UFO Conjectures

Monday, November 05, 2018

DISTORTION THEORY, THE INVISIBLE THREAD: TOWARDS A UNIFIED THEORY BETWEEN ENCOUNTERS WITH ENTITIES AND UNKNOWN BEINGS

Copyright 2018, Jose Antonio Caravaca
We have paid so much attention and enthusiasm to the study of flying saucers that this has prevented us from being fully aware of the clues offered by the paradigm outside the path we had taken. If the analysis of ufological casuistry, i.e. the scrutiny of incidents, has entangled us in a dead-end labyrinth, we should have opted for a parallel path.

Apply what little we have learned from UFOs and compare it with other anomalies. Since UFOs are not the first and only enigma related to the vision of strange entities and unknown beings throughout history. And this circumstance is very suspicious.

For before UFOs and their elusive occupants appeared in our lives, large numbers of people claimed to have had encounters with daimons, angels, demons, fairies, big foot, ghosts, the Virgin Mary, etc. outside, apparently from any relation to the extraterrestrial context. And the most surprising thing is that, I repeat, none of these phenomena has left evidences after its passage. This is already the first point in common with our space visitors. 

Therefore, in the same way that we have invested decades in the exclusive study of UFOs, we should have invested some of that time in evaluating other possibilities, analyzing the phenomenon beyond its appearances. Before considering that we were faced with a new equation, which to add to the various questions we were accumulating, we should have asked ourselves if there were interesting correlations between all these paradigms. And they exist. 

Excited by the singularity of the UFO paradigm we have not realized that the entire collection of odd phenomena had many keys. And it is that some of the conclusions obtained on the close encounters with UFO are perfectly able to be extrapolated to other anomalies. For the present study we have made a comparison (which can be broader) between UFOs, Marian apparitions, the Sasquatch entity, ghosts and elemental beings, each and every one of them, paradigms that stand out for being made protagonists by apparent intelligent entities, alien to the human being and that seem to interact physically with the environment. In addition, we will use the term entities to refer globally to all these beings, creatures, humanoids, etc., and the term experiences to include all the narrations of this type of encounter.

BASIC STRUCTURE: All anomalies without exception are composed of an "internal skeleton" that structures the narrative of almost all experiences (examples):

UFO: Witnesses will see "something" in the sky. This "something" will land. And crew/occupants members will descend from a ship.

MARIAN APARITIONS: Witnesses will see a stranger "light". The "light" will be transformed into a "feminine" entity. They will receive a message.

ELEMENTAL BEINGS: Witnesses will see a small entity in the forest or mountain. Witnesses will talk to these beings.

BIG FOOT: Witnesses will see an enormous hairy creature in the forest or mountain. It will disappear quickly or inexplicably.

GHOST: Witnesses will see the appearance of a deceased known or unknown person. Messages, if received, will be ambiguous.

THE UNIQUE CASES: Although there is an "internal skeleton" that validates the experiences, these will develop in an individual and unpredictable way without sharing, beyond, the main features that the differences of the other anomalies, more details between them. Both in the appearances of the entities observed and in the messages, where all possible sizes and variants in their physiognomy are observed, it is as if the same "object" were drawn/interpreted by different painters with different styles.

EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: All experiences usually have some kind of detail or element, which we will never find represented again in another incident of the same characteristics.

THE PREVALENCE OF THE VISUAL OVER THE INFORMATIVE: Whatever the nature of these apparitions, they give greater importance to the visual component, or what is observed, than to the informative content that is going to be shared. All entities are equally ambiguous and imprecise when it comes to transferring their messages.

THE ALTERATED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS: All scholars of these fields of anomalies have noted that the protagonists of these experiences seem to enter a state of trance, or altered state of consciousness when they are in the presence of these entities (to a lesser extent, apparently, in the case of the Big Foot entity, although it is relative).

ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE: None of these paradigms have been verified in a reliable way. No proof has been obtained from any of them. In addition, all the information obtained through the different entities has never provided relevant information or information unknown to humankind.

THE PSYCHIC COMPONENT: In one way or another it has been documented that these experiences have an important "spiritual" part, as if these entities were half physical and half psychic. In fact, even one's own experiences seem to develop on a confused border between two opposing universes (the physical or the material and the psychic or spiritual).

THE ABSURD FACTOR: All these experiences have illogical or absurd components. Or in the descriptions of the entities, in the messages, or the actions undertaken by the entities.

THE NON-EXISTENCE OF A GLOBAL STORY: It is not possible to connect the casuistry of these anomalies (in any of the fields described) in a global history that suggests that we are in contact with the same entities, which appear again and again. The "characters" and the "narrations" show that these experiences are not connected to each other, beyond that "internal skeleton" to which we alluded in the first point. In appearances. All incidents develop as independent stories. No case has offered evidence that the same entity (with the same name and appearance) is the one that has appeared in another place on the planet before two different witnesses. And above all, the information offered by the entities, even without taking into account physical similarities, has no connection to another event. 

All these connections indicate to us that we are probably faced with the same phenomenon that has different ways of "expressing itself" through our own psyche. All the content of the experiences seems to start from human material, which would reveal that the participation of the witnesses, far from being independent of the phenomenon, would be the vital or foundational point of these contacts with that other manifested reality. Because one thing we can conclude is that we are witnessing glimpses of an unknown universe that can interact within our reality with different repercussions. In his book The Mythical Dimension Joseph Campbell said that: "The comparative study of mythologies imposes on us a unitary vision of the cultural history of humanity, since we find that subjects such as the theft of the fire of the gods, the deluge, the kingdom of the dead, the virgin who gives birth and the resurrection of the hero appear all over the world, each time in new combinations, although their elements, like those of a kaleidoscope, are few and always the same".

