ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come

ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come
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Thursday, July 19, 2012

THE FUGGEDABOUTIT GUIDE TO SPEEDING UP UFO ANALYSES by Charles Tromblee


The Fuggedaboutit Guide to Speeding Up UFO Analyses    

I have watched lots of UFO video clips on YouTube, and have read over 10,000 case study summaries. It was not fun. There are so few stories worthy of merit that it can make you want to bang your head against a wall. Therefore, I have developed some criteria for rejecting a UFO video or story which will help you to speed up your decision making process on whether to investigate a sighting or a case any further.

VISUAL SIGHTINGS (Includes videos)

1.       If it leaves a wake, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: I am talking about an exhaust trail here, and not about a trailing stream of ionized gas. UFOs do not leave exhausts, but the danger here is in rejecting a UFO that is malfunctioning and burning up while it is in trouble. You could miss a crash related sighting.

2.       If it makes a combustion engine noise, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Pretty much the same as previous. UFOs are silent or at most make a buzz or hum. Once again, the danger is missing a malfunctioning UFO and therefore missing a crash related sighting.

3.       If it tumbles in the air, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Almost certainly it is a balloon.

4.       If it is just a nighttime dot of light, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: What kind of information can you get from a nighttime dot of light? Almost none. Stop wasting your time.

5.       If it looks like an unusual cloud, it probably is so FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Yes, there have been reports about UFOs surrounding themselves with a cloud for disguise purposes, but these are few and far between and they seem to be a thing of the past. Lenticular clouds still are mistaken for UFOs nowadays far more often than good reports of cloud shrouded UFOs, so don’t waste your time on these.

6.       If it is a mass of orbs in the sky drifting like balloons or writhing tubes in the sky, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Whenever I see one of these, I want to know which way the wind is blowing and this info usually is not provided. I think that most all of these are drifting with the wind.

7.       If the video looks like the UFO is propelled by a rippling wave motion at roughly the equator of the object (looks like the swimming motion of a manta ray), then the camera was at too long of an exposure while capturing a flying bug or bird, so FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: No comment needed.

8.       If the video just shows a light that just sits there or drifts and then the video ends, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Why would anyone just film a stationary UFO and not stick around for its departure? If they have a charged up camera, and if they don’t capture the departure of the UFO, then it is probably not a UFO because it may be either a hoax or just a Chinese lantern or the like. The departure can contain lots of information which would validate that it is an actual UFO, such as extremely rapid acceleration and possibly a pre-acceleration brightening of the object. If it looks like a stationary or drifting light, then that is probably what it is. Even if it were a hovering UFO, what could we learn from a dot of light that just sits there?  Nothing.

CASE STUDY SUMMARIES (Let me be clear here: these are suggestions on whether to select an archived case study as a valid data point, and NOT suggestions for interviewing the witness. Also, please continue to report all of your sightings.)

1.       If no UFO was sighted in either time or space proximity as part of the story, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: There are many close encounter cases with no UFO present, so they cease to become a close encounter case and should be disregarded as a source of UFO info. They are more likely hallucinations or an encounter of some other sort. Admittedly, the investigator could miss an actual Close Encounter of the Third Kind case, but I judge that as an acceptable risk.

2.       If it is a story told by children (<16 or 17 years old), FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Children don’t make good witnesses even though they are more than likely to see a UFO than an adult because they are outside playing. However, their stories could prove useful as a supplement to info on the same object sighted by an adult(s).

3.       If the story talks about Jesus or heaven, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: A quote by either Budd Hopkins or David Jacobs, abduction researchers, says it best: : “Mainstream abduction researchers have been unable to find anything paranormal, spiritual, religious, or metaphysical about the phenomenon.” For non abduction encounters, it is entirely possible that the witness has viewed an actual encounter through his/her filter of religious upbringing, and interpreted the story as a religious experience. This further introduces more distortion into the story, making a judgment about the “facts” learned from the story almost impossible.

4.       If the story says, “I was able to remember after hypnosis that …”, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: Hypnosis is a very controversial tool that can lead to confabulation if not handled by a very trained interviewer. Memory recovery under hypnosis is valid only when an expert does it, and in the case of UFO abductions, that expert needs further training against implanting confabulating suggestions. Once again, here is a quote from David Jacobs, abduction researcher:  “The most serious barrier to competent abduction research is incompetent hypnosis.” In my opinion, even an ordinary psychologist, although possibly trained in hypnosis, still easily could get untrue results. And this applies much more broadly to all UFO memory recovery, not just abductions.

