Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

[Jack Brewer]

Hello Collective:

Some of you might find a recent post at my blog, The UFO Trail, of interest. The post is Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community, and, as suggested, it contains the statements of Ms. Rainey. An award-winning filmmaker, author and grant writer, Rainey addresses controversy surrounding her critical review of the work of her late ex-husband, Budd Hopkins. She also offers some thoughts on current research of alleged alien abduction and the field in general.

The post:

http://tinyurl.com/mnauuts 

Regards,

Jack Brewer

The UFO Trail 

[boyinth...@aol.com]

You mean it wasn't enough that she openly attacked him as he was dying so now she wants to continue her assault?  

I also see that "Emma" (fake name) is also still making the rounds after all these years.

I can't speak for everyone but I personally don't want to hear another word from either of these women. 

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[Ray Dickenson]

Having no loyalties - except, I hope to the truth, and having no beliefs -
except that we should take all reports at face value, for the sake of
statistical comparison, I read Carol Rainey's page as a slightly more sensible,
indeed scientific estimate of the situation than the opinions of fervid
`believers' in other presentations.

In particular I have strong doubts about _any_ accounts which rely on hypnotic
regression as part of their evidence. Hypnotism, while not fully understood by
the psychological `sciences' just now, is known to amplify wishful or fearful
thoughts or concepts and then to re-implant them as hard and fast "memories" -
when in reality they are no such thing. Additionally, hypnotism encourages its
subjects to generate false `memory' agreeing with the (spoken or unspoken)
preconceptions or wishes of the hypnotist.

Although I've not deeply studied the work of Hopkins (it all looked rather
repetitious), it seems that not only was he a quasi-religious `believer' in
various concepts but he also relied almost entirely on "hypnotic regression" to
provide him with `evidence' for his beliefs. That's a dangerously unscientific
combination.

Cheers
Ray D

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Brewer

[Jerome Clark]

Although I've not deeply studied the work of Hopkins (it all looked rather repetitious), it seems that not only was he a quasi-religious `believer' in various concepts but he also relied almost entirely on "hypnotic regression" to provide him with `evidence' for his beliefs. That's a dangerously unscientific combination.

Budd Hopkins was a friend of mine.  "Quasi-religioius believer" does not describe his outlook, and it is an unfair, if drearily predictable, insult.  

I came to disagree with him about the meaning of the abduction phenomenon, whose relationship to the larger UFO question is in my opinion more apparent than real, but I respected him and his work.  It may strike some as an  incredible proposition, but all whose have views different from ours aren't religious fanatics or crazed believers.

Jerry Clark

-----Original Message----- From: Jack Brewer
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 1:04 AM

Some of you might find a recent post at my blog, The UFO Trail, of interest. The post is Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community, and, as suggested, it contains the statements of Ms. Rainey. An award-winning filmmaker, author and grant writer, Rainey addresses controversy surrounding her critical review of the work of her late ex-husband, Budd Hopkins. She also offers some thoughts on current research of alleged alien abduction and the field in general.

The post: http://tinyurl.com/mnauuts
Regards,
Jack Brewer

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[Ray Dickenson]

As already stated, I have no loyalties (except for the truth, hopefully). What I
have seen and heard of Hopkins' attitude is that available on Youtube, and was
`evangelical' in tone. Therefore I have to stick to the term `quasi-religious',
since no other description would fit that lack of scientific objectivity.

Cheers
Ray D

-----Original Message-----

[Jerome Clark]

I'm afraid that, unlike you, I knew Hopkins as something other than a YouTube personality, and he was not a "quasi-religious believer" by any definition except that conjured up by hostile, if unimaginative, polemicists.  Those observers who have demonstrated scientific objectivity -- based on more than their access to YouTube -- have not felt the need to characterize Hopkins so falsely and unfairly.  

Apparently, you regard those who hold views different from yours, and who attempt to persuade others of the correctness of their opinions, as borderline nut cases; therefore, no contrary opinion can be held except with quasi-religious fervor.  It bears remarking that though I've observed that you yourself hold a number of, um, non-mainstream beliefs, I have never felt the need to question your motives, sanity, or character, or to speculate unflatteringly about your spiritual needs, even when you argue fervently and, in my judgment, wrongly.  At the very worst, Budd Hopkins may be wrong, too.  All of us, after all, are at one time or another.  That doesn't make us fanatics or fools.

For examples of scientific, objective approaches which feel no need to characterize Hopkins as anything other than a man with an arguable point of view, see

Appelle, Stuart.  "The Abduction Experience: A Critical Examination of Theory and Evidence." Journal of UFO Studies 6 (n.s., 1995/1996): 29-78.

Appelle, Stuart, Steven Jay Lynn, and Leonard Newman.  "Alien Abduction Experiences." In Cardena, Lynn, and Krippner (eds.), Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, 253-282. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2000.

Bullard, Thomas E. "Abduction Phenomenon." In Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon from the Beginning, 1-26. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1998.

Jerry Clark

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[Ray Dickenson]

I don't want to sound harsh, but evidence of the untrustworthiness of _any_
accounts obtained by hypnotism has been out there for some decades.
So I have to think that anyone who relies on or `believes in' hypnotic
regression is a credulous fool (who hasn't bothered to check all the evidence) -
or a scam artist.

[Jeff Ritzmann]

It seems Mr. Gammon would rather remain in the dark about the pitfalls and outright dangers of hypnotic regression, and the ethics of research - and be content to defend his UFOlogical hero at any cost. That cost includes inaccurate and incomplete data sets by way of regression being deployed by two "giants" in this field: Hopkins, an artist, and Jacobs, a history professor. Neither educated or certified in it's use even as a behavior modification tool, much less the highly dubious notion of using it for the recovering of memory. 

The dismissal (most times venomously so) of dissenting views on the regression "tool" and Hopkin's / Jacobs work is nothing if not a by-product of either friendships / hero worship, or research results and/or long held and coveted beliefs and theories being built upon the hypnotically retrieved accounts. It pulls the rug out from under too much for the delicate sensibilities of some, and so they'd rather stay blind. I've long since stopped arguing these points with those who refuse to see the reality. Friendships and hero admiration at the cost of the reason any of us are even involved here to start with - to study the phenomena in earnest and try to get at something we can understand about it. Only in UFOlogy.

Jerry - I have great respect for your considerable work in this study (and I sincerely thank you for it), but when it comes to Hopkins and in particular the Cortile case I think it's obvious that friendship clouded your judgement, especially reading the paper by Hansen, Stefula, and Butler. http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/LindaCortileCase.htm

I don't believe Budd was evil, or malicious by intent. I think the very way mainstream media UFO research is set up: write book - do lectures, gain audience - gain TV appearances - get capital income - now look for the next big story...and then the pressure is on - produce the next big story or fall from the public eye, and henceforth go back to a regular job for the daily grind. Budd is far from the only one to fall prey to this field's sensationalist demands. One place I find direct irresponsibility (and there's more than one) is the use of multiple hypnosis sessions with one subject, which any psychologist will tell you is a very poor idea. Never mind the plethora of other more damaging and potentially dangerous issues, faults and inaccuracies with the practice of "regression hypnotherapy". 

In the end, it's likely that many "abductees" have been manufactured (perhaps unintentionally), and the interested public has been shown a snapshot of the experience that bears little resemblance to the complexity it actually contains. It will take years to deconstruct the poor research tactics used thus far, and try to move forward into some more responsible and accurate way to approach the experiencer study. 

As a final note, I have no interest in going rounds about the Rainey/Woods/hypnosis issue(s) as I have already made my points known publicly over several years now, many of which have been backed up by research scientists, and accredited psychologists - so this post is going to be my only reply here. Any back and forth arguments are counter-productive at this point as far as I'm concerned. Anyone is free to launch into any attack or damage control mode they wish, but be advised it will not garner a response from me.

Onward and Upward,

Jeff Ritzmann 

[Jerome Clark]

I suggest that readers go to the academic sources I cited in my previous posting for an informed, as opposed to rhetorical, assessment of the abduction phenomenon, removed from the petty personal quarrels that, sadly, continue to plague ufology.  As Bullard demonstrates, the empirical evidence that investigators manipulated abductees into testimony is slight to nonexistent.  The problems with abduction testimony, as well as the broader phenomenon, are not that simple, alas.  I wish they were.

Apparently Jeff knows more about my views on the Cortile case than I do, forgetting that I am the world's leading authority on what I think about stuff.  Consequently, he feels the need to lecture me on what he says or imagines I believe.  In the real world, from the outset I have had no opinion worth citing, and I was and remain, as I am of so much in this realm, an agnostic.  The case seems hopeless for either advocate or debunker -- each, I suppose, a variety of believer -- and I prefer to focus my thoughts on more productive matters.  As Greg Sandow pointed out long ago in his IUR deconstruction, no conclusion of any sort regarding this episode is free of serious, even crippling problems.  (In that regard, I guess, it's like the Roswell incident.)  Of course, I understand why some cannot handle that kind of ambiguity.  Those who can't would do well, however, to turn their attentions elsewhere.  If you can't handle uncertainty, ufology and anomalistics are not for you.

I am depressed to see the revival in Jeff's posting of George Hansen's demonological assault on all who didn't see things his way.  (For an exposure of its many shortcomings, see Sandow's "The Linda Cortile Case Analyzed," IUR Spring 1997 and Summer 1997 issues.)  For my response to Hansen's misrepresentation of my role and thought, see

http://lindacortilecase.com/two-rebuttals-to-george-hansen-from-jerome-clark.html

I had hoped, vainly it appears, that I would never have to crawl through those depths again.  Naively, I had thought this was a long-dead issue.  

Whatever one thinks of UFOs and/or abduction narratives, the Linda case -- a footnote curiosity from more than two decades ago -- is central to nothing and worth no more expenditure of time and polemic, unless of course one wishes to reduce ufology to its component personalities.

Jerry Clark

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[Jerome Clark]

I know it's fun to call people names, Ray, and watching them on YouTube is for some more entertaining than reading and understanding people's actual views and research conclusions. Still, if you should ever think of trying another approach, you might read what Budd Hopkins had to say on the subject, citing the relevant professional literature, and then, if you're so inclined, you can offer views that are, you know, not ignorant ones.

Budd Hopkins, "Hypnosis and the Investigation of UFO Abductions." In David M. Jacobs (ed.). UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, 215-240. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

You might also read Thomas E. Bullard's empirical studies of hypnosis in abduction testimony, wherein he demonstrates that abduction narratives recalled consciously and those elicited under hypnosis bear no significant differences, suggesting that as a general proposition the conviction that one has been abducted is not a hypnosis-driven belief.

Everybody, naturally, wants a simple explanation for the many complexities of this odd phenomenon. Since such isn't available, I guess people just need to make one up, whether it's literalists or rejectionists (i.e., advocates or debunkers). Sadly, the phenomenon just won't oblige them.

Jerry Clark

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[Michael Hughes]

On Feb 26, 2014, at 2:20 PM, Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net> wrote:

Everybody, naturally, wants a simple explanation for the many complexities of this odd phenomenon.  Since such isn't available, I guess people just need to make one up, whether it's literalists or rejectionists (i.e., advocates or debunkers).  Sadly, the phenomenon just won't oblige them.

And that is the real crux. I again defer to the late Robert Anton Wilson and the word he coined, “sombunall”:

http://deoxy.org/wiki/Sombunall

For example, compare this:

“Hypnotic regressions of so-called abductees are worthless.”

vs.

“Some, but not all hypnotic regressions of so-called abductees are worthless.”

Big difference. 

