Title   : UFO Thesis by John W. Ratcliff
  Keywords: UFO RATCLIFF THESIS JOHN TEXT

  This is a collection of some of my better posts relating to anomolous
  phenomena and how they might correalate to a view of human consciousness and
  Etic reality.  I wanted to make this file available for persons  struggling
  to come to terms with an attitude or picture of how these classes of
  phenomena might fit into our world view.  I am especially  interested in
  making this available for persons holding a dogmatic belief or disbelief
  system based on UFOs as extra-terrestrial craft.
  
  


This text file is a collection of some of my rather lengthy posts
relating to anomolous phenomena, and their possible correalation
with human consciousness and the underlying structure of the presumed
out there Etic reality.

I put all of these messages together in one place, and I believe
they cover a LOT of real issues we are faced with.

Please feel free to distribute widely.

John W. Ratcliff
747 Napa Lane
St. Charles, MO 63304
70253.3237@compuserve.com
====================================================================
There is a lot of discussion today about the ethereal nature of the UFO.
How the percipients of it meet certain psychological profiles, and the
illusionary nature of the phenomena. So much so that the nuts & bolts ET
model of the phenomena is held in disrepute. Yet, how do we resolve this
with potential crash retrievals like Roswell, and the overtly physical
nature of the manifestation at time?

I also don't blame those who adopt the ET hypothesis. For a simple
reason. As comfortable as I am with Fred Alan Wolf's 'Imaginal Realm'
model, I still have a problem.

That is the fact that in some cases UFOs appear to operate as MACHINES
subject to the laws of physics during the period of time they are
present here. Perhaps they are holographic projections, but they are
damned curious hologrpahic projections. I'm also confused in that I've
heard lots of UFOlogists talk about how the vehicles adapt to the
culture. I just don't know how true that is. Certainly we have widely
varied reports of UFOs, from cigars, to blobs of light, the infamouse
'airships', etc. But the flying disk icon, has been around for a long
time.

How come the Vimana's were flying saucers? How come the flying saucer is
still the vehicle of choice for fairies, Gods, and are a near constant
through the abdundant record of UB's flying around in the sky? In other
words, even though these flying saucers might well intrude from some
'imaginal realm' or 'other dimension' there certainly appears to be an
extraterrestrial component to them. And I fully completely believe that
if these hyperdimensional intrusions, acting as a control system on
humanity, wished to produced a 'crashed disk' they could do so easily.

Sanskrit texts are filled with references to gods who fought battles in
the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can
deploy in these more enlightened times. For example, there is a passage
in the Ramayana which reads:

'The Puspaka car that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was
brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car going
everywhere at will .... that car resembling a bright cloud in the sky."

".. and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent car at the command of
the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere."

In the Mahabharatra, an ancient Indian poem of enormous length, we learn
that an individual named Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits
in circumference, with four strong wheels. The poem is a veritable gold
mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who settled their
differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones we are
capable of deploying. Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records
the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' operated via a circular
'reflector'. When switched on, it produced a 'shaft of light' which,
when focused on any target, immediately 'consumed it with its power'. In
one particular exchange, the hero, Krishna, is pursuing his enemy,
Salva, in the sky, when Salva's Vimana, the Saubha is made invisible in
some way. Undeterred, Krishna immediately fires off a special weapon: 'I
quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound'. Many other
terrible weapons are described, quite matter of factly, in the
Mahabharata, but the most fearsome of all is the one used against the
Vrishis.

The narrative records:

"Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three
cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all
the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as
brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendour. It was the
unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messaenger of death
which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas."

It is important to note, that these kinds of records are not isolated.
They can be cross-correlated with similiar reports in other ancient
civilizations. The after-affects of this Iron Thunderbolt have an
ominously recognizable ring. Apparently, those killed by it were so
burnt that their corpses were unidentifiable. The survivors fared little
better, as it caused their hair and nails to fall out.

Perhaps the most disturbing and challenging, information about these
allegedly mythical Vimanas in the ancient records is that there are some
matter-of-fact records, describing how to build one. In their way, the
instructions are quite precise.


In the Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara, it is written:

"Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great
flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine
with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent
in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting
inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the
Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move
slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human
beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth."

The Hakatha (Laws of the Babylonians) states quite unambiguously:

"The privilege of operating a flying machine is great. The knowledge of
flight is among the most ancient of our inheritances. A gift from 'those
from upon high'. We received it from them as a means of saving many
lives."

More fantastic still is the information given in the ancient Chaldean
work, The Sifrala, which contains over one hundred pages of technical
details on building a flying machine. It contains words which translate
as graphite rod, copper coils, crystal indicator, vibrating spheres,
stable angles, etc.

We all know that the UFO phenomena is multi-faceted. That it's source is
somehow interdimensional, or coming from some other aspects of
'reality', yet, in all of it's many variations, I find the constant of
the physical, seemingly mechanical, intelligently controlled, flying
disk amazing. While many things we call UFOs are apparitional in nature,
including flying disks themselves, their physical constant through all
of recorded human history, makes it a valid question to wonder, do they
operate as physical literal machines, in some incarnations?

I have NO DOUBT that they can present themselves as such should they
choose to. I have NO DOUBT we could have flying saucers over ever major
city in the country tomorrow if THEY choose to do so. I have no doubt
they could deliver a crashed disk with tiny bodies tomorrow if THEY
choose to do so.

The nagging physical aspects, and clear footprints of these critters in
the destiny of humanity makes it tempting to use an ET hypothesis, and
more importantly not ignore the most significant aspect of this
phenomena. It's screwing with us.

Abductees in many cases are physically missing. Women report fetuses
physically missing. People who are contactees, abductees, or near death
experiencers, are often being injected with messages, which deeply
affect their lives. And many

appear to receive no messages at all but are used like a piece of meat.
Cattle are still being mutilated. Crop circles are still being cropped.
All the while humanity is indunated with irrational intrusions which
polarize and befuddle us. Starting religions, wars, and even
publications as widely varied as PSICOP and UFO Universe.

What does this mean?

Carl Sagan once surmised that, on the face of it, there should have been
a man on the moon by the Middle Ages. Such a speculation is not outre'
as it might first appear. Many ancient civilizations - most noticeably
ancient Greece and China - obviously had very good, basic knowledge of
the properties of matter, astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy and
so on. Therefore, assuming those societies should have progressed in
some exponential form, one 'would' have expected a global, technological
society by the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries of our era. History
shows that it did not happen - why not? Why is it that not one ancient
civilization has survived to go on to greater things? The answer has to
be: 'we are being controlled and manipulated by an unidentified
consciousness, the nature of which is to provoke mankind into adopting
irrational and rigid belief systems.'

