UFOs In The Public Eye

MEDIA

Since the first sightings of flying discs in 1947, reports of lights in the sky, strange crafts, alien crewmen, and even kidnappings have continued up to the present.  The UFO phenomena enjoys great coverage in the popular press.  Newspapers love to run strange articles, especially on slow news days.  The original reports seem to get more coverage than subsequent conventional explanations.  The stories also seem to grow as time passes and they are cited in books and articles.  The tabloids love UFOs.  The more fantastic the claim, the better.  Headlines such as "I Married an Alien from Outer Space", Elvis Presley was Abducted by Saucer People", Dying Civilization Discovered on Mars by NASA Scientist" appear with great regularity.  Many non-fiction books have been published about the phenomena.  They range from hysterical rejection of even the possibility of extraterrestrial origins, through reasonable examinations of the evidence, to fantastic hypothesis, such as ancient extraterrestrial visitors being the creators of the human race.

There have, of course, been many fictional accounts of both benign and hostile contact in comic books, magazines, and novels.  "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "E.T", "A Fire in the Sky", and "Communion" are excellent examples of UFO movies.  Several fictional television series, including "The Invaders", "UFO", and "V", dealing with systematic, hostile behavior by flying saucer crews, have been popular.   Television documentaries and informational series are often broadcast.  UFO researchers, debunkers and contactees have been, and are still, a staple on the radio and television talk show circuit.  Past Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan have stated they have seen UFOs.  Public consciousness has been flooded with UFOs by the popular media.

PUBLIC RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS

Soon after the initial media coverage, public research organizations began appearing in the U.S. and abroad.  In 1952, Coral and Jim Lorenzen founded the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in Tucson, Arizona.  APRO's membership reached a peak of over 3,000 in 1980 and represented every state in the U.S., as well as forty-seven other countries.  APRO boasted over forty consulting PhDs and published a bimonthly newsletter.  The organization faded after the death of the founders in the mid 80's.

The National Investigation Committee for Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) followed in 1956.  It was started by retired Marine Corps Major Donald Keyhoe and Richard Hall.  NICAP had many retired military and intelligence officers among its members.  Rumors circulated that NICAP was actually a front or CIA investigations.  Keyhoe was forced out in 1969, possibly because of his running feud with the Air Force about secret government files on UFOs.  Richard Hall would eventually serve on the Condon Committee, which was created by the US Government to investigate UFOs.

An Air Force UFO consultant, Alan J. Hynek, inherited the files of NICAP and, along with David Saunders (who handled computer analysis), started the Committee for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in 1973.  Hynek died in 1986, but the organization continues today with around 2,000 members, including PhD consultants.

The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) was created by Walter H. Andrus, John Schuessler, and Alan Utke in 1969 and has held annual symposia since 1973.  MUFON is well organized with over 3,000 members.  They publish a monthly newsletter, maintain a hotline, call on a large pool of consultants and have local groups in every state, as well as forty foreign countries, including Russia.

There are national research organizations in other nations and many local groups worldwide.  There have been many conferences ranging from hostile to reasonable to uncritical of the UFOs.  Skeptical organizations, such as the Committee for the Investigation of the Paranormal, have formed in reaction to the enthusiastic public statements of the UFO believers and other esoteric phenomena.  The Committee spends their time explaining away all UFO reports as natural phenomena, hoaxes or hallucinations.

ABDUCTIONS

The earliest and most famous contact report occurred in September of 1961.  Barney and Betty Hill were driving on a country road in New Hampshire.  A bright disk of light flew over their vehicle, tracked them for a distance, and then vanished.  Later, after they arrived home, they found several hours had elapsed for which they could not account.  They both had psychological and health problems following their trip, eventually causing them to seek professional assistance.  During hypnotic sessions, they both reported seeing  a flying saucer land.  They were paralyzed by the crew and taken aboard for examination.  The leader of the crew was wearing a "Nazi-like" uniform.  During their visit, Betty saw a design of points and lines on the wall and was told it was a "star map".  She reproduced the star map in the hypnotist's office.  Researchers used a computer to run through various configurations of stars and concluded that the region around Zeta Reticulai fit the pattern.  Subsequent analysis of the pattern by other astronomers led to the conclusion that literally thousands of different parts of the sky could yield a rough match to the diagram.

Bud Hopkins became interested in the hypnotically obtained reports of abductions and, along with historian David Jacobs, conducted thousands of sessions with people who reported missing time.  A common pattern emerged from the sessions which led Hopkins and Jacobs to conclude that there had been a continuous widespread series of abductions going on for decades.  People were brought into UFO's and subjected to examinations, and even operations, in which sexual themes were very dominant.  There were reports of artificial impregnation and later removal of fetuses.  The theory evolved that the aliens had some sort of genetic problems and needed to either obtain genetic material from humans, or to interbreed with humans to salvage their desperate situation.  Support groups sprang up for these abductees who had to deal with the aftermath of their traumatic experiences.  Books have been published and conferences held.

Author Whitney Schrieber submitted to hypnosis and told a bizarre story which had been blocked from his memory for many years.  Schrieber's childhood vacation cabin was invaded by small, strange beings over a period of years.  Schrieber wrote of his experiences in a book entitled "Communion" which was recently made into a movie.  This movie has done much to raise awareness of abductee experiences.  Schreibers childhood experiences are similar to, but not exactly the same as, other reported adult experiences.  Researchers disagree about the plausibility of these reports. Some feel that because they don't exactly match other adult experiences, they are suspect, others feel that the differences, given Schreiber was a child at the time, make them that much more plausible.

