Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Chemtrails Just Got a Huge PR Boost - Metallica Video 'All Nightmare Long'

As I've stated before, I may not think much of chemtrails, but I love this music video. Very nicely done, and it will certainly give the chemtrail meme a boost. I could be wrong, but I think this is the first serious mass media usage of the concept in purposeful fiction

Note: This video is not really safe for work due to somewhat disturbing and gory content. Plus, it's Metallica, so you'll wanna listen to it too.

Video at Metallica site

http://www.metallica.com/index.asp?item=601688

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Dan Ackroyd and the Kingdom of the Booze Bottles

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Never mind the "In Search of ..." opening and the prompt segue to hawking vodka in skull shaped bottles, which is good enough.

Wait until you hear about the manufacturing process for the vodka. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Courtesy Martini Boys, Cabinet of Wonders, and Professor Hex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZs29am4msg



Update: Yup, it's quite real, with reviews of the liquor being mixed. No, that's not a joke.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Bigfoot Body Brouhaha

Several of you have asked me about this in the last few days since

1.) The press release came out

2.) Loren Coleman on his influential Cryptomundo site gave it his A-M-A-Z-I-N-G support, before also posting the conclusion reached in the link at the bottom of this post.

This story has been brewing for weeks, which if you've been following it at all, makes it clear why I didn't bother to blog about it. Nothing has changed about that. It's not even interesting from an anthropological/sociological perspective, except maybe from a media studies perspective, and there isn't much new there to boot. I don't want to go into this any further. The following link, which has been ferretted out by a number of people in the crypto community, pretty much tells you the politest version of what I think about this

http://www.thehorrordome.com/HDSHOPPINGPROPS/SasquatchLARGE.htm

EDIT: If you want a fairly calm discussion of this whole mess, including the history of the people involved etc., you can go to the BFRO discussion forum thread on the topic, which lays it all out and has been on top of the costume explanation.

http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=124725&threadid=1900226

Monday, July 28, 2008

The Dowser and the Legendary Gypsies

From my soon to be local paper, a story that suggests psychic or dowsing techniques can be used to do the work of bioarchaeology.

The Mayor of Sesser, Illinois has asked a local dowser to investigate folklore concerning a Gypsy mass grave. Not only does the dowser suggests she can use some mix of energy (related to her Christian beliefs concerning souls) and DNA to detect graves, but also to determine age and sex.

While excavations won't be based on the "findings" of the psychic investigation, a historical plaque may be placed there based on further historical research prompted by the dowsing.

In my reading on pseudo and alt-archaeology, a big deal has always been made of psychic archaeology. Something I had never really heard of in new reports or personal experience (in contrast with other pseudo topics like ancient astronauts or Phoenicians in Utah). But I guess now I have, and I am amazed at it, and the relatively straightforward media coverage of it.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Vampire Archaeology

A recent news report from the Czech Republic immediately grabs the attention: archaeologists have uncovered the 4000-year old grave of a vampire in Bohemia. Or rather, the grave of someone who was treated as a vampire. According to the report, sometime in the Early Bronze Age, a man died, and was buried with heavy stones placed in the grave over his head and chest. This is interpreted as treatment to ensure the man didn't return from the grave to plague the living as a vampire.

I'm no expert, but there is a problem with this. The development of the legend of the vampire in the Balkans dates back about a thousand years, with some elements being older. The term upir first appears in a Russian text in 1047 CE. Bruce McClelland discusses the history and development of the Balkan vampire (specifically focusing on Bulgaria) in his dissertation (openly available online) Sacrifice, Scapegoat, Vampire: The Social and Religious Origins of the Bulgarian Folkloric Vampire and in his book Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. In those works, he ties the development of the vampire to a mix of pre-Christian ideas about death and the afterlife and religious strife between groups during the early centuries of Christianity in the region.

And the folkloric vampire of the 17th century or so has many differences from that of Bram Stoker's Dracula or subsequent tales. I'm pretty sure Anne Rice never had one of her pretty-boy protagonists roll around the landscape as a literal bag of blood, easily killed by a puncture wound from a hawthorne, for the first few years of their undead existence. The classic Balkan vampires were most commonly "dead sorcerers, witches, werewolves, excommunicates, and those who died unnatural deaths (such as suicides and drunkards)" Some were destined at birth to become vampires, including those with a caul on their head, with teeth showing at birth, or with contiguous eyebrows. Also, if a human or unclean animal steps over the body before burial after it is buried, the dead might rise as a vampire (Oinas 1982). This last is very common (Mclelland 2006: 53). Also, in general, bad people, unavenged people, etc. will return from the dead. The Romanian version (non-slavic) suggests that unmarried dead people, or those unforgiven by their parents, have a greater chance of rising as a strigoi (Perkowski 1982). In Serbia and in Greece, at least, this happens 40 days after death, when a "devilish spirit" enters the body to create a vukodlak (Serbia) or a vrykolakas (du Boulay 1982; Fine 1987). In some greek legends (of the vrykolakas) children born on Christmas will be vampires).

But even if there was something vaguely reminiscent of the vampire in Central European cultures 3000 years before the first appearance of the term, tying those pre-literate beliefs to skeletal and archaeological evidence becomes very difficult.

There is, however, more secure archaeology involving vampires. Archaeology and bioarchaeology on several cases in New England has noted the relationship between tuberculosis outbreaks and vampire panics in the nineteenth century. This report describes some of the details (Sledzik and Bellantoni 1994) and this press release discusses the filming of some work for a documentary.

And a major update. Anastasia Tsaliki, a PhD candidate at Durham University in the UK, is conducting dissertation research on "disposals of the dead" involving "necrophobia." That indeed fits the bill. She has already written a paper on "Vampires Beyond Legend: A Bioarchaeological Approach" which she has made available on her blog. She is indeed pointing at the use of rocks as a sign of necrophobia, and tying that into vampire folklore. As I mention above, I am skeptical of this. Broadening the interpretation to a general fear of the dead rising is of course more acceptable, and I could see myself doing something similar if I were working on remains with such treatment, but it remains speculation. I look forward to Ms. Tsaliki's dissertation.

EDIT: New update. Lots of new information on the Italian "Vampire" announced last year.

UPDATE 5-31-12: Critics suggest the Italian "vampire" may be the product of a misinterpreted brickfall, and not a purposely placed act.

du Boulay, Juliette
1982 The Greek Vampire; A Study of Cyclic Symbolism in Marriage and Death. Man 17: 219 - 238.

Fine, John V. A., Jr.
1987 In Defense of Vampires. East European Quarterly 21: 15 - 23.

Mclelland, Bruce A.
2006 Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Oinas, Felix
1982 East European Vampires. Journal of Popular Culture 16: 108 - 114.

Perkowski, Jan Louis
1982 The Romanian Folkloric Vampire. East European Quarterly 16: 311 - 322.

