxes and they were sent to a the local Natural Science Museum. The curator said that the blobs were emitting an acidic liquid and contained uranium [!!] and a strange pattern of specks of lead. These weirdos were then sent on to NASA in Dallas and placed in freezers to preserve them. The NASA spokesperson said: "It's kind of like plum-pudding. It has round solid chunks in it that remain after the goo goes away. We don't know what it is." Uhhhhhh...what?! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------D). 1966: near Ellicotteville, NY--The NICAP subcommittee field investigators said at the beginning of their report: "[This] is a report, which for the first time we have encountered, dealing with something seemingly more fantastic and even more out of science fiction". Uh Oh. [the case refers to my drawing that accompanies this section]. Two buddies were riding motorcycles along route 219 in NY. One several yards ahead of the other. The lead cyclist saw an object coming on an intersecting course from the right about 10 feet off the ground. He judged that it would pass between the two of them. The thing was a watermelon-sized oval glob, dull green in color. Turning he watched the thing pass just in front of his friend, swerve into him, and attach itself to him !! Wrapping itself around his lower leg, the friend tried to kick the thing off, losing his shoe in the process. The glob became more interested in the shoe, and left to go after it. It seemed to briefly inspect the shoe from above it, rise in the air, and fly away over the hillside. The close-up description was: smooth surfaced and jelly-like in "feel". Translucent dull green. Oval in shape while in the air, but flexible in contact. May have made a soft whirring [dare I suggest "purring" ?] sound. Produced a large red mark on the person's leg with a white oval center, 4 to 6 inches in size. Around this were 5 or 6 [how can they not have a single count?] puncture marks. {maybe I should give them a break on that if the marks were really small and hard to see}. The victim of the "Attack Glob From Magonia" never became ill, and the red/white area went away in a day, leaving only the pin-pricks. Yep. Just another day in the life.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E). 1968: Swansea, UK--BUFORA field investigators reported that one fine day a gentleman decided to go outside for a breath of fresh air. Something had other plans. He saw what appeared to be a patch of fog coming toward him. It was a little fluffy, white thing about two feet by one foot and gliding only two feet from the ground. What a nice little curiosity. For three minutes the cloud came slowly on. Now directly upon him, it touched his leftside. A stabbing pain racked the left side of his abdomen, and the cloud vanished. He staggered back into his house, the pain like a knife going into him. It lasted for several minutes. After it subsided, his stomach felt like ice and he would not eat. Only after getting medicine from his physician [what do you prescribe for a Magonian attack?] did he return to normal--well, physically anyway.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------F). 1887: North Atlantic, east of the Canadian Maritimes--The Dutch Bark "J.P.A." was confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon one day in March at 5PM. In the air, heading their way, were two "balls". One was black. The other was illuminated. The illuminated object was oval or cigar-shaped. As it came overhead, the environment became pitch black above the ship, but the deck itself [and the sea immediately around] was brightly illuminated as if in a sea of fire. With a roar, this "ball" fell into the water, creating splashes that swept high enough to throw water onto the deck. Worse, the air was suddenly foul, and hands began suffocating and breaking out in perspiration. Then [logically] ice chunks rained down on the deck and even the rigging became iced over. The thermometer registered 19-degrees C. nevertheless [i.e. the ambient temperature was way too warm to allow this]. The barometer was going nuts. Shortly hurricane force winds seemed to [temporarily] arise. Of course the explanation for all this is obvious--they were close to the Bermuda Triangle, yet didn't have the sense to abandon ship and become another Mary Celeste. Yep. That about explains that.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------G). 1958: in the Mediterranean off southern France--Three guys were out to begin night fishing. [this is the tale that goes with the above picture]. It was clear and the sea was calm. They saw an orange-colored light in the sky coming towards them. It seemed to be rotating as it came. It came and just rested lightly on the surface nearby, whipping up the water and causing a strong air displacement. It began to roll towards their boat. Fortunately the globe didn't roll right over them, but passed close-by. The waves it created nearly caused them to capsize. They felt a powerful heat from the thing and heard a faint humming [a bit like insects]. Its diameter was four meters. It continued to roll on, leaping forwards in the waves and skimming them. It made a right-angle turn, and whisked away to the horizon [show-off]. Once again, it was the Big One That Got Away. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H). 1974: Springfield, OH--near the end of a localized UFO flap in southwestern Ohio, a nightshift employee was leaving work at 3AM. His car, running normally, now began to fail. Engine and lights were now dead. Ahead of him was a display of aerial lights colored like a rainbow. the rainbow went out, replaced by an oval object of brilliant illumination and six feet in diameter. The object approached to within six feet of the car. Inside it was a golden room with five occupants. They sat motionless stiffly in a row. They were three or four feet tall, with long hair, covering their faces. They wore capes. After fifteen minutes, the golden-roomed oval shot up at a sharp angle and disappeared. His car started immediately. This is the case as written for publication by Len Stringfield. Ted Bloecher read the report at CUFOS and added that their robes were brightly colored and they had brown hair which reached all the way to the floor. On the other hand, Ted drops the reference that the original object[s] was like a rainbow in color. [one wonders what subtle little things cause us to put something in and not something else? ] Either way, I could easily be convinced that this was as much like a "little people" encounter in their rainbow sky chariot with their golden room and their ridiculously long hair, as any ET incident. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I). 1975: Catskill Mts, NY--Two guys decide to get their stresses off their backs for a while with a little heavy beer drinking at a camping ground in the Catskills [this was a "regular" affair for them--nothing like the great outdoors and a six-pack]. They were awakened by a bright light that illuminated even the inside of the tent. Going out to investigate, everything went pitch black. [not THAT again!] Soon they saw a dull glowing object up on the hillside [no roads up there]. Then, what we all love, ghostly-phosphorescent shining entities floating down the hill towards them. A siege mentality arose, with the heroes panicking and lighting fires in the nearby covered picnic area, and generally going nuts. The "ghosts" would come nearer, then retreat for a while. [the picture for this is my drawing above]. During a more "away" period, one guy ran for the car. [he was going to get something to defend themselves]. Ultimately, they decided that all that was foolish [how do you fight ghosts?] and both of them made it to the car and drove home as fast as the bad conditions allowed. This case was used by a researcher as an example of a "missing time" abduction. I have read the transcriptions of the case notes and find NO evidence of any missing time at all. In fact there is nothing about the case that says, necessarily, "UFO". We make a lot of mistakes in my opinion cramming things into ready-made hypotheses, and it gets us into all manner of trouble [in the field and out]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J). 1968: Grant Town, WV--well, this should make it easy for you---if this one is real, anything probably is. "Allegedly" a young coal miner in my old home state was out bow hunting for deer--so far this is eminently believable. An unusual noise came down from above. He saw nothing. OK, we'll go with that. A high-pitched jabber changed to English and said: "You need not fear me! I want to communicate! I come as friends! I come in peace! [I can see the images from MARS Attacks! forming] We know of you all! [well, he knew enough to say 'you-all' to a West Virginian] I wish medical information! [OK. that does it] I need your help! [what Lunch?]" At that moment our hero was "puzzled" [yep, me too]. He felt something grab his wrist. He seemed paralyzed. The thing was a seven foot tall, yellow-eyed extraterrestrial asparagus with pointed ears [actually this happens a lot in West Virginia]. Suddenly the asparagus' eyes changed from yellow to red and began to rotate. Spinning orange light circles emerged from the eyes and moved towards him. He felt no pain. [hmmm]. Shortly [ you know it's hard to say shortly for a thing seven feet tall] he was released and the ET-asparagus bounded away. A humming noise came from the woods and a bright silvery object rose and shot off. The young man did the only logical thing: he joined the Air Force. Four months after his discharge, Men-in-Black entered his room at night, gave him a shot and forced him to tell them about his UFO experiences. Both Asparagusses and MIBs wanted information from this man. Wow!. Hopefully you don't need much more information to evaluate this case [some would say it's obviously a screen memory for something] , but if you do, the case "investigator" on this was Gray Barker. That should relax you; I know it does me.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, I think that both of these gals know exactly what they're talking about. Wish I did.