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I am not blind to the problems that can arise with information gained from hypnosis. However, I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Hypnosis can be a good tool when used within adequate parameters. I will likewise reveal something that you might find shocking. I do not believe everything Hopkins believed, nor even Jacobs for that matter. I take the same approach to Hopkins and Jacobs that I do with hypnosis. I admit there may be some problems and Hopkins and Jacobs may have been wrong in areas. It's just that I find too much value in the "baby" to toss it out. 

Jeff, I'm not against criticism of the alien abduction phenomenon. It's just that I warned that when Carol started her crusade that she was not the person to get behind. Likewise, the whole Emma nonsense needs to be put to bed and forgotten. I say that for her own peace of mind.

Also, if you are going to critique the alien abduction phenomenon, please do so in an unbiased fashion and not resort to bashing it in order to push an anti-ETH agenda. If you want to criticize ETH then do so openly and not resort to sly and subtle attacks. In my experience, that is what is occurring. The naysayers tend to be anti-ETH that want to chip away at the columns of the ETH, subjects such as Roswell and other crashes, alien abduction, etc., which stands the chance of supporting the reality of, if not proving, the ETH. 

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[Larry Travis]

Jerry:
I have for many years followed and been heavily influenced by your ideas about UFO phenomena, and I am intrigued by your opinion that the relationship of the abduction phenomenon to the larger UFO question is more apparent than real.  Can you point me to book sections or articles or web postings where you have elaborated on this point?

Thanks.
  -- Larry Travis

On 2/26/14, 9:34 AM, Jerome Clark wrote:

[Jérôme Beau]

Thank you Jack,

I find Rainey's posts informative. She spoke out before Hopkins' death, and she is consistently pursuing this insider's feedback after it. 

There should be no golden idols in any truth-seeking, scientific-oriented endeavour.

Hopkins was a very kind person, but being does not prevent for being fooled sometimes (being too kind may help to be fooled, actually).

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D100AAA2B25707-252C-2879B%40webmail-m257.sysops.aol.com.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Sad that many can not see behind the veil. If my memory is correct, she appeared to suggest that Hopkins was faking being ill at the end. In fact, I do believe she was either banned and/or quieted on the Updates list for continuing on and on, as if seeking a crucifixion, in my opinion. She's not the person to get behind. I think her bias is clear as day. 

If you want to critique the alien abduction phenomenon, if not Hopkins' or even Jacob's work, you can do so on your own and do not have to get behind her. It would far better for your position if you did not align with her, considering her bias is so seemingly transparent. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jérôme Beau <java...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/CA%2Bc3cFNUZMrV2wphyZBTP7juEkNNE2a-f4jZ1TJF1e2H2h69uA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jerome Clark]

Unfortunately, this sort of approach outlined in the posting below reduces abduction-related questions to personalities, rather than to the actual, larger issues.

The academic citations I listed on an earlier posting in this thread make it clear that as a general principle personalities did not influence the content of abduction narratives.  Nor, as Jerome B.'s posting  implies, is hoaxing a major issue (though of course hoaxes occur in abduction testimony as in all human testimony concerning just about anything, including -- paradoxically -- hoaxing).  I really wish those who claim to be interested in the abduction phenomenon would stop talking about Budd Hopkins and start addressing more pertinent issues.  

I'm reminded of how climate-change deniers would rather talk about Al Gore than about the relevant scientific data.  The abduction phenomenon, as I know from my own personal experience of investigating cases in the 1970s before he ever showed up on the scene, predates Hopkins.  It is my observation that ufologists have misunderstood what they were dealing with, whether they took the stories literally, rejected them entirely, or exploited the occasion to trash colleagues.  I also understand why ufologists reacted as they did. From a human point of view, such responses are eminently predictable. 

By now, though, we ought to take advantage of the perspective a longer, cooler distance permits us and move the discussion forward, away from stale and irrelevant issues and disputes.

Jerry Clark

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[Jenny Randles]

Hi,

Just had a few moments free so wanted to chip in here.

I met Budd Hopkins a number of times in the UK and the US from 1983 onward and am certainly happy to agree with Jerry that he was not some kind of religious zealot. In my view he genuinely believed in his approach to these cases and that he was using the appropriate methodology in a way that not only elucidated the truth of real happenings but also assisted the witnesses by freeing them from the shackles that were somehow placed upon their recall.

I must emphasise that I do not actually agree with his conclusions here and personally feel that using regression hypnosis in this field can (unconsciously) be a selfish act by the UFO researcher - as we are usually seeking personal enlightenment on a subject that we (understandably) consider one of the most important that there is.

However, from the perspective of the witness it is very much uncertain how helpful this is beyond an apparent awakening of hidden recall (or false recall). Especially as it is arguable whether ignorance of a traumatic repressed image of abduction (even if it is real) would be preferable to the day to day psychological welfare of the witness than a teasing out of such 'memories' to exist like a phantom alongside their ongoing lives.

From an outside view on such cases it is easier to face up to these doubts than when you have a person coming to you with what they believe to be a genuine anomalous experience, parts of which they are unable to recall, and who believes that you are the only one willing to take them seriously/or assist in their quest to reach the truth. It is hard to escape that responsibility.

Budd and I strongly disagreed that regression hypnosis was the best way to tackle such cases but I respected his opinion even so.

I reached my conclusions from lots of first hand experience where I was present when regression took place during UK abduction cases. From these direct observations I concluded that there was a problem, seeing. for instance, clear examples where innocent 'cuing' led a witness via regression to create false memories that they had no idea were being accidentally implanted.

Various other problems occurred (such as multiple witnesses being individually regressed by different therapists and coming up with affiliated but clearly individual 'memories' of the same event). To me these seemed more like variations on a theme within a dream than different takes on the same set of factual events.

Eventually I chose to undergo regression myself to see what happened when I 'recalled' a low grade but puzzling UFO sighting that I had with my boyfriend in Chester back in 1977.  I was able to check the veracity of part of the data recalled - and pretty much in equal measure some of it I got right and other parts I evidently confabulated incorrectly.

That  split was, of course, only for the facts that could be checked. Obviously, for the parts I 'added on' to my consciously recalled sighting via regression there was no way to judge their credibility.

But this experience, alongside the CE 4 cases I had witnessed being studied by regression, led me to conclude it was unwise to regard that data as more than at best partially trustworthy as a guide to what 'really' happened during 'hidden' parts of a CE 4.

I also vividly recall sitting alongside the police officer Alan Godfrey who had one of the UKs best known CE 4 cases in December 1980. He had just watched the video footage of his regression sessions. Until that moment he had no recall of what he had said or 'experienced'. I could see that he was deeply torn and he told me he had no way to know if what he just saw himself 'reliving' about his encounter was real or just some imagery based on TV shows seen or even dreams.

Right then I concluded that regression had a big problem because we, as UFO researchers, had a vested interest in the outcome. However much we did not see this we surely wanted it to unravel the deeper layers of a case. The witness just wanted certainty. And yet regression was patently not providing it here.

However, as the witness will depend upon the UFO researcher for ongoing support, they may well reach a similar conclusion to your own in due course, if only to have some surety about what happened to them that they can call on others to defend them over.

Undeniably, in Alan's case, something  real actually did happen that night.  But not in my opinion what he described under regression about being on board a UFO alongside a black dog and Josef the alien. Or, at least, not with any degree of conviction can I reasonably argue.

This is very, very different from how I feel about what Alan saw and always consciously recalled seeing when in his police patrol car - the none regression part of his CE 4. 

Hypnosis fleshes that out, adds masses of confusion but - because it makes the case appear more 'obviously alien' attracts far too much weight as far as the UFO community is concerned.

So, at BUFORA, we decided to put a moratorium on the use of regression hypnosis in UK cases. One that was later expanded into a total ban and that I believe BUFORA still adheres to even long after I have stopped being their director of investigations.

Were we right to take this stand? It is open to debate, but I think we owed it to all the witnesses who had a real encounter of some sort and are understandably confused - but for whom, I feel, regression simply makes that confusion worse.

Budd did not think it was the right decision and told me so. He felt we were letting down the people that we ought to be helping and that some of them were being driven towards him in America as a result.

I still believe BUFORAs stand here was the correct one (though it never got any credit as far as I know from the skeptic community).

Equally, though, I accept we could have been/could still be totally wrong.

Nonetheless IMO Budd sincerely believed that what he was doing was correct and important and in the interests of those witnesses who came to him.

In Ufology we do not have all the answers. Only viewpoints based on experience. I have no problem at all with those researchers who  reach different conclusions or use different methods if they do so from  well motivated attempts to help people and find answers.

That is what I think Budd was doing.  

Moreover, anyone who adopts a different conclusion on this evidence can only reasonably do so if someone else methodically

conducts research that leads them in an opposite direction.

So we need this check and balance system in UFO research.

We learn the truth from a range of data that arrives from multiple directions. All of us as humans have a tendency to find what we expect to find when digging into this field.

Having this breadth of approach helps even out that possibility. And it is ultimately what will lead us to the truth one day.

Best wishes,

Jenny Randles

 

From: Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net>
To: ufo-col...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 26 February 2014, 18:01
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

I'm afraid that, unlike you, I knew Hopkins as something other than a YouTube personality, and he was not a "quasi-religious believer" by any definition except that conjured up by hostile, if unimaginative, polemicists.  Those observers who have demonstrated scientific objectivity -- based on more than their access to YouTube -- have not felt the need to characterize Hopkins so falsely and unfairly.  

 

Jerry Clark

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/stan-romanek-child-pornography_n_4813196.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000022

[Jerome Clark]

A very good and thoughtful contribution to the discussion from one of the best.

Thanks, Jenny.

Jerry Clark

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[Michael Hughes]

Thank you so much for this. 

[Jeff Ritzmann]

Jason-
         Allow me to clarify a few issues here.

1) Hypnosis is demonstrably not a good tool for recovering memory (and this has been openly discussed by psychologists and mental health professionals). There are a myriad of issues such as confabulation, false memory and false memory hardening, a "pleasing the therapist" effect, cultural contamination, leading questions and the highly suggestible state. These are only some. There's a lot more, and I'd suggest doing research on its potential pitfalls and dangers for yourself. But there's also more outward issues, such as what the relationship is between therapist (or researcher) and subject. This is a highly critical bit, and drastically effects the "memories" being recovered. It's more complex than "hypnosis doesn't work" because X."  There's a host of issues, and potential dangers that not only effect the data, but the well being of some participants on abduction research. Dr. Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University stated to me that these issues I've mentioned are "only the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to why hypnosis is not a valid way to recover memory. Some of what he went on to say during our interview discussion went far beyond anything I'd suspected.

2) You state:

"Also, if you are going to critique the alien abduction phenomenon, please do so in an unbiased fashion and not resort to bashing it in order to push an anti-ETH agenda. If you want to criticize ETH then do so openly and not resort to sly and subtle attacks. In my experience, that is what is occurring. The naysayers tend to be anti-ETH"

Since I have been exceedingly public about a lifetime of mostly direct recall experiences with this phenomena, I am hardly what one would call a "naysayer". But I'm also not one to subject myself or my experiences to hypnosis. What I don't recall I don't recall. I recall quite enough.

While I don't find the ETH to fit the phenomena very well at all, I am not one to remove it from the table. What I have issue with is the marginalization of the experience by many of the researchers involved in it. Data has been discarded where it doesn't fit the popular notion, and traded down for the current sci-fi thematics everyone has now been exposed to. This is not only about a tool that was fatally flawed from the start - it's about the methodology that has been employed from the get-go. Your baby in the bathwater is stillborn. If you choose to hold on to it, then thats your choice.

