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Something quick, folks.
I have been trying to at least list the UFO cases which have piled up in, well, piles around here [i.e. outside the relatively organized and useful cabinet files], and naturally stumble upon intriguing cases here and there. This one I have to share.
1968, Miraflores in Lima, Peru. A wife and Mom, who happened to own a well-to-do optical equipment store [telescopes and the like] was doing something that she and her two kids regularly enjoyed --- star-gazing through one of the family scopes.
She, by eyeball, spotted a bright red object just at the star Rigel in the constellation of Orion. Swinging the telescope over that way, she saw a round red light with a white center. But that was the least of it.
The object went right over [i.e. in the line of sight] Rigel, occluding it. It then proceeded on a straight line to Orion's Belt made the appropriate turn, and occluded each of the belt stars in their turn. It then angled again to cruise in a straight line to Betelgeuse, and occluded that star as well. It then took off "north" towards Gemini, where it was lost.
Thoroughly amazed, the lady and her children continued to scan the sky for it. About 15-20 minutes later, it suddenly appeared again right at Rigel as it had done before. This time it made a straight line through the Belt aimed at Betelgeuse, and occluded it. It then reversed course coming back directly towards Rigel, and, yes, occluding it again. This time it went away to the south.
Twenty-five to thirty minutes later, the object manifested a Rigel again. This time it disappeared to the west without further ceremony.
The witness, and her family, were personal friends of Richard Greenwell, the famous [now deceased] cryptozoologist, but maybe better UFO researcher from the middle APRO research days. I knew Richard somewhat, considered him a friend, published in his journal, and in my opinion, he was a pretty good investigator. Due to that, my confidence in this case is high.
But what is really the "message" here? This lady and her sons were almost certainly the only persons on the face of our planet who could have seen these occlusions of Orion stars as the UFO flew its path. They were in their way amateur astronomers, and this UFO put on a special astronomy show JUST FOR THEM.
"I SEE YOU; YOU SEE ME."
This is pretty "personal". What does it mean? Why was it done? {readers of the blog know that I have about two dozen pretty good cases of this sort of what I call "astro-alignments".}
Whatever it is, it is fascinating and creepy at the same time. Whatever agency flies these things knows EXACTLY where you are even at modest distances. If the "astronomy incident for the astronomers" thing is real, that agency may also know WHO you are.
..... pause for meditation.
Till next time, folks, enjoy being in somebody else's "reality show."
"This lady and her sons were almost certainly the only persons on the face of our planet who could have seen these occlusions of Orion stars as the UFO flew its path."
ReplyDeleteTo a first approximation, the area within which someone would see these stars occulted would be equal to the width of the UFO. So if it was 50m wide, and this family was underneath its exact center, only people within a 25m radius of them would see the occultations. So yes, it was a very personal flight path.
N.B.: The correct term is "occultation". Occlusion refers to the blocking or closing of blood vessels.
You're correct about my poor choice of words. Sort of reflects my unconscious "bias" against using the word "occult" because of all the interpretive baggage it carries, and my prehistoric intellectual life as a 19th century science historian, where "occlude" was sometimes used to mean "conceal." That said, "occult" is definitely the correct word.
ReplyDeleteAs to precision of location of the privileged witnesses, this depends upon the distance of the object from them. Obviously if this were a star-sized object of ultra-warp speed flying at stellar distances, then everyone on the planet could see this perspective. If the object was small and just in front of Mom's eye, then her kids wouldn't even get the drama. We guess that 1). this is a smallish object flying at reasonable speeds well within the atmosphere, and 2). "modest" enough in its properties so that not everyone is seeing it flying about [regardless of astronomical relationships]. Therefore we deduce the likelihood that it is of only modest altitude. That then ensures that only a very small area of privileged viewing of the exact line-of-sight occultations is required... wherein lies the creepy mystery.
