Comment on the SITU Archive

Nothing profound here, folks. This post is just something pragmatic so as to head off possible future internet rumors and hysteria. I'm going to toss out some of the books which came to me in the huge SITU library shipment a few years ago. BUT DON'T PANIC!! The only things which will go are books which shouldn't have been there [as an anomalies library] in the first place.

Why the culling?: I'm moving to a new place in around October, and it doesn't have the luxury of an empty two-car garage. Even though the place is large, I won't have the linear feet to swallow non-essentials and random inclusions. I'm tossing a bunch of my non-anomalistic library too [so far 40 Banker Boxes of my stuff have disappeared.]

What's going to be culled?: The boxes which came to me had a lot of irrelevancies in them. There were many books merely owned by Robert Warth, for instance, which were way outside any SITU interests. Some similar things of Sanderson's were, no doubt, of interest to him sometime in his life, but hardly belonging in an anomalies archive --- ex. an ordinary textbook on microbiology. Nevertheless, I shelved almost all of that simply because I had the space --- against my better judgement at the time. Those sorts of things, and there are plenty, are now going to go.

I'm mentioning this because some of them had the SITU library stamp inside the covers somewhere. What I don't want to encourage is someone obtaining such a book, reading the stamp, and promulgating another internet rumor like the old "The SITU Library was raped clean" falsity. It wasn't and it won't be. For near-hysterical purists, there are rather long library listings which will be kept if anyone honestly thinks that anyone in the future would want to know if there was a microbiology text on the shelves.

What I will NOT, nor never, discard: Ivan's three-ring notebook files [THE Sacred Objects here]; the SITU organization minutes and other administrational materials [in case someone wants to write a history someday]; ALL of the anomalistic books, monographs, journals, and newsletters [even the stuff I believe to be pure crap]; materials which in themselves do not contain anomalistic information, but which rather closely can be seen to be of use to the anomalistic researcher [ ex. books on early civilization; lightning phenomena; animals often mistaken for crypto-forms; etc.]; I will also keep any book wherein Ivan signed his name --- just for nostalgia.

What I will toss: ordinary textbooks if there is no sign that Ivan used them by writing in marginalia or the like --- most of these things are "clean" of anything but text; journals which might have something which Ivan was involved with, but which do not directly or strongly indirectly relate to anomalies, and do not have Sanderson notations nor articles; and, you get the idea. If things seem at all "gray", I'll keep them.

So that's the boring news. I felt that I needed to make it public, however. This culling allows me to continue to protect the collection for future researchers of anomalies.

.... don't know when I'll get out another true anomalies post... chaos reigns here.

Peace.

Digging to the Core, last time this season.

One last time on this theme ... I have to stop this line of blog preparation. It takes WAY too much effort to plow through several hundred UFO case files per entry, and people probably aren't overly fired up about the "research thing" anyway. I leave it behind though with some definite regret, as the work has forced me deep into the phenomenon, and it gets a little clearer all the time.

Still, this "hundreds of cases per post" is nuts, and I have to get more time efficient with packing up the research collection for the end-of-summer move. So.... this one took equal work, but I'm going to be short and sweet with the post.

Close Encounters of the Second Kind: Electromagnetic Effects cases.

Here's what I did: A). Go through the CE2em case files and try to select ones which, as far as my own files were concerned, seemed fairly strongly credible and to clearly involved an E&M effect. 94 of those case files survived that cut. B). Out of those, I looked for the anchoring core of the phenomenon --- translation: the best cases. I picked 27 of the 94 for special "honors". C). to supplement my own files, serendipity led me to Dick Haines' study of effects in cases involving aircraft --- dropping a few which were duplicates of my own [surprisingly few, Dick is a VERY fine researcher in this aircraft incident area which in my opinion is his greatest strength], and added 133 more cases to the clump. Thus, the graph above.

I am tempted to say that the graph feels like it's telling me that the UFOs emphasized messing about in aircraft situations before they began to more intently turn their attention to the ground, but I should resist that sort of thing as the amount of data, and the unknown of exactly how Dick searched out his case pile, puts too big a question mark in this to make such a weighty comment. Still.... the front end of that graph is mighty funny.

