Slow Swan Song

Time to begin the final walk down these wonderful paths with you.

This will be the first of a very short series of opinions that I have about the status of several of the anomalies that we've looked at over these six years. But first, I want to dispense with a duty to all of you and whomever else might stumble across this blog as long as it rests-in-state [and peace] here.

When I agreed to various people and to myself to caretake certain resources of possible interest to researchers now and in the future, I took on a moral burden [at least that's how I view it]. For awhile, that duty was somewhat achieved by my attempts, however inadequately, to partially mine every one of these resources and share them with you in that way. 500 posts later we've done some of that.

But others may still have intellectual research needs. To do what I can [within reason] I am going to reassert one thing and add another. The reassertion is that any responsible person may [with some prior notice] visit these archives for research purposes anytime [again within reason] that I'm in Kalamazoo. The address of my home, and the archives, is 818 South Park St. /// Kalamazoo, MI, 49001.

As a reminder of what these archives are, they consist of my personal files of course, plus the SITU/Ivan Sanderson files, the Ruppelt files, the George Hunt Williamson files, the John Timmerman files, the notebooks of Paul McCarthy [for his Colorado/McDonald PhD thesis], and a large quantity of the usual books, journals, documents, et al. It is a UFO-heavy archive, but a fairly substantial general anomalies archive as well.

That's the reassertion of something that longterm readers already have seen. The addition is my e-mail. It is < mswords@att.net >. Obviously that is useful for warning me of your desire to show up here in person sometime. I will do [again within reason] one further thing. If someone has a pretty specific request for information, and it is something of some research import [not a mere whim which has crossed the mind], then I'll read the request, and if feasible try to be of service. I cannot be "on-call" Anomalies Central, and I'm sure you folks realize that.

Well, on to my first statement of opinion ............

UFOs are real. The percentage of doubt in my mind is so small that I'm tempted to slide from mere belief into certainty. But we should define the term.

People want to use the term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena {UAP} --- fine if that's their view. For me it's the coward's way out and almost useless for accomplishing anything but protecting one's butt. There are OBVIOUSLY unidentified aerial phenomena --- anything which seems off the ground that the viewer can't classify clearly fits that vague label. I have interest in some UAP reports like thunderbirds, mothmen, witches on broomsticks, strange atmospheric phenomena, flying men, ivory-billed woodpeckers, and on and on. But this is not about some useless vague category which then must have its subsets more strongly defined. My interest lies in the subsets. In this case: UFOs.

UFOs for me are, hypothetically, either physically-present aerial technology or the result of some such technology, the characteristics of which exceed what our Earthly engineering has accomplished. In short some form of non-terrestrial technology which we have nevertheless encountered here on familiar old Earth. And it is THAT hypothesis which I believe is nearly beyond doubt.

And I believe that it has been nearly beyond doubt for a very long time --- at least since 1952. Minds which cannot see, after reading cases like Red Bluff, Rogue River, Coyne, Boianai, Levelland, Arnold, Moore, General Mills, Nash-Fortenberry, RB-47, ... Lord, this list could go on nearly indefinitely .... are minds so fearful of error that they are crippled with paranoia.

To see the reality of this, one has to immerse oneself in cases. Few have done so. Not all who have conquer their own irrational enthusiasms and end up making the job of the scholarly student harder. I will let you in on a strange observation, however. I have found that it is EXTREMELY rare even among UFOlogists [especially public figures] to have actually done much work in the files. Translation: despite their "authoritative BS" they don't know UFOlogy. They usually know all sorts of sociology and gossip [just like the debunkers], but their assertions are the products of ego and/or an excitable wannabe mania, at best it is the product of extremely narrow interest in some small piece of the whole. As to the debunkers: they are a strangely bent lot. They seem to enjoy lifetimes of cockadoodle strutting, mocking other human beings, and trolling to get fun out of irritating people. There may be some worthy severe lifelong skeptics out there [Menzel, Klass, and Csicopians in general are NOT them], but the majority are just intellectual criminals.

One further thing: if the evidence is so persuasive, why are "we" as a culture where we are in our attitudes about UFOs? I've answered this so many times here that I can't count. But the thing which, in the majority, sets the foundation for any open-thinker to feel their way through this 50+ year sociology is: Read UFOs and GOVERNMENT!! OK, 600 pages. But as Aristotle said to Alexander the Great: "There is no Royal Road to Mathematics." Truth and clear vision often have a price.

................  That's my view of UFOs in brief. Everyone will have their own, of course. My own is the product of quite a lot of years not spent casually, so I feel that I've at least earned that opinion.

I've no interest in arguing this by the way. If deeper interest exists, the Blog is full of explanations, as are books like UFOs and Government, Grass-Roots UFOs, the Journal of UFO Studies, as well as lots of things done by others smarter than myself.

The next time I'll be blowing off steam on several other of the anomalies --- that "list" will probably take more than one post --- but the number will be small.

Peace, folks. All the best, and keep your eyes and intuitions open.