Ah, yes, occult, I hadn't even made the connection given how I use the word in my daily life (I'm an astronomer) :-)
ReplyDeleteThe distance of the object to the observers doesn't matter as much as its physical size, given that these stars are several light years away and (to a first approximation), points of light without an extended disk (though without a first approximation, we'd take into account the slight spread of this point by the atmosphere). So an object that is small and just in front of mum's eye, would continue to occult the star if it moved up higher and somehow managed to stay within the line of sight between the star and mum's eye. A 50m object could be 10m above mum, or 10km, and you'd still have to walk on average 25m away before you could see the star again. Turbulence in the atmosphere means this number would in reality be a bit larger than 25m, but not by very much. When Erigone, a 72km asteroid, recently occulted the star Regulus, its shadow on Earth was just 117km wide; the asteroid was 177 million km away and the star 79 light-years (628 billion km) away. Given how large and far away the asteroid was, you have to start taking into account the curvature of the Earth, which will increase the size of the shadow:
http://www.universetoday.com/109797/how-to-watch-an-asteroid-occult-a-bright-star-on-march-20th/
But cutting out the nerd talk, the essential physical and underlying conclusion here is that the stellar occultations in the case you presented were *extremely* local to the viewers and required rather precise knowledge of their position by the UFO.
assuming the ufo put a show for the viewers, to what purpose they did that ? any guess ?
ReplyDeleteThat's speculation which leads nowhere in my opinion. Speculation is OK in at least two circumstances: 1). where people are just having non-serious fun BSing [not the function of this blog as I hope for it]; or 2). there is some legitimate, at least intuitive, hope that speculation on a given issue has a chance of getting somewhere intellectually healthy. As I don't see the latter in this case, I'll demure.
DeleteYou mean "demur." Demure is defined rather differently.
DeleteThe implication is that the UFO phenomenon is related to the subjectivity of the observers, either by them projecting or creating it in some way, or by it`s external objectivity still encompassing accurate data about their perceptions.
ReplyDeleteIf we entertain the possibility that the local reality of humanity is generated by the computations of cyber-beings from a galactic level of organization and evolutionary history, we might infer that every individual on Earth is monitored .
Symbolic communications would then be directed towards influencing cultural evolution on Earth by way of "nodes" in social networks.
Or . . . . it's all just poppycock. Who knows? Shrug.
ReplyDelete...brilliant addition to the inquiry. This sort of "don't bother to think much" debunking is exactly what the study of these very difficult topics does not need. ... and it angers me {and perhaps that's what a lot of the people on the internet are fishing for, though: trolling for making people upset}. Well, troll successful. Enjoy.
DeleteMy comment about having two dozen cases of astro-alignment [including Project Moonwatch cases], or the astronomer's analysis of the smallness of the privileged viewing area, apparently deserves no more than thoughtless slap in the face. "Shrug."
Bring something to the table or don't reply. This isn't stream-of-consciousness chat. This is the only time I'll let this sort of comment stand without deletion. And this only because the serious intellectually-involved readers deserve to be made aware of why this waste of our time is tolerated.
In clarification: there is nothing wrong with honest skepticism. It requires at least as much study and thoughtfulness as the simple reporting of witness incidents however. And the fruits of that study and thoughtfulness must be defined. Otherwise the opinion is merely contrarian superficiality, which commits the cardinal anti-science sin of cavalierly ignoring information without cause.
Sherlock Holmes once warned against speculation in the absence of facts.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it can be informative to list the possibilities and see how well they fit the behavior. Perhaps something resonates or perhaps we have an obvious need for an expanded list.
For the one list, we would need a summery of UFO sightings which appeared to have "personal" messages.
For the other list of motivations, I have heard of two so far... John Keel's "Operation Trojan Horse" which suggests diversionary tactics and Frank DeMarco's "The Sphere and the Hologram" which suggests that UFOs, Bigfeet and Crop Circles are produced by friendly beings from parallel dimensions who what us to keep thinking outside the orthodox.
Perhaps such a study would demonstrate the lack of a coherent motivation and point to separate factions.
This article provides a single data point, but until it is all brought together and cross referenced we will be speculating in a vacuum.
I wouldn't be so dismissive as to suggest that my life's contribution to this field is just a "vacuum", but otherwise I agree that many variable hypotheses should be clearly defined and scholarly researched --- maybe even by those who so glibly suggest them. I have in particular been awaiting good reasons to support the idea of different factions or at least programs.