After all the audio provided by "Emma Woods" (and I do know her real name) I'm surprised at how passionate you are with your answers, and how amiss it seems that you don't value contiguous audio where a man tells a woman under hypnosis that she has MPD. You just want it to be "forgotten". I find that more along the lines of denial and desire for your own ideologies to be propped up, rather than really trying to approach this subject in a more productive way.

Lastly, let me clarify one crucial point: these conversations tend to degrade into defense of personalities rather than the value of the work. Personalities are not on trial here, what's in contention is the method, and the ethics of the work. I see already, that the knives are out. People are not able to have a civil discussion about this, because it always degenerates into a defense of personalities and motives. No one can prove motives, so it's useless to argue about it. This is the predominant reason why I don't get involved in lengthy back and forths about this anymore. Too much deviation from the real issue.

I hope that clarifies some points Jason. I wish you Good luck.

Jeff Ritzmann

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Jeff, the problem you seem to have is that you appear to be operating under the assumption that all narratives from alleged alien abductees come via hypnosis, that Hopkins and Jacobs solely rely on hypnosis and that since hypnosis is not 100% reliable and can be abused by the hypnotist then therefore it must be thrown out and researchers discredited. I would suggest that you educated yourself further concerning the alien abduction phenomenon. The belief that abductees remember nothing until they are hypnotized is a myth. The overwhelming majority of abductees recall events during the experience. The memories range from near total recall on one end to the beginning and ending, with snippets of memories in between. Now, it is true that hypnotized people can be lead and can be made to believe in events that never occurred. However, just because such is possible does not mean it always occurs or even that it occurs frequently. In fact, C.D.B. Bryan, an open-minded skeptic, sat in on several of Hopkin's sessions and stated he did not see any hint of Hopkins leading someone or steering someone. Bryan was open-mined but ultimately did not believe that we are being visited. That just goes to show Bryan's level of honesty and credibility that even as a skeptic he found no sign that Hopkins was abusing hypnosis. 

Thank you for being honest with your opinion of the ETH. As I stated earlier, it is my experience that the majority of people in the UFO field who seem to truly jab at and try to destroy/dismiss topics like Roswell and crash retrievals, alien abduction, and the like, do so as part of an anti-ETH strategy. These people know good and well that say if the Roswell crash really happened then the case is settled, ETH would have been proven. They just can't have this be. UFOs must remain in the "paranormal" for them.  

Yes, Jeff. I too know "Emma's" real name and I was involved in the situation from almost the very start, long before it ever hit the Internet and long before it was posted publicly on the Updates list. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/6a6d8c39-3e80-4950-8b1d-0bd1d48ea80c%40googlegroups.com.

[Jeff Ritzmann]

"I would suggest that you educated yourself further concerning the alien abduction phenomenon."

What part of me telling you I've had a lifetime of personal interaction with this phenomena didn't you get? See, this is where I check out, because nobody actually listens or bothers to read. I've been at this subject 26 years for my own personal reasons, and while not as long as Jerry and some others, I'm well aware of the phenomenon. Unfortunately, I've had a front row goddamned seat.

I'm all too aware of conscious recall. But I'm sorry to tell you the bulk of the typical scenario portrayed by a lot of this research stems from memory hardened by hypnosis.

I've made my points as clear as possible here and as I said, I'm not into back and forth. You can go ahead without me, thanks.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

"I'm sorry to tell you that the bulk of the typical scenario portrayed by a lot of this research stems from memory hardened by hypnosis."

Take off the horse blinders and ditch your false assumption that the abduction experience is fabricated via hypnosis. Even if we completely discard the research of Hopkins his entire findings can be pieced together via consciously recalled material starting from the very beginning of the abduction phenomenon. Reference Antonio Vilas Boas and the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. Both exhibit sexual and reproductive procedures. 

Hopkins did not invent this. He used hypnosis as a tool to expand our knowledge. There is a reproductive program at the very core of the abduction phenomenon and it's been there from the beginning. Jacobs expanded it further and delved into territory that Hopkins feared to tread.

It's there. It's always been there. We can remove hypnosis altogether and still arrive at the same basic conclusion. Hypnosis did not create the alien abduction phenomenon.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Ritzmann <jeff.r...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 2:30 am
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

"I would suggest that you educated yourself further concerning the alien 
abduction phenomenon."

What part of me telling you I've had a lifetime of personal interaction with 
this phenomena didn't you get? See, this is where I check out, because nobody 
actually listens or bothers to read. I've been at this subject 26 years for my 
own personal reasons, and while not as long as Jerry and some others, I'm well 
aware of the phenomenon. Unfortunately, I've had a front row goddamned seat. 

I'm all too aware of conscious recall. But I'm sorry to tell you the bulk of the 
typical scenario portrayed by a lot of this research stems from memory hardened 
by hypnosis. 

I've made my points as clear as possible here and as I said, I'm not into back 
and forth. You can go ahead without me, thanks.

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[Ray Dickenson]

As far as I can see, from the posts of the handful of folk urging realism on the
subject of Hopkins and his "work" (I'm one), none of us have mentioned ETH,
Roswell, or the `abduction experience' per se. So why the defensive / abusive
rants? Misdirection? Straw Man? Or what?

Cheers
Ray

[gildas bourdais]

You are quite correct. Carol Rainey put in doubt that Budd was gravely ill, shortly before his death. And Errol Bruce-Knapp expelled her from his list UFO Updates not long after.  I was active  in the debate on that list, and I have kept some of the messages, that I can send to you in private if you wish.

 

Gildas Bourdais

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1014FAA040816-2AC0-48F0%40webmail-d160.sysops.aol.com.

[Jérôme Beau]

Hi Gildas,

I would be interested in the messages you are referring to.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/A355C53ACBE445C2AD5AD802C1B6BBB4%40PCdegildas.

[Jeff Ritzmann]

Ray- after telling someone twice now that I'm a lifetime experiencer only to see replies that I need to " educated" myself about the abduction phenomenon, and seeing other absurd as you said straw an arguments and goalpost moving...I find myself asking where the hidden cameras are and if Tom Bergeron's voice is going to start narrating.

[Ray Dickenson]

Hi Jeff,
Yup, the problem in all these matters seems to be "to a boy with a hammer,
everything looks like a nail". So folk, once they've taken a position
(especially if earning money by it) can only `see' their own POV, whether that's
as `believer' or `debunker'.

Now there's mystery and even absurdity existing around _any_ encounter with the
anomalous (i.e. - craft or beings), which seems to increase with proximity.

That apparent absurdity, in appearance and activities, remarked on by many
commentators (Keel and Vallee spring to mind), also has the effect of
turning-off the analytical abilities (if any) of your average bean-counting
scientist - and ufologist.

They can't handle `absurdity' and so they blindly reject or accept all data on
those subjects, which in my opinion is a mistake. By that blind rejection or
acceptance, many scientists, and even many ufologists, fail to adhere to the
three steps of investigation:

i) collect all data - without prejudgement or bias [that's Boolean Logic];

ii) statistically analyse the data, still without pre-judging any, to enable
comparisons [that's the Law of Large Numbers];

iii) logically isolate / demarcate likely amounts of corruption - i.e. hoaxing,
misinformation, institutional fraud etc. - in the data [that's Bayesian
Analysis].

So far that has worked for me in mundane investigations. However, it also means
keeping an open mind, even after a conclusion has been reached - for you never
know when new and even contradictory evidence might arise. That means getting
rid of the `boy with a hammer' mindset.

Cheers
Ray D

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Ritzmann

[Jerome Clark]

Ray,

Let's have some names and some specific examples here. Otherwise, all you're engaged in here is chest-thumping.

In my own approach, if I have a problem with somebody's way of thinking or investigation or whatever, I take care to name the individual and provide actual quotes and instances when I offer criticism. The most recent example is my excoriating examination of John Keel in Fortean Times (November 2013).

Jerry Clark

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[Jack Brewer]

> Let's have some names and some specific examples here. 

> Jerry Clark

My original post was in relation to a video published by Carol Rainey, the contents of which demonstrate extremely questionable research practices and resulting incorrect conclusions asserted by Budd Hopkins. 

The video may be viewed at:

http://tinyurl.com/n24fuv3

Microbiologist Dr. Tyler Kokjohn recently published an article titled, 'Try a New Hypothesis, Sherlock'. The doctor has long attempted to increase attention to the fact that affordable and practical options now exist that could 

allow researchers to test their hypotheses related to alleged alien abduction.

A link to the article and an excerpt:

http://tinyurl.com/kkgxqrv

"Dr. David Jacobs and other abduction researchers have presented numerous, detailed accounts of missing pregnancies and creation of human-alien genetic hybrids.  It is now clear that during gestation mother and fetus exchange cells which may persist for years or decades after birth or termination of the pregnancy (M. Barinaga, “Cells Exchanged During Pregnancy Live On,’Science, 21 June 2002 [296:2169-2172]). Powerful new genetic analysis methods now enable investigators to perform prenatal examinations of the fetal genome after a simple blood draw from the mother (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120704182127.htm)  In the event of an alleged missing pregnancy, it may still be possible to recognize such hybrid cells for decades.  Whether or not the hybrid baby is removed by aliens and taken to an inaccessible location, these mothers are known to the investigators and represent a potential source of critical hypothesis corroborating genetic data.

"Abduction investigators have revealed varying degrees of direct personal involvement in the phenomenon with one claiming she knows the identities of hybrids and another asserting on an episode of Future Theater (18 May 2013) that she was employed by aliens as a “breeder.” Robert Sheaffer reported from the 2014 UFO Congress that one featured speaker revealed she has seven alien grandchildren (http://badufos.blogspot.com/2014_02_01_archive.html).  These situations have afforded these investigators the unique opportunity to acquire and test samples at their leisure.  A human-alien genetic hybrid might be detected with the simplest of genetic tests requiring only that the subject spit into a tube and the investigator mail it off to a commercial facility to await the report.  Possibly the easiest opportunity in all history to collect what could be the most scientifically significant samples of the century and not one of them seems to have bothered.

"It is important to recognize that these are not fleeting situations transpiring by dark of night at unpredictable times. These sources of critical evidence are readily and conveniently available to the investigators.  However, despite the ease of collection, the most direct pathways to uncover substantive proof of nefarious alien intervention on our planet and provide concrete evidence strongly supporting the ETH have been ignored and left to lie fallow.

"The best way to investigate any hypothesis is to actually investigate it. In contrast, ETH proponents devise arguments to disguise and rationalize failure.  Reduced to defending a hypothesis because of the consistent inability to marshal convincing supporting evidence, it is astonishing they have so long, so diligently and uniformly refused to explore the obvious opportunities available to reach what should be their supreme goal.  Worse, the experts or opinion leaders never demand investigators get this job done or even note these glaring discrepancies."

Any comments, anyone?

[Jeff Ritzmann]

Ray-

       Yes! Damn I'm glad someone sees the importance of the outlier data. This is what I've been harping on for years: that discarded information is tantamount to fixing the books. If it doesn't fit the preconceived notion of the researcher (or his audience-ever important), it's out. And from the standpoint of the researcher (while short-sighted) it makes sense. Because that outlier data as you said is rendered often times in the impossibly bizarre - some which render the entire event absurd. Self negation seems to follow a great deal of the experience. Even to the point that I'd say the phenomena has this self negation built in as an integral part of it's structure. This is the often ignored and discarded data which holds value - but also is a hard sell to the public (and obviously even the UFO interested public). 

To that end, it also points to something far more complex than previously thought.