This statement is really quite shocking, and destructive of all that we
hold dear to our hearts; but even more shocking than this is the fact
that this control is still being exercised today in the guise of the UFO
phenomena. From the abduction of Enoch, either at the end of the fourth
or the beginning of the third century BC, to that of Ezekial, to the
contact of Joseph Smith in New York State in the last century (an
incident that gave rise to Mormonism), right up to the various abduction
and contactee UFO witnesses of the late twentieth century, the rationale
behind all these absurdities is always seemingly the same: the control
of the hearts and minds of humanity.

You might say that such an outrageous suggestion cannot possibly apply
to the civilization of the late twentieth century. Surely our race has
outgrown the superstitions of pre-scientific societies? Don't you
believe it! Even if the thesis of an unidentified consciousness is not
totally correct, there is plenty of evidence extant that ancient
irrationalities are alive and well in twentieth-century society, and are
being joined daily by others contemporary to our culture.

The only issue to be resolved is it just cosmic coincidence or malice
aforethought. Time will tell.

So, you are entitled to ask, if we are up against such and undefinable
and ungraspable form of consciousness, what is the point of sending good
money after bad in trying to comprehend what is quite obviously
incomprehensible? So if we can't study 'it', what can we do? Pretend it
isn't there? No, that's not working. Accept it on it's own terms? No,
that way leads to the return of the Dark Ages. Perhaps if we can't study
'it', we can at least study the social effect it has - by their fruits
shall ye know them, so to speak - by carefully monitoring they way
mankind responds to these 'signs' in the sky, or for that matter, on
earth.

Another equally important area of study are the major religious
manifestations, and their witnesses, who seem to form the main
attraction for persons seeking the 'supernatural', in much the same way
as UFO contactees form the focus for individuals seeking contact with
'spacemen'. The comparison would seem to be that major religious events
seem to embody much that can be correlated with what occurs in
ufological interactions: from the bright lights in the sky and
ground-level entities, to the doom-an-disaster messages seemingly
beloved of contactees and visionaries alike.

==============================================

A continuation of some material I have collected about anomolous
phenomena, generally deeply steeped in issues of human consciouness and
the nature of reality:

==============================================

This message is being included in the Skeptics Korner, as it covers a
lot of basic questions raised by an open-minded skeptic regarding these
classes of phenomena. The portions preceeded by '>>' represent questions
or comments which were originally posed to me.

>>My problem seems to be that if you get away from the
cartesian/western/meterialistic view, then anything goes.

I share this concern. However, if this is how the universe actually
operates, then we must deal with it.

>> There is no objective verification of whether claims are true, or
romantic wishing or an LSD trip is the primary influence.

This too is true. Thus the overwhelming frustration of many who are
non-experiencers trying to come to terms with the implications of these
classes of phenomena. For me, I have found comfort in reading material
by highly qualified scientists and doing my best to understand quantum
mechanics.

But so long as we live in a culture which stigmatizes people for
reporting their experiences, we will fail to learn. That's why I
champion the rights of people to report their experiences freely. The
more people come forward and talk openly as to their experiences the
more data we have to work with. We are already learning many things
about those who report these kinds of experiences as well as the high
strangness surrounding them.

>>If the universe was truely different for everybody, then you would
smash into 1 out of every 100 cars because the other driver would not
see you in his/her reality.

The universe is different for everybody. That is, THEIR PICTURE of the
universe. However, the same car is going to smash, regardless of their
point of view. Imagine this. You see a turtle on the road. You try to
avoid hitting it. From your universe, your reality tunnel, you are aware
of turtles, the road, your car, your place in the universe relative to
this turtle, your attempts to avoid hitting it, that it's life is in
imminent danger.

Sadly, your efforts fail, and in an instant the turtle is destroyed.
From his reality tunnel, he knew nothing about you, your car, or any of
these things. His view of reality is incomprehensibly different than
yours. However, he still got smashed nontheless.

Definitions:

Emic Reality: the unified field made up of thoughts, feelings, and
apparent sense impressions that organizes our inchoate experience into
meaningful patterns; the paradigm or model that people create by talking
to each other, or by communicating in any symbolism; the culture of a
time and place; the semantic environment. Every emic reality has its own
structure, which imposes structure on raw experience.

Etic Reality: the hypothetical actuality that has not been filtered
through the emic reality tunnel of a human nervous system or linguistic
grid. (If you have anything to say about Etic Reality without using
words or any other symbols, please send me a full description at once.)

You see, while our senses, language, and culture create a common view of
reality (what I call 'consensus reality') this says questionable things
about Etic Reality as a whole. Etic Reality may contains UFOs, angels,
bigfoot, and any other Fortean foo-fa-rang you could imagine. These
shadows of this greater reality we attempt to assimilate through our
nervous systems.

Let us take, for example, the case of the enigmatic UFO.

Now, let's say I observe a UFO. At close distance. It lands in front of
me, two small aliens come out. They speak some gibberish. I am
frightened. They then rush back onto their large silvery metallic UFO,
and fly away. A large hole is left in the ground aspalt smoking. I am in
shock.

Question. For ME, from MY POINT OF VIEW, do UFOs exist? Are they real?
Forget about you. What about me? Are they now 'real' to me? They have
entered my emic reality tunnel. At this point, no more proof needs be
proferred. UFOs are now part of my reality tunnel and I have to deal
with it.

If you aren't already aware the above is a near exact description of
what happened to poor officer Lonnie Zamora of Soccoro New Mexico. Poor
fellow. He was quite shook up if I recall.

Now, question. Let's say, my grandmother dies. Three days later. I am
about to go to bed, when I hear something. I turn around and there is my
grandmother. It is a full sensory impression. She comforts me, and tells
me she is in a better place. It is the most vivid, real experience I
have ever had. Now, forget about proving anything to YOU. How does this
experience fit into MY life?

Now, imagine taking a hit of LSD. Your Emic reality tunnel is going to
be blown away. With complete and utter clarity you will watch your
entire image of reality CHANGE!!! While you can understand the
intellectual exercise of the turtle and the human, to actually
EXPERIENCE such a dramatic shift in how you perceive reality is AMAZING.

(BTW, taking LSD is both highly dangerous, and illegal. It was brought
up here simply to make a point. LSD and other psycho-tropic compounds
are some of the most powerful tools available to scientists for
examining human consciousness. The point to be made here, is that as an
intellectual exercise we can understand how we create an image of
'reality' in our brain but the use of a psycho-tropic compounds PROVES
it, at a personal level, that is shockingly powerful. Psycho-tropic
compounds produce phenomenal shifts in human consciousness. The
experience itself is extremely real, and not illusionary. Human
consciousness is separated into the conscious mind (ego) and the
unconscious mind. Contrary to popular belief, your unconscious mind is
in the driver's seat, not your ego. In point of fact your conscious mind
does not react to incoming signals for roughly 500 milliseconds! Your
unconscious mind runs the show. It's busy paying attention to all of the
other cars on the highway, and a zillion other things, while you think
about what's on TV tonight. Psycho-tropic compounds strip this
separation. Your conscious mind merges with the unconscious (suffering
ego loss).  Becoming indunated with the flood of sensory impressions
from the outside world can be a profound experience. It can also be
extremely dangerous to your psyche, and isn't recommended without proper
guidance and consideration. This is merely brought up to make some
serious points about the nature of human consciousness. When you read
"The Dreaming Universe" by Fred Alan Wolfe, you will gain a greater
perspective on issues of the mind/body problem.)