JAC

posted by RRRGroup at Monday, November 05, 2018

26 Comments:

  • (N.b. The following remarks are in no way intended to be exhaustive or necessarily very substantive. They are offhand paraphrases, questions, and responses prompted by Caravaca’s text. The ellipsis with which they end is to indicate they are unfinished and open-ended.)

    To paraphrase: “The collation and study of exclusively ufo reports has proven a dead-end.” Every question always presupposes what will count as an answer; this presupposition is the question’s “sense”. Likewise, every field of research has such a sense. What sense of ufology is being presupposed here that grounds the claim the research has led to a “dead-end”?

    “Some UFO reports might be classed with other reports of encounters with nonhuman if humanoid entities.” However true it may be that there are in fact a class of narratives that can on good grounds be called “nonhuman entity encounter reports (NEERs) (a question I leave open), the claim that such reports can be found “throughout history” is, to say the least, questionable, as it ignores the indisputable philological fact that narrative conventions vary in space and time (and culture and language and…). Thus, to group NEERs with “daimons, angels, demons, fairies, big foot, ghosts, the Virgin Mary, etc.” into one class is offhand illegitimate: “reports”are a genre, while myth or folktale are others.

    I fail to understand, moreover, in what sense “none of these phenomena has left evidences after its passage… the first point in common with our space visitors”: the NEER is a trace, a textual trace; and the physical traces of UFOs, a variety of heat effects on nonliving matter (e.g., scorching or baking) or living tissues (e.g., burns), oily residues or metal fragments, are well-known.

    That there are patterns among NEERs is well-taken, and has been noted for decades: the Alien Abduction experience has been compared to Faery Abduction, Near Death Experiences, Shamanic Initiation, and Frontier Abduction narratives. We await the scholar who will collate these findings, as Propp did for the folktale in his canonical _Morphology of the Russian Folktale_ or who will be the Claude Levi-Strauss of the field… Propp, Levi-Strauss, and other semioticians have already established a firm methodological foundation for this kind of study, a study that _can_ be rigorous…

    (Joseph Campbell and other Jungians are to be eschewed, however, because of their pre-structuralist notion of sign systems, such as mythologies. For Jung, the serpent is an archetype, but this claim ignores the context-dependency of signification. Linguistically, for example, /gift/ is a sign in both German and English; however much the sign is identical graphically and even phonologically in both languages, semantically /gift/ differs between the two languages: German ‘Gift’ is English ‘poison’. So, no, a snake is not a snake is not a snake…)…

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Monday, November 05, 2018  

  • Bryan Sentes...

    Thank you for your comment, I will try to answer your questions:
    Ufology has led to a dead end: No doubt, after 70 years of UFO research, which have raised more than 300 hypotheses to explain a phenomenon, is synonymous with the research have not got anywhere. Otherwise, the UFO issue would no longer be marginal in society. This is obvious, to my mind out of any debate.
    As for leaving out of the classification of encounters with unknown beings and entities, narratives framed in the folklore or traditions of some cultures seems to me to be a substantial error. As far as these episodes have enough in common with our modern UFOs. I remind you that since we don't know the exact nature of the phenomena described, it is very risky to strip them of certain aspects. I would have liked to ask Reverend Kirk, or Evans Wentz, if they considered the narrations of "litle people" as a product of the simple imagination of witnesses.
    And of course to consider that the inclusion of Bigfoot's reports in this relationship is illegitimate, is to substantially ignore the enormous casuistica that points out, not only the coincidences between both phenomena, but they are also intimately related.
    In the same way I could tell you about the "discarding" of Marian apparitions...
    With regard to the issue of evidence, I regret to tell you that you are making a simplistic reading of the issue. When I refer to evidence, I mean evidence of sufficient magnitude to be shown on a television programme, or before a committee of scientists. Furthermore, to affirm that neither Marian apparitions, bigfoot, or ghosts or any other strange entity, does not interact physically with the our reality, is to ignore the casuistry.
    And evidently the relationships between many of these phenomena have already been described and enunciated, although with emphasis on their visual and narrative aspects. In this note, I attempt to offer a broader view.


    best regards


    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • A reply, Part I.

    The charge that “Ufology has led to a dead end” assumes some notion of what it would mean for ufology to have arrived at its goal, a notion and goal which remains unstated, and, for example, to say,”to answer the question what UFOs are” or “to explain the UFO phenomenon” is too general to be of much _scientific_ use.

    That “more than 300 hypotheses” have been proposed is not to say the research has not progressed: natural scientific research, at least, proceeds more by failure than success (at least under some philosophies of science). Despite some years of acquaintance with the literature, I remain ignorant of 300 hypotheses, but perhaps you merely exaggerate for effect. But then how many of these, if any, are, strictly speaking, hypotheses, in a sense that a natural scientist would accept? The ufologist might be better served by looking at the methods of meteorology, a science whose object is ephemeral like ufo sightings and encounters but one still anchored in the laws of physics. So, failed attempts are a sign of progress, the wheat is being separated from the chaff. But even more pertinently, I vehemently disagree the UFO issue is marginal: I google “ufo” in my search bubble and get 158, 000, 000 hits; “ovni” 19, 100, 000; even Google Scholar returns over 6,000 hits for “ufo encounters”. UFO/ ET books, comics, television, films, etc. have filled much of the global imagination for over fifty years now. _Sociologically_ the UFO is far from marginal (as Jung so famously picked up so early), a phenomenon that is very worthy of investigation from interested angles, scholarly and otherwise. But I imagine you mean the UFO as a purely physical phenomenon is not taken seriously in the natural scientific research community, but then you must discount SETI and exobiology, which are not unrelated.