I agree with your steps of investigation, but this becomes difficult to even get the witness to admit the absurdities present for fear of not being believed or negating their own experience. Oddly enough what you mention here is a blueprint for the study I and others (including mainstream scientists) just completed, which will be published in a few short weeks. I think you'll find it interesting, even though this is really just the first step.

Thanks for your post Ray,

Jeff Ritzmann

[Jerome Clark]

Unfortunately, Jeff, there is no area of human inquiry, including science and history, where there are not "outlier data."

The real world is immensely complicated, and anyone who tries to make sense of it -- and not just an abduction specialist -- has to decide what data matter and what data are secondary or inconsequential.  As a lifelong history buff, I have read multiple books by reputable scholars who address a single personality or event and tell often very different, even incompatible stories, all because they have conflicting emphases.  For periods, a consensus reading of some historical development or occurrence or individual may emerge, but inevitably, somebody will come along later to argue that previous historians had it all wrong because they privileged certain matters over others.  You may be familiar with the term "revisionist history."  In science it's called "paradigm shift."

In ufology and/or in abduction research we're at the disadvantage of being at the fringes of knowledge, and the problems of understanding and interpretating the issue in question are multiplied.  Those engaged in such work are laboring under immense difficulty.  I believe some patience is called for, and the next guy who wants me to believe that mainstream abduction researchers are in it just for the money (what money?) will be the next guy I no longer have any obligation to take seriously.  The trashing of pioneering abductologists is exactly akin to beating up on early explorers because they didn't get the maps quite right.  So what?  They were there first, and they made it possible for others to come forward in their wake and to obtain a more accurate sense of the landscape.

It is incumbent on those who believe the "outlier data" are significant to lay out a case for that, not just lazily to assassinate the characters of those who feel that other data are more revelatory.  A well-argued, thoughtful book making the case for "outlier data" would be one I'd want to read, and I encourage anyone who's able to make that sort of contribution to the argument about the meaning of the phenomenon to get busy, and I don't mean at an on-line exchange.  Damn it, get a real, old-fashioned publisher and do the hard work of writing a real, old-fashioned book.

Jerry Clark

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Is it your assumption that you are the only experiencer? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Ritzmann <jeff.r...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 9:04 am
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

Ray- after telling someone twice now that I'm a lifetime experiencer only to see 
replies that I need to " educated" myself about the abduction phenomenon, and 
seeing other absurd as you said straw an arguments and goalpost moving...I find 
myself asking where the hidden cameras are and if Tom Bergeron's voice is going 
to start narrating.

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Gildas,

Yes, I would love to be able to refresh my memory on these. In fact, why not post them here for everyone to see? It's one thing if she would have apologized but she is not sorry one bit and is continuing her attack on her now deceased ex.

-----Original Message-----
From: gildas bourdais <bourdai...@neuf.fr>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/A355C53ACBE445C2AD5AD802C1B6BBB4%40PCdegildas.

[Ray Dickenson]

Why?

Cheers
Ray D

-----Original Message-----

From: Jerome Clark
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 6:33 PM

<snip>

[Jenny Randles]

Hi,

There is some merit in what you say.

Yes, there have been consciously recalled abduction memories - and quite a few cases that I have been involved with in the UK had partial recall pre hypnosis (often via dreams post the UFO encounter). 

However, the majority of the cases in the UK that have anything like recognisable similarities with the 'on board' recall from the 'standard' abduction scenario do post date the adoption of regression as a research tool.

Budd Hopkins did not start this method, of course. It was used a number of times from the early 60s onward and in increasing numbers by the early 70s. Though Budd was one of the first to use it systematically to uncover the 'invisible epidemic', as he termed it - in other words a set of hidden data that only regression was properly bringing to light.

We need to at least ask ourselves a troubling question. To what extent was this change in tactic by the UFO community (perfectly understandable as it was) a method of discerning a pre existing reality in more detail. Or were we, at least partly, becoming the architects of the very phenomenon that we then went on to study.

Not UFOs, of course. Not close encounters, or alien contacts. All these were there pre hypnosis and so are undoubtedly in some sense real phenomena.

But to what extent did we mould the form of the abduction phenomenon as we now appear to perceive it?

My view is that we did this, unknowingly and without foreseeing the consequences. But we did it none the less because of our belief that hypnosis was uncovering a hidden picture that was previously largely hidden. 

Yet it is at least arguable that we were changing the very nature of the picture that we were finding as a consequence of the methods that we were adopting. 

If you study the full range of CE 3/ CE 4 cases prior to the 1970s there is quite a diversity. Indeed, there is for me some pretty strong suggestions of what we call in the UK 'cultural tracking' - where the cases follow trends in vogue or being widely promoted via cultural/social media .

You can see this most obviously by the way in which types of aliens reported are in some regard 'regional'. 1950s onward UK cases were quite strongly of the normal sized/tall human like entity with blond hair/blue eyes variety. Known as 'Nordics' owing to their similarity with people of Scandinavian origin.

In the UK data set you can almost track the gradation between these cases and the arrival of the 'Grays' - which were all but absent here prior to the 1980s. Something clearly adapted the form with which British CE 4 aliens appeared in that period. 

 Discerning how and why this transition occurred seems to me to be an important clue that we should be looking for.

There are some possible candidates. One, but only one, of them is the arrival on the scene of Budd Hopkins and other (at that time largely US based) researchers who adopted regression as a primary method. Most notably the major PR

In the UK up to around 1978 I do not think it had ever been used at all. As far as I recall the Aveley, Essex, abduction was the first such case to be studied here. The case happened in 1974, was a very puzzling event with conscious recall and post encounter 'dreams' of aliens, but the regression came three or four years later. This elevated the case to a full blown CE 4. But it did not feature the imagery of a typical abduction. In fact it more resembles a near death experience in some ways.

More classical abductions were to arrive in the UK, but they really came after the point when the movie Communion aired and there was a huge poster campaign with the US model Gray appearing on bus shelters etc. After that lots of UK Cases elicited via hypnosis featured similar types of beings and the Nordics began to  disappear.

There is no way you can demonstrate any cause or effect relationship here. But the pattern is sufficiently evident in my view that at least we have to consider the possibility that cultural factors played a role in why the form of British CE 4 cases was changing as they did, not just with the appearance of the aliens (Grays v Nordics) but the darker emphasis on things like biological engineering and probes.

This is not to say that the CE 4 experience is not real or created by cultural tracking. I do not think it is. I believe that abductees have a genuine anomalous experience of some sort (though I suspect it is a close ally of the NDE also).

Nor is it even to deny any possible alien involvement. I am not personally convinced of that but I accept it as a possibility and am open to persuasion.

However, it is to suggest that cultural tracking moulds the form of the abduction experience as we see it - especially via things such as post encounter dreams and regression hypnosis.

So I feel we should make a distinction between what we can say with reasonable assurance about the CE 4 experience via hard forms of evidence - from conscious recall, supporting independent witnesses and physical or physiological data (of which there is plenty) and the softer evidence (as in the minutia of the experience that is teased out by artificial means after the encounter and then compared with other cases). That is where Cultural Tracking is key.

UFO research has long mistakenly given these things equal say and even made assumptions about the context of the whole phenomenon largely from the correlations between the soft data alone.

I think we might have been leading ourselves up a very long garden path as a result.

Best wishes,

Jenny Randles 

I

[Jeff Ritzmann]

Mr. Clark-

              "The trashing of pioneering abductologists is exactly akin to beating up on early explorers because they didn't get the maps quite right."

You are taking this discussion (if one can call it that) in exactly the direction I stated. This is not a matter of trashing anyone, nor beating anyone up. It's about the methodology and ethical merits of the work. If you can't discuss that, and keep bringing it back to personalities, then in all due respect it seems you have nothing to add to the discussion on the actual issue.

As far as your outlier data stance, to call an anomalous experience such as this into the same realm and parameters as anything else is naive. I don't believe for a second that's an idea you subscribe to. You're FAR better than that. Had seemingly inconsequential items and effects in science been ignored and discarded, our world would be quite different than it exists today.  When dealing with an unknown, from an elemental reaction, to an alien "abduction" - nothing can be discarded or considered useless, because you're unaware of the basic parameters to start with.

And I am in the process of writing a book, however I don't expect a groundswell of support for it as it doesn't cater or kowtow much to the commonly held ideologies that permeate this study. Then again I was never much for playing to the UFO crowd cliques. 

[Jerome Clark]

Well, I guess in the interest of intellectual clarity and deeper understanding, as opposed to name-calling and character assassination.

An incredible concept, I know.

Jerry Clark

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[Jerome Clark]

Jeff,

Glad to read that you're writing a book, and I look forward to reading it.

Cordially,

Jerry Clark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/ee3f6a73-7885-4a50-ab9a-5b60a417a09d%40googlegroups.com.

[Jeff Ritzmann]

Mr. Clark, 

              If you email me your mailing address, I'm happy to send you one of the first copies.

Jeff Ritzmann

.

[Ray Dickenson]

Jerry,
I'll bring a fact to your attention - I've not badmouthed anyone nor
assassinated any characters. So don't imply anything else.
As for book-writing - I don't want to make money nor attract paying readers,
just to find out and understand things.
And as for "intellectual clarity and deeper understanding" (a meaningless mantra
if I ever read one), when my investigations turn up anything in the public
interest, one way or another I publish it on the Web.

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/17C358C4-ED9C-420A-88A9-6FC70ED6A9B9%40frontiernet.net.

[Jerome Clark]

Hi, Jenny,

Again, a smart, insightful, and thought-provoking posting.  I infer that our views on this vexing questions have evolved largely in the same direction.

My own suspicion is that we've viewed abduction phenomena through the wrong lens, which in this case is the ufologist's.  What if abduction experiences are only superficially related to the UFO phenomenon, which may be something else entirely?   

I wonder if the UFO phenomenon is a relatively modern development, the abduction experience's correlates can be found in a broad range of traditions and narratives in which otherworldly entities are described but UFO-like appearances play no role at all.  Given the limitations of current knowledge, "explaining" such things is not an immediate prospect, but we might try to place them in a more theoretically useful context than those (literalism on one side, denialism on the other) that have driven the discussion over past decades.

Jerry Clark

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[William Treurniet]

Jenny Randle makes a number of points that resonate somewhat with the direction my understanding about ETs and UFOs has moved in the last couple of years. She says she sees abduction experiences as "a close ally of the NDE". I don't know if she believes NDEs are strictly biological or a manifestation of consciousness not dependent on matter for its existence. I lean toward the latter interpretation, and that consciousness has the ability to create any experience, even ones we don't particularly want.

There is good reason to think that these experiences will eventually be recognized as a spirit reality intruding into our physical reality, much as in physical mediumship demonstrations or poltergeist activity in the wild. I have had the opportunity to interview a zeta ET via a medium. The medium has learned to change himself over several years in order to allow communication with the ET. He and his ET contacts have made themselves available to be interviewed on any subject I wished. I often focused on the properties of the non-physical, energetic environment, and eventually was able to develop a model of how consciousness creates. This is documented in a free, downloadable book at http://www.treurniet.ca/zetacom/A_Primer_of_the_Zeta_Race.pdf.

I also developed a model of the communication based on a proposal by the medium that "Extraterrestrials take the strongest image from a mind (as they don't know the image may have a negative connotation) and manifest that image, expecting that humans will welcome them with open arms as if Jesus had walked into the house." According to this idea, extraterrestrials have the ability to appear before a person in a physical form not necessarily their own. He suggests that the form chosen is somehow retrieved from the mind of a person in the room, presumably with the expectation that a familiar form will cause minimal distress.

