DISTORTION THEORY: THE WITNESS AS CO-CREATOR OF UFO CLOSE ENCOUNTER EXPERIENCES by Jose Antonio Caravaca

Copyright 2019, Jose Antonio Caravaca

The Distortion Theory establishes that the phenomenon we have labeled as extraterrestrial in origin actually obeys a complex psychic mechanism, in which there is space for the participation of an indeterminate external agent. Why do we say this?

1.- NON-CONTINUITY, NOR REPETITION OF THE UFO PHENOMENON

The analyses, above all, of the close encounters of the third type (CEIII Hynek) indicate to us, in a forceful way, that we are not in the presence of a physical phenomenon that responds to the presence on our planet of usual physical objects. Although these types of manifestations share a common narrative skeleton; that is, witnesses report that they have seen the descent, landing and disembarkation of supposed extraterrestrial entities, each of these elements will suffer so many variants that the only plausible explanation is that our psyche is interfering with what is observed. Proof of the implication of witnesses in the creation of the mise-en-scene of the CEIII, is that, if we chose 100 cases at random, it would not be possible to establish a global history that would connect all these incidents, neither in the narrative nor in the aesthetic. It is simply impossible. The stories are not connected in a great plot of extraterrestrial intergalactic exploration. The analysis of the CEIII shows that these types of events are only connected by a common thread; the witnesses believe to be in the presence of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. However, the content of their experience will be unique and unrepeatable in many respects, indicating that the CEIII seem to restart at each event, following very simple common patterns.

But what differentiates the UFO phenomenon from a psychotic break shared by many people? Can the psychosocial hypothesis explain these apparitions without resorting to the supernatural or the inexplicable?

2.- PSYCHOSOCIAL HYPOTHESIS FALLS SHORT

The unprejudiced analyses of the UFO phenomenon, of the CEIII, points out three interesting points that define this complex paradigm outside the structure of the usual psychic experiences or illnesses:

1.- Some events are shared by more than one witness

2.- Sometimes they leave traces

3.- People with no knowledge of the subject have the same type of experience.

These three points cannot be explained by the psychosocial hypothesis (although it evidently gives the key to many other things).

And it is that, if we were before some type of strictly psychic/ hallucinatory/social/cultural contagion, nowadays we would find similar phenomena in our society. But this does not happen. It must be borne in mind that the mass presence of the media in our lives, especially the Internet, has not caused a single phenomenon comparable to the supposed "psychotic break" of the characteristics exposed by the UFO phenomenon throughout the world for decades. Not even the worldwide knowledge of a character like "slenderman", through social networks, has produced massive reactions in the public to provoke hundreds of sightings of this fictitious "creature" (if we start from the psycho-social hypothesis that UFOs are fictitious). The vision of any shadow on the street, in a forest, or even in a room could have triggered a phenomenon similar to that recorded with the apparitions of flying saucers. And of course, the psychosocial hypothesis cannot explain how it is that in the area of the supposed UFO landings we find marks, tracks and burns, for example.

3- THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE EXPERIENCES

Are the cultural and personal contents of the witnesses reflected in the experiences lived by the individuals. There is no doubt about this, and it is one of the most difficult aspects to admit by orthodox ufologists. And it is that the CEIII contains so much subjective material that it was very evident that the psyche of the witnesses intervened in some way in the composition of their experiences. And I am not referring to the fact that the cultural level of the witnesses, as some researchers defend, caused the phenomenon to undergo a modification in its description. Rather, the paradigm itself "adapted" its aesthetics and development to the cultural, social, etc. interests of the witnesses. But we can even go beyond that. What if the implication of the witness leads irreversibly to the modification of what has been observed, and we are not faced with an imposition on the part of the paradigm? We would be faced with a phenomenon that is highly moldable and permeable to interaction with the psyche of witnesses. Multitude evidences suggest that there does not seem to be anything prefixed before the experience, but on the contrary the elements exposed during the CEIII seem to be recreated in the same moment that the interaction between the phenomenon (external agent) and the witnesses takes place. This creative process seems to obey a simple exchange of questions and answers between the external agent and the psyche of the witness in an unconscious way: What is this light? Is it a flying saucer? What is it like? Is it manned? Is it going to land? Will its crew members descend? What will they do? Do they have mechanical problems? Are they exploring? And, therefore, the interaction of each witness will proceed to develop these answers with their extensive informative baggage, which may even be far removed from the concepts associated with space travel or the UFO phenomenon itself. Any information contained in the psyche of the witness can be adapted by this external agent in the mise-en-scene that is taking place.

Examples:

1.- November 23, 1964. New Berlin (New York). Mrs. Marianne observes with her mother-in-law how a damaged UFO receives the help of the crew of another UFO, to repair the engine of the ship. When she was young, the witness saw how her father received help from neighbors in the repair of machinery. What other witnesses have seen the engine of a UFO, before or after this experience? How many women in the sixties would be accustomed to see machinery repairs? Is it probable that a woman accustomed to this type of action has precisely a ufological experience where a flying saucer is repaired?