DeleteIt has been a lifetime of happy pleasures to continually read how nothing that we old-timers did makes any difference ... softer more contemplative wordings would occasionally be met with relief and gratitude.
My apologies. I am new to this site and was speaking to the article alone and not the long history which led up to it. I did not intend to come across as dismissive.
DeleteThe article raises some intriguing possibilities. The next question was whether this siting was unique or where there is a pattern.
The last sentence of my post should be reworded - "...until I see a full list of sorted, cross referenced sitings, I would be speculating in a vacuum."
I am new to the field and I am sure that such a database of sitings must exist. I just need to be pointed to it.
Thank you for your work and willingness to share.
Well thank you. The list of such sightings is a list that I and my friend Frank Reid {see his comments below} began to see just a few years ago. It is not a mountainous pile, only about thirty or so in my special topic file which grows slowly but continually. I have blogged about this intriguing piece of the UFO phenomenon in this very place, but I can't recall the title now. I've also written about it for CUFOS' IUR journal. So something's out there, but it is totally forgivable if anyone has missed it. Probably the solidest group of these things [in term of easy to credit credible observers] is the bunch seen by Project Moonwatch researchers c. 59-60. Others however are also high credibility.
DeleteWas this article for CUFOS' IUR journal the one entitled "We Know Where You Live" -- ? I was fascinated by that article when I came across it on the web awhile back, and if that IS the article the Professor is referring to, it confirms my suspicions as to his identity -- which may not be a secret to anyone else, but which I just today figured out.
DeleteYep. I'm no mystery man, and don't have aspirations to be anyone at all. Just the personality-less reporter, objectively [as I can manage] laboring at the task of presenting intriguing things about the world for others to wonder about and "cleanly" pursue without prejudicial contamination. I can't really manage that cleanly myself of course, but I can at least TRY to take myself out of it.
DeleteAbout an aeon ago, I read a translation of a French book on ethology. It told of somewhat preliminary-level experiments with structures resulting from innate behavioural patterns, namely spider webs and bird nests (using species that wouldn't always just abandon interfered-with structures). The experimenters wafted sewing threads against the webs, and cut pie slices out of the nests. To the ethologists, the most significant of the results were that individual spiders and individual bird pairs VARIED in what they did to remedy the interferences.
ReplyDeleteVariation is the sign of...intelligence, rather than innate-pattern behaviour ("instinct" to us relicts).
A lot of high-strangeness UFO behaviour is extremely hard to evaluate, once you know a bit about visionary experiences (e.g the Benandanti
of late-Mediaeval/early-Modern Italy, researched by Carlo Ginsberg), panics (e.g. the Great Fear in Revolutionary France), false recovered memories, etc. These patterns of flight in reference to backround points (stars and planets, but I know of at least one relating to a bright early artificial satellite) are not part of the UFO Myth (or any other Myth), they are simple and not (usually) emotionally disturbing, they form part of a recognizable true class of events, and still they are variable (as in "variable solutions to the problem of merely letting 'em know we're here"). In other words, if this doesn't indicate "an intelligence" is present, what does it indicate? A Jungian archetype? Healing from a stray cosmic ray going through some hypothetical brain structure? Some other comfortable, stretched normalization?
Of course, a senario of what the intelligence intends by it, is just a senario. I'm reminded of what Luis Schoenherr, who wrote in FSR in the 1970s, said about trying to read Alien intentions: When he was a kid in 1920s Austria, the boys in his school found out one of their teachers had been in Military Intelligence in the 1914-18 Great War. They immediately crowded him, hoping for tales of invisible inks, daring raids behind enemy lines, and slinky women seducing enemy Generals. But the teacher said, "There's nothing glamorous about it. You begin by thinking about what your enemy thinks. Then one day, you think you ought to think about what your enemy thinks you think. And after that, you begin to think about what your enemy thinks you think he thinks. And you go crazy, and you can't make a move, because everything you do might be a trap."
Frank John Reid
Bravo, Frank. You at your best.