    As to what will be considered a “report”. I’m glad you brought up Kirk and Evans-Wentz: the former is writing at the dawn of modernity (the 17th century) and Evans-Wentz out of the context of positivistic anthropology, both contexts within which the genre of the “report” exists. On the other hand, a book such as _Wonders in the Sky_ (Aubeck & Vallee, 2009) draws on material outside the context of modernity, material that cannot prima facie be grouped with NEERs. Jason Covalito has taken the authors to task on just these grounds (though in a very unsatisfactory way): http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blunders-in-the-sky.html

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • A reply, Part II

    That being said, I (and Nick Redfern and others) would agree Bigfoot reports have been associated with UFO reports, as have reports of haunting or poltergeist activity (Alfred Budden makes much of this); nor would I disregard Marian apparitions (Vallee as well as Fernandes & d’Armada have much to say about the Fatima event in this regard). Indeed, I find the work of Hilary Evans very provocative in the direction of a Unified Theory of Apparitions.

    Please be clear: _I take you at your word_. You referred to, and I quote, “encounters with daimons, angels, demons, fairies, big foot, ghosts, the Virgin Mary, etc.” and I argued narratives of encounters with such “throughout history” cannot all be taken at face value, as if they are all “reports” of the kind we know from modernity. To do so is to make the same interpretive error as enthusiasts do with visual art, seeing ETs in cave paintings or Flying Saucers in Medieval or Renaissance European paintings: they should consult an art historian familiar with the iconographic codes functioning in these cases, where the codes are known.


    And in all fairness, I am hardly guilty of a “simplistic reading with regard to the issue of evidence”. You write, and I quote, “the most surprising thing is that, I repeat, none of these phenomena has left evidences after its passage,” with no qualification, as you supply now. As to the physical interactions of Marian apparitions (I imagine one might refer to the heat effects during the climax of the Fatima Event), Bigfoot (I imagine you refer to footprints; little else stands to scrutiny, if the footprints even do), or ghosts (I imagine here various poltergeist effects, e.g., rappings, reported by witnesses), I made no claims, only that UFO encounters have been reported to do so, which contradicts what you wrote as quoted above.

    And please, let’s just drop such on-line rhetorical flourishes and posturings: “I regret to tell you that you are making a simplistic reading of the issue.” I’ve taken time and energy I cannot at the moment afford to respond provisionally and humbly (see the note that precedes my first intervention) and I hope not uninformatively to part of what you wrote, not even, mind you, critically.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    I still do not understand that you consider that the UFO investigation has not led to a dead end. If after 70 years there is no clear or consistent answer, it is obvious that neither the origin nor the purpose of the phenomenon has been established. With respect to the 300 hypotheses, the researcher Ignacio Darnaude carried out an extensive statistical study that collected and presented this data. Therefore, it is not rhetoric. In fact, it is a data to take into account the complexity of the UFO phenomenon.
    And you are right, my opinion on the marginality of the phenomenon (for absence of evidence) referred to the strictly academic. I personally considered of substantial interest the investigations of folklorists and scholars such as Evans, or Kirk, as they show many similarities with our modern UFOs. Above all in a detail that we should not overlook. Both the witnesses of one or the other phenomenon, according to the different researchers, seem to be in an altered state of consciousness. I believe that these conclusions in paradigms so far away in the "visual" and temporal should make us reflect on the nexus of union.
    And again, I apologize, for correcting your argument away from the casuistica of each anomaly. The Bigfoot have left feces, hairs, bones, etc. that the different analyses have concluded in the same way as most of the scientific examinations carried out to the UFO "evidences". Ghosts have left behind physical contributions such as stones, metals, etc. as well as different fluid emanations. Marian apparitions, some of them photographed, such as flying saucers, as in the case of Zeitun, have also left some evidences after their passage, such as "petals", "angel hair", "powders", etc.
    Of course we have to understand that each paradigm leaves a certain type of evidence.
    And I appreciate you taking the time and energy to comment on my note.

    Best Regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • It strikes me there is a difference between having reached a dead-end and not having borne fruit (knowledge of the origin or purpose of the phenomenon). The atom was imagined by the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander but had to wait for Einstein to use the phenomenon of Brownian Motion to demonstrate the granularity of matter. Despite those 300 hypotheses (I’m sorry I don’t know Spanish so I could follow this up for myself), ufology has still to establish itself or even an approach to the phenomenon that might be called “scientific” (which is why I would still reject the use of the term ‘hypothesis’ in its strictly natural scientific sense). There has been an interdisciplinary and amateur approach to the question, which has yielded answers satisfactory to some, Zoam Chomskey’s Null Hypothesis, the Psychosocial theory, and others. Even if we reject these answers others accept, clearing the ground for the foundation (testing and eliminating each of those 300 hypotheses) is still progress, though of a negative kind. Research reaches a dead end if there is no way forward. That the question still nags indicates the case isn’t closed, though I would argue that question itself is in need of some reflection, e.g., that you write the phenomenon has a purpose guides investigation in a certain direction.