While this may say little about Etic reality (other than you really
underestimated it before) your Emic reality tunnel has been expanded a
thousand fold! And even after the affects wear off, your nervous system
has been re-imprinted. Your consciousness and view of reality will never
be quite the same way.

Now I'm not psychic. I've never seen a UFO. I've never had an OBE. I've
never seen an Angel. I've never had an NDE. But how does that make me
qualified to comment on the experiences of those who have?

>>As far as I know, no psychic	has ever repeatly predicted a coin toss
more accurate than something like 0.50001 of the time.

This is not true. Parapsychology has logged many successes in the
laboratory. Statistical PK being the most significant in my opinion.

What is statistical PK? Rather than trying to just move a matchstick
about under 'will of mind alone' (which has been repeatedly demonstrated
by the way) the test instead is to attempt an act of psychokensis over a
large sample. Then tabulate the statistical results. This has a much
greater chance of measuring any positive effect.

Statistical PK has succeeded un repeatable experiments in a controlled
laboratory environment. Likewise Kulgina and others have demonstrated
macro-PK to the sufficient level to convince many.

Parapsychology has peer-reviewed journals, and is now finding great
success in some areas, and is now finding a basis in quantum mechanics
for achieving new findings.

Please read Richard S. Brougten's "Parapsychology: The Controversial
Science"

>>The supernatural strangely disapears when anybody wips out any sort of
measuring device it seems.

This is not true. Are you aware of the implications of Bells Theorem and
the Aspect experiment?

The entire underpinning of modern day physics is based on what is
essentially nothing more than a form of pyscho-kenisis. It's called
quantum mechanics, and the wave-function of a sub-atomic particle does
collapse once an observer has been added to the system.

The universe has been emperically proven to be non-local!

Please read Nick Herbert's 'Quantum Reality'. Forget about psychics and
such. Find out what hard cold physics tells you. And it's quite
shocking.

I agree with your statement: "My problem seems to be that if you get
away from the cartesian/western/meterialistic view, then anything goes."

But if indeed this is how the universe actually operates, we need to
deal with it. And to find out for sure how it operates, we need to
create a climate where people can report their experiences openly.

==============================================

Still more on my collection of materials relating to the anomolous
events of human consciousness and how they might reflect on the nature
of reality

==============================================

>>How do you feel about the fact that the more educated a person is the
more skeptical they are about paranormal or extreme claims.

I think that's a pretty extreme characterization. Every intelligent
person should be skeptical of these experiences. That is the rational
response. But to reject all human experience, and the experiences of
millions of UFO witnesses, is indeed an irrational response.

I can help guide you to a greater understanding as to where these
classes of phenomena fit into our picture of 'reality' and direct you to
books written by highly esteemed scientists who have looked at it in
detail.

And I'm in good company. My company includes Einstein, David Bohm,
Heisenberg (for his most famous uncertainty principle), Nick Herbert,
and thousands of theoretical physicists who understand the shocking
significance of Bells Theorem and what it means to live in a non-local
universe.

Then there is another problem. Reality itself is relative to the nervous
system of each human. Your picture of reality is different than mine,
and radically different than the picture of reality say, a dolphin
holds.

Some people are indeed 'psychic'. For these people, reality as is
presents itself to them is significantly different than the reality you
experience.

If you don't understand this intellectually, take a powerful
consciousness altering compound, and watch the bells and whistles go
off. Reality is an illusion you form in your brain. Your nevrous system
through your senses react to incoming electrical signals and you form a
vision of a 'solid' view of Etic reality in that glob of gray mass in
your noggin.

Go to sleep at night, undergo a consciousness shift, and reality
presents new and widely varying vistas. Which is real? The dream or when
your awake? Is when you are awake a form of dream? (There are ways to
demonstrate that being awake is a form of dream, but all compounds
aiding in these types of consciousness shifts are outlawed just as all
'occult' practices are kept stigmatized. It's dangerous to your own
mental health to ask these kinds of questions. The answers are
shocking.)

Of course, quantum mechanics is shocking too. Instantaneous information
transfer between any two points in the entire known universe has been
demonstrated in a laboratory environment. The universe is indeed
non-local. What does that mean on a personal level? Hmmm. You might ask
a Yogi, or a disembodied entity (Seth). <g>

People who are not aware of the richness and complexity of human
experience, the UFO phenomena, and quantum mechanics are the UNEDUCATED
ones.

Most people specialize. They know a tremendous amount about one tiny
endeavor. If, for example, you will only look at UFOs as physical flying
disks, and only deal with reports confirmed on radar, with physical
evidence, and multiple independent witness testimony, you won't learn
much about what UFOs really are. Because you are ignoring the big
picture. The big picture includes Blessed Virgin Mary apparitions, Near
Death Experiences, Channeling, Quantum Mechanics, abductions, and
contacts. Taken as a whole, we find we have nothing but questions, and
few answers.

The Western rationalist view does not like to admit it doesn't have the
answers.

If you are interested in learning more, let me know, and I will help
direct you to some excellent resources that will let you gain a deeper
understanding of the nature of reality. Most of these materials are
written by scientists smarter than you and I put together.

An excellent place to start might by "The New Inquisition" or "Quantum
Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson.

==============================================


I've just recently added some new books to my collection and some of
them are quite excellent. I thought I might let you know about some of
them.

"UFOs The Final Answer? UFOLOGY For the 21st Century", edited by David
Barclay & Therese Marie Barclay, A Blanford Book, Copyright 1993, ISBN
0-7137-2362-9, 191 pages, paperback, just $10.

A collection of chapters by various persons in the field. Excellent
overview and recap of 'where we are today'.

"The Dreaming Universe: A mind-expanding journey into the real where
psyche and physics meet" by Fred Alan Wolf, Phd., Simon & Schuster,
Copyright 1994, ISBN 0-671-74946-3, 395 pages, $23.

This book is fantastic. It really doesn't belong in the physics section,
since it's more philosophy than anything else. But what wonderful
writing. Just get a load of some of the chapter titles!