I'm now just going to repost the other two mass data graphs from the previous posts so that they are easy for you to look at and compare.

Again, I should just shut up and behave conservatively, but the front end of the E&M graph seems to have the same "attitude" as the radar cases graph, and the middle of the E&M graph the same "attitude" as the CE1 graph. It's like the phenomenon in more than one way got itself established distantly and technologically first, then turned on the Variety Circus Show. ... lots of "dancing" and wildly "showing off" during the Condon Study era [makes you wonder, doesn't it?] and the 1970s decade, before turning the Music way down. 

That turn-down of the Close Encounters [and almost ANYTHING which is really good as a case from the eighties on] MIGHT just be my unconscious fault as far as these graphs are concerned, but I don't think so, and the fact that Dick wasn't finding many good cases of his type either is just one more example that it's not simply some bias I have, consciously or not. {Other examples of these drop-offs come from long-term statistics of the stable-and-able Tasmanian investigating group TUFOIC, from MUFONs case receiving website, from CUFOS, from perusing Fran Ridge's NICAP site, from the fact that GEPAN could find very little after the late 70s despite having national cooperation, etc etc etc.} Sure there have been tons of low-grade hit-and-run reports to NUFORC or things like Filer's Files, but even in the rare instance of a follow-up these cases are almost entirely mediocre. 

So, I believe that the turn-down of quality cases is real. That does not mean it will remain so, or that we should just pack it in as far as new investigations are concerned. 

But I am at least actually going to turn it down as far as these massive data ploughing posts are concerned, so this is probably the last of this type. But I should soften this painful blow by showing you one more great revelation about the UFOs....

At least some of the UFOnauts are made of ....

IRON!!!!

Just Kidding!! [Lord, only on the Internet would anyone have to say that.] 

Peace and good times, friends.

Digging for the Core: Close Encounters.

Soldiering on with the case file reconstruction and case category appraisals.

Today: Close Encounters of the First Kind [sightings with details at about 500 feet or so.]

Once again, a tougher job than either of the last two. Why? because every case has to be read to determine if the proximity criterion is met, or there is some mitigating circumstance whereby it's rational to expand the criterion in some case [example: the witness used a telescope or binoculars.] Because of this re-read issue, it was harder to just sweep up cases which weren't already in my CE1 files to make a larger pile.
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So, OK, enough whining by me: what did I do? CE1s are a large file drawer --- over 300 incidents. So, it was a good base to work with. I added Allen Hynek's select CE1s from his UFO Experience, as I trust him, and he defined the darn category afterall. Going through the file folders and making credibility judgements about which cases seemed to be strongly founded, I chose 45 foundationstone cases [33 of "mine" and Hynek's 12], plus enough other good ones to get to just over 150. That was pretty good but still felt a little light for something as well-observed as CE1s. I went to Fran Ridge's NICAP site, which has a CE1 category page, and picked out those cases listed there which someone thought were important enough to create a documentation directory rather than a simple listing. With those as a supplement with some confidence to them, the total numbers of promising cases went to just over 230. Since that was, weirdly, almost the exact number of the previous radar file, I accepted the synchronicity and went with it.

Here's the yearly occurrence graph. My select best cases are in RED. The rest of my cases files judged to be good ones are in PINK. The supplements from Fran's NICAP site are in BLUE. To give you the potential fun of imagining all sorts of correlations [WARNING!! Don't take me or you too seriously while doing so!!], I'm going to re-post the radar graph from the previous post.

They are sort-of-the-same and sort-of-different aren't they?? The accumulations and deficits tend to fall in similar areas, and that must mean something either about the phenomenon or about the blogger. I'll plead some guilt in the issue, but I honestly do not believe that I am entirely the causal agent here. I've seen this pattern too often elsewhere in this field. And THAT has, in its strange way, convinced me even further of the objective reality of what's going on.