I raised this proposal to the level of a general model of communication with an ET, and justify the model using actual experiences. The model says that an energetic extraterrestrial entity communicates with a physical human being by using the existing contents of the human's mind to encode a message. The message is constructed by using information already familiar to the human. The message consists of ordered pointers to existing information in the human's mind, and the information is expressed in the order specified.

This model dovetails rather nicely with Jenny's observations on how the appearance of the ET has changed over time. In the 1950s the ET was often described as a normal sized/tall human-like entity with blond hair/blue eyes known as the 'Nordic'. Then, after the popularization of the Grey on the cover of Streiber's book, Communion, the reports changed to match that. According to our model, the ET can access the semantic network of a human it encounters, and can appear to the human as a known entity that is consistent with the context. As Jenny points out, this appearance is likely to match the predominant image in the cultural environment.

The model says that the abduction encounter is experienced by a person according to their cultural entrainment which makes available an image that an ET can use to project a likeness to represent himself. That likeness may or may not be veridical, but it may be all the ET has to work with when he is present energetically but not physically.

William

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Or better yet, why not just remove the notion that every single alleged abduction experience is genuine. There's no need to toss out everything when only a Spring-cleaning is needed. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Here we go again. Yet more attempts to connect UFOs with the paranormal. Alien abduction as NDE. Aliens as spirits. It's old. It's been done a long time ago. 

Jenny, you, and anyone else is free to pursue such lines of thought but I can not follow you into such realm. The reason being is that I'm a staunch supporter of the ETH only because it's our only hope of ever finding proof and scientific explanation for the phenomenon. Trips into the afterlife and mystic voyages with shaman priestesses as pilots will not get us to this destination, at least not anything science will accept.

Science does not accept NDEs or spirits. If Ufology is yoked to such subjects then we already defeated. 

-----Original Message-----
From: William Treurniet <wtreu...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/530FB104.8030602%40gmail.com.

[Michael Hughes]

Science does not accept NDEs or spirits. If Ufology is yoked to such subjects then we already defeated. 

And you are incorrect. 

http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

http://deanradin.com/evidence/Nahm2011.pdf

http://deanradin.com/evidence/Facco2012NDE.pdf

See also the number of veridical NDEs in the literature. 

Michael M. Hughes

http://michaelmhughes.com

[Michael Hughes]

Also, your attitude towards NDEs is no different from the debunkers who claim there is no evidence for UFOs. 

And the term “paranormal” is sloppily applied. If NDEs are evidence of the survival of consciousness after physical death, or just some sort of brain phenomenon, then they are not “para” anything. They are normal, just not currently understood. People apply the label of paranormal to UFOs all the time, as I’m sure you are aware. It’s a weasel word used by people to dismiss things they don’t want to think about. 

[Jerome Clark]

I think you're misreading the discussion.

I'm not, and I know Jenny isn't, denying that abduction experiences are real (however that adjective is defined in this context), genuinely anomalous, and beyond current knowledge.  The issue is, is the causative mechanism different from the ones that ordinarily figure in the debates?  

Surely there's room for discussion on that score.  

Jerry Clark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1021BF1C007B1-1104-542F%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I beg to differ. Writing a paper does not equate to scientific acceptance or consensus. If you yoke the UFO phenomenon to the paranormal then not only must you prove the reality of UFOs but you must also prove the reality of the paranormal subjects for which you have yoked it to.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 3:55 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

This group is dedicated to UFOs, not NDEs. If your claim is that there is a connection between alleged NDEs and UFOs then by all means prove it. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>

To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 4:00 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

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[Michael Hughes]

NDEs exist. We don’t know what they are, but they have been experienced by tens of thousands of people. There are objectively measured changes between those who are resuscitated and have NDEs and those who are resuscitated and don’t have NDEs. What they are is absolutely up for question. 

And if they indicated that consciousness can exist outside of the physical body, then they most certainly may be related to UFO experiences in which people state they have left their physical bodies. 

You may not want to entertain explanations outside of the ETH, but you do not set the parameters for studying the UFO phenomenon or discussion on this list. And if you stick to a strictly ETH explanation, you’re throwing out a lot of data that suggests it may not be nuts-and-bolts. That’s your decision. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1021F93D568D1-1104-5741%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[Michael Hughes]

I made no such claim, but I am not a priori dismissive of theories outside of the ETH. You brought up NDEs, not me. I offered a correction. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1021FBC91D0B1-1104-575F%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

The problem is that the alien abduction phenomenon is not simple. It seems that most people are hung up on the "abducted from my bed while sleeping" cases, which they base for their debunking thereof. The "abducted from my bed" scenarios arose in the latter 70s and both prior to this time and currently the cases of "abducted while awake and going about my life" seems to be pushed to the background. So my question for people who debunk the alien abduction phenomenon or who propose alternative explanations is why they have a bias for the "abducted from my bed" scenarios and why such little of their time is dedicated toward the "abducted while awake" narratives. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/F5BEA71D-E77A-4A2F-8F13-E12EEF1A39B7%40frontiernet.net.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I do not know if NDE exists or not. I have not seen adequate scientific proof to establish it's reality. 

"you're throwing out a lot of data that suggests it may not be nuts and bolts."

Or people are incorrectly interpreting data to suggest it represents a non-physical reality as part of their bias against the ETH. 

For example, invisibility. I've heard the fact that since some UFOs can make themselves invisible that they must somehow be popping in and out of our reality. Of course it could also just be advanced technology, something that I've argued for over and over again to counter anti-ETH nonsense. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/BC884F8C-B45A-47B3-9AAA-7441CB72E8D7%40gmail.com.

[Michael Hughes]

On Feb 27, 2014, at 5:21 PM, boyinth...@aol.com wrote:

I do not know if NDE exists or not. I have not seen adequate scientific proof to establish it's reality. 

Plenty of people say the very same thing about UFOs. Maybe you just haven’t looked closely enough.

"you're throwing out a lot of data that suggests it may not be nuts and bolts."

Or people are incorrectly interpreting data to suggest it represents a non-physical reality as part of their bias against the ETH. 

Maybe, maybe not. I don’t have the certainty you seem to possess. 

For example, invisibility. I've heard the fact that since some UFOs can make themselves invisible that they must somehow be popping in and out of our reality. Of course it could also just be advanced technology, something that I've argued for over and over again to counter anti-ETH nonsense. 

Again, maybe you are correct. But you don’t know. Neither do I. Until then, it’s understandable that people will speculate and theorize along a number of different lines. I don’t think trying to shut them down is very helpful. If you disagree, fine—disagree. But as Jerry pointed out, surely there is room for discussion of the causative mechanisms of anomalous experiences. 

[Jerome Clark]

I don't know how I could make any clearer my disbelief in simplistic psychological explanations for abduction (or other genuinely anomalous) experiences.  I have said as much on nearly every one of my postings on this thread.

As I have written in a number of forums, the ETH is a perfectly defensible approach to a certain class of UFO reports, what I call the core phenomenon of CE2s, radar/visuals, and the like.  The ETH seems to gain credence with the now almost daily discovery of new extrasolar planets.  According to some estimates, the number of earthlike worlds in our galaxy alone could number in the millions.  The notion that extrasolar probes may be the source of some UFO sightings and encounters is not unreasonable; arguably, in a densely populated universe they would be entirely predictable.  Recently, I favorably reviewed (for Fortean Times) a book by a British science journalist and SETI chronicler -- not a ufologist -- making precisely this argument.  

I would not want to hobble the ETH with abduction narratives, however.  We can establish that, for example, CE2s and radar/visuals are event anomalies; we can show that they occurred in the world and left evidence documenting their appearances.   There is, however, no abduction equivalent.  That does not mean abductions don't happen, it's just that they seem to be happening in a different sense, as if an anomaly which, albeit not related to UFOs as such, has taken on that coloration, for reasons I have suggested elsewhere.  Abduction phenomena are more like a whole lot of supernatural experiences recorded in all times and places.  Never explained, always beyond current knowledge, they exhibit their own dynamics which subvert the binary thinking of both literalists and denialists.  A high-toned but lively discussion of the liminal quality of extraordinary encounters appears in a book I read recently, Jeffrey J. Kripal's Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (University of Chicago Press, 2010), recommended to all.

One persistent feature is that otherworldly entities shape themselves to any particular culture's idea of a non-earthly realm.  They may be one thing in some place, and another in another.  They "exist" in some threshold realm between the real and the imagined, without being either.  That's why, I think, trying to draw the abduction phenomenon into a consensus-reality interpretation, employing conventional efforts to collect evidence, has proved futile.  If anything, abductions and related experiences may be stranger than extraterrestrial UFOs, and demanding even more of our investigative patience and intellectual modesty.

Jerry Clark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1021BF1C007B1-1104-542F%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Mr. Clark, when you think of abductions do the "abducted from my bed while sleeping"-scenarios dominate your mind. I say this because there is a seemingly committed effort to downplay and dismiss the "abducted while awake and going about my life" cases. I have to ask this because in my experience most of the alternative explanations are made with the assumption that alien abduction is "abducted from bed while sleeping". It's as if the people suggesting these alternative explanations, or even outright debunking alien abduction, are not aware that there are many cases where people are awake and going about their lives when they claim they are abducted. Just two examples would be the Betty and Barney Hill case and the Travis Walton abduction.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/6C719469-4027-4F67-846D-31D4D974C3C1%40frontiernet.net.

[Jerome Clark]

Again, I'm at a loss to understand where you're getting this strange idea.  As my friend Mike Swords is wont to say in these situations, there must be plenty of static on the mental radio.

I know the abduction literature well, possibly better than you do.  I also know something of the phenomenon from personal investigation of it in the pre-Hopkins years.  None of these cases involved someone who claimed to have been abducted while semi-awake or sleeping.  Each case involved removal from a vehicle on a road or highway.  One incident involved three persons, another two, and the last -- in many ways the most interesting -- just one.

Another episode, on which I worked in the 1980s, concerned a man who was allegedly taken out of the living room of his house on the edge of a small Illinois town soon after he observed a UFO land in a nearby field.

I consider each of the cases unexplainable in prosaic terms.  Something happened to these people, but I am not persuaded that literal ETs were responsible.  One case involved an alleged otherworld journey wherein a woman was flown to another planet.  I do not believe she literally stepped onto the surface of another planet.

When I think of abduction experiences, I afford low priority to stories of alleged abductions from bedrooms.  I think that even abduction literalists generally give such reports less credence than others, when the individual is vertical and apparently fully conscious.  If you are under the mistaken impression that I'm talking about bedroom cases, you now stand corrected.  Perhaps I ought to have made my point more explicit, but I just sort of assumed that everybody had a broader sense of what I mean by "abduction."

Jerry Clark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D102288E2CC691-1104-5D99%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[William Treurniet]

I'm reminded of the well-known joke...

Man searches diligently under lamp-post at night. Explains to passer-by that he has lost his keys. “Did you lose them under the lamp-post?” “No.” “Then why are you looking under the lamp-post?” “Because there’s no light anywhere else.”

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/8D1021D07BDFC11-1104-551E%40webmail-m254.sysops.aol.com.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I do not accept abduction accounts at face value. I've studied the phenomenon long enough to learn of the remarkable ability of humans to confabulate and fill in the blanks of memories, all on their own and without even the need to resort to hypnosis. I too am skeptical of any claims of traveling to alien worlds or even trips around the planet. The alien abduction phenomenon does not rest on any one case and I seemingly have to remind people, even multiple times, that people do hoax and invent tales. What this means is that not everyone who claims to be abducted has been abducted. There are some who are knowingly hoaxing. There are some who are unknowingly inventing a tale. 