25 comments:

  1. Hey, Mike,

    Yeah, that West Virginia yarn was pulled out of nether quarters by the young man (one Jennings Frederick) and Gray Barker, who had fun with it for a while. There's a drawing of the (imaginary) critter somewhere -- at least I have a mental image of it -- adorning a Barker publication in his later years.

    Some of the other, more genuinely puzzling cases you mention are of the sort that gave rise to the long-forgotten, early-ufology line of speculation about space animals. In a broad sense, a few of these incidents seem related to the (we are to believe) long-discredited phenomenon of gelatinous meteorites.

    Good stuff. Like you, I'm more and more taken up with the hopeless end of the anomalies spectrum. I guess that for us old-timers it's like being a longtime drug addict; you just need stiffer and stiffer doses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, Jerry, if you can't figure it out, I guess the rest of us have no chance--so going to West Virginia is probably a good thing all around. Still, I've always suspected that YOU are a screen memory, and really DO know all the answers. Now don't try to deny it. Hey! I thought that the asparagus that I drew came from Barker--now I'm worried that THAT is a screen memory.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Most interesting. Two thoughts come to mind. I favor atmospheric creatures for some of these encounters. Picture bacteria in a pond, but imagine an atmospheric 'pond' forty miles deep. Also, these illuminated balls remind me of the tv series, The Prisoner, where a similar object menaces #6. Just a thought - great stuff. Keep it coming.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am forced to confess that these sort of cases are just "bewildering" to me. My ability to do anything more than B.S. about most of these types of incidents is near zero. So, I don't lumber "you-all" with that. But the cases are intriguing even when we don't have much of a clue, and in this set, several of them seem to have pretty good witnessing and reporting. So, since my intensity is at low power now, I thought you'd at least find these Out Proctor style stories fun. Atmospheric creatures would be nice...if they WERE nice. We need less critters biting our pants when we're out motorcycle riding. And, given the current state of party politics, I'll pass on "prisoner" menacing spheres too. I'm sure the homeland security boys would find a way to turn them into Rotweilers. My old history of being an environmentalist puts me on the Watch list right off. [obviously a radical--believes in global climate change].

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. my encounter’s experience may have some clue for this post, here is one of my real story:
    Alien comes out of UFO: http://ufo-spacelife.blogspot.com/2009/12/alien-comes-out-of-ufo.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. To all readers: I haven't time to look at all these blogspot-type "suggestions" so rather than just zapping such things I'll leave them up in case anyone wants to look, knowing that I've not vetted them. If something is particularly good, or out-of-line, then maybe you can tell the rest of us about it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great stuff as always, Professor!
    I knew the Philadelphia one rang a bell and I found it in my files - it's further backed up by none other than ye olde New York Times, which itself got it off the wire from the Associated Press. The article is from the September 28, 1950 edition - perhaps it wasn't handled by the FBI until 1951, or was somehow dated as such:

    A 'Saucer' Floats to Earth And A Theory Is Dished Up

    Philadelphia, Sept 27 (AP) - Four Philadelphia policemen think they know what happens to flying saucers - they dissolve.
    Patrolman John Collins and Joseph Keenan reported last night they saw a mysterious object about six feet in diameter floating to earth in an open field.
    They summoned Sgt. Joseph Cook and Patrolman James Casper. They then approached the object and turned on their flashlights.
    Patrolman Collins tried to pick "the thing" up. THe part touched by his hand dissolved, he said, leaving a sticky, odorless residue. Within half an hour the entire object had evaporated. It was so light, the policemen reported, it had not even bent the weeds on which it had rested.
    Sergeant Cook notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation - but unfortunately there was nothing to show the F.B.I. agents except a spot on the ground.

    There you go - all the news that's fit to print.

    ReplyDelete
  9. To all: "Willy's" right. The date is 1950---my mistake [I read the date off the reference and missed it in the actual narrative. It's corrected now].