Chapter 1: Introduction: We Dream to Create A self

Evolution and Dreams * What is Dreaming? * The Early Science of Dreaming
* The Mechanics of Consciousness and Dreaming * Mythological and Social
Significance of the Dream Realm * The Relationship of Dreams to Species
Survival and Dream Telepathy * Self-Awareness in Dreams and Waking Life
* Getting into the Big Dream * Where is your I-Ness Your Highness? * A
Dream of my own

Chapter 2: Freudian Physics: A First Look at how the Universe Dreams

Freud's Theory of Dreams * What is a theory of psychology? * The Time of
Freud * The Instinct Life-Death Field of the Unconscious * The Ego and I
* Summarizing Freud

Chapter 3: Jungian Physics: Synchronicity - Evidence of the Universe's
Dream

Jung's Theories of Dreams * Jungian Individuation: Self from Nonself *
Jung's Concept of Energy-Libido * Jung, Syncrhonicity, and How He Was
Influenced by the Early "New Physics" * Experience Synchronicity * What
are we to make of synchronicity in relation to dreams?

Chapter 4: Early Psychological and Physiological Dream Research

The Prophetic Power of Dreams * The Healing Power of the Gods in Dreams
* Aristotle on Dreams * Dreaming: The Line Between Divinity and Insanity
* First Elements: A Physiology of Dreams * Physiological Mind/Body
Research * Humans Dream Electric Sheep * 'Dualing' Cells * What do
little neurons do? * Consciousness Is What Consciosness Does * The Ant
Colony Model of Consciousness * First Physiology of Dreams * Kleitman's
Eyes and Aserinsky's Babes * How Long is a dream? * The problem with
dreamtime is the dreamer

Chapter 5: The Mechanics of Consciousness: The Work of Benjemin Libet

A Brief History of Unaware Time * How we create time and space in our
brains * Backward through time experiments * There is always a delay in
consciousness * Time enough * The quantum mechanics of the unconscious
mind?

Chapter 6: The Mechanics of Dreaming : Part 1 - We dream to integrate

Dreams of animals: The Work of Jonathan Winson * Welcome to the
hippocampus, the college of memories * Does Winson test good like a good
theory should?

Chapter 7: The Mechanics of Dreaming : Part 2 - A Crick in the network

Fantasy, obsession, and hallucination in a computer network * How to
'correct' a computer fault: Murder it * Unlearning in our dreams

Chapter 8: The Mechanics of Dreaming: Part 3 - A quantum leap into the
land of nod

Sense and nonsense of the dreaming brain * Hobson's Choice: To Jump or
to remain where you are * Cholinergic Jump-starting the dreaming brain *
Is Hobson's hop a quantum leap? * The dreamstage * Hobson speculates *
Something new in the land of nod?

Chapter 9: The Dreamtime

The origins of aboriginals * Was the dreamtime ever real time? * Another
time * Dreams and dreamtime * Dreaming today: Journey to the center of
the universe * Dreamtime and the dreaming universe

Chapter 10: Quantum Physics and Dreams: A preliminary search for the I

Quantum dreams * The Freudian ego: The structure of consciosness *
Quantum Freudian Id * The Timeless Personality * Repression: A Quantum
physical model * The Creation and division of the world * The
timelessness of dreams * The quantum mechanics of dreaming * The bridge
between objective and subjective experience * Does the 'I' exist at the
molecular level?

Chapter 11: Telepathic dreams and species survival

Dream telepathy * What does dreaming have to do with ego? * Experimental
dream telepathy * Neural nets and quantum nets * Wholeness, telepathy,
and species connectedness

Chapter 12: Lucid dreams: The border between parallel worlds

My own lucid dream of flying * A brief review of lucid dream research *

Holographic dreams and reality * The world is a ghetto * The evidence
unfolds for itself * Dreaming holographic virtual and real images * Do
lucid dreams model the self?

Chapter 13: The Dreaming Universe: The Dreambody and the waking dream

Modeling reality: The waking dream and the dreambody * Working with the
waking dream * Patterns of the Unus Mundus * Working with the dreambody

Chapter 14: Getting to the Big Dream

A walk in the 'Vallee' of Science * UFO Superphysics and Creatures * Why
do ET's look the same to so many contactees? * Sex with the Fairies:
Contact with images throughout time * Dialgoues in the Tertium Quid

Chapter 15: The Physics of the Imaginal Realm

The physics of meaning * Psychoid physics and the vigilance of intent

Chapter 16: Transpersonal Dreaming and Death

Discontinuities in Time * UFOs and NDEs: Discontinuities and Electrical

Brainstorms * A typical description of an NDE * Getting near the Big
Dreamer * The Big Dreamer awakens * Lucid Experiences and temporal
discontinuities: A parallel worlds theory

Chapter 17: Overlaps of the imaginal and the real: Dreams in art, myth,
and reality

Evidence of the Oversoul: The overlap * Russian dreams: To awaken into
the impossible * The Blue Rose and the Jack of Spades * Fantasy in
Russian art * Hops and Beats in evolution * The Dream arch * Political
architecture * Gorky and the dream museum in Moscow * Dreams appear even
if we don't want them

Chapter 18: The Spirit of Matter

Pauli's Dream * Pauli and his shadow * The Ligh-Dark Stranger * Pauli
and Eros * Piano lessons beyond space and time * The ring of the
imaginaries * What the ring of the imaginaries represents: dreams and
realities

Chapter 19: The Holographic Model of waking and dreaming awareness

There is no such thing as a dream! * Einstein's Brain and Holograms on
the Mind * Waking Reality * Volition and dreaming reality: "I" in the
"Holodream"

Chapter 20: The Birth of the dreaming self from neural automata

The growing self: stages of lucid awakening * Five levels in the dream *
Physical correlation of self-awareness in dreams * Self-reflection in
the dreaming neural net * The physics of self-awareness

Chapter 21: The dreaming universe: Reality and illusion -- A
confessional retrospective

Big dreams in social systems * Virtual reality and dreams * Dreams are a
crossover between self and universe * We show you steeeeeenking reality
* We all know this * Sensing the presence of the Big Dreamer


Pretty awesome book!!!!

More new books:

"Unearthing Atlantis: An Archaeological Odyssey" by Charles Pellegrino,
First Vintage Books, Copyright 1991, ISBN 0-697-73407-4, $12, 310 pages.

Compelling evidence that the buried Minoan city being unearthed on an
island in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece is the mythical Atlantis.

"The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids" by Robert
Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, Crown Publishers, Copyright 1994, ISBN
0-517-59903-1, 310 pages.

Compelling evidence that the Pyramids at Gizeh are in alignment with the
Orion star system.

"Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics an excursion into metaphysics
and the meaning of reality" by Nick Herbert, Anchor Books, Copyright
1985, ISBN 0-385-23569-0, 230 pages, $10.

One of the best written books covering the fundemental issues in quantum
mechanics and how they reflect on a new view of 'reality'.

"Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics" by Henry P. Stapp, Springer
Verlag, Copyright 1993, ISBN 3-540-56289-3, 220 pages, $35

Consciosness based view of the universe. Lots of math, lots of
philosphy.

"Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations for the new millennium",
interviews by David Jay Brown & Rebecca McClen Novick, The Crossing
Press, Copyright 1993, ISBN 0-89594-601-7, 300 pages, $13.