On the other hand, there is at least one big difference in these graphs for me: the phenomenon got closer. Between WWII and about 1958, the phenomenon seemed happy to display itself as extremely advanced aerial technology to, perhaps, boggle the engineering and military mind. From the mid-1960s through at least the decade of the 1970s, it seemed to preferably "move in" a little closer. Maybe it enjoyed the "personal" individuality of the "60s" as much as we did {Just Joking!! --- don't start another internet rumor!!} Whereas the bulk of the best radar cases are early, the bulk of the best CE1s come in the "middle." Of course the "end" of the graph is a UFO desert in both.

One might speculate upon what this possible shift in display means --- and go and have the fun doing that. Just keep a VERY open mind to be healthy about what any of this might really mean.

I've put these pages on the blog already in the past, but it doesn't hurt to re-publish them in this context. Obviously what they're doing is giving you a group of illustrations from CE1 witnesses, or polished up versions of cruder sketches that they made. They, as is usual in UFOlogy, demonstrate the bewildering variety of detail that we're constantly presented with. I have said before that I believe [always with a willingness to be flat wrong] that this variation is much more deliberate on the part of the Agency-behind-the-UFOs than either foggy observation by witnesses or every UFO driver having his private hot-rod.

I believe that this is just very clever deliberate pattern-breaking which allows the individual impact of the encounter without our cultural aura of uncertainty being threatened.

I don't know if a listing of the better cases in this first "draft" would be useful to anyone, but as briefly as possible, here they are: {the first twelve are Allen's cases} Parshall, ND [1967], Meyerstown, PA [1966], Nederland, TX [1966], Rocky, OK [1965], Beverly, MA [1966], Freemont, IN [1966], Jefferson, MO [1967], Kenora, ONT [1955], Monticello, WI [1964], Mt. Airy, MD [1965], Weymouth, MA [1963], Mendota, CA [1967]. ... and my additions ... Red Bluff, CA [1960], Springfield, PA [1962], Millersport, OH [1963], St. Albans, WV [1958], Exeter, NH [1965], Mackay, Qnsld [1965], Portage County, OH [1966], Sheffield, OH [1958], Seville, SP [1961], Newton, IL [1966], Warren, OH [1968], Lowell, MA [1976], btw Willard//Greenwich, OH [1971], Colby, KS [1972], Willow Grove, PA [1966], Brunflo, SWE [1986], Bainbridge, MD [1952], East Peru, ME [1962], Vicksburg, MI [1966], Weston, MO [1967], Milledgeville, GA [1967], Gilroy, CA [1975], Camp Delaware, CT [1976], Kansas City, KS [1961], btw Handen//Tungelsta, SWE [early 70s], Waipukurau, NZ [1969], Baytown, TX [1966], Juniata, PA [1956], Hampton, VA [1965], Mannum, SAus, [1972], Woodbury Twnsp, MN [1976], Colusa, CA [1976].

... and again just for fun, here's some of the CE1 art:

Some UFOs showing themselves, even one giving a little peek at its "driver."

...chasing a train, and half-way hiding.

Making an electrical nuisance of itself, and being downright harassing of some car drivers....

...showing that they can be the shape they want to be.

...putting on a good show down under, and maybe even leaving a trace...

... really showing off ...

... and bye-bye? 

Mysteries, wonderful mysteries.

Till next ... watch the skies, friends. Even in this UFO desert, we might get lucky.

Peace.

Digging for the Core, Radar.

Today I'm going to do something simpler with a different Hynekian category of UFO cases {radar involved incidents}. This difference is because I'm too lazy to do more, and I'm a profound ignoramus about the vagaries of radar equipment and atmospheric false propagation tricks. This reduces me to serious faith in my past UFO "brothers" who analyzed these matters.

In a vain attempt to save face, and show that SOME work was done at least, I've attempted to plot a list of [hopefully] good UFO radar-involved cases, as you see above. My own case files have around 120 folders/individual cases. Of these I could flash-determine that I could be somewhat "proud" of 43 of them... I am sure that many more of the 120 are in this "good case" category, but I was too lazy to re-read and evaluate the other files.