In my research I've seen potentially multiple hands at work, one of which is non-human as we currently classify human. I say this because unlike the Ufologists of today who have their minds firmly stuck in the 1970s era or before, my mind and my eyes are firmly fixated on the future, more specifically with regards to humanity's technological advancements. On the old Updates list I've tried multiple times to lead people into the present and way from the style of thinking that dominated the 70s. We are currently developing the infant version of the more advanced technologies displayed by the visitors. We are not that far behind them.  

Going back to hypnosis and even consciously recalled memories, abductess have routinely described advanced technology that is either currently being worked on now or is theoretically achievable in the near future. However, abductees were first describing such technology 30+ years ago. I honestly believe the elders in the UFO community are blind to these observations due to their own biases. It's been right in front of their eyes the entire time. 

When I look at the alien abduction phenomenon as a whole I see a sea of complexity. Deep under is, I feel, a non-human hand at work which is associated with an extremely advanced technology.  

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/B80D1E28-0F54-4A4B-884D-4F463BBE3FA6%40frontiernet.net.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Actually in some ways I agree. While you may happily tread into quicksand I would prefer the safety of a solid, scientific foundation, i.e solid ground. As I stated earlier, the more paranormal subjects you yoke the UFO phenomenon too the harder it is for you to prove your case. The more burden of proof you tack on the further you sink. Some people in the community are drowning and or completely over the heads with no help of rescue. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/530FE4D2.20602%40gmail.com.

[Michael Hughes]

You prefer safety. I prefer to go where the data leads. Why force the data into a particular framework just because you find it more comforting? Isn’t that what the debunkers do?

Your insistence on labeling things “paranormal” vs. “scientific” is simply your own arbitrary distinction. Lightning was paranormal before we understood electricity. To someone from the 15th century, an iPhone would be a magical talisman powered by demons. 

With what little we actually know about UFOs, via the lens of the scientific method, there is no room for certainty. 

[boyinth...@aol.com]

I'm in no way forcing data. The only difference is interpretation. I see data and I'm led to advanced technology. You seemingly see data and immediately jump to the paranormal and/or mystical. You are free to go that route if you want but you must take on the burden of proof. And I'm not quite sure if you understand how heavy that burden is.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>

To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 11:48 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

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[Dave Haith]

Michael Hughes wrote: “With what little we actually know about UFOs, via the lens of the scientific method, there is no room for certainty.”

 

Well said Michael! That just about sums it all up. Everything is still up for grabs.

We are like mud worms at the bottom of the pond with not a clue that we’re even in a pond – let alone the vast bigger picture.

 

Dave Haith

 

From: Michael Hughes

Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 5:48 AM

To: ufo-col...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

 

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Yep. And this is why mainstream science will never take UFOs serious. I swear it seems the majority of people in the UFO community are mere kids on a sit-n-spin proclaiming they are going places. I hate to be crude but there is a certain activity that involves teenage boys sitting together in a circle and with a lot of free time in their hands. Is this what Ufology has become? Oh, we can't know anything! Everything is possible! Nothing is certain! Give me a break. 

The more I learn from my observations of the UFO phenomenon the more I realize that the following phrase has vast apt meaning. "As man is now, God once was; as God is now, man may become. -Lorenzo Snow." Get your head out of the 1970s. Get your head out of the Star Trek and "Galactic Federation" nonsense. Get your head out of the Harry Potter/magical/mystical/nonsense. Cast your gaze to our future. Fixate your mind on our current technological development and what is coming in the near future. If we were all immortal then most of you would still be arguing voodoo nonsense even when the day dawns when we would have become their equals. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ufo-collective/D4B29E04A2DE48CC8DB41E4FAC16C193%40Dave01.

[gildas bourdais]

Here is a copy of the exchange I had with Carol Rainy on UFO Updates in March 2011, when she put in doubt his grave illness. I don't know if it is correct to copy it here but I decide to do it anyway.

Gildas Bourdais

 

From: Gildas Bourdais <bourdai...@neuf.fr>
To: <po...@ufoupdateslist.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:41:07 +0100
Subject: Re: Scrap Propaganda Address The Issues


>From: Carol Rainey <csra...@gmail.com>
>To: po...@ufoupdateslist.com
>Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:21:49 -0500
>Subject: Scrap Propaganda Address The Issues [was: The
>Assassination Of Hopkins & Cortile]

>>From: Kathy Kasten <cat...@msn.com>
>>To: po...@ufoupdateslist.com
>>Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 20:39:35 +0000
>>Subject: Re: The Assassination Of Hopkins & Cortile

><snip>

>>Wow, not just discrediting Hopkins and Cortile, but Carol Rainey
>>is assassinating them. Isn't that hyperbole a little over the
>>top?

>Hello, Concerned Listers,

>I'd like to directly address the flying accusations about my bad
>taste in timing and lack of concern for "the dying Hopkins." The
>propagandists are taking an easy, sentimental potshot at my
>persistence in disclosing what I feel are faulty, sometimes
>harmful, and virtually worthless research methods practiced by
>the two best-known alien abduction researchers. No, the research
>isn't worthless in the sense that many, many people who have
>come to Hopkins and Jacobs have felt relieved simply by having
>someone listen to and empathize with them.

>But current abduction research methods are practically worthless
>in having brought us any verifiable knowledge about a real and
>puzzling phenomenon that troubles many experiencers. And that is
>a serious ethical problem - to continue escalating a narrative
>that has no basis in tried-and-true methods of science or even
>in experimental or hybrid methodology.

>Back to my "bad taste." Let me tell you, folks, there are three
>simple facts here: Simple Fact One - that I care very much about
>Budd, my former husband of ten years, although I no longer
>admire him. And no one has the right to ask me to explain that.
>It simply is.

>And Simple Fact Number Two is that I'm dying, too, you're dying,
>we're all dying. Some are a little closer to the finish line
>than others. But if you have a truth to speak out, you'd damn
>well better do it now. I no more know when my time is up than
>did John Mack - vigorous, full of new challenges - on the day we
>spoke on the phone as he was packing to leave for England.He
>told me of his newest interest - the possibility of life after
>death - and we promised to pick up the topic after he returned.
>And, of course, then came the rush of the proverbial truck and
>he never returned. I never got to hear what was leading him on.

>I'm saying what I need to say because it would be dishonest not
>to while I still have a tongue. I am speaking out to apologize
>for any possible harm that my secondary role with Budd's
>subjects might have caused. If they experienced none, so much
>the better.

>Now we come to Simple Fact Number Three about "the dying man"
>story: I'm here in Manhattan and those who criticize me are not
>even close. In an "only in Manhattan" scenario, I still live in
>the same house with Budd, two floors down, in the lower artist's
>studio. We cross paths irregularly and are civil to one another
>as we do. I am aware, as I am writing, that Budd is up and
>functioning, doing his own laundry on the main floor we share,
>going outside shortly after a blizzard to get his own liquor or
>to make a drugstore or food run.

>He has no constant, live-in care. He is not in hospice. He took
>care of himself through most of the terrible blizzards of this
>past amazing winter in New York.

>And, fifteen minutes ago, the "dying man" was seen walking quite
>spryly up 16th Street with a friend I think of vaguely as
>"Citizen Kane."

>I'd say that Budd Hopkins, although coping with a serious
>illness, is still very much up and swinging.

>I should know.

>Now, would it be possible to actually discuss the _issues_ about
>alien abduction research?

Carol,

I think you are the one who poses a "serious ethical problem".
I am baffled to see how you are still around, spying on him.
If you still care for your ex-husband, the best you can do for him
is to leave him alone, now.

You have harmed him enough.

How can you call him, coldly, "the dying man"? This is really
shocking.


Gildas Bourdais

 

----- Original Message -----

From: boyinth...@aol.com

To: ufo-col...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 7:50 PM

Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

Gildas,

Yes, I would love to be able to refresh my memory on these. In fact, why not post them here for everyone to see? It's one thing if she would have apologized but she is not sorry one bit and is continuing her attack on her now deceased ex.

-----Original Message-----
From: gildas bourdais <bourdai...@neuf.fr>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 5:14 am
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

You are quite correct. Carol Rainey put in doubt that Budd was gravely ill, shortly before his death. And Errol Bruce-Knapp expelled her from his list UFO Updates not long after.  I was active  in the debate on that list, and I have kept some of the messages, that I can send to you in private if you wish.

 

Gildas Bourdais

----- Original Message -----

From: boyinth...@aol.com

To: ufo-col...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 10:20 PM

Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

Sad that many can not see behind the veil. If my memory is correct, she appeared to suggest that Hopkins was faking being ill at the end. In fact, I do believe she was either banned and/or quieted on the Updates list for continuing on and on, as if seeking a crucifixion, in my opinion. She's not the person to get behind. I think her bias is clear as day. 

If you want to critique the alien abduction phenomenon, if not Hopkins' or even Jacob's work, you can do so on your own and do not have to get behind her. It would far better for your position if you did not align with her, considering her bias is so seemingly transparent. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jérôme Beau <java...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Feb 26, 2014 3:05 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

Thank you Jack,

I find Rainey's posts informative. She spoke out before Hopkins' death, and she is consistently pursuing this insider's feedback after it. 

There should be no golden idols in any truth-seeking, scientific-oriented endeavour.

Hopkins was a very kind person, but being does not prevent for being fooled sometimes (being too kind may help to be fooled, actually).

2014-02-26 2:38 GMT+01:00 <boyinth...@aol.com>:

You mean it wasn't enough that she openly attacked him as he was dying so now she wants to continue her assault?  

I also see that "Emma" (fake name) is also still making the rounds after all these years.

I can't speak for everyone but I personally don't want to hear another word from either of these women. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Brewer <brewe...@rocketmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 25, 2014 7:04 pm
Subject: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

Hello Collective:

Some of you might find a recent post at my blog, The UFO Trail, of interest. The post is Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community, and, as suggested, it contains the statements of Ms. Rainey. An award-winning filmmaker, author and grant writer, Rainey addresses controversy surrounding her critical review of the work of her late ex-husband, Budd Hopkins. She also offers some thoughts on current research of alleged alien abduction and the field in general.

The post:

http://tinyurl.com/mnauuts 

Regards,

Jack Brewer

The UFO Trail 

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[gildas bourdais]

And here is the message in which Errol Bruce-Knapp revoked Carol Rainey from UFO Updates, in April 2011. I send you this in memory of Budd Hopkins.

I hope I will not be blamed for that.

Gildas Bourdais

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "UFO UpDates - Toronto" <po...@ufoupdateslist.com>

To: "- UFO UpDates Subscribers -" <ufo-upda...@two.pairlist.net>

Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 12:26 PM

Subject: UFO UpDate: Carol Rainey's Hopkins Vendetta

>
>
>
>
> As John Velez pointed out in his post of Thu, 21 Apr 2011... "I
> just can't begin to express how very sad, embarrassing and
> distasteful this entire affair is...". Sentiments supported by
> many subscribers/readers.
>
> The discussions here have continued to this point only for the
> 'information' they've contained - however inaccurate its proving
> to be.
>
> For instance:
>
> Budd Hopkins sent Carol Rainey an email about 2 years ago
> explaining why symbols were his _most_ important discovery in
> all of his research, that he had been keeping them confidential
> for very good reasons and asked her to please not reveal this
> information. She did - doing a terrible dis-service to the
> research, while claiming she is trying to fix it... She has
> offered no constructive suggestions as to how to improve the
> research that she pretends to care so much about, and has no
> expertise in the field.
>
> Carol Rainey has claimed on this List - despite having no recent
> knowledge of Budd Hopkins' medical condition - that he wasn't
> really sick and was lying about it. In fact Budd Hopkins has
> multiple, life-threatening illnesses and has spent much time in
> hospital emergency rooms of late.
>
> Carol Rainey's vendetta against Budd Hopkins - on this List -
> now ends, as do the threads discussing her 'ressearch'. Her
> subscription to this List is revoked.
>
>
> Errol Bruce-Knapp
> Moderator UFO UpDates

 

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[William Treurniet]

For sure, if you don't look for something in the right places, you won't find it. So if you are happy with a linear progression of science, you will ignore any phenomenon that it can't explain.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a physical mediumship sitting with Kai Muegge, an excellent medium from Germany. He invited me to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of him with my hands cupped below his palm. I watched as a small stone or crystal formed in mid-air under his palm and fell into my hands. I cannot imagine how the science of today could explain how a solid object could form out of nothing in mid-air under those conditions. You would likely ignore what happened, or image that it was some kind of magician's trick and you should not believe your lyin' eyes. Instead, I have searched in unconventional places to try to understand how this could happen. One source was the interviews with the putative ET as described in the book I referenced earlier.