Sledzik, Paul S. and Nicholas Bellantoni
1994 Bioarchaeological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief. The American Journal of Physical Anthropology 94.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Into the Lair of the Mothman - My Visit to Point Pleasant, WV

I've previously written a review of both the book and film The Mothman Prophecies, so I won't rehash the background here.


On a trip to Illinois to set up my new home, I took a side trip to Point Pleasant, WV, made infamous by the Mothman legend. The town has adopted some aspect of paranormal tourism, though not as full-blown as Roswell. The following are some images from that trip.


The Curse of Cornstalk has long been suggested as having something to do with Mothman and the Silver Bridge collapse. The Mothman has also been linked to "Indian burial grounds," that time honored source of American paranormal mayhem. Specifically, the TNT area (see below) is supposed to be such a site, and is one of the reasons why ghost hunters now visit it.




Part of a town historical exhibit of the Indian wars in the area, focusing on Cornstalk (on the left)






The town's shiny Mothman statue was inspired less by the descriptions than by some Frazetta cover art for one edition of Keel's book









I bought a homemade and expensive Mothman statue here. However, in doing so, I got the inside scoop on where to find some open bunkers at the TNT area, and was shown some pictures of "orbs" taken there by the proprietor. Speaking of which, several people asked me if my visit was in response to a recent episode of Paranormal State, which visited Point Pleasant. I've never seen the show.



While photographing the Mothman statue, I noticed the local Odd Fellows lodge, and no. 33 to boot (a number of interest to those interested in Masonic symbolism). Odd Fellows have always interested me, as their lodges regularly turn up a literal skeleton in the closet (apparently used in rituals symbolizing mortality) when demolished or abandoned.




The front of the Mothman Museum. I actually greatly enjoyed the museum, and it beats some other paranormal museums I've visited. In particular, I liked that it had many original artifacts, including clippings, eyewitness manuscripts, and items related to John Keel. It has been open for about five years.

About a third of the museum holds props and costumes from the movie The Mothman Prophecies. I didn't care about that (though I did notice the Chapstick). I was more interested in the rest of the museum. Note the MIB (Man in Black), an integral part of Mothman lore after Keel's book.


Point Pleasant hosts a Mothman Festival in September.

Cryptozoology is big in Japan, a country that loves its monsters. Below are Japanese toys of the Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster, an apparition associated with a UFO flap in West Virginia in 1952.


Here we have the stuff that interested me most. Original documents associated with the Mothman legend, and John Keel. Below is an early draft of what became Keel's book.


This letter by Keel captures much of the feel of the book. The letter is specifically about the Men in Black. They too were running around Point Pleasant and harassing Keel and friends. It appears at least some of the harassment was actually Gray Barker, making strange phone calls, unbeknownst to Keel. Note the inscription at the bottom. Keel was talking to numerous UFO contactees, and began to believe some disaster would take place tied to the sightings and prophecies.

Original early eyewitness report (possibly the first) of Mothman.




Original newspaper clippings give some idea of the scope of the sightings, and their association with UFO sightings. While Mothman is the most remembered part, it was part of a Point Pleasant UFO flap, which was in turn part of a national UFO wave.

The Mothman legend has become inextricably linked with the collapse of the Silver Bridge. After 13 months of Mothman sightings, the Silver Bridge in town collapsed, a major national tragedy. The Mothman has become famous, being interpreted as something akin to a banshee.



New bridge

Many of the Mothman sightings took place in an army ordinance storage area, the "TNT Area." After getting my hand drawn map and directions, I headed out there. After having minimal luck finding a crash site outside of Roswell, I was determined to get into a good part of the TNT area.



A rise in trash was a clue to finding some of the open bunkers. Guess that archaeology PhD comes in handy. This, and a lead I got in town allowed me to find some of the bunkers. A shopkeeper in town, who sells mothman statues, regularly goes in there and photographs "orbs" (a crossover from ghost hunting, which makes sense as local lore holds that the TNT is an "Indian Burial Ground"). I didn't buy a print of the orb photos, but I did buy one of the statues. In return he hand drew me a map to get me to this specific part of the depot site.

Once I got on the path, I ran into three teenagers. They warned me not to venture in alone, as something might "get me." I thanked them for the advice, and pressed on.


The nearby pond looked like the perfect home for some sort of swamp monster. Photo and video





One of the bunkers. I took some video too. Narration could be better and more courageous-sounding







Did my hunt meet with success? Well ...


Thursday, June 12, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Extraterrestrial UFO Hypothesis

I just saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While it makes a total mockery of Mesoamerican archaeology (my professional forte), it was an entertaining movie. I'd rate it higher than the second or third films, but not close to the original.

It is also an interesting movie from the perspective of UFOs. The following will spoil the movie in a large way, so I suggest you don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.



SPOILER WARNING

A fair amount of interest in alt/psuedo-archaeology and ufology was involved in the making of this movie. I'll note some of the highlights

1.) The title character (aka Henry Jones Jr., PhD) was involved with the Roswell UFO recovery. However, the film takes its cues not from the Roswell narratives, but from a mix of Area 51/Groom Lake stories about security, and some elements of UFO crash retrieval stories that started appearing in the 1950s. Jones says he was called out in the middle of the night by government agents, forced to board a bus with blacked-out windows along with other scientists with whom he was not allowed to talk. They were each shown some of the Roswell wreckage and remains, but not given any real idea of what they were looking at, and were then sworn to secrecy on pain of treason. The idea of specialists being brought in dates back to the early 1950s in crash stories, but the blacked-out bus is similar to a specific crash retrieval tale dating to 1973, and stories of some of the security at Groom Lake.

It should also be noted that an archaeologist or archaeological team has been part of some versions of the Roswell story for decades. In the Roswell narratives, the team stumbles across the wreckage, they are not brought in to consult.

2.) Groom Lake/Area 51 vaguely makes an appearance as "Hangar 51" in Nevada.

3.) The "aliens" (more on that in a minute) are classical Grays. At least the ones recovered from UFO crashes (more on that too). Later in the film, other "aliens" are met that look like Grays, but rather than being stereotypically short, tower over humans.

4.) By 1957, there have been at least two other UFO crashes from which the Soviet Union was able to retrieve bodies. The idea of multiple crashes dates back as far as 1950 and Frank Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers.

5.) Unlike most Roswell stories, the FBI is aware of the case and at least somewhat involved. By contrast, Hoover is on record complaining about lack of access to Roswell materials.

6.) Here's the biggie: The movie favors extradimensional or ultraterrestrial "aliens" to space-faring ETs. It is explicitly and repeatedly mentioned that the aliens are from another dimension, from the "space between spaces." They have a flying saucer, but it disappears through an extradimensional portal, and does not zoom into outer space.