2.- March 23, 1966, on a stretch of Highway 70 between Oklahoma and Texas. William Laxton observes a strange artifact on the road and a humanoid with a flashlight. The occupant of this object looks like a soldier, wearing a cap and even military gallons. Laxton works at a USAF base. How likely is it that someone working at a military facility will encounter a helicopter or airplane shaped ship with rear fins and a B-26-like cockpit?

3.- March 14, 1974, Valencia (Spain). The Corell couple, as they travel along the road, meet a strange humanoid resembling Bibedum (Michelin) with its arms fully attached to the body. Curiously, the couple had just come from seeing their son who was doing military service, and that same day had paraded in the swearing of the flag with all his companions. A humanoid with his arms attached to the body and rigid that reminded the witnesses pf the military it had just seen? (In those years Michelin's logo was well known in Spain.)

4.- September 1971, Aznalcóllar, Seville (Spain). Juan Rodríguez Domínguez while guarding a farm observes the landing of an enormous elongated object from which about 50 humanoids descend. The witness works for a military man, and he thought that could be part of a coup d'état against the government, and coincidentally the object is very similar to the big bus that circulated through his village, and from which he saw the children descend when they returned from school. 

The curious thing, apart from these impossible coincidences, is that none of these incidents have been repeated anywhere else in the world. In the same way, no one has seen a multitude of details recorded in some cases.

Examples:

1.- Star map of Betty Hill (September 20, 1961. USA).

2.- One-foot aliens (September 19, 1977. Brazil)

3.- Flatwoods Monster (September 12, 1952. USA)

4.- Creatures of Zanfretta (1978/1981. Italy)

5.- "Swastika" on the fuselage of the UFO. (12 March 1981. Spain)

6.- Levers with brakes inside the UFO. (Spring 1952. South Africa)

7.- "Parrilla" cooking pancakes inside the UFO. (April 18, 1961. USA)

8.- Door with hand-wheel system. (1931. Brazil)

9.- Symbol observed on the fuselage of the UFO (December 19, 1973. Belgium).

10.- None of these UFOs has ever been observed again:

a.- Dale Spaur (1966) USA.

b.- Holy Family (1963) Brazil.

c.- Mildura (1970) Australia

d.- Tordesillas (1977) Spain

e.- Rosa Lotti (1954) Italy

f.- Jan Wolski (1978) Poland

g.- Laxton (1966) UFO

h.- Gonzales Santos (1981) Spain

i.- Evansville (1976) USA

4.- ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

There is no doubt that many CEIII witnesses report important spatial-tempored alterations, and that they feel that they have momentarily abandoned our reality. Researchers have noted that witnesses appear to be in an altered state of consciousness while in the presence of these phenomena.

1.- Alteration of time.

2.- Isolation (nobody else seems to be able to access the place while the CEIII takes place).

3.- paralysis (of both people and animals)

Examples:

March 23, 1966, on a section of Highway 70 between Oklahoma and Texas. While William Laxton observes a huge UFO across the road, it prevents any other vehicle circulating in the area.

March 12, 1981, Algeciras, Cadiz (Spain). Juan Gonzaléz Santos observes a UFO hovering near the N340, one of the area's busy roads, no other vehicle is on the road.

August 26, 1966, Algeciras, Cadiz (Spain). Dr. J.J. Rivera observes a small humanoid and an enormous object perched on the ground. The witness says that time stopped; he did not hear any noise from nature, not even the wind.

December 30, 1972, Tres Arroyos, (Argentina). Ventura Maceiras is able to remember the last detail of his experience until elements that were not visible with his ordinary view (back of the humanoids' space scuba).

December 19, 1973 Vilvoorde (Belgium). The witness Mr. V. M. observes a humanoid in the courtyard of his home, and the take-off of a flying saucer. In spite of being in a wide urbanization, his nearest neighbors saw nothing.

STRANGE ANALOGIES

For centuries, people have denounced the presence of strange entities that sometimes communicate with us: daimons, angels, spirits, fairies, goblins, Bigfoot, Marian apparitions, etc. The similarities with the creatures and beings of the CEIII are evident.

1.- They adopt multitude forms. Even the Bigfoot that should present a more uniform description because they are basically biped creatures covered with hair, are described with a wide spectrum of typologies, sizes, colors, etc. Not even the Virgin Mary uses the same look or the same name when it is envisioned

2.- Not very communicative

3.- Sometimes they interact physically with the environment or people.

4.- Ambiguity in explaining their origin or purposes.

5.- Absurd behaviour

And curiously, as with some CEIIIs, witnesses and scholars of such phenomena indicate that witnesses are in an altered state of consciousness.