5.       If the story says, “I awoke at night and saw in my room …” or “I awoke and for some reason I looked out the window and saw …”, FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: These types of story introductions are highly suggestive of a continuing dream state just after awakening, and therefore reduce the believability of the encounter. There sure are a lot of these stories that start like this, especially abductions.

6.       If the story says, “The witness has had previous encounters  too.”, this gets a qualified FUGGEDABOUTIT!
     Comment: I almost did not include this because we all know of highly reliable people who have seen more than one UFO, such as Coral Lorenzen, founder of APRO, and Dr. Paul R. Hill, author of the book “Unconventional Flying Objects”. Plus some people have an affinity for seeing these things, and others make it their hobby to collect sightings. Plus, in the case of abductions, previous encounters seem to be the norm. However, at the very least, previous sightings should be regarded as a red cautionary flag that should be investigated a bit just to see if the witness can be relied upon.

Yes, following these criteria will result in some good encounters being rejected.  But let’s face it. 80-90% of reported sightings are not UFOs. Our time is limited. We need to increase the odds that our time is spent meaningfully, so mistakenly rejecting a few good stories along with the thousands of non-UFO stories makes sense to me. 

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

THE DOUBTERS AMONG US by Charles Tromblee


THE DOUBTERS AMONG US                                                          


Many UFO books and articles are written which only address the way that humanity deals with UFOs, and are not about the UFOs themselves. That is, they are about  a person’s reaction to an encounter, a collection of sightings with no interpretation, the government coverup, and so forth. Now, I am not talking about what is written by the nut job part of humanity, but instead what is written by persons of a very level headed nature, by persons who have drawn the correct conclusion that something major is going on which needs clarification. I have read many of their books, and have only recently been struck by a major realization.


The realization is this: To the best of my recollection, few of the major authors in the field of ufology have come out and said that we are being visited by extraterrestrial races and the UFOs are their crafts (Richard Dolan and Stanton Friedman are the top two.)*. It appears to me that most of the remainder always hedge their bets, falling back to a plea for more study. These pleas occur after in depth presentation of lots of case study discussion and/or document review.  Despite the fact that all their good writing compels the reader to believe in the ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis), the authors hold back on crossing the line of total commitment to the ETH. It took me a while to adjust to the reality that these well studied people who write books, run blogs, author articles, and give lectures on UFOs overwhelmingly seem to be holding back, at least publicly, on professing belief that these  craft are piloted by alien races. Do they really believe that all the good sightings are advanced military experiments? Practically the whole UFO field appears to be populated by those who don’t even fully believe in the ETH! They do believe that it is a very good possibility, however.  This is like holding back on believing in evolution because of the theory of intelligent design.


Nevertheless, most UFO speakers and authors will admit that UFOs appear to be structured craft under intelligent control. If they think that this is the case, then why hold back in saying that the aliens are here? Yikes! Sure, there could be a residual doubt that the whole UFO things is being misinterpreted, and that it could be something more earthly. Even I have a tiny doubt, but the odds are so stacked in favor of the ETH being the actual truth that it should simply be put in the back of one’s mind while information about the aliens is pursued. What this means is that there is an acceptable risk of being embarrassed by a “false positive”; i.e. that someday the phenomenon could be found to be totally unrelated to alien visitation.


Non-acceptance of the ETH holds one back and wastes time. After all, how many of you have read a UFO book which enumerates lots of sightings and then the author calls for more study? I have, and even though I enjoyed reading them, after the first 5 or 10 such books I ceased to learn anything more about UFOs. Wouldn’t you much rather read the same book in which the author enumerates those same sightings and then states the obviousness of alien involvement and then goes on to analyze those sightings to extract  hypotheses about the aliens and the crafts? Wouldn’t it be nice if the author would go on to speculate about what the hell is inside that thing and what keeps it airborne?  This would push the reader further into an understanding of our visitors. ETH acceptance answers many questions about UFOs, leaving one’s brain free to concentrate on more “alien-centric” questions. Among the questions the ETH answers immediately upon its acceptance are “Are they real? Are they here? Is star or dimensional travel possible? Is there a coverup? “

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            * A few more might be Dr. John Alexander, Frank Feschino, James Fox, and Anthony Bragalia, but I sure cannot remember any others as I write. I could put Philip Corso in there too, but I have a problem with the truthfulness of his claims.