This is a very interesting little fact. Spielberg, one of the most successful promoters of interest in UFOs through his movies, has given the most public support for extradimensional ideas over the ET hypothesis. This is not a surprise. In his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. one of the main characters is a French ufologist based on Jacques Vallee. Vallee would go on to suspect human involvement in many UFO cases, but in the 1970s, was part of a small group that suggested extradimensional explanations for UFOs over space-faring ETs. Another proponent at that time was Dr. J. A. Hynek, the designer of the close encounter classification system. As a result of legal action, Hynek got a cameo in Close Encounters. Hynek was the scientific advisor to Project Blue Book and had a high profile regarding UFOs, but by the 1970s had left the mainstream views on the subject and became what some called a "demonologist."

I'm not saying this movie will sound the deathknell for the public's widely held equation of UFO = space-faring ET. But it will likely make the ultraterrestrial/extradimensional memes much more popular.

7.) Ancient astronaut ideas are the core of the film. Some reference von Daniken's main memes about the Nazca lines being involved with aliens, or ancient artwork showing spacesuits. The visitors teach the locals agriculture, irrigation, and other technologies. But other ideas are reminiscent of Zecharia Sitchin. In particular, the legend in the film is that the gods (aliens) ordered the people of South America to build a city of gold. This turns out to be a misunderstanding of pseudo-Maya translations of "treasure" but nonetheless the gold and ancient astronaut mix sounds familiar.

I'll be curious to see what effect this has on popular ideas about UFOs.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Charles Fort Files

http://www.dragonrest.net/fortfiles/forthome.html

A project to index the numerous anomaly reports of Charles Fort. His books are not organized easily as reference materials, but this site will attempt to mine the books for that purpose.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Visited Point Pleasant - Home of the Mothman

On a trip to establish myself at my new job posting, I took a little time to visit Point Pleasant, the infamous town haunted by, amongst other things, the legend of the Mothman. I'll be putting up photo, and maybe video, at some point in the near future. It was quite fun.

Monday, May 19, 2008

MUFON Stephenville Findings

MUFON has made its conclusions about the Stephenville sightings.

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/650853.html

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Mutual UFO Network ( MUFON ) Journals Free Online

The Mutual UFO Network has teamed with Black Vault to put their whole run of journals online as free pdfs.

I haven't had time to go through them, but this looks like it could be an extremely useful resource for those interested either in the UFO phenomena or in the people with that interest.

Here's the link

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Private Investigator on the Chad Drone/CARET Case

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drone18mar18,1,7704475.story?page=1

I've blogged about this one before, a case that began on the Coast to Coast website, and its stock in ufology has declined since.

I don't really have much else to say, except that I am surprised I continue to be surprised.

Here's the PI's website on the investigation.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Air Krakens and other Flying Monsters

Following the relatively recent post on the pilots of the 1897 Airship Wave, Cabinet of Wonders once again reflects on Air Kraken Day (declared March 17 by the steampunk nexus Brass Goggles) by noting the fact and fiction accounts of strange non-avian creatures in the sky.

In the most recent essay, Cabinet of Wonders discusses recent sightings of jellyfish-like UFOs, while in the previous essay last March, historical and fictional cases get their due, including Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Horror of the Heights."

Other stories of air monsters don't have the popular exposure of those most famous "air monsters" (extraterrestrials and their flying saucers), but they do persist under the radar (so to speak). Thunderbirds are probably the most famous, but pterodactyls also get some attention. I was more familiar with the various hoaxed/art photos of late 19th century slain pterodactyls, kickstarted by an 1890 account of a dragon killed in Arizona. Over a century later, airplane passengers claim to have photographed dragons over Tibet.

But only recently learned that there are ties between the hunt for pterodactyls and creationism. Though it shouldn't have surprised me since I've seen creationists invoke the Loch Ness Monster and other sea serpents, and the Creation Museum is chock full of dinosaurs.

And lets not forget that in the early days of flying saucers, sky animals were suggested as a possible explanation. As were intelligent bees from Mars.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

How the Astrologer Conned MI5

There are numerous articles today about how astrologer Louis de Wohl conned MI5 during WWII. The story isn't completely new, but the details are nice to know. Long story short, in return for a snappy uniform and a sense of importance, de Wohl convinced MI5 he understood Hitler's mind through his obsession with astrology.

Problem is, Hitler thought astrology was bunk. In fact, he thought a lot of occult things were bunk. But that hasn't stopped a pervasive meme from exploding in entertainment and popular lore that the Nazis and especially Hitler were "nuts on the subject" as the greatest offender, Raiders of the Lost Ark, put it. Yes, there were top Nazis that were obsessed with the occult, most importantly SS leader Himmler (who did involve the SS in archaeological looting, ancestor worship, and occult ideas).

But that's the thing. You get a group of people together, in government or out of it, and interest in these subjects will be held by some of them. The use of MI5 by de Wohl can perhaps be chalked up to low-cost hedging ones bets in wartime. But in addition to leaders or their families taking spiritual advice (Nancy Reagan's astrological advisor comes to mind) as I've talked about here before, other government projects and officials have spent time and/or money on telepathy, walking through walls, UFOs, and finding Noah's Ark. And that's the stuff they believed in, never mind using the subjects to cover up other activities.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Real Men in the Great Airship Wave

The Wunderkabinett and Michael Busby have done some research on the names of reported airship pilots during the 1897 Airship Wave (adopted by some as an early UFO wave). To my surprise, some of these men existed, in fact quite a few did. Doesn't mean they were actually involved in any aero-experiments, and some of the most famous airship cases (including Aurora) have been shown as hoaxes. This is all being dredged up in part due to the Stephensville UFO flap.

I'm starting to see the appeal airships have on the Steampunk community. Or perhaps I'm seeing the results of that interest. Anyway, nifty stuff.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Indiana Jones Trailer: Roswell and Mayas

The trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie is out (you can watch it here).

As I expected, it has Area 51, Roswell, and Maya ruins (though I didn't expect actual Maya warriors).

I'll be curious to see if they hire any "experts" to flack for this.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Reporter that Kicked Off Stephenville UFO Flap - Unemployed

I haven't seen confirmation from someone outside of UFO enthusiasts, but apparently Angelia Joiner, whose reporting was at the core of the Stephensville UFO flap, is now unemployed. According to what is apparently her accounting of events, her newspaper decided they didn't want any more UFO stories. She suggests this was influenced by community leaders that found the intense interest embarassing.

So, she quit, but was told to leave the paper faster than two weeks.

http://ireporter.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/texas-newspaper-writer-unemployed-after-publishing-military-harassment-story-of-ufo-witness/

http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0208/joiner.html

UPDATE February 13, 2008: It appeas that Angelia Joiner has decided to keep reporting on UFOs being seen in Texas, employed or not. If this website is actually hers.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Inside the Science Fiction Event Horizon: Implications for Other Cultural Ideas

I really like this essay.

http://www.computercrowsnest.com/features/arc/2008/nz12191.php

It points out the spiral in science fiction, of how entertaining stories using dodgy science in the 1930s then created a genre with tropes that increasingly made no sense. But because they were initially allowed to stand as tropes, they became time-honored, to the point where much science fiction, once seen as real speculation on science and society, became ever more like magical fantasy.