EXAMPLES:

UFO: In his book Messengers of Deception (1977) Jacques Vallée wrote that: "The reports on UFO sightings collect all kinds of psychophysical effects: alterations of perception, states of unconsciousness and mental blocks. Moreover, the 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.

FAIRIS: Reverend Robert in his book Secret Commonwealth (1691) said that the witnesses of fairies and goblins had a special view that made them able to have contacts with these beings: "the men who possess the Second Sight surpass the ordinary vision of the remaining men. In some it is an innate capacity inherited from their ancestors, while the others have been acquired as an artificial perfection of their natural sight".

BIGFOOT: Researcher Micah Hanks in an article called The Weird Outdoors: Bigfoot High Strangeness (2011) commented that: "Among the literature devoted to Bigfoot, there are also reports (although, again, often discarded by more orthodox researchers) where people begin to feel dizzy, disoriented, terribly frightened (often accompanied by paralysis), or even experience sensations similar to "moving in slow motion" while observing this type of creature. Moreover, in dozens of incidents witnesses perceive that the creature communicates telepathically with them.

GHOST: In his book Apparitions (1943) the eminent parapsychologist George Nugent Merle Tyrrell said about ghost apparitions that "they are often seen or heard by some of those present, but not by all".

MARIAN APARITIONS: Little to discuss. The Church officially admits and approves that the Virgin can appear and be seen only by witnesses (Fatima. 1917).

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

The CEIII can be reinterpreted on the basis of all these data as updates of similar phenomena that have occurred throughout history. Their development and narrative are identical. What we can completely rule out is that we are dealing with a phenomenon that is foreign and independent (totally) to the presence of the human being. There is much evidence that interaction with witnesses modifies the nature of what is perceived in an extraordinary and unpredictable way. The fact that the phenomena reviewed are perceived in an altered state of consciousness, or at least in a state of non-ordinary perception, indicates that their origin could probably be in portions of reality that our senses cannot normally see, even if they come from an unknown psychic or physical dimension. But this would not prevent the manifestations of this phenomenon from occurring in our daily environment (although probably not complying with all the rules of our Cartesian reality). The detonator of these experiences is an unknown external agent, which can interact with witnesses to provoke phenomena interpreted as contacts with extraterrestrial beings. It is also important to note that, throughout history, in a premeditated way, and under certain altered mental states (drugs, dances, meditation, sounds, etc.) shamans and visionaries from all cultures have accessed a "psychic universe" (cognitive or dimensional) in which they have come into contact with entities similar to those described by different phenomenologies. Juan Martín Velasco in his book The Mystical Phenomenon (1999) referred to mysticism in the following terms: "The term ‘mystic’ is also used to designate that world, that ‘nebula,’ of the esoteric, the occult, the marvelous, the paranormal or parapsychic of which an entire family of new movements are occupied, in which the fatigue produced by a civilization that is only scientific-technical and incapable of responding to needs and aspirations very deeply rooted in human consciousness emerges culturally. A new example of the extension of the term to non-religious fields, by virtue of a functional analogy, is the use of the term in the sense of total commitment to the service of something taken for absolute, such as when speaking of the mystique of action, humanitarian mystique, the mystique of communism, or even the mystique of adventure or speed. But even in the religious field and in the theological vocabulary ‘mysticism’ is far from being a term endowed with a precise meaning. At the end of the last century, W. Inge offered twenty-six different definitions that responded to as many understandings. In his book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (1952) the Jesuit Herbert Thurston said that: "In the mystical state things really happen that are irreconcilable with natural laws as commonly understood", referring specifically to all the paranormal components that he had recorded for his study and that were very difficult to explain. In this sense, Juan Martín Velasco affirmed that: "a greater frequency of paranormal phenomena: levitations, inedia, visions, etc.; recourse to certain representations of God and Jesus Christ: maternity of God, and even of Jesus Christ; proclivity to the evaluation of the corporal: the sufferings of passion, devotion to the Eucharist, centrality of love lived in the most intense way and with strong repercussions in the area of feelings and corporality".

And in the shamanic universe we find again the same patterns. In an article entitled Mystical journeys of shamanism (2009), Florian Yubero states that: "Mircea Eliade, Romanian researcher who made the first compilation on shamanism and whose books are obligatory classical texts for study, defines shamanism as the technique of ecstasy or trance, and the shaman as the great specialist who has the ability to make journeys to the region of the spirits and from there can harmonize reality. Shamanic ecstasy, like that of certain religious traditions, such as Buddhist samadhi, Sufi fana and the Christian beatific state, is a state of transport to mystical worlds to supposedly meet spirits, gods or demons. It includes clairvoyant phenomena such as voices and visions, which provide guidance or information for some healing, for spiritual growth or solidarity in the community.