For anyone interested, a discussion of the apport and how it was received may be seen at http://www.treurniet.ca/psi/wallaciaapport.htm

William

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[Michael Hughes]

Well, you're certainly forcing a judgment on me, when you have absolutely *no* idea what my ideas or opinions are. "Immediately jump to the paranormal and/or mystical"? On what do you base that assumption? If you're that loose with your judgments, you'll have to excuse me if I question your objectivity when it comes to UFOs and anomalous experiences. 

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[Michael Hughes]

That’s an interesting report, William. However, as someone who has studied mentalism for a couple of decades now, I would be hesitant to accept this as legitimate without doing a proper investigation. Why? Because everything mentioned in your summary of the sessions with the medium can be duplicated by trickery. 

Also, I am always wary of seances held in darkened rooms, for the obvious reasons. The most interesting explorations of mediumship are those that take place in well-lit rooms (Lenora Piper and the investigations by SPR come to mind). Physical mediumship in darkness has always been a ripe playground for hucksters. 

I’m afraid that without a qualified magician/mentalist present, these reports remain unlikely to convince many.

Here’s a story I always tell people when I talk about psychic phenomena and trickery:

I did a presentation at the International Fortean Organization’s Fortfest in Baltimore about ten years ago. I performed a few of my standard mentalist effects, including apparently psychically divining names, numbers, and other things that had been written down and sealed in envelopes. I also caused people to feel that they were being touched when I was on the other side of the room. 

When I concluded, I told them that everything I had done was trickery. Despite that, two people *insisted* I was lying to them, because there was *no way* it could have been anything other than actual psychic phenomena. 

That’s why it’s important to *always* have someone trained in deception in these situations.

Michael

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[Jerome Clark]

Hi,

I urge you to read more widely.  From what I see, you don't understand the workings of science very well, and you're unread in scholarly literature which treats anomalous experiences from a non-reductionist perspective, written by everybody from folklorists and anthropologists to religious scholars to neurologists and psychologists to biologists and physicists.  For one example, I was astounded to note (in your exchanges with Michael Hughes) your rather startling ignorance of scientific/medical research into NDEs, which you seem to associate with occultism.  Which, by the way, seems to be your definition of "paranormal," otherwise used so loosely as to lack any recognizable meaning.

I have no doubt you're a good guy, but you need to read the postings more carefully, educate yourself in the relevant literature, and open up your mind.  If after all this you still hold that abduction experiences represent event-level interactions with kidnapping ETs, you'll at least have a more informed position which you can argue more persuasively.  And you won't write cringeworthy sentences, of the sort one would expect of a professional debunker and no one else, in which "science" and "paranormal" are employed polemically as antonyms.

Jerry Clark

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[Jenny Randles]

Hi,

Jerry sums up my position exactly.

As for associating NDEs with Abductions and thereby presuming a link with the afterlife or spiritual realms etc.That is not my point at all.

I am merely indicating that both experiences share clear elements and there are plenty of cases where a witness has assumed they had undergone an NDE when a UFO researcher would almost certainly have concluded that it was really a CE 4....indeed I have seen that happen. And vice versa. There are undeniable equivalences here that appear to mean something.

Which is not to imply that people who think they were abducted really had an NDE or that those who claim an NDE after a car accident (say) were in reality abducted after their car was extra-terrestrially immobilised.

It may well be wise to be cautious of interpreting an NDE as what it appears to be on the basis of the softer aspects of the experience itself. My feeling is that this could just as easily be a misleading contextual interpretation as the alien intervention within CE 4 cases might be. 

All we can fairly conclude is that the similarities between CE 4 and NDE are sufficiently apparent that they may illuminate the nature of both experiences.

Something involved in the process behind these experiences appears to be mutually relevant. That could be the presence of a human brain, its physiological mechanisms, an interacting energy source, or it could be to do with the nature of consciousness, or quantum physics, or any number of things we might speculate.

But when you see connections of this sort in the data you have to at least explore the various possibilities.

I am certainly not closed to the idea that alien contact is somehow involved, but I just do not see that as an essential conclusion of the evidence that we possess.

However, I absolutely believe that most abductees have had genuine, anomalous experience and that many sincerely believe these may have been alien contacts. To doubt the certainty of that conclusion is very different from presuming that these people are deluded or that there is some simple resolution to what happened to them.

If it were that simple then the skeptics would have proven it by now. But they have not, of course. There is still something to be resolved here and it could be something relatively prosaic or it could be something extraordinary. I am happy to be surprised.

Best wishes,

Jenny Randles

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[Jack Brewer]

> Hello Collective:

> Some of you might find a recent post at my blog, The UFO Trail, of interest. 

> The post is Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community...

> The post:

> http://tinyurl.com/mnauuts 

Readers of Collective might find recent comments posted at The UFO Trail of interest.

For example, a Sue Johnson made the comments pasted below:

"I've been following the Woods and Rainey issues with a great deal of interest since I 

became a voyeur of ufology a couple of years ago. The first thing I noticed about these 

two topics was that there were people actively trying to silence any discussion of or by 

Woods or Rainey. This, in a field where people otherwise seemed to be willing to discuss 

practically anything ad nauseum!

"The manner in which Woods and Rainey were silenced and discredited was also of interest. 

Rainy was billed at A Bad Wife (horrors!), and I actually read a posting where someone 

called Woods a hysteric. It’s not easy to call a woman a hysteric and not get laughed out 

of the room nowadays; has ufology finally invented the time machine?

"However, I would argue that the Woods and Rainey issues are central to ufology today 

and merit attention. First, they are women in a field in which almost all those with a public voice, 

and therefore defining the narrative of the field, are men. As such, their presence and work is of 

intrinsic interest.

"Second, they are participating in the public discourse of ufology as agents or actors rather in 

the role of victim or experiencer. They are thus in direct violation of the roles set for women 

(subordinate or victim) by the master narrative of gender relations set in the 1950s – ufology’s 

heyday. Although they stand on the shoulders of other women in the field, their work is still 

an interesting and important development in ufology.

"Third, they have presented clear, cogent, evidence-based logical arguments which are being 

silenced or ignored for reasons that have nothing to do with their actual content. In addition to 

the 1950s-era Bad Girl argument against paying attention to what Rainey and Woods have to 

bring to the table, I've also heard people say it’s simply not that interesting or important. To my 

mind, that’s a much more disturbing dismissal of their voices. Because:

"Fourth, the issues raised by Woods and Rainey illustrate instances in which the usual goings-on 

in ufology cross the line from being mostly harmless to being very probably dangerous and almost 

certainly unethical. This is the point at which the outside world starts to sit up and take notice. 

Ufology seems to be lagging a decade or two behind the outside world with respect to lessons 

learned from things like the satanic ritual abuse panic and iatrogenic multiple personality disorder.

"Over on the UFO Collective listserv I see this topic being debated in terms of validity of the ETH, 

the reality of abduction experiences, and the validity of regression hypnosis for retrieving memory. 

To me, these are side issues, or maybe even dead issues. The central issue is, why can’t ufology 

address the content of the critiques posed by Woods and Rainey? It may be that ufology, as it is 

constituted today, is not capable of answering that question."

[Jeff Ritzmann]

As far as Carol Rainey's comments regarding her ex-husband's health, this is ridiculous and intellectually insulting to see how it's being spun. Carol, who lived in the same building as Budd saw that he was not on his deathbed as was being portrayed by others who were not in his presence. She was. She saw him going to the grocery store, the drug store, and walking up the street during this period. What was being thrown at her was "you're attacking a dying man" - and portraying it as Budd was at death's door. All she said was this wasn't accurate. Not that he was faking illness. That's just stupid and demonstrably untrue. Period.

Then there's the shock at her labeling him "the dying man". She only quoted what was being thrown at her as a description of Budd (hence, the quotes - does anyone pay attention? Or just wait for their chance to pounce?). She didn't invent the term - the maligning ignorant contingency made that mention - she just corrected it based on her direct observation.

If this were a UFO case you'd be arguing for the direct observer. But this doesn't suit you. So you malign and marginalize it.

This is fundamentalist skeptic behavior. Always trying to play "gotcha" no matter what someone says, nor how close they are to the situation, and how far away their naysayers and accusers are. These accusations and spins on Carol's words would be amusing if it weren't so inaccurate and pathetically transparent as to it's real motives. I know this seems to delve too much into the personality arguments I usually avoid, but this relates directly to Carol's documented data on the methodologies of the work being discarded with predudice. Shooting the messenger and concocting motives based on misrepresenting someone's words six ways from Sunday is an effort to dismiss documented data - and that means there's an agenda to suppress dissenting views by any means. Such a thing cannot stand if moving forward is the order of the day.

That's all I have to say about it. Anyone not able to see the situation and reality of the matter has bigger issues than I could ever help with.

Jeff Ritzmann

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Mr. Clark, you are the last person to judge my interest in science. Your "contributions" to Ufology are of the "sit-n-spin" variety that is a plague and a bane on Ufology and you constantly argue for a non-physicality and mysticism, i.e. a love of mystery in and of itself with no desire for an explanation. You do on occasion make reference to a possible physical reality but your love, your passion, in my opinion, seems to be directed toward a belief in the paranormal, or should I say the existence of a realm outside of science and nature. You are a mystic. That is your nature. When you write that you believe that an abductee has had some type of genuine experience but that it's explanation is not in the physical realm then you are preaching mysticism and the paranormal. You are not adding to our knowledge of the subject and are only muddying the waters. 

I'm fully aware that the scientific consensus on NDEs is that the experience is a hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen combined with the release of "feel good" endorphins in the DYING BRAIN. So, unless you and Jenny are arguing that abductees are holding their breaths until they pass out while driving or going about their waking lives then you have to be arguing for a paranormal interpretation of NDEs. Nice try. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net>

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Thank you Gildas for posting these. I think it's important for people to know her motivation.

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[Michael Hughes]

You clearly have not read much, if any, of Jerry’s work over the years to make such a ridiculous claim. Are you just trying to piss people off? Because that’s how you’re coming across. It may be typical of ufology, but I’m sure I’m in the majority on this new list in hoping for a more constructive dialogue. 

As for this, Mr. Boy in the Machine (whoever you are):

I'm fully aware that the scientific consensus on NDEs is that the experience is a hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen combined with the release of "feel good" endorphins in the DYING BRAIN. So, unless you and Jenny are arguing that abductees are holding their breaths until they pass out while driving or going about their waking lives then you have to be arguing for a paranormal interpretation of NDEs. Nice try. 

No, that is not the “scientific consensus.” That is the debunker equivalent of “swamp gas.” There is no scientific consensus that fits the classic NDE data, despite attempts to shoehorn it in under anoxia and endorphins, endogenous DMT release, aberrant electrical activity, or any of the other dubious explanations. You are way out of your league here. 

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Jeff, you are *this close* from making the leap to a full-fledged debunker of the UFO phenomenon. I would advise you to spare us the drama and just jump already. 

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[Jerome Clark]

I will leave itt others determine whether Boy in the Machine has accurately characterized my ufology and anomalistics.  I confess I'm more used to being attacked for not being hostile to the ETH.

It should be noted, that he mischaracterizes the "scientific consensus on NDEs," validating my (and Randle's and Hughes's) point that he hasn't followed the research.

Incidentally, I try to use the word "paranormal" as rarely as possible.  I have problems with it, and in my opinion it is more usefully confined to the stuff of psychical research.

Jerry Clark

I

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[Jerome Clark]

The posting sent just now is littered with typos to the point of unreadability.  Here's the corrected version:

I leave it to others to determine whether Boy in the Machine has accurately characterized my approach to ufology and anomalistics.  I confess I'm more used to being attacked for not being hostile to the ETH.

It should be noted that he mischaracterizes the "scientific consensus on NDEs," validating my (and Randles's and Hughes's) point that he has followed the research.

[Jerome Clark]

Jeez, one more time.  See word in bold type:

It should be noted that he mischaracterizes the "scientific consensus on NDEs," validating my (and Randles's and Hughes's) point that he has not followed the research.

[boyinth...@aol.com]

Yes, consensus is that NDEs do not represent proof of the paranormal in as much as no sufficient proof for the existence of the paranormality of NDEs has been forthcoming.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>

To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 28, 2014 12:55 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

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[Michael Hughes]

There you go again with your injecting “paranormal” into a discussion where it isn’t warranted. Seriously, do some reading or you’ll continue to make a fool of yourself here. 

[Jerome Clark]

Read the literature, Machine Boy, rather than repeat the error.

Among medical scientists, various theories -- a significant one being that NDEs represent evidence of survival of consciousness after death -- have been proposed and debated as the research continues.  No consensus opinion exists, just varying schools of thought.

Jerry Clark

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[Michael Hughes]

Jason, no one is arguing for anything “beyond science and nature” except the straw men you are constructing in your head. Seriously, are you a professional troll or are you just that dense? Because you’re doing a very bang-up job of alienating (pun intended) a lot of people with your arrogance and ignorance. 

On Feb 28, 2014, at 2:11 PM, boyinth...@aol.com wrote:

Mr. Clark, most of the people in your camp do not use key words which give them away as being mystics. Instead, it's the substance of their argument. Keel didn't believe in literal demons but the substance of his work betrayed him and revealed that is what he was proposing. Likewise, when you or anyone else, argue for something beyond science and nature you are arguing for the paranormal and mystical whether you realize it or not. 

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Mr. Clark, most of the people in your camp do not use key words which give them away as being mystics. Instead, it's the substance of their argument. Keel didn't believe in literal demons but the substance of his work betrayed him and revealed that is what he was proposing. Likewise, when you or anyone else, argue for something beyond science and nature you are arguing for the paranormal and mystical whether you realize it or not. 

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Anytime you are arguing for the existence of something outside of nature or science you are arguing for the paranormal. We don't need to connect UFOs to the paranormal. If we want an explanation for the phenomenon we can't connect them to the paranormal as science can not touch the paranormal. If UFOs exist then they must be part of the physical reality we share and must operate under natural laws and must be explainable by science. This is why the ETH is so important. It's rooted in physical reality. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>
To: ufo-collective <ufo-col...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 28, 2014 1:09 pm
Subject: Re: [UFO-Collective] Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

My screen name has a meaning that escapes you. 

The proposed paranormal explanation for NDEs is an explanation that is not backed with sufficient scientific evidence and can't be backed with scientific evidence. You seemingly forgot the rule. The rule states that science can speak nothing of the reality of the paranormal because by definition the paranormal exists outside of science and nature. Survival after death, whether real or imagined, can not be scientifically proven and thus is a waste of time. The existence of UFOs can theoretically be scientifically proven IF we stay on the path of the ETH. If we venture off the path and connect it to the paranormal then just like with NDEs it can never, EVER, be scientifically proven because it by definition would lie outside of science and nature. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net>

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Michael, you can not hide behind your ignorance. The paranormal (meaning "beyond nature") can never be scientifically proven. Science can never speak anything to the reality of the paranormal. Belief in the paranormal, like with religion, is faith-based. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Hughes <michael...@gmail.com>

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[Jeff Ritzmann]

"Jeff, you are *this close* from making the leap to a full-fledged debunker of the UFO phenomenon. I would advise you to spare us the drama and just jump already. "

If you know of an experiencer who is also a debunker, I would like to meet them. I'll just point out that you again deviate from the topic to call names and act like a child when people's outlooks, research and facts don't suit you. 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your comments regarding Mr. Clark - a man who's devoted more of his life than not into actually furthering this field, and who has done volumes more work than you. What is it you've contributed to this study again?

As far as I'm concerned that alone shows your demeanor and awareness of the field and the phenomena enough for me to tell you to go pound sand. You are wholly not worth communicating with, so I'll be ignoring your responses from here on out.

Jeff Ritzmann

[Jerome Clark]

This is just nuts.

The more you carry on in this vein, the more you validate the complaint, not mine alone, that you simply don't know what you're talking about and are, worse, militantly proud of your ignorance.

Further discussion seems hopeless.

Jerry Clark

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[Michael Hughes]

Adios. Enjoy the time in your machine, Jason Gammon, because it’s going to get awfully lonely in there. 

/ignore engaged

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

No, Jerry. You just aren't used to any challenges and have grown ever so comfy in your high chair. 

The current state of Ufology is the most anti-scientific mess I have ever seen. The current vogue is to enact affectations of intelligence by pushing the "love of mystery for mystery-sake", as in a mystery that can't or even shouldn't be explained. Book after book, documentary after documentary, speech after speech is made by the members of the "cult of mystery." You, Jerry, are a member of this cult. 

I'm sure you are a very good person. It's just that you, and the rest of the cult, are doing nothing to help further our knowledge of the phenomenon. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome Clark <jkc...@frontiernet.net>

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Oh, quite the contrary. I'm not looking for an invitation into the "Let's pat each other on the back"-club. From my perspective you are all spinning in circles, round and round, over and over again. So ignore me of you will. It makes no difference. Great technological advancement is occurring at this moment, advancements that are the infant stages of the technology displayed by the visitors. As I stated before, most of you here will still be debating your voodoo nonsense when we would have already become their equals. 

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

You can play ostrich all you want, Jeff. You already have aligned yourself with a shady character. Birds of a feather, flock together. 

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[Jerome Clark]

Well, I guess if somebody has to congratulate you on your brilliance and courage, it may as well be you.

Cheers,

Jerry Clark

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

I'm only trying to give a course correction. We, as a group, need to come back to the ETH. We need to focus on the current state of technological advancement and what is around the corner for us. As I wrote before, "As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be. -Lorenzo Snow." If we are being visited by intelligent beings from elsewhere then they exist on the other side of the technological divide or gulf that currently exists between us. We are not their equals. We are inferior. However, in time we stand a good chance of joining their ranks. By looking toward our present and future technological advancement we can glean hints as to the nature of the visitors. Those among us who seek the paranormal should really leave. They are only hurting our cause.

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[boyinth...@aol.com]

Oops, clarification;

Paranature means "beyond nature"

Paranormal means "beyond normal".

The same meaning though, outside of nature and science. 

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[Jenny Randles]

Hi,

I am not exactly sure what you are trying to argue, but if it is that the ETH is the only scientific course for UFO research to follow and that talk of comparisons between NDEs and abductions is really mysticism, paranormal or in some sense unscientific, then I have to disagree.

Of course, the ETH is theoretically possible (though mostly in a sense of an informed assumption based on current known observation that there are many worlds around other stars and some of these are potentially habitable so MIGHT have life on them.) 

However, that is a long way from being a direct argument that UFOs being seen are alien in origin.

For that you have to demonstrate not a theoretical possibility but a causal link between aliens (even if we knew for certain that any were out there say, 50 light years away - as we soon might do) and the UFO encounters people are experiencing here on Earth.

That is what science would require as evidence.

Now, of course, there is some hard evidence, but most such UFO evidence is supportive of phenomena that create unusual physiological and physical effects. Something clearly real in any objective sense. But of origin unknown.  But not of aliens, per se, as that would require things like none terrestrial DNA.

You can argue a dozen possible ways around how to resolve what we have evidence for - from UAP (atmospheric energies on the edge of known science) to time travellers via, of course, extra-terrestrials visiting us for whatever reason.

But the primary basis for adopting aliens as the answer stems at present not from alien DNA or such like but from it being how abduction witnesses perceive their encounters as alien in origin (or in simple terms - because the aliens told them that is who they are during a CE 4).

This is really rather akin to the NDEs you seem to dislike, because here there is a phenomenon occurring - as pretty much all scientists agree. It is thoroughly documented. During that experience many (though not all) percipients describe things that appear to suggest they have entered a strange place surrounded by light and met up with ethereal beings who convey messages and then sent them back. They may be told by these figures (or otherwise infer of them) that this experience involved a visit to heaven where they have met celestial beings or dead loved ones.

It does not matter whether they are entirely correct in that evaluation or entirely wrong (both very valid options) or indeed if the answer is something in between - an explanation not yet proposed by scientists or by witnesses themselves.

Whatever the case, these events have occurred and there is a real NDE phenomenon that is being rightly documented, researched and various possibilities assessed with open mindedness.

All I am saying is that we have to treat the abduction phenomenon in the same manner. Consider possible reductionist solutions (as NDE researchers do). Take seriously the interpretation of events that the witnesses themselves have adopted. But ultimately document the evidence, seek patterns , set up hypotheses and test them to find the best matching answer.

That is what is occurring with NDE research and that is why it is regarded as scientific in nature.

This is what is attempted and required as well within abduction research .

I do not understand why you would not consider this to be the appropriate response to two intriguing (and for me visibly parallel) human experiences that have both been extensively recorded - primarily over the past 40/50 years.

It has nothing to do with mysticism and all to do with correct investigation as far as I can see.

Nor is it seeking to debunk or demean those who experience either of these things. It is giving them the respect of taking their accounts seriously and trying to look for the best explanation that makes sense of what has happened to them.

This IS the definition of science. Or it was when I was at college.

By the way, if you are still unsure of the correlation between NDE and CE 4 read up on the Aveley, Essex October 1974 encounter out on the net. Where a family were driving home when they saw a light in the sky, rode into a bank of green mist, suffered electrical problems and a 'time jump' and then completed their journey. Via dreams and then regression they tried to piece together what had happened to them, and recalled floating out of their bodies, seeing themselves below, then undergoing a visit in a strange place with wise alien beings - presumed to be inside their UFO - who conveyed various messages about their experiments on humans before returning the family back to their car.

This  - to me - has obvious elements of both the NDE and the CE 4 and could  be adapted by any proponent of either phenomenon as if it were a distorted account of one of 'their' cases.  Nor is it at all a one off.

When I first met this family in the late 70s, NDEs were very little known, as were abductions in the UK, because Budd Hopkins work was not yet published.

It only became clear to me in retrospect - from this case and others - why we may have to take into consideration events reported outside of the obvious UFO purview as we might be missing vital clues by ignoring things that we regard as irrelevant but that might prove important.

Best wishes,

Jenny Randles