I think it speaks volumes about how once tropes in a genre, or a subculture, become widespread and popular, they don't go away, regardless of outside stimuli.

My first original post in this blog (the first two were a welcome and reposting of a review I had previously written) was about this very issue. How transhumanists were picking fights with the UFO community, because the UFO ideas were badly out of date in regards to technology and biology (though as I note, I think the transhumanists are generally clueless when it comes to human behavior). Likewise, Cameron Mcormick suggests a similar problem with the cryptozoological focus on big "monsters," and the regular invocation of colonial "discoveries" in the early 20th century as models for the hunt in the early 21st century. Pamela McElwee voiced a similar concern over the label of "lost world" being applied to populated areas in Vietnam, in turn spurring interest in hunting mystery wild men. And I can tell you from personal experience that many ideas in alternative archaeology have roots in very old ideas long since discarded by those doing professional academic research.

I don't know when, but I want to develop this point more. But I think it is a crackerjack way of thinking about the development of ideas outside of the realm of falsifiability.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Curse of the Joker

A few days ago, I blogged about Wired's story on The Strange Case of the Dead AI Researchers. It's not so strange a case, but it can be spun that way.

This is how media-legends begin. Here's another: The Curse of the Joker.

The NY Daily News, a paragon of journalistic integrity, says about the recent death of actor Heath Ledger:

Heath Ledger thought landing the demanding role of the Joker was a dream come true - but now some think it was a nightmare that led to his tragic death.

Jack Nicholson, who played the Joker in 1989 - and who was furious he wasn't consulted about the creepy role - offered a cryptic comment when told Ledger was dead.

"Well," Nicholson told reporters in London early Wednesday, "I warned him."

Though the remark was ambiguous, there's no question the role in the movie earmarked as this summer's blockbuster took a frightening toll.

Ledger recently told reporters he "slept an average of two hours a night" while playing "a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy ...

"I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going."


The article then goes on to talk about how creepy the character is, especially Ledger's expected portrayal of him.

What the article doesn't do is note a later development, that Nicholson was referring to was the use of a prescription sleep drug. Not about playing the Joker.

If you were wondering how things like Tutankhamun's "Curse" began, here's a good example.

No More "Area 51": The World's Least Secret Secret Base has Its Name Revealed

Homey Airfield.

That's right. That's the English-language designation Groom Lake, AKA Area 51 gets. It appears to be a descendant of an earlier nickname for the place, Home Plate, during the OXCART days.

If you prefer, you can also call it XTA.

It amazes me that, because of one reporter in Las Vegas, a guy saying he worked on a flying saucer, and a few activists, "Area 51" has become a legend and a household word across the globe. After its appearance in movies, video games, books, and countless tv shows, you know you've looked at satellite imagery of it on Google Earth.

Meanwhile, the US regularly operates out of secret military bases around the world, moving vast quantities of people, military and contractor, and material. And if you mention this to 99% of people, they stare at you like you're speaking Tzotzil.

William Arkin talked about these bases, for example those in Jordan and Israel, in his impressive book Code Names. Here in his blog at the Washington Post, Arkin goes into some detail about the secret facilities that aren't household words, that aren't even close to bubbling up into mainstream public view. And that of course is the point. As Arkin puts it


"There are some logistic security arrangements that we have with Jordan that I don't want to go into," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told the AP. I know that Di Rita is just a water boy, but this type of lying about the real U.S. military presence and intelligence relations with foreign governments ultimately undermines the war on terrorism and the American's public's ability to add its wisdom and values to the conduct of that war.

I'm all for legitimate secrecy to protect America's intelligence operations, but official secrecy imposed to obscure what is otherwise observable by the local population and the bad guys only serves to deny the American public the ability to understand what is being done in its name and to have proper context for understanding the not so insane targeting of our terrorist enemy.

Alien Invasion Board Game - Shameless Sort-of-On-Topic Plug

In lighter pop culture news, I recently discovered that some old college friends of mine are publishing a board game (they are apparently taking pre-orders now, according to the website) called E.T.I., which stands for Estimated Time to Invasion. It has many of the themes of the mainstream E.T. hypothesis and conspiracy theory schools of thought, and the rulebook (pdf download) is covered with images of classic flying saucers.

Set in the mid-1960s, the players take on the roles of captains of industry affiliated with a loose conspiracy dedicated to reverse-engineering alien technology in order to fight off an invasion fleet on the way to Earth. Each player heads up a research corporation and competes for choice reverse-engineering projects. While the general goal is to help the Earth survive, like good Skull and Bones types, each player is really out to save themselves and get earthly resources and influence for their efforts. Oh, and like very good Skull and Bones types, one of the players has sold out the Earth and is in league with the aliens. This treachery will be revealed at some point as the would-be Quislings help lead the invasion. The entry at Boardgamegeek has a description and images of the components.

The acronyms, intrigue, mid-60s setting, and gleaming dummy corporations of Science makes me think of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with a dash of U.F.O., recognizable as a distant cousin of the research phase of the classic computer game X-COM.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Stephenville (or Texas) UFO Flap - Military Offers Explanation

Could have seen it coming a mile away. The US military has decided to send scads of ufologists and observers into a fit by offering the exact same explanation given for the Phoenix Lights - Two weeks after the sightings, they now say that initial reports of no jets in the area were mistaken, and that a flight of fighters were on maneuvers after all.

Maybe that's the case. One pilot in the area suggested he saw flares that night.

But it isn't going to be an easy sell. A number of witnesses described a massive craft. Others described incredible speeds. And some noted that they saw jets, but that the UFO was a different animal. Doesn't mean misidentification didn't happen. But since this is a well known meme in the relationship between the US military and the UFO phenomenon (cultural or otherwise), it will be an uphill explanation.

Meanwhile, Axcessnews lists several more sightings in what can be called either the Stephenville UFO Flap or the 2008 Texas UFO Flap, and responds to the F-16 explanation with further perusal of the reports. It also links in a videotaped sighting from earlier in the month in San Diego, California. It doesn't link to a report, also on January 8, from northern California. And a woman reports something strange in Jacksonville, Florida.

Update (January 25, 2008): Looks like people aren't buying the F-16 explanation. A good roundup by a NYTimes blogger points to a Dallas Morning News story that notes the witness descriptions don't sound like F-16 activities.

Update (January 31, 2008): Pilots involved in the sightings say the military explanation doesn't make sense.