    The purported altered state of consciousness though sometimes remarked (Jenny Randles termed it the Oz Effect) (and here I use the logical “some”, meaning only one of a class or all but one or anything between) it is not consistently so, a fact that needs be taken into account. E.g., in the well-known Valensole encounter of 1 July, 1965, the primary witness, farmer Maurice Masse, reported no altered state of consciousness, nor the primary witness in the even more dramatic Dr X case.

    As to physical traces, when it comes to Bigfoot, Marian Apparitions, and ghosts, I am unaware (I am unaware, mind you) of any nonephemeral trace that has withstood scrutiny. In terms of UFOs, however, some have, being both undeniable and inexplicable. In the Quarouble Case of 15 September, 1954, an object left impressions on railroad ties that would have required a weight of thirty tons “at the site of the alleged landing the stones were brittle, as if they have been calcined at high temperature” (_Anatomy of a Phenomenon, Jacques Valee, 1965, p. 69). Moreover, Vallee has had physical studies performed on some metal fragments, studies that have found some anomalous findings (https://www.academia.edu/37136826/What_do_we_Know_about_the_Material_Composition_of_UFOs).

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    I think we are confusing terminology to explain a concept that is very simple. Thousands of cases registered in the world, in more than 10 countries, and the general result of these investigations (although they have obviously provided information about the phenomenon) are not the most effective. In other words, if you consider that in 70 years the results obtained, that is, deciphering some of the paradigm guidelines are sufficient, I consider it a very optimistic position. The reality is that the effort undertaken by the researchers is not proportional to the ambiguous final conclusions. I agree with you that progress has been made, but not in the way expected after so many investigations. The example of the atom is not the most appropriate. We have researched UFOs for 70 years and the phenomenon has slipped through our fingers.
    And to say at this stage of UFO research that altered states of consciousness, trances, or alterations in perception in witnesses is a debatable matter, is to question much ufological literature. Jacques Vallee, Pierre Guerin, Jerome Clark, Hilary Evans, among many others, have noted that UFO witnesses are out of the ordinary state of perception when they are the protagonists of their experiences. In his book "Emissaries of Deception" (1979) Vallée said: "Reports of UFO sightings collect all sorts of psychophysical effects: alterations in perception, states of unconsciousness and mental blocks. In addition, witnesses show signs of having been subjected to hypnotic suggestion. Being exposed to the phenomenon causes a series of psychological effects such as visions, hallucinations, and long-term personality disorders".
    There are many incidents with Bigfoot where "hairs" have been collected from the creature. It has even been reported that the footprints disappear at a specific point, as if the Bigfoot had suddenly disappeared (this affects their supernatural appearance). There are even cases of telepathic contact with the mysterious creature.

    Best Regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • Any further discussion of whether or not progress has been made in ufology is probably a dead end, between us: I don't know why the case of the atom is inappropriate; I could point to some similar remarks by Kant about metaphysics not having made progress since Plato, while all the other natural sciences were happily making progress. But this matter is really rather beside the point, in terms of how ufology might make any progress at all.

    As to altered states of encounter witnesses: I was at great pains to be clear: _some_ encounters are not characterized by either the Oz Effect, altered states of consciousness, or anything else you remark from Vallee, et al. That _some_ times it is the case does not contradict that _some_ times it is not, and any attempt at explanation must account for _both_ circumstances. I think this is the most important point our discussion here today has uncovered.

    As to Bigfoot hairs, or other traces (faeces, blood, bones, etc.), the cases I am aware of, where the hair has been subjected to DNA analysis, the hair has always turned out to be that of, e.g., a bear or other mundane animal, but, again, I delimit this claim by referring back to my admitting that that is only within my, limited, knowledge. I would still maintain there is "harder" evidence in UFO landing or near-landing cases, but, again, I make that claim based only on what I know.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    I am very grateful to have this debate. It is also a way forward. With regard to altered states of consciousness, it is quite true that there is such a diversity in the descriptions of the witnesses of the flying saucers and their occupants that we only have, basically, three explanations for it:
    1.- Witnesses lie
    2.- They do not visit infinity of extraterrestrial civilizations.
    3.- The mind of the observer participates in some way in what is observed.
    Using their examples, no one else came across Maurice Masse's UFO, nor the UFO of the Hill, and no one else has observed Lonnie Zamora's UFO... or his symbol... Why?... Why are bigfoot of all sizes and coats? Why do Virgen have so many names and so many appearances different?

    And regarding the atom issue, we are not trying to discover anything, advancing in a knowledge, which also feeds on human technology, in the case of UFOs we only have to analyze tons of reports that do not fit ... for the time being.....
    Surely from discussions like ours emerge small green shoots...

    Best Regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • I'm unconvinced there are only three explanations for the diversity of UFOs or occupants witnessed. On the one hand, Vallee, from the start, has proposed multiple ways to reduce this multiplicity and has posited patterns, e.g., "cloud cigars" etc. There _are_ uniformities. Moreover, there is no doubt the observer participates in what is observed, or there wouldn't be an observation, but I imagine you posit a more active role, but, even here, this is hardly news, either from a psychological perspective (e.g., studies in memory formation or attention or perception), philosophy (especially the rigorous descriptions of perception in the phenomemological tradition stemming from Husserl), or even from a common-sense perspective, where witnesses are confronted with surprising, anomalous phenomenon the mind stretches and grasps to understand, and, if said phenomenon has a natural or artificial electromagnetic component, it can interact with the human nervous system in reproducible ways, as per the research of Michael Persinger.