The concept of evidence obtained under hypnosis is central to a serious consideration of the claims of such abductees.  In a famous experiment, in the context of using hypnosis for gaining evidence for legal proceedings, an individual was hypnotized and told he had lived in a loft in Greenwich Village in New York in the summer of 1963.  Later, under questioning, not only did he repeat this fiction when asked where he lived that particular year, but he also went on to describe, in intricate and plausible detail, the furnishings of the loft.  He had only been given the location in the hypnotic suggestion.  All the detail was made up by him spontaneously.  Many challenges have been leveled against the hypnotic evidence of abduction.  Unless the hypnotist is extremely careful in his questioning, the subject will fill in the content with what he thinks the hypnotist wants to hear, including gross fabrication of detailed experiences.  If the subject of the abductee experiences is familiar with the literature on abduction, and comes to believe that is what has happened to him, and the hypnotist also believes this, then the entire session could be a guided fantasy tour.

UFO "CULTS"

In the early 50's, an elderly gentleman, George Adamski, reported he had seen and photographed flights of UFOs.  He began to put on presentations relating his contact experiences.  He described being taken aboard space craft, examining equipment and talking to the crews.  he related a number of meetings with extraterrestrials, who appeared to be human, in mundane locations such as restaurants and bars.  A support group formed around him and his notoriety spread.  Investigations of his claims revealed that he had previously been involved in channeling and had created a group based on his contact with the spirit world.  When he began to spread his UFO gospel, some of the same material was used with the names of the spirit guides replaced by the names of the space brothers.  Today he is widely regarded as a fraud.

 Since January of 1975, a Swiss farmer by the name of Billy Miers claims to have been visited repeatedly by aliens calling themselves "Pliedians".  These aliens were indistinguishable from ordinary humans in appearance.  He took many photographs of the Pliedians and their saucers.  They gave him samples of plastics and metals, as well as devices.  In more than fifty visits, spread over several years, they communicated information concerning their history and civilization, as well as human history and origins.  They said we were from "common stock" and the earth had been colonized several times in the past by Plieadian groups.  Those colonies had all been destroyed by cataclysms related to polar shifts.  The survivors sank into barbarism.  On the present mission, they were coming back to warn us of impending disaster due to our damage to the Earths eco-system.  An expensive glossy book was published in 1978 featuring text and photographs.  One of the authors was a Colonel Wendall Stevens, USAF retired.  The authenticity of the photographs has been challenged and much of the "wisdom" transmitted seems to be a rehash of "New Age" philosophy.  It tells of ancient gods as being aliens, catastrophic destruction of ancient advanced civilizations, telepathy and reincarnation combined with a disturbingly fascistic political philosophy.  There is still a great deal of interest in the Pliadian contact today and Wendall Stevens continues to speak and publish.

Near Madrid, Spain, in June of 1967, small cylinders containing messages were found at the location of a well witnessed UFO sighting.  Following this sighting, documents were received by a European research group from "extraterrestrials" referring to themselves as "UMMO".  Over the next several years, hundreds of pages were mailed to the group.  These messages were gathered into a recently published book.  The UMMO civilization was supposed to exist on several planets.  They were transmitting information, via the mail, to humanity to help us through difficult times ahead.  The information included details on their civilization, history, technology, and planets.  Many in the group claim there is too much detail to be the work of any one individual or small group perpetrating a hoax.  Anyone familiar with elaborate, highly detailed, multivolume fantasy or science fiction series by popular authors, knows this not a compelling argument.

Many other groups have sprung up centered around the belief in extraterrestrial visitors.  They usually believe there is a single race of aliens dedicated to helping humanity in a spirit of cosmic brotherhood.  If there really are advanced civilizations which are traveling the star ways, why should we expect their individuals and institutions to be any less complex than human individuals and institutions in their motivations and behaviors?  It is reasonable to assume that if there is one space faring civilization, there may be several.  If some of the aliens want to help, some may want to exploit humanity.  If some are kind, gentle, spiritual, honest and helpful, others may be nasty, cruel, materialistic, deceitful and exploitive.  It is unrealistic to assume that all extraterrestrials are more, or less, morally advanced than human beings, that they will always lie or always tell the truth, or that they will all act in the same manner, with the same motivations.

CONCLUSIONS

In spite of the efforts of the skeptics, there are still thousands of UFO reports which cannot easily be explained away in conventional terms.  Recent surveys indicate that 87% of people polled believed in the existence of UFOs.  These are difficult times of great uncertainty for the individual.  Cultural disintegration, economic dislocation, political unrest, armed conflicts and other sources of confusion and concern abound.  When an individual is confused, he or she tends to look for authoritative answers to the questions of life.  When old systems, such as political ideologies and established religions, have lost credibility, people turn to charismatic leaders operating from novel political, religious or extraterrestrial inspirations.  Although there is no definitive evidence which proves that the UFO phenomena cannot be explained away as delusion or hoax, there are substantial reasons people are ready to join groups and follow leaders in this turbulent period of human history.

If advanced alien races have been visiting the earth for decades, they could easily and unambiguously prove their existence and broadcast their message to the entire world.  Instead, we get shadowy abductions, vague sightings, ambiguous traces, and objects and materials that could be of natural, human or extraterrestrial origin.  If they exist, they are deliberately playing with us.  If they don't exist, then something else is generating these bizarre experiences that we don't yet understand.  Perhaps the only thing we can know for certain, is that we cannot completely accept the statements of either the skeptics or the believers.