DeleteThe difference between those paralyzed Intel guys and we mere UFOlogists is, that if WE don't take ourselves and our quest TOO seriously, then we can still quest ... just doing so humbly.
... and maybe we can at least construct a might-be-possible scenario/hypothesis which temporarily fits the data available.
One intriguing aspect to the "astro-alignment" issue is that if some object or consolidated point of energy is making a "run" along the alignment of stars as described in this post, it suggests one of two things, or possibly both, the first being more likely, in terms of our "comfort level"":
ReplyDelete1.) The implication is whatever the "ufo" involved might be or is, doing an "astro-alignment" as the Professor describes here suggests very strongly, if other more prosaic interpretations are momentarily put aside here for the sake of argument, that whatever is doing the star occultation in relation to the ground observers must somehow sense or "know' pretty precisely the position of the observers in relation to the star field being observed, in order to see the ufo occulting the stars in the first place. That implies or suggests a form of advanced intelligence, and/or very sophisticated sensor detection of some kind of the exact mathematical position relationship of the ground observers to the star field to allow the occultation to occur as described.
2.) If the observation as described here is true and accurate, that also strongly suggests something is putting on, as Vallee defined it, a "display" or staged event, for the benefit or edification of the ground observers to be, well, impressed and I'd surmise, rather amazed by. This brings in the "trickster" issue or element, in a way. The nature of the incident also would be considered by most others as either "unlikely," untrue, or a mistaken impression. Which provides requisite "plausible deniability." Very neat trick, that, if the incident actually occurred as described. Other than an exquisitely, extraordinarily alignment in relation to the ground observers, especially when this was viewed through a telescope, the potential or suggestion arises not just of some form of extremely sophisticated "sensor system" or capability being involved, but... perhaps some form of telepathy or psychological projection to the mind of the percipient to make them think they were seeing an external, distant, "ufo" of some kind doing the kind of "alignment behavior" described here.
And that suggests a level of advanced non-human intelligence that would be extraordinary, if true.
Of course, all this is speculation, or a form of conjecture, on my part. But I'd say, as the Professor suggests, the incident deserves more than a casual, "intellectual" shrug of "meh." Yet, debunkers gotta debunk, don't they? How sadly self-limiting a consciousness or constrained imagination that must be to live with. But, it's "safe."
... unusually pleasurable for me to read such an accurate [as far as what I've tried to say], congenial, and thoughtful post.
DeleteWe, in the anomalies research communities don't get nearly enough of this.
this is off topic, but i would love to see you post that case about a woman who sent letter to condon about her strange experience in texas 1930s when she was driving and met a metallic big thing on the roadside with what she think as scoutmaster and his kids (looks like oriental kids).. and she was then experienced some missing time..
ReplyDeletethat case boggles my mind to this day
the link for the said case is here : http://www.cufos.org/swords.pdf
DeleteI remember turning a curve on the road and running up to and under the side of a huge “thing” sitting by the road. It was sort of shiny gunmetal color—round and shaped like two dinner plates face-toface with a dome in the upper top side,
It was about 100 feet across, about 15 feet thick. There was a small slender door, and the door chute let down to the ground with steps on the inside of it. The backside of the ship sat on the ground, but the downhill side was braced up with two slender legs with round plates on the ground as feet.
There was one man of normal size; I’d say about 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall and about 165 to 180 lbs. This person came walking in the road to meet me and forced me to stop while he talked to me. Or, at least I think he talked, although I did not see his lips move, and he turned his face away and looked down.
While I seemed to hear him speaking, several other persons came walking up behind him—I’d say 8 to 10. I took these persons to be a troop of Boy Scouts, about 8 to 10 years old, average size. However, when near me, I saw that there was a big difference: they looked a bit like Japs or Chinese. They had very large slanted eyes, very large cheekbones, and very thin lips. And they did not look like children but adults.
Yeh. I wrote that.
DeletePeople should probably just go to the CUFOS site and read it there. If I remember correctly, I included her drawing of the roadway scene there. If I did, then I wouldn't have much to say in addition to the IUR article.