Interesting collection of interviews with some 'mind mavericks' of the
modern age. Including:

Terrence McKenna, Riane Eisler & David Loye, Robert Trivers, Nick
Herbert, Ralph Abraham, Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Rupert
Sheldrake, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Colin Wilson, Oscar Janiger, John C.
Lilly, Nina Graboi, Laura Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and Stephen LaBerge


There's more....but that's enough for now. Obviously the 'Dreaming
Universe' book is the MUST HAVE!<g>

==========================================

However, and this is important, discussing issues of things deemed
'paranormal' is very complex.  For many people it is enmeshed in issues
of faith, and/or religious belief.  Many people approach these subjects
without the scientific rationalists point of view.  Additionally most of
the phenomena we discuss provides virtually no data other than human
experience, leaving little left for the physical sciences to digest.

We try to create a climate where people can relate their experiences
openly. To allow for the free flow of information, and ideals.	If
someone wishes to conduct a logical, detailed, rational, debate with
you, that is both wonderful and encouraged. But many persons are not
interested in this.  They want to be able to tell their stories and toss
around wild theories unquestioned. There are simple ways to make this
determination. By asking questions. Lots of detailed questions. Rather
than attacking someone's theory, the more productive approach is to ask
many detailed questions. If that person is willing to engage in a more
detailed rational debate and thoughtful dialogue, that is wonderful. But
not everyone here is a scientist. We have a fundemental problem dealing
with a smooth dialogue between people who are experiencers and people
who are non-experiencers. Bridging this gap can be a difficult
challenge. And many are operating with widely varying knowledge bases
and belief systems.

The single most important challenge for you to come to grips with these
phenomena is to study. Paranormal phenomena is multifaceted, and
embedded in human consciousness/experience. If you consider yourself a
hard physical scientist looking for nuts & bolts proof of alien
spacecraft, I doubt very seriously you will find much data to support
that point of view.

The two most important phrases for you to remember are:

"I don't know" and "Maybe"

No person knows what UFOs are. No person knows the limits of human
consciousness, and how it interacts with 'reality'. No person
understands the limits of human experience or the true meaning of Etic
reality. To start your quest must require you to admit that we do not
have all of the answers.

Exploring the unknown is a fascinating hobby. Unless you are prone to
having paranormal experiences yourself, it is highly questionable how
much of these classes of phenomena are important to you. Only a deep
seated curiosity to search for mystery in the universe, and question our
place within it, should be the primary driving force in the open
exploration of ideals in this forum.

I consider myself an open-minded skeptic. However, over the last year I
have modified my world-view to acknowledge the UFO phenomena as being a
real experience and, to some extent, impacting consensus reality. I have
made these changes in my world view because I have exposed myself to a
huge amount of material written by scientists I have gained great
respect for. I have spoken to and learned from many people who are
direct experiencers of these classes of phenomena.

One important thing to be aware of is that what we have been calling
'paranormal' is not necessarily so. These phenomena do not fit into the
Newtonian view of the world, a mechanistic point of view adopted by the
western rationalist paradigm with great success over the last few
hundred years. But these items we call 'paranormal' do have a place in
the view of a universe now being shaped by a deeper understanding of the
implications of quantum mechanics. This new point of view has been
called the 'New Physics' and it is an amazing intellectual exercise to
attempt to grasp the true meaning of Bell's Theorum and what it 'means'
to belong in a non-local universe.

In addition to this we face the flaw of the western rationalist point of
view which has no place for human experience. If someone say, perhaps,
sees a 'ghost'. We cannot prove, nor disprove this. But it is an
EXPERIENCE which they have had. We are capable of stating with some
certainty, after gathering a lot of data, that people are capable of
having the EXPERIENCE of seeing a ghost. People are capable of having
the EXPERIENCE of being 'abducted by aliens'. Trying to figure out what
this experience MEANS is a fascinating endeavor. One which those of us
in this forum strive our best to come to grips with.

For you to come to grips with these classes of phenomena is going to
require that you do a minimum amount of reading/research. There is a lot
of garbage material covering any field and it is in my interest to help
direct you to the best data available.

You cannot take the position to not read UFO books "because they are UFO
books." There's no way you can make an informed assesment without
looking at the data. There is some excellent material written by very
competent scientists that I will be able to help you with. There are
books which take the standpoint of 'proving' the UFO phenomena "does not
exist." The problem with these books is they claim to have 'found the
answer' when no legitimate scientist has yet done so. These types of
books generally commit huge errors of omission by concentrating on known
hoaxes, false conclusions, and kooks and delusionaries in the field (of
which there are plenty). The problem is this gets us no closer to an
understanding of the legitimate phenomena.

So here's my short reading list, and if you have any questions, please
feel free to ask me.

"The New Physics" books which will help you understand that we DO NOT
know how the universe operates. That the implications of quantum
mechanics on the nature of reality are profound and shocking.

"Quantum Reality" by Nick Herbert (A MUST READ) "Mind, Matter, and
Quantum Mechanics" by Henry P. Stapp "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael
Talbot "Bridging Science and Spirit" by Norman Friedman "The Holographic
Universe" by Michael Talbot (rather outragous in my opinion by very easy
to read, and his theories have merit) "Syncrhonicity: The Bridge Between
Matter and Mind" by F. David Peat "The Dreaming Universe" by Fred Alan
Wolf (A MUST READ) "The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New
Physics" by Gary Zukav "Parapsychology: The Controversial Science" by
Richard S. Broughten (A MUST READ)

Now, about UFOs. You MUST separate the wheat from the chaff here. Every
book in the following list is a MUST read. But if you are only going to
read ONE book, then read 'Angels and Aliens' by Keith Thompson. This is
an excellent overview of the situation we are in today.

"Angels and Aliens" by Keith Thompson "Dimensions" by Jacques Vallee
(MUST READ) "Anatomy of a Phenomena" by Jacques Vallee "Passport to
Magonia" by Jacques Vallee (MUST READ) "Forbidden Science" by Jacques
Vallee "Revelations" by Jacques Vallee (MUST READ) "Confrontations" by
Jacques Vallee "Above Top Secret" by Timothy Good (reckless speculation,
but overwhelming documentation as to the seriousness with which UFOs are
taken by various governments.) "Alien Identities" by Richard Thompson
(MUST READ) "UFOs: The Final Answer? : UFOlogy for the 21st Century"
edited by David Barclay & Therese Marie Barclay (A MUST READ)
"Unexplained" by Jerome Clark (VERY IMPORTANT TO READ)

A number of authors have concentrated on archeology and history for
viewpoints on how UFOs may have fit into our past. Most of these authors
are guilty of reckless speculation, but that DOES NOT reflect on the raw
data they have gathered. At the minimum you will walk away with an
appreciation of just how little we really know about our history.

"The Gods of Eden" by William Bramely "Genesis Revisited" by Zacheri
Sitchen "The Siruis Mystery" by Robert Temple (A MUST READ!)