    ReplyDelete
  10. In DarkLore 2 (2008), my paper 'The Dark Cohorts' was published on 19th century UFO sightings. Among them this one which is perhaps illustrative of some of the luminous globes you describe (and that buzzing sound):

    12-year-old George Campbell described what he and his father witnessed in Sherman, Texas in 1898: Last night Papa and I were riding along in the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, about two and a half mile north of town, when all at once everything got very bright. We saw a great ball of fire coming down toward the ground. It got within about three feet of the ground and seemed to rest for a while and then it went back up until it got clear out of sight. There was a buzzing sound all the time.

    Young George described the object “as being about ten feet in diameter and that it hurt one’s eyes to look at it,” but that even though he and his father were close to the object "he did not feel any heat.”

    Sincere regards,

    Theo

    ReplyDelete
  11. As usual, thoroughly enjoyed. Your "out proctor" posts are a personal favorite. Constable Trevor's space creatures, star jelly, even the movie "The Blob" (LOL) came to mind.
    I am fascinated by the highest of the high strange cases. A near obsession since I gained internet access in 2000. I've read enough BS to fill an encyclopedia. With time I've found plenty good sound evidence, also have come to believe there is lots more going on than the ETH which I originally believed explained the whole.
    My interest all stems from an experience I had when I was 13 on Halloween of 1973. For all my searching I have come across nothing similar (no entities involved) but such a strange large display I find it hard to believe I am the only witness.
    Thanks for an interesting blog, I am glad you will continue even while away from your research material. I've found everything you've had to say an enjoyable read and would hate to see The Big Study disappear.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I deleted a comment of mine again, same reason as last time--coincidental posting by somebody else squeezed in between and made my comment stupider than I usually am. So, I'll try again. To Theo:You are, indeed, presenting a rare case. When even Eberhart's Geo-bibliography of Anomalies and the guy who does the UFO-DNA site don't list it, you know that you're reading something for the first time. This sort of [in my opinion, non-UFO] phenomenon seems very real and very "nature physical" to me. It will be an interesting day when we finally discover what these paradoxically intense [light-wise], rarely heat-giving, sometimes zapping, sometimes not, yet long-lasting energy balls are all about. I really doubt that ET is behind them, and I am in nearly the same spot as far as the folklore folk are concerned. But how does Mother Earth do it? ---To Anonymous: I am going to try to continue to do some service but don't know how it will work out. I am taking my entire FSR collection home to WVA with me, and plan to have fun by paging through it from the beginning and logging all the cases. Someday someone might benefit by having that sort of a resource [Ed Stewart's index is a fine hard-working job, but this "case-locator" would supplement it]. Hopefully, I will occasionally have a thought, and will share it with you. I am also taking home a much rarer psi-anomalies journal, The Journal of Exceptional Human Experience, and hopefully thoughts will occasionally be stimulated by that too. The real Out Proctor stuff will probably suffer a bit because of my not having my fairly extensively collected files on such things at hand. I'll do what I can.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous, I don't think you need to insert Internet speak (as in "LOL") after mention of The Blob. That 1958 horror semi-classic -- better fondly recalled than re-viewed in one's mature years, in my experience -- was surely based on what was known traditionally as "star jelly." Strangely, nobody seems aware of that fairly obvious reality, including the otherwise mind-bogglingly informed Bill Warren, author of Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties (2009), which devotes (large-sized) pages 116-121 to all other aspects of the movie.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Personally, Prof., case J intrigues me because how many people back in 1968 so much as suspected plants might communicate in 'high-pitched jabberings'? How many people suspect it even now? Yet plants do seem to 'speak' to each other in frequencies that're inaudible to humans.

    I'm also intrigued after Gumby the Celery Boy from Mars switches from high-itched jabberings to English, he starts doing his best impression of the archetypal tourist in difficulties, "I no - 'ow you say? - speaker da good English", as if to underline the fact, "This isn't my normal form of communication."

    Then, (almost as if in reaction to being stopped dead in his tracks by a sentient vegetable while out hunting for poor defenceless animals), he joins the army, (where all independent thought'll be drummed out of him and the opportunity to reflect on what happened'll be next to impossible), only for him to be discharged and end up in the hands of the Men in Black who proceed to ensure he'll always thereafter take the whole 'Astro Asparagus' encounter deadly seriously when, but for their intervention, he might've forgotten it completely as some absurd daydream.

