Wednesday, February 21, 2018

A Skeptic at the 2018 UFO Congress, Part 2

Continued from previous posting........

Dean Alioto
The first speaker on Thursday morning was Dean Alioto, film director and writer. According to his bio, he is the creator of "the mysterious and enigmatic UPN TV special Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (aka The McPherson Tape). For two decades, Alioto’s TV special has generated conspiracies worldwide and has been studied by top experts in the field of UFOs and alien abductions. At this year’s convention, Alioto will speak publicly for the first time ever about the TV special and the incredible strange story behind it. In addition, Alioto will talk about the original video that the controversial TV special was based on. Known simply as, UFO Abduction, this video brought the house down at the 1993 International UFO Congress Convention with it’s shocking footage of a family being abducted by aliens."

In brief: In 1989 Alioto made a short film about a family facing a home invasion by aliens. It was never formally released, but a copy was discovered by credulous UFO believers and shown around, including at the 1993 UFO Congress. In the film the family barricades itself against the aliens, and fires shotguns at them. It ends up as "found footage." (Alioto claims to have invented the genre of "found footage," later so popular with the Blair Witch Project, etc. Probably he did.)   In 1998 this story was re-made as a higher-budget film, and shown on UPN TV as Alien Abduction: Incident In Lake County. That version of his film was shown in the evening as part of the Film Festival. At about 65 minutes long, I found it annoying and tedious with its shaky camera and chaotic, arguing actors. "Bring on the aliens!", I kept thinking. Finally we see them at the very end.

Alioto's main point was, many people who saw his film refused to believe that it was not a real abduction (and he named names), even though the alien actors are named in the credits. He said he was worried how he might be received at a UFO conference, since his message might be perceived as negative about UFOs. He was received quite well. After the film had been shown that evening, I had a chance to talk to Alioto, and I asked him if he was familiar with a silly old song titled "Close the Door, They're Coming in the Window"? He was not. It was one of the hits of 1955. I played a little of it for him on my phone, and he was quite surprised. It is the story of a family barricading itself against a home invasion of "somethings" (insert silly noise here), and fighting them off with baseball bats. "That song describes your movie!," I told him (one of the actors in the movie keeps shouting "Close the windows! Close the windows!"). Hmmmm, the famous Kelly-Hopkinsville 'encounter' (mentioned in Alioto's talk), in which a rural family in Kentucky claims to have defended itself against an invasion of "little green men," occurred on August 21, 1955. The same year as that song. Hmmmmmm.......
Alan Holt

Next was Alan Holt, who "recently retired from NASA after 50+ years of service, which included supporting the Apollo lunar missions, Skylab, Space Shuttle, Spacelab and the International Space Station. Mr. Holt has been actively involved in research related to encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena and in metaphysical studies for the past 49 years. He has a B.S. in Physics, Iowa State University (1967) and a M.S. in Physical Sciences (astrophysics), University of Houston/CLC (1979)." His talk was titled "'Visitors' and Humanity’s Future as an Interstellar Species." He talked about Insectoids, Reptilians, Humanoids, and their telepathic interactions with human consciousness. He had written a technical paper about using a "Field Resonance" propulsion system to push a spacecraft into hyperspace. However, he admitted that "I didn't have all of the mathematics worked out."

Holt said that his interest in UFOs was sparked by reading Adamski's Flying Saucers Have Landed. I had the same thought as I did after listening to Keller's talk the previous day: how can someone who has studied physics and has even worked in the space program, believe unsupported claims about supposed alien spacecraft that run counter to everything we know about physics? By the miracle of "mental compartmentalization," I suppose.

This man, Justin Kohn, has all the answers. He was passing out a sheet from a group called Allies of Humanity, which has "an Urgent Message About the Extraterrestrial Presence in the World Today." Something about Good Guy aliens and Bad Guy aliens. Okay.

Susan J. Palmer
Next was a very interesting talk (and one of the few talks that was truly worthwhile) by Susan J. Palmer, a sociologist of religion, on "When Contactees found “Cults”…The Case of Raël and Prophets of UFO Religions." Synopsis: "In 1974 Claude Vorilhon, French race car driver and journalist, published a book describing his CEIII during a stroll in a volcanic crater. His 1975 book, They Took Me to Their Planet, recounts traveling to the planet of the Elohim. By 1976, Vorilhon was “Raël,” the “Last and Fastest” Prophet of the International Raelian Movement, today the largest UFO religion in the world."

Palmer and her colleagues conducted in-depth interviews with Rael and many of his followers. Rael has now promoted himself from Contactee to "Prophet" (as has Billy Meier). Rael's cult is famous for its free sexuality, and I thought the funniest part of all was this: There is a certain group of followers who are expected to remain celibate until the arrival of the Elohim. However, these women are nonetheless allowed to have sex with Rael, who represents the Elohim here on earth. Rael is a genius, many men would think!😏

Robbie Graham
Robbie Graham is an author who is trying to "reframe the debate" on UFOs - hence the title of his book, an anthology of different ways of looking at the UFO phenomenon. He spoke on "Searching for Truth in All the Wrong Places." Synopsis: "A deeply personal presentation exploring the lure of the UFO, how our beliefs can be exploited, and how we might more usefully seek to unravel the UFO mystery beyond simplistic notions of government Disclosure."