A number of philosopher/scientists have written about the flaws in
modern western rationalist viewpoint. These books are very interesting
to read. The will make you think long and hard as to the nature of
reality, and how you may or may not fit into it.

"The New Inquisition" by Robert Anton Wilson (ABSOLUTELY 1000% MUST
READ) "Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson "Cosmic Trigger" by
Robert Anton Wilson "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson "The
Nature of Personal Reality and Seth Speaks" by Jane Roberts/Seth (These
books, surprisingly, are written by a 'ghost'. A dissembodied spirit
entity or energy if you will. Or, for the hardened skeptics point of
view, these are the writings of a deluded individual Jane Roberts.
Either way, there is some astonishing material here. I bought these
books originally as a joke. They prove nothing. There is not one single
provable assertion in these books. They are merely an interesting
philosophy on life, brought to you by a ghost/delusional person. There
is a lot of this kind of material out there. The Seth material just
happens to be the most interesting to read/think about.) "The Invisible
Landscape: Mind Hallucinogens and the I Ching" by Terrence McKenna
"Archaic Revival" by Terrence McKenna "Food of the Gods" by Terrence
McKenna "True Hallucinations" by Terrence McKenna

I hope this gets you started. As you can probably already see, to
understand UFOs requires we attempt to form a better understanding of
human consciousness and exactly what 'reality' means. It's an
interesting exercise, but as I said earlier, if it doesn't directly
impact you, or interest you, it's doubtful you will want to make this
effort.

For myself, to realize that we DIDN'T have all of the answers to the
universe was an eye-opening experience. Best of luck in your research
efforts, and feel free to ask me any questions you wish.

==================================================================
Science is a very peculiar process....

It claims to be objective, interested only in finding explanations for
phenomena of the natural world.  It fosters the image of dedicated men
and women labouring selflessly in the service  of global understanding.
In reality, such paragons are hard to find, because the system is loaded
against them.  It is basically unscientific.

.......

Hard-nosed rejection and gullibility are not the only possible response
to anomolies.  A third alternative is offered by the approach of the
American journalist and philosopher Charles Fort (1874-1932), after whom
the term 'Fortean' is derived.  Fort didn't believe.  His method was to
suspend belief or disbelief in favour of temporary acceptance until such
time as further evidence comes along; to substitute observation for
explanation; and to tolerate uncertainty indefinitel.  The aim is an
inclusive cosmology, one that accepts, without moral judgements and
without rationalist censorship, the entire range of repeated human
experience.

The term 'Emic Reality' is defined in one of the previous long posts.

My explanation for the long series of posts was to cover a basic amount
or material as to the range of experience, and the possible approaches
to reaching an understanding of human consciousness and a picture of
'reality'.

Quick rejections of decades of research by scientists is the norm in
these discussions.  This is completely unwarrented.  I try to argue that
the, and I quote Pace directly here, "I prefer to stick with
interpretations that are more palatable to mainstream science myself.",
is flawed and incomplete.

John 

==================================================================

The book is:

Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics by Henry P. Stapp

Springer Verlag!!

ISBN: 3-450-56289-3 and 0-387-56289-3, Printed in Germany 1993.

Exerpt from the preface:

...But what is the nature of a primal stuff that can have mind and
matter as two of it's aspects?

An answer to this age-old question has now been forced upon us.
Physicists, probing ever deeper into the nature of matter, found that
they were forced to bring into their theory the human observers and
their thoughts.  Moreover, the mathematical structure of the theory
combines in a marvelous way the features of nature that go with the
concepts of mind and matter. Although it is possible, in the face of
this linkage, to try to maintain the traditional logical nonrelatedeness
of these two aspects of nature, that endeavor leads to great puzzles and
mysteries.  The more reasonable way, I believe, is to relinquish our old
metaphysical stance, which though temporarily useful was logically
untenable, and follow where the new mathematics leads.

This volume brings together several works of mine that aim to answer the
question: How are conscious processes related to brain processes?  My
goal differs from that of most other quantum physicists who have written
about the mind-matter problem.	It is to explain how the content of each
conscious human thought, as described in pyschological terms, is related
to corresponding processes occurring in the human brain, as described in
the language of contemporary physical science.	The work is based on a
substantial amount of emperical data and a strictly enforced demand for
logical coherence.  I call the proposed solution the Heisenberg/James
model because it unifies Werner Heisenberg's concept of matter with
William James's idea of mind.

The introduction, "..and then a Miracle Occurs", was written
specifically for this volume.

....The main features of the model are described in "A Quantum Theory of
the Mind-Brain Interface".  This paper is an expanded version of a talk
I gave at a 1990 conference, Consciousness Within Science.  The
conference was attended by neuraoanatomitists, neuropsychologists,
philosophers of mind, and a broad spectrum of other scientists
interested in consciousness. .. .. The final chapter, "Quantum Theory
and the Place of Mind in Nature", is a contribution to the book Niels
Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy, which is to appear this year.  It
examines the question of the impact of quantum theory upon our idea of
the place of mind in nature.... .. In the above works I have tried to
minimize the explicit use of mathematics. But in an appendix prepared
for this volume I have transcribed some key features of the model from
prose to equations.

Among the scientists and philosophers who have suggested a link between
consciousness and quantum theory are Alfred North Whitehead, Erwin
Schrodinger, John von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, David Albert and Barry
Loewer, Euan Squires, Evans Harris Walker, C. Stuart, Y. Takahashi, and
H. Umezawa, Amit Goswami, Avshalom Elitzur, Alexander Berezin, Roger
Penrose, Michael Lockwood, and John Eccles.  Only the final two authors
address in any detail the problem addressed here: the nature of the
relationship between the physical and physiological structures.

Acknowledgements:  Supported by the Director, Office of Energy Research,
Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of High Energy
Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract
DE-AC03-76F00098.


At least somebody is looking for the answers without ignoring the entire
data set!!!!!

Also, the book: Alien Identities by Richard L. Thompson, ISBN
0-9635309-1-7, First Printing 1993, Published by Govardhan Hill Inc,
1380 Granet Avenue, #E-5, San Diego, CA 92109, Dedicated to His Divine
Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who wrote Easy Journey to
Other Planets.

Happy Reading!


==================================================================

I feel that this merits statement of *fact* as much as we can say about
any policy the US government has set up.  One very enlightening view if
Jacques Vallee's personal diaries in his book "Forbidden Science"

A synthesis of that evidence would be the following true statement:
"The American public has been culturally conditioned to treat all
reports of UFO's as natural phenomena, hoaxes, publicity seekers, and
the ravings of the unstable. The American Public has been culturally
conditioned to reach these beliefs in direct conflict with the evidence.
The perpetuators of this cultural conditioning has been the CIA and the
United States Air Force."

This is not a theory, this is a fact.  A fact discovered through the
Freedom of Information Act.

According to Edward Condon, opinions in the US Air Force were sharply
divided.