The Dueling UFO Hunter TV Shows and Why Ufology May Not Be Ready for Prime-Time

Positioned almost perfectly to take advantage of the increased popular and media interest in UFOs, two different television series entitled UFO Hunters will be airing this year.

Clearly the model for each of these is the popular American Ghost Hunters franchise and similar shows from the United Kingdom such as Most Haunted.

The first will be on the History Channel. Each episode will follow four investigators (one a previously known figure in ufology, but not the others) from case to case. The official website has the reality-style video in the opening promo, but the videos on the site are in droning narrator style, and I suspect may not be part of the show (and if they are, they are pulling a serious bait-and-switch). Much more information about the investigators and cases can be found at Slice of SciFi.

The second is on the SciFi channel, a stylistic spin-off of Ghost Hunters. As with the other show, two lead investigators are the main "characters" with a rotating ensemble cast of investigators. The official site has video previews, and bios of the two lead investigators. It is noteworthy that both have ties to Bud Hopkins. And in a promo for the History Channel show, an implant case is featured prominently. This suggests abduction will be a significant part of the mix on both shows.

Personally, I think the SciFi show has a better chance at success. The format has been tested and works. Two main characters, with an emphasis on them being "everyday" people, rather than degreed experts. The Mission Impossible-style rotating cast of investigators that are called in for each case (and importantly, not all male). The use of acronyms (ala the now famous TAPS). By contrast, the History Channel show focuses on four men (no women) who are older, and in the promos at least one of them, the most well known ufologist in the group, is already talking about how they know many of the answers, etc. in a style more suited to the stock-footage/talking head style UFO tv shows that History Channel runs every week. Furthermore, the History Channel show is focusing on historical cases, from decades ago, starting with Maury Island, hitting Socorro, and others.

This is part of the problem both shows will face. First off, while UFOs are hot now, popular interest in ghosts and ghostly matters is much higher, and was before Ghost Hunters ever hit the air. Second, part of the reason people watch ghost hunting shows of any sort is because there is the supposed chance that the camera crew and investigators, skulking around in creepy dark abandoned buildings, could run directly into the ongoing phenomenon. That can be thrilling and engaging. By contrast, ufology is for the most part a forensic study (if proper research is even being done at all), looking for evidence (physical trace, photographs, testimony) to understand a past event, a sighting. Attempts to build up dramatic tension will be much harder.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

If you are wondering about MUFON Reports, Here is a Recent One

The coverage of the Stephenville UFO flap has focused more press attention on MUFON than the organization has probably had in years, if ever. Several reports quoted the head investigator in saying the analysis and report could take a year before it is completed.

That's about on-par with MUFON's report on the infamous Chad/CARET drones of last year ( whenI made a minor post about them). The report is available here for download as a Powerpoint file. It is worth taking a look at, though I am suspicious of how their conclusions dovetail with a case MUFON is quite invested in. In summary, MUFON reports that the videos are hoaxes, but that the hoaxers are not who you would expect. and that there is a plot afoot.

And here is their interim report on the initial town meeting in Dublin.

Stephenville UFO Update Status

I am still placing new media stories in the earlier Stephenville posts, where appropriate, rather than making new update posts daily. These are marked with (Update) and typically the date of the edit, so you can find them easily. If new developments or a new approach to the story comes to my attention, I'll make a new post.

I will note two stories of interest.

The first is claims by Walter Andrus (former head of MUFON) of UFO sightings over San Antonio the same night as the Stephenville sightings.

The other is a few days old, but I missed it. It is an editorial by the editor of the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, the newspaper that started the whole flap. I believe that without the paper's reporting, no one outside of the area would have ever heard of this, and it would not be a flap, which is not so much a cluster of UFO sightings as a cluster of publicized reported UFO sightings.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Strange Case of the Dead AI Researchers - The Dead Scientists meme

Wired published a story on Friday entitled

Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides. What Really Happened?

that spins the tale of two similar suicides, only four weeks apart, by researchers in the world of artificial intelligence.

Perked your interest yet? I bet it has, it did mine at that point. But there is something else to be learned here.

It brings to mind several manifestations of a powerful meme in the Spooky Paradigm: the missing and dead scientists. I don't know how far back the meme goes, I know it is over fifty years old in the world of fiction. Maybe it goes back to the Manhattan Project. But in brief, it is a collection of disappearances and deaths amongst top-flight scientists, or scientists within a particular field, leaving a pattern that suggests a sinister motive.

The most infamous fictional example would be Alternative 3, a television program that has left a substantial mark on the conspiracy and UFO parts of the Spooky Paradigm. This British programme was supposed to air on April Fool's Day, but because of scheduling issues, it aired in June, leading to many angry viewers who believed the news-style show was real (like the infamous radio iterations of the War of the Worlds). In summary, the show starts by examining a real-world concern of the day, the "Brain Drain" of highly educated workers leaving Britain's flagging economy. But the "drain" turns out to be actual disappearances, leading to a conspiracy of global elites, imminent danger due to global warming and overpopulation, and scientists kidnapped and forced to work on the Moon.

Alternative 3 may have spanned the boundary between fiction and conspiracy theory (some people continued to believe the idea was at least partially true), but there are two major examples within "conspiracy theory" where real-world events are interpreted through the dead scientists meme.

In the late 1980s, people began to notice a series of unusual deaths of scientists and others in the UK who worked on technology projects associated with military contracting (all had worked at GEC-Marconi at some point), including space weaponry. These deaths were considered suicides, though in a number of cases the conditions of death were quite bizarre. This attracted both the mainstream press as well as other outlets, but resulted in nothing more than. While speculation included Cold War spy games, terrorism, and corruption, the narrative that has had the most enduring play was that the scientists knew too much about some project they had worked on, presumably involving SDI or some other aspect of space weaponry.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11/01 attacks and the anthrax murders that targeted the American press and the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate, a similar list of dead microbiologists began making the rounds. The original version of this narrative in late 2001 noted the death of five scientists, but eventually the list would not only grow but also become merged with the Marconi scientists to make a master list. This time, the story is more obvious: by simply combining the deaths with mention of the anthrax attacks, an article suggests the scientists were involved with or could potentially identify the still-unidentified perpetrators of the attacks. Not surprisingly these narratives are typically constructed by those who also suggest more than al-Qaeda involvement in the 9/11/01 air attacks. Dr. David Kelly takes his place on the list after his strange and high profile death, also ruled a suicide.

Death lists are not restricted to the scientific world. During the 1990s, GOP and others passed along and added to the Clinton Body Count, a list of the deaths of people involved or believed to be involved with the Clintons and their scandals (the Vince Foster incident serves as the main wellspring for this meme). Somehow conspiracy theory martyr Daniel Casolaro ended up on the list, don't ask me how. Even more esoteric, Loren Coleman has created the Mothman Death List, compiling the deaths of people associated with the Mothman incidents, including the film version of The Mothman Prophecies.