    You ask about Masse, the Hills, and Zamora, which is surely merely rhetorical: Masse's experience occurred early in the morning in a remote farm field; the Hill abduction or sighting late at night on a remote highway (I've driven it); and Zamora's sighting occurred in a depression outside a small town, if I remember aright. Or do you mean craft and occupants like those in these three cases have not been observed? That is categorically false in at least the Masse and Zamora cases.

    Why are Bigfoot of various sizes and colours? Why are human beings of various sizes and colours and hair colours? If Bigfoot is a rare but naturally occurring species, such variety stands to reason.

    As to Marian Apparitions, they fall outside my relative expertise.

    As to your response regarding atomic theory, from Anaximander to Einstein, I don't really understand your response (though it is getting late in Spain!). My point with that example and that of Kant is that progress in any field can sometimes be a matter of millennia or centuries, not mere decades. We don't know how long a science _should_ take to mature, or how long it takes for some founding breakthrough to be made.

    What's important, here, I think, is that the variety of UFOs and occupants is not unamenable to categorization nor the role of the observer necessarily that surprising or mysterious. But that's likely just more grist for the mill.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Tuesday, November 06, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    The UFO multiplicity is one of the most disconcerting aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Because we must not forget that to this must be added the incongruity and absurdity of many of the close encounters with UFO, and above all, even if you do not see it that way, the NO repetition of some aspects of the paradigm, in any other case. The veteran ufologist Antonio Ribera, who corresponded with prominent researchers such as Jacques Vallee or Amie Michel, thought in the same way as you (when you cited the various aspects of the Bigfoot) because he argued that just as there was great difference between the human race, the same should happen with our visitors to space. This has been a self-deception of the researchers themselves not to see the blunt and seamless reality shown by the casuistry itself. If this had been an secluded factor in the UFO phenomenon, we could argue some of the aspects you mention, from perception errors to Persinger experiments.
    But here, we face on a paradigm that is clearly using the human unconscious, to fabricate "artificial" experiences of extraterrestrial contact, but not as a technological "camouflage", or as a problem of cognition, or exposure to electromagnetic fields, we are dealing with a phenomenon, which we could call, psycho-dimensional. And I repeat. There are hundreds of flying saucers and occupants that have NEVER been reported anywhere else in the world. Obviously, the most common details, egg shape, flying saucer shape or sphere shape, can be repeated, but I can assure you that they will not match in size or color. UFO witnesses are involved in the creation of their own experiences through a psychic process of unexpected and unpredictable repercussions, insofar as it can be reflected in a "projection" that can contain matter, or interact with the surroundings. Detail that would explain why, a great majority of the encounters with UFOs, are episodes half psychic and half physical. Product of the conjunction, probably of two antagonistic realities that are superimposed, in a border zone when an unknown external agent is able to tune/contact with the psyche of the witnesses.
    In the same way, it has been noted that front the same characteristics, 1.- landing of a UFO 2.- Soft terrain. We does not obtain the same results. In other words, in some cases traces and marks are registered and in others not. Sometimes flying saucers appear to be metal objects, and in others they are capable of crossing trees (or even both), this would indicate that there must be other factors, independent of the phenomenon, which can activate some circumstances of the experience. And this differential element, obviously, is represented, in this equation, by the witnesses.We assume is the one factor that ALWAYS varies from one incident to another. The "incognita" is the same (UFOs) but the results change so admirably and amazing, that the only explanation left (beyond thinking about cosmic manipulations) is the involvement of witnesses in the perception of these paradigms.

    Best regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Wednesday, November 07, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    Regarding the case of Zamora (one of my the favorites) in Spain I have investigated several similar but openly different cases.
    As occurred on May 24, 1974, in San Clemente (Cuenca. Spain) (for more information https://ufocon.blogspot.com/2017/09/copyright-2017-interamerica-inc.html).
    As for the Bigfoot, it is obviously not an unknown natural animal, otherwise it would have already been trapped somewhere in the world. This creature accumulates so many supernatural aspects (immunity to shots, mysterious disappearances, intangibility, etc.) that it clearly indicates that it is associated with the other manifestations of strange entities of which we have spoken. The majority of cryptozoologists, like many ufologists, do not want to analyze in depth the casuistica, or the best of cases, make a wrong or biased reading of the data. And even stranger when Bigfoot apparitions are related to UFOs (See William Bozak incident, December 2, 1974, near Frederic in Polk County (Wisconsin), July 31, 1966, on Presque Island, on the shores of Lake Erie). Researcher Stan Gordon, in an interview entitled "Bigfoot and UFOs: The connection" (2012) for the Scott.net portal, expressed his opinion on the strange footprints associated with "Bigfoot": "was our investigators going out to various locations and observing a series of tracks that just suddenly stopped where there should have been more footprints. ". As if the animal had vanished or flew away. And even more mysteriously, in many incidents, no footprints even if the terrain was favorable for it.