Within the Air Force there were those who emphatically believed that the
subject was absurd and that the Air Force should devote no attention to
it whatsoever. Other Air Force officials regarded UFOs with the utmost
seriousness and believed that it was quite likely that American airspace
was being invaded by secret weapons of foreign powers or possibley by
visitors from outer space.

At a certain level of the government, it seems that reports of UFOs,
rather than the UFOs themselves, were regarded as a threat to national
security.  Thus on September 24, 1952, the Assistant Director for
Scientific Intelligence, H. Marshall Chadwell, wrote a memo to CIA
Director Walter Smith.	The memo indicated that apart from a huge volume
of letters, phone calls, and press releases, ATIC had received about
1,500 official UFO reports since 1947 and 250 official reports in July
of 1952 alone.

The Air Force regarded about 20 percent of these reporst as unexplained.
However, Chadwell was concerned with a more pressing issue than
explaining reports.  His main points included the following:

1. The public concern with the phenomena, which is reflected both in the
United States press and in the pressure of inquiry upon the Air Force,
indicates that a fair proportion of our population is mentally
conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible.  In this fact lies the
potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic.

2. The U.S.S.R. is credited with the present capability of delivering an
air attack against the United States, yet at any given moment now, there
may be current a dozen official unidentified sightings plus many
un-official ones.  At any moment of attack, we are now in a position
where we cannot, on an instant basis, distinguish hardware from phantom,
and as the tension mounts we will run the increasing risk of false
alerts and the even greater danger of falsely identifying the real as
phantom.

3.  A study should be instituted to determine what, if any, utilization
could be made of these phenomena by United States psychological warfare
planners and what, if any, defenses should be planned in anticipation of
Soviet attempts to utilize them.

What could be done?  Some method had to be devised to get people to stop
reporting UFOs, and it is perhaps for this reason that the CIA convened
a special panel of eminent scientists, who met to discuss the UFO issue
during January 14-17, 1953.

The panel was named after its chairman, Dr. H. P. Robertson, director of
the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group in the office of the Secretary of
the Defense. It included Dr. Luis Alvarez, a physicist who worked on the
atomic bomb project and later received the Nobel Prize in physics; Dr.
Samual Goudsmit, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratories; Dr.
Thornton Page, former professor of astronomy at the University of
Chicago, and deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research
Office; and Dr. Lloyd Berkner, a physicist and a director of Brookhaven
National Laboratories.

After deliberating for four days (a total of 12 hours), the panel
delivered a secret report, which was finally declassified in 1966.  The
report presented the following conclusions:

2.  As a result of its considerations, the Panel concludes:

a.  That the evidence presented on Unidentified Flying Objects shows no
indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to
national security.

We firmly believe there is no residuum of cases which indicates
phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile
acts, and that there is no evidence that the phenomena indicate a need
for the revision of current scientific concepts.

3.  The panel further concludes:

a. That the continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does,
in these parlous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of
the protective organs of the body politic.

This threat was thought to involve the clogging of communication
channels by UFO reports, the ignoring of real signs of hostile action,
and the "cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful
hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behaviour and harmful
distrust of duly constituted athority."

As a consequence, the Panel recommended that "the national security
agency take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of
the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they
have unfortunately aquired." The method prescibed by the Panel for
eradicating this aura of mystery was "debunking".  Here is the Panel's
debunking strategy:

The "debunking" aim would result in reduction in public interest in
"flying saucers" which today evokes a strong psychological reaction.
This education could be accomplished by the mass media such as
television, motion pictures, and popular articles. Basis of such
education would be actual case histories which had been puzzling at
first but later explained.  As in the case of conjuring tricks, there is
much less interest if the "secret" is known.  Such a program should tend
to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their
susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda.

Meanwhile, the US Air Force experieneced 92 cases of UFO encounters
between 1944 to 1961 with a heavy concentration between 1952 and 1953.
These include 24 cases in which an Air Force plane chased a UFO or was
chased or repeatedly buzzed by one.  In an additional 20 cases, a UFO
seemed to deliberatly follow an Air Force Plane (but not chase it) or
fly at low altitude over a militiary base. These statistics are hard to
reconcile with the offical Air Force conclusion that UFOs have never
been seen to pose a militiary threat.  If this is true, we must suppose
that Air Force pilots repeatedly thought they were being chased by
weather balloons, meteors, or the planet Venus, and they have repeately
gone scrambling after such objects with afterburners blazing.

There is of course a lot more.	The above was taken from Richard
Thompson's Alien Identities to prove a point.  The reason people don't
believe in UFO's today, and treat them on par with Elvis sightings, is
because the CIA set up a program to culturally stigmatize reports of
UFO's.  At the time a senior member of the Air Force testified to
congress that no UFO had ever shown up on radar, Air Force pilots had
not only tracked UFO's on radar but got weapons lockon, and when they
attempted to fire, their entire weapons panel went dead.  This is fully
documented in a report that wasn't released until it was pried out in
the 1980's under the Freedom of Information Act.

John

==================================================================

I have recently argued in this forum that it only takes ONE single
event, which shatters previous conceptions and boundaries of reality,
for us to recognize we do not know all of which is possible/impossible.
For me, this event is Fatima.  Therefore I am presenting, for
discussion, a synopsis of the data I have regarding this specific event
in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

Since reading about Fatima in Jacques Vallee's Dimension, I went out and
feverishly searched for the zillions of books which must exist do
cumenting this most amazing miracle.  Guess what?  Nothing.  Now don't
get me wrong.  There are volumes of material written about Fatima, but
none of them document the objective reality/non-reality of the miracle.
The fact that the 'miracle' occurred is a given.  It is stated as fact,
and then the book quickly goes on to deal with the *message* from the
Blessed Virgin Mary.  None of this liturature argues whether or not the
miracle itself oc curred.

The best witness testimony I have read to date is in Jacques Vallee's
Dimensions, and Richard L. Thompson's Alien Identities.  I have a great
desire to read a much more detailed account taken with a similiar
objective scientific view.  The problem is that Fatima, historically,
has been seen completely, and utterly as a religious event, and
therefore most of the literature available is from the Roman Catholoic
interpretation rather than an objective critical scientific assesment .

Fortunately for me, there is  currently an ongoing BVM sighting ocurring
here in the St. Louis area.  I plan to attend this month, and every
single month in the event that an *overt* miracle is claimed to have
occurred.  Last month 5,000 people showed up.  (Nobody really saw
anything.  Typically in BVM sightings, only a single person witnesses
the virgin mary, and the attendant witnesses simply bask in the event.)
This first time I attended the event, there was an unusual visual
artifact which occurred on the alter.  Bright flashed of light, like
tiny magnesium flares, burst in mid-air and were witnessed by all who
attended.  Next month, I will see how/if this particula event evolves.