Graham talked about society evolving into a "hyperreality," when images and reality seem to merge into one. He thinks that there is an E.T. component to the UFO phenomenon, but that it goes far beyond that. As for the current frenzy over the Pentagon UFO program, he calls that "the DeLonge Delusion," and suggested that DeLonge is part of a Pentagon deception. During the Q&A session Stephen Bassett - a "Disclosure" activist with the Paradigm Research Group and also a speaker at the Congress - told Graham, I would like to debate you about every statement you made. Later when I had a chance to speak with Graham, who seems like a very nice fellow, I told him my explanation for why all UFO theorists seem to be at a loss to come up with a comprehensive explanation for the phenomenon: they are attempting to find patterns in what is fundamentally just noise.

There was a panel about "Science and the Future of UFO Research." T.L. Keller talked about human-made saucers that use anti-gravity propulsion. Bob Gross told an implausible tale about NASA secretly trying to recruit Navajo astronauts. The reason was, when these astronauts go to the  moon and Mars they will encounter other beings there, and the Native Americans will be able to 'think differently' about that.







8 comments:

  1. If there are beings on the moon the obvious question is why our own lunar astronauts never saw them or indeed any sign of intelligent life. I assume that when we reach Mars we will not, alas, find any sign of intelligent life there either.

    This is all due to a special contract, in which all earthlings who travel to other planets/stars are forbidden, by very strict international law, to let the rest of the world know if they have found evidence of ETs.

    We are, of course, perfectly free to inform the world if we happen to meet ETs here on earth (as indeed Adamski, the Hills and many others have done) but, sadly, not if we discover them on other planets, or even in space.

    A most unfortunate state of affairs, but that is the position in which astro-science finds itself. Science will thus suffer and be much the poorer.

    (I believe this thesis, or something akin to it, was first proposed many years ago by a Mr Stanton T. Friedman, but am open to correction).

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    1. Ah, so you are one of the ones who think we went to the moon? -Fool, let me tel - (Sorry can't keep it up, :) )

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    2. I've just come back from the moon, and they've never heard of us.

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  2. ..."who are expected to remain Celibate"....now where have I heard that before?
    Gday Robert. I was wondering in your research to write your book, "Making of the Messiah", did you find the link that the early christian fathers/writers, were Eunechs?

    I feel it is relevant for many reasons. As we know, there are many comments made by Christians that Aliens and abductions are "Demonic", and that if you say "Jesus", they will go away. Now there is a "socialist of religion" getting involved.......Celibate? ....
    MATTHEW 19:12 Jesus> "For some are born Eunechs, some made Eunechs by men, and some become *Eunechs* for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Accept this if you can."

    *Eunechs*, in modern Bibles, has been changed to CELIBATE, or "renounces marriage".

    It was researching this "Demonic" link, that I turned to the Bible to seek answers. But then was when I found of OT descriptions like "Ezikiels wheels", "Elijah's whirlwind" and other UFO sounding descriptions and of course that led to the Nephilim, and the work of Zecariah Sitchin, and the whole ancient astronaut theory.
    Did Jesus know of a group of men castrating themselves(become CELIBATE) to get to heaven , when he hasnt yet died for our salvation?
    Low and behold, I found the "GALLI", and their worship of Attis, that came to Rome circa 200BC.
    As on previous posts, I have commented on the link to the CIA and Jesuits(Dulles own son is a Catholic Cardinal), and of course we now know the CIA ran Area 51.
    It seems we are given 2 choices. Creationism or Evolution.Many Skeptics are of course "Aetheists" because the Bible doesnt make sense. But the sudden appearance of Homosapiens(circa 200 000yrs ago), or the appearance of domesticated crops and livestock (circa 10 000yrs ago) in the Fertile crescent, asks many questions of Evolution.

    Did you get "attacked" for writing an alternative theory on Jesus?
    Did you find these links to Celibate/Eunechs in early Christianity?
    Did you find out much about ORIGEN and his influence?

    # ORIGEN > even his Wikipedia site has images of his own self-castration.

    I dont want to turn this into a "Biblical Debate", but religion is a huge part of this topic, and of course the most elite colleges are Jesuit/ IHS(Society of Jesus) like Georgetown. You yourself, a UFO investigator, have written a book on Jesus .......why?

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  3. Just to correct you Robert,the film Dean showed in the evening was his original 1989 film alien abduction.The 1998 remake incident at lake county also known as the McPherson tape can be seen on YouTube.

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  4. Just to correct you Robert,the film Dean showed in the evening was his 1989 film alien abduction.
    His coproduction remake that came out in 1998 alien abduction:incident at lake county and sometimes referred to as the McPherson tape can be viewed on YouTube.

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    1. Thanks, Colin. I thought Alioto said (as he was fiddling around with the A.V. before the showing) that if he could not find the version he wanted to show, we would have to see the primitive older one. So I thought he succeeded, and showed the later one. But I think you are correct, the version on YouTube is not the version we saw. So the 1989 "found footage" had credits for the actors, including "aliens" at the end, and people STILL thought it was real?!!!!!

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  5. "Alioto claims to have invented the genre of 'found footage,' later so popular with the Blair Witch Project, etc. Probably he did."

    He did not. There's a long history of movies that used documentary techniques to tell fictional stories, and even if you limit the definition of 'found footage' to movies like The Blair Witch Project, Cannibal Holocaust beat Alioto to the punch by nearly ten years.

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