WHAT’S WRONG AND RIGHT IN UFOLOGY TODAY

By Dee Andrew

WHAT’S WRONG 

  As the title says this is about what’s wrong and right in Ufology. We will be looking as some of the different outlooks on the subject of UFO’s and abductions and exopolitics. I’m sure that I will make new allies in some parts of the Ufology community, and possibly a few adversaries in others. I’m not in this to win any popularity contests, or to say that I’m the only one who has all the answers, but then who does? Not me, or you dear reader. But sadly there are some people out there who think they do or, try to make you believe that they do. Then there are the good researchers out there that are honestly looking for answers to their questions and, sometimes all they get is more questions than answers. So let’s take a look at what’s wrong first and see if you don’t agree with me on at least a few or all of the points I will be bringing up. Then we’ll take a look at what’s right.

  First let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts end of the UFO subject. The Internet has become a clearinghouse, if you will, for UFO sighting reports and videos. So what’s wrong with that? My answer is that most of these reports and videos are not even looked into to see if they are fact or hoax. Then the few that do get looked into are in fact hoaxes that the investigator insists are the real thing. For example, the so-called “Drone” photographs of 2007. It only took 5 days of examining by 2 people I personally know to come to the conclusion that they were CGI images superimposed onto digital photographs. MUFON looked at the same photographs for about 6 months and came up with the same conclusion.

So what is wrong with that? Nothing, I applaud their work. In my opinion they did a wonderful job of proving that the photographs were a hoax. My problem is that even thought these pictures were proven to be a hoax, several prominent researchers to this day insist that they are real.

  These same researchers also claim that the so called “CARET” documents that were sent to them saying that the “Drone” ships were a product of human reverse engineering of alien technology, including photographs of “equipment” and “alien writing”. Once again several people I know looked into the “CARET” documents and found that the so-called “alien writing” was mostly made up of different Japanese fonts, some of which had been turned in different directions or reversed. This makes me wonder; just how much research the investigators did on both the photographs and the documents. Obviously they did very little of none at all. Just recently I noticed that 2 people were going to lecture on the “CARET’ documents at a UFO conference.

  Now this kind of non-research that is being passed off as a body of work in progress makes me a bit angry. Are these people so blind to the truth that they grasp at anything that comes along as fact without even making sure that it is either a fact of a fake? It’s this kind of “research” that is fodder for the skeptics and debunkers to pick up on and use to ridicule the subject all together. Research of this kind just muddies up things for the people who make sure that what they are reporting on is on the up and up. This is just an example of some of the bad information that is and has been passed on to the unsuspecting, uninformed public through the Internet and UFO conferences.

  Now don’t get me wrong I’m not bashing the Internet or conferences. UFO conferences are a great way to inform and educate the public on the subject. I also find the Internet a very useful tool but, when you have to separate so much chaff to find so little wheat it can be confusing to people who are just learning about the subject.

  Another thing, I have a problem with all the photographs of what I have come to call “Blurfos”. These are the pictures that show noting more than objects that are so blurry that their true shapes are in question. Most of these photographs turn out to be either bugs or birds; some are just plan out of focus. You would be surprised how many Blurfos are posted on so many websites and passed off as alien spacecraft. Then there are the photographs of lights in the sky that have nothing else in them to give a reference to size, location etc. In my opinion these two types of photographs are useless. I don’t blame the people who take the photos. After all not everyone who takes picture is an expert photographer of knowledgeable researcher. However, I do blame those who post these pictures in reports on the Internet as anomalous crafts and leave it at that without even checking them out or, if they are checked out and found to be something mundane not doing a follow up on them to let people know.

  Now let’s move on to the subject of abduction research. I come to this subject next because I believe that Ufology and abduction research are two facets of the same thing. In fact the terms by which they are known are a bit of a misnomer. The term UFO means unidentified flying object and that means that not all unidentified objects in the sky are alien spacecraft. We are really only interested in the ones that could possibly be such craft. Personally I am a strong proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and after all, if they don’t come from here they have to come from somewhere. Therefore could it not be said that UFO research is alien technology research? As for abduction research most people think that the term covers all types of human-alien encounters but it doesn’t. There are two forms of contact the first is an abductee, they are, for a lack of a better term, a one shot deal. Here I  use Travis Walton as a prime example, his was a chance encounter. He even says himself that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if he had to do it all over again he would stay in the truck. The second is the contactee and, these people have encounters for most of their lives. In fact contact can go back many generations in family lines. Again is this matter I refer to the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and again a possible new term alien contact research.

  The biggest problem I have on the subject of alien contact research is the excessive use of hypnosis by basically unqualified people and even some people who are qualified. I have read many transcripts, listened to many audio recordings and, watched many video recordings of such sessions. With these examples it’s clear to see that hypnosis is useless as a way of retrieving accurate memories of anything, period. It is well known that people under hypnosis will say what they think the hypnotist wants to hear. The more they are pushed into remembering the more they want to please the hypnotist. One researcher even goes so far as to tell the “abductee” that the body has a memory and, let your body remember what happened to you. Body memory? Am I the only one who thinks that’s a bit questionable? This same researcher talked with a child that was under 5 years old. This child was shown picture of people like, a doctor, a fireman, Santa, etc. and one picture of a typical gray alien face. The child was asked who were the “Good Guys” and who there the “Bad Guys”?! I bet you guessed the child said the gray was a bad guy but, did you guess the child’s parents were told the child had been taken by aliens? “Yes, just from that simple test you too can find out if your children have been taken by E.T.s” That last statement would be good for a silly giggle if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s scary. Can you imagine what that child’s life is going to be like especially if the researcher is wrong and the child was never taken by aliens?