Here's what I have on Fatima in terms of witness testimony:

"The Spiritual Component: A Morphology of Miracles: What Happened At
Fatima"

The Roman Catholic Church Stated that:

"The solar phenomenon of the 13th of October 1917, described in the
press of the time, was the most marvelous and caused the greatest
impression on those who had the happiness of witnessing it...

This phenomenon, which no astronomical observatory registered and which
therefore was not natural, was witnessed by person of all categories and
all social class, believers and unbelievers, journalists of the
principal Portuguese newspapers and even by persons some miles away.
Facts which annul any explanation of collective illusion.

According to Vallee:

"This 'miracle' the read will note, had been predicted several months
before by three illiterate children after their vision of a woman "in a
bright glow.'... The events at Fatima involve luminous spheres, lights
with strange colors, a feeling of 'heat waves' - all physical
characteristics commonly associated with UFOs.	They even include the
typical falling-leaf motion of the saucer zig-zagging through the air."

The lady appeared a total of 6 times.  The progression of persons
attending the events each month were 3, 50, 4,500, 18,000, 30,000, and
70,000 on October 13, 1917.

Apparition of a flying globe:

On September 13 the crowd numbered 30,000, including two priests who
were absolut ely skeptical and had come specifically to establish the
falsity of the much-heralded 'miracles'.

Noon.  The sun got dimmer, although no clouds were seen in the sky.
Thousands cried: "There she is...look!"  A globe of light was seen by
ALL, advancing slowly down the valley, from east to west, towards the
children.  It came to rest on the tree.  A white cloud formed and, out
of the empty sky, shiny white 'petals' began to fall.  Let us ponder
this description of the phenomena by a witness:

"As the people stare at this strange sight they soon notice that the
falling, glistening globules, contrary to the laws of perspective, grow
smaller and smaller as they near them.	And when they reach out their
hands and hats to catch them they find they have somehow melted away."

(Note the similiarity between this statement with the many reports of
falling 'angel hair' from UFOs.)

Ask what he thought the globe was, one of the priest, now quite shaken,
state that "it was a heavenly vehicle that carried the Mother of G od
from here throne above to this forbidden wasteland".


The last apparition, as predicted, took place on October 13, 1917.  The
crowd numbered 70,000 at the time.  The vision was preceded by a flash
of light at noon and a sweet strange fragrance.  The children engaged in
a dialogue with the Lady.  Witnesses did observe dramatic change on the
faces of the three children, enraptured by the vision.

The predicted miracle took place as the apparition left the Cova de
Iria.  The rain that had been pouring down on the crowd suddenly
stopped, and the heavy clouds parted.  The sun appeared as a disk of
brilliant silver, "a weird disk that turns rapidly on its own axis and
casts off beams of colored lights in all directions.  Shafts of red
light shot out from the rim of the sun and colored the clouds, the
earth, the trees, the people; then shafts of violet, of blue, of yellow,
and of other colors followed in succession."  These colors have been
described by an objective sk eptic as 'monochromatic sectors,' and they
were definitely revolving.

The reports speak of a flat disk rather than a globe.  After a while it
stopped spinning and "plunged downward in zig-zag fashion toward the
earth and the horrified spectators."

Most witnesses believe their last hour had come.  Many of them,
including the debunkers, knelt in the mud and began publicaly confessing
their sins.  Finally the disk reversed its motion and disappeared into
the sun, the real sun, once again fixed and dazzling in the sky.  The
astounded crows suddenly realized that their clothes were dry.

Such is the story of Fatima as it can be reconstructed from reports of
the time and from church investigations.

An extremely interesting series of testimonies came from witnesses who
were not at Cova da Iria, but miles away from the crowd.  A woman named
Mrs. Guilhermina Lopes da Silva, who lived in Leiria no less than
sixteen miles from the site of the miracle, could not go to the place
appointed for the apparition, but she looked toward the mountain at noon
and saw "a great red flash" in the sky.  The brilliance was such that it
was seen thirty miles away (at San Pedro de Muel, by Portuguese writer
Afonso Vieria, his wife, and his mother-in-law).

Another remote witness was a schoolboy who was so impressed by what he
saw that he susequently became a priest.  At the time of the miracle the
schoolboy was with his brother and other children in the village of
Alburitel, nine miles away from Cova da Iria, and here is what he
experienced:

"I looked fixedly at the sun which seemed pale and did not hurt my eyes.
Looking like a ball of snow, revolving on itself, it suddenly seemed to
come down in a zig-zag, menacing the earth.  Terrified, I ran and hid
myself among the people, who were weeping and expecting the end of the
world at any moment.  It was a crows which had gathered outside our
local village school and we had all left classes and run into the
streets because of the cries and surprised shouts of men and women who
were in the street i n front of the school when the miracle began.

There was an unbeliever there who had spent the morning mocking the
'simpletons' who had gone off to Fatima just to see an ordinary girl. He
now seemed paralyzed, his eyes fixed on the sun.  He began to tremble
head to foot, and lifting up his arms, fello on his kenees in the mud,
crying out to God."

>>>

Dr. Joseph Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University:
"The sun's disc did not remain immobile.  This was not the sparkling of
a heavenly body, for it spun round on itself in a mad whirl, when
suddenly a clamour was heard from all the people.  The sun, whirling,
seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly
upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight."

Dr. Formigao, a professor at the seminary at Santarem:	"As if like a
bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its
zenith appeared in all its splendour.  It began to revolve vertiginously
on its axis, like the most magnificent firewheel that could be imagined,
taking on all the colors of the rainbow and sending forth multi-colored
flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect.  This sublime
and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times,
lasted for abo ut ten minutes.	The immense multitude, overcome by the
evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees."

Rev. Joaquim Lourenco, a canon lawyer of the diocese of Leira, described
what he saw as a boy in the town of Alburitel, some nine miles from
Fatima:

"I feel incapable of describing what I saw.  I looked fixedly at the
sun, which seemed pale and did not hurt my eyes.  Looking like a ball of
snow, revolving on itself, it suddenly seemed to come down in a zig-zag,
menacing the earth.  Terrified, I ran and hid myself among the people,
who were weeping and expecting the end of the world at any moment."

That's all of the witness testimony I have.  I would love to hear more.
Explanations like Klass's of balls of plasma are ludicrous, since it
simply doesn't mesh with the facts.  As Vallee says, "Fatima is
inescapable."

I don't particularily care of Fatima was a UFO or an act of God.  In
either case, it proves that I have held false boundaries on the
definitions of reality for a long time.  And so have most scientists.
It's about time science dealt with these FACTS and made attempts to
integrate them into their greater vision of the nature of reality.

Some scientists are now trying to do this.  To get a flavor of some of
this new brand of philosophy/physics read:

"The New Inquisition" by Robert Anton Wilson "Quantum Psychology" by
Robert Anton Wilson "Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics" by Henry Stapp
"Bridging Science and Spirit" by Norman Friedman


John