If UFOs are real, why hasn’t anyone ever found a crashed ship, or a tail pipe?

Even for UFO believers, reports of crashed ships takes the whole phenomenon too far . . . until investigator Stanton Friedman heard these words: “The person you really ought to talk to is Jesse Marcel. He handled pieces of one of those things.” Marcel is the USAAF Major who accompanied rancher Mac Brazel out to the crash site in July 1947.

Just for the sake of entertainment alone, Roswell: The UFO Uncover-Up is an enjoyable film. And, it’s a history lesson, because the story of a mysterious crash near Roswell, New Mexico made headlines “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region” Tuesday July 8, 1947, only to undergo an extensive cover-up that never accounts for the facts.

Larry King interviews U.S. Air Force witnesses of UFOs

LARRY KING: “Tonight, have UFOs shut down our government’s defense systems? There is evidence that something caused missiles to malfunction during test launches. Former Air Force officers tell their incredible story . . .”

Guests of the December 31, 2008 “Debate Over Existence of UFOs” on CNN Larry King Live include former captain Bob Salas, former officer Bob Jamison, former lieutenant, Dr. Bob Jacobs, and UFO investigator Robert Hastings. The officers give firsthand testimony that extraterrestrial vehicles can enter our nation’s airspace at any time, out fly the most advanced military aircraft, and disable mechanical systems, including weapons.

It’s an interesting debate, and the guests are all named Bob.

“I Know What I Saw” a James Fox UFO Documentary

The Evidence of Spacecraft Beyond the Reach of Humanity

On October 4th, the History channel aired the latest James Fox film on UFOs, “I Know What I Saw”. Clearly, James Fox believes in the existence of extraterrestrial vehicles. He concedes that most UFO sightings are explainable, and then he proceeds to investigate cases from around the world that present the best evidence of mysterious, structured craft flying over Earth.

If you only see UFOs in popular culture, it is easy to situate alien pilots alongside Dracula, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. A few strange tales and fuzzy photographs are summarily explained, until one considers the observations of rational people. Thousands of people, including an Arizona governor and a member of the Phoenix city council, witnessed a massive ship glide over Phoenix on March 13, 1997. Civilian, government, and military witnesses relate their experience on camera.

A collective hallucination?

A product of the mythical imagination?

The UFO phenomenon is real, regardless of how you interpret it.

What if a UFO is an Extraterrestrial Vehicle?

Why do geometric formations appear overnight in crops?

Is District 9 a euphemism for Area 51?

Did ET phone home?

Any interest in UFOs?

Learning to Live with Aliens (Part Three)

My character had an experience with extraterrestrial Beings, and I have never even seen a UFO. Save the unlikely event of being floated aboard a spaceship in the middle of the night, I would need to do some research. You could say I lack imagination, or I experienced writer’s block the day I left my desk in Miller library. I typed a keyword in the library computer: Jacques Vallee, and made my way to the stacks. On the shelf near Vallee’s, Anatomy of a Phenomenon, I found a title that conjured the subject: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter’s Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.

The author, C. D. B. Bryan, reports on a 1992 abduction study conference at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology that brings together investigators, therapists, and abductees. Bryan’s clean prose and compelling voice captured me, but I was on board for the descriptions of “spindly-limbed, 3-and-a-half to 4-and-a-half foot tall telepathic gray creatures with outsized foreheads dominated by huge, compelling, tear-shaped black eyes.” For my purposes as a storyteller, it just kept getting better. There may be as many as four types of aliens: Small Greys, Tall Greys, Nordics, and Reptilians.

Bryan notes the abductees’ descriptions of what they saw and experienced aboard the alien spacecraft. Individuals from across the country, from every possible background – most with no previous interest in UFOs – each tell unique tales that share similar characteristics. People see bright lights, sometimes an entity, and they are floated through walls into an alien craft where they undergo medical exams, and often the harvesting of sperm or ovum. Abductees report this to be terrifying. They are generally paralyzed except for their eyes. The alien beings communicate telepathically and soothe the abductee of their fears. After the most commonly reported experience of a medical exam, the abductees variously experience a tour of the ship or some encounter with other Beings they describe as hybrids, the result of genetic crossbreeding.

Learning to Live with Aliens (Part Two)

In Harold’s story, a ship piloted by Beings of unknown origin arrives on earth with a solution to the insurmountable problems facing humanity. So I figure, okay . . . aliens. But this storyline actually has some resonance in Western culture. There’s often a moment pictured in religious texts where God returns to correct the wrongs of humanity and establish Heaven on Earth. Here is an amazing science fact: Sir Issac Newton calculated the date 2060 as the year Christ would return, or variously, as when the world ends. The father of modern science was also a religious man.

Using his extraordinary powers of calculation, Newton tried to extract scientific information from the Bible. Though the political climate in the 17th century required decorum around all matters pertaining to the Bible, Newton held the heretical belief that the Christ could not be equal to God. Newton’s universe required a creator beyond and more powerful than anything known to man. The Trinity was poppycock, a doctrine without reason. Anyway, Newton risked his tenure at Cambridge in applying reason to the Bible.

Aliens? Yes. What about the aliens? Let’s risk a bit of scientific heresy and research the extraterrestrial hypothesis. If I am going to write a story that deals with aliens, I must understand my subject – as much as it can be known to humans anyway. To begin, I performed my obligatory Google search and found a primer on the subject, a documentary by James Fox called, Out of the Blue. This film turned my complacent view of aliens on its head. It’s not just a pop culture phenomenon?