All of these lists argue through compilation, bargaining that (to borrow from H. P. Lovecraft) "the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality." Or to steal again from fiction, this time from Ian Fleming, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." The counterpoint would be that the deaths are coincidence in a world with a lot of scientists where bad things happen to people.

And more importantly, that the facts got mangled by accident or on purpose by those compiling the lists. The NYTimes Magazine piece, in between soft paragraphs on coincidence, notes.

The article went on to call Benito Que, the cancer lab technician, ''a cell biologist working on infectious diseases like H.I.V.,'' and said that he had been attacked by four men with a baseball bat but did not mention that he suffered from high blood pressure. It then described the disappearance of Wiley without mentioning his seizure disorder and the death of Pasechnik without saying that he had suffered a stroke. It gave the grisly details of Schwartz's murder, but said nothing of the arrests of his daughter's friends. Nguyen, in turn, was described as ''a skilled microbiologist,'' and it was noted that he shared a last name with Kathy Nguyen, the 61-year-old hospital worker who just happened to be the one New Yorker to die of anthrax.


This is where we return to our two dead AI scientists in the recent Wired piece. The title of the piece promises mystery, possibly something sinister. The two men are identified as pioneers in AI, and their suicides linked and called bizarre. The story can write itself from there, leaping past the mundane to exciting plots of a rogue AI, an uploaded machine ghost hellbent on revenge, you get the picture. William Gibson already got the picture when he wrote an X-Files episode with a similar storyline.

Of course as soon as we start reading the piece itself, it becomes clear that other forces are at work, and one of them is the bipolar disorder one of the two pioneers has suffered from for over fifteen years, while the other was in chonic pain from a back injury and depressed as a result. But the title of the piece isn't

Mental illness claims two AI pioneers

is it?

This is the key to understanding so much writing and reporting about Spooky Paradigm topics. The best cases and reports hold up with scrutiny, but in many others, either sloppiness or willing desire to sensationalize or even remotely connect certain facts requires discretely emphasizing certain aspects and ignoring others. Wired is obviously not doing this, but the bait switch between the title (a title that got this piece a place on high-profile paranormal news portals) and the content is a good illustration of the principle. Snappy wording brings the piece far more attention and revenue or sales.

On the other hand, the same approach can be followed by debunkers. The NYTimes Magazine article above on coincidence doesn't just investigate the case of the microbiologists, it also loops in more bizarre pattern recognition such as numerology. This is guilt by association. And I would be clear that I am not trying to do the same thing here by mixing fact and fiction. A pattern of bizarre deaths, if properly investigated, that show common links is something anyone would rightly find suspicious. But it can't be ignored that the meme has a long pedigree in fiction, as attested by the text of numerous discussions of these topics that reference fictional examples.

So why mention all of this? Because I suspect Wired's piece may well end up spawning a new list: The Strange Case of the Dead AI Researchers.

Did I just change my title to The Strange Case of the Dead AI Researchers? Hmm.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Stephenville UFO Flap, Pt. 7 - MUFON Arrives in Town

Over the last day or so, the stories have been primarily about flying saucer pop culture hijinks. But this local news report discusses the arrival and initial perspectives of the MUFON investigation team.

Update January 20th:

A slew of reports about the MUFON meeting. Most give a brief description of the atmosphere, and then describe one or two eyewitness accounts. I will note below if any deviate from this standard.

Local CBS television report (with video)

An account from the Dallas News is fair and interested, though it notes the tin foil hats and has an interesting description of MUFON. A Colorado tv station has a profile on MUFON.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram coverage
. The Star-Telegram also has a story on astronomers exploring the sun dog explanation.

Houston Chronicle coverage. And a followup on witnesses that expands to the general topic of UFO sightings.

Cleburne Times-Review travelogue


Update January 22: Intriguingly, 60% of the reports collected by MUFON were not associated with the recent sightings, but of decades-old sightings.

Update February 8: MUFON will hold a press conference in Dublin, Texas in March to present their findings.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Stephenville UFO Flap, pt. 6 - The first videos and photos

As I previously mentioned, a video surfaced from near Shreveport that was initially linked to the Stephenville sightings, but didn't seem that impressive. In the last day, three sets of photos have appeared that are being tied to the case of the Stephensville UFO, this time from Texas (at least one case, the other doesn't have much contex).

1.) An incredibly difficult to see cellphone video of what looks to be a light in the sky. CNN has been playing it today, and it can be seen on their website. It, and the "videographer," are unimpressive and the clip is presented poorly.

2.) More images come from a suburb of Austin, 130 miles south of Stephensville. The reporting outlet specifically states that this is not the Stephensville UFO, but nonetheless it is being linked to it by many people. The UFO was only noticed by photographer Virgil Fowler after he took the pictures. In contrast, the Stephensville sightings are supposedly of something very big, very fast, and looking unmistakably odd.

3.) A photo and sighting description only 45 miles from Stephenville, on the night in question. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't look like much, and has been suggested to be a sundog.

Given the huge media attention, I suspect more photos will appear that may have nothing to do with the Stephensville case, or be glommed onto it by excited news or bloggers. This phenomenon, of noticing unexpected things once they are pointed out elsewhere, is discussed by mori in the essay Attack of the Invisible Gorillas.

Update: More photos, but this time from sightings Monday night (January 14, 2008) south of Fort Worth (Stephensville is to the northwest of Fort Worth). And another video, released on January 23.

Stephenville UFO Flap, pt. 5 - Other Sightings in the Region

While the Stephenville sightings goes on hold until for a bit (the main media activity is now talking to almost everyone in town), other sightings from around the region become linked to the story. In northwestern Louisiana, Shreveport television station KSLA ran this report (video link) (text link) a woman who videotaped a UFO the night of the Stephenville sightings (presumably January 8) in Shongaloo, Louisiana (290 miles east of Stephenville). The videotape, of several white lights with a middle red light is shown to a local "aircraft enthusiast" who identifies the lights as a twin-engine plane. He doesn't answer the report that the object hovered for some time, but I also suspect he would say that is a trick of perspective.

Closer to the epicenter, there is the expected rise in sightings. MUFON has collected numerous reports from Texas, including one on January 8 in nearby Comanche, any of which can be read in their database available at the MUFON site. The question will be, whether this spreads further, as flaps in the past have become larger or more sustained waves.

Update (January 18): Linda Moulton Howe interviews a man from Dublin, Texas, near Stephenville, who says he saw a huge UFO twice during the week before the mass sighting, and once after. He told his story after the flap was in the press. You can read the interview (with photos) at Howe's site (though it will go behind a pay-registration wall after a while) or you can listen on Whitley Strieber's radio show Dreamland.

Update (January 21): Other UFO sightings in Texas being reported because of the Stephenville example.