    ReplyDelete
  16. sease the day, anonymous...
    tell us your experience!

    ReplyDelete
  17. To Alan, God bless you, and go believe in whatever you like--but I feel an urge to say that the Grant Town case ranks very near the bottom of all known UFO claims as regards credibility. If Gray Barker and his accomplice got something right that surprises you, well, at least as regards this claim, just assume that they got lucky. Barker's dialogue in this is so over-the-top that it's straight out of bad science fiction of the era. Of all the things that I've mentioned in this blog, this one is the one I'd put least credence in, and I included it because I thought it was funny and a proper "obviously " Out Proctor ending to what were otherwise a set of reports which had a real chance. As the cases reported go "down the page" they [roughly] get less solid as to who did the report checking.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Professor,

    this particular case is, indeed not listed in Eberhart or anywhere else in the current literature. I found the account in a couple of 1898 U.S. newspapers, researching these and other anomalies for the last 8 years in the various online newspaper archives with a small band of like-minded researchers.

    Sincere regards,

    Theo

    ReplyDelete
  19. I would encourage you to publish something in great detail about your case findings in a place which is available to the UFO research community. Also, CUFOS' IUR might be interested in an article if it's scholarly in tone.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I looked up Darklore --never had heard of it--shows how insulated we can become. I'd still recommend an extensive write-up of all the detailed facts somewhere so that people could see the whole picture. Also, not a big deal, but "Darklore" is a bit off-putting [as a title] for the mainline UFOlogist. Maybe some other line of publication [not exclusively] would help spread the information too. Thirdly, it's nice to get to know the writers when we're talking about UFOlogy--without that there is no chance to form a larger community. I assume that you are using your own name [unusual as it is] but if you're using a pseudonym then it will be better for believability to use your real one. [I use Michael Swords in all my UFO publications].

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hi Prof,

    Theo Paijmans is my real name. Jerry can vouch for that:)

    I do publish my Fortean findings on a regular base: I publish and have published my findings in print publications such as All Hallows, Gazette Forteenne, Strange Attractor, Anomalist, Fortean Times, the Centre for Fortean Zoology Yearbooks, and DarkLore.

    Next to that I occasionally publish on the blogs of the Fortean Institute, Wormwoodiana, Shavertron, and my own blogs Hyborea, The Black Sun, The Vril Society and Mundus Subterraneus.

    Michael, do I know you from the P47 list?

    Sincere regards,

    Theo

    ReplyDelete
  22. To Theo: Jerry has in fact vouched for you, very highly through my own e-mail. Your "energy" in publishing is very impressive. I see that I probably should try to become more conversant with some of the sources that you list. As to P47, the only way you would know me from there [or anywhere else on the web, probably] is when people, usually from the UK, enjoy themselves by slandering me about my scientific reviews related to the defense of the ETH This doesn't happen much on P47, but it is rampant on certain other sites]. I never have read that stuff in person, but have had others send it to me. It is almost uniformly uncivilized and definitely a waste of my time to address. My circle of anomalist friends has grown more organically, due to personal contacts and writings for JUFOS and IUR, and participation in the Society for Scientific Exploration, where almost everything, including criticism, is handled in a helpful and collegial manner. On this blog, I am apparently meeting new people like yourself who are both talented and friendly and for that I am grateful.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hi professor,

    Thank you for your kind words and the thumbs up. Here's my e-mail address so that you can contact me off-blog if you'd want to: th.paijmans@wxs.nl

    I am always glad to extend my contacts with scholars such as yourself with whom I can exchange research findings and materials.

    Aside from that, if there's materials or primary sources that you look for, who knows, perhaps I could help you in that respect.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Dear Professor (and Jerry, and Theo),

    The world would be a much richer place if, in fact, some UFOs were piloted by space asparagus.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Steve,

    More nutritious, too.

    ReplyDelete

Followers

Blog Archive