Another day in the life of a too-old UFOlogist ... a package came in the mail the other day. It was a large stack of pages, all pertaining to UFO Close Encounters. I was happy to get them, but forgot what I was supposed to do with them. My best guess is: look at them and see if any useful thought pops into your head about them. I can't promise "useful", but maybe something will happen
Most of the following is the fault of these two guys: Loren Gross on the left, and Jan Aldrich to his right. Jan had been collecting stacks of paper on Close Encounters of the Second Kind [for usages unknown] and had extracted most of Loren's history series of monographs for the bulk of the cases. Knowing a sucker when he sees one, Jan asked me if I'd like him to ship me the pile. Not having the sense of a wombat, I said "Sure. Send them over." So now what?
The stack is about a half a foot high and, due to Jan's diligence, is in date order. The first year is 1958, the year following the great flap of 57, which featured a flurry of electromagnetic vehicle interference cases. Maybe we'll see if such UFOlogical weirdness persisted, despite conventional UFO history saying that there was a severe drop-off.
What I'm going to do [to save time, sanity, and the possibility of even getting through the stack] is to begin at least going year by year and we can see what we may see. So: 1958.
This is what we have in this pile for 1958: 23 cases, all but one of which I read as a CE2, and all but two of which have a CE2 E&M component. The one CE2 which does not have a CE2 E&M aspect to it is Snag, Yukon --- and it provides the opening picture for the blog entry today. It is a case where one of the two witnesses decided to fire away at the UFO but his gun jammed. One can imagine an electromagnetic "freezing" of the gun parts so that it wouldn't fire, but that's wild guesswork by me. [and I don't believe it either]. [Why? Such an E&M effect would probably have magnetized the gunmetal, and we should have heard about that in the report.]
Of the twenty one incidents having E&M effects, only eight of the cases appear in Mark Rodeghier's catalog of UFO vehicle interference events. Mark did a good job with that catalog, but if he only got about a third of what Loren/Jan were collecting, imagine how many CE2 E&M cases are really out there. [the Rodeghier catalog cases are marked with a small red circle near the number.] [only seventeen of the above cases are of interference with a VEHICLE in some way, though, so Mark got about half of them.]
What intrigues me the most about case clusters such as this, though, is something we've seen on this blog before.
That is: there is no uniformity of type of UFO "craft" which parallels CE2 E&M events. Once again, this data seems to indicate that you cannot use what you see to predict anything about what the UFO is actually doing in physical effects cases. The visual appearance is like the ghostly head of the Mighty Wizard of OZ, but you're not Toto-enough to rip away the curtain to see what the show is really about.
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AN ADDENDUM FROM THE OTHER DAY:
We were having difficulty coming up with any documentation about a 1954 Germany CE3, until the ever-vigilant Tooth Fairy dropped a reference to Jimmy Guieu's book into my lap. Now the even-more-vigilant Rob Swiatek has discovered that NICAP and Richard Hall in very early days knew about the case. We know that the Boss, Don Keyhoe didn't like the idea of little men from saucers, but one wonders if the young Dick Hall was wavering on this conservative NICAP stance even before Ted Bloecher and Isabel Davis joined NICAPs staff. We know that Dick at least had the fun of drawing his rendition of the aliens on his record card.
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So, what would these two guys think about all this?
MDS: Yo, Carl! What do you think?
Carl: Don't know, Mike. Are we on camera?
MDS: Think so. Better smile.
Carl: Yeh. That's all they'll get for today.
Guess we'll never know what brilliant thoughts they had. [hint: it was lunchtime].
Peace.
Professor
ReplyDeleteHello - For some time I've been working on a book about Colorado UFOs. It has been slow going, primarily because of a lack of time to work on the project (and lack of discipline on my part) and in part because of a lack of material.
I know about Edward Condon and his famous report done under the auspices of the University of Colorado, my alma mater, and its role in UFO history. I have read some of your work about that subject. I also know about Snippy the Horse, whose death marks the beginning of the UFO mutilation age, for some. I know about Stan Romanek and his experiences in and around Colorado. But I'm looking for more material. I'm looking for the Colorado equivalent of Roswell, although MUFON and other sources tell me it does not exist.
I'm looking for significant sightings and other UFO-related topics specifically connected to this state. Could you help me with this by sharing information or pointing me in the right places to find it?
I don't mean to put you through a lot of trouble. I just want to produce a book that is interesting to readers who may or may not be UFO buffs. My goal is to focus on good storytelling and to let readers make up their own minds about UFOs and other mysteries.
I would very much appreciate you help and/or guidance.Thank you. dugganmail3201@gmail.com