    Best Regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Wednesday, November 07, 2018  

  • RE your reply preceding that RE Bigfoot: three concerns, before even getting into the Distortion Theory proper (“But here, we face on a paradigm that is clearly using the human unconscious …”)

    1. There is a logical tension in some of the positions you are taking. On the one hand, the various phenomena—UFOs, Marian Apparitions, Bigfoot, etc.—are varied, so varied you claim there is arguably “NO repetition of some aspects of the paradigm, in any other case”, but, on the other hand, if the phenomenon is so varied, such that some members of the class share no characteristics (“NO…aspects of the paradigm”) then _they wouldn’t be recognized as members of the same class in the first place_. Mary is recognized _as Mary_, Bigfoot _as Bigfoot_, and so on, so there must be some consistency within each class of phenomenon (UFO, Marian Apparition, Bigfoot, etc.) for the experience to be classifiable as that phenomenon at all. It doesn’t follow, mind you, that there is a finite set of qualities that all members of the class must possess (an essence); each member could possess one or more of a constellation of qualities, what Wittgenstein termed “a family resemblance”, but the phenomena cannot be varied to the point that no member shares similarities with any other member or there would be no class in the first place. It can’t be the case _both_ that UFO phenomena are one class of event, sightings and encounters (the a priori unity that underwrites any one event as being re-cognized _as_ a UFO event in the first place) _and_ that they are not _in some way_ one class, that no member can be said to share characteristics with at least one other member of that class. Indeed, we wouldn’t even percieve these differences if the two different instances weren’t brought together in the first place precisely as instances of the same class of event.

    2. I absolutely fail to understand what you mean when you write “This [Riber’s thesis that space visitors would be as varied as humankind] has been a self-deception of the researchers themselves not to see the blunt and seamless reality shown by the casuistry itself”. What is the “blunt and [above all!] _seamless_ reality” that “the casuistry” reveals? And how can casuistry—sophistry, subtle reasoning as dishonest as it is convoluted—reveal something (it is after all made to _conceal_)?

    3. I find the claim “we face on a paradigm that is clearly using the human unconscious” questionable. The class of experiences under discussion can hardly be said to be _clearly_ the result of “a paradigm…using the human unconscious” (and the word ‘paradigm’ here is being used in a very idiosyncratic way). Why assume the human unconscious is an unproblematic concept? Whose notion of the unconscious: Freud’s, Jung’s, Lacan’s, Deleuze’s & Guatarri’s, etc., never mind what it might mean that it can “used”?...

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Wednesday, November 07, 2018  

  • Bryan...
    Again, casuistry is much more complex than what each orthodox theory establishes. Regarding Marian apparitions, from Fatima, Lourdes, to Medjugorje, they are not at all defining, since its beginnings, examples: Lucia in fatima had previous contacts with white entities like ghosts, in Lourdes, the entity was not identified until after several encounters, and in Medjugorje, the first encounter was with a static gray silhouette. Therefore, the line that separates all these phenomena is not as clear as you pretend to establish. The "a family resemblance" to which you refer, it seems that on many occasions (but not all) is established by the researchers themselves since the encounters are sometimes not at all clear. More like ambiguous.Obviously the UFO casuistry can offer many readings, but the correct one is to interpret each of its details and give them the right context. It is a certainty that UFO cases are not connected to each other in a great story. There's no doubt about this. No one has eaten more pankekes than Simonton, No one has ever seen Father Gill's flying platform again, no one has ever seen the Socorro symbol again, no one has ever seen Betty's star map again, no one has ever seen Pascagoula's beings again and so on to infinity....
    I understand that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is suggestive and attractive, but obviously, it is insufficient to explain the large number of anomalies presented by the UFO phenomenon.
    I am convinced of Jung's approaches, with his collective unconscious, and I believe that some of this exists behind the paradigm we are investigating, and I base part of my ideas on it...


    best regards


    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Wednesday, November 07, 2018  

  • One complication here is the word ‘casuistry’. In English, the word means sophistry, subtle and convoluted reasoning intended to confuse. Therefore, I fail to understand your first sentence, “Again, casuistry is much more complex than what each orthodox theory establishes.” Please define your use of ‘casuistry’.

    Regarding Marian apparitions, from Fatima, Lourdes, to Medjugorje, etc. I understand you to claim that some features of these events are shared with other classes of events, e.g., hauntings or UFOs. On this point we agree. Vallee et al. have made the same claim regarding Fatima and other Marian Apparitions (MAs). And that UFO events are associated with poltergeist phenomena or Bigfoot sightings is also given. This observation opens more logical cans-of-worms than I think either of us has the time or patience to get into… One worm is that the ambiguity of events is possible only against the background of clearly differentiated classes of event. I can ask, “Is this event A, or B, or C, or…?” only if A, B, C, etc. are themselves relatively unambiguous. I guess your stance is that these already existing categories have proven to be only provisional, and need be swept away as being ultimately groundless differentiations of a more general phenomenon. Imagining the scholarly labour required to legitimate that case cracks open my skull…As does the endless task of interpreting each UFO case in all its details and to “give them the right context.”

    That these events are classed as this or that after the fact by investigators is a point well-taken; but, by the same token, these events are understood during the event by witnesses as this or that in their attempts to make sense of what they are experiencing, and certain categories are already there for just this purpose. Kenneth Arnold famously interpreted what he saw on that fateful day first as “jet planes” because, supposedly, of their metallic appearance, velocity, and silhouette.

    I beg to differ that “It is a certainty that UFO cases are not connected to each other in a great story.” You claim too much too quickly. That story need not be the ETH (though the ETH _is_ a very important myth to technoscientific society, not that I stand by it as an explanation of the being or nature of the phenomenon). The Simonton pancakes are arguably part of a larger story (see _A Trojan Feast_, Cutchin, 2015); that Father Gill’s flying platform was one-off is not the case (I have an issue of _Fortean Times_ on just that topic around here _somewhere_); but the point here, again, is that all these examples of difference are examples of difference _within a class_; each is “black swan” but all swans, whether white, black, brown, green, red, grey are all swans.