Update (January 22): Walter Andrus says a UFO was seen over San Antonio on January 8, the night of the Stephensville sightings. Other sightings in Texas still come such as this one. Here's one from January 20.

Stephenville UFO, pt 4 - MUFON Prepares to Investigate as the Fever Turns into a Flap

January 16, 2008 - ABCNews puts the number of people claiming to have seen the UFO at over 30. By now, major news organizations have correspondants on the scene. Read here for more details on that, and the $5000 reward one of the witnesses is offering for a photo.

The next expected development is MUFON sending an unusually large investigative team this weekend. MUFON Texas Senior Investigator Steve Hudgeons is interviewed by San Angelo Live!, which you can listen to here. Findings from that investigation may take time. Though we should expect media coverage of the MUFON investigators talking to people and addressing the community. Realizing that MUFON is about to become a much more household name, the organization has set up a MUFON YouTube account to post their own videos and news media videos associated with the Stephenville case.

I'm using the word flap again because according to that interview with Steve Hudgeons, MUFON is now getting numerous UFO reports in Texas, apparently 19 since the incident broke in the media.

Meanwhile, a pilot who was flying in the area has suggested the sightings may have been due to military flare activity. Within the UFO community, this has become almost as detested an explanation for UFO sightings as swamp gas, weather balloons, or Venus. This is due to the explanation being offered for the Phoenix Lights episode in March, 1997. There, thousands of people stopped to watch lights over the city of Phoenix, Arizona. The case, both as a sighting and as a historical case, is complex, but in summary, after much military hemming and hawing and ridicule by state officials, the military declared that flares, dropped from an exercise, were responsible for the sightings. It does seem likely that the largest group of sightings, which were videotaped, may have been due to flares, but some dispute that and others point out that sightings were made in the area earlier in the evening of a structured craft. This was in turn followed in 2007 by a retired military pilot claiming to have seen a large UFO over Arkansas, only to immediately turn around and call the incident flares. The fact that this story was primarily run in WorldNetDaily, an openly politically hard-right media outlet, followed by a very quick debunking by the pilot, did not help matters. So this explanation is not a popular meme in the community. Completely randomly, also in shades of the Phoenix case, the city secretary has taken to wearing an alien mask as a humor response to the events (link has picture). This recalls former Arizona Governor Fife Symington's dressing of an aide as an alien in order to defuse a press conference on the Phoenix Lights. Ten years later, after ridiculing the people who reported sightings, Symington claimed to have seen the Phoenix UFO himself. So the mask thing isn't going over well, either.

On top of that, a random report on SETI has merged with the intense interest in the Stephenville sighting. Oakland, California television station KTVU ran a piece on January 15 that mentioned SETI possibly receiving an alien signal.

Whoa.

As you might expect, in the midst of a huge public and media interest in a mass UFO sighting, the news that aliens may be contacting earth perked up more than a few ears. Numerous observers were baffled by the report, both by the tone of the report (relatively light given the earth-shaking news) and that no other media were mentioning this. My suspicion was that this was a matter of confusion, involving a signal SETI received last fall, and tonight my suspicion appears to have been borne out. Not that this will help matters, as despite the media (and I suppose public) linking of SETI and UFOs, the camps are for the most part somewhat hostile, a relationship going back decades and in part fueled by the cancellation of federal funding for SETI due to Senator William Proxmire's belief that it searched for "little green men with misshapen heads." As you can imagine, in the context of a big UFO sighting, this hiccup involving SETI will only further some notions that the story of a signal was accurate, but silenced.

This is all happening because many people are following this story intensely, and are waiting for new developments.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Stephenville UFO pt 3 - OK, now its getting weird

January 15, 2008 - The story has taken a turn to the strange

As a UFO story, it continues to get picked up by more media, and it has become common conversation amongst people I know.

But today's newest elements come from Bud Kennedy at the Star-Telegram. In his piece today, he notes that on December 11, 2007, a Scottish evangelist recorded a prophecy on a Christian prophecy website, Elijahlist. This states, as follows,

Texas, USA--received on 11-11-07

I see Texas ablaze and a stunning star, like the star from the east rising over the land. I hear the Spirit of the Lord saying to: "Watch for cosmic signs and wonders in Texas." He said there will be a cosmological phenomenon that scientists cannot explain, and the media will carry as front-line news.

People will begin to ask about "the Light." They will remember the Child in the manger; the Lord is calling His Church to tell them about the Child in the manger and the Man of the Cross. For a period of four months--from Christmas to Easter--there will be a window of opportunity for salvations, signs, healings and wonders in Texas, and this season of extraordinary favor and grace will manifest and be confirmed in unusual cosmic occurrences.



Then Mr. Kennedy reminds us that Stephenville was involved in one of the Great Airship sightings of 1897. And according to Texas Monthly magazine, it wasn't just any airship sighting, but it was involved with the Aurora crash, a crashed UFO story that predates Roswell by 50 years. In the Stephenville sighting of that day,

The editor of the Stephenville newspaper claimed that the airship hovered so close to the town that he was able to yell out a request for an interview, which the extraterrestrial pilot denied.

History appears to repeat.

The airship mystery is adopted by many ufologists as being a precursor to what are now called UFO waves. And the Aurora crash (see here for Kevin Randle's conclusions that the story was a hoax) is probably the second most famous UFO crash story after Roswell.

Prophecies coming out of the blue. A history of infamous UFO sightings. This is all starting to get that feel, of a little high weirdness of the type John Keel made famous in his book The Mothman Prophecies. We'll see how it develops.

Stephenville Flap, part 2: The Other Lore and Explanations Kick In

Remember that just yesterday I said: "The story has no discussion of aliens, outer space, or anything fringe or kooky."

January 14, 2008 - As the AP (picked up by CNN) makes this little town at least momentarily famous by fairly "just the facts" reporting, as MUFON prepares to send an investigative team, the local paper that initially broke this story profiles the the local UFO expert (free registration required) who has become part of the case. He says he also saw the UFO that night, but this isn't his first sighting, having shot a UFO video in the same general area in 1995. He discusses some initial investigation of astronomical characteristics that night, ruling out the moon. You can jump over to the profile to also read about his book on UFOs and the author's ESP abilities, and his sighting of photos and chemtrails on January 9 (the night following the sighting).

I'll say no more about that, other than to note that chemtrails are in strong competition with orbs and rods as some of my least favorite paranormal memes.

Update: Well, here's a no surpriser. The UFO "expert" going on about chemtrails, has a past of fraudulent claims about his background.

Update (January 25): Looks like Stephenville is sick of the guy too.

Update: A blogger local to Stephenville posts his explanation, that the sighting is of military aircraft and flares, which he cedits to the the local reserve base at Fort Worth. It should be noted, however that while he could not rule out aircraft from other units, the reserve officer previously mentioned says no aircraft from his unit were in the area on January 8.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Stephenville, Texas - A UFO Flap in the Making

January 10, 2008 - The Stephenville Empire-Tribune reports that two days earlier, four local residents saw strange lights in the sky, a UFO they refer to as a ship. One is a pilot. They also report the "ship" was pursued by fighter jets.