Mircea Eliade, in his book Shamanism and the archaic techniques of ecstasy (1951) states that: "The shamanic technique par excellence consists in the passage from one cosmic region to another: from Earth to Heaven, or from Earth to hell. The shaman knows the mystery of the rupture of levels. This communication between cosmic zones has become possible thanks to the very structure of the universe. Indeed, the universe is broadly conceived as consisting of three regions (Heaven, Earth and Underworld), joined together by a central axis (Axis mundi). [...] This axis passes through an opening, through a hole, and through this hole the gods descend to the earth and the dead descend to the subterranean regions; likewise, through it, the soul of the ecstatic shaman can ascend or descend during his travels.  The shamans are convinced of the existence of spiritual beings with whom they can come into contact. Michael Harner in The Path of the Shaman (20017) states that: "The Shamans have been called those who see or the people who know, in the language of indigenous cultures, because they are involved in a system of knowledge based on first-hand experiences. Shamanism is not a belief system, [...] shamans do not believe in spirits, shamans speak, interact with them. [...] This is very important, because shamanism is not a system of faith. Amalia Bassedas in Shamanism: The Legacy of the Ancestors (2005) describes that: "The displacement of your spirit outside the limits of ordinary reality, in self-control, is the particularity of your practice, your specialty. It is through his travels that the shaman comes into contact with the world of spirits and, from these parallel territories, recovers information that will be transcendental for the prosperity of the community and the maintenance of the well-being of its members. [...] In his travels he enters into an expanded perception and understanding, hand in hand with his teachers, helpers and animals of power, who await him to guide him towards the information which he will then bring to ordinary reality, or the Middle World, to be transmitted to those who need it. [...] The shaman has the ability not only to make the journey, but also to accurately transmit the result of his exploration. [...] the spiritual world, nature and humanity are essentially linked. The shaman's skill is to bring them together. Eliade speaks of mystical light: "This mystical light is obtained by the candidate after long hours of waiting, seated on a bench in his cabin, dedicated to invoking the spirits. When he warns her for the first time "it is as if the house where she is suddenly disappears; she sees far away, through the mountains, exactly as if the Earth were a vast plain, and her eyes reach to the ends of it. There is nothing hidden from him. Not only can he reach with his eyes to the remotest, but he can also discover stolen souls, even though they are in custody and hidden, in strange and very distant regions, or even though they have been snatched or led to the highest or lowest of the land of the dead.

In an article entitled Close Encounters and Consciousness (1996) Simon Harvey-Wilson said: "The existence of other kingdoms or dimensions accessible by the consciousness is frequently mentioned in writings on shamanism, spiritualism and mysticism, as well as in UFO literature. Any religion with a transcendental god must surely also believe in such a realm. Are there such kingdoms, or are they all different aspects of the same multifunctional realm? Can UFOs and/or aliens access this realm and, if so, how do we begin to investigate the subject? The proof of such a realm, especially if populated by sentient beings, would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science, apart from facilitating contact with some form of extraterrestrial intelligence. Let's look at a brief historical review of the theories about the existence of such kingdoms. In ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato set forth his Doctrine of Forms, which stated that everything on earth had its spiritual equivalent, or Form, in a higher and immutable realm which, though invisible to the senses, was understandable by the mind or soul, which, like Forms, are immortal.

The physicist Paul Davies often echoes this idea when he points out that the laws of physics and mathematics seem to exist independently of space-time. Since Plato's time, the descriptions of this realm have varied, but it has remained invariably invisible and apparently only accessible to most humans in special circumstances, such as in trance, during ECMs, in death or during a close Encounter. For example, seventeenth-century Swedish scientist, scholar and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg reported that such a kingdom existed and was accessible through consciousness. He sometimes remained in a trance for more than 24 hours, claiming that he was communicating with his friends in this spiritual world. Long before UFOs were the subject of the popular press, Swedenborg insisted that within this realm one could also interact with beings from other worlds. At the beginning of this century, the influential Jesuit theologian, philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1955) presented several controversial ideas that were not well received by the Catholic hierarchy. He invented the term noosphere, which was the consciousness equivalent to the biosphere, the realm of all living beings on the surface of the planet. Chardin suggested that all living beings were connected both physically and psychically and that consciousness would evolve to become increasingly dominant.

To conclude we recall one of the conclusions of the controversial Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) (2018) seems to confirm my views: "One of the greatest successes of BAASS was the adoption of the novel approach of using the human body as a reading system to dissect interactions with the UFO phenomenon. This new approach aimed to circumvent the growing evidence of deception and subterfuge by the UFO phenomenon in the sense that multiple eyewitnesses located in the same vicinity frequently reported seeing very different events. The evidence was multiplying in the sense that the UFO phenomenon was capable of manipulating and distorting human perception and therefore the eyewitness testimony of UFO activity was becoming increasingly unreliable.”

JAC