    As to Jung’s Collective Unconscious, I have already registered by criticism. The very idea of an unconscious has yet to be scientifically legitimated, despite its disputable clinical efficacy.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Thursday, November 08, 2018  

  • And, as a not unrelated aside, I ask if you have anywhere at any time engaged with Vallee's and Davis' 2003 paper "Incommensurability, Orthodoxy and the Physics of High Strangeness: A six-layer model for Anomalous Phenomena"?

    https://www.academia.edu/36788970/Incommensurability_Orthodoxy_and_the_Physics_of_High_Strangeness_A_six-layer_model_for_Anomalous_Phenomena

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Thursday, November 08, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    The termeny casuistry, in Spanish, is used to define a set of cases. That's what I mean by the incidents collected by the investigators. I apologize for my use of the language, evident is not the most appropriate in other lenguage.With respect to the appreciations made about Marian apparitions, personally, I go beyond Vallee's and others' approaches, considering that sometimes the phenomenon behaves like a blank sketch, in clear conjunction with the psyche of the witnesses before being fully defined. When I was referring to non-classifiable cases, I was referring to incidents that are not fully defined, but not by the action of the external agent, but because the witness is not capable of completely catalyzing the sketch towards some specific anomaly .
    I believe that the categories exist, each one with its own characteristics, but as I say, it is the witness himself, in conjunction with other factors, which determine that the starting point of the experiences are directed towards some anomaly.My ideas are not based (though it is an interesting subject) on the mental perception and decoding of what is observed, like the example you give of Arnold. What I say is that the phenomenon itself interferes with how we perceive experiences, by feedback with our unconscious.
    On the differences let me tell you that, , with respect, to deny this fact is to deny the UFO literature itself. In my own province, from the 1960s to the 1980s there were a lot of UFO close encounters, and they are so diverse, complex and different that obviously, it is not the same goose, nor the same bird and it is not even a bird.
    And the unconscious is something intangible but very interesting...



    Best regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Thursday, November 08, 2018  

  • RE interlinguistic confusion: I apologize, again, for not reading or writing Spanish. With luck, conversations like this one will at least serve to clarify and sharpen the English-language articulation of your ideas.

    With respect to MAs: my reference to Vallee et al. was to Vallee’s understanding Fatima as a UFO even as early as _Anatomy of a Phenomenon_ (1965) and his later study of the Mexican Juan Diego case of 1531, as well the three volume study of Fatima by Fernandes et al. (in English translation), _Heavenly Lights_ (2005), _Celestial Secrets_ (2006), and _Fatima Revisited_ (2008).

    It seems we have very different understandings of perception and just what “evidence” the investigator has to work with (I follow Vallee and Hynek, that the first datum is the report):

    1.I fail to understand how a phenomenon can be thought of as behaving like a blank sketch (what’s a blank sketch? An outline? But even that is not blank…); as I’ve remarked, _of course_ the phenomenon (stimulus?) works in conjunction with the psyche of the witnesses, or there would be no phenomenon at all (‘phenomenon’ after all is ‘an appearance’); that the witness can percieve something they do not comprehend, have difficulty classifying, is well taken, _but it is precisely at that point_ that attempts to divine a category for the anomalous perception comes into play, like Arnold’s perceiving what seemed to be metallic objects (because of their colour and reflectic properties), in flight, but of a strikingly unfamiliar shape, unbelievable velocity (by his calculations), and irregular flight pattern (“like a saucer skipped over water”) and his understandably making the educated guess they were “jet planes”.

    2.How your ideas can _not_ in the first instance be based on the reported perceptions and interpretations of the witnesses baffles me. From what standpoint do you have access to the phenomenon _at all_, given it is not reproducible? To say that “the phenomenon itself interferes with how we perceive experiences, by feedback with our unconscious” is in a sense to say nothing at all, as it is true of all perception, but I think you have more in mind that the kind of phenomenon under discussion is more active than merely impinging on the senses of the witness, that, like an entheogen or EM field or even the sonic waves of a lion’s roar more dramatically affect the witness physiologically (a point Vallee and Davis make in the paper linked); however, in all cases, if we accept the Freudian or Jungian concepts of the Unconscious, it (the Unconscious) is always in play…

    When it comes to difference, it can only appear against the background of similarity: to write that there are many UFO encounters all remarkably different is to point to differences within a class that must have some binding principle, at the very least a family resemblance, or on what grounds are they placed together in the first place for their differences to become apparent? If they are compared, they are compared on the basis of _some_ similarity, before their differences can even be perceived.

    And the unconscious is something whose status needs be determined. At present, it has no natural scientific status, at least not in North American psychology, despite very early neurological research (which Freud himself looked forward to). I grant it has a hermeneutical truth (like Marxism or Nietzche’s Will-to-Power), but that kind of truth is maybe not of the kind quite suited to play an explanatory function in the way it seems you need it to.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Thursday, November 08, 2018  

  • Bryan...

    I'm going to explain my concept of "blank sketch." I personally believe the phenomenon we are facing is radically different from anything we have intuited so far. The external agent is an entity that before the encounter takes place, connects with the psyche of the witnesses, and according to the unconscious material of each individual (culture, interests, hobbies, etc) determines the aesthetic aspect of their UFO experience. That is, the concrete aspect of the flying saucer, and the physiognomy of its occupants. When the witness is tuned in by this external agent, the experience can be the result of a "simple" but complex exchange of questions and answers. I explain myself. The witness feels that something strange is going to happen, the sketch in white, it can be a light, a shadow or even a sensation. Then, the external agent in communication with the psyche of the individual, determine the category of the anomaly. For example. The exchange of questions can work in this way. What happens? What is that light? What is that shadow? A flying saucer? The Virgin Mary? My late grandfather? A bigfoot. And from that point on, the whole experience is elaborated, in what I have called a "psychic architecture". Nor can we rule out the possibility that the external agent has a certain autonomy to impose certain categories.