43 was a "nice" group, but it seemed smallish for the whole radar category. So I went to the Sparks/ Berliner/ McDonald "BlueBook unidentifieds" list and added in the non-duplicated cases there. Then I went to Dick Hall's UFO Evidence Two and added his radar cases. Lastly Jan Aldrich had sent me a first pass copy of his and Martin Shough's RADCAT listing, and I added those. This got the pile up to 232, and I thought that was OK.

The 232 number has a lot of bias in it. First and most obviously, there is the great lump of cases, mainly military, from the Project BlueBook era. They are shown on the graph in blue. Then there is the prejudice, whatever it is, that happens in my own mind when I decide to make a case file and then evaluate the case as "good". These are shown in the graph as red. Hall's UFOE two is biased by time period{ post-1965 mainly, through c.2000}. The draft RADCAT is only biased in that I started looking at the entries post BlueBook's close.

So, make of that what you will. For me, even with all the biases, I'm boggled once again by the desert which follows 1980 that we've seen in other case instances. The main "muscular" UFO waves [around 1952, around 1957, around 1967 (( "up yours Ed Condon; where are you??")), and around 1975], are all standing out. 1954 doesn't. Why?? With 1954 I believe everything goes out the window except weirdness. To put it another way, all these others look like Core UFOlogy, but '54 is like a freak hybrid --- check that, never use the word "hybrid" when talking about UFOs --- uhhh, '54 is more like a strange combination of different things.

... but given the earlier theme of searching for the UFO Core, it seems to me that we've found it again in the better radar cases. Advanced aerial technology that can easily outfly us.

I could have specifically listed a lot of cases, but I had a template for 14 cases and, being a do-nothing goof went with it. I think that I chose some good ones, though --- cases #1,2,&4 are universal favorites and you'll have to fight Jim McDonald if you want to argue with them --- I'd suggest not. #3 was Colorado administrator Bob Low's favorite unknown, and it's one of mine too. There's so much corroboration in this case that it's an evidence mountain should people really want to find the truth. ... and down the list, there are Hynek favorites, a Bill Chalker favorite, a Claude Poher favorite, a Dick Haines favorite, a Jean-Jacques Velasco favorite, plus BlueBook unknowns. ... and the thing that I got to work on, Holland Michigan.

Since radar cases are notorious for having zero or lousy visuals to wow the spectators, here area a few things I made from my work on the Holland case to amuse you.

This is a drawing I did using the commentary in the never-published MUFON field reports interviewing the Graves family about how a circular thing with cycling colored lights moved from across the street from their house and away.

The above two diagrams are two of several that I made from the narration that the radar operator gave me and Dave Ford while we were there with him and his boss at the station. He did not see any color, of course; I just added that to make the blips stand out.

As to what these creme-de-la-creme may be telling us: 

1). The object shapes, as usual, are very different. Disk, cigar, oval and generally radially-symmetric shapes dominate [also as usual] and there are some cases where all you could see were lights. But at Mainbrace one of those nuisance triangles even snuck in there for a while. 

2). These things are fast and maneuverable. They can hover, or they can cruise at 2000-4000 mph. A case from Kirksville, MO [one of the notorious "case missing" incidents] estimated the speed at 6000 mph. Good old-fashioned Top Gun Alien Technology.

3). There are two size-monsters here, both later year ones. Rather than being weaker cases, their provenance is extremely strong. The JAL case said: "Two Aircraft Carriers." The '94 French case said : Disk 1000 metres in diameter.  Yep. No doubt the planet Jupiter. 

4). Some extra weirdness creeps in as well. The RB-47 object instantly vanished. And Hynek's Winslow, AZ case would show on radar when the lights were visually seeable, but when they would suddenly switch off, the ground radar would lose the object's blip. Do these things flip in and out of normal space, or do they just have a fantastic stealthiness which they switch on and off? 

So, there's another chapter. What does it tell us?

UFOs are real, baby, just ask the Air Force...... or practically anyone else.

And as to what's next?

"It was a dark and stormy night...."