January 11, 2008 - The same paper, from the same staff writer, reports that more people are reporting seeing the strange object or lights, including a constable and an ex-Air Force navigational specialist. A local naval reserve officer believes he can solve what is now a full-blown mystery.

January 13, 2008 - A new report states that MUFON investigators will be arriving to interview witnesses and talk about the sightings. The naval reserve officer believes the sighting was a misidentification of an aircraft under certain lighting conditions.

January 14, 2008 - A local UFO eyewitness, enthusiast, and lecturer does an interview on a paranormal radio show about his claim to have sighted the January 8 UFO. Meanwhile, CNN has picked up the story and is bringing it to millions of readers. The story has no discussion of aliens, outer space, or anything fringe or kooky.

I'm going to try and continue to see what develops here, and if or when other aspects of UFOdom become involved, or what the media does with this.

The UFO as Political Smear

I've already blogged about US Presidents and presidential candidates with UFO interests or connections. One of these is Dennis Kucinich, whose UFO sighting came to a head after it was mentioned in memoirs by his friend Shirley McClaine. While the initial interest in the topic is understandable, the subsequent revisiting months later by the Wall Street Journal is puzzling.

Well, not really. First off, UFOs in politics has become an increasingly popular topic in the media and amongst internet readers. Second, the Wall Street Journal was already a bastion of right-wing media in the US before it was bought by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News. On the one hand, Murdoch knows how to make money, as Billy Cox suggests by noting that the article was straightforward and got a lot of attention, and he has made a lot of money off UFOs (with little-known media properties like The X-Files, Independence Day as well as hosting UFO shows like Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction and Sightings on the Fox Network).

But a credible subtext of the piece, given its timing days before the presidential primary season is: Democrats are crazy people. While it would not matter much regarding the low-polling Kucinich, the story (combined with Bill Richardson's, who recently ended his presidential campaign, promotion of Roswell and UFOs on and off the campaign trail) has the potential to create guilt by association. It's a political smear, specifically at Kucinich but in general at the more progressive end of the Democratic party Kucinich attempts to represent.

A similar piece crossed my desktop today, from antiwar.com, entitled "James Woolsey: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind." The piece is a hit piece on one of the architects of the Iraq War and a member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The first half focuses on Woolsey's history of interest in UFOs, after having had a sighting himself in the 1960s, and associating this interest with his failures as head of the CIA. This is the background, in turn for demonstrating Woolsey's lying and conspiring to create a war in Iraq, a war in Iran, and his efforts to start what he calls "World War IV." Here, there is no subtext, the obvious point is that Woolsey is paranoid and obsessed with the unreal, be it in UFOs or in WMDs.

Last year also saw interest in another alleged use of UFOs as a political weapon, this time by George Bush I's CIA against newly elected President Carter. I am somewhat skeptical of that story, though there are some hints that it may have happened. Louis Farrakhan's contactee-esque story of being taken into a spaceship and being warned of the 1986 American attack on Libya is also mentioned prominently when attacking his claims or activities.

The association with the subject generally seems to go in one direction only. Just as with academics who study the topic, other than as folklore or popular culture, advocacy or even interest in the topic can damage (though likely not be the sole cause of dooming) a politician. By contrast, this interest will find someone ready to embrace a well known figure, even if they are already known as a fringe politician or figure, such as in the case of Canada's Paul Hellyer.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Spooky Laws

Matt Soniak at mental_floss posts on five cryptids that have managed to get state or national legal protection, even though the scientific community does not find sufficient evidence for their existence. These laws protect Bigfoot, Nessie, the Mi-Go (ok, the Migoi of Bhutan, not H.P. Lovecraft's Fungi from the Former Planet Known as Pluto) from poachers or other harm.

While perhaps the highest profile, these are not the only laws or government decisions that touch on Spooky matters.

One of the more famous is the US Presidential Determination that rules the Groom Lake facility, aka Area 51, out of the bounds of US legal action and oversight. This order, which has since been annually reaffirmed by Pres. Clinton and Bush II, quashed a lawsuit brought against the US government by former employees, or their next of kin, regarding toxic contamination and sickness. While not specifically about UFOs, it does touch on one aspect of the subject. Edit: It also now appears that Groom Lake now has an airport designation, one more thing to bring it in line with the rest of the world.

Less famous but more important is JANAP-146. In 1954, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US issued a directive that required civilian airline pilots to report UFOs, in addition to missiles, submarines, foreign military aircraft, etc. to the US military. Once this occurred, because this was considered information important for national security, the pilots were not allowed to talk about the sightings in public. Pilots didn't like being interrogated for hours, and then being silenced, so it is no surprise if any stopped reporting UFO sightings.

One law often mentioned is a 1969 addition to the US Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14 Section 1211. As noted by Snopes, this law is often misrepresented as criminalizing making contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles, when in reality the law is stated to apply to NASA vehicles and personnel, and does not criminalize contact but instead allows for quarantine (which frankly doesn't sound better). The law was repealed in 1991.

In the ghostly realms, there are various state laws concerning whether or not realtors or sellers must disclose whether or not a house is haunted. In 1991, the most famous of these decisions was handed down by the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate division in Stambovsky vs. Ackley. The case involved a house in New York's lower Hudson Valley which had been repeatedly described in the press (with the permission of the owners) as haunted. When the house was sold, the new owner found out the house had a reputation for poltergeist activity, and wanted out of the deal. In the final decision, the court found that the previous press made the house haunted in a legal sense of stigmatized property, regardless of whether a house can be considered haunted from a scientific perspective. Because a haunting cannot be easily determined by a buyer or their inspectors, it is the duty of the seller to disclose the haunting. Since that time, Massachusetts has passed a law that does not require sellers to disclose previous ghostly activity, unless the buyer asks.

Recently, there has been a lot of news about communities deciding whether to allow or to ban psychics, tarot readers, and other diviners. Salem, yes the famous one in Massachusetts, has had a very public fight about the topic, as chronicled (along with numerous other similar cases) in the Wild Hunt.

There are of course various proclamations by the US Congress or state legislatures, never mind laws elsewhere, that designate various days to celebrate religious holidays, and this has at times included the paranormal. I believe New Mexico did this for UFOs a few years ago to promote tourism, and Nevada of course renamed a section of highway near Groom Lake as the E.T. Highway. But these are ceremonial, not involving serious (or semi-serious) law.

That's all I can think of for the moment, but I'll post any other examples I run across.

Update: 4/15/08 - Italian homeowner is suing the former owners for not telling him the house is haunted. Not that it is supposedly haunted, but that it is actually haunted.