    Best regards

    JAC

    By Blogger jacaravaca, at Friday, November 09, 2018  

  • And just here the kind of dialogue we have been pursuing must end, because its matter steps into the purest of speculation, the “external agent”, which strikes me as a kind of empty set designating only the cause of the entity encounters it seeks to explain. But to step outside of possible experience, namely reports of the encounters themselves, is to pursue ultimately fruitless meta-phyical speculation.

    The account seems to run as follows: there is a highly anomolous class of human experience (I have called here provisionally NEERs (the status and logic of which I still find unclarified)). NEERs have a cause (already a metaphysical assumption), you designate “the external agent” (I imagine to posit that the experience is not merely subjective but motivated by an external stimulus), which “connects with the psyche of the witnesses” (what is understood by such a “connection” needs be clarified: our psyches are connecting (communicating) now via the means of written signs…) and “determines the aesthetic aspect of their …experience” (what in particular the witness will perceive)(I imagine you _are_ modelling the NEER in general, not only UFO encounters, given what you go on to say), drawing on “the unconscious material of each individual (culture, interests, hobbies, etc.)” (which is either to agree with the Psychosocial Hypothesis or to posit some kind of telepathy, as far as I can make out); however, at the same time, if I understand your final sentence, the External Agent might also supply its own material (accounting for the possibility of NEERs whose contents exceed the background of the witness, thereby marking an important difference from the Psychosocial Hypothesis).

    But for this last caveat (the potential creative agency of the External Agent), the External Agent could be a phenomenon like the EM fields researched and proposed by Persinger et al. But more gravely, at this point, the account is riddled with metaphysical assumptions (NEERs have a cause) and tautologies (what witnesses perceive is drawn from themselves or provided by the stimulus, i.e., the content is either subjective or objective; if subjective and objective are the only logical possibilities, then the claim is a mere tautology). Moreover, the being and nature of the External Agent is questionable: Occam asks if it is needed to account for the observations; and if the necessity of the explanatory entity is in question, let alone the logic of the set of observations, then any further statements concerning the nature of the explanatory entity—what it does, how it does it, if it is an intentional agent, etc.—are all beside the point, unless we’re brainstorming a work of fiction. Or so it seems, at least, to me.

    For such reasons I find Vallee’s and Davis’ paper (linked earlier) more satisfying, because the class of observations is well-defined and characterized in terms of its observable and measurable effects (the authors posit six levels, all of which open potential fields of research, one of which I have explored very tentatively, the Fifth: Cultural Effects) and any speculative aspect is at least related to recent scholarly, peer-reviewed literature, and explicitly presented as speculative (e.g., the physics of spacetime or interspecies semiotics).

    I trust that nothing here is taking as unduly harsh or damning. It’s all offered in a spirit of amiable, comradely engagement.

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Friday, November 09, 2018  

  • Bryan.... Of course, you don't worry, it's been a pleasure debating with you.

    Best regards.

    And if you wish I invite you to visit my blog in English about the Distortion.

    http://caravaca102.blogspot.com/

    By Blogger jacarav@ca, at Friday, November 09, 2018  

  • already following it...

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Friday, November 09, 2018  

  • Well, that was interesting. I think you would both enjoy reading some of Colin Wilson's books. Particularly "Supernatural" and "The Occult". I'm pretty sure you haven't because he's already been where you're headed. He somehow wrote the groundbreaking book I planned to write and he did it around thirty years ago. It's frustrating. I could be wrong, too.

    By Blogger esp.philbrook, at Saturday, November 10, 2018  

  • esp.philbrook: I did read _The Occult_ but _decades_ ago; _The Supernatural_, never. Can you briefly state where's he's been that I, at least, am heading? (I'm not really heading anywhere, here, really, taking a more strictly critical stance. Where I orbit can be found here: https://skunkworksblog.com/ iffn yr innarested).

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Sunday, November 11, 2018  

  • I got the impression that you believe we are at least partly contributing to the phenomena. as I said, I could be wrong. Sometimes I jump to conclusions. Mr. Wilson believes we are almost entirely responsible, at levels we don't understand nor control. For instance, cattle mutilation. Most ranchers say whatever is responsible for this, has no right. But what would the alternative end for the cattle be? I'm pretty sure it's not dying in their sleep in a featherbed! Our sins thrown back in our face so to speak. The same case could be made regarding animal experiments and alien abduction. Not so fun when your on the table!

    By Blogger esp.philbrook, at Sunday, November 11, 2018  

  • esp.philbrook,yes, you do misread me, somewhat. My point is that the observer is neither a tabula rasa nor passive, but comes even anomalous experiences with pre-judegments and is actively engaged in _making sense_ of what is observed, not in ontologically conjuring the being of what is observed. In terms of the meaning of these phenomena, for me, they certainly do function as fun-house mirrors, but that, too, is independent of whatever their nature might be. I'm pretty sure the first to posit the meaningfulness of the UFO in this way was Jung, but I, too, could be wrong....

    By Blogger Bryan Sentes, at Monday, November 12, 2018  

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