  Now, I have to admit that I am not an expert on alien contact and I never claimed to be. It’s not my main area of interest; I’m more of a historian of the UFO subject. But it doesn’t take an expert to see the gross errors that are being made by many researchers.

  The next aspect of Ufology on the list is exopolitics. There are three exopolitical camps, of which two are so out there that it borders on scandalous. One group offers a course that when you complete it you are qualified as an ambassador to extraterrestrials. Oh, did I mention that it will only cost you $1,500.00? Sounds like a high price for such a useless piece of paper to me. I would like to know what makes the instructor of this course qualified to teach it. Is there a college that offers a course in extraterrestrial diplomacy? No, I don’t think there is. The second group promotes just about any silly idea that comes down the pike along with a bit of paranoia thrown in for good measure.

WHAT’S RIGHT

  Now for the good research. Next we will take a look at what is right in Ufology. By now you may have noticed that I have not named any names because I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. In this section I will name several people and the great work they are in the aspect of Ufology they find most interesting. I would like to start with Keith Chester.

  Mr. Chester is a filmmaker who had a sighting of his own in the 1960’s and by the 1980’s was doing considerable research. His work on the subject of the Foo Fighters of World War II takes tip honors in my opinion. This man spent years digging through the national archives as on part of his research. He spent many hours interviewing the small number of surviving airmen who witnessed the Foo Fighters first hand. Through his work we now know that Howard P. Robertson and, many of the men who served on the Robertson Panel in 1953 were the same people that the United States sent to investigate the phenomenon. You can read more on the subject of Foo Fighters in his book “Strange Company: Military Encounters With UFOs in WWII”. I think you will find it fascinating and informative.

  Another top honor goes to Richard Dolan for his dedicated research on the history of the United States military and government involvement with UFOs. It is my belief that if a college or university offered a course on the subject of UFOs his books “UFOs and the National Security State” Vol .One and Vol. Two should be the textbooks. Mr. Dolan is a true historian in both word and deed. I look forward to reading volume three just as soon as it is published.

  The work of Ted Phillips is of a high caliber carried out with a high degree of scientific precision. Mr. Phillips has worked on landing trace cases since 1964 when he started working with the esteemed Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He has assembled the Special Investigations Unit; a team of people who bring with them a wide variety of talents and expertise. Samples are carefully collected, bagged, tagged and sent off to the lab for analysis. This type of Ufology related laboratory analysis brings to mind Phyllis Budinger.

  I think of Mrs. Budinger as the Grand Matriarch of Ufology. She has a lifelong interest in the UFO phenomenon, which was her impetus for starting Frontier Analysis, Ltd in 2000. With the knowledge that most researchers carry out their work from their own pockets and have day jobs, she offers her services pro bono. In her laboratory she has done analysis on samples from angel hair to animal mutilations. Mrs. Budinger also did work on the dress worn by Betty Hill when Betty was taken aboard a UFO. All of Mrs. Budinger’s material and testing results are archived in the Black Vault Encyclopedia Project.

  It’s the work of these people and others like them who give UFO research a good name. My hat is off to them and all the people who follow their example.

  I come to the subject of thorough alien contact research with some trepidation. Let’s face it unless you have had contact yourself you can’t be all that good at researching the phenomenon. There are so many people out there that think they have all the answers but in truth they don’t. There are some who think they know how to help the people who are going through this, deal with it but they can’t. There are some who claim that only turning to God or, having an exorcism will stop the contact but it won’t.

  So who do I think is doing the best job on the subject of alien contact? Well sadly I don’t think there are all that many who are. There are a few groups out there who try and do all right. I personally think that there isn’t one group that has been perfect or even close for that matter. So when it comes to naming anyone or group that I think is doing a great job in the field I can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I think that there is some good work being done out there. The main problem stems from the fact that most of the good researchers only have a small bit of the information. If they would all work together with the common goal of getting to the truth, then maybe some headway can be made in this important area of research. If they would all stop being selfish with their findings and exhibiting a, “It’s mine, you can’t have it” attitude, then maybe there can be help for these people.

  Our last subject is exopolitics, as I pointed out there are three camp. I touched on two of them but the third one is the only one I think is even close to being on the right track. The man who heads this group is Steven Bassett. His work of getting the information to the people in government is highly commendable. He is a motivated man with the goal of getting the U.S. government to disclose any and all UFO related information accumulated by the branches of the government, the military, and the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies. He has brought men who were involved in cased such as, an Air Force pilot who was ordered to fire missiles at an unidentified craft, a FAA NTSB investigator who has radar data tracking an object the size of an aircraft carrier, and many more similar instances into the public realm. I feel that if could only attend one conference it should be the X-Conference that Mr. Bassett organized every year. There you will hear of the experiences of everyday people from all walks of life that can’t explain their experience and the research of some of the top researchers. You can also talk to all the speakers and other attendees.

  This by no means is a full list of what is wrong and right with Ufology. This is just a few examples of what I feel are prime examples of what is going on in a field of research that is important. Millions of people worldwide are seeing strange objects in the sky or, experiencing in their lives things they can’t explain. What is needed is a cohesive effort from all researchers working together to find the answers.

  So there you have it, you may not agree with me on any of this or, feel I have hit the nail on the head. Either way you look at the subject of Ufology it is important and should be carried out in a scientific manner. We all need to work together to make it an acceptable field of study, to shake of the ridicule. Then and only then will all things be truly right